Andrew F Walls

A long-awaited culmination of scholarship by a pioneer of missiology and global ChristianityThe history of the missions is complex and fraught. Though modern missions began with European colonialism, the outcome was a largely non-Western global Christianity. Highly esteemed scholar Andrew Walls explores every facet of the movement, including its history, theory, and future.Walls locates the birth of the Protestant missionary movement in the West with the Puritans and Pietists and their efforts to convert the Native Americans they displaced. Tracing the movement into the twentieth century, Walls shows how colonialism and missionary work turned out to be essentially incompatible. Missionaries must live on another culture's terms, and their goal--the establishment of churches of every nation--depends on accepting new, indigenous Christians as equals. Now that Christianity has become primarily an African, Latin American, and Asian religion rather than a European one, the dynamics of the church's mission have transformed. Sensitive to this shift, Walls indicates new areas of listening to and learning from this new center of Christianity and speculates on the theological contributions from a truly global church.Throughout his long and fruitful career, Walls told the story of missions as a dedicated Christian scholar, teacher, and mentor. Prior to his passing in 2021, he entrusted the editing of his lectures to his friends and students. The result of this labor of love, The Missionary Movement from the West is a must-read for scholars of missiology, world Christianity, and church history.

South Asians make up one of the largest diasporas in the world and Christians form a relatively large share of it. Christians from the Indian subcontinent have successfully transplanted themselves all over the globe, and many from different faith backgrounds have embraced Christianity at overseas locations.This volume includes biblical reflections on diasporic life, charts the historical and geographical spread of South Asian Christianity, and closes with a call to missional living in diaspora. It analyzes how migrants revive Christianity in adopted host nations and ancestral homelands.This book portrays the fascinating saga of Christians of South Asian origin who have pitched their tents in the furthest corners of the globe and showcases triumphs and challenges of scattered communities. It presents the contemporary religious experiences from a plethora of discrete perspectives. It deals with issues such as community history, struggles of identity and belonging, linkage of religious and cultural traditions, preservation and adaptation of faith practices, ties between ancestral homeland and host nation, and diasporic moral dilemmas in diaspora. This book argues that human scattering amplifies diversity within Christianity and for the need for hetrogeneous unity amidst great diversities.

Andrew F. Walls's first collection of essays, The Missionary Movement in Christian History, was named by Christianity Today in their list of the top 100 most influential books of the twentieth century. In this third collection, Walls carries forward his decades-long project, upending staid interpretations of Christian history by examining the role of mission and cross-cultural transmission of the Gospel in the formation of World Christianity. In essays marked by profound learning and his characteristic wit, Walls covers themes ranging from the transmission of Christian faith, to Africa in Christian thought and history, along with reflections on a broad range of mission figures, and a personal reflection on "missiology as a vocation."

Aimed at both practitioners, church leaders, and academics and students of missiology, Mission in the 21st Century provides fresh insights on the theology of and engagement in mission, with an appeal and interest beyond the Anglican communion. Mission in the 21st Century brings together scholarly reflection with praxis; it includes discussion questions, case studies and stories. The contributors offer insights gained from their own experience, for application by those engaging in mission elsewhere. The emphasis is on reflection and practice/engagement. Mission in the 21st Century will have a global appeal and relevance, and will be a helpful resource for Lambeth 2008 ('the five marks of mission' is the theme of the conference) and beyond.

The collected lectures and articles of the noted missionary and historian Andrew Walls, professor emeritus of Edinburgh University and founder of The Center for the Study of Christianity in the Non-Western World. This book makes the full range of his thought available for the first time to scholars and students of world mission, theology, and church history.