João B. Chaves – författare

Many scholars have documented how migration from Latin America to the United States shapes the interconnected spheres of religious participation, political engagement, and civic formation in host countries. What has largely gone unexplored is how the experiences of migration and adaptation to the host country also shape the ecclesiological arrangements, theological imagination, and communal strategies of immigrant religious networks. These communities maintain close ties with their home countries while simultaneously developing a religious life that distinguishes them both from their home countries and from faith communities of the dominant culture in their host countries.João Chaves offers an account of the dynamics that shape the role of immigrant churches in the United States. Migrational Religion acts as a case study of a network formed by communities of Brazilian immigrants who, although affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, formed a distinctive ethnic association. Their churches began to appear in the United States in the 1980s due to Brazilian Baptist missionary activity. As Brazilian migration increased in the last decades of the twentieth century, hundreds of Brazilian evangelical churches were founded to cater to first-generation immigrants. Initially their leaders conceived of these churches as extensions of their denomination in Brazil. However, these church communities were under constant pressure to adapt to their rapidly changing context, and the challenges of immigrant living pushed them in exciting new directions.Brazilian churches in the United States faced a number of issues peculiar to their nature as diasporic communities: undocumented parishioners, membership fluctuation caused by national and international migration patterns, anti-immigrant prejudice, and more. Based on six years of ethnographic work in eleven congregations across the United States, dozens of interviews with Brazilian pastors, and extensive archival history in English and Portuguese, Migrational Religion documents how such churches adapted to unique challenges, and reveals how the diasporic experience fosters incipient theologies in churches of the Latinx diaspora.

Throughout the history of Christianity, the concept of the "kingdom of God" has been constructed and understood in a multiplicity of ways. From direct identifications of the kingdom with the church to purely eschatological notions to competing revolution-inspiring views of God's reign, differing understandings of the kingdom engendered a rich variety of ideological frameworks, social arrangements, and historical actions.The Baptist faith, with substantial worldwide numerical, cultural, social, and political power, has been the site of a number of approaches to the idea of the kingdom that informed its trajectory. Issues that transcended Baptist circles, such as slavery, foreign missions, and social activism, have significant connections to Baptist notions of God's will and work in the world. The essays in Baptists and the Kingdom of God, written by scholars from several countries and disciplinary perspectives, approach the question of the kingdom under four major themes: ecclesial, eschatological, social, and providential. Considered as a whole, the volume illuminates historic and contemporary views of Baptists wrestling with ideas surrounding the kingdom concept, providing a unique resource for students and scholars of Baptist heritage and thought.

Throughout the history of Christianity, the concept of the "kingdom of God" has been constructed and understood in a multiplicity of ways. From direct identifications of the kingdom with the church to purely eschatological notions to competing revolution-inspiring views of God's reign, differing understandings of the kingdom engendered a rich variety of ideological frameworks, social arrangements, and historical actions.The Baptist faith, with substantial worldwide numerical, cultural, social, and political power, has been the site of a number of approaches to the idea of the kingdom that informed its trajectory. Issues that transcended Baptist circles, such as slavery, foreign missions, and social activism, have significant connections to Baptist notions of God's will and work in the world. The essays in Baptists and the Kingdom of God, written by scholars from several countries and disciplinary perspectives, approach the question of the kingdom under four major themes: ecclesial, eschatological, social, and providential. Considered as a whole, the volume illuminates historic and contemporary views of Baptists wrestling with ideas surrounding the kingdom concept, providing a unique resource for students and scholars of Baptist heritage and thought.

Baptist Missions Worldwide reappraises Baptist missions by challenging narratives that center Western missionaries as the primary agents of Christian expansion. Bringing together scholars from the Américas, the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, and Europe, this interdisciplinary volume highlights the decisive roles of migrants, local Christians, Indigenous communities, and women in shaping Baptist life worldwide.Through historically grounded and theologically informed case studies, the book reintroduces Baptist missions as a multidirectional, border-crossing process deeply entangled with empire, colonialism, and coloniality, even if not entirely defined by such entanglements. Contributors analyze case studies ranging from Baptist women missionaries in Asia to religious resistance in Catholic-majority Latin America to the role of hymnody in Africa to theological reflections from Europe and the Caribbean, aiming to reframe how we think about missionary enterprises. Across diverse contexts, chapters highlight how Baptists negotiated power, race, gender, nationalism, migration, and local agency, often adapting--and reshaping--Christian practices in ways that exceeded the intentions, roles, and functions of foreign missionary organizations.Methodologically, the volume reflects recent currents in World Christianity by foregrounding multilingual sources and polycentric Christian developments. Rather than dismissing Western missionary enterprises and legacies, however, Baptist Missions Worldwide critically situates them within broader networks of exchange, reception, and transformation. Theologically oriented chapters further invite readers to rethink mission through discipleship, justice, hospitality, and lived embodiment.Baptist Missions Worldwide demonstrates how Baptist missions have never moved in a single direction. By illuminating neglected voices and contexts, the book not only provides new information about the history of Baptist missions but models new ways of studying missions that are historically grounded, globally attentive, and theologically reflective--offering fresh insights for scholars, students, and practitioners interested in the past, present, and future of Baptist life worldwide.

Baptist Missions Worldwide reappraises Baptist missions by challenging narratives that center Western missionaries as the primary agents of Christian expansion. Bringing together scholars from the Américas, the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, and Europe, this interdisciplinary volume highlights the decisive roles of migrants, local Christians, Indigenous communities, and women in shaping Baptist life worldwide.Through historically grounded and theologically informed case studies, the book reintroduces Baptist missions as a multidirectional, border-crossing process deeply entangled with empire, colonialism, and coloniality, even if not entirely defined by such entanglements. Contributors analyze case studies ranging from Baptist women missionaries in Asia to religious resistance in Catholic-majority Latin America to the role of hymnody in Africa to theological reflections from Europe and the Caribbean, aiming to reframe how we think about missionary enterprises. Across diverse contexts, chapters highlight how Baptists negotiated power, race, gender, nationalism, migration, and local agency, often adapting--and reshaping--Christian practices in ways that exceeded the intentions, roles, and functions of foreign missionary organizations.Methodologically, the volume reflects recent currents in World Christianity by foregrounding multilingual sources and polycentric Christian developments. Rather than dismissing Western missionary enterprises and legacies, however, Baptist Missions Worldwide critically situates them within broader networks of exchange, reception, and transformation. Theologically oriented chapters further invite readers to rethink mission through discipleship, justice, hospitality, and lived embodiment.Baptist Missions Worldwide demonstrates how Baptist missions have never moved in a single direction. By illuminating neglected voices and contexts, the book not only provides new information about the history of Baptist missions but models new ways of studying missions that are historically grounded, globally attentive, and theologically reflective--offering fresh insights for scholars, students, and practitioners interested in the past, present, and future of Baptist life worldwide.