Rev Dr Hukato N Shohe, Principal of Trinity Theological College, Dimapur speaking during the regional seminar on ‘Global South Christianity: trends and transformation in the 21st century’ at North-East Christian University, Dimapur August 9. (Morung Photo)
Seminar on Global South Christianity: Trends and Transformation in the 21st century
Morung Express News
Dimapur | August 9
A paradigm shift is slowly occurring within the Christian faith, stated Rev Dr Hukato N Shohe, Principal of Trinity Theological College, Dimapur on Friday.
According to him, the face of Christianity will be represented by the Global South, i.e. countries of Asia, Africa and South America as the faith slowly wanes its influence in the Global North or the West. “In the past, Christianity was defined, Christianity was represented, and the term Christianity reminded us of the West,” he emphasized. But of late, Christianity is no more exclusively defined or represented in religion as the religion of the white man.
This was stated during the one day regional seminar on ‘Global South Christianity: Trends and transformation in the 21st century’ at North-East Christian University (NECU), Dimapur on August 9. As its keynote speaker, Dr Shohe said the monumental shift of Christianity away from the West and toward the global South is primarily due to two factors.
The first is the widespread missionary movement during the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries when Western missionaries spread the gospel to different parts of the world, especially in Asia and Africa. Secondly, he stated that people from the West have been slowly moving away from the faith, identifying more as secular or agnostic.
In comparison, 100 years ago, the population of Christians in Africa was only around 10 million in total. Today though that number has increased to about 734 million Christians, or 24% of the population of Africa, he reported. A similar growth projection is also taking place in Asia as well according to Dr Shohe. But “Likewise, Islam is the other religion that is growing, and projected to even come at far or above Christianity by 2050,” he added.
The changes or consequences that will occur due to this will be many fold, Dr Shohe said, including the way people perceive theology or theological understanding. In the past, this has been influenced and guided by Western philosophy or the Western way of thinking.
Context matters, he argues and in that sense, the culture and environment greatly influences one’s faith. “Christianity is not monolithic as we first came to understand it, when you critically read the Bible you see varieties of churches, it was multicultural,” he noted. There was the Church in Jerusalem, entirely different from the Church in Berlin or Rome.
Given these complexities involved, he mentioned there has also been a growing number of different theologies such as African, Latin American, Indian or most recent Indigenous theology.
As these changes occur, Dr Shohe stressed on the need for the students and scholars to articulate, construct and portray what the faith is. We cannot always depend on others to determine what our faith is, he noted. “Our faith and vision has to expand so that we are also able to interact with the world around us,” he stated.
Five paper presentations were delivered during the seminar in which Rev Dr Taimaya Ragui, Academic Lead and Deputy Head of Shepherd’s Academy, Bangalore gave on the topic, ‘Online Theological Education: leaders for the future Church.’
John Lalnungtluanga, Academic Research coordinator with BREAD at Klesis Global, Bangalore meanwhile shared his paper on ‘Indigenous spirituality.’
A paper on ‘Transformative theology and quality of life for women in Naga society,’ was presented by Dr Temsulemla Longchar, Academic Dean at United College of Theology and Missions, Chümoukedima. Her paper included case studies of individual working or professional women in entrepreneurship, business, social worker and academy.
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