The Unexpected Christian Century: The Reversal and Transformation of Global Christianity, 1900-2000

by Scott W. Sunquist

Publisher:

Baker Academic

, 2015

Overview

In 1900 many assumed the twentieth century would be a Christian century because Western “Christian empires” ruled most of the world. What happened instead is that Christianity in the West declined dramatically, the empires collapsed, and Christianity’s center moved to Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Pacific. How did this happen so quickly? Respected scholar and teacher Scott Sunquist surveys the most recent century of Christian history, highlighting epochal changes in global Christianity. He also suggests lessons we can learn from this remarkable global Christian reversal. This book is ideal for an introduction to Christianity or a church history course, and includes a foreword by Mark Noll.

Key Features

• Offers an overview of Christianity in the twentieth century
• Provides perspective for the current landscape of Christianity around the world
• Contains solid scholarship from a respected authority on global Christianity

Contents

• World Christianity: The Gilded Age through the Great War
• Christian Lives: Practices and Piety
• Politics and Persecution: How Global Politics Shaped Christianity
• Confessional Families: Diverse Confessions, Diverse Fates
• On the Move: Christianity and Migration
• One Way among Others: Christianity and the World’s Religions

Praise for the Print Edition

It would be hard to overestimate the valuable contribution Scott Sunquist has made to our understanding of the global Christian movement. . . . This volume serves as an excellent introduction to what appeared at the beginning to be the century of Western dominance but ended up being so very different. As Sunquist intimates, we are witnessing the most dramatic century of change since the early Christian period.

—Gerald L. Sittser, professor of theology, Whitworth University

This book provides a learned overview of major themes in twentieth-century world Christianity. Distinguished scholar Scott Sunquist, writing from an insider Christian perspective, shows how such factors as migration, persecution, the decline of Western Christianity, and Pentecostalism have created a religion far different from that of a century ago. He balances depth and breadth in a readable format and, in so doing, provides a valuable addition to the growing body of scholarship on world Christianity.

—Dana L. Robert, professor of world Christianity and history of mission, Boston University

This volume places us in Sunquist’s debt for extending the Christian story beyond the familiar clichés, luminaries, and events of conventional Western church histories to a trajectory that includes and accounts for the fecund world of Christianity in the global South. Full of surprises, this is an astounding, fast-moving story, whose latest chapter was not and could not have been predicted by earlier generations of church historians.

—Jonathan J. Bonk, research professor of mission, Boston University

Product Details

• Title: The Unexpected Christian Century: The Reversal and Transformation of Global Christianity, 1900–2000
• Author: Scott W. Sunquist
• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Print Publication Date: 2015
• Logos Release Date: 2018
• Pages: 240
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subject: Church history › 20th century
• ISBNs: 9781441266514, 9780801097461, 1441266518, 0801097460
• Resource ID: LLS:NXPCTDCHRSCNTRY
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T02:01:41Z

About Scott W. Sunquist

The Rev. Dr. Scott W. Sunquist is the professor of world christianity. He came to Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in 1995 after teaching and writing at Trinity Theological College in the Republic of Singapore from 1987-1995. Most of Sunquist’s research and writing is in the areas of Asian Christianity, global Christianity, and missiology. He is the editor of A Dictionary of Asian Christianity (Eerdmans 2001) and co-author of A History of the World Christian Movement, Volume I (Orbis Books 2001). Volume II is due out this year. Dr. Sunquist recently published a book with his daughter, Caroline Becker, entitled A History of Presbyterian Missions: 1944-2007 (Geneva Press 2008). His courses at the Seminary are related to mission theology, gospel and culture issues, and world Christianity. Sunquist spends time working with the World Mission Initiative at the Seminary and speaking at mission conferences. Previous to his Seminary teaching, Sunquist worked with Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship for six years in Virginia and Massachusetts, and then studied at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, earning his M.Div. and Princeton Theological Seminary, earning his doctorate. His wife, Nancy, is an elementary school teacher. They are the parents of four grown children. In his spare time Dr. Sunquist plays basketball and enjoys time with his wife and children. To learn more about Sunquist, visit http://www.scottsunquist.net.