Abstract The voyage of the sloop Restauration from Stavanger to New York in 1825 marked the beginning of organized migration from Norway to North America. Previous commemorations celebrated this event as a transnational success story. The article challenges such one-sided settlers’ narratives: First, it relates the history of Norwegian migration to interactions with Native Americans. Second, it argues that the navigation processes of Norwegian Lutherans in the USA and the challenges of “integration” can be compared to processes in which religious immigrant communities in Norway find themselves today. Third, it investigates transnational missionary cooperations between Norwegian Lutherans and US Norwegian Lutherans. Some of these networks provided counter-hegemonic alliances: The Sami missionary Edvard Masoni expressed strong sympathy for the Native Americans. Therefore, we suggest supplementing the term “transnationalism” by the term “transloyalties” as an analytical approach.
Abstract This article explores the role of (im)mobility in shaping the ministry of Reverend Timothy Dzao (1908–73), one of the widely recognized revivalist-evangelists in twentieth-century Chinese Christianity. It offers a narrative-led account of Dzao’s life and ministry while drawing on migration studies to illuminate how Dzao navigated war, displacement, and political upheaval to sustain ministry, innovate institutions, and foster regional and global evangelistic growth. Known as the founder of the Ling Liang World-Wide Evangelistic Mission Association and “China’s Billy Graham,” Dzao’s case illustrates how voluntary migration and involuntary immobility enabled Chinese Christian leaders to transform crises into opportunities. His life highlights the interplay of structural constraints and personal agency in adapting to systemic upheavals, contributing to the integration of Chinese Christianity into global networks.
This article is a personal tribute to the work and legacy of David D. Daniels III. It underlines his manifold impulses for a polycentric approach to the history of world Christianity and his focus on the often underestimated role of African Christian agency in the global spread of faith and specifically in establishing transcontinental links between Black Christians on both sides of the Atlantic
As scholars from various disciplines-including history, mission history, early Christianity, sociology, world Christianity, anthropology, and gender studies, etc.-we inherit fields that have often employed a center/periphery binary in their approach to scholarship. Although scholars like David Daniels have worked to disrupt this method, remnants of it persist. Using the Edinburgh 1910 and 2010 Missionary conferences as examples of the center/periphery approach, this article demonstrates how David Daniels challenges and resets this framework, offering a more expansive one. This article also explores the implications of his scholarship for the field of world Christianity, our teaching methods, and classroom curriculum, as well as our responsibility to accurately portray the diverse and nuanced expressions within Christianity worldwide.
This article explores three areas of David Daniels's scholarship that engage the genealogical method: the Black roots of early US Pentecostalism, the Ethiopian influences of the Protestant Reformation, and the impact of Kongolese Christianity on the emergence and development of Black Christianity in the Americas. These three scholarly areas within Daniels's work continue to be generative sites for research and writing for theologians and religious scholars today and show why the genealogical vocation remains indispensable.
This article examines the historical vision and theological thought of Bishop Ithiel Conrad Clemmons, a prominent Pentecostal historian, ecumenist, and theologian. By exploring Clemmons's conceptualization of God's active involvement in human history on behalf of the oppressed, this article reveals his critique of racial bias in the chronicling of North American religious history, particularly in Pentecostal historiography. Understanding his theological and historical vocation as that of reading "the hidden but powerfully present footprints of God in the affairs of humankind and nations," Clemmons offers a hierophantic vision attuned to the in-breakings of the divine in human history. By centering Clemmons's thought, the article offers a nuanced understanding and critique of the contradictions and incongruities in the historiography of North American Pentecostalism.
Modern Eastern Orthodoxy has diverse roots in Africa. Beyond the activity of the older Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria and the early twentieth-century Greek diaspora communities on the continent, Eastern Orthodoxy was indirectly spread since the 1920s through the African Orthodox Church (AOC) from the US and the initiative of anti-colonial African activists. This article sheds light on this unique and unexpected development (part I) and provides an insight into the current life of the local vital area of the Orthodoxy in Africa (part II).
