Spirit and Spirits at the Canberra Assembly of the World Council of Churches, 1991

Kirsteen Kim's Spirit and Spirits at the Canberra Assembly of the World Council of Churches, 1991, published in the International Review of Mission in 2004, is a peer reviewed journal article examining the theological controversy provoked by Chung Hyun Kyung's plenary address on the Holy Spirit at the WCC's 1991 Canberra assembly, an address that drew on Korean shamanistic and other non-Christian spiritual imagery and split the assembly's reaction sharply, including strong objection from Orthodox delegates. Kim is a specialist in mission studies and World Christianity. Its strength is that it is a scholarly, peer reviewed treatment of a specific, well documented ecumenical dispute. Its limit is that it covers one assembly's reception of one address rather than the Holy Spirit's place in ecumenical theology broadly, so a claim generalising beyond that episode needs a wider source in pneumatology or ecumenical theology.