Gordon-Conwell establishes Center for the Study of Global Christianity
The Layman Online, Posted Wednesday, October 22, 2003
Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary near Boston has established a new Center for the Study of Global Christianity and unveiled a Web version of the World Christian Database (WCD).
The director of the new center is Dr. Todd M. Johnson, co-author with Dr. David B. Barrett of the World Christian Encyclopedia, Second Edition, published in 2001 by Oxford University Press. Barrett, editor of the first edition, and Australian missiologist Peter F. Crossing are also working with the center.
Johnson recently introduced the World Christian Database (WCD), the new electronic version of the data behind the World Christian Encyclopedia and World Christian Trends that will make massive amounts of information easily accessible online.
One of the new center’s priorities will be the continual development of the World Christian Encyclopedia databases. First published in 1982, the encyclopedia immediately took its place as the authoritative, standard work in its field. Its 1,000 pages represent the most extensive survey of Christianity, and of religion in general, ever attempted. The heart of the WCE is a series of 223 chapters on the status of religion and of Christianity in every country in the world at that time. Statistical tables show, in great detail, the religious breakdown of the population and the Christian denominations of each country.
The 1,700-page two-volume second edition, published in 2001, updated and extended this analysis to include the status of Christianity in every language, people, city and province of the world. A 952-page companion volume World Christian Trends (William Carey Library, 2001) includes a first-ever empirical survey of Christian martyrdom, historical trends, future projections and finance.
The center’s staff will collate, analyze and publish original research related to the exhaustive data on church membership and evangelistic activities collected by 33,800 Christian denominations in 238 countries. This research, in the context of the status of other world religions and secular demographic data, provides an authoritative view of global Christianity. When fully operational, the center will be one of the world’s most definitive sources of empirical information on Christianity.
Interdisciplinary in nature, the center integrates religion, history, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, missiology, demography and other disciplines in the study of global Christianity. The center will continue to develop an international network of scholars and informants dedicated to studying Global Christianity, and plans a series of publications on the subject via books, journals and encyclopedias. A further aim is to apply the research of the center in assisting churches in their strategic planning.
According to Dr. Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., Gordon Conwell’s president, “The new Center for the Study of Global Christianity, which joins an existing consortium of seminaries, universities and centers in New England, will be extremely helpful to our faculty in their research initiatives. It will also be of great benefit to visiting religion scholars, graduate students, church leaders, missiologists and journalists seeking information and analysis on the Global Christian movement.”
Since 1989, Johnson has been a full-time missionary researcher, most recently as Director of the World Evangelization Research Center (WERC) in Richmond, Va. He has also been a missionary with Youth With A Mission (YWAM) since 1978. Johnson has performed various ministry tasks, including relief work among Cambodian refugees in Thailand, inner city work in San Francisco, evangelism in villages in Guatemala, and research and teaching in Asia. Johnson is also co-founder of the Christian Futurists Network.
Barrett has been an ordained foreign missionary of the Church of England since 1951, serving mainly in Africa. Since 1969, he has been Anglican Communion Research Secretary. His research has appeared in 70 books and 200 articles. At present he works as research professor of missiometrics at Regent University. He founded the World Evangelization Research Centre in East Africa in 1965, relocating to Richmond in 1985.