What Does World Christianity Mean for Mission Studies? Explorations in Christianity Worldwide

Abstract

This article asks what the development of the field of “world Christianity” means for “mission studies” or “missiology” in the context that the former has replaced the latter in many universities and in some theological seminaries. I observe that, although world Christianity could be regarded as the savior of mission studies in academia, it is not without its difficulties, while missiology also has important features that may not be encompassed under world Christianity. Moreover, although “mission” is problematic in the academy, there has been a resurgence of mission activity and thinking in churches, especially in the majority world. I draw on recent work for The Oxford Handbook of Mission Studies (2022) and on Christianity as a World Religion (third edition, 2025), and on current discourse on world Christianity in the US particularly to argue that there is still a role for mission studies as distinct from, but complementary to, the study of world Christianity and to suggest what that might look like. As preliminary to this, I will reflect on my experience of the antecedent of today’s Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide—the Henry Martyn Centre, a center for mission studies that was named after a western missionary and founded on a legacy of evangelical missions from Cambridge, but that also played a significant role in the origins of the study of world Christianity.