Missionary Groups Research Articles

Protestant Missionaries in Spain, 1869–1936: “Shall the Papists Prevail?” by Kent Eaton

Reviewed by: Protestant Missionaries in Spain, 1869–1936: “Shall the Papists Prevail?” by Kent Eaton William J. Callahan Protestant Missionaries in Spain, 1869–1936: “Shall the Papists Prevail?” By Kent Eaton. (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, an imprint of Rowman & Little-field. 2015. Pp. xvii, 363. $110.00. ISBN 978-0-7391-9409-6.) This solidly researched study covers the period between the revolution of 1868, the most progressive and democratic of Spain’s nineteenth-century political upheavals, and the outbreak of the Civil War in July 1936. The author has used a rich variety of sources, including church archives, the letters and diaries of missionaries, as well as the Spanish and British press, both religious and secular. One merit of this [End Page 630] study is that it is placed within the wider context of the cultural and religious milieu of Victorian Britain. The proliferation of evangelical churches and movements in nineteenth-century England and the association of Christianity with imperial expansion stimulated a surge in missionary activity in the British Empire and beyond. Within this context, there emerged the Plymouth Brethren, evangelical dissenters from the Church of England, who attached particular importance to the Pauline example of missionary work among those whom they believed needed to be converted to a pure form of Christianity based on the Bible alone. They were attracted to Spain because the revolutionary constitution of 1869 introduced religious liberty for the first time in the nation’s history. Although the constitution of 1876 prohibited any public manifestations of religion other than the Catholic, it provided, at least, the slim and inadequate protection that no one could be persecuted for his personal beliefs. In these circumstances, the Brethren managed to survive to become the most active of the foreign missionary groups working in the country. In addition to literal interpretation of the Bible, the Brethren were committed to a decentralized organization evident in their rejection of any overarching ecclesiastical structure. They refused to use the word church, favoring assembly instead. They were also firmly anti-Roman. Indeed, they saw Catholicism’s dominance in Spain as a fundamental cause of the country’s spiritual, social, and economic decline. In addition, they attached importance to charitable and educational work among the poor. But they faced formidable obstacles, save for the years between 1869–73 and 1931–36, in the form of periodic harassment and constant attacks by Catholic clergy and press representatives who developed an obsession with the extent of the Protestant threat in spite of the minuscule size of the dissenting population. This study examines in depth many important themes—the identities of the missionaries, the evolution of their pastoral strategies, the areas where they were most successful (Madrid, Barcelona, and rural Galicia), and the social composition of their converts—largely the poor. In the end, the efforts of the Brethren proved disappointing, but the personal stories in this volume make abundantly clear that the missionaries were undaunted in their religious quest. The author also offers a convincing explanation of some of the reasons behind the meager results of the Brethren’s work, particularly the failure to develop native missionaries and a lack of appreciation for aspects of Spanish popular culture. There are few minor reservations. The narrative is, at times, overwhelmed by the numerous and long quotations in the text. It also would have been helpful to have had some analysis of the different opinions on religious liberty of the major political parties of liberal Spain, the Progressives and Moderates until 1868, and the Liberals and Conservatives after 1874. The Progressives and the Liberals took a much more tolerant line than their opponents on this question and did their best to ameliorate the harsher approach of their opponents. These minor reservations aside, this study makes a major contribution the religious history of modern Spain. [End Page 631] William J. Callahan University of Toronto (Emeritus) Copyright © 2016 The Catholic University of America Press

The Activities of the Marianists and Catholic Intellectuals in Japan Prior to the Second World War

I. Introduction The intellectual apostolate of the Society of Mary (Marianists) was important in forming Catholic intellectuals before the Second World War. Since the Tokugawa Shogunate prohibited the propagation of Christianity, few adherents of this faith, except for some Kakure Kirishitan (hidden Catholics), existed in Japan at the beginning of the Meiji period (1868-1912). In this difficult context, Marianist missionaries devoted themselves to an intellectual apostolate. Their educational methods separated evangelization and education and adopted Japan's culture and educational system. Marianist missionaries did not compel their students to take religious instruction, though some received spiritual guidance and became Catholics. Many students were initially reticent about Catholicism, but the committed person-to-person communication of their teachers led them into the Catholic Church. With the support of their Marianist teachers, these converted alumni endeavored to form Catholic circles among intellectuals. In this way, they built the foundation for Catholic culture in modern Japan. In this article, I examine the ideas and activities of Marianist missionaries in Japan and of Catholic intellectuals in four parts. First, I review modernization and the intellectual apostolate by the Society of Mary in Japan. Second, I discuss the founding and development of the Marianists' school, the Gyosei Gakko (Gyosei School). Third, I recount the activities of notable converted alumni and their endeavors in forming Catholic circles among intellectuals. Finally, I review the interpretations of expansionism of two Catholic priests and scholars, Soichi Iwashita (1889-1940) and Bunkei Totsuka (1892-1939). II. The Intellectual Apostolate by the Society of Mary in Japan The Tokugawa Shogunate prohibited the propagation of Christianity in Japan. However, the Meiji government, which replaced the Tokugawa regime in 1868, changed this policy. In 1873, it permitted the dissemination of Christian beliefs. The urgent aim of the Meiji government was to modernize Japan through the adoption of Western ideas and technology. As part of this process, it promulgated the Meiji Constitution on February 11, 1889. This document granted freedom of belief, stating, Japanese subjects shall, within limits not prejudicial to peace and order, and not antagonistic to their duties as subject, enjoy freedom of religious belief. The dissemination of Christian thought in Japan had begun before the Meiji period. Roman Catholic missionary leaders, especially those of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith in Rome, had long hoped for the restoration of the Japan Mission. (1) Consequently, the Paris Foreign Mission Society was in charge of the Japan Mission in 1831. (2) In 1875, Bernard-Thadee Petitjean (the Paris Foreign Mission Society, 1829-1884) went to Rome and proposed the division of the vicariate into northern and southern areas to make its work more systematic. At the request of Petitjean, the vicariates in Japan consisted of northern Japan (Hokkaido and Honshu east and north of Lake Biwa) and southern Japan (Honshu west of Lake Biwa, Shikoku, and Kyushu) in 1876. Pierre-Marie Osouf (the Paris Foreign Mission Society, 1829-1906) was in charge of northern Japan and Bernard-Thadee Petitjean of southern Japan. The Paris Foreign Mission Society organized bishoprics and it conferred educational activities onto other missionary groups, one of which was the Society of Mary. Pierre-Marie Osouf requested the Society of Mary to found a Catholic middle school in Tokyo. Joseph Simler (fourth superior general of the Society of Mary, 1833-1905) accepted his request in about August 1886. Joseph Vernier (1870-1945), who served as a school inspector in Japan province, explained in La Societe de Marie au Japon 1887-1932 that Marianists had been happy to save souls, an activity that accorded with article 2 of the Constitution of the Society of Mary. …

Letters and Other Gifts: On a Nineteenth-Century Italian-Australian Epistolary Network

Letters are one of the kinds of things that people send each other while they are physically separated. All these gifts, beyond the contingent value they may have, are presents that metonymically represent a relationship as they come into the presence of the recipient. Exchange and forwarding of gifts serves crucially to gain ‘regard’ from others, which may be used immediately for tangible gain or may be its own reward or may be stored for future use. The giving and receiving of letters and other gifts is often not restricted to two persons but takes place and has meaning within and between networks. Brokers create new connections and act as catalysts for the formation of new networks. The gift of letters may lead to gifts of other kinds, which in turn may set in motion networks of epistolary (and other) correspondence. These ideas are explored here in relation to an epistolary network that operated, during the nineteenth-century, between a group of missionaries in Western Australia and various persons in Italy. Exchanges of letters within an ever-expanding network led to a consignment of Aboriginal material culture objects, the first such collection to reach Europe from Western Australia. This consignment originated as a gift to repay kindness from a friend of a friend, and in turn set in chain fresh cycles of writing and giving.

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Civil Disobedience: An American Tradition. By Lewis Perry. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2013. xv + 407. $35.00 cloth.

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)Civil Disobedience: An American Tradition . By Lewis Perry . New Haven, Conn. : Yale University Press , 2013. xv + 407. $35.00 cloth.Book Reviews and NotesThis impressively comprehensive survey traces the practice and theory of disobedience the United States from the eighteenth century to the present. Violating the law in the name of higher morality is, according to Perry, a distinctive American that flourished every age and achieved special prominence the decades before the Civil War and the 1960s (1). Perry moves deftly from abolition to Occupy, from campaigns against Indian removal to Operation Rescue, touching en route on women's rights, temperance, pacifism, labor organizing, and other impulses for social transformation.Several thematic arguments give shape to Perry's chronological narrative. The first is encapsulated the subtitle: gently resisting the transnational tendencies of other American studies scholars, Perry insists on the American provenance of disobedience. This approach to social change appeals to democracy-loving Americans because it is civil as well as disobedient. It allows the activist to affirm the general validity of democratic institutions even while violating specific unjust laws. Perry's stress on the Americanness of disobedience helps him underscore its character as tradition that is continuous over time. Too much emphasis on the Gandhian character of rights, for example, would obscure its homegrown reliance on abolitionist precedents. On the other hand, Perry's approach obscures the profoundly cosmopolitan sensibilities of most disobedients. In the abolitionist era, Henry David Thoreau read the sacred texts of India, William Lloyd Garrison declared that our country is the world, and William Wells Brown began resisting Jim Crow segregation after experiencing integration England. Their twentieth-century successors filled their homes with icons of Mohandas Gandhi, Oscar Romero, and Nelson Mandela. Few imagined that the United States was the only arena for their activism.A second guiding theme is the religious origin of disobedience. Though many activists claim the Boston Tea Party as inspiration, Perry suggests that it was less influential than the refusal of eighteenth-century Baptists to pay church taxes. Shortly before abolitionists began using disobedience on large scale, group of protestant missionaries to the Cherokee accepted imprisonment rather than comply with the Jacksonian policy of Indian removal. I found these stories to be the most exciting part of the book, but they raise questions. If eighteenth-century Baptists New England are part of the story, why not sixteenth-century Anabaptists Switzerland? And if the Baptist campaign against state religion launched the tradition, why were Baptists proportionately under-represented subsequent disobedience campaigns, while establishmentarian Congregationalists and Unitarians were over-represented? (The even more over-represented Quakers might offer clue, since they had both an anti-establishmentarian theology and heritage of quasi-establishment Pennsylvania.)Perry's training as an intellectual historian informs third theme. He is fascinated with the theory underlying disobedience, and repeatedly skewers activists for seeking to circumscribe it within narrow definition. Civil disobedience, he insists, has never been restricted to pacifists. …

Between boundlessness and locatings of place: young evangelical Christians and their mission

This paper, which is based on the ethnography of a group of young Christian-evangelical missionaries during their missionary training, focuses on particular relations to place that these missionaries have. Beginning with a brief look at religion and transnationality, I demonstrate how the Christian-evangelical can be understood both historically and currently as a transnational phenomenon especially in and through its missionary, boundary-crossing movements. In contrast to the conceptually transnational, the missionary mandate has no relation to localities insofar as it relates to the world as a whole in a manner that is boundless and all-encompassing. The young missionaries therefore find themselves in a dilemma where they are caught between boundlessness and the requirement to locate to specific places when they have to decide on the destinations of their missionary travels. Drawing on empirical material, I outline in this paper the different strategies that the young missionaries adopt in dealing with ...

World War I and the humanitarian impulse

World War I and the humanitarian impulse William I. Hitchcock (bio) The Great War is quite rightly associated with the tragedies of the battlefield, with combat deaths of nearly ten million soldiers, with the construction of the vast network of cemeteries all across northern Europe that Kipling called “cities of the dead,” and with the emotional and psychic scarring of a generation of European peoples. Knowing the political and military history of post-1918 Europe, we think of the Great War as but the first act in a century of horrors. Yet when we consider the legacies of the Great War, it is worth recalling that one less melancholy outcome was the creation of a new conception of humanitarian action on behalf of wounded soldiers and distressed civilians. The humanitarian impulse that surged in 1914 has, no less than the ideologies of genocide and barbarism, been one of the hallmarks of the past century, though it has been far less scrutinized by scholars. Lately, historians and social scientists who are interested in the rise of civil society and the place of non-state actors in international relations have turned to the early twentieth century to chart the emergence of the humanitarian idea. This essay reviews some of that scholarship and tries to assess its enduring meaning for our times. I The First World War did not invent humanitarianism. The impulse to respond to the suffering of others had mobilized [End Page 145] communities of people into action since the Enlightenment. Such networks responded to a variety of stimuli. Slavery; war and its associated human tragedies; ethnic and religious conflict and atrocities; famine and natural disasters; health emergencies and epidemics—all these calamities triggered humane responses in North America and Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.1 In some cases humanitarianism could be politically radical: the abolitionist movement of the nineteenth century was animated by more than a desire to offer succor. Its aim was nothing less than the destruction of the practice of slavery, with all the dramatic political implications such an agenda contained. Humanitarianism was also stimulated by the growth and formal expansion of the British Empire in the nineteenth century, during which time the concept of improving newly conquered peoples, and developing them into an “imperial race,” served to legitimate the practice of conquest.2 Missionary groups too often used the premise of an imperial mandate to call for the cleaning up of abusive labor practices in the colonized world.3 And humanitarianism was spurred when religious and liberal political agendas overlapped in certain nineteenth-century social improvement campaigns.4 Yet the rise of the modern humanitarian community is really the product of war. The mid-nineteenth century nationalist conflicts in Europe coincided with a growing sentimental view that civilized societies ought to respond to suffering with care and human kindness rather than indifference.5 This moral imperative met the nationalist fury on the battlefields of Europe, and it was the suffering of wounded soldiers during one such conflict (the Franco-Austrian tangle triggered by the Italian wars of independence) that prompted Henri Dunant, a Swiss evangelical Christian and businessman, to take action. In June 1859, Dunant came across the blood-soaked battleground of Solférino, where thousands of French, Italian and Austrian soldiers lay dying. Shocked by the absence of medical care, Dunant mobilized local civilians to provide ambulances and medical aid for the men. Upon his return to Geneva, he wrote a best-selling exposé, and then convened a group of like-minded citizens to form an international relief society to treat war victims. Dunant’s appeal to his friends came at a time when Europeans had been sensitized to the issue of wartime casualties through the work of Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War (1853-56), when she had campaigned for [End Page 146] military health reforms. Dunant’s efforts struck a chord and his group formed an organization in 1864 that would soon call itself the International Committee of the Red Cross. The humanitarian impulse now had an institutional home.6 The founding document of the humanitarian movement was the Geneva Convention of August 22, 1864, whose brief articles laid out simple rules...

European and American Christian Missions and Nigeria’s National Development (1840-1960)

The socio-economic conditions of Africa during the advent of the European and American Christian missions were deplorable and piteous. This was particularly the case with that part of the continent that was later named Nigeria by the British colonial authority. To help or not to help the people economically therefore became one of the greatest problems of the missionaries owing to the vastness of the area and the large population of the people occupying it. Nevertheless, the missionaries saw the socio-economic assistance to the less-privileged and poor natives as a missionary imperative. The solution was found in the system of indirect socio-economic assistance of the converts. This was inherent in the works of all the missionary groups that brought the Christian gospel to Africa. Thus, the Christian missions laboured to develop the Nigerian nation since the 19th century. The main thrust of this paper is to objectively evaluate the general impacts of the establishment of Christian missions in Nigeria on her people and nationhood. It is aimed at challenging the Christian leaders of today to re-appraise their commitment to the social aspect of the Church’s call. While using an analytical and descriptive historical approach to the study of the activities of the Christian missions in Nigeria between the 19th and the 20th centuries, this research has discovered that the contributions of the European and American missionaries who undertook pioneer missionary work in the country have been under-estimated in earlier historical records. The missionaries actually contributed immensely to the development of Nigerians individually and corporately in many areas including Education, Medicare, Agriculture and Commerce. DOI: 10.5901/jesr.2013.v3n10p89

Native apostles: black and Indian missionaries in the British Atlantic world

Native Apostles: Black and Indian Missionaries in the Atlantic World. By Edward E. Andrews. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013. 326 pages. $39.95 (hardcover).This book needed to be written. Native Apostles: Black and Indian Missionaries in the Atlantic World pulls together insights from scholarship published in recent decades about the spread of Protestant Christianity around the Atlantic. Collectively, these works have transformed our understanding of the history of religion in the western hemisphere during the colonial period-particularly the role both and Africans played in shaping Christianity's meaning and character in the Americas. Continuing this trend, Edward E. Andrews persuasively argues in Native Apostles that during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, throughout the Atlantic, African, African-American, and Native American missionaries sought to evangelize [other] blacks and Indians (2).The vast majority of people working in missions, Andrews declares, not actually British but rather what he calls native missionaries who generally came from the same population as their potential converts (2). He then marshals overwhelming evidence demonstrating that they were indeed ubiquitous. This story sheds light on how colonized peoples responded to, rejected, shaped, and appropriated Christianity and demonstrates that Native missionaries were at the heart of the cultural exchange we most associate with colonialism. Anglo-American missionary groups invested a great deal of time, money, and effort to train and support hundreds of and Africans in the hopes that they would convert the denizens of the Atlantic borderlands to Christianity. While historically they have been overlooked, some historians in recent years have begun to reexamine a few of the betterknown members of this cadre, such as Mohegan minister Samson Occom. Yet before Native Apostles no attempt has been made to look at them as a group, assess their role in the expansion of Christianity, or try to place them in a larger Atlantic framework.1Covering well-worn ground for scholars of Protestant missions in the New World, chapter one looks at Puritan missionary activity among New England's Algonquian groups and the role indigenous religious leaders played in the formation of the Massachusetts 'Praying Towns' in the seventeenth century. In the more ambitious chapter two, Andrews details the role of Native missionaries in the less-frequently studied period from 1700 through the 1740s in the colonial Northeast. Settings examined include southern New England after King Philip's War, as well as Anglican efforts among the Iroquois and Yamassee during the early eighteenth century. Particularly insightful was the role race and slavery played in failed efforts by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG), a leading missionary organization, to create a plantation-supported college in Barbados to train indigenous missionaries.Covering the role of African and Native missionaries during the Great Awakening revivals, chapter three examines the explosion of Black and Indian evangelists during the era from 1735 to 1770. Signifying a major shift in transatlantic protestant missionary activity, (23) this chapter includes analysis of Moravian activity in the Danish Caribbean starting in the 1740s as well as their activities among the Lenape (Delaware) and Mahican in northeastern North America. Also chronicled is the creation of an Anglican school for slave children in Charleston, South Carolina, and the success separatist denominations had among southern New England's indigenous Protestants. Andrews works hard in this very effective section to show the connections between these diverse efforts to create a corps of Indian and black evangelists. He succeeds admirably in linking the Caribbean, American South, and New England, as well as juggling multiple denominations- Moravian, Anglican, Congregationalist, separatist (particularly Baptist), as well as New Light revivalists. …

Courtiers with a conscience: the Lazarists of Versailles and Saint-Cyr, 1674-1704

Received images of Louis XIV’s courts depict places of lavish splendour. Amid their worldly extravagance, especially at Versailles, the role of religion might have struggled to find any definite role, yet it was not forgotten. However, besides historical interest in certain key figures among the court clergy, especially the Jesuit confessors, the court’s religious terrain remains largely untilled ground. Furthermore, what does exist tends to mirror characterizations of the court’s secular dwellers: the court’s clerics and almoners thus appear materialistic and greedy men. This article goes beyond these often over-broad presentations by examining the group of Lazarist missionaries who came to Versailles in 1674. Followers of the famous servant of the poor, Vincent de Paul, these missionaries seemed unlikely bedfellows of Louis’ crown. But, in the unusual surroundings of Versailles and its neighbouring residence at Saint-Cyr, they carved out an intriguing reputation for humility and charity.

Christianity in Nigeria before Pentecostalism

Many previous works on Christianity in Nigeria had mostly emphasized the successful parts of the mission efforts rather than the whole gamut of attempts, successes, failures and African innovativeness that largely characterized the mission stories. This paper however historically examined in synopsis the mission activities of the missionary groups that made entry into Nigeria and how the religion was eventually slated for indigenization by the Nigerian Christians to aptly express their worldview and perception. Some relevant literatures were used to gather historical facts about the topic. Logical reasoning and historical method were used in treating findings and in reconciling the information and evidence in the literature. The paper surveyed the following: European entry into Africa, Christian entry into Nigeria, (western and southern Nigeria), the missions established and how these missions were breeding diverse African nationalists and charismatic personnel who suggested that Christianity should be expressed in the African way. Christianity in Nigeria had gone through a lot of stages and the roles of these stages are very fundamental in the telling of Christian history in Nigeria. Mission Christianity though brought Christianity to Nigeria could not present a befitting Christianity that match the worldview of the people. Western missionary personnel enjoyed a great deal of hospitality when they came in the 19th Century. Nevertheless, Indigenous Christian practices garnished in Pentecostal expressiveness and liturgies appeared to be the distinguishing traits and hopes of Nigerian Christianity in the long run. DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2013.v2n2p121

MİSYONER ÖRGÜTLERİN REKABET SAHNESİ FİLİSTİN

Batili devletler tarafindan “Kutsal Topraklar” diye adlandirilan Filistin bolgesinde Protestan Ingiliz misyonerlik faaliyetlerinin baslamasi, bolgede yuzyil oncesinden misyonerlik faaliyeti surduren Katolik Fransiz ve Ortodoks Rus misyoner orgutlerin bolgedeki varliklarini olusturmalarindan sonraki doneme rastlar. On dokuzuncu yuzyilin ortalarina gelindiginde, Filistin bolgesinde ki ozellikle Kudus’te Fransiz kokenli Katolik misyonlar ve Rusya kokenli Ortodoks misyonlarin kendi dini ogretilerini yaymak, bolgedeki halklarin dini kurtulusa erdirilmesini saglamak ve kendi ulkeleri icin Filistin bolgesinde politik cikar alanlari meydana getirmek icin basta kilise, manastir, okul, hastane olmak uzere bircok yetimhane meydana getirmeleri uzerinden yuzyil gecmisti Filistin bolgesinde Ingiliz misyonerlik faaliyetleri, bolgede daha onceden misyonerlik faaliyeti gosteren diger Avrupali devletler ile karsilastirildiginda, 19. yuzyilin ortalarinda basladigini goruruz. Bu tarihten once bolgede Ingiliz varligindan ozellikle Ingiliz misyonerlik faaliyetlerinden soz etmek mumkun degildi. Filistin bolgesine gonderilen ilk Ingiliz Protestan misyonerler, Clapham Sect olarak bilinen Ingiltere Kilisesine (Church of England) bagli olan bir gurup evangelik uye tarafindan 1799 yilinda kurulmus olan Church Missionary Society (CMS) Protestan misyoner orgutunun temsilcileriydi.

Change and Its Effect on Mission and Church Relationship

International Review of MissionVolume 101, Issue 2 p. 393-403 Wind of Change: Church on the Move Change and Its Effect on Mission and Church Relationship A Roman Catholic Perspective The Rev. Dr Richard Kuuia Baawobr M.Afr., The Rev. Dr Richard Kuuia Baawobr M.Afr.Search for more papers by this author The Rev. Dr Richard Kuuia Baawobr M.Afr., The Rev. Dr Richard Kuuia Baawobr M.Afr.Search for more papers by this author First published: 20 November 2012 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1758-6631.2012.00117.xCitations: 1Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume101, Issue2November 2012Pages 393-403 RelatedInformation

The Early Missionary Groups and the Contest for Igboland: A Reappraisal of Their Evangelization Strategies

The religious configuration of Nigeria has shown that Igboland has the highest concentration of the mainline churches, particularly Catholic and Anglican Churches. This has been attributed to the evangelization strategies, employed, largely, by early missionaries. Unfortunately, these strategies also engendered rivalry and competition among the two groups, robbing them of the real focus and commitment needed to penetrate the traditional religious beliefs and practices of the people. Consequently, routinization has become a common attitude within the Christian population, which calls for a new method of evangelization.

The Role of Spiritual Development in the Cross-Cultural Reentry Adjustment of Missionaries

This study investigated the relationship between spiritual development and cultural reentry adjustment in a group of missionaries. One hundred and two missionaries completed a questionnaire that correlated the Spiritual Assessment Inventory (SAI) with five cultural adaptation and transition scales. The study found significant relationship between the Reentry Distress Scale and the SAI Disappointment and Instability scales. There was also a significant relationship between the SAI Awareness scale and the Transition Change Scale. The study also explored the relationship between reentry distress and calling, regularly practicing spiritual disciplines, and returning home to a supportive community. The implications of the study are discussed in relation to missionaries, mission agencies, and local churches in order to provide meaningful care for missionaries during cross-cultural transitions.

North China Famine Revisited: Unsung Native Relief in the Warlord Era, 1920–1921

AbstractThis paper makes the case that in China's most severe food crisis of the first quarter of the twentieth century—the great north China famine of 1920–1921—considerable life-saving relief was generated by three largely-neglected segments of Chinese society: Buddhist and other native charity efforts working along parallel social channels to the better-publicized missionary and international relief groups; the Republic's much-maligned military establishment; and officials and residents of the stricken communities themselves who were operating largely ‘below the radar’ of the distant, mostly city-based chroniclers of the famine whose voices have been privileged in the later history-writing process. Despite the recent fall of the Qing and the beginnings of a fractured era of warring between provincial governors, this paper suggests that communities in the increasingly neglected periphery of 1920 north China were significantly more viable and attentive to social welfare needs than has been previously recognized.

Examining Islamic Associations of Pakistani and Bangladeshi Immigrants in Greece

Since the mid-1970s the territory of Greece has turned from an emigration to an immigration space. A considerable number among the thousands of immigrants that arrive every year in the country are of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin and of Muslim faith. Their Muslim background plays a significant role in the organisation of their communities. Islam is a strong factor when it comes to the development of their social life and in this sense it influences the process of immigrants' acculturation within the host society. The informal worship place (informal mosque) is the space where the faithful fulfil their religious duties, meet each other and spend much of their free time discussing and exchanging views on mundane and more serious matters. However, the majority of the informal mosques are related to various Islamic associations which hold their own views on religion, society and life. The Pakistani and the Bangladeshi Islamic associations in Greece fall into two broad categories: the missionary movements and groups and the organisations with a ‘political dimension’. An examination of the Islamic associations' discourse, activities and aims shows that the organisations of the first category promote a very conservative stance for their constituencies towards the host society, whereas those of the second category encourage the immigrants to integrate, while preserving, however, their ‘Islamic values’. Meanwhile, the efforts of the Greek state and society to integrate the Muslim immigrants with a long presence in the country lack in determination and effectiveness.

Reforming Men, Refining Umma: Tablīghī Jamā‛at and Novel Visions of Islamic Masculinity

Tablīghī Jamā‛at, a pietistic movement run by laypeople that originated in India is currently the most widespread Muslim missionary group worldwide. It is essentially men-oriented in terms of its main target for proselytization and organization. Spaces of proselytization are mosques, sacred spaces frequented by men, and the home, a place of reinforcement of ‘lifestyle evangelism’ dominated by women. The group has been described as anti-intellectualist, apolitical, docile, otherworldly, and a front for militant groups. Based on recent ethnographic research in northern Kenya, the paper explores two main thematic questions: What does it take to be a Tablīghī man? Does emerging Tablīghī masculinity embolden or reconfigure gender/patriarchal relations? The paper posits that the movement provides social mobility for non- ‘ulamā men in an alternative religious hierarchy but also lays the foundation for the emergence of a transnational practice of Islamic masculinity that appropriates the different local versions of being and becoming a man.

Missionaries and Indigenous Education in the 19th‐Century British Empire. Part I: Church‐State Relations and Indigenous Actions and Reactions

AbstractMissionaries were major providers of education in the colonial world, and in many cases were the initial and exclusive agents of education for Indigenous and non‐European people, whom they hoped could be converted to Christianity through religious schooling. However, by the end of the 19th century many governments in colonial lands were keen to take more active roles in providing secular education for their subjects, which, in turn, engendered tensions between missionary groups, governments, and the Indigenous communities for whom education was provided. Although the article of missions has received increasing attention in the last few decades, especially with the advent of postcolonial studies, there are still many aspects of missionary schooling that are understudied. This research overview examines the debates and research directions which are evident in the article of missionaries and their education of Indigenous and non‐European peoples in the 19th century, and focuses particularly upon major themes emerging from the literature: Two of these themes—Church‐State relations and Indigenous action and reaction will be examined in this article, whilst the themes of race, class, and gender will be examined in the second part.

The Gülen movement and the case of a secret agenda: putting the debate in perspective

The Gülen movement, a charity-based Turkish Muslim educational activist network, went global in the 1990s and has established approximately 1,000 secular educational institutions in more than 100 countries. The movement has an estimated worth of $25 billion, making it perhaps the largest faith-based transnational organization in the world today. However, in the wake of 9/11 and increased global anxiety about terrorism, mistrust regarding Muslims and Islam has grown. Suspicion is not only confined to stereotypes about jihadists, with some commentators arguing that Islam itself is the problem, and that any deeply religious Muslim should be viewed with distrust. The Gülen movement has not escaped this analysis and this outwardly secular educational organization has been accused of secretly proselytizing and indoctrinating students in its schools. This article analyses the popular discourse around the movement in Turkey and abroad and weighs the evidence for and against the allegations. It contends not only that they are baseless, and fail to furnish any evidence, but also that they appear to be part of a broader double standard vis-à-vis reporting and commentary on Christian missionary groups and their activities. In particular, the religious philosophy and activities of the Gülen movement are juxtaposed with those of World Vision.