“The faith of the twenty-first century will require a devout, vigorous scholarship rooted in the soil of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, [for] the majority of Christians are now Africans, Asians, Latin Americans, and Pacific Islanders…. Christianity is now primarily a non-Western religion and on present indications will steadily become more so …. The most urgent reason for the study of religious traditions of Africa and Asia, of the Amerindian and the Pacific peoples, is their significance for Christian theology; they are the substratum of the Christian faith and life for the greater number of the Christians in the world. ”

— Andrew Walls, “Old Athens and New Jerusalem: Some Signposts for Christian Scholarship in the Early History of Mission Studies,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 21, no. 4 (October 1997): 153.