The Hunan Bible Institute (Biola-in-China): A Stronghold of Fundamentalist Bible Training in China, 1916—1952

The Protestant Church in China has been deeply shaped by the fundamentalist movement of the early twentieth century. As happened in America, Bible schools featured very prominently in the movement in China. The Hunan Bible Institute (HBI) was one of the most important Bible schools, and thus constitutes a good case study for this kind of key fundamentalist institution in China. By tracing its historical trajectory from 1916 to 1952, this study argues (1) that HBI embodied the vision and rationale of the fundamentalist theological training and (2) that HBI was not just a school, but also a platform where some of the most influential figures and ministries of the Chinese fundamentalist camp converged. It became a hub of spreading dispensationalism within China, and a powerhouse of the revivals sweeping across the country in those decades. This fact highlights the critical roles and significance the Bible schools held for the fundamentalist movement in China of the early twentieth century. (3) HBI’s identity as ‘Biola-in-China’ demonstrates a deep interrelationship between the fundamentalist camps in China and America. The strong, but troublesome relation between HBI and Biola attests to intensifying tension between the Chinese Church’s independence and foreign missions’ control. By training church leaders and providing a fundamentalist ministry platform, HBI exerted considerable influence on the formation of conservative Protestant Christianity in China.

Introducing Eschatology in the African Context Vol. I

The main purpose of Introducing Eschatology in the African Context (consisting of two volumes) is to offer contemporary Christians a balanced biblical and theological view of Christian Eschatology from an African perspective, to empower believers to be faithful to Christ at all times (even in their trials and sufferings). It is also to call the attention of unbelievers to the divine judgment that awaits them so that they may be encouraged to respond to the call to repent and be saved. Each chapter is organised into various sub-themes with summaries and conclusions at the end. There are questions at the end of each chapter to offer the reader the opportunity to have a deeper reflection on major issues discussed. Universities, Seminaries and Bible Schools can use this book for undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Eschatology. The approach used makes the book relevant for scholars as well as non-scholars who desire to know God’s plan for the future of the universe and relate it to their context.

African Christianity and the Intersection of Faith, Traditional, and Biomedical Healing

Africa has witnessed an increase of clergy who favor faith healing but have little appreciation for modern medicine. The intersection between African traditional healing and faith healing remains unclear, with most curricula in theological and Bible schools failing to address these fundamental issues. Research was conducted to establish the intersection between faith, traditional, and biomedical healing. The findings show that faith healing is practiced by nearly three-fourths of the respondents and that African Instituted Churches give relatively more attention to practices of faith healing than do other denominations.

Flowing and framing

Experiential and mediatized, Pentecostal Christianity is one of the most successful cases of contemporary religious globalization. However, it has often grown and expanded transnationally without clear authoritative contours. That is the case in contemporary Ghana, where Pentecostal claims about charismatic empowerment have fed public anxieties concerning the fake and the occult. This article examines how Pentecostalism’s dysfunctional circulation is countered within seminaries, or Bible schools, by specific strategies of pastoral training. First, I revisit recent debates on Protestant language ideology in the anthropology of Christianity, and stress Pentecostalism’s affinity with notions of flow and saturation of speech by divine presence. Second, I move to data collected in the Anagkazo Bible and Ministry Training Center, and investigate this institution’s pedagogical framing of Pentecostalism’s otherwise erratic flow of speech and power according to two normative operations: Biblical figuration and the emic notion of transmission as ‘impartation’. I conclude by stressing how the metapragmatics of figuration and impartation in Anagkazo requires an understanding of religious circulation that exceeds the dominant scholarly focus on religion-as-mediation.

Slithering Down the Plank of Intellectualism? The Canadian Conference of Christian Educators and the Impulse towards Accreditation among Canadian Bible Schools during the 1960s

The scholarly analysis of accreditation among Bible schools and colleges remains a significant historiographical lacuna. This article examines the emerging impulse towards accreditation within the Bible school movement in western Canada during the turbulent 1960s, a critical decade in the development of evangelical theological education in Canada. The central focus is the origin, activities, and influence of a conference known as the Canadian Conference of Christian Educators (CCCE), an annual gathering of evangelical educators that began meeting in 1960. The prominent presence of personnel from the newly formed Accrediting Association of Bible Colleges (AABC), who were keenly interested in extending their organization into a region with the largest concentration of Bible schools in the world, raised expectations among Canadian evangelical educators about the possibility of a new level of respectability and recognition for their schools among public universities in Canada. Bible college educators in Canada soon discovered that AABC accreditation did not mean the same thing within the post-secondary educational landscape of Canada as it did in the United States. This resulted in an ambivalent relationship between AABC and the emerging Bible colleges in Canada, and prompted some Canadian leaders to investigate other avenues towards academic recognition. Illustrating the polarized response towards accreditation within the Bible school/college movement are two brief institutional studies of Mennonite Brethren Bible College in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Prairie Bible Institute in Three Hills, Alberta. The differences reflect the variegated character of an evolving evangelicalism in western Canada. By the end of the 1960s, the significant American influence within the CCCE had been displaced by Canadian initiative and leadership, thus signalling the beginning of a new chapter in evangelical higher education in Canada.

Equipping Equippers Cross-Culturally: An Experiment in the Appropriate Globalization of Theological Education

A critique of the investment made by Western resource people as teachers in African Bible schools is provided by means of a specific case study: the request from the Africa Brotherhood Church for a partnership program in equipping equippers, preparing people who can replace missionaries. African fascination with Western theological education and Western misgivings about it provided the cultural backdrop for an experiment. The singular challenge of the resulting Certificate in Ministry program was the delivery of quality theological education which was contextually sensitive to people and normative to the rapidly growing African church.