DESCRIPTION
in cooperation with Roland Spliesgart
The map of world Christianity has changed dramatically in just the last century. Today the majority of Christians live in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, making Christianity a world religion as never before in history.
Given that global reality, Klaus Koschorke, Frieder Ludwig, and Mariano Delgado have created the first comparative documentary history of Christianity for these regions covering the period 1450–1990. Taking the changing ecumenical conditions into account, this volume enlarges the horizon of classical church historiography. In contrast to the prevailing Western perspectives on the history of Christianity in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, voice is given here to the multitude of local initiatives, specific experiences, and varieties of Christianity in very diverse cultural contexts -- addressing such questions as the colonial conquest, slavery, and the demand for ecclesiastical independence.
REVIEWS
Lamin Sanneh
— Yale University
"This book is a helpful anthology of historical sources on Christianity's expansion across the centuries. The numbered segments provide a good outline of some of the major phases of the religion's historical course, but also of the cultural themes of engagement and challenge. It should be a welcome resource for teaching."
Andrew F. Walls
— University of Edinburgh
"This excellent collection of documents with expert commentaries will be a boon to teachers and students of church history and to many others. There is nothing else quite like it."
Philip Jenkins
— Pennsylvania State University
"Given the widespread interest in the global spread of Christianity, this new book by Koschorke, Ludwig, and Delgado provides a splendid service to readers. These scholars have done a fine job in collecting relevant documents, with plenty of surprising and enlightening choices, and the book makes for fascinating reading. It should be of enormous value to both students and general readers."
Wolfgang Reinhard
— Freiburg University
"I consider this sourcebook, produced by leading experts on the history of Christianity in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, a remarkable achievement. . . Both general readers and professional historians will receive a remarkable amount of reliable and fair information."
Michael Sievernich
— University of Mainz
"A History of Christianity in Asia, Africa, and Latin America is a fascinating and highly informative documentary sourcebook. This first comparative history of Christianity for these regions offers a remarkably wide range of sources from the early modern period to the present. The inspiring tour of more than 500 years of religious globalization sheds a bright new light on the intercultural and interreligious encounters in diverse cultural contexts. This rich ecumenical collection of cross-cultural texts will become a standard for scholars, students, and a wider readership interested in Christianity and its global mission."
Hans Waldenfels
— University of Bonn
"Will be welcomed by teachers, students, and all who are interested in seeing the entire history of Christianity in a new light."
Choice
"This volume's user-friendly organization, its delightful selection of themes and topics, and its thorough documentation and indexing assure that it will succeed admirably. Highly Recommended."