Cosmopolitan Christianity: The Case of Bishop C.R. Duppuy, 1881-1944

Abstract

Existing research in Global History and the history of World Christianity has compellingly demonstrated transnational connections through the study of cultural encounter and intellectual exchange. Transnational relationships between historical actors and events are most easily detected through visible and measurable indicators. For cross-cultural Christianity, this includes rituals, printed material, and architecture. My communication seeks to use the alternative approach of biography as a means of exploring World Christianity and global connections. The life of C.R. Duppuy, Bishop of Victoria (Hong Kong) and later Assistant Bishop of Worcester, not only affirms the worldwide interconnectedness of canon law, theology, and social practice, but also exposes relatively under-studied links such as family, friendship networks, and administrative methods across the international Anglican Communion. For example, whilst most historians would rightly connect Bishop Duppuy’s plans to reform the Diocese of Victoria in 1920 with the recent Lambeth Conference he attended and national Christian conferences in China, few would realize that the practical measures he used to implement the reform were gleaned from his former colleagues at the Church Missionary Society, fellow bishops who were his friends, and his former superior at Aston Parish Church where he began his career as a curate. The case of Bishop C.R. Duppuy serves as a reminder to Global History and studies in World Christianity to look beyond the external signs of cultural encounter and instead towards subtler and more personal elements of cosmopolitanism.