Missionary Bodies Research Articles

Methodist Education in Peru: Social Gospel, Politics, and American Ideological and Economic Penetration, 1888-1930

With research based on extensive primary sources, the author examines the activities of the Methodist mission in Peru, in particular its educational work, within the Peruvian socioeconomic formation and its ideological and intellectual changes. Yet her study goes beyond Methodist boundaries: Social Gospel doctrine and educational theory, which link American Progressivism (especially John Dewey's pedagogical ideas) with Christianity, are also treated at an interdenominational level. The book contends that Methodist schools constituted an educational system of their own within a socioeconomic formation of uneven character, a society where an imperialist presence was interwoven with pre-capitalist as well as local incipient capitalist forms. The author's analysis of the political dimension of missionary work--from the quest for religious freedom to the attempt to exert influence on social movements--leads her to consider the relationships among APRA leaders, the missionaries, and the interdenominational Committee on Cooperation in Latin America. Bruno-Jofre argues that Social Gospel doctrines, although couched in reformist language, were ultimately a vehicle of North American theology. This book presents a refreshingly wide perspective on the development of education in the Third World as affected by missionary bodies from the First World.

Contradictions between the Sacred and the Secular Life: The Church Missionary Society in Ukaguru, Tanzania, East Africa, 1876–1914

This essay discusses some beliefs and activities of the Church Missionary Society (CMS), a missionary body of Evangelicals in the Church of England, as its members attempted to found and expand missionary work in Ukaguru, an area inhabited by the Kaguru people about one hundred and fifty miles inland in east-central Tanzania. In the nineteenth century, Ukaguru lay on the most frequented caravan route used to reach the great interlacustrine kingdoms of Uganda. Initial contact with the Kaguru was made in 1876 by CMS members en route to Buganda. Although CMS work in East Africa was concentrated in Uganda and coastal and highland Kenya, a minor station in Ukaguru was established in 1878, in part as a rest-stop for those proceeding inland but also to save souls.

Resources for the History of Gabon in French Missionary Archives in Rome

The archives of two Roman Catholic congregations of French origin which have missionaries in Gabon are located in Rome: the Sisters of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception of Castres (commonly called the Blue Sisters) and the Brothers of Saint Gabriel of Saint Laurent-sur Sèvres. The Blue Sisters were founded by Emilie de Villeneuve in 1836 to improve the condition of women, in particular by educating poor and orphaned girls. The Brothers of Saint Gabriel were organized by Louis Grignion de Montfort in 1715 to provide a primary education for poor boys and were reorganized in 1821 by Gabriel Deshayes. Initially both congregations worked only in France. They entered Gabon at the request of the Holy Ghost Fathers-the sisters in 1849 and the brothers in 1900. The sisters had communities at most of the mission stations--in the Estuary at first and from the 1880s along the Ogooué river and other points in the interior. The brothers operated schools at Libreville and Lambaréné, and after the Second World War at Port-Gentil and Oyem as well. During the past century both congregations became primarily missionary bodies, with the sisters active in Africa and South America and the brothers in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. These international activities led to the transfer of their headquarters to Rome in the 1950s.The sisters who worked in Gabon prior to the Second World War included many with intelligence but few with much formal education beyond the primary grades. They spent their time in social service, health care, and elementary education. The latter included French as well as religion and the domestic arts. The sisters had much less contact with the government or the colonial administration than did the Holy Ghost Fathers, who were their ecclesiastical superiors. Though some sisters toured to provide medical aid to persons away from the mission stations, most of their contacts with Africans took place in or near the stations.

Power Structures and Education Decision Making in Nigeria

Educational developments that have occurred in Nigeria since 1950 have been so rapid, so varied, and sometimes so inconclusive that researchers in Nigeria's contemporary education Africans and non-Africans must necessarily be extremely cautious in pontificating theorization. However, discussions of current issues in Nigerian education that tend to ignore the development of the present power structures and its effects on modern educational politics in Nigeria are more than anything else, frivolous. For it was the power structures of the past that create the educational problems of the present. At both stages in Nigeria's educational development, government was pitted against the Christian missions. In 1960, political power was transferred to Nigerian hands. As it was the fashion in the new African states, political independence was seen as a break with the past, a new beginning. The present article examines the power structures in Nigeria's educational system during the colonial period and focuses on the dilemma facing Christian missionary bodies in Nigeria resulting largely from political independence and Nigeria's post-independence educational goals.

Government and Christian missions in the Anglo‐Egyptian Sudan, 1899–1914

From the foundation of the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium in 1899 to this day relations between governments and Christian missionary bodies in the Sudan have been ambiguous and, since 1956, tragic. The paper which follows deals with the earliest phase of this unhappy relationship; it does not touch upon the current problems of the Southern Sudanese or upon the wider theme of the behaviour of a modern Muslim ruling institution towards non-Muslim minorities among its subjects. The sources used here represent a mere scratching of the evidence, and the examination even of this fragment requires the exercise of particular caution.t Public statements so often deceive the inquirer into private motives. For instance, Dr. Roland Oliver in his Missionary Factor in East Africa, 1952, on p. 192, correctly wrote that the Gordon Memorial Mission of the Church Missionary Society started work in the Southern Sudan at the invitation of Lord Cromer, British agent and consul general in Egypt. What Dr. Oliver did not state was that Cromer's invitation was issued with exceedingly bad grace. In order to discern the real relations between government officials and missionaries we must go behind the fa,ade of the printed word to the freer world of private correspondence. Above all, we must continually remember how easy it is to be wise after the event. The dispute over the freedom to preach and teach Christianity and Islam in the Southern Sudan was inevitable in the presence of

The Church as the Missionary Body of Christ

The life or death of a church depends on how much its members are willing to proclaim the gospel to the world. If its ministers are satisfied merely with performing their functions and counselling religious people, if its members confess their faith just as far as it is socially acceptable, the church will grow more and more into a sterile institution that is far from the living church of the New Testament. The purpose of this study is therefore to ask what connexion may exist between the church and its mission to the world in both the generally accepted and in the disputed letters of Paul.

Africa Surveyed: A Discussion of Some Recent Books

A GROWING interest in Africa-its peoples, its problems, its prospects is obvious on all sides. Apartheid, Mau Mau, the independence of Ghana, the Algerian tragedy, and the situation in the Nile Valley have appeared repeatedly in the headlines of the world's newspapers during recent months. Political evolution, economic development, and social advancement are reflected in the increasing concern of the commercial, educational, missionary, and other bodies with responsibilities in Africa, and in the multifarious and ever-expanding activities of the governments responsible for administration. There has been a spate of books during the last two or three years on all manner of African subjects, written by a variety of authors whose contributions differ widely according to the purpose, ability, and experience of the writer. Some of the books help greatly toward the geographer's understanding of Africa, and it is to these that this article draws special attention.

Shanghai Polytechnic Institution and Reading Room: An Attempt to Introduce Western Science and Technology to the Chinese

through the treaties that followed the first Anglo-Chinese War (18391842); and the Treaties of Tientsin (1858) and Peking (186o) opened the door wide to Western influence. Of primary concern to most foreigners in China during the half century after 186o was the expansion of opportunities for commerce or for religious proselytizing. But probably of greater consequence to the Chinese, though few of them were aware of it at the time, was the spread of Western ideas and techniques, largely by missionaries and other foreigners who sought to enlighten their unwilling hosts. Modern schools-some established by missionaries, others operated by foreign employees of the Chinese government; newspapers and magazines-some published by foreigners or Chinese for profit, others issued by missionary bodies or individual missionaries; books on modern subjects-either translated from European languages or written specially for Chinese readers: these were among the principal transmitters of Western ideas to the soil of China. Virtually all the foreigners who went to China during the nineteenth century regarded Western civilization as superior to that of China, and many of them favored remaking China along Western lines. Some foreigners felt that China's paramount need was for the science and technology that had been developed in the West, and progressive-minded Chinese were themselves eager that their country acquire scientific knowledge, considering its mastery essential for China's self-preservation. One interesting, though not too successful, effort of well-disposed foreigners and progressive Chinese to bring Western scientific and technological knowledge to China was the Polytechnic Institution and Reading Room in Shanghai. From the late 1840's individual missionaries had

The Modern Missions Movement

T HE Modern Missions Movement is a self-constituted body of missionary supporters which proposes to operate outside the official organizations, but nevertheless within the total enterprise, functioning co-operatively with other missionary bodies in so far as possible along the lines indicated below for the purpose of quickening afresh enthusiasm for the cause of missions, and also of bringing to bear upon this worthy cause the contributions which come from investigation, appraisal, and discriminating promotion. The actual organization consists of a National Committee, composed of I50 prominent clergymen, laymen, and laywomen, which is consulted on the major issues of policy. This body operates through three committees: an Executive Committee, which is responsible for the direction of the Movement; a Research Committee with its office in New Haven; and an Educational Committee. The inner significance of this Movement will be revealed by viewing it under three aspects: first as a recent manifestation of a larger and longer movement within the missionary enterprise which has been gathering momentum for twenty years; second, in the light of the functions which it proposes to perform; and, third, as one of the latest phases of the perennial problem of how to relate diversity of conviction to unity of fellowship and co-operative action.

The Protestant Missionary Propaganda in India

A few years ago (1906) the Protestant missionary enterprise in India celebrated its bicentenary. A few months ago the centennial celebration of the founding of American missions in India was an occasion of much joy. It must be a matter of deep interest, not only to the missionary body, but to the members of our Christian community in America to study both the progress and the vast and, in some cases, revolutionary changes of this great enterprise on the mission field. Even during the missionary experience of the writer innovations have been numerous and fundamental. To those who think that the missionary enterprise is wanting in the spirit of the age, the transformations which have already taken place and are constantly going on will lead to astonishment. These changes have been coincident with and a part of the progress of the Christian world in thought and life, and embrace not only the forms and methods of work but also the fundamental principles which underlie and permeate the whole work. In the present paper it is proposed to study a few of these innovations which have marked the onward march of this great movement.

The American Association as a Missionary Body

The American Association as a Missionary Body