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The term world Christianity can first be found in the writings of Francis John McConnell in 1929 and Henry P. Van Dusen in 1947. The term would likewise be used by the mission historian Kenneth Scott Latourette to speak of the "World Christian Fellowship" and "World Christian Community." For these individuals, world Christianity was meant to promote the idea of Christian missions and ecumenical unity. However, after the end of World War II, as Christian missions ended in many countries such as North Korea and China and parts of Asia and Africa shifted due to decolonization and national independence, these aspects of world Christianity were largely lost.

The current usage of the term puts much less emphasis in missions and ecumenism. A number of historians have noted a twentieth-century "global shift" in Christianity, from a religion largely found in Europe and the Americas to one which is found in the global south. Hence, "world Christianity" has more recently been used to describe the diversity and the multiplicity of Christianity across its two thousand year history.

Another term that is often used as analogous to "world Christianity" is the term "global Christianity." However, scholars such as Lamin Sanneh have argued that "global Christianity" refers to a Eurocentric understanding of Christianity that emphasizes the replication of Christian forms and patterns in Europe, whereas "world Christianity" refers to the multiplicity of indigenous responses to the Christian gospel.

World religions is a category used in the study of religion to demarcate the five—and in some cases six—largest and most internationally widespread religious movements. Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism are always included in the list, being known as the "Big Five". Some scholars also include another religion, such as Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, or the Bahá'í Faith, in the category.

The world religions paradigm was developed in the United Kingdom in the 1960s, where it was pioneered by phenomenological scholars like Ninian Smart. It was designed to broaden the study of religion away from its heavy focus on Christianity by taking into account other large religious traditions around the world. The paradigm is often used by lecturers instructing undergraduate students in the study of religion and is also the framework used by school teachers in the UK and other countries. The paradigm's emphasis on viewing these religious movements as distinct and mutually exclusive entities has also had a wider impact on the categorisation of religion—for instance in censuses—in both Western countries and elsewhere.

Since the late twentieth century, the paradigm has faced critique by scholars of religion, some of whom have argued for its abandonment. Critics have argued that the world religions paradigm is inappropriate because it takes the Protestant variant of Christianity as the model for what constitutes 'religion'; that it is tied up with discourses of modernity, including modern power relations; that it encourages an uncritical understanding of 'religion'; and that it makes a value judgement as to what religions should be considered 'major'. Others have argued that it remains utility in the classroom, so long as students are made aware that it is a constructed category.