Dan and Lillian Hankey Associate Professor of World Evangelism Arun W. Jones has edited a new volume recently published by Penn State University Press. It is his third monograph.
In Christian Interculture: Texts and Voices from Colonial and Postcolonial Worlds, Jones and the book’s contributors explore the challenges of writing the history of indigenous Christian communities in the Global South. Because many indigenous Christian groups pass along knowledge orally and because colonial forces have often not deemed their ideas or activities worth preserving, documentation from these communities can be scarce, despite the remarkable growth of Christianity in these regions during the 20th century.
The volume approaches the problem on a case-by-case basis, acknowledging the impact of diverse geographical, cultural, political, and ecclesiastical factors. Highlighting the creative solutions that historians have found to this problem, the essays detail the strategies employed in discerning the perspectives, ideas, activities, motives, and agency of indigenous Christians.