Call for Papers:

Christian Conversion and Mission

For Publication in Global Missiology, www.globalmissiology.org, October 2026

Andrew Walls’s posthumous Christian Conversion and Mission: A Brief Cultural History offers a nuanced and incisive overview of the history of Christianity’s encounters with Judaism, Roman Hellenism, Germanic custom, the modern West, and the cultures of the global south from the first century to the twentieth century. The recurrent pattern in the gospel’s interaction with successive cultures through the ages is conversion, understood at its most fundamental level as “turning,” that is, turning to God in response to God’s saving activity. By taking Christian history as a whole and inviting the reader to see it from the perspective of conversion, Walls challenges Western theology in several striking ways. First, he decenters Western theology as the standard by which to judge authentic or orthodox Christian faith and expression. Second, he suggests theological frontiers to be explored as Christianity enters the cultures of the global south. Third, he proposes a fresh way of seeing historic Christianity that is not defined by the creeds of Roman-Hellenistic Christianity.

As southern expressions of Christianity increasingly become the dominant forms of the faith, new themes and priorities that never occurred to Western Christians or to earlier Christian ages will appear. As Walls notes, “for it is the mark of Christian faith that it must bring Christ to the big issues closest to men’s hearts,” and it does so “through the structures by which people perceive and recognize their world,” which are not universally the same. And as Christian faith is worked out within accepted views of the world in all their diversity, “those worldviews… are transformed, yet recognizable” (130).

Global Missiology invites submissions for this theme issue on “Conversion,” as sketched above, from any of the following angles:

- Descriptive reports of Christian conversion in your locale: What themes and priorities are emerging? What are the big issues closest to local Christians’ hearts? In what ways are local structures and worldviews being transformed, yet recognizable?

- Theological frontiers that need to be explored to reflect local realities and meet local concerns: What new issues need examination that Western theology overlooks entirely? What old issues need re-examination that Western theology addresses inadequately?

- Historic Christianity not defined by credal formula: Walls proposes a few essential convictions and responses that are observable when Christians of any culture express their faith.

1. The worship of the God of Israel.

2. The ultimate significance of Jesus of Nazareth.

3. That God is active where believers are.

4. That believers constitute a people of God transcending time and space.

Along with these convictions and responses, a small number of practices or institutions have continued across the generations, namely, the reading of a common body of Scriptures and the special use of bread and wine and water (128-129).

Do these traits accurately reflect your local congregation? Is this framework of convictions-responses and practices-institutions a satisfactory way of seeing or understanding historic Christianity? Why or why not?

Proposed titles with approximately 100-word abstracts are due April 30, 2026. Full manuscripts of approved paper proposals will be due July 31, 2026. Manuscript guidelines, including a template for formatting, can be found on the Global Missiology website at:

http://ojs.globalmissiology.org/index.php/english/about/submissions#authorGuidelines

Please address all submissions and questions to globalmissiologyenglish@gmail.com.