New Wine in Old Wineskins

Abstract

This paper reviews the importance of historical studies within the theology curriculum and evaluates some of the perplexities and roadblocks that continue to beset efforts at writing or teaching a global Christian history. It argues that even though recent transformations within global Christianity have stimulated laudable efforts at constructing a new Christian historiography and produced fresh perspectives on non-Western Christianities, developing a global Christian history faces three formidable challenges: the entrenched metropolitan perspective of mission studies, a rigid and outmoded curriculum design, and Western intellectual hegemony. It concludes with a brief examination of credible solutions, including the need for new conceptual models and a new hermeneutic.