Dana Lee Robert is an

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...

and a missiologist. She is a professor at Boston University, where she has worked since 1984. She was the co-founder of th
Center for Global Christianity and Mission
in 2001, one of the first university-based Centers on World Christianity in North America. For years, Robert held the School of Theology's Truman Collins Professorship in

World Christianity World Christianity or global Christianity has been defined both as a term that attempts to convey the global nature of the Christian religion and an academic field of study that encompasses analysis of the histories, practices, and discourses of C ...

and History of Mission, but in 2022 she was installed in th
William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professorship
the highest distinction bestowed upon senior faculty members who remain actively involved in research, scholarship, teaching, and the University’s civic life.

Early life

Robert is a graduate of

Louisiana State University Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 nea ...

( BA) and

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

( MA, MPhil, and PhD). In 1982 she became an instructor at

, before moving on to

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with ...

. In Boston, she was assistant professor from 1984–90, associate professor from 1990–97, and became full professor in 1997.

Scholarship

In the early 1980s, Dana L. Robert became captivated by what she called "Comparative Christianity." After completing her PhD at

, she began teaching at Boston University where, over the following three decades, she helped build the field that is now known as

. Robert's scholarship has focused on the role of women in mission history, notably through her ''American Women in Mission'' (1997), as well as the relationship between mission history and world Christianity more broadly. She presently serves as one of the editors of the journal ''Church History''. In 2010, Dana Robert delivered the keynote address at the Edinburgh 2010 Conference, which marked the centennial of the

World Missionary Conference The 1910 World Missionary Conference, or the Edinburgh Missionary Conference, was held on 14 to 23 June 1910. Some have seen it as both the culmination of nineteenth-century Protestant Christian missions and the formal beginning of the modern Prot ...

of 1910, speaking on “Witnessing to Christ Today: Mission and Unity in the 'Long View' from 1910 to the 21st Century.” Robert has also given numerous other public lectures, including: * The

Henry Martyn Henry Martyn (18 February 1781 – 16 October 1812) was an Anglican priest and missionary to the peoples of India and Persia. Born in Truro, Cornwall, he was educated at Truro Grammar School and St John's College, Cambridge. A chance encount ...

Lectures at the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide (2010), * The Woolsey Lectures in Theology and Culture at Houghton College (2011), * The Wallace Chappell Lectures in Evangelism at Duke Divinity School (2012), * The Ausberger Lecture Series at Eastern Mennonite University (2013), * The Parchman Endowed Lecture Series at Baylor University (2015), * The Donald A. Yerxa History Lecture at Eastern Nazarene College (2016), * The Sprunt Lectures at Union Presbyterian Seminary (2017), * The David C. and Virginia R. Steinmetz Memorial Lecture at Duke Divinity School, (2018), * The Robert Laidlaw Memorial Lecture at Knox College, University of Toronto ( 2021), and * The inaugural Gerald H. Anderson Lecture at the Overseas Ministries Study Center, Princeton Theological Seminary (2022).

Honors

In 2017, Dana Robert received several honors in recognition of her contributions to history, theology, and religious studies. She was elected to the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

. The American Society of Missiology awarded her with the guild's Lifetime Achievement Award. The Association of Theological Schools named her a Henry Luce III Fellow in Theology, and she served as a senior research fellow at the

Leibniz Institute of European History The Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG) in Mainz, Germany, is an independent, public research institute that carries out and promotes historical research on the foundations of Europe in the early and late Modern period. Though autonomous i ...

in Mainz, Germany. In 2021, a festschrift entitled
Unlikely Friends: How God Uses Boundary-Crossing Friendships to Transform the World
' was published to honor her scholarship in the fields of missiology and world Christianity on boundary-crossing friendships.

Publications

Selected books

* 2019. ''Faithful Friendships: Embracing Diversity in Christian Community''. Wm. B. Eerdmans. *2017. ''African Christian Biography''. (Editor) Cluster Books. *2010. ''Joy to the World!: Mission in the Age of Global Christianity''. Women's Division, United Methodist Church. * 2009. ''Christian Mission: How Christianity Became a World Religion''. Wiley. Currently in its 12th printing. * 2008. ''Converting Colonialism: Visions and Realities in Mission History, 1706-1914'', ed. Wm. B. Eerdmans. * 2003. ''Occupy Until I Come: A. T. Pierson and the Evangelization of the World''. Wm. B. Eerdmans. * ''African Christian Outreach: Vol. 2 Mission Churches''. (Editor) Pretoria: South African Missiological Society, 2003. * 2003. ''Frontiers of African Christianity: Essays in Honour of Inus Daneel''. Edited with G. Cuthbertson and H. Pretorius. Pretoria: University of South Africa Press. * 2002. ''Gospel Bearers, Gender Barriers: Missionary Women in the Twentieth Century'', Orbis Books. * 1998. ''Evangelism as the Heart of Mission''. General Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church. * 1998. ''Christianity: A Social and Cultural History,'' 2nd ed. (coauthor). Prentice Hall. *1998''.

Arthur Tappan Pierson Arthur Tappan Pierson (March 6, 1837 – June 3, 1911) was an American Presbyterian pastor, Christian leader, missionary and writer who preached over 13,000 sermons, wrote over fifty books, and gave Bible lectures as part of a transatlantic p ...

and Evangelical Movements''. Seoul, Korea: Yangsuh Publishing Company, 1988. n Korean* 1997. ''American Women in Mission: A Social History of Their Thought and Practice''. Mercer University Press.

Recent Essays and Articles

*“Mission Studies and World Christianity,” in ''The Oxford Handbook of Mission Studies,'' Kirsteen Kim, Knud Jørgensen and Alison Fitchett-Climenhaga, eds. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022): 383-402. *“World Christianity as a Revitalization Movement,” in ''World Christianity: History, Methodologies, Horizons'', Jehu Hanciles, ed. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2021): 3-22. *“Scottish Fulfilment Theory and Friendship: Lived Religion at Edinburgh 1910,” ''Scottish Church History'' 49.2 (2020): 63–82. *“Sacred Music and Christian Transnationalism in 1920s-1930s China and Japan,” in ''Ecumenism and Independency in World Christianity: Historical Studies in Honor of Brian Stanley'', Alexander Chow and Emma Wild-Wood, eds. (Leiden: Brill, 2020): 221-239. *“The Founding of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society and the Beginnings of Boston University,” ''Methodist History'' LVIII: 1&2 (October 2019 & January 2020): 40-54. *“Naming 'World Christianity': Historical and Personal Perspectives on the Yale-Edinburgh Conference in World Christianity and Mission History,” ''International Bulletin of Mission Research'' 44:2 (2020): 111-128.

References

External links

Dana L. Robert » School of Theology , Boston University

Dana L. Robert , Center for Global Christianity & Mission
{{DEFAULTSORT:Robert, Dana L. American theologians Historians of Christianity Boston University faculty Louisiana State University alumni Yale University alumni Living people World Christianity scholars 1956 births American historians of religion