Mission

Abstract

The study of Global Christianity is tightly woven with the history of the modern missionary movement. This movement is generally traced to the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth-century expansion of Protestant voluntary societies, which were convened for the purpose of sending missionaries from the United States and Western Europe to convert non-Christians both at home and abroad. These developments were inseparable from the expansion of Western imperialism and colonialism, especially in the contexts of Africa, Asia, and the Pacific Islands. The theme of missions should not be understood exclusively as a preoccupation with its Western expressions. Indigenous and Native converts also took up these convictions, serving as translators, cultural experts and mediators, and themselves as missionaries and evangelists. Additionally, the field of Global Christianity coalesced in an era of decolonization in which the presence of Western-funded missionaries was falling out of favor with many indigenous church leaders, who felt that their presence and the continued paternalism they represented inhibited churches from finding their own footing, yet global missionary work has endured in many forms. Many Western missionary agencies, which tend to have greater access to material resources, have long debated what missionary work should entail or prioritize. The expansion of faith-based non-profit organizations and short-term missions are important elements of the global outreach of many churches and Christians. Additionally, ideas of “partnership” and being “missional” are ways that some Western missionaries have sought to account for power imbalances.