This Article examines the shift of Christianity’s demographic center to the Global South, specifically highlighting how Africa’s massive ecclesiastical growth remains largely invisible to Western scholars who rely on outdated "intellectual maps." The author argues that traditional church history often ignores African Instituted Churches (AICs) and indigenous movements because they fall outside the "streetlight" of Western archives and academic comfort zones. To remedy this lacuna of shared memory, the document introduces the Dictionary of African Christian Biography (DACB), a collaborative, non-proprietary digital resource designed to record the stories of local evangelists and leaders. Ultimately, the source serves as a call to recognize that the future of global Christianity is being shaped by vibrant, non-Western countercultures that require new ways of documenting and understanding faith.
Jonathan J. Bonk
Executive Director
Overseas Ministries Study Center
490 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511
bonk@omsc.org