The First World War as a Turning Point: The Impact of theYears 1914–1918 on Church and Mission (with Special Focus on the Hermannsburg Mission) ed. by Frieder Ludwig

Abstract

Reviewed by: The First World War as a Turning Point: The Impact of theYears 1914–1918 on Church and Mission (with Special Focus on the Hermannsburg Mission) ed. by Frieder Ludwig Marcus Felde The First World War as a Turning Point: The Impact of theYears 1914–1918 on Church and Mission (with Special Focus on the Hermannsburg Mission). Edited by Frieder Ludwig. Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2020. 236 pp. This book originated in a symposium in Hermannsburg on the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War. The purpose was to consider the impact of that war on German missions overseas and the churches planted by their work. These writings are of personal interest because I served fourteen years in the part of Papua New Guinea (PNG) which once was known as "Kaiser-Wilhelmsland." It is not difficult to see in the PNG church the effects of actions taken against German missions during the First World War and again during the Second World War. German missionaries in New Guinea were from Rhenisch and Neuendettelsau organizations rather than the Hermannsburg Mission, but they faced similar difficulties and had similar outcomes. "New World" missionaries were one answer to the dilemmas created in the "Third World" when the "Old World" went to war. Philip Jenkins opens the volume by showing how people and their governments made use of religion during World War I both for legitimation and for comfort; it was pervasive and powerful. But he ends his essay with an aphoristic quip (a play on the title of a Goya painting) which seems to contradict his thesis: "The sleep of religion brings forth monsters" (48). Is he blaming the horrors of World War I on a dearth of religion, after arguing that religion was pervasive throughout? Is he advocating for any and all religions? One declaration made me wince: "The good news for the churches was that the war did not kill religion" (38). Perhaps his 2014 book The Great and Holy War made clearer distinctions? Perhaps in it he had room to explore also the faith-based revulsion many Christians felt and feel about warfare? Martin Tamcke, Volker Metzler, and Rolf Hosfeld opened my eyes to a neglected part of history: troops, local officials, and citizens massacred about 200,000 Christians in the Urmia region of Assyria (now parts of Iran and Turkey) during World War I. (This is distinct from the better known massacre of Armenians.) What [End Page 96] a horrible dilemma Germans faced. They had a relationship with those "Nestorian" Christians through mission work. Their government was allied in war with a largely Muslim nation (the Ottoman Empire) which used the cover of war to purge violently Christians who traced their faith heritage back to the fourth century. Kevin Ward brings a British perspective on the nexus of war and mission and its ramifications for Anglican missions in Africa. "The war called into question 'German' assumptions of European cultural superiority and 'British' delusions of imperial splendour, but it certainly did not automatically end them" (122). He points out that the war followed closely the 1910 World Missionary Conference, damaging (perhaps fatally?) its high aspirations for the Christianization of the world. Adam Jones and Fritz Hasselhorn perceive a silver lining to the deleterious effect of the war on German missions in Africa. During and after the war, at first of necessity and then intentionally, missionaries were moved to yield authority to the people they had come to serve. A new and necessary trend had only begun. "While the missionaries were used to be[ing] 'in the position of little kings with their congregations,' in the future they should feel 'part of the whole.'" (140) [Emphasis is in the 1903 letter of Egmont Harms, director of the Hermannsburg Mission.] Essays by Hagos Abrha, Iris Leung Chui Wa, Pui Yee Pong, and Jayabalan Murthy ensure some balance, representing not the mission societies but the churches that grew from (and despite) their efforts. Two of those essays look at Hong Kong and one at India, British territories where German missionaries were regarded as hostiles. Like the other essays, they offer both "facts on the ground" and thoughtful reflection about mission work...