Beyond the North-South Divide: Reconsidering the Global History of Christianity

Abstract

This article reconsiders the conventional North–South framework frequently employed in narrating the global history of Christianity. Drawing on recent interdisciplinary scholarship, it challenges the conceptual validity of the terms “Global North” and “Global South,” which are rooted in Eurocentric assumptions. Categories such as “indigenization,” “syncretism,” “inculturation,” and “contextualization” have been disproportionately applied to the “Global South”—namely, Africa, Asia, and Latin America—while parallel developments in Europe and North America have often been overlooked. Through comparative analysis—including early modern Japan, Reformation-era Europe, and contemporary global regions characterized by the rapid spread of Pentecostal Protestantism —this article contends that religious “syncretism” is not peripheral but central to Christianity’s global transmission. It calls for a new interpretive framework that transcends the North–South binary and recognizes Christianity’s intercultural evolution.