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Christianity Today, February, 2007 |

Historian Ahead of His Time

Andrew Walls may be the most important person you don't know.

Tim Stafford | posted 2/08/2007 08:08AM

Andrew Walls was mildly incredulous when I phoned him in Aberdeen, Scotland, to ask for an interview. Of course he would gladly help me, he said in a restrained Scotch brogue, but was I sure I had the ...

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Brian Lugioyo

Posted: February 20, 2007 4:27 AM

Wonderful article! As always more can be said, especially in regard to Doreen, his wife, editor-in-chief, travel agent, and partner in ministry across the globe. Andrew's ministry and service is Doreen's as well. Together they have touched hundreds of students’ lives. Likewise, their ministry has been equally local. Both Andrew and Doreen sing in the Aberdeen Methodist Church choir and Andrew is a local preacher and an accomplished hymn writer. I have been blessed to worship with both of them on Sundays and also by Doreen’s sweet jams.

Glen	Posted: February 15, 2007 12:56 PM


I'd have given this a five star rating but you missed one of Prof Walls favorite places to teach in Africa and one of the preeminent academic institutions for indigenous Christian missiological studies in W. Africa, the Akrofi Christaller Institute in Akrapong-Akuapem, Ghana.

Bob Shuster

Posted: February 15, 2007 5:55 AM

I certainly applaud your analysis of Dr. Walls and his great work as a hsitorian and a Christian thinker. His influence will only grow over the years. However, I think it is important to recognize his great predecessor as well, Kenneth Scott Latoruette. It was Latourette who first understood and defended in the West and in academia the fact that Christianity was not declining in the modern age but in fact was having its greatest expansion ever in the 20th century. It was Latoruette who attempted first to describe in detail, on a worldwide basis, the foundations of churches and Christian traditions and attmepted to write Christian history in a nonEurocentric (and non Americentric) way. He struggled to develop new models of Christian history which were not just catalogs of theological debates and denominational hierachies. Ands for Dr. Latourette, as with Dr Walls, his faith and his Christian walk was unembarassedly intertwined with his use of his God-given talents as a scholar.

R. Hodgkinson

Posted: February 15, 2007 2:41 AM


How true! Living as an Englishman in Germnay worshipping at a Church which belongs to the Convocation of American Churches in Europe I can confirm the richness to be had from accepting a belnd if insights from different cultures.

Martin

Posted: February 11, 2007 6:39 PM


Very nice article on a magnificent man and such an important subject.

John Dyer

Posted: February 11, 2007 11:25 AM


Four lectures by Dr. Walls were given at Dallas Seminary's chapel in 2003 and they are available at http://www.dts.edu/media/podcasts/archive/ as streaming video or MP3 downloads. Just select Andrew Walls from the dropdownlist.

Frederick

Posted: February 10, 2007 9:27 PM


An informative and enlightening perspective on the Gospel from a cultural prespective.

George D Cooper

Posted: February 09, 2007 7:47 AM

We need more world class church historians like Walls to trace the great movements of Christianity in Africa, Asia, and South America. There is an explosion of hope and celebration in this part of the world. The church is not a Western cultural icon. It is the work of God based on the truths of the Bible. As the Bible is foundational to freedom and a healthy civilization, more nations will continue to embrace it as the only hope for harmony and peace within and outside of borders. Besides Andrew Walls another voice for understanding the relationship between Christianity, culture, and world economy is Dr. Vishal Manglawadi from India. He is another voice reminding us that God is busy outside the context of North America and Europe. CAPT George D. Cooper, US Navy Chaplain, Retired

H. D. Schmidt

Posted: February 09, 2007 7:40 AM

Now if only America for once again would return to its roots as in the Founding Fathers, and destroy all of its evermore horrendous war machinery, which, is nothing but in protection of its evermore oil thirst. As I make this plea, what do pictures dated Dec. 19-20, 1983 mean anyway where Mr. Rumsfeld shakes hands with Saddam in Iraq, the criminal he was if it was not in the interest of oil and now again, the war in Iraq? Secondly, what does a recent Newsweek magazine of Sept 25, 06 picture of Condolezza Rice mean shaking hands with another criminal dictator of that small Equatorial Guinea, a spot of oil? Yes, indeed America as a Nation is the greatest insult to Christianity, if there ever was one. America was created by God himself as a last chance for humans to make this the better world, but America has decided to go the way of Imperialism at gun point with now the most self-declared leader, who actually thinks, speaks and acts like and Emperor and not that of a USA President.

doug	Posted: February 09, 2007 6:53 AM


very, very interestintg and informative

Josuah M. De Rosas

Posted: February 09, 2007 1:01 AM


This article has enriched my understanding on how globalization has directly or indirectly affected the cultural aspect of Africa, which in turn shook African Christianity. It has helped a lot in understanding the relationship between culture, religion and world economy in the context of globalization.

CD Womack

Posted: February 08, 2007 11:41 PM


Wait, wait; wait a minute! You mean to tell me that Christianity and western humanism and capitalism are not synonymous?

George

Posted: February 08, 2007 7:13 PM


Such articles are encouraging and "refreshing."Thank you for sharing this information.

A Reader

Posted: February 08, 2007 6:35 PM

Excellent and timely information. Just finished with my small group book study on Uncle Tom's Cabin. We discussed the development of the African American Christian church--looking for insite into where we are today and, with the growing influence of Islam, where it's headed. (By the way, Wayne, Africa and South America are already sending missionaries to the US. Check out what's happening in the American Anglican Church).

Phyllis Pincosy

Posted: February 08, 2007 5:51 PM


I am so glad that Dr. Walls and others have understood that God is not euro-centric. He really does love all the world.

Bill Bray

Posted: February 08, 2007 3:32 PM

Thank you for this insight on the reality that I have lived and worked with for many years now and have come to take for granted. I guess those of us who serve indigenous churches and missions fail to see it and we need men like Andrew Walls to remind us of how wonderful it all is that God has chosen to move this way. For all of us, but American Christians especially, a movement no matter how great is not reality until it is observed by one of our own!

Lloyd A. Cooke

Posted: February 08, 2007 1:39 PM

Excellent article which puts in perspective the role and value of non-western churches in enriching Christianity. I am a Jamaican teaching Church History, Missions and Evangelism, Comparative Religions, tec. at a Jamaican Bible College. I integrate Jamaican, Caribbean, and emerging world perspectives into my classes. At the end of our studies of the basic text we use I add three weeks (three hours per week) of Jamaican Church History so that they get a grasp of the part that their own countrymen and women have played in planting the church, along with the missionaries, into the soil of our country; as well as the rich history of Jamaicans who have also carried the gospel to various African and Caribbean and Central American countries. Thus they get to see the hand of God throughout history, and in the history of their own countries. Thanks to Walls for begining to open the eyes of Europeans that the Church is not a Western institution. God is very much alive and still at work.

William J Sutter

Posted: February 08, 2007 12:52 PM


A power-filled read. Very stimulating and revealing, insightful, perceptive, suggestive, revelatory. This man has heard the voice of God, the Holy Spirit, in his soul. Thank you so very much for placing this in CT and for the connections to further reading of the ministry God is doing in his life. Greatly grateful, Bill

Amy Richards

Posted: February 08, 2007 12:02 PM


I think this article could have used a side bar on Andrew Walls' involvement in the Centre for the study of Christianity in the Non-Western World at the University of Edinburgh, New College School of Divinity.

Wayne

Posted: February 08, 2007 10:18 AM


great article. It's always good to see things from another perspective. So when will Africa be sending missionaries to North America and Europe. I also wonder why so many major problems still exist in Africa. Maybe its the result of the past generations, maybe Satan working overtime , maybe my perception.

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