Global Christianity and interreligious relations is an increasingly interdisciplinary field of studies interested in Christianity as a polycentric religion that has been on the move throughout history. Scholars in the field investigate how people across the globe have practiced their faith in the past and in the present, interpreting and intervening in the dynamics of religion in social, cultural, and political life.

Global Christianity at Lund

At Lund, we are a team of scholars who concentrate on Christianity as a lived religion that is embedded and embodied in intra- and interreligious entanglements. How has Christianity been experienced and expressed locally? How has Christianity been experienced and expressed globally? And how do the local and the global hang together? Both inside and outside the lecture hall, we aim to ask and answer questions like these from critical and constructive angles. Topics we have analyzed include:

• antisemitism
• colonization and decolonization
• comparative theology
• contextual theology
• diversity and diversification
• ecumenism
• faith-based activism
• intra- and interreligious relations (Jewish-Christian, Christian-Muslim)
• Islamophobia
• marginalization
• migration and postmigration
• mission past and present
• political and public theology
• religion and racialization
• religion, ethics, and politics in globalized contexts
• theology of religions

Given the experience and expertise in research on religion at Lund, including Jewish, Christian, and Islamic thought and theology, we connect to colleagues across the Faculty as well as the University. We also collaborate with the Lund Mission Society which has worldwide connections to churches and communities of faith that allow us to immerse ourselves in different and diverse contexts. We conduct fieldwork at online and offline sites, including anthropology “at home”, drawing on a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches.

Teaching

In the lecture hall, we see learning as something that is done together by scholars and students. Throughout, we work with a student-centered approach that involves students in both the design and the delivery of the material, so that they can cover and concentrate on their own concerns, including their own learning. Our aim is to enable and empower our students to think comparatively, critically, and constructively about theologies from around the world. Both decolonialization and diversity in the classroom are core concerns in our teaching which is why many of our courses bring in scholars and students from across the globe in online, offline, or hybrid formats.

Methodologies

Combining hermeneutical and historical approaches, we study religions as coalitional and conflictual sites of interpretation that cannot be completely closed off from each other. We draw on empirical and evaluative methods that connect us to disciplines ranging from cultural studies through anthropology, sociology, ethnography, and philosophy to political science. We also explore and experiment with co-productions of knowledge that involve both scholars and stakeholders who are engaged with religion in the public square.

Theories

Given the controversies stirred up – or perceived to be stirred up – by religion across the globe, we contend that research on religion cannot circumvent normative considerations. We connect descriptive and prescriptive approaches to problematize the normativities at play in local, global, and “glocal” public squares. Throughout, we concentrate on the responsibilities of scholars who are situated in Europe to reflect and reckon with the history of colonialism in the name of Christianity, drawing in particular on decolonial approaches. We are interested in the challenges and the chances that Global Christianity presents for established ways of researching religion.

Information on our people, projects, and publications can be found in the Lund University Research Portal.