The Lion Is Speaking: The Subversive Nature of David D. Daniels III, His Scholarship, and the Reshaping of World Christianity

Abstract As scholars from various disciplines—including history, mission history, early Christianity, sociology, world Christianity, anthropology, and gender studies, etc.—we inherit fields that have often employed a center/periphery binary in their approach to scholarship. Although scholars like David Daniels have worked to disrupt this method, remnants of it persist. Using the Edinburgh 1910 and 2010 Missionary conferences as examples of the center/periphery approach, this article demonstrates how David Daniels challenges and resets this framework, offering a more expansive one. This article also explores the implications of his scholarship for the field of world Christianity, our teaching methods, and classroom curriculum, as well as our responsibility to accurately portray the diverse and nuanced expressions within Christianity worldwide.