![]() The simplest answer to this question is that as a theologian-missiologist interested and engaged in studying Christians and Christian communities worldwide, I seek to connect with scholars who share the same interest. However, assuming such a critical distance does raise the question of why I am interested in the viability and functionality of the term as an approach. This chapter is based on my discussion published in the volume Relocating World Christianity (2017), edited by Joel Cabrita, David Maxwell, and Emma Wild-Wood, in which I assumed a critical distance from arguments that define ‘World Christianity’ as a field of study, an emerging discipline, or a new phenomenon, and proposed to define it as an approach to the study of Christians and Christian communities worldwide through the categories of connectivity, diversity, unity, and locality. It is within such a place, within the context of an interdisciplinary academic workshop, that I as a theologian-missiologist seek to explore the functionality of the term ‘World Christianity’ for theological and missiological research. Here ‘recalling’ implies a place where the term can be further refined, and the designation of an agent responsible for ensuring the continued applicability of the term. Of course, it is in the nature of such buzzwords to assume different meanings, even when used in a specific context, which means that different understandings of the term may co-exist. Similarly to ‘globalisation’, ‘secularisation’, ‘cosmopolitanism’, and other contemporary buzzwords created and adopted by scholars, ‘World Christianity’ as a concept/product needs to be regularly recalled, examined, and (re)defined to ensure continued and proper usage. ![]() ![]() 3 ‘World Christianity’, in spite of its broad contextual usage, which resulted in the establishment of institutes and chairs at universities, and increased the sales of publishing houses, keeps raising the question, “What do you mean by it?” Even scholars such as Dale Irvin, who were at the cradle of the most recent attempts to reconceptualise the term, repeatedly asked themselves, “What is World Christianity?” (Irvin 2016). 2 In fact, the jury is still out on the necessity of ‘World Christianity’ being transposed into different languages, especially ones that facilitate communication within the academia, and whether the English term is synonymous with the German term Weltchristentum, the French term Christianisme mondial, or the Portuguese term Cristianismo mundial. 1 It has meant different things for different people in different times, and it continues to create even more new functions when transposed from English into other languages. ‘Recalling’ can be both an act of remembering and of taking back something that is known and used by a broader public, such as the term ‘World Christianity’, which has been understood in different ways and used for different purposes by an English-speaking and reading public for the last hundred years at least. ![]() The chapter looks at how ‘worlding in humanities relate to the categories of connectivity, diversity, unity and locality broadly used in World Christianity discourses. At last the chapter discusses the relevance of such intellectual dialogues on ‘worlding’ for further articulating methodological aspects for researching Christians and Christian communities worldwide. Therefore, the present chapter will first provide a general overview of the usage of ‘world’ as a modifier in broader intellectual discourses (at this time remaining in the realm of Humanities), and then it will engage in dialogue with conceptualizations of the concept of ‘world’ in world literature, world philosophy, and world history. world literature, world history, world philosophy), the present chapter argues that in order to develop ‘World Christianity’ into a methodological approach, a thorough consideration of the broader intellectual discourses that emphasize a world-mindedness is needed. With reference to the growing body of literature on worldings (e.g.
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