Abstract
Abstract Many literary critics have dismissed R. M. Ballantyne’s fictions as artless evangelical propaganda. However, such a blanket denunciation fails to consider both the complexity of Ballantyne’s position in a fractured Scottish church and the ongoing debates among church members and elders about the purpose of and policies regarding foreign mission efforts. Using Jarwin and Cuffy (1878), I argue that Ballantyne’s fiction explores tensions as to the nature of personal salvation, the role of the Scottish church in missionary endeavours, and the necessity of an external presentation of the acceptance of the gospel, essential to much Pacific missionary writing. While Ballantyne is often remembered as having written stories which reinforce the dominant ideals of British colonialism and evangelical Protestantism, we must remember that these ideologies were far from stable concepts.
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