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Missouri Baptist University
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For Immediate Release
RE: Global Christianity Perspectives in Western Education
Global Christianity Perspectives in Western Education
June 17, 2005
Session two of Christian Reflections on Contemporary Culture featured a panel discussion opened by Dr. Philip Jenkins’ thoughts on the changing contours of worldwide Christianity the response of Western education.
Jenkins’ remarks focused on the growth of Christianity outside the industrialized Western world. “The critical centers of the Christian world have moved decisively away from North American and the balance will never shift back,” he says in his book The Next Christendom. This presents a struggle for American Colleges and seminaries as they strive to build a theme of global Christianity into their curricula.
For Jenkins the question is not if curricula should change, but rather how it should change. “When someone decides not to teach on global Christianity, they have in fact made a very important decision. To not teach makes a very powerful statement about the relative importance of that topic.”
Keith Buetler, professor of history at Missouri Baptist University remarked on Jenkins’ statements and added that “to adequately equip American students for the brave new global Christianity, which Professor Jenkins has shown us is already here, we will also need to offer improved understandings of this nation’s past.” By offering this understanding to his students, Buetler has found that furnishing students with a study of historical American Christianity and thought, students are better equipped “…to judge for themselves how problematic it has always been to conflate confidence in Christ and nationalism.”
William Shea, director of the Center for Religion, Ethics, and Culture, Holy Cross College; and Esther Meek, professor of philosophy, Geneva College, offered additional panel responses.
Dr. Philip Jenkins is a distinguished professor of history and religious studies at Pennsylvania State University. He is also author of many books pertaining to Christianity and culture, including The Next Christendom, which won the 2002 Theologos award from the Association of Theological Booksellers for the year's best academic book. Jenkins also earned the 2003 Christianity Today Book Award for the best book in the category of "Christianity and Culture."
Recorded sessions available for purchase at www.christianityandculture.org.
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Missouri Baptist University is a premier Christian university in Saint Louis, offering graduate and undergraduate studies in over thirty specialized fields and nine degrees. MBU's education and fine arts programs are nationally known in addition to business, religion, administration of justice, and more. MBU is one of the fastest growing higher education institutions in Missouri with an enrollment of over 4,500 students at five locations in the bi-state region — West County, Lincoln County, Jefferson County, Franklin County and the new Illinois extension at Lewis and Clark Community College.
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