“The past is a world more wondrous, more dreadful, and more mundane than we often imagine. I teach my students to venture into that world with critical insight, humility, and an imagination big enough for empathetic understanding.” BIO Alex Mayfield joined the Asbury faculty in 2022. His research utilizes digital methodologies which enable the reconstruction of historical networks and movements within global Christianity. His current research and teaching interests include global Christian history, pentecostal and charismatic movements, mission history in East Asia, and the intersection of religion and technology. His most recent book, The Kaleidoscopic City (Baylor University Press, 2023) focuses on the early decades of the Pentecostal movement in Hong Kong and explores how structural and conceptual frameworks of foreign pentecostals dramatically impacted the development of the movement. Currently, he is researching the use and impact of network technologies on the development of global pentecostalism. Dr. Mayfield is also a collaborator on several large digital projects. Most notably, he is Co-Principal Investigator on the China Historical Christian Database, an international collaborative project which seeks to identify every Christian person, event, and institution in China between 1550 and 1950. With his help the project has become the largest collection of data on Christian actors in China’s past. He also serves as a technical advisor to the Chinese Christian Posters project and the Dictionary of African Christian Biography. Currently, he is working with a new team to publish a digital edition of the correspondence of Robert Morrison, the first Protestant missionary to China. Dr. Mayfield is also a contributor to the Anxious Bench, one the oldest and most well-known blogs on evangelical religious history. Education Ph.D., Boston University M.Div., Boston College B.A., Oral Roberts University Selected Publications The Kaleidoscopic City: Hong Kong, Mission, and the Evolution of Global Pentecostalism (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2023). “North America,” in Volume 10. Compact Atlas of Global Christianity. Edinburgh Companions to Global Christianity, edited by Kenneth R. Ross, Gina A. Zurlo and Todd M. Johnson (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2025). “The China Historical Christian Database: A Dataset Quantifying Christianity in China from 1550 to 1950,” Data 9, no. 6 (2024), with Margaret Frei, Daryl Ireland, Eugenio Menegon. “Arrows Flying to the Five Continents: Hong Kong and Structures of Pentecostal Print Culture, 1907-1942,” in The Pentecostal World, ed. Michael Wilkinson and Jörg Haustein (New York: Routledge, 2023), 67-81. “Galleons from the “Mouth of Hell:” Empire and Religion in 17th Century Acapulco,” Journal of Early Modern Christianity 5, no. 2 (2018): 221-245. “Spiritual Exceptionalism?: An Ethnographic Survey of Transnational Pentecostal Communities in Boston’s Inner Core,” Missiology 45, no. 3 (2017): 299-321. Digital Projects Principal Investigator, China Historical Christian Database, 2018 – Present. Digital Architect & Technical Advisor, Chinese Christian Posters Project, 2017 – Present. Digital Architect & Technical Advisor, Dictionary of African Christian Biography, 2017 – Present. Digital Architect, Asia at the World’s Fairs, 2019. Awards Planning Grant, Council of Christian Colleges & Universities, 2023. Digital Humanities Advancement Grant, National Endowment for the Humanities, 2021-22. Postdoctoral Fellow, Boston University, 2021-22. Research Incubation Award, Rafik B. Hariri Institute for Computing Science & Engineering at Boston University, 2018. Service Senior Associate Editor, Pneuma: The Journal for the Society of Pentecostal Studies, 2020 – Present. Contact Alex Mayfield Your name(Required)Your email address(Required) Subject line:(Required)Message:(Required)This field is hidden when viewing the formFacStaff Email (please keep hidden) This field is hidden when viewing the formFacStaff Slug (please keep hidden)CommentsThis field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.