Phillips Welcomes New History of World Christianities Faculty Member Briana L. Wong
Briana L. Wong, PhD, will join the Phillips Seminary faculty July 1, 2022.
Phillips Theological Seminary welcomes Briana L. Wong, PhD, as Assistant Professor of the History of World Christianities beginning July 1, 2022.
Wong’s research interests include the history and anthropology of Christianity in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. She joined the steering committee of the American Academy of Religion’s World Christianity Unit in the fall of 2017 and began serving as a co-chair of the unit in the spring of 2019.
“As a theological educator, I’m committed to developing and walking alongside students as learners and as future leaders, whether inside or outside of the church,” Wong said. “I’m looking forward to bringing my study of Christianity across the globe to the students at Phillips.”
Her dissertation, a multi-sited ethnography, featured the religious experiences of Cambodian Christians in the metropolitan areas of Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Paris, and Phnom Penh, exploring questions of conversion, cosmology, spirituality, and ministry practices.
Originally from northern California, Wong earned her BA in history and French from Columbia University (2012), followed by an MDiv (2015) and PhD in World Christianity and History of Religions (2020) from Princeton Theological Seminary.
Within the field of World Christianity, she has written on multiple religious belonging, responses to the COVID-19 crisis within the transnational Cambodian evangelical community, and the ordination of women.
“I was drawn to Phillips because of the seminary’s orientation toward justice,” Wong said. “I identify with the seminary’s commitment to the righting of historic wrongs in the church and society, and to prioritizing the stories of those whom the powerful in society have tried to silence.”
Wong comes to Phillips from the Wake Forest University School of Divinity where she held the position of Visiting Assistant Professor of World Christianity and Louisville Institute Postdoctoral Fellow.