Missionary Leaders Research Articles

Assimilation and Acculturation: A Comparison of the Evangelical Strategies of Russian Orthodox and Presbyterian missionaries in Alaska.

Beginning in 1877, Presbyterian missionaries led by Sheldon Jackson contended with an already established Russian Orthodox mission in Tlingit Southeastern Alaska. Both groups sought to convert the Tlingit to their respective denominations, however, they employed strikingly different strategies informed by their experiences in the American Southwest and Great Plains, and in Siberia respectively. By contrasting the Presbyterian and Russian Orthodox strategies, we see that Presbyterians valued Native assimilation more than the Russian Orthodox missionaries did. Ultimately, the Russian Orthodox missionaries' willingness to accommodate Native Alaskan cultural practices led many Native Alaskans to convert to Russian Orthodoxy and remain Orthodox despite institutional pressure by the American colonial government and Presbyterian missionaries to become Presbyterian and adopt American cultural practices. This conclusion is based on contrasting Presbyterian missionary documents with Orthodox missionary documents—including instructions by missionary leaders, reports on missionary ventures, personal journals, and correspondences. Though the subject of Presbyterian and Russian Orthodox missions has been covered extensively by scholars such as Sergei Kan, such examinations have largely been anthropological in nature and emphasized the perspectives of Native Alaskans to push back against settler-centric narratives in historical and anthropological study. The intention of this paper is not to push back against the advancements made by Kan in this field, rather, it seeks to build off the work of Kan and revisit the perspectives of the missionaries while considering Kan’s scholarship.

Menilik Gerakan Misioner dalam Kepemimpinan Petrus Octavianus, serta Kontribusinya Terhadap Gereja dan Bangsa

Not a few people hold leadership positions, but only a handful of people take part as leaders in missionary movements, even though the church has a missionary call that must be fulfilled. It was at this point that Petrus Octavianus appeared in his life and works to show himself as one of the few people whose figure reflects a missionary movement. With his missionary movement, Petrus Octavianus moved across borders to proclaim Christ. The research method used is a qualitative method with a narrative study approach. The results of this research show that a missionary leader can produce works that tend to be unexpected. This is reflected in the experience of Petrus Octavianus as a religious and national figure with a multitude of achievements that have received much appreciation as a manifestation of his theological life journey which was made possible by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Missionary Cosmopolitanism in Nineteenth-Century British Literature

Missionary Cosmopolitanism in Nineteenth-Century British Literature

“To Promote the Cause of Christ's Kingdom”: International Student Associations and the “Revival” of Middle Eastern Christianity

This article traces the presence in the Arab world of international Christian student organizations like the World Student Christian Federation (WSCF) and its intercollegiate branches of the YMCA and YWCA associated with the Protestant missionary movement in nineteenth-century Beirut. There, an American-affiliated branch of the YMCA emerged at Syrian Protestant College in the 1890s, and the Christian women's student movement formed in the early twentieth century after a visit from WSCF secretaries John Mott and Ruth Rouse. As such, student movements took on lives of their own, and they developed in directions that Western missionary leaders never anticipated. By attending to the ways in which the WSCF and YMCA/YWCA drew Arabs into the global ecumenical movement, this study examines the shifting aims of Christian student associations in twentieth-century Syria and Lebanon, from missionary-supported notions of evangelical revival to ecumenical renewal and interreligious movements for national reform.

Pengembangan Dakwah Melalui Gerakan Kebudayaan

Development of Da'wah through the Cultural Movement is a model in broadcasting religious teachings that must be considered, through the formation of jama'ah as a social unit (Community). The fact shows that the Indonesian people have a broad cultural diversity and diversity. The most important way that must be done is that a missionary leader, both individually and in groups, must be a figure who is always creative, innovative and tries to have a cultural representative who is then proven in the missionary movement. Every missionary movement needs to formulate a missionary plan whose content of mission remains in accordance with Islamic teachings contained in the Qur'an and Al-Sunnah.

The Use of the Old Testament in a Wesleyan Theology of Mission

In this interesting study, Gordon Snider, a professor at Kansas Christian College, sets out to examine if and how representative Wesleyan theologians and missionary leaders used the Old Testament to shape a theology of mission, and how far the outcomes corresponded with distinctive Wesleyan emphases. Snider takes three groups of case studies: the British founders of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (Thomas Coke, Jabez Bunting, Adam Clarke, and Richard Watson); voices from the nineteenth-century Methodist Episcopal Church (Nathan Bangs, the contributors to Whedon's Old Testament Commentary, and Edmund F. Cook); and spokespeople from the Wesleyan holiness tradition. In each case, evidence is sought for attitudes to the questions Snider judges to be central to contemporary missiological readings of the Old Testament: the universal reign of God, the election of Israel, and Israel's responsibility toward the nations. Evidence is also sought for the key Wesleyan emphases of the image of God in humanity, prevenient grace, a therapeutic model of salvation, and a concern for Christian perfection. This analytical framework enables Snider to marshal a considerable amount of material, and to demonstrate the importance of the Old Testament for the theology and advocacy of missions in the family of Wesleyan and Methodist traditions.

Marketing Mission: The Divergence in Missiological Thought between Pastors and Missionary Leadership

This qualitative study examines paradigms of the definition of mission as held by high-level Assembly of God pastors and missionary leaders. The study reveals that the two groups differ in their definition of mission. In the church, pastors generally feel that “mission” encompasses outreach to all people groups; missionaries, however, consider that mission is specific to the apostolic function, namely, reaching out with the Gospel where no one has gone before—to unreached people groups (UPGs). Implications for missionary leadership suggest a targeted marketing approach; using niche strategies directed to the mission-funding churches may be needed.

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. …

Leadership, Corruption and Governance in Nigeria: Issues and Categorical Imperatives

Nigeria is inundated with rich human and material resources begging to be harvested by purposeful, creative and innovative leadership. Leadership that is based on the cultural values of the people and takes a Bottom-top approach holds the key to unlocking the development quagmire Nigeria has found itself. However, this is not the case due to leadership failure, corruption and bad governance. Within the framework of theories of the two public and nature of society, an eclectic approach, the paper examines the issues of leadership, corruption and governance with a view to adumbrate the trajectory of an efficacious leadership and governance modus operandi capable of finding solutions to Nigeria’s myriad problems. Also examined is the enigmatic nature of corruption in Nigeria that has made it a lucrative venture. The paper confirms earlier position that leadership, corruption and bad governance are the bane militating against development in Nigeria. Therefore, all hands must be on deck to enthrone effective leadership and good governance that could expunge the scourge of corruption from the nation's body polity. The first fundamental step among other measures is transformation of the state from an alien force to an entity that caters for the welfare and wellbeing of the people. Yet, the need for patriotic, visionary and missionary leaders cannot be overstated because a nation can only be great when it has leaders that plant trees whose shades they know they shall never seat in. The followers should as well perform their obligatory and non-obligatory civic duties and responsibilities.Key words: Development, Corruption, Leadership, Governance, Transformation

Black Protestants in a Catholic Land

The African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, a black Church founded in the United States in 1816, was first established in eastern Haiti when over 6,000 black freemen emigrated from the United States to Hispaniola between 1824 and 1825. Almost a century later, the AME Church grew rapidly in the Dominican Republic as West Indians migrated to the Dominican southeast to work on sugar plantations. This article examines the links between African-American immigrant descendants, West Indians, and U.S.-based AME leaders between the years 1899–1916. In focusing on Afro-diasporic exchange in the Church and the hardships missionary leaders faced on the island, the article reveals the unequal power relations in the AME Church, demonstrates the significance of the southeast to Dominican AME history, and brings the Dominican Republic into larger discussions of Afro-diasporic exchange in the circum-Caribbean.

선교적 교회의 관점에서 본 선교

This study attempted to review how the discussion about missional church had come to the academic circle with reference to the origin and background of missional church. In actuality, the concept of missional church began with the publication of the book entitled Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America (1998). Later, Darrell L. Guder wrote The Continuing Conversion of the Church (2000). Beside these, Craig Van Gelder and Dwight J. Zscheile co-authored The Missional Church in Perspective (2011). These works greatly contributed to the academic development of missional church as well as the recognition of the missional church all over the world.However, Lesslie Newbigin and David J. Bosch were the early advocates of the missional church. The former returned to England after he had finished mission work in South India. He discovered that England became the mission field calling for God’s mission. After this discovery, he began to articulate what would be the nature and the task of the church in terms of God’s mission. The latter returned to South Africa after he finished his biblical and missiological studies at Basel in Switzerland. He worked as a missionary among the natives to share the good news of the Kingdom with them as change agents. Later, he became a professor of missions at University of South Africa in Pretoria while writing Witness to the World (1980) and Transforming Mission (1991). The missional church learned a lot from these mission scholars and missionary leaders. The missional church needs to be sure of the Great Commission which was given to His disciples as well as all Christians today. The Great Commission must be reflected and carried out in the work of missional church while it becomes the foundation for world evangelization. The Great Commission is not an option but a mandate for the missional church participating in God’s mission. The mission work of the missional church largely depends upon the careful articulation and the faithful practice of the Great Commission. However, in addition to the Great Commission, God’s compassion for the lost becomes the motive for the missional church through which God’s Kingdom is realized in the world which God loves so much.The missional church needs to look at the mission as God’s mission rather than humans’ or churches,’ In essence, mission is the Trinitarian God’s work. In particular, the Holy Spirit empowers the missional church to carry on the mission work in the world as the light and the salt for the world. The Lord Jesus Christ encourages us to go into the world with the gospel message which is the same truth forever in response to the different cultures in which the unreached people live their lives according to their way of life and their way of thinking.The missional church needs to serve the people in the community outside of the church as well as the people inside of the church. The missional church carries out God’s mission through the holistic mission, that is, dong mission work through kerygma, koinonia, and diakonia. Further, the missional church needs to contextualize the gospel according the needs of the people within different cultural forms. The cultural forms are the most effective media of communicating the gospel message to the people. However, the missional church needs to practice critical contextualization in terms of indigenous ministry and indigenous theology in order to make the biblical message more meaningful to the people. This is the nature and the mission work of the missional church. The Triune God wants us to be a missional church for His Kingdom and glory. The missional church prays, “Your Kingdom come”(Mt. 6:10).

HOLISM AND POPULAR GRASSROOTS MOVEMENTS

International Review of MissionVolume 91, Issue 362 p. 370-381 HOLISM AND POPULAR GRASSROOTS MOVEMENTS Stephen Armet, Stephen Armet Stephen Armet is a professor and researcher of Intercultural Studies with the Universidad Evangélica de las Américas (UNELA) in Bogotá, Colombia.Search for more papers by this author Stephen Armet, Stephen Armet Stephen Armet is a professor and researcher of Intercultural Studies with the Universidad Evangélica de las Américas (UNELA) in Bogotá, Colombia.Search for more papers by this author First published: 25 March 2009 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1758-6631.2002.tb00352.x AboutPDF 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 Volume91, Issue362July 2002Pages 370-381 RelatedInformation

The Politics of Mythology: the Genealogy of the Philip Myth

Political myths have played a crucial role in legitimising apartheid and white domination in South Africa. This article explores the history of one such political myth: the mythology surrounding the nineteenth century missionary leader John Philip. I foreground the links between the Philip myth and the changing political and ideological contexts within which it was mobilised over the course of 150 years. While the roots of the Philip myth lie in the racial polemics of conservative settler ideologues in the Cape Colony during the 1830s and 1840s, Philip had slipped into historical obscurity by the middle of the nineteenth century. It was only during the 1880s and 1890s that he was resurrected by the massively influential settler historian G.M. Theal. The reasons for Theal’s construction of a full blown Philip myth are related to his political project of colonial nationalism and his growing interest in the ideologies of Social Darwinism and scientific racism. Although Philip evoked scant interest among Afrikaner nationalist historians during the early 1900s, he was yoked into the service of segregationist ideology during the 1930s and 1940s as the symbol of the meddling outsider at a time when Afrikaner nationalist historiography was becoming increasingly overt in its racism. During the apartheid era the myth of John Philip was popularised as it was transported from the relatively narrow domain of professional historians into the wider domain of public politics. Against the backdrop of intense apartheid zenophobia and heightened tensions between the apartheid state and left-wing churches, prime ministers and school teachers invoked, John Philip reinvoked the spectre of this historic enemy of white South Africa.

The Empty Lot: Spiritual Contact in Lenape and Moravian Religious Beliefs

began in Pennsylvania during the 1740s and continued in Ohio until the early nineteenth century. The church established thirty-two North American mission towns populated exclusively by converts and missionary families. Unlike related Puritan efforts, the Moravian programs worked inside Indian territories, in full cooperative contact with tribal societies. Missionary leader David Zeisberger was the first European immigrant to cross the Forbidden Trail established by the Seneca to repel colonial expansion, and he later became an adopted member of the Lenape, serving on the chief council. As a result of such participation, the primary source of ethnographic data for Lenape culture is the Moravian records. As these two cultures interacted, their spiritual worlds inevitably collided. Though they certainly bore resemblances, Moravian and Lenape religious systems differed, particularly in their practices of spiritual communication. Much attention has been devoted to the significance of dreams and vision quests in Lenape and other Native American religions. Moravian practices, however, have received little analysis, especially their application of chance properties to ascertain divine will.

My Pilgrimage in Mission

have, in retrospect, sometimes thought that be­ yondness has been a distinctive feature of my life. I was born and grew up in Bergen, Norway-for 900 years an im­ portant center of seafaring and contact with foreign countries. My earliest memory is of a huge crowd of people gathered to celebrate opening of Bergen-Oslo railway. At school my favorite subject was geography, more especially that part of it that dealt with non-Western The encounter, through reading and traveling, with peoples and cultures other than my own, has always fascinated me. However, decisive factor in shaping of my life was a beyondness of a different kind. I refer to expanding horizons that are an integral part of Christian message. In home in which I was privileged to grow up I learned not only to look upon daily devotions, Bible reading, and church attendance as essential elements of Christian life, but also to interpret that life in terms of a reality related to the depth of centuries and breadth of continents. My parents were committed Christians and sincere friends of mission. As a young woman my mother had wished to become a missionary. On my twenty-first birthday my father pre sented me with a copy of that monumental piece of research, World Christian Atlas, to study of which I immediately addressed myself. No less than to my parents lowe to my wife a debt of special gratitude. The quality of her Christian life and devotion has immensely enriched my pilgrimage in mission. I am a disciple of no one but a debtor to many. As a young student my Christian thinking was largely influenced by those distinguished churchmen Bishop Peter Hognestad of Bergen and Professor Olaf Moe of Free Faculty of Theology, Oslo. Both of them were convinced Lutherans. Both of them were also pi­ oneers of ecumenical movement in Norway. Bishop Eivind Berggrav, likewise, made a deep impact on my life. It has been my good fortune to have met and been inspired by not a few of great missionary leaders and scholars of this century. When I was still at an early age, John R. Mott captured my mind. His vision of one world in Christ, his mastery of facts and problems related to task of church in all six continents, his wide sympathy, resolute will, and intellectual in­ tegrity decidedly affected course of my life. J. H . Oldham, too, I greatly admired. This remarkable per­ sonality-missionary statesman, ecumenical architect, and pioneer in field of Chri stian social ethics-exerted upon my generation

Missionary Fit: A Criterion-Related Model

Missionary-sending agencies are becoming concerned about missionary attrition. Thus, there is an urgent need to develop a strategy for identifying the antecedents to successful missionary service. Forty-four participants, attending the National Conference on Mental Health and Missions, formed three groups for the present study. Mental health professionals, missionary leaders, and professionals with missionary personnel experience were measured on three criteria for the task of identifying a successful missionary: A job-function analysis, a value-orientation scale, and a personality checklist. The three groups were significantly alike in their perceptions, thereby permitting the development of a statistical model representative of all participants. Slight statistical variances which did exist among and within the three groups suggest that missionary organizations should seriously consider developing their own statistical model for identifying and selecting successful missionaries.

Henry Venn's Instructions to Missionaries

In the relatively brief history of Protestant missiology, no name is more respected than that of Henry Venn. As one of his successors in the leadership of the Church Missionary Society, Max Warren, observed, “On almost any reckoning, Venn was the outstanding European missionary leader, thinker and administrator of the nineteenth century.” Author Shenk goes to the primary record of Venn's missiological thought — the Letters of Instructions to missionary appointees — and provides us with a balanced summary of his reflections on some major themes. Viewed realistically in his Victorian context, Venn was clearly a man on the cutting edge. An Anglican of firm evangelical principles, his writings mirror an irenic mind and an ecumenical spirit as he sought to develop the praxis of the Church Missionary Society.

Perspectives on Development from mao Tse-Tung

In current thinking about the mission of the church no topic is more prominent than “development.” Its urgency springs from awakened Christian conscience concerning the vast disabilities suffered by a large part of the world's population in comparison with relatively affluent “Christian” nations of the West. Many missionary leaders have come to the conviction that traditional Christian activities in aid of the poor have treated symptoms rather than causes. “Development,” then, seeks to get at fundamental issues of poverty, hunger, ignorance, hopelessness and to help people find their own way to a more abundant, more “human” life. What is distinctively Christian about these concerns, or about the actions undertaken to deal with them? What have the churches in mission to offer that secular agencies, or even anti-Christian movements, cannot match or excel? A striking perspective from which to view some of these questions is provided by the ideology of Communist China, widely believed to be the most successful society to undertake self-development in our time. Without attempting to make specific comparisons, this essay outlines the developmental thought of Mao Tse-tung in a way which facilitates self-analysis and evaluation by Christians.

Reviews of Books

Book reviewed in this article:INDIAN CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM: Papers relating to the Application of the Principle of Dyarchy to the Government of India. With an Introduction by L. CurtisISLAM AND CHRISTIANITY: Der Islam und die christliche Verkündigung. Eine missionarische Untersuchung. Von Gottfried SimonA SOUTH AFRICAN MISSIONARY LEADER: The Life of Andrew Murray of South Africa. By J. Du PlessisCHAPTERS ON JESUIT MISSIONS: For the Faith. By Annie H. SmallEDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN INDIA: Schools with a Message in India. By D. J. FlemingAMONG THE OUTCASTES: The Chamars. By Geo. W. BriggsA STUDY OF HINDI LITERATURE: History of Hindi Literature. By F. E. KeayA CENTRAL AFRICAN PIONEER: The Life and Explorations of Frederick Stanley Arnot. By Ernest BakerCHINA THROUGH FRENCH EYES: La Chine. By Emile HovelaqueA HANDBOOK OF ROMAN CATHOLIC MISSIONS: Handbuch der Katholischen Missionen. By Bernard Arens

The Effect of the War on Protestant Missions

One would be indeed presumptuous to predict the effect of this war upon foreign missionary operations. Indeed, to report fully the present effect of this world war upon the work of the various foreign missionary societies of the world is an impossible task. Missionary leaders are, however, attempting to estimate the significance of the present bearing of war conditions, while few would be so bold as to suggest even what the future may be.