Course Description
This course charts the history of geographically vast Christian movements during the centuries of early Christianity as well as contemporary expressions of Christianity around the globe, particularly the Global South. Methodologically, we will focus not on doctrines, theologies, Biblical studies, or intellectual movements, but rather the complexity of thought and praxis of Christian agents around the world throughout the past two millennia. This course will convey the extent to which Christians’ various beliefs, cultures, experiences, and desires challenge the conformity and uniformity portrayed by ecclesiastical and intellectual authorities.
In this course we will focus on the historical, social, and religious conditions in which Jesus attracted followers and in which those followers have lived their faith. We will learn about the extent to which localized, historical issues and concerns of practitioners shape their religious expressions and intellectual debates. We will begin by exploring Christian communities and movements during the centuries after the death of Jesus including those in Alexandria, Nubia, Axum, Persia, central Asia, and the Mediterranean world. We will then shift to European explorers, traders, and missionaries as the primary factor in the spread of Christianity from the 14th-20th centuries. We will examine what Christian life looked like for various communities of converts and how their social contexts and beliefs shaped their Christian faith and practices. Finally, we will study contemporary Christian expressions and ideas primarily beyond the West, in the Global South, where the majority of the world’s Christians reside.
By the end of the course, students will understand that Christianity was, from the time of its origins, a movement that took root in diverse areas, and has therefore taken just as many forms. Cultural characteristics of these locales shape and come through in the global Christianities of the world and that Christianity’s spread has depended on its translatability to other cultures. Students will therefore be well versed in various, historical, cultural translations of Christianity around the world.
