Imago Dei is the Christian theological view that all people are made in the image and likeness of God and thus have surpassing equal worth and dignity. It gained prominence in the late Roman Empire when Christianity began to offer a broad critique of common practices that we now see as unjust, cruel, or exploitative – such as slavery, sexual coercion, and indifference to the poor. It was in these arenas that the gulf between Christian dignity and societal practices seemed most glaring. In his chapter on the Christian responses to this gulf in late antiquity (Volume 1), Kyle Harper documents how the idea of universal dignity provided the underpinning and fulcrum for the later development of human rights in the modern era. In other words, he shows how the liberal revolutions of the eighteenth century proclaiming the “universal rights of man” are inconceivable without the concept of all humans as beings of incomparable worth and value, made in the image and likeness of God. To be sure, Christian-influenced societies fall short of this ideal, sometimes egregiously so. But as Harper and other contributors to these volumes show, Christianity carries deep in its DNA this radical notion of universal dignity, which serves as a challenge or rebuke to societal conditions and practices of the age.

What we find stunning is the resonance between the concerns raised by Christians in the ancient world and those expressed through global Christian networks in the twenty-first century. Today we see campaigns against human trafficking, sexual coercion, slavery, poverty, illiteracy, religious persecution, exploitation, violence, and war – echoing and expanding on the early social witness of Christians in the ancient world. But today these are global campaigns fueled by the resources of transnational Christian networks. The momentous globalization of Christianity marries the idea of dignity with the striking capacities of transnational Christian networks of communication, solidarity, and assistance. This chapter focuses on the global impact of the Christian ethic by examining some of its most important contemporary initiatives. We will see how the Christian DNA reaches across the globe, magnified by considerable resources and unparalleled transnational linkages.

FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING THE ROLE OF GLOBAL CHRISTIAN NETWORKS

One of the driving factors in the emergence and clout of international Christian networks has been the tectonic shift of the Christian population to the developing nations of the Global South.

The seizure of Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, by Islamic State militants in the summer of 2014 stunned the world. Especially shocking was their brutal efficiency in killing or expelling the entire, and ancient, Christian population from the city. But for those following developments in the region over the past decade this was, sad to say, less of a shock. Since the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, Western advocates such as Nina Shea and local leaders including Chaldean Patriarch Louis Raphaël I Sako of Baghdad have sounded the alarm about the catastrophic assault on Christian minorities, which accelerated with the civil war in Syria and the rise of ISIS. But what has also become evident is that the fate of other vulnerable religious minorities, not to mention the pluralist fabric of these societies, rides on the fate of Christians. Thus the scenario playing out in the Middle East underscores the importance of assessing the role and fate of Christian communities around the globe.

As the historical volume demonstrates, Christianity, with all of its human frailties, nonetheless carries in its DNA a transcendent conception of human dignity and equality conducive to free institutions and societies. Because the experiences of Christian minorities today mirror those that spawned earlier churches’ historic innovations, the contemporary situation offers an unprecedented opportunity – a kind of vast global laboratory – to probe how diverse Christian communities are replicating the historical findings of Volume 1 of this project.

But how do Christian communities under various forms of pressure or hardship instantiate the faith's transcendent vision? In what ways, or where, are they advancing freedom, building civil society, or providing economic uplift in diverse societies around the world? What are the causes and dimensions of the persecution they face and how are they responding to that pressure? What resources – theological, social, or transnational – do they marshal in leavening their societies? And what will be lost if the Christian presence is marginalized or, in the case of parts of the Middle East, vanishes?

These questions are of enormous relevance to understanding contemporary religious persecution and to devising adequate policy responses to it. To answer them the Christianity and Freedom Project commissioned original field research guided by common questions, along with global demographic overviews, thematic investigations, and surveys by leading scholars, to understand how Christian minorities and transnational institutions contribute to societies across the globe.