The Yale-Edinburgh Group on the History of the Missionary Movement and World Christianity is an informal group of scholars that was convened by Prof. Lamin Sanneh of Yale Divinity School and Prof. Andrew Walls of the University of Edinburgh to facilitate discussion and exchange of information about historical aspects of the missionary movement and the development of world Christianity. Since 1992, the Group has met for a yearly conference, alternating its venue between the Yale Divinity School and the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for the Study of World Christianity. See http://divinity-adhoc.library.yale.edu/Yale-Edinburgh/ for a listing of the themes of these meetings.
On June 25-27, 2015, 70 scholars from more than a dozen countries and several continents met at YDS to present papers on the theme of “Religion and Religions in the History of the Missionary Movement and World Christianity.” It was the 25th gathering of the Yale-Edinburgh group.
Over the period during which the missionary movement from the West was in progress and World Christianity, as we now know it, was coming into being, conceptions of religion, and especially of “religions” as discrete bodies of belief and practice, changed substantially. The missionary movement was itself a major agent of change, both in increasing knowledge and in changing perceptions.
Hosted by the Yale Divinity Library, the conference featured papers focusing on the interaction of the missionary movement with religion and religions in China, Ghana, Korea, India, Myanmar, the Philippines, Vietnam, and elsewhere. Joining the meeting were seven young scholars whose travel and/or accommodations expenses were covered the Divinity Library’s David M. Stowe Research Fund for Mission Research.
Martha Smalley is Special Collections and Curator of the Day Missions Collection at the Yale Divinity School Library. For more on theme of the 2015 Yale-Edinburgh Group meeting, see this article.