Talks & Lectures

Overview The lecture will explore scholarship on the modern Christian missionary movement which links mission to the European colonial conquest since the fifteenth century and gives attention to emerging voices seeking to ‘redeem’ mission from this conquest paradigm, especially those in the wider Evangelical tradition arguing for mission as ’incarnation’, ‘integral’, 'translation’, ‘holistic’, and ‘transformation’:  A case will be made that history and a careful reflection of societies where modern Christianity is dominant oblige us to re-read the Gospel narrative and its imperative for followers of Jesus: compelling us to ponder if ‘mission’ is redeemable: Could it be more plausible to talk about the need to ‘repent’ of the mission paradigm?

Speaker Dr. David Zac Niringiye

About the speaker Dr. David Zac Niringiye holds a PhD in Theology and Mission History from the University of Edinburgh (UK), an MA in Theology from Wheaton College (USA), as well as a Physics Honours degree and Teaching Diploma from Makerere University in Uganda. He is a leader with national and international acclaim and has experience as a church leader, theologian, peace and social justice activist and an organizational development consultant. Bishop Zac who previously served as Assistant Bishop of the Diocese of Kampala, is now engaged in full-time civic-political activism in his native country of Uganda.

Overview One of the most notable contemporary developments in Chinese Christianity is its entry into the public sphere—a departure from its predominant tradition of private spirituality, otherworldly absorptions, and political apathy: Christian engagements with public issues have been spearheaded by Protestant public intellectuals, democracy and human rights activists, and academic theologians: As part of the exploration of this new phenomenon, this talk will focus on the Sino-Christian theology (汉语神学) of He Guanghu 何光沪, highlighting the scope and dominant themes of a theology that seeks to both affirm and transcend the particularities of a contextualized Chinese Christianity:

Speaker Dr. Xi Lian

About the speaker Dr. Xi Lian is the David C. Steinmetz Distinguished Professor of World Christianity at Duke Divinity School. He is the author of The Conversion of Missionaries: Liberalism in American Protestant Missions in China, 1907-1932 (1997), Redeemed by Fire: The Rise of Popular Christianity in Modern China (2010), and Blood Letters: The Untold Story of Lin Zhao, a Martyr in Mao’s China (2018).

Overview This lecture will look at the ideological implications of the rise of Xi Jinping upon New Left, New Confucian, Liberal, and Christian Ideological Perspectives from 2013 to the present:

Speaker Tom Harvey

About the speaker Dr Tom Harvey’s expertise is in China and Southeast Asian Church and State. In Singapore he served as Chair of the Theological Review and Response Committee of the Presbyterian Church and as an executive board member of the National Council of Churches. He authored Acquainted With Grief: Wang Mingdao’s Stand for the Persecuted Church in China as well as numerous articles on Christianity and Christian social engagement in Asia and Southeast Asia. Tom is a member of the Lausanne Congress Global Diaspora Network and European Coordinator of the Lausanne European Diaspora Educator’s Group and is a missionary co-worker with the Presbyterian Church USA. 

Overview In 2018, Pastor Wang Yi of Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu, China, was arrested and sentenced to nine years of criminal detention: Learn about Wang Yi’s understanding of the role of suffering – “the way of the cross” – in the church-state question, as well as his understanding of the eschatological city and kingdom of God: Wang Yi’s theology draws upon both the legacy of the traditional house churches and his extensive reading of Reformed theology, and is relevant for all Christians seeking to understand being a faithful presence in society:

Speaker Hannah Nation

About the speaker Hannah Nation serves as managing director of the Center for House Church Theology.  She is a graduate of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and is currently a doctoral student in World Christianity at the University of Edinburgh.

Overview On this special 35th anniversary, this lecture argues that the 1989 Democracy Movement and the Tiananmen Square Massacre triggered the Chinese Great Awakening. Thenceforward, Christianity has been the fastest-growing religion in China because it has become culturally indigenized, socially contextualized, and politically engaged, making it the most appealing religion for the Chinese in pursuit of modernity in the globalizing world.

Speaker Dr. Fenggang Yang

About the speaker Dr. Fenggang Yang is a Professor of Sociology and the founding Director of the Center on Religion and the Global East at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana. He is working on a book, The Rise of Christianity in Modernizing China (Oxford University Press).