Becoming Cosmopolitan
Unfolding Two Centuries of Mission at Virginia Theological Seminary
- History & Biography
- Publisher: Pickwick Publications (Wipf and Stock)
- Published: 2023
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Publisher's Description
The legacy of Christian mission seems beyond dispute. Western churches carried imperialist and racist assumptions as they evangelized and encouraged the formation of indigenous churches. Amid those realities a different sensibility took root. As the history of Virginia Theological Seminary illustrates, missionaries who were alumni adapted to contextual circumstances in ways that challenged Western presumptions. Mission encouraged cosmopolitan ties featuring mutuality and reciprocity. The path to such relations was not straight nor always readily taken. Yet, over the seminary's two-hundred-year history, the cosmopolitan direction has become evident on several continents. As missionaries came home, and leaders and students from abroad visited the seminary, the ideal of cosmopolitan relations spread. It became evident as mission churches took indigenous form and control. It was reinforced as Western churches explored the dimensions of social justice. American theological education affirmed the reality of diversity and recast its pedagogies in appreciative ways. This book traces an epic shift in mission and theological education measured by the rise of cosmopolitanism in the life of Virginia Theological Seminary.
Endorsements (3)
“This innovative history of Virginia Theological Seminary uncovers its legacy of training the pioneer missionaries who founded the Episcopal Church around the world. By locating ‘cosmopolitanism’ at the center of the story, the authors show how theological institutions engaged the social and intellectual issues of the day, and in so doing, shaped their founding denominations. This book is a stellar example of analyzing how educational institutions can function as nodes on the network of global Christianity. I recommend it very highly.”
“Observing two hundred years of Virginia Theological Seminary through the lens of Christian mission, Being Cosmopolitan shows mission—as both teaching and learning, formation and reaching out, evangelism and social justice, and mutuality and collaboration rather than strictly flowing from a ‘giver’ to a ‘receiver’—has always been central to this great theological education institution. This book is more than a historical account; it is an invitation to creatively practice Christian mission in the twenty-first century, postcolonial world.”
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