Field Of Missiology Research Articles

Missionary activity in the Victorian era: a selective bibliography

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify unique Victorian-Era collections of British and American missionary activity, which provide an introduction to the breadth and depth of primary sources in the field of missiology. Design/methodology/approach – This article provides a list of physical archives, digital repositories, microfilm collections and subscription databases with relevance to missionary activity in the Victorian Era. Collections were purposefully selected based on denominational importance or historical relevance. The bibliography consists of collections from both the USA and Great Britain. Findings – Through grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the digital availability of Victorian Era missionary materials has increased significantly over the past decade. Originality/value – This bibliography includes archival collections housed or hosted in the USA and Great Britain. The annotations describe the scope and uniqueness of each archive, and will be of interest to scholars interested in the field of missiology.

Missionaries in Hawai‘i: The Lives of Peter and Fanny Gulick, 1797–1883 by Clifford Putney (review)

Reviewed by: Missionaries in Hawai‘i: The Lives of Peter and Fanny Gulick, 1797–1883 by Clifford Putney Ronald Williams Jr. Missionaries in Hawai‘i: The Lives of Peter and Fanny Gulick, 1797–1883. By Clifford Putney. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. 2010. Pp. xiv, 218. $34.95. ISBN 978-1-55849-735-1.) The nineteenth-century American Protestant mission to the Hawaiian Islands has been the subject of a wide range of histories seeking to shed light not only on this evangelical by-product of the Second Great Awakening but also on the social, political, and economic development of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Clifford Putney has added to this important discussion of transnational history a new work that offers a detailed look inside the lives of the missionary couple Peter and Fanny Gulick. The biography aims to offer significant information on these American evangelical agents and their influence within a foreign land, while addressing historiographical issues within the field of missiology that have created a problematic paradigm for the study of missionary families. [End Page 393] Putney explains the relevance of his book’s subjects by writing, “Of all the reform-minded families in American history, few were more active than the Gulicks” (p. 1), and noting the broader family’s 140-year service to foreign missions. Peter and Fanny, the founders of this evangelical clan, arrived in the Hawaiian Islands in 1828 as members of the third company of Protestant missionaries sent by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM). In addition to the prolific record-keeping that often characterized these missions, the couple and their extended family produced and retained a vast collection of personal papers, making them, according to the author, “one of the best-documented middle-class families in American history” (p. 6). Putney accesses this material to bring the story of the Gulicks to the reader with detail, offering vivid description of their lives and their interactions with a people very foreign to these New Jersey and Connecticut natives. The book follows the couple through chapters that act as geographic markers of the differing mission stations where the Gulicks were assigned. This serves the overall narrative well, especially when the work allows for rich depictions of the kuahiwi (mountains), kahawai (rivers), and other natural features of these areas that were so prominent in the lives of their native inhabitants. Putney’s significant knowledge concerning the ABCFM and the evangelical movements of the period lend context to the writing, especially in areas such as when offering background on the Calvinism that motivated Peter and Fanny. The book’s sourcing is one of its strengths, but it also raises questions that are at the fore of a leading, current historiographical issue in nineteenth-century Hawaiian history. The Gulicks lived and worked in a foreign nation amidst a native population that by the 1860s was nearly fully literate and who produced a prolific collection of writing about their lives, their land, and their lāhui (nation). During the nineteenth century, there were nearly 100 Hawaiian-language newspapers published in the islands; the first in 1834. This prolific collection, nearly 125,000 over-sized pages, makes up only a part of the varied native-language source material available today. Additionally, the local mission institution to which the Gulicks belonged after 1854, the ‘Ahahui ‘Euanelio o Hawai‘i (Hawaiian Evangelical Association), printed all reports and records in Hawaiian and in English. The English-language annual reports, produced for the ABCFM, regularly differed from the native-language versions, often substantially. Although histories on nineteenth-century Hawai‘i sourced exclusively from English-language materials have added and will continue to add tremendously to our understanding of the islands of that period, any text that seeks to shed—as the book’s publisher expresses it—“new light on the democratization of government, the spread of capitalism, and the privitization of land” without accessing the native-language archive must be clear about what voice it is offering and what has been left behind. Putney raises his own important historiographical issue by pointing to the need for complex, balanced histories of the mission and missionaries that are neither hagiographic nor strictly condemnatory. In...

Can Missiology Incorporate More of the Social Sciences?

This article advocates improving the use of the social sciences in the field of missiology in the two main branches of American Protestantism, evangelical and mainline Christianity. The former branch needs to add sociology to the anthropology already being used in missiology and to stay in communication with these social scientific professional fields. The latter branch needs to add both sociology and anthropology to the theological-historical discipline already being used in missiology, especially in its theological seminaries. The reasons for the different approaches of the two branches are discussed. This is followed by recommendations to each branch for meeting the challenge of making a more effective use of the social sciences in aiding missiology to analyze the major shifts taking place in global religions, including Christianity. Notes on the potential contributions of the sociology of religion to missiology are added before concluding comments.

African Feminist Contributions to Missiological Anthropology

Abstract Missiology has mainly been the interest of white expatriate missionaries. In the context of the growing focus of Christianity on the global South, this article looks into African feminist theology. Using theologians of the “Circle of the Concerned Women Theologians in Africa,” this article analyses some central contributions made by members of this Circle in the field of missiology. The most interesting feminist contribution to missiological anthropology is the search for a new cultural identity by modern African Christians. This search for identity includes a critical and positive view of African traditional practices. This contextualization process includes both the continuation and reconstruction of some of the practices which the Circle theologians have identified as not being oppressive. The African missiologists need in-depth anthropological and theological analyses to understand the variety of cultures in their societies and to contextualize the Gospel.

Rethinking Christian Missions: Said's Orientalism and Christian Missionary Responses to Prostitution in Thailand

I argue that an examination of Christian missionary responses to prostitution in Thailand illustrates that not only must the field of missiology take seriously the critiques of Orientalism, but that these challenges require a radical rethinking of the appropriateness of the very notion of Christian missions. In the essay, I (1) provide a theoretical framework; (2) profile three missionary responses to prostitution in Thailand; (3) assess the missionary responses through the theoretical framework; and (4) explicate my conclusions. Under-girding my entire examination is a multi-layered probe of the question: is the missionary impulse inherently Orientalist?

Civil Religion, George W. Bush's Divine Mission, and an Ethics of Mission

This paper explores George W. Bush's presentation of a US mission in his two Inaugural Addresses and six State of the Union Addresses. This articulation of mission as a divinely ordained plan to bring freedom to the rest of the world is placed within the context of other presentations of the US mission by past presidents. This history of US mission is compared to a shift in US civil religion described by Michael E. Bailey and Kristin Lindholm in their article, "Tocqueville and the Rhetoric of Civil Religion in the Presidential Inaugural Addresses." The final section of the paper offers an ethical analysis of two aspects of Bush's divine mission. First, Bush's rhetorical use of "freedom" is examined and it is argued that his use of the term as an idea that is simple, obvious, and uncontestable is unavoidably manipulative. Second, Bush's notion of mission itself is critiqued in light of the lessons learned in the field of missiology. It is argued that Bush's mission is similar to the older model of Christian mission, a paradigm characterized by paternalism and exploitation. Suggestions from the field are offered that value mutuality and solidarity.

The Spirit and the Flesh in Shandong, 1650-1785 (review)

Reviewed by: The Spirit and the Flesh in Shandong, 1650-1785 Judith Liu (bio) D. E. Mungello. The Spirit and the Flesh in Shandong, 1650-1785. Lanham, New York, Boulder, and Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001. xiii, 209 pp. Hardcover $70.00, ISBN 0-7425-1163-4. Paperback $24.95, ISBN 0-7425-1164-2. In The Spirit and the Flesh in Shandong, 1650-1785, David Mungello has written a concise yet informative history of the missionary work undertaken by Catholics in Shandong during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As in his earlier work, The Forgotten Christians of Hangzhou (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1994), Mungello has sought to enlighten readers about Catholic missionary efforts in China. His impressive use of primary documents including archives in the Vatican, Europe, and China is evident in both these works. Included in the present slender volume are maps from these archives as well as contemporary photographs taken by Mungello during a visit to Shandong in the late 1990s. They provide a context that cannot be conveyed by words alone. Accounts of the failures of Christianity in late dynastic China are legion, and yet there is an involvement by Catholic missionaries in the countryside that has previously been known only in a cursory way; this involvement is carefully detailed in Mungello's work. There is a metaphysical pathos underlying the activities of the Catholic missionaries in China during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and Mungello shows his respect for the passion that they brought to their calling. Proselytizing in China was not an endeavor for the weak. It required an unusual level of spiritual dedication, physical strength, and intellectual resolve. There is an inherent tension among these qualities that Mungello makes plain in this volume. On the one hand missionaries sought to bring the spirit of an idealized sacred world to the Chinese, while on the other they were constantly confronted with the desires of the profane world of the flesh. How Mungello sorts out the two makes for unusual reading in the field of missiology. In The Forgotten Christians of Hangzhou, Mungello discussed the efforts of the Jesuits in Zhejiang Province; in The Spirit and the Flesh in Shandong, he concentrates on the work of mendicant orders around Jinan. While both groups envisioned a Christian China effected through the process of conversion, the focus of their efforts differed. Among the Jesuits were Europe's best and brightest—well educated and fervently devout Catholics (Forgotten Christians, p. 111). Jesuits concentrated on converting members of the elite, who would then exert their power and privilege on the rest of China in a traditional top-down, hierarchical fashion. Less educated than their Jesuit counterparts, the mendicant missionaries in the provinces tended to focus more on conversions of the common people, who, in turn, would create a groundswell of support for Christianity that could foster an [End Page 499] indigenized Chinese Catholic Church. As mendicant orders, Franciscans, Dominicans, and Augustinians were especially vulnerable to a chronic lack of funds and resources. As a consequence, out of necessity, these men frequently wore local dress and ate local cuisine in order to survive, as was the case with the Franciscan Fr. Antonio de Santa Maria Caballero, who "wore Manchu clothes and spoke Chinese with such fluency that ... when he visited a Dominican and spoke Chinese, the other priest did not recognize him until he spoke Spanish" (The Sprit and the Flesh, p. 25). This adaptation made it possible to survive the hardships of living in Shandong with its "many physical discomforts, including extreme cold and heat, poor food, uncomfortable housing, and a life of poverty" (p. 26). The tale of Catholicism in Shandong begins with the endeavors of Fr. Caballero, who, after an abortive attempt in 1633, was successful in his second attempt in 1649 to establish a mission in Jinan. For nearly twenty years thereafter, Fr. Caballero worked tirelessly to bring the word of God to the Chinese. He is unusual for the fact that he wrote three works and collaborated with a member of the literati class, Shang Huqing. It is worth noting that Mungello, in both of his books, deals with local literati, who attempted...

The Christian Mission and Modern Culture Trinity Press International Series

Alan Neely, H. Wayne Pipkin, and Wilbert R. Shenk have launched a remarkable series, “The Christian Mission and Modern Culture,” which contributes extensively to the advancement of the field of missiology for the third millennium. This article reviews the authors' analysis of modern culture and their missional responses. Common to each book is a rigorous self-critique of Western culture and Christianity. In facing the altered role of the church and mission in the post-Christendom era, the series (1) examines modern/postmodern culture from a missional perspective; (2) develops theological models for the recovery of the integrity of the church; and (3) investigates new conceptualizations of the nature and mission of the church.

At Play in the Fields of Missiology: Quincentennial Faces of Mission in the Films of Popular Culture

The 500th anniversary of the arrival of Columbus in the Americas, which coincided with the arrival of the Christian gospel, prompted the issuing of several films in which Christian mission features prominently: The Mission, Black Robe, and At Play in the Fields of the Lord. Rather than stereotyping either missionaries or indigenous peoples, the films offer complex and penetrating analyses that help to raise the level of popular perception and discussion of the missionary enterprise. They highlight the unique role missionaries have played in the interaction of Westerners with primal cultures. While widely criticized, missionaries may be American culture's best foil for exploring cross-cultural encounters.

Female Mission Strategists: A Historical and Contemporary Perspective

Although women have been very prominent in foreign missions for more than a century, they have generally played a secondary role in the field of missiology. Most mission boards and seminary faculties have been male-dominated, except for a time in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when women formed their own “female agencies” and training schools. During this period women made significant practical and scholarly contributions to mission strategy. With the demise of the women's missionary movement, however, such opportunities sharply declined. That is now beginning to change. In recent decades women have once again become more involved in the strategy of missions, especially in areas involving women's work, cross-cultural communication, literature, education, lifestyle, urban ministries, and mission specializations.

Barrett and beyond

It is impossible to predict the full impact of David Barrett's massive encyclopedia on the field of missiology in the coming decades. Some things are obvious. It will become a standard reference work in academic circles and will provide scholars with the most comprehensive survey of the status and growth of the church around the world now available. The extensive country by country reviews will stimulate further studies and, in some cases, deeper commitments on the part of some to the mission of the church. The encyclopedia will be widely quoted in sermons to make one point or another, and there will be arguments over the accuracy over details. Of greater consequence is the fact that it presents a comprehensive picture that will mold the strategies of mission and church agencies alike. My concern here is a narrow one. What will the impact of the encyclopedia be on future research in missiology, particularly my own. Certainly it will stimulate research and suggest new lines of investigation, but its importance lies even deeper.