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Belongingness and Hybridity in God's Multicultural Kingdom, Thursday, 17 June 2021 at 1400 GMT/UTC

  • INCHE 2041 Raybrook Avenue Southeast Grand Rapids, MI, 49546 United States (map)
Kwiyani picture.jpg

Join members from INCHE and the Society of Christian Scholars (SCS) for this webinar. An ancient Malawian proverb says, “A stranger comes with a sharp penknife,” and this knife is used, at least in a Malawian sense, to help disentangle a community from problems that their own knives could not resolve. In sum, the stranger sees with fresh eyes things that those inside the community cannot see.

On Thursday, 17 June 2021 at 1400 UTC, Dr. Kwiyani will discuss this idea in the context of theological cross-pollination, or what it means for “strangers” in world Christianity to engage with one another in the knowledge that each one has a gift, usually hidden, that can meet them at their point of need. Towards the end of his presentation, Dr. Kwiyani will seek to extend the knife analogy, in conversation with the audience, and probe the implications for interdisciplinarity in God’s multicultural kingdom.

Dr. Harvey Kwiyani serves as Lecturer in African Christianity and Theology at Liverpool Hope University in the UK where he teaches theology, mission, and leadership. Previously he worked and taught in central Europe for seven years and spent another seven years in the United States focused on issues of missional leadership. His current research and writing concentrates on contemporary mission in Europe and North America, intercultural theology, migrations, and particularly African Christians in the Diaspora. He is the general editor of Missio Africanus: The Journal of African Missiology.

The central idea of his presentation can be explored in greater detail in his book Multicultural Kingdom: Ethnic Diversity, Mission and the Church (SCM Press, 2020).

Register at Webinar Registration - Zoom.

Immediately following the webinar, Dr. Susan Felch, Professor emerita of English at Calvin University, will host a small group discussion to reflect on the webinar. Join this Zoom-based discussion here .