ON THE cover of this fascinating book, there is a Celtic, Iona-style cross, emblematic of Barbarian Christianity.
The author, Andrew Walls (1928-2021), after patristics at Oxford and seven years teaching at universities in West Africa, spent the rest of his career in the Universities of Aberdeen and Edinburgh, teaching what came to be called World Christianity. At Edinburgh, he initiated the Yale-Edinburgh mission-studies exchange. He was among the first to draw attention to the southward drift of Christianity’s centre of gravity.
For many years, Walls worked at “the project”: a cultural history of Christian conversion. Eusebius and Latourette were his historical guides. He completes the project in eight chapters. The first chapter is a close reading of Acts and Eusebius, when Christianity was exclusively Jewish; the second brings Christianity to school with Hellenic culture, represented by Justin Martyr and Origen. The third chapter moves north and east to Barbary, peoples untouched by Greco-Roman culture, but recognisable in our reading of Bede.
Subsequent chapters take us through issues such as Christendom and “When World Christianity Fell Apart” to the world that we know, in which our Northern churches are emptying and millions crowd into the churches of Africa, Latin America, and the Pacific.
I guess Chapter 3 was a favourite for the Scottish Walls, identifying himself as a Barbarian and writing a quite beautiful exposition of St Patrick’s hymn and “The Deer’s Cry” (“think who the fawn might be,” Walls invites us).
This is perhaps a uniquely bold and learned attempt to understand two millennia of Christianity. We can be thankful that the author persevered into his nineties to complete his remarkable project.
The Revd Dr Daniel O’Connor is a retired priest. He is the author of India and the End of Empire (Sacristy Press, 2024).
Christian Conversion and Mission: A brief cultural history
Andrew F. Walls
Mark R. Gornik, editor
Orbis £20.99
(978-1-62698-617-6)
Church Times Bookshop £18.89
