Missionaries and Multiculturism

January 20, 2003

Andrew Walls, the second scholar participating in Westmont’s World Christianity and Global Encounters of the 21st Century lecture series, will discuss “Conversion and Proselytism in a Multifaith, Multiethnic World” 7 p.m. Jan. 29 at First Presbyterian Church in Santa Barbara. The event is free and open to the public.

Scholars Cecil Mel Robeck, professor of church history and ecumenics at Fuller Theological Seminary, and Anthea Butler, assistant professor of theology at Loyola Marymount University, will respond.

Walls, founder of the Centre for the Study of Christianity in the Non-Western World at the University of Edinburgh, also will speak in chapel on campus 10:30 a.m. Jan. 29 and answer questions from students that afternoon.

Recently a guest professor of ecumenics and missions at Princeton Theological Seminary and a previous guest professor of world Christianity at Yale University, Walls has also taught at the University of Nigeria, Fourah Bay College in Sierra Leone, the University of Botswana, and the University of Aberdeen in Scotland.

The author of two books and many articles, Walls won an award for “The Missionary Movement in Christian History” (Orbis, 1996). His most recent work is “The Cross-Cultural Process in Christian History” (Orbis, 2002).

Walls founded the Journal of Religion in Africa and the Scottish Institute of Missionary Studies and its Bulletin.

For more information, call the public affairs office at (805) 565-6051, or e-mail mmeier@westmont.edu.