Missionary Groups Research Articles

Rockin’ the Regime: Mormon Missionaries, American Popular Music, and the Fading of Spanish Fascism

ABSTRACT In 1972 a group of Mormon missionaries in Spain formed a band known as Los Salt Lake City. Playing primarily folk and rock music, they toured the country, gave radio and press interviews, and released two albums and an EP. Their experience is recounted and assessed in relation to the musical context of Spain at the time, including the social, religious, and political implications of the musical context.

Islam as the Problem, Christianity as the Solution

Abstract This article analyses Christian missionaries working on converting Muslim Iranians to Christianity. Their methods are based on a logic of rupture and discontinuity with Islam, presenting Christianity as the solution to a moral-political crisis of Iranians in the Islamic Republic. Anti-Islam is the focus of this conversion discourse. In a transnational Christian network formed by Iranians and non-Iranians, the evangelical missionaries work with methodology that breaks and dialogues with society and the local culture of their target audience, presenting evangelical Christianity as an alternative for Iranians. This research was carried out based on participant observation in missionary groups and Christian churches for Iranians, via digital media and face-to-face, contributing to the understanding of the conversion of Muslims to evangelical Christianity.

The life they now live: role of missionary hospitals in Sub Saharan Africa

Jesusʾ self confessed mandate was to proclaim good news to the poor and validate this message through miracles like healing. He sent out his followers to do likewise. Mission hospitals are the penultimate example of restoring health in the name of a Saviour who loves them. As a group of healthcare missionaries at Mbingo Hospital, Cameroon, we see the role for mission hospitals/systems for the following reasons: compassionate care, competence, an opportunity to reflect our faith, humility, vision, perseverance, social justice, integrity and accountability. We provide examples for each. Missionary hospitals/ systems in sub-Saharan Africa are a training group for the principles all of us need to mature in during our Christ-centered journey of life.

Missionary Dilemmas in Times of Persecution Case Ethiopia

Under the Communist regime in Ethiopia, 1974-1991, the evangelical churches were subject to severe persecution, with more than 3,000 church buildings closed and pastors imprisoned, tortured, and killed. In this situation a group of missionaries was asked by the leadership of the Lutheran church to pass on information to the Lutheran World Federation. This was a politically charged request and, therefore, a risky undertaking. At the same time the harassment of the churches constituted serious breaches of human rights. This article explores the dilemmas of conscience of the missionaries and how the dilemmas were solved. At the same time, the article sheds light on dilemmas of missions and churches, locally and internationally, in relation to brutal dictatorships. It also shows how a church is forced from a position of critical engagement in society to submission and silence.

Protestant Missionary Groups and Their Controversial Activities in Kyrgyzstan

Protestant Missionary Groups and Their Controversial Activities in Kyrgyzstan

Гросс-Гессенское викариатство РПЦЗ при архиепископе Филофее (Нарко) 1946–1949 гг.

The article studies the creation and development of the Gross-Hessen Diocese of Vicar of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (ROCOR) in the years of 1946-1949. It is noted that at the end of the 2nd World War on the territory of Western zones of occupation in Germany, thousands of Orthodox refugees were in need of pastoral and spiritual care and guidance. Synod of ROCOR decided to form a set of vicar’s dioceses, so that in the region of Gross-Hessen, the one was established and was headed by the bishop of the Belarusian Autonomous Orthodox Church by Archbishop Philofei (Narko). Contrary to financial and other social difficulties, the Vicar managed to organize regular liturgical life and largely unite different Orthodox parishes of the Displaced Persons. Some organizational decisions made by Archbishop Philofei are analyzed. In particular, the decision was made to hold regular meetings of the clergy, to form an advisory body under the Vicar Bishop (Vicarian Council in Wiesbaden). The Archbishop organized with success distribution of food assistance to parishes of his diocese in the economically difficult 1949.Based on original documents preserved in the Archives of the German Diocese of the ROCOR, the author provides statistics on the number of parishes, specific names of the clergy who developed parishes in Wiesbaden, where the residence and the Cathedral of Vicar was established, in Darmstadt, Frankfurt, Menhegoff, Furstenwald, Gudensberg and in other places were discovered. The problems that prevented a successful development of the liturgical and out-service life of the Vicar’s diocese are studied, namely: lack of clergy after mass departure of priests and parishioners from Germany to countries of the Western Hemisphere in 1947-1949; conflict over activities of the Orthodox Missionary Group of Hessen-Nassau; problem of the development of Belarusian parishes due to desire of part of the Belarusian political emigration to strengthen the autocephalous movement. Comparative analysis of the activities of the Vicar’s bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church, activities of the North German Bishop Afanasy (Martos) and the Grossen-Hessen’s Archbishop Philofei (Narko) is carried out.

프랑스 선교사들의 식민지 사제 양성

During the Japanese colonial period, the training of priests in the Korean Catholic Church was a long-term program that spanned over 12 years of education, giving rise to a distinctive group of intellectuals during the colonial era. This distinctiveness was further compounded by the conflict and confusion between modernity and anti-modernity, with the defense mechanisms of French missionaries' anti-modernism and anti-republican ideology being integrated into seminary education.
 The Japanese colonial education policy, which undermined advanced education by emphasizing the so-called 'harm of reading', drew exquisite agreement from missionaries who were proud of the revolution and republic but internalized anger against secular and anti-church values. The missionaries accepted the 'accreditation' system while tactfully retaining the church's values in actual education, and dealt with it with a backside disagreement.
 The so-called fervor for modern education and the legacy of liberalism stirred unrest among the youth. The notion that it eventually fostered socialism posed an equal risk perceived by both the missionary groups and colonial authorities, leading to a reluctance towards higher education. Requests for the establishment of a united theological seminary and the reform of existing seminaries, even those demanded at the Vatican level,were stymied as they were relegated to minor seminary-level secondary education accreditation. The accreditation for the theological college, which boasted the finest faculty for priestly training, was ignored.
 The bishops swiftly countered the burgeoning liberalism as a 'negative influence' and promptly removed it from the seminaries. However, even amidst the tumultuous clash of modernity and anti- modernity, the awakened consciousness itself couldn't be extinguished. The exiled republican government in Shanghai, formed by the March 1st Movement, finally unveiled the forbidden terms 'republic' and 'civilization' to Korean priests.

“Can Men Have Hearts?”: Susa Young Gates's Divorce, 1878

“Can Men Have Hearts?”: Susa Young Gates's Divorce, 1878

Genoa, Nebraska, Settlement of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: Development, Demise, and Those Who Remained

Genoa, Nebraska, Settlement of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: Development, Demise, and Those Who Remained

Sister Deborah by Scholastique Mukasonga

Reviewed by: Sister Deborah by Scholastique Mukasonga Edward Ousselin SCHOLASTIQUE MUKASONGA Sister Deborah Paris. Gallimard. 2022. 160 pages. BORN IN RWANDA in 1956, Scholastique Mukasonga moved to Burundi in 1973 (already because of anti-Tutsi persecution) before eventually settling in France in 1992. Many members of her extended family were killed during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. She published her first book, Inyenzi ou les cafards (Eng. Cockroaches, 2016), in 2006. Since then, much of her written work, including Notre-Dame du Nil (2012), has revolved around late twentieth-century Rwandan history and its multiple tragedies. In 2016 she started exploring new fictional ground with Cœur tambour. Her latest novel continues that trend by introducing African American (and Protestant) missionaries into Rwanda during the 1930s, when it was still a Belgian (and Catholic) colony. More than just another missionary sent to colonial Africa by a Western country, the title character, who is linked by her name to one of the few female prophets in the Bible, quickly takes on the attributes of both a spiritual healer and a messianic messenger. While the charismatic Sister Deborah is ostensibly subordinate to the leader of this unusual group of missionaries, the Reverend Marcus, she tends to overshadow him among the mostly female local converts, to whom she announces the imminent arrival of an unexpected savior, a Black woman destined to establish in Rwanda a blessed, prosperous realm ruled by women. An updated and rather ironic version of this imported messianic message is provided in the novel's epigram—"I met God; she's Black"—which serves as a nod to today's Black Lives Matter movement. Sister Deborah's narrative voice is framed by that of Ikirezi, a sickly village girl who seems to find healing, inspiration, and divine guidance through her contact with the Black prophet from America. Much later, after the African American missionaries have been expelled from Rwanda by the Belgian military, Ikirezi will roughly follow Sister Deborah's trajectory but in [End Page 63] the opposite direction, by moving to the United States and becoming a professor, known as Miss Jewels, at Howard University. As for the erstwhile female prophet once revered (or feared) as Sister Deborah, she will eventually end up as a traditional faith healer, under the name of Mama Nganga, in one of the slums of Nairobi, Kenya. Years later, the news of her fiery end reaches Miss Jewels and leads to the conclusion to this brief novel. At one level, Mukasonga's latest novel is merely the fictional account of a cargo cult's brief flowering and bloody demise. As such, it reflects the surprising forms of syncretism that resulted from the enforced propagation of Christianity during the colonial era and the necessarily more discreet resistance of African religious traditions. At another level, Sister Deborah is an allegorical retelling of the broader encounters and exchanges between rural Africans and (somewhat) idealistic African Americans, in spite of the misgivings and stereotypes held by each group. Edward Ousselin Western Washington University Copyright © 2023 World Literature Today and the Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma

Building a Diasporic Family: The Women’s Parent Mite Missionary Society of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, 1874–1920

ABSTRACT This article argues that the missionary language of the Women’s Parent Mite Missionary Society of the African Methodist Episcopal Church was cast in familial and kinship nomenclature that eschewed the evil of racial hierarchy. Although routine missionary vernacular about heathen Africa and its need for Christianization and civilization appeared in the rhetoric of AME women, they more deeply expressed a diasporic consciousness that obligated Black people on both sides of the Atlantic to resist Euro-American hegemony. The capacious embrace of the WPMMS for Black women—whether in the United States, the Caribbean, or Africa—actualized their vision for maternal and sisterly interaction in contrast to the racial condescension prevalent among white women in their respective American and European missionary groups.

Rolling our eyes towards god: an intervention arising from mormon missionary YouTube activity and the cultural (mis)appropriation of haka

ABSTRACT This Kaupapa Māori Research writing inquiry explores the (mis)appropriation of haka and the social media video-sharing platform YouTube in that (mis)appropriation. The article examines the specific case of a group of Latter-day Saint missionaries in Wangarratta, Australia, who wrote and performed an English-language haka that the author finds violent and offensive. The article outlines Aileen Moreton-Robertson’s White Possessive doctrine in relation to the Church and white patriarchal salvation. Haka’s cultural background and appropriation are explained. Theoretical explanations of collective and cultural memory and YouTube as a social media platform and cultural archive follow. The author highlights YouTube grey literature sources on haka cultural (mis)appropriation. The 2006 case study “missionary haka” video is critiqued and analysed. Case study issues are discussed. The Church’s history of racial discrimination and violence and its religious aetiology of skin colour make this video ”misappropriated,” according to research. This performance uses haka to promote white and religious supremacy and the idea that you must be white and/or religious to be fully human. This message helps the LDS Church mission of possessing Indigenous souls and remaining the “true religion”.

동양종교에서의 교정복지의 개선방안

The correction ideology for criminals transferred from managerial, educational penalty to correctional welfare ideology and there is a religious correction welfare of it christianity has been the most active in religious correction for inmates since liberation and christianity correction welfare now was equipped with sufficient human and physical infra and specialized, organized and systematized. But, until 2000, Buddhism correctional welfare had a strong tendency to personalize, localize and substructure. With the launch of the Buddhism missionary croup in 2000 and the launch of the Jogye order special missionary group for criminals, Buddhism correction welfare begen to be organized, systematized, networked but there have been still diverse problems in terms of human, physical, organizational, legal, and program aspect. Therefore, existing studies have been made to improve diverse problems of Buddhism correction welfare but they lacked a holistic approach because they was mainly approached by human and program despite their contribution. Therefore, I asserted improvement plans of buddhism correction welfare in terms of legal, subject, administration and practice in the macro, interdisciplinary aspect which they passed over, including the micro aspect. In conclusion, I asserted in an original the necessity of a prison monk system, a specialized Buddhist correction missionary, AI prison Buddhism volunteer so as in addition to the micro aspects of human resources and program improvement to improve Buddhism correctional welfare.

Local Adaptation and Cultural Exclusion: Thirty Years of Tablighi Jamaat in China

Tablighi Jamaat (TJ) is a transnational Islamic revival movement that originated in India in the 1920s. Its most distinctive feature is that the secular missionary group composed of 5-10 people travels among Muslims who are considered to have “weak beliefs”, and they try to return their weakened religious practice to the right path in this way. After nearly a hundred years of global dissemination, the movement has now become a relatively successful transnational Islamic missionary movement in the world today, and has had a certain social impact in West Africa, North Africa, Southeast Asia, Central Asia and some European countries and regions. The movement has been in China for more than thirty years since it was introduced in the early 1980s, but there is no academic paper dedicated to its social practice in China. This paper adopts the anthropological fieldwork method, and conducts a long-term follow-up study on TJ activities in Northwest China, North China, Southwest China and other areas from 2011 to 2021. Part of the fieldwork data from Pakistan during 2018-2019 when I was there, it verified the specific time of TJ was introduced into China and the specific situation of its initial dissemination, in addition, this paper rationally divided three important stages of its dissemination in China and living state, at the same time, it demonstrates the specific characteristics of TJ in different periods in China.

Analysis of Jemal Karchkhadze’s novel “ანტონიო და დავითი” (Antonio ve David) in terms of translation strategies and operations

Çağdaş Gürcü edebiyatının önemli isimlerinden biri olan Cemal Karçhadze özellikle tarihsel romanlarıyla tanınmaktadır. Yazarın 1987 yılında yayımlanan “ანტონიო და დავითი” (Antonio ve Davit) adlı romanı, yazarın iki başyapıtından biridir. Roman, asıl olarak 1600’lerde Gürcistan’da geçer. Bir grup Avrupalı misyonerle birlikte ülkeyi ziyaret eden bir İtalyan gezgin tarafından anlatılmaktadır. “ანტონიო და დავითი” (Antonio ve Davit) dinsel ve tarihsel söylemin arka planında bir tür ruhsal mücadeleyi anlatan gerilimli bir romandır. Çevirmen Parna-Beka Çiladze tarafından 2020 yılında Gürcüce aslından Türkçeye aktarılmıştır. Roman, Türkçe dışında Rusça, Çekçe, Arapça ve İsveççeye de çevrilmiştir. Buradan hareketle romanın, farklı dillerde çevirilerinin olması çok yönlü bir araştırma ortamına olanak sağlamaktadır. Bu kontekste, çalışmamız Gideon Toury’nin Erek Odaklı Çeviri Yaklaşımı ışığında “ანტონიო და დავითი” (Antonio ve Davit) adlı eseri kuram ve strateji açısından ele almayı istihdaf etmektir. Bu sınırlar içerisinde, çalışmamızda Cemal Karçhadze’nin “ანტონიო და დავითი” (Antonio ve Davit) adlı romanı “kabul edilebilirlik” ve yeterlilik” normları bakımından ele alınmış ve kullanılan stratejiler ve çeviri işlemleri üzerinde çalışılmıştır. Toury’nin “yeterlilik” kavramından bahsettiği kaynak metne sadık kalınması, “kabul edilebilirlik” kavramından bahsettiği ise hedef metne yani erek dilin ilk ve kurallarına uygunluğudur. Araştırmanın bulgular kısmında, “ანტონიო და დავითი” (Antonio ve Davit) adlı eserin çözümlemesi yapılmıştır. Çalışma sonucunda çeviri metninde çıkarma, ekleme, değiştirme ve ödünç alma stratejilerinin kullanıldığı tespit edilmiştir.

‘Clinical Christianity’ as Philanthropy

Abstract This study looks into the role of Protestant Missionary groups in disseminating western medicine and medical practices in Travancore during the colonial period. The institutionalisation of Western Medicine in Travancore was filliped and completed by the process of a triangular patronage. It was not only due to the state’s patronage (both the British and the Princely rulers) that Western medicine was institutionalised in Travancore but also due to the keenness shown by the missionaries to dispense it, particularly among the lower classes. Hence, this study also examines how the missionaries functioned as promoters of western medicine to popularise Christianity in Travancore during the colonial period. As in the case of education, missionaries viewed western medicine as a tool for evangelisation through charity. Missionaries developed Medical Philanthropy to elevate the lower sections of the society in Travancore.

Протоиерей Иоанн Восторгов и развитие агиографии в Сибири в начале XX века (на материалах торжеств по случаю канонизации Митрополита Тобольского Иоанна (Максимовича))

The article examines the hypothesis on a possible participation of Archpriest Ioann Vostorgov, famous missionary, preacher, journalist and publicist, new martyr, in creating the project "Siberian Patericon", which is a collection of Siberian saints’ biographies appeared in Omsk at the early XX century. This possibility is associated with the events of the solemn canonization of Metropolitan of Tobolsk and All Siberia Ioann Maksimovich (1916). The analysis of sermons delivered during the celebrations and other publicistic works of the Archpriest, diary entries, as well as the presence in the missionary's library of unique hagiographic works published in Siberia, made it possible to reconstruct I. Vostorgov's views on the significance and growth of venerating saints in Russia at the early XX century, reveal special attention of Archpriest to the exploits of the Holy Russia Siberian constituent. Ioann Vostorgov emphasized that holiness manifestation in the region was closely related to the missionary activities of the Siberian clergy; noted that missionary work was an important aspect of the asceticism of the Siberian hierarchs. Moreover, the missionary viewed the preaching of Christianity as a historical mission of the Russian people perceived by them in baptism. He confirmed that preaching by Siberian missionaries clearly demonstrated this side of the historical task of the Russian people. The Archpriest considered St. Ioann canonization significance as a continuation of the canonization process, the Synodal period of the Orthodoxy history in Russia, namely, as a guarantee of these saint help in the conditions of coming trials and challenges facing Russia.Tobolsk celebrations turned out to be a convenient platform for all-Siberian discussion of the patericon. St. Ioann sermons included both historiosophical discourses on the Orthodoxy role in forming the peculiarities of Russian history, and formulated tasks of the of hagiography development taking into account developing events. Unpublished "Notes related to the trip to Siberia" by the Archpriest made him during Tobolsk celebrations found lists of Siberian saints including a significant group of missionaries, an aphoristic formulation of the missionary feat - "missionary is being driven primarily by holiness" - and, possibly, mentioning the "Siberian patericon".

Toward the Vision of Revelation: Multicultural Worship in a Korean Context

From the end of the 1980s, when foreign workers poured into Korea, until 1995, when there was a significant increase in international marriages, a multicultural situation has slowly been developing in Korea. However, because the traditional emphasis has been on a single-race nation, the Korean Church has not shown much concern for the multicultural situation. Apart from some megachurches and missionary groups, the Korean Church has not been concerned with inviting immigrants and receiving them as full church members. Recently, due to a rapidly aging Korean society and the influx of immigrants entering the workforce, Korea has abruptly changed into a multicultural society. Catching up with this change, the church has started to study building a multicultural church and shifting a congregation to a multicultural church; however, almost all of these studies focus on mission strategy, leadership, or working through conflicts in the church. Currently, there are a lack of studies on worship, specifically, how to facilitate worship among people from different cultural backgrounds and how worship can draw a multicultural congregation together as one body. This chapter will study how a multicultural church can plan its Sunday public worship from a liturgical and theological perspective. Additionally, I will research how a congregation made up of people whose cultural and theological backgrounds are different can become one body in worship. For this purpose, I will examine a multicultural church in Korea, mainly focusing on how the order and elements of worship can develop understanding and unity among the people. Based on this study, I will suggest some liturgical ideas and valuable strategies for multicultural worship in Korea with a sample liturgy of multicultural worship.

Caldwell's Dravidians: Knowledge production and the representational strategies of missionary scholars in colonial South India

AbstractThis article examines British Protestant missionary scholars' representations of Tamil culture and history, analysing how this form of knowledge evolved in relation to missionary concerns and the intellectual trends of nineteenth-century India. I focus on the work of Robert Caldwell, whose scholarship had a profound influence on the identity discourses of twentieth-century Tamil nationalism. I situate Caldwell's work in ethnography and philology within the broader field of colonial knowledge produced about Tamils in nineteenth-century India and within a broader study of British missionary concerns in South India. I examine two of Caldwell's publications to argue that his later work, far from being driven by mere scholarly interests, was also shaped by his concerns as a missionary, and that his evolving scholarship mirrored the development of anti-Brahmanism in British Protestant missionary circles of the time. Missionary anti-Brahmanism arose as a response to the caste system, which missionary groups came to regard as the biggest obstacle to Christian conversions. Departing from some of his earlier ideas, Caldwell strategically positioned his later work to challenge Brahman influence, which he saw as being intrinsically tied to the strength of caste sentiment in Indian society. Caldwell's construction of a discursive framework for understanding Tamil linguistic identity was informed by public reactions to his first publication and his subsequent understanding of the dynamic relationship between European scholarship and Indian social relations. More broadly, this article demonstrates the close relationships between Protestant Christian missionary activity, Indian social politics, and the field of knowledge production in colonial South India.

Protestantism, the Middle East and Europe: A Hundred Years of Action Chrétienne en Orient

Introduction to collection of papers by group of scholars and ACO missionaries brought together to discuss the developments within the ACO over the past hundred years during a conference that was organised by Dr Wilbert van Saane of Haigazian University (Beirut) in January 2021. I will briefly summarise what strikes me as characteristic of the ACO on the basis of these articles, and conclude with a discussion of how this may contribute to further reflection in Mission Studies and World Christianity