Yale Edinburgh 2027 Theme: Economies, Power, and Mission in World Christianity
Kenya, June 3-5, 2027
Christian mission has been shaped by both trade and imperial expansion, at times serving and at other times contesting the prevailing geopolitical realities of its age. Some mission models have depended heavily on economic strength, while others pursued mendicant means, demonstrating an aversion to the use of financial power in the work of conversion. This conference offers a critical space for examining the ways in which historical legacies and contemporary economic realities continue to shape Christian witness around the world.
Discourses on economies are also discussions of wealth and poverty. Shifting patterns of financial exchange have produced inequalities and power differentials, inspiring such responses as liberation theology and integral mission. In some cases, currencies, policies, and economic ideologies advanced mission; in others, they constrained or undermined it. Shifting global power dynamics, economic realignments, and the demographic growth of the Global South continue to reshape the distribution of ecclesial authority and mission resources. Theologies, liturgies, and strategies have emerged both in response to and in spite of prevailing economic conditions, revealing patterns of innovation and agency that continue to inform the study of World Christianity.
The conference welcomes assessments, in conversation with the social sciences, of how commercial enterprise at national, regional, and transcontinental scales has affected Christian expansion in its various forms. Papers may examine the mechanisms through which economic resources were mobilized and influence exercised, or explore historical, theological, and other responses to these dynamics and the imaginative practices they inspired.
The call for papers will be announced later. The conference will be hosted in Kenya by Pan African Christian University, St. Paul’s University and Africa International University, and held at the St. Paul’s University campus in Limuru.