VST Public Lecture

We’re excited to share that St. Mary’s will be hosting Dr. Jehu J. Hanciles for his lecture Global Migration and Christian Witness on July 8th at 7pm.

Dr. Hanciles intended to come to Vancouver last summer but was forced to reschedule. The Vancouver School of Theology (VST) is honoured that he is this year’s Visiting Distinguished Scholar, and we are all looking forward to learning from him in a few short weeks.

Dr. Jehu Hanciles will share a fascinating look at the spread of Christianity as it became a global religion.

Drawing on his extensive scholarship on the history of Christianity, Dr. Hanciles offers a fresh take on the roles of formal mission and natural human patterns of movement in global exposure to the Christian faith.

After surveying church history from its humble beginnings through 1500 CE, Dr. Hanciles proposes that contrary to popular belief, natural human migration and the sharing of ideas and beliefs that accompanies those movements, more so than institutional missions, is most responsible for Christianity’s blossoming into a global religion.

For more on Dr. Hanciles’ work in this area, you may enjoy Migration and the Making of Global Christianity (2021).

Dr. Jehu J. Hanciles is the D.W. and Ruth Brooks Professor of World Christianity and the Director of the World Christianity Program at the Candler School of Theology. He has lived and worked in Sierra Leone, Scotland, Zimbabwe, and the United States and been a visiting professor around the world. Prior to Candler, Hanciles was associate professor of the history of Christianity and globalization and director of the Center for Missiological Research at Fuller Theological Seminary.