Church History and Mission History as a Research Discipline
How has Christian life changed in the encounter with the context in which it existed? How have societies transformed through encounters with Christianity? Church History and Mission History includes the study of Christian churches, denominations, groups, and individuals from the first century CE until today. Our research analyzes changes in concrete historical contexts, where ideological, legal, political, cultural, religious, geographical, communicational, social, and economic factors are pivotal. Church History and Mission History is thus a research discipline where Christian life and faith are broadly analyzed in the context of their time.
Orientations
Church history
Church historical research at Uppsala focuses on Europe and, in particular the Nordic countries. Investigations emphasize practices, doctrines, organization forms, worship, and piety. Within three main themes, which can be summarized as practice, innovation, and structure, there is also research on historiography, the use of history, identity formation, and biography.
Church Life
This line of research focuses on Christian practices, including reading, the use of images, material spaces, worship, liturgy, piety, the role of the body, and the practices’ meaning and function. The study of pastoral history and learning in the local church setting are also included.
New Forms of Community, Piety, and Theology
This line of research focuses on the Christian formation of new communities, forms of piety, and ideals. The following examples can be mentioned: women's involvement in the church, the laity as subjects of the church, and, more generally, Pietism, Moravianism, and other revival movements.
Churches and Social change
This theme includes church historical studies of stability, change, and conflict, using as an analytical framework the overarching conditions of an epoch, such as printing technology, early modern state formation, organization forms, public relations, forms of leadership, communication opportunities, ideologies, economic systems, and nation building.
Mission history
The research in Mission History involves studies of churches and Christian movements in Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Oceania, but also connections between Europe and other continents. Atlantic church and mission history is a priority focus, i.e., the relations between Europe, America, and West Africa and the historical, theological, social, and political factors that influenced the exchange between these geographical areas. A similar line of research is Pacific church and mission history, where the Pacific Ocean acts as a unifying link between Asia, Oceania, and America, and by extension, other continents. The chronological focus is broad: from the 16th century to the present. The denominational scope is also extensive. Mission History also includes new Christian religious movements.
Early modern church and mission history
The term "early modern" is often used to denote the period between ca. 1500 and ca. 1750. It was characterized, among other things, by Western colonial expansion. There are many simplistic notions of colonial mission. Sometimes, it is presented as effective: missionaries succeeded in crushing indigenous cultures and Christianizing large parts of the population. Sometimes, it is claimed that the mission resulted in a static "syncretism" hidden under a thin Christian veneer. Through geographically and chronologically well-defined studies of mission and church development, we want to contribute to challenging these views.
Christian mission in the broadest sense
Groups often referred to as new religious movements tend to be excluded from studies of church and mission history. Some of these movements, such as the Mormons, are no longer new. Others are currently emerging, expanding, changing, or declining. It is essential that these groups also become the subject of church and mission historical studies. The focus is on the world outside Europe, but the movements can sometimes develop into international phenomena.