Foreign Missions Research Articles

When the Medium Was the Mission: The Atlantic Telegraph and the Religious Origins of Network Culture by Jenna Supp-Montgomerie

Reviewed by: When the Medium Was the Mission: The Atlantic Telegraph and the Religious Origins of Network Culture by Jenna Supp-Montgomerie Sonia Hazard Jenna Supp-Montgomerie, When the Medium Was the Mission: The Atlantic Telegraph and the Religious Origins of Network Culture (New York: New York University Press, 2021) In 1858, the Atlantic Telegraph Company announced the opening of the trans-atlantic telegraph. It barely worked. After three weeks of unreliable functioning, the connection went forever silent. What is odd, considering the failure, is that the US public went gaga for the telegraph and its promise of a more connected United States. The jubilant popular reception of the cable is the subject of Jenna Supp-Montgomerie’s bracing new book When the Medium Was the Mission. Interweaving historical and theoretical analysis through four chapters, she advances three arguments: first, the reception of the telegraph was religious; second, the telegraph helps us to understand the religious origins of the concept of “network”; and finally, it is the failures of networks that explain their imaginary and affective persistence. To begin, a major historical contribution of the book is to demonstrate how thoroughly religion saturated the telegraph’s reception in the United States. Two chapters (the first and third) focus on the response of religious institutions. Chapter one examines the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions, especially the efforts of the Board’s missionary Cyrus Hamlin who, in 1847, traveled to Constantinople to sell the telegraph to the sultan [End Page 162] Abdülmecid I. Hamlin and other missionaries believed that the telegraph was the key to the Protestant conversion of the Ottoman Empire. Chapter three presents a striking case study of the Oneida Community, the utopian group known for its plural marriage practices, who saw the telegraph as the harbinger of the coming unity of the world. The Oneidans’ newspaper The Circular announced this technological breakthrough with the thumping headline: “NO MORE DISTANCE! NO MORE WAR! THE CONTINENTS UNITED” (128). Supp-Montgomerie also shows that it was not only confessing Protestants who greeted the telegraph with passion. A larger aim of the book is to demonstrate that “religion” may be found in the “diffuse public form” (13) of Protestantism in the nineteenth-century US. This is similar to what other scholars have termed the “Protestant secular.” The most overt example of this pervasive religiosity is the famous first telegraph message on the regional Baltimore-Washington line, conveyed by Samuel Morse in 1847: “WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT.” Supp-Montgomerie digs up many other gems. Congressional debate on a bill that would finance the transatlantic cable, for instance, included several mock amendments meant to equate the proponents with religious fanatics. One dismissive congressman suggested that half the allocated money ought to fund mesmerism. Another implored his colleagues to furnish part of the funds to the Millerites—the evangelical sect that waited, and waited, for the world to end in 1844. That the telegraph project was ridiculed as comparable to quackery or a humiliated millenarian movement shows that even its critics detected something religious about it, if only to point out that in both cases, the promise far outstripped the reality. When the Medium Was the Message uses the example of the telegraph as a springboard for advancing even bolder claims about religion and media. It is not only that the reception of the telegraph was religious (both within religious institutions and in terms of religion’s “diffuse public form”). Religion seeded “network culture” more generally. What is a network? Put simply, it is “a form of technological and social life organized around multiple links among a set of nodes” (17). The transatlantic telegraph cable connecting two endpoints is thus an elementary form of more complex networks, notably the Internet. More than a description of a spatial arrangement, however, on Supp-Montgomerie’s account, a network is an “imaginary” (6) or an “aesthetic of communication” (18). In other words, it is a social phenomenon that furnishes a way of thinking, speaking, and feeling. Most importantly for the author, it is driven by affect. A concept that has recently attracted extensive theoretical attention, affect refers to a nonlinguistic force that is transmittable, not under...

Imperatives of Care: Women and Medicine in Colonial Korea

Imperatives of Care: Women and Medicine in Colonial Korea

Anti-urbanism in Culture and in the Adventist Church: Advocacy and Action for Urban Ministry In the Twentieth Century—Part 2

This article explores the response within the Seventh-day Adventist Church after Ellen G. White’s death to the dual emphases in her writings on the city and rural living. On one hand she strongly encouraged large Adventist institutions and families raising children to locate out of the cities. This was because of the advantages natural surroundings have on physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing, and to shield children and young adults from the evils and temptations of the city. While she recognized the evils in the city and God’s impending judgments, she aggressively pushed church leaders to take a more active role in evangelizing the cities, precisely because of their great need. The church was slow to respond to her plea for greater mission to the cities during her lifetime. Once she passed away, the gains made in city mission during her lifetime were gradually lost. Leadership focused on foreign missions but work in the cities seem to have fallen by the wayside, being replaced with a drive for all Adventists to move to the country. This paper’s focus is on the period from the 1910 through the 1990s.

Fostering a sustainable pediatric cardiac workforce in the developing world during the current COVID-19 pandemic

: The majority of the world’s population with congenital heart disease (CHD) does not have access to corrective surgery, including 70% of those living in sub-Saharan Africa. Communicable diseases still cause significant mortality in low- and mid-income countries (LMICs), but increasingly, the burden of non-communicable diseases (NCD), such as CHD and rheumatic heart disease (RHD), has increased, creating great strain on fragile healthcare systems. The number of pediatric cardiac centers in LMICs is grossly inadequate to provide the necessary care. The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic due to SARS-CoV-2 has only worsened the global disparities, and unfortunately has set the clock back by a few years. There has been an interruption of foreign missions and collaborations, which has affected the care of children with heart disease, and which will further increase the number on the waitlist. Much of the hard-won progress made in improving neonatal, infant, and maternal mortality may be lost due to the pandemic. Time is running out for the ambitious sustainable development goals set for 2030. At present, only 1% of developing world are vaccinated against COVID-19 with the poorest countries not expected to receive vaccine until 2023. This intervening time provides a crucial opportunity to apply “frugal innovation” by training and equipping local teams and policy makers. We employed a Gap and SWOT analysis to identify the steps needed to work towards improving children’s heart care in the developing world, all while using lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Geographical Knowledge as Power: The Role of the Society of Jesus and the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris in the Early Exploration of Louisiana

The Society of Jesus and the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris played prominent roles in the early exploration of French Louisiana. The two societies competed over territorial jurisdiction since the presence of their missionaries provided privileged access to the latest geographical data. In times of exploration and colonial territorial expansion, geographical data proved to be an important lever of power, and French missionaries were one of the principal agents of acquiring and disseminating knowledge. We follow the role of the two mentioned missionary societies through the eyes of the Jesuit Father Paul du Ru, the priest of the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris, Francois Le Maire, and two Jesuit travelers, Antoine de Laval and François-Xavier Charlevoix. Their journals, travel narratives, and maps offer an early testimony to Louisiana’s rich history and cultural encounters between European settlers and native nations. This article is based on original research.

A little-known page in the history of Egyptology: Russian emigrants in foreign missions in Egypt (V.W. Strekalovsky, A.V. Floroff, and N. Melnikoff)

A little-known page in the history of Egyptology: Russian emigrants in foreign missions in Egypt (V.W. Strekalovsky, A.V. Floroff, and N. Melnikoff)

Государственная и частная почта: почтовый эпизод советско-германских отношений периода действия Брестского-Литовского мира 1918 г.

Mail and postage stamps are a single entity, maintaining such a connection even in times of serious socio-political upheavals. After the events of 1917, the new leadership of the postal and telegraph department was almost immediately concerned to stop the process of further destruction of postal and telegraph communications in Russia, which had begun in the previous period. Attempts were made to maintain the functioning of international postal communications by this time, although in the conditions of the actual state of war of Soviet Russia, primarily with Germany, this was seriously hampered. Only after the signing of the Brest Peace and its ratification on March 15, 1918, the international postal service began to revive. Nevertheless, in the difficult conditions of the initial period of the civil war, foreign nationals who were on the territory of Soviet Russia had to find alternative ways to send correspondence abroad to the state postal service. One of these methods was the creation of private mail. In the conditions of complex international relations in the spring - summer of 1918, the functions of private mail could be assumed by special structures that were created at foreign missions in Soviet Russia. One of these structures was the “German-Baltic Committee” in Petrograd, created at the German Consulate, opened after the signing of the Brest Treaty. Сommittee initiated the issue of a special stamp, which was first described in his memoirs by the Russian emigrant G. Shenets, and one of the most prominent representatives of Russian philately, K. Schmidt, conducted a study of its functioning. The circle of people who used this private mail was very limited. Letters and small packages were accepted, for the dispatch of which a fee of one ruble was charged, a stamp of the corresponding denomination was pasted by the committee's employees on all mailings and stamped with special stamps in German. These stamps were not sold to the public. From the Baltic provinces, special couriers brought back correspondence, which was again issued in the committee itself with the same stamps at the same tariff. Probably, the activity of this “private mail” turned out to be short-lived. The need for it, in fact, disappeared after the signing on August 8, 1918 of the agreement between Russia and Germany on postal, telegraph and railway communication, according to which all postal and telegraph relations between the two countries were regulated by the Convention on the Universal Postal Union and bilateral treaties and agreements concluded in this area between the Russian Empire and Germany, the effect of which were resumed according to the peace concluded in Brest-Litovsk. In general, the short-term activity of the German-Baltic Committee in the field of postal services, apparently, was more of a forced, extraordinary measure, although it fits well enough into the international situation associated with the period of the Brest Peace in relations between the RSFSR and Germany. On the other hand, this episode of international postal activity indicates that the leadership of Soviet Russia systematically followed the path of strengthening control over those areas of activity that ensured the monopoly right of the state to receive income from international activities.

«Старания, о добровольном распространении Евангельского учения …»: миссионерская деятельность в политике российских властей на Северном Кавказе (1793–1817 гг.)

The missionary activity of the Greek Church played an important role in appeasing the peoples of the North Caucasus. It was supposed to restore among them those spiritual values that their ancestors had previously professed. For this purpose, in 1793, the post of vicar bishop of the Astrakhan diocese was established in Mozdok. This made it possible to quickly resolve issues related to the spread of the Christian faith here. Very soon Mozdok became one of the leading religious centers of the region. But the authorities had many complaints about the missionary work itself: the number of converts to the new faith did not meet expectations, and the sincerity of the neophytes’ beliefs raised serious doubts. Emperor Paul I, who replaced Catherine II on the throne, ordered the abolition of the vicariate. Nevertheless, the very idea of preaching Orthodoxy in the mountain environment was preserved and had many supporters. The question of restoring the Ossetian Commission, with the help of which it was supposed to o influence the confessional situation in the region, arose again. Projects to attract foreign missionaries for missionary work in the mountain environment arose and were tested. But the main role was assigned to Orthodox priests, for whose successful work the treasury was ready to allocate the necessary funds. The activities of the church in this case should not have contradicted the steps of the secular authorities. With the appointment of A.P. Yermolov to the Caucasus, the militarypolitical situation in the region is becoming more complicated, which marked a new stage in the missionary practice of the Orthodox clergy.

Foreign Missionary Activity Prior to and During the Armenian Genocide

This article discusses how pre-Genocide foreign missionary activity prepared the way for relief and existential support during and after the Armenian Genocide of 1915–1921. Examples are drawn from American, British, and German Protestant missionary organisations, especially the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, the Turkish Missions Aid Society or Bible Lands Missions Aid Society, and the Christlicher Hilfsbund im Orient. These agencies developed missionary and relief methods and transnational networks which were utilised by the Action Chrétienne en Orient (ACO) and other twentieth-century mission agencies in their work among Armenian communities.

Symposium Review: <em>Awake, O Church!: A Serious Look at Christian Outreach</em>—Barry Grant

True to its pithy title, author Barry Grant calls the Christian church to awaken from its spiritual slumber, the result of North American materialism manifesting itself on the foreign mission field. <em>Awake, O Church!</em> is one of few recent appraisals of plain Anabaptist mission, and one of the only that indicts the plain Anabaptist church communities and networks that send missionaries from the pen of an active missionary. This book is remarkable in that it is a sustained critique of one of the most heavily endowed Protestant humanitarian organizations in the world, and is published by a reputable plain Anabaptist (conservative Mennonite) organization. [First paragraph.]

Grafting Missionary Infrastructures: Korean Missions to Cambodia in an IT Age

In the late twentieth century, South Korea simultaneously became both one of the world’s foremost Christian missionary-sending countries and a leader in communication technologies. This coincidence has given rise to the notion that South Korea’s emergence as a leader of global Christianity is owing, at least in part, to the technological infrastructures that Korean Christians have developed for missions. But if South Korean Christians are the engineers of new missionary infrastructure, how does this reframe relations between missionary and missionized? This essay draws on field research and interviews with Korean missionaries seeking to design and distribute Christian audio-visual platforms in rural Cambodia, focusing specifically on how these activities reshape inter-Asian mission imaginaries while reinforcing existing inter-Asian infrastructures. Although there have long been Christian missionaries in Cambodia, illiteracy in the countryside has been seen as a major impediment to Christian missionization because it has required missionaries to remain in one place for years. Foreign missionaries had to learn Khmer and also teach Cambodians to read so that they might read and teach the Bible independently. Korean missionaries herald that this has changed with the development and deployment of smart phone applications, which require no reading and, thus, religious messages can be shared without missionaries being physically present. While these missions are seen as transformative from a Korean missionary perspective, these projects operate within terrains of power and access that both enable and direct IT missionary outcomes. Using Tung-Hui Hu’s concept of an infrastructure “graft,” the essay highlights how inter-Asian IT missions are built on pre-existing development and missionary infrastructures, framing both the IT mission interventions and how they are understood by missionaries.

The politics of Pentecostal-charismatic Christianity: Religious language, charismatic authority, and temporality in a Melanesian revival movement

ABSTRACT Through an analysis of a series of revival movements that erupted across the Melanesian island of Malaita in the 1970s, this article articulates a strongly political reading of Pentecostal-charismatic Christianity (P/c). A series of charismatic eruptions that swept Malaita in 1970 effected an overhaul of the epistemological, organizational, and eschatological frameworks imposed upon local Christians by foreign missionaries. Such rapid profusions of charismatic activity reveal how P/c experientialism undercuts the laborious textualism of conservative evangelical Christianity, how the democratization of charisma challenges hierarchical mission religious authority and, most broadly, how the dramatic shift to messianic eschatology constructs a qualitatively different metahistorical narrative to that imposed by the colonial project.

Envisioning an Ideal Christian Family in Republican China

Abstract Amid debates and discussions on the institution of the family in Republican China, foreign missionaries and Chinese Christians played an active role in promoting an ideal Christian family. This article investigates the three waves of prominent theological thinking that underpinned changing ideals of the Christian family throughout the Republican period: Chinese society’s encounter with the gendered ethics of the Christian community in the early Republican period, discussions of domesticity by Chinese Christians amid the social gospel movements of the 1920s, and discussions of domesticity during the National Christianizing the Home Movement. An exploration of Christian publications on domesticity points to a gendered perspective on women’s domestic roles as well as a male-dominated theological construct that attempted to reconfigure the notion of the Chinese Christian family. The discourse on the ideal Chinese Christian family had both secular and spiritual dimensions, shaped by the dynamic transnational flow of ideas and the development of local theological thinking.

New topographic maps for the Czech Armed Forces

Abstract. Geographic services of NATO member states produce standardised topographic maps for geographic support of their foreign missions. The MGCP data are used for the maps creation of the scales of 1:50,000 and 1:100,000. Topographic maps used for military training in own territory mostly remain in original form without full standardisation. NATO with support of the Defence Geospatial Information Working Group prepares a new standard for the Defence Topographic Map. The geographic service of the Armed Forces of the Czech Republic has started the preparation process of the new topographic maps edition compliant with the new standard. Two prototypes of map sheets of scales of 1:25,000 and 1:50,000 were created in 2020, which serve for basic verification of map content symbolisation and applied technology. Procedures for generalization of the map content for the scale of 1:100,000 will be completed in next two years.

Misje stabilizacyjne w badaniach opinii publicznej w Europie Środkowej na przykładzie społeczeństwa polskiego po 1989 roku

The purpose of this article is to analyse changes in public opinion polls about the participation of the Polish Army in stabilization missions after 1989. The research material consists of two parts. The first includes CBOS surveys from 1994 to 2016 and the second part includes a research project entitled “Political preferences. Attitudes – identifications – behaviour” carried out in 2018. After municipal elections in 2018, respondents answered questions prepared as part of a questionnaire based on a five-point Likert scale. The respondents answered the question: In your opinion, does Poland’s engagement in foreign stabilization missions ensure Poland’s security? and evaluated the statement: I support Polish involvement in foreign stabilization missions. The overview of CBOS surveys and questions within the project shows the analysis of the fluctuation of views on the participation of the Polish Army in the activities abroad. As a result of the research, it can be pointed out that the Polish public opinion undergoes numerous changes under the influence of the dynamics of the international situation, the feeling of threat and destabilization, as well as historical conditions.

Research of the internal environment of the military camp buildings

One of the key tasks of this research work is to assess the carbon dioxide (CO₂) pollution in the resting areas of military camps under the current deployment conditions and to assess its impact on soldiers. In the process, the environmental impacts that affect the CO₂ concentration were researched in different rooms in different ways. In addition to the rest areas of a military camp, enumerating the major camp facilities that affect the “welfare” feeling of soldiers on foreign mission, we arrived at the kitchen complex and the work environment of the kitchen staff. One of the key parts of the camp kitchen complex is the food storage, where the raw materials needed for the supply are stored. Storage is very important in a crisis situation, when you have to be prepared to stay away from the homeland, to prevent any supply or procurement problems. A particularly important task in providing food raw materials is the so-called "Fresh" storage. The aim of the paper is to examine the changes in the CO₂ concentration of the camp storage room, which is of key importance in food supply, in the vegetable (fruit) storage places. By modeling at a measurement site set up in the laboratory of the host institution, we measure the CO₂ composition of the indoor air in the warehouse by placing various vegetables and fruits. The change of CO₂ concentration is examined separately for certain types of vegetables and fruits stored in closed storage rooms, taking into account the degree of effective storage capacity and determine the required fresh air value to ensure proper storage conditions. Finally, a mathematical model to simulate changes in storage conditions will be created, which offer help to plan of the military camp.

City Hall v. The World – Seeking New Paradigms for Foreign Missions Municipal Taxation

Studies of international law and cities have been attracting the attention of scholars and policy makers alike in attempts to understand the complex nature of the central versus municipal government relationship in respect of international legally binding frameworks. One example of such an intricate relationship is the implementation of treaty and customary international law in respect of taxation of foreign missions. Alongside the importance of the issue to the day to day life and functioning of international relations it can present challenges to policy and decision makers of various layers of government.
 The paper offers an analysis of the foreign missions’ taxation case study in the context of the theme of law and international law and the city. Discussion focuses on the basics of the applicable regimes and their history and rationales, as well as on the dilemmas associated with more contemporary forms of municipal taxes. Aiming for developing means to address the challenges presented, a new paradigm is offered, focusing on new methodologies to bring cities to the table to discuss together with state actors how to optimize the balance between the need to facilitate bilateral cross-border relationships and the needs of cities and residents.
 In the final stage of the debate, the paper offers potential lessons which can learned from the analysis of the foreign missions’ taxation case study for engagement of cities and states in international policy and law making for central and municipal government. The modality offered can hopefully facilitate the development of processes conducive to enhanced cooperation between cities and states in making and implementing better and more balanced international law. 

Über einige Aspekte des diplomatischen Verkehrs zwischen dem Hochmeister und Kaiser Sigismund von Luxemburg

On some aspects of the diplomatic traffic between the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order and Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg The diplomatic traffic between the Grand Master of the Teutnic Order and Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg was carried out according to the common practices of diplomacy in late medieval Europe. Nevertheless, this topic deserves further exploration due to Sigismund’s efforts to impose suzerainty upon the Grand Master and the Teutonic Knights. This issue influenced their mutual relations after Sigismund’s election as Roman-German King in 1410/1411. There are numerous surviving sources, especially in the archive of the Teutonic Order in Berlin (GStA PK), such as legation’s instruction, dispatches and, last but not least, the political correspondence between the Grand Master and Emperor Sigismund. These sources can shed light not only on the complicated diplomatic relation between above-mentioned two entities, but also, due to richness of their content, on late medieval diplomacy in general. Based upon the research findings by Klaus Neitmann, who explored the Order’s legation exclusively, this paper tries to expand the field of research by including the legations of Sigismund. From this perspective only several selected aspects of the topic are examined in the study: 1) defining a legation (foreign mission) and its characteristic features; 2) the diplomatic traffic between the Grand Master and Sigismund of Luxembourg from a prosopographical perspective; and 3) the personal composition and communication at the court of Sigismund. The richness of sources makes new questions possible concerning not only this specific diplomatic traffic, but also late medieval diplomacy in general as well. However, the definite answers might be delivered after compiling a thorough list of all legations from both sides, which in light of the large number of primary sources must be reserved for another study.

The Middle Line of Truth: Religious and Secular Ideologies in the Making of Brazilian Evangelical Thought, 1870–1930

This article examines the ways in which Protestant ministers, laypeople and foreign missionaries mediated between religious and secular ideologies in Brazil and took part in international theological debates. It concentrates on a group of church pastors and lay writers based in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro who produced and circulated Christian literature widely across evangelical networks. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Protestants engaged with both the local reverberations of the Catholic revival, with its impact on the hierarchy and devotional practices of the Brazilian Church, and the secularist leanings of the Brazilian intelligentsia. Focusing on a variety of high- and low-level publications, including periodicals, tracts, theological compendia, religious controversies and sermons, the article examines how Brazilian evangelicals appropriated Protestant theology and channeled its concepts and ideas into local arguments.

DUALISME DE CROYANCE : ECHEC OU REUSSITE DU PREMIER MISSIONNAIRE EN AFRIQUE ET EN REPUBLIQUE DEMOCRATIQUE DU CONGO

In their dejected work, in African earth and in Democratic Republic of Congo, the first foreign missionaries played two roles: to announce Christ's gospel and to sustain the colonial politics. The dismissal of the culture of the countries evangelized drove to the failure of these missionaries although the missionary work produced positive effects in the African and Congolese surroundings. We have included very quickly that as soon as a civilization succeeds in imposing itself to another, it is usually born a half-caste culture of which some values risk to fade away before those of the most influential civilization of the two. It is why, we wanted to contribute the custom that was in force in the way to believe the African evidently in writing, while granting priority to Christianity to correct, especially by African theologians themselves, the abuses of their own tradition.