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Noteworthy July 2007 Announcing The Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization (www.lausanne.org) will hold its Third International Congress on World Evangelization October 16–25, 2010, in Cape Town, South Africa. Lausanne III will gather mission and church leaders from around the world to address challenges and opportunities of world evangelization, according to Douglas Birdsall, executive chairman. Lindsay Brown, the newly appointed LCWE international director, points to the dramatic shifts that have taken place in Christianity over the course of the last century, shifts that are reflected in Lausanne III leadership: Anglican archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda will chair the Africa Host Committee, IBMR contributing editor Samuel Escobar of Peru will chair the Advisory Council, Methodist bishop Hwa Yung of Malaysia will chair the Participant Selection Committee, and Bible Society of Egypt director Ramez Atallah will chair the Program Committee. Daryl Balia, scholar in residence at Selly Oak Centre for Mission Studies, Birmingham, U.K., has been appointed international director of Edinburgh 2010, the global initiative established to advance study and reflection leading up to the centenary celebration of the historic World Missionary Conference of 1910. The twenty-member Edinburgh 2010 General Council will convene in September 2007, after which a series of study consultations will be held around the world. The study themes will include mission and power, postmodernities, theological education, unity, ecclesiology, spirituality, discipleship, and Christian faith and other faiths. For details, visit www.edinburgh2010.org. The Indian Institute of Missiology–Research Centre, Bangalore, now offers the Ph.D. in missiology so as to develop faculty members for mission training institutes, theological colleges, and biblical seminaries across India. Siga Arles, director since May 1, 2007, was dean of the Consortium for Indian Missiological Education, Bangalore, and formerly vice principal and professor of missiology at Serampore College. The doctoral program was developed in partnership with the India Missions Association (www.imaindia.org). Dale T. Irvin, president and professor of world Christianity, New York Theological Seminary, and Peter C. Phan, professor of Catholic social thought, Georgetown University, will cochair the World Christianity Group sessions at the 2007 meeting of the American Academy of Religion, November 17–20, in San Diego, California. Visit www.aarweb.org. The Christian Research Association, Nunawading, Victoria, Australia (www.cra.org.au), will host the Fifth International Lausanne Researchers Conference, April 8–12, 2008, at the Geelong Conference Centre outside Melbourne. Mission researchers, scholars, and denominational research staff are invited to network with others with similar interests and to become founding members of the Lausanne Researchers Network. To submit a paper, e-mail a brief synopsis before December 31, 2007, to Peter Brierley (admin@christian-research.org.uk) or Phillip Hughes (admin@cra.org.au). "Nordic Mission Studies" is the special focus of Swedish Missiological Themes / Svensk Missionstidskrift 94, no. 4 (2006). The issue offers essays introducing the history and current state of mission studies in Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Finnish institutions and academic departments. Direct inquiries to the SMT editorial secretary, Gustaf Björck, Swedish Institute of Mission Research, Box 1526, SE-751 45, Uppsala, Sweden, or e-mail to gustaf.bjorck@teol.uu.se. Campus Crusade for Christ International, DAWN Ministries, Habitats Project, the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, the JESUS Film Project, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Youth With A Mission are partnering to develop the World Missions Atlas Project (www.worldmap.org), a Web resource that promises to "create maps of languages and people groups for each country of the world while linking appropriate missions related data." The status of each language and people group will be evaluated with regards to the "Jesus" film and Bible translation, as well as their current level of exposure to the Gospel. Free downloads include "Global Status of Evangelical Christianity" maps. Web-site reviews, comments, suggestions, or updates may be sent to Art Savage, associate director of the World Missions Center, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, at asavage@swbts.edu. Personalia Philip Jenkins,
distinguished professor of history and religious studies at Pennsylvania
State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, has been named as a
contributing editor of the INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN of MISSIONARY
RESEARCH. He is the author most recently of The New Greater Europe Mission, Monument, Colorado, appointed Henry L. Deneen as its second president, effective September 1, 2007. A resident of Columbia, South Carolina, Deneen was chief legal counsel and personal and spiritual adviser to then-governor of South Carolina David Beasley (1994–97). After seminary Deneen, his wife, Celia, and their four children moved to France, where he collaborated with organizations to develop mission initiatives and partnerships in and around North Africa. In 2004 they returned to South Carolina, and a year later he and Beardsley started the Center for Global Strategies. Deneen will succeed Ted Noble, GEM president since 1992. See www.gemission.org. Died. Johannes Aagaard, 78, professor at the Institute of Missiology and Ecumenical Theology, Faculty of Theology, Aarhus University, Denmark, March 23, 2007. A missiologist who specialized in new religious movements and a former president of the International Association for Mission Studies (1978), Aagaard was founder of the Dialog Center International (www.dci.dk/en/), a Christian research organization that collects and disseminates information on new religious movements. Aagaard developed the discipline of theology of mission in a Danish context. He laid the foundation for this undertaking by his thorough historical studies of Gustav Warneck and Warneck’s influence on German missiology. The result was his two-volume habilitation Mission—Konfession—Kirche. Die Problematik ihrer Integration im 19. Jahrhundert in Deutschland (Gleerups, 1967). April 2007 Personalia President George W. Bush awarded the 2006 National Humanities Medal to historian Mark A. Noll and eight other distinguished Americans for their contributions to the humanities. At a White House ceremony on November 9, 2006, the president honored Noll for his "academic concern [for] the interaction of Christianity and culture in 18th- and 19th-century Anglo-American societies," according to the National Endowment for the Humanities news report. Noll is professor of history at the University of Notre Dame and author of numerous books, including America’s God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln (2002). When he taught at Wheaton (Illinois) College, Noll cofounded the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicalism. Steve Moore, founder and president of Keep Growing, Inc., Lawrenceville, Georgia, whose background has been in young leader development with a focus on international ministry, was appointed president of the Evangelical Fellowship of Mission Agencies, Atlanta. Paul McKaughan, president for nearly fifteen years, left the leadership position in December 2005 to become ambassador at large. On July 7, 2006, the Academy of Ecumenical Indian Theology and Church Administration, Chennai, conferred a Doctor of Divinity on Daniel Jeyaraj, professor of world Christianity, Andover Newton Theological School, Newton Centre, Massachusetts. The academy recognized his groundbreaking research contributions to the study of the first organized Protestant Danish-Halle Mission, in Tranquebar, India. Andover Newton trustees promoted Jeyaraj, an IBMR contributing editor, to full professorship. Christopher J. Anderson has been appointed Methodist research librarian at Drew University, Madison, New Jersey. He was previously lecturer in history and religion at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, New Jersey, and Union Theological Seminary, New York City. Announcing A conference will be held November 22–24, 2007, in Louvain, Belgium, to consider "research on the architectural staging and spatial implications" of world Christianity, with emphasis on "missionary architecture and space not so much as a backdrop for the missionary encounter, but as an essential part of this encounter in itself." Spatializing the Missionary Encounter: The Interaction Between Missionary Work and Space in Colonial Settings will focus on missionary work of all denominations in colonial settings (1800–1960). Papers exploring new methodologies will be presented from the fields of architectural history, history, mission history, anthropology, geography, and cultural studies. For details, visit www.h-net.org/announce/show.cgi?ID=153499, or e-mail Bram Cleys, Department of Architecture, Urbanism and Planning, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, bram.cleys@asro.kuleuven.be. The Boston University School of Theology and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in November announced a joint doctor of theology (Th.D.) program in missiology. The first students will be admitted for the fall 2007 semester. The degrees for the joint program, designed to prepare professors of mission studies, will be granted by Boston University. Faculty will include Dana L. Robert, M. L. Daneel, and Bryan Stone from Boston University, and Timothy C. Tennent, Peter Kuzmic, and Moonjang Lee from Gordon-Conwell. Robert, codirector with Daneel of the Center for Global Christianity and Mission at Boston University, is an IBMR contributing editor. To address what he calls the "critical lack of scholarly work recording the historical presence and cultural contributions of Christianity in the region," chief editor Roger E. Hedlund has been completing the Dictionary of South Asian Christianity. A one-volume ecumenical reference work, the forthcoming publication (see www.dharmadeepika.org/dictionary/dictionhome.html ) will include contributions from Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Pentecostal, and indigenous independent writers and editors. In November 2006 Hedlund’s colleague and successor, Paul Joshua Bhakiaraj, was installed as director of the Mylapore Institute for Indigenous Studies, Chennai, India, which sponsors the dictionary and publishes Dharma Deepika: A South Asian Journal of Missiological Research. Samuel Kobia, general secretary of the World Council of Churches and author of Called to the One Hope: A New Ecumenical Epoch (2006), will speak on the theme "Cooperation and the Promotion of Unity," April 27–28, 2007, at New College, Edinburgh. The conference will be the latest event in a series of meetings and consultations held in advance of the 2010 Centenary Convention (visit www.towards2010.org.uk) in Edinburgh, which was the venue for the historic World Missionary Conference of 1910. Papers presented at previous conferences are available online (visit www.towards2010.org.uk/papers.htm). The eleventh annual Coalition on Support of Indigenous Ministries conference will be held June 11–13, 2007, at Wheaton (Illinois) College. The theme will be "Breaking Tradition to Accomplish Vision: From Frustration to Joy in Cross-Cultural Partnerships." For details, visit www.cosimnet.org. The British and Irish Association for Mission Studies will hold its 2007 conference July 2–5 at Westminster College and St. Edmund’s College, Cambridge, with the theme "Strangers in Our Midst: Migration and Mission." Timothy J. Gorringe, St. Luke’s professor of theological studies at the University of Exeter and author of Furthering Humanity: A Theology of Culture (2004), and Nicholas Sagovsky, canon theologian of Westminster Abbey, London, and coeditor of Transforming Unjust Structures: The Capability Approach (2006), will be among the speakers. For details, visit www.martynmission.cam.ac.uk/biamsconf2007.html. The online archives databases of the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention (http://archives.imb.org/ ) include board meeting minutes of the then Foreign Mission Board (1845–1979) and the board’s annual reports to the convention (1846–1953). Another archive provides access to letters and reports by pioneer missionary to China Lottie Moon (served 1873–1912) and to Moon’s articles written for publication in the Home and Foreign Journal and Foreign Missions Journal. The African American Heritage database contains transcripts of The Commission, Southern Baptist Missionary Journal, and Home and Foreign Journal articles from the board’s early missionaries to Liberia and Sierra Leone (1846–61), including John Day, Boston J. Drayton, A. P. Davis, and B. P. Yates. The Periodicals database contains scanned images of journals published by the Foreign Mission Board (1845–1900): Southern Baptist Missionary Journal, Home and Foreign Journal, Foreign Missions Journal, and The Commission. The Boston University School of Theology Library is using an interactive Web site to make classic texts in missiology available. The Boston University Digital Research Archive Christian Mission collection currently contains more than 250 digitized books. View the index of resources at http://digilib.bu.edu/dspace/handle/2144/33; for information on the Center for Global Christianity and Mission, visit www.bu.edu/sth/cgcm/. The United States Catholic Mission Association recently relocated to the Hecker Center, Washington, D.C. The USCMA will hold its 2007 mission conference October 28–30 in Austin, Texas, with the theme "Are Not Our Hearts Burning? Spirituality of Mission in the 21st Century." For details, see www.uscatholicmission.org or e-mail meetings@uscatholicmission.org. View the Web directory, Sources for Research: Missions and World Christianity, at www.library.yale.edu/div/MissionsResources.htm. Suggestions to augment the Web site’s listings may be sent to Martha Lund Smalley, Yale Divinity School Library (Martha.Smalley@yale.edu). January 2007 Personalia The International Association for Mission Studies has appointed Jan van Butselaar as general secretary, replacing Frans Dokman. Van Butselaar, author of Mission: The Soul of Ecumenism (2004), has taught African church history and theology in Mozambique and Rwanda. Until recently, he was general secretary of the Netherlands Missionary Council, Amsterdam. The IAMS secretariat is located in the Nijmegen Institute of Missiology in the Netherlands. After twenty years as executive director of the World Evangelical Alliance Mission Commission, William D. Taylor handed over leadership to Brazilian missionary Bertil Ekström. The transition celebration occurred on June 21, 2006, at a meeting in Cape Town, South Africa. A resident of Campinas, Brazil, Ekström has led the Brazilian Association of Mission Agencies, been president of COMIBAM Internacional, and chaired the Great Commission Roundtable. K. Rajendran, executive director of the India Missions Association, chairs the WEA Mission Commission Global Leadership Team. Wonsuk Ma has been appointed executive director of the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies (www.ocms.ac.uk). From 1996 to 2006 he was vice president for academic affairs and professor of Old Testament and Pentecostal studies at Asia Pacific Theological Seminary, Baguio City, Philippines. He is coeditor of the Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies. Last fall Ma replaced Vinay Samuel, who will continue with OCMS as director emeritus and also serve as executive director of the newly established Oxford Centre for Religion and Public Life. The Assemblies of God Theological Seminary has named Gary B. McGee as distinguished professor of church history and Pentecostal studies. A contributing editor, McGee delivered his inaugural lecture on October 13. The seminary also announced Alan R. Johnson as the first J. Philip Hogan professor of missions and the establishment of a doctor of missiology degree. Visit www.agts.edu for details. The American Society of Church History (www.churchhistory.org) will honor Andrew F. Walls with a Distinguished Career Award when they meet in Atlanta, January 4–7, 2007. Dana Robert of Boston University School of Theology will chair the awards session and Lamin Sanneh of Yale Divinity School will participate. Walls is director emeritus of the Centre for the Study of Christianity in the Non-Western World at the University of Edinburgh. All three scholars are contributing editors. Announcing The Project on Religion and Economic Change (PREC) is creating digital maps of the spread of Protestant and Catholic mission activity from the early nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. Developed as part of the Spiritual Capital project of the Metanexus Institute and funded by the Templeton Foundation, the project has as its goal to evaluate the effect of religion on economies around the world. Robert D. Woodberry, Department of Sociology, University of Texas at Austin (bobwood@mail.la.utexas.edu), is project director. Audio recordings, texts of papers, and photographs from the 1966 World Congress on Evangelism, held in West Berlin, are now available on the Web site of the Billy Graham Center Archives, Wheaton, Illinois. For details, visit www.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/berlin66.htm. Address questions and comments to bgcarc@wheaton.edu. Yale Divinity School Library and Uganda Christian University have agreed to undertake a pilot project to micro-film documents from the Church of the Province of Uganda (Anglican) archives. The cost of the filming will be underwritten by the Kenneth Scott Latourette Initiative for the Documentation of World Christianity. IDC Publishers of Leiden, Netherlands, will serve as project manager. The pilot project will produce fifty reels of microfilm as a test to determine the feasibility of a larger microfilming project. This is the first preservation microfilming project outside the West underwritten by the Latourette Initiative. Other projects have microfilmed material at the World Council of Churches and the University of Edinburgh. Readers who are aware of archival collections that might be candidates for preservation microfilming should contact Paul Stuehrenberg, YDS librarian, at paul.stuehrenberg@yale.edu. The Akrofi-Christaller Memorial Centre for Mission Research and Applied Theology, Akropong-Akuapem, Ghana (www.acmcghana.org), has a new name and a new degree-granting status. A postgraduate research and training institution established by the Presbyterian Church of Ghana to serve the wider Christian community, the institution has been renamed the Akrofi-Christaller Institute of Theology, Mission, and Culture. The change of name was made to accompany conferral of a presidential charter to offer postgraduate degrees. The center was previously accredited in 1998 to offer postgraduate degrees in conjunction with the School of Theology at the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. The center also offered a master’s degree in cross-cultural studies, organized in cooperation with the Tamale Institute of Cross-Cultural Studies. Kwame Bediako is the ACI director. To advance missiological education and research and to “assist the churches to grow into missional communities,” the senate of Karoli Gaspar Reformed University, Budapest, Hungary, established the Central and Eastern European Institute for Mission Studies (CIMS) in June 2006. University rector Ferenc Szücs announced that Anne-Marie Kool (amkool@kre.hu) has been named professor of missiology and CIMS director. The Australian Association for Mission Studies, launched last summer, plans to publish the Australian Journal of Mission Studies, commencing in June 2007. Larry Nemer, S.V.D. (larrynemer@hotmail.com), lecturer in mission studies at Yarra Theological Union, Box Hill, Australia, was elected AAMS president. The new association and journal supersede the South Pacific Association for Mission Studies and the South Pacific Journal of Mission Studies, which ceased publication in December 2006. The cumulative index of the South East Asia Journal of Theology (1959–82) and its successor, the East Asia Journal of Theology (1983–86), are now online at www.ttc.edu.sg/csca/epub/seajt.htm. Both journals were based in Singapore. In 1987 the scope of the journal was expanded, and its name changed, to Asia Journal of Theology. Seminaries may receive additional details or the cumulative index source file from Michael Nai-Chiu Poon, director of the Centre for the Study of Christianity in Asia, Trinity Theological College, Singapore, csca@ttc.edu.sg. The Mission Society for United Methodists, Norcross, Georgia, has shortened its name to The Mission Society. Philip R. Granger, president, states that the name change “does not represent departure from the United Methodist Church” but gives recognition to “a ministry that includes Methodist and other church bodies and missionaries from many denominations.”
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