The Search for the Primitive Church and the End of the CMS Mission of Help to Travancore, ca. 1830-1840

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This article demonstrates that the rhetoric of returning to the primitive church was a significant motivating factor in evangelical Protestant missions in the early nineteenth century. This language is apparent across denominational agencies and geographical locations. I will demonstrate that it was a particularly strong motivating factor in the Church Missionary Society’s ”Mission of Help” to the Syrian Christians of Travancore. Yet a combination of ecclesiastical and political factors served to thwart this mission endeavor and raises abiding questions regarding the usefulness of such language in mission motivation.