International records / OpenAlex research

INTRODUCTION: Religion and empire in the modern world

The decline of Christianity in Britain, and in the European heartland of Christianity more generally, took place at the same time as a rapid growth of Christianity in other parts of the world, including Britain’s former colonies. Some of the fastest growing non-western churches were originally associated with the British missionary movement, and maintain close ties with British churches. By the early twenty-first century, Anglican bishops in Nigeria exerted sufficient power, in a dispute over the status of gays and lesbians in the church, to insist on the exclusion of the Episcopal Church of th…