ABSTRACT
Most scholars know that world Christianity is inherently interdisciplinary, that it can be studied from different methodological perspectives. While world Christianity is often studied through historical and theological lenses, the application of the social sciences—in particular quantitative methods—is a little more fuzzy. This article looks backward and forward to reflect on methodological approaches to studying world Christianity. Looking backward, it highlights the work of missionary statistician David Barrett as it developed for the World Christian Encyclopedia. The Encyclopedia provided an intellectual framework for reconstructing Christianity in a world after colonialism. Looking forward, the article offers some thoughts on why it is not always clear how to incorporate quantitative social science into world Christianity studies and looks genealogically at the history of “Christian” sociology in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The article concludes with a methodological challenge for world Christianity scholars.
