Dr Aminta Arrington

Dr Aminta Arrington joined OCMS as a Full-Time Research Tutor in January 2026.  Previously, Aminta served as Associate Professor of Bible and Intercultural Studies at John Brown University in Arkansas, USA, for 11 years, where she taught courses in Old and New Testament, intercultural communication, qualitative research methods, and cultural anthropology. Her expertise in biblical studies and ethnographic methodology, as well as her passion for lifting up local voices, make her an ideal mentor for OCMS students conducting context-specific research.

Prior to her time at John Brown University, Aminta spent eight years serving with an organization that places Christian teachers at Chinese universities, first in Shandong province teaching at Taishan Medical University, and then at Renmin University of China in Beijing. With her experience of living, teaching, and researching in the Global South, Aminta brings academic experience shaped by close engagement with the contexts many of our scholars come from.  She chronicled those experiences in the edited book Saving Grandmother’s Face and Other Tales from Christian Teachers in China, and the memoir Home Is a Roof Over a Pig: An American Family’s Journey in China.

Dr Arrington wrote a dissertation, for her PhD in Intercultural Studies, on the Lisu — a people dispersed throughout southwest China, eastern Myanmar (Burma), and northern Thailand. The Lisu converted to Christianity approximately one hundred years ago after evangelization by the China Inland Mission and other mission organizations. Through the Lisu, she learned about a Christian faith that is focused on togetherness within a community of fellow believers, a faith most authentically expressed through music and song, a faith directed outward toward God and neighbors. Her work was published by Penn State Press as a book titled Songs of the Lisu Hills: Practicing Faith in Southwest China. She is currently completing a second PhD, in New Testament, at the University of Otago in Aotearoa New Zealand, writing on Jesus’ care for and teaching about the poor and the marginalised in the Gospel of Luke.  Dr Arrington is also the World Christianity area editor for the Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception (EBR), published by DeGruyter Brill.

Watch her interview on the OMSC Roundtable (March 2024), recorded during the 5th World Christianity Conference in Legon, Ghana. She discusses her research with the Lisu people, and gives insights into her research focus and perspectives on the future of World Christianity scholarship.

Research Interests:

• New Testament Theology
• Jesus and the Gospels
• World Christianity