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Global Christianity as a Women's Movement
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Global Christianity as a Women's Movement

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444). This special issue belongs to the section "Religions and Theologies".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (3 January 2023) | Viewed by 7182

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Angel D. Santiago-Vendrell

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Asbury Theological Seminary, Orlando, FL 32765, USA
Interests: the intersection of theology; history; religion; gender and race in Latin American Christianity
Dr. Misoon (Esther) Im

E-Mail Website
Co-Guest Editor
College of Theology, Grand Canyon University, Phoenix, AZ 85017, USA
Interests: World Christianity and the encounters of single female missionaries from the United States with native Korean women in the nineteenth century

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue seeks to explore the role and contributions of women in the history and theology of global Christianity. In 2006, Dana Robert claimed that world Christianity was essentially a women’s movement. She lamented that even though women were the pillars of Christianity, they continued to be ignored by most missiologists and historians of mission under the new nomenclature of world Christianity. The same assertion appears in the scholarship on the anthropology of Christianity by Joel Robbins who wonders why gender has been one of the most neglected areas of study within the subfield. Despite Robert’s claim on women’s scholarship in global Christianity, there have not been many advances since her article “World Christianity as a Women's Movement.” The Special Issue seeks articles by historians, missiologists/theologians, religious scholars, anthropologists, and sociologists of Christianity that advance the scholarship of global Christianity as a women’s movement that address the question: what does putting women’s experiences at the center of the research agenda mean for global Christianity?

Consistent with the interdisciplinary nature of global Christianity, we welcome topics related to the historical role of single female missionaries and their influence as gospel bearers to native women in the era of Woman’s Work for Woman and World Friendship (1860–1940) and questions related to native converts and their work as local evangelists, Bible women, or mission school teachers and the friendships, connections, networks, cross-cultural, and transnational aspects of their experiences. We welcome theological articles in conversation with gender analysis and the feminization of poverty, global women’s perspectives on interreligious dialogue, women’s ethics, ecofeminism and missiology/theology, and liberationist, postcolonial, and decolonial perspectives related to any aspect of culture(s), while embracing the critiques against essentializing cultures by new developments in the field. How do different cultural contexts and related constructs (conceptions of the self, embodiment, asymmetry of power, and power-distance) affect missiological/theological constructions from a women’s perspective in an age of global Christianity?

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 400–600 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the guest editors [email protected] or to the Religions editorial office ([email protected]). Abstracts will be reviewed by the guest editors for the purpose of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer-review.

Joel Robbins, “The Anthropology of Christianity: Unity, Diversity, New Directions,” Current Anthropology 55:10 (December 2014): 157-171.

Dana Robert, “World Christianity as a Women’s Movement,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 30 no 4 Oct 2006, p 180-188. 

Eleonora Dorothea Hof, “Re-imagining World Christianity: Challenging Territorial Essentialism,” Journal of the European Society of Women in Theological Research 22 (2014): 173-186. 

  • Abstract submission deadline: August 15, 2022
  • Notification of abstract acceptance: August 25, 2022
  • Full manuscript deadline: January 3, 2023

Dr. Angel D. Santiago-Vendrell
Dr. Misoon (Esther) Im
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • women
  • global christianity
  • history of mission
  • missiology

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 798 KiB  
Article
Christian Women and the Development of Nascent Feminist Consciousness in Nineteenth-Century China
by Anneke H. Stasson
Religions 2023, 14(3), 387; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14030387 - 14 Mar 2023
Viewed by 1964
Abstract
In 2010, Padma Anagol argued that the first modern feminists in India were Christian women, women such as Laxmibai Tilak and Pandita Ramabai. Using Anagol’s definition of feminism as “a theory and practice which presented a challenge to the subordination of women in [...] Read more.
In 2010, Padma Anagol argued that the first modern feminists in India were Christian women, women such as Laxmibai Tilak and Pandita Ramabai. Using Anagol’s definition of feminism as “a theory and practice which presented a challenge to the subordination of women in society and attempted to redress the balance of power between the sexes,” this article shows how feminist consciousness was cultivated in Christian schools, churches, hospitals, and organizations in late-nineteenth-century China. Kwok Pui Lan pointed out in 1992 that Christians were the first women in China to band together to fight women’s oppression; however, like so many of the claims made about women in global Christianity, this one has not yet been fully appreciated by historians and missiologists. I show how mission schools gave girls access to new models of personhood and womanhood. Likewise, Christian scriptures, churches, and voluntary societies such as the WCTU and YWCA provided space to reflect on gender identity and activism. Through all these avenues, a modest version of Christian feminism was cultivated in China decades before the secular women’s movement began in 1900. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Global Christianity as a Women's Movement)
8 pages, 214 KiB  
Article
Making Sense of the Missionary Life of Adele Fielde, Woman of Religious Belief, Science, and Activism
by Nadia Andrilenas
Religions 2023, 14(2), 279; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14020279 - 20 Feb 2023
Viewed by 1701
Abstract
This paper proposes a new narrative of the life of nineteenth-century American Baptist missionary, activist, and scientist Adele Fielde. In the common historical narrative, her separation from the American Baptist Missionary Union (ABMU) after over twenty years of mission service in Siam and [...] Read more.
This paper proposes a new narrative of the life of nineteenth-century American Baptist missionary, activist, and scientist Adele Fielde. In the common historical narrative, her separation from the American Baptist Missionary Union (ABMU) after over twenty years of mission service in Siam and China marks her shift towards careers devoid of religious beliefs, in suffrage, activism, and science. Rather than perpetuating this deconversion narrative, I propose that she demonstrated continuity in her beliefs and interests, exercised through diverse careers and starting as a missionary. By looking to biographical accounts by her friends, colleagues, and later historians alongside her writing and life, I highlight her unorthodox Christian beliefs that motivated not only her missionary life but her later careers in science and activism in the US. Reframing Fielde’s life in this way offers a more realistic model of the intertwined beliefs and motivations of female missionaries, activists, and scientists in the nineteenth century. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Global Christianity as a Women's Movement)
15 pages, 278 KiB  
Article
The World Was Their Parish: Evangelistic Work of the Single Female Missionaries from the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, to Korea, 1887–1940
by Angel Santiago-Vendrell and Misoon (Esther) Im
Religions 2023, 14(2), 262; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14020262 - 15 Feb 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1865
Abstract
The Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society (WFMS) (1897–1909) and the Woman’s Missionary Council (WMC) (1910–1940) of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MECS) worked in Korea from 1897 to 1940. Their work used a distinctive mission philosophy, hermeneutics, and implementation of strategies in their encounters [...] Read more.
The Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society (WFMS) (1897–1909) and the Woman’s Missionary Council (WMC) (1910–1940) of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MECS) worked in Korea from 1897 to 1940. Their work used a distinctive mission philosophy, hermeneutics, and implementation of strategies in their encounters with Korean women. Over the course of their years in Korea, Southern Methodist missionary women initiated the Great Korea Revival, established the first social evangelistic centers, educated the first indigenous female church historian, and ordained women for the first time in Korea. This article argues that, even though the missionary activities of the single female missionaries occurred in the context of “Christian civilization” as a mission theory, their holistic Wesleyan missiology departed from the colonial theory of mission as civilization. The first section of the article offers background information regarding the single female missionaries to help understand them. What motivated these females to venture in foreign lands with the Gospel? What was their preparation? The second section presents the religious, cultural, social, and political background of Korea during the time the missionaries arrived. The third section describes and analyzes the evangelistic and social ministries of the female missionaries in the nascent Korean mission. The final section describes and analyzes the appropriation and reinterpretation of the Bible and Christianity by Korean women, especially the work of Korean Bible women and Methodist female Christians in the quest for independence from Japanese control in the Independence Movement of 1919. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Global Christianity as a Women's Movement)
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