Celebrating the 180th Anniversary of New College with Alec Ryrie

Join us for a panel event with historian Alec Ryrie, exploring the global history of early Protestantism in ‘The World’s Reformation: How Protestantism Became a Global Religion’ (Yale UP, 2026). From the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, Protestants carried their faith far beyond Europe, travelling from Lapland to Chile and from Barbados to Taiwan. Yet their missionary ambitions were often entangled with colonialism, enslavement and profound moral failure. Drawing attention to the non-Christian communities Protestants encountered across Africa, the Americas and eastern Asia, Ryrie examines both the aspirations and repeated failures of this global Reformation. This thought-provoking discussion asks why this complex history and its consequences still matter today.

This event is part of our celebration of 180 years of New College, and joining Alec Ryrie will be several of our own New College academics working on the history of Christianity as a global religion: Felicity Loughlin, Simon Burton, Emma Wild-Wood and Pedro Feitoza. The event is sponsored by the Network for the Study of the Long Reformation and the Network for Global Christian Theology and History.  

Please join us afterwards for drinks in our historic Rainy Hall and browse the pop-up bookshop, run by Golden Hare.

Alec Ryrie is Professor of the History of Christianity at Durham University, former Professor of Divinity at Gresham College, London, and a Fellow of the British Academy. He is author of numerous books on the history of Christianity from the Reformation to the present, ranging from ‘Being Protestant in Reformation Britain’ (Oxford UP, 2013) to ‘The Age of Hitler and How We Will Survive It’ (Reaktion Books, 2025). ‘The World’s Reformation: How Protestantism Became a Global Religion’ (Yale UP, 2026) is his latest book.

Dr Felicity Loughlin is a Lecturer in the History of Modern Christianity at the University of Edinburgh's School of Divinity. Her research focuses on the religious and intellectual culture of Scotland, c.1700-c.1900. She has particular interests in Christian encounters with religious diversity and the emergence of religious pluralism.

Simon J. G. Burton is the John Laing Senior Lecturer in Reformation History at the School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh. He is the author of ‘The Hallowing of Logic: The Trinitarian Method of Richard Baxter’s Methodus Theologiae’ (Brill, 2012) and ‘Ramism and the Reformation of Method: The Franciscan Legacy in Early Modernity’ (OUP, 2024). He is also the Director of the Network for the Study of the Long Reformation.

Emma Wild-Wood is Professor of African Religions and World Christianity in the School of Divinity. She’s interested in biographical methods as a way of exploring social history, as in in her book ‘The Mission of Apolo Kivebulaya: Religious Encounter & Social Change in the Great Lakes c.1865-1935’ (James Currey, 2020). She also enjoys reading novels and poetry from African and diasporic authors.

Pedro Feitoza is a historian of Christianity in modern Brazil and lecturer in Latin American Christianity at the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of ‘Propagandists of the Book: Protestant Missions, Christian Literacy, and the Making of Brazilian Evangelicalism’ (OUP 2024) and co-editor of ‘Evangelicalism in Latin America: Historical Documents in Context’ (CUP 2026).