The Center for World Christianity and Africa International University are pleased to announce two landmark public lectures this September, bringing together some of the world’s foremost voices in the study of global Christianity with respected church leaders from Kenya. Held under the banner of AIU’s Global Impact Campaign, these lectures invite the whole AIU community (students, faculty, alumni, church leaders, and friends of the University) to reflect together on the shifting center of gravity of the Christian faith and Africa’s central place within it.
Both lectures will be held at 2:00 p.m. at the AIU Multipurpose Hall, with a virtual option available via aiu.ac.ke. All are welcome. Tea will be served, and admission is free.
September 23 — Dr. Gina Zurlo
“From Africa to the World: What the Global Church Can Learn from Africa”
Dr. Gina Zurlo is a Senior Researcher and Lecturer in World Christianity at Harvard Divinity School, where she also served as a Yang Visiting Scholar of World Christianity. She is co-editor of the World Christian Database and World Religion Database (Brill) and a Visiting Research Fellow at Boston University’s Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs. Her work sits at the intersection of history, sociology of religion, and the demography of global Christianity, with particular attention in recent years to women’s leadership and participation in churches worldwide.
She earned her Ph.D. from Boston University School of Theology, where her dissertation examined the role of quantification in the study of World Christianity, drawing on the work of Anglican missionary-scholar David B. Barrett. She is co-author of the World Christian Encyclopedia (3rd ed., 2019) and author of Global Christianity: A Guide to the World’s Largest Religion from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe (2022) and Women in World Christianity: Building and Sustaining a Global Movement (2023). In 2019, the BBC named her one of its 100 most inspiring and influential women for her work on the future of global religion.
In her lecture, Dr. Zurlo will explore what the global Church — long accustomed to looking to the West for theological and institutional leadership — now stands to learn from Africa’s vibrant, growing, and deeply rooted Christian communities.
Response by Bishop Oscar Muriu, Nairobi Chapel
Bishop Oscar Muriu has served as Senior Pastor of Nairobi Chapel since 1991, leading the church from a congregation of roughly 20 people to a movement of thousands, with well over 200 churches planted across Kenya, the wider African continent, and cities around the world. In recent years, he has stepped into the role of Bishop overseeing the entire Nairobi Chapel movement, with a sustained personal mission to raise up a legacy of African leaders for the global Church. His response will bring decades of pastoral wisdom and church-planting experience to bear on Dr. Zurlo’s lecture.
September 30 — Prof. Klaus Koschorke
“Polycentricity in World Christianity: Implications for the African Church”
Prof. Klaus Koschorke is Professor Emeritus of Early and Global History of Christianity at LMU Munich, where he held the Chair of Church History from 1993 to 2013. Under his leadership, the chair became the only one in a German-speaking Faculty of Protestant Theology dedicated specifically to the history of non-Western and global Christianity — giving rise to what scholars now call the “Munich School of World Christianity.”
He has held guest professorships and research posts across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, including in Sri Lanka, India, and Switzerland, and has led major international research initiatives on Christian internationalism and the history of Christianity beyond the West from 1450 to 2000. Since 2020, he has served as a Senior Fellow with the research group “Polycentricity and Plurality of Premodern Christianities” at Frankfurt University — a theme closely tied to the lecture he will deliver at AIU. In March 2025, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award of Excellence from Princeton Theological Seminary in recognition of his foundational contributions to World Christianity Studies.
Prof. Koschorke’s lecture will examine the concept of polycentricity — the idea that World Christianity today has no single center, but many — and what this reality means for how the African Church understands its own place, voice, and vocation within the global body of Christ.
Response by Bishop Calisto Odede, CITAM / Kenya Evangelical Alliance
Bishop Calisto Odede is the Presiding Bishop of Christ Is The Answer Ministries (CITAM), a role he has held since 2021, and also serves as Chancellor of Pan Africa Christian University. He joined CITAM as a member in 1988 and entered the pastorate in 2008, going on to serve as Senior Pastor at CITAM Woodley, CITAM Karen, and CITAM Valley Road. Before that, he spent thirteen years with the Fellowship of Christian Unions (FOCUS) and eight years with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) as Associate Regional Secretary for Eastern and the Horn of Africa. He has been a featured Bible expositor at major international gatherings, including the Lausanne III Congress in Cape Town and the Keswick Convention in the United Kingdom. His response will bring a seasoned pastoral and missiological voice to Prof. Koschorke’s reflections on polycentric Christianity.
Why These Lectures Matter
These two lectures are more than academic occasions. They are an invitation — to our God, to be exalted as we open our eyes to what He is doing across the world; to AIU, to be mobilized for global impact; to the Center for World Christianity, to be known more fully within and beyond our University; to the PhD in World Christianity, to welcome a new generation of scholars and pastors; and to each one of us, to renew our own passion for the Church in all its global breadth.
We warmly invite the whole AIU community — and friends near and far — to join us for these two significant conversations about where the global Church has been, where it stands today, and where God is leading it next.
Mark your calendars: September 23 and September 30, 2:00 p.m., AIU Multipurpose Hall.
Centre for World Christianity 