2026 Global Christianity Conference

Third Floor Lecture Hall 

 “The Nation That Remains: Christian Nationalism and Incompleteness” 

Plenary lecture delivered by Nimi Wariboko, Walter G. Muelder Professor of Social Ethics at Boston University

• With introduction by James T. Robinson, Dean and Nathan Cummings Professor, University of Chicago Divinity School. 

Dr. Nimi Wariboko is a public intellectual, poet, and scholar with multiple dimensions of competence: philosophical, economic, political, historical, literary, and theological. His scholarship is innovative, impactful, and prodigious. He is the Walter G. Muelder Professor of Social Ethics at Boston University School of Theology and Director of the African Studies Center at the Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University. Wariboko is a writer of profound knowledge, a poet of emotional depth, and a master of lyrical, accessible, and spare lines. He is a transtylistic poet and a transdisciplinary scholar. Before his academic career began decades ago, he was an investment banker in Lagos and on Wall Street.  

Swift Hall Common Room

Join us for coffee before panels begin. 

Third Floor Lecture Hall Lobby

Panel 1: Christian Nationalism and the Politics of History, Nation, and Identity

Panelists

• Gina Zurlo Lecturer on World Christianity, Senior Researcher in World Christianity, Harvard Divinity School: “Competing Nationalism and Internationalism: Historical Insight from Women of the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians.”  
• David Ngong Chair and Professor, Department of Religion and Theology, Stillman University: “Whose Nationalism, Whose Christianity? Competing Visions of Christian Nationalism in Pre-independence Cameroon.”  
• Timothy Stonemason “U.S. evangelicals and right-wing populism under Donald Trump.”  
• Terra Wallin University of California Santa Barbara: “Blood, Soil, and Sourdough: Fabricated Heritage and Christian Nationalism in the Digital TradWife Movement.”  

Coffee served in Lecture Hall lobby. 

Third Floor Lecture Hall

Swift Hall Common Room

Coffee served in the Lecture Hall lobby. 

Panel II: Democracy and Disquietude in Christian Nationalism 

Panelists

Chair: Chammah J. Kaunda, Academic Dean, Oxford Centre for Mission Studies (will join virtually)

• Naomi Haynes Senior Lecturer and Chancellor's Fellow, University of Edinburgh School of Social and Politcal Science:  “From Nationalist Christianity to Christian Nationalism: Historical and Theological Reflections from Zambia.”  
• Rev. Prof. J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu Immediate Past President, Trinity Theological Seminary, Ghana: “‘God Bless Our Homeland Ghana’: Christianity and Nationalism in Contemporary Ghana.” 
• Leanne Williams Green Lecturer, The University of Sydney “Religious Freedoms and Exclusivist Patriotism: Unlikely Alliances Against Zimbabwe’s ‘National Pledge.’”  
• Henrietta Nyamnjoh Researcher, University of Cape Town “From Pentecostal Nationalism to Religious Freedom to Selling God and to Religious Censorship: The seesaw of Religion and Christianity in South Africa,” (will join virtually)

Panel III: Politicizing Spiritualities and Spiritualizing Politics 

Panelists

• Guillermo Flores Borda Boston University: “One Region Under God: The Impact of US Christian Nationalism in Latin American Conservative Campaigns.”  
• Creighton Coleman University of Virginia: “Pentecostal Contempt and Religious Knowledge.”  
• Hank Willenbrink Professor, University of Scranton “Making an Icon: Vanessa Horabuena and the Artistic Portrayal of Donald Trump,” (will join virtually) 
• Anna Kirchner Researcher, University of Heidelberg “Silence as Agency: Arabic-Speaking Evangelicals Between Palestinian Liberation Theology and Christian Zionism,” (will join virtually) 

Join us for coffee before the panels begin. 

Third Floor Lecture Hall Lobby

Panel IV: Building Blocks of Resistance

Panelists

Chair: Benson Igboin, University Lecturer, Adekunle Ajasin University, Nigeria

• Orit Avishai Professor of Sociology, Fordham University: “When Schools Become Battlegrounds: How Ordinary Americans Resist Christian Nationalism’s Educational Agenda.”  
• Robert Beckford Professorial Research Fellow, The Queen's Foundation: “This Machine Confronts Fascists: British Black Liberation Theology as an Embodied Resistance” (will join virtually).
• André Gagné Professor and Chair, Theological Studies, Concordia University: “Prophets Against Christian Nationalism” (will join virtually).
• Rabia Unber, “New Age Religions, Anti-Christianity and Nationalist Ideology" (will join virtually).

Panel V: New Ideological Stirrings of Christian Nationalism

Panelists

• Stian Sørlie Eriksen Associate Professor, Norwegian School of Leadership and Theology: “The Surge of Conservatives and Transnational Christian Nationalism: Christian Migrants, Politics and Media in the Norwegian Societal Context.”  
• Bernard Coyault, “The Congolese Religious Arena (DRC), Between Theopolitical Imagination and Collective Dramaturgy: Toward a Christian Nationalism?” 
• Tomas Sundnes Drønen, Professor, VID Specialized University: “Is God Back? Generational Shifts in Religious Engagement in Northern Europe,” (will join virtually)
• Mina Song Lee Candler School of Theology: “Beyond Whiteness in American Christian Nationalism: A Case Study of Black Evangelical Conservatism in Atlanta, GA” (will join virtually).
• SeongHan Kim The Henry Center at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School: “The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Korea,” (will join virtually).

Swift Hall Common Room

Coffee will be available in the Lecture Hall Lobby

Panel VI: Spiritual Warfare and Ideological Battlegrounds

Panelists

• Katelyn Zeser Duke Univesrity: “Spiritual Warfare from Home to the Holy Land.” 
• Julius Trugenberger University of Cologne, Institute for Protestant Theology: “Considering America the Katechon. The vibe shift’s master mind:Theology and Politics in Peter Thiel’s thinking.”  
• Grigori Khislavski Lecturer, University of Erfurt: “Russia as the Katechon.”  
• Sergio Glajar University of Texas at Austin, Department of Religious Studies: “The Sword and Shield of the Archangel: Myth in Romanian Christian Nationalism.”  
• Christian Anderson, “Neo-charismatics and the Christian Nation: Analyzing the politicization of Peter Wagner and the NAR in the early 2000s” (will join virtually).