Studies in the History of Christian Missions – serie

Series: Studies in the History of Christian Missions (SHCM) In this volume, leading historians of Christianity in the non-Western world examine the relationship between missionaries and nineteenth-century European colonialism, and between indigenous converts and the colonial contexts in which they lived. Forced to operate within a political framework of European expansionism that lay outside their power to control, missionaries and early converts variously attempted to co-opt certain aspects of colonialism and to change what seemed prejudicial to gospel values. These contributors are the leading historians in their fields, and the concrete historical situations that they explore show the real complexity of missionary efforts to "convert" colonialism.Contributors: J. F. Ade Ajayi Roy Bridges Richard Elphick Eleanor Jackson Daniel Jeyaraj Andrew Porter Dana L. Robert R. G. Tiedemann C. Peter Williams

Christian missions have often been seen as the religious arm of Western imperialism. What is rarely appreciated is the role they played in bringing about an end to the Western colonial empires after the Second World War. Missions, Nationalism, and the End of Empire explores this neglected subject. Respected authorities on the history of missions explore new territory in these chapters, examining from diverse angles the linkages between Christianity, nationalism, and the dissolution of the colonial empires in Asia and Africa. This work not only sheds light on the relation of religion and politics but also uncovers the sometimes paradoxical implications of the church's call to bring the gospel to all the world.Contributors:Daniel H. Bays Philip Boobbyer Judith M. Brown Richard Elphick Deborah Gaitskell Adrian Hastings Caroline Howell Ka- che Yip Ogbu U. Kalu Hartmut Lehmann Derek Peterson Andrew Porter Brian Stanley John Stuart

Making up approximately 20 percent of South India's Protestants, Pentecostals are an influential part of India's Christian culture, yet there is a distinct lack of scholarly focus on this increasingly large group. This careful, well-informed study by Michael Bergunder ably fills that gap. After a brief historical introduction to the worldwide growth of Pentecostalism, Bergunder delves into the history of the South Indian Pentecostal movement in the first section. The second section gives a systematic profile of the current movement in South India, based on a wide range of source materials and on formal interviews with nearly two hundred leading pastors and evangelists. Bergunder finishes his work with prospects for the future. Three appendixes and an extended bibliography offer ample ground for further research.

Series: Studies in the History of Christian Missions (SHCM)In China's Millions veteran historian Alvyn Austin presents a compelling historical narrative of the China Inland Mission (now the Overseas Missionary Fellowship) -- the first history of the CIM by an outsider -- including 36 never-before-published illustrations and maps from the CIM/OMF archives. In the course of his sweeping survey, Austin examines a remarkable array of subjects, from the visionary, charismatic sect-leader Pastor Hsi, to the "wordless book," a missionary teaching device that fit perfectly with Chinese color cosmology, to the opium-soaked aftermath of the North China Famine of 1877-79.

Western evangelists have long been fascinated by China, a vast mission field with a unique language and culture. One of the most intrigued was also one of the most intriguing: Karl F. A. Gützlaff (1803–1851). In this erudite study Jessie Gregory Lutz chronicles Gützlaff's life from his youth in Germany to his conversion and subsequent turn to missions to his turbulent time in Asia. Lutz also includes a substantial bibliography consisting of (1) archival sources, (2) selected books, pamphlets, tracts, and translations by Gützlaff, and (3) books, periodicals, and articles. This is truly an important reference for any student of the history of China or missions.

In this multidisciplinary interpretation of world Christianity and the changing shape of the global religious landscape, scholars consider the complex dynamics shaping Christianity's recent expansion in all parts of the globe. They view the explanations of homogenization or American cultural influence as being necessarily limited and point to the far more varied intersections of external influence and indigenous appropriation. The geographical coverage and the voices from various corners of the globe exemplify the shift of Christianity's center of gravity away from the northern hemisphere. New voices, new methods, and new perspectives emerge here.Contributors: Afe Adogame Edith L. Blumhofer Joel Carpenter Paul Freston Anthony dela Fuente Jehu J. Hanciles Brian M. Howell Ogbu U. Kalu Sebastian C. H. Kim Philomena Njeri Mwaura John Parratt Dana L. Robert Brian Stanley Diane Stinton Feiya Tao Kevin Xiyi Yao

Series: Studies in the History of Christian Missions (SHCM)When a form of Christianity from one corner of the world encounters the religion and culture of another, new and distinctive forms of the faith result. In this volume Chad Bauman considers one such cultural context -- colonial Chhattisgarh in north central India.In his study Bauman focuses on the interaction of three groups: Hindus from the low-caste Satnami community, Satnami converts to Christianity, and the American missionaries who worked with them. Informed by archival snooping and ethnographic fieldwork, the book reveals the emergence of a unique Satnami-Christian identity. As Bauman shows, preexisting structures of thought, belief, behavior, and more altered this emerging identity in significant ways, thereby creating a distinct regional Christianity.

The World Missionary Conference in 1910 was a defining event in the history of world missions. Brian Stanley here presents his careful research revealing the compelling story of this turbulent, influential gathering in Edinburgh. This book is both an account of the conference itself and an examination of the Protestant missionary movement as it neared the apex of its size and influence.The World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh 1910 is an erudite and engaging summation of, in Stanley's own words, "the many-sided legacy of the Edinburgh conference, not simply for the history of the ecumenical movement but also for Christian missions and the wider field of Christian discourse on questions of race and culture."

In its earliest days, photography was seen as depicting its subjects with such objectivity as to be inherently free of ideological bias. Today we are rightly more skeptical -- at least most of the time. When it comes to photography from the past, we tend to set some of our skepticism aside. But should we? In Light on Darkness? T. Jack Thompson, a leading historian of African Christianity, revisits the body of photography generated by British missionaries to sub-Saharan Africa in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and demonstrates that much more is going on in these images than meets the eye. This volume offers a careful reassessment of missionary photographers, their photographs, and their African and European audiences. Several dozen fascinating photographs from the period are included.

There are many histories of overseas mission and many histories of the last days of Great Britain's empire in Africa, but there has been no book-length study on the relationship between them - until now. In British Missionaries and the End of Empire, historian John Stuart thoroughly and critically examines British Protestant missionary experiences during the tumultuous years between 1939 and 1964 in east, central, and southern Africa. Focusing on Botswana, Zambia, Malawi, and Kenya (with an eye for South African influence on mission affairs), Stuart portrays the uneven and evolving relationship between Protestant missionaries, the British empire, and African nationalists. He shows how missionaries sometimes supported empire, sometimes drew comfort from it, sometimes criticized it, yet finally learned to live with its formal demise, continuing their work in the newly formed African independent states even after the end of empire.

David Livingstone's visit to Cambridge in 1857 was seen as much as a scientific event as a religious one. But he was by no means alone among missionaries in integrating mission with science and other fields of research. Rather, many missionaries were remarkable, pioneering polymaths.This collection of essays explores the ways in which late-nineteenth- and twentieth-century missionaries to Africa contributed to various academic disciplines, such as linguistics, ethnography, social anthropology, zoology, medicine, and many more. This volume includes an introductory chapter by the editors and eleven chapters that analyze missionary research and its impact on knowledge about African contexts. Several themes emerge, including many missionaries' positive views of indigenous discourses and the complicated relationship between missionaries and professional anthropologists.Contributors:John CinnamonErika EichholzerNatasha ErlankDeborah GaitskellPatrick HarriesWalima T. KalusaJohn MantonDavid MaxwellJohn StuartDmitri van den BersselaarHonoré Vinck

In late Victorian and Edwardian England, says Steven Maughan, foreign missions had a broad resonance and significance not adequately explored by historians of English culture. Mighty England Do Good fills that lacuna by examining the rapid growth of foreign missions in the Church of England between 1850 and 1915, culminating at the height of the missionary enterprise in Britain. Maughan's book bridges the gaps between religious, cultural, and imperial history to give a full picture of the movement's importance.Maughan explores Anglicanism as a microcosm of the larger religious culture of Britain, particularly in light of the expanding British empire. This book provides a multidimensional reassessment of the power that foreign missions had to shape belief, institutions, culture, and practice not only within the Church of England but also in the broader culture of the time.