Redeeming, Ruling, and Reaping: British Missionary Societies, the East India Company, and the India-to-China Opium Trade

At the end of the 19th century, British missionaries campaigned to abolish the India-to-China opium trade, whose profits were crucial for British ambitions in Asia. This challenge by the missionaries had been slow to emerge, however, and focusing only on that well-known opposition masks the preceding half-century of accommodations and compromises with the opium traffic, both on the production end (Bengal) and on the receiving end (in Macau and Canton). Our research addresses the subjective calculus that was at work for the missionaries and asks how their reading of that calculus affected their movement across the spectrum from unconcern to outrage about opium. At the core of their enterprise from beginning to end was their unwavering commitment to the evangelical "Great Commission," which spelled out the obligation to bring the Christian gospel to unsaved multitudes around the world. We argue that they consistently embraced whatever was pragmatically necessary to advance that goal and resisted whatever threatened to block movement toward it. Beneath changeability on the surface, a thread of value-rational coherence ran through a century of calculated and strategic missionary activity. The same thread is likely to be in evidence in other theaters of global evangelism where missionaries were (are) involved in secular controversies.     

Voices of Outreach: The Construction of Identity and Maintenance of Social Ties Among Chabad-Lubavitch Emissaries

Fundamentalists typically avoid influences from the outside world and form intense social bonds with members of their own group. Yet, active fundamentalists must create relationships with the objects of their missionary action, the Other. In this article I address the connections between the cultural practice of missionary work and the formation and maintenance of social ties among ultra-Orthodox Jewish missionaries belonging to the fundamentalist Hasidic sect Chabad-Lubavitch. These missionaries attempt to bring Jews to the beliefs and practices of Chabad by hosting Jews at Sabbath meals. This missionary act is an utterance that "speaks" with multiple voices, indexing the missionaries as both friendly members of their local Jewish community and ideal Lubavitchers. Through these meals, the missionaries engage not only the local Jews but also other Lubavitchers in dialogue, constructing a community that transcends face-to-face interaction.     

Freedom of Religion and The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark

This article investigates how Africans in Zululand, South Africa, viewed Lutheran missionaries in the 1950's. The main source is a thorough report Zulu pastor S. A. Mbatha gave in answer to a survey initiated by the Swedish missionary Helge Fosseus in 1957. Fosseus wanted to find out more about the causes of increasing African resistance to mission, church and Christianity. Mbatha replied that missionaries were seen by Africans as enemies in that they shared white South African society's prevailing attitude toward blacks. Missionaries were characterized as exploiters and betrayers. This negative image contrasts strongly with the picture the missionaries painted of themselves as Africans' friends and allies in the struggle against increasing discrimination. The last part of the article discusses possible causes for the large difference between the missionaries' self-understanding and the Africans' image of the missionaries.     

Personality and Dissonance Among Mormon Missionaries

The distinguishing characteristics of dissonant missionaries were identified by examining the responses of 58 current and former Mormon missionaries to a questionnaire about missionary service, a Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) Denial scale, and Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI) Compulsive and Submissive/Aggressive special scales. The participants, 12 women and 46 men, were mailed the materials after being identified by their friends or acquaintances as current or former missionaries. Women had less satisfying missionary experiences than men and were more likely to report a loss of self-esteem due to missionary service, but were not more dissonant missionaries than men. Missionaries with lower scores on the Denial, Compulsive, and Submissive/Aggressive scales were more likely to question mission policies than subjects with higher scores. Thus, it appears that Denial, Compulsive, and Submissive/Aggressive scale scores can identify potentially dissonant missionaries.     

Ronald F. Levant: Award for Distinguished Professional Contributions to Applied Research

Presents Ronald F. Levant as the 2011 winner of the American Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Professional Contributions to Applied Research. "Ronald F. Levant is one of the world's leading authorities on the psychology of men and masculinity. Through his pioneering research, he helped define gender role strain theory, fostered a multicultural understanding of fathering and masculinity issues, and developed and evaluated the Male Role Norms Inventory and the Normative Male Alexithymia Scale. He also established the empirical foundation for the normative male alexithymia hypothesis, which proposes that male socialization inhibits emotional expression in males, and he developed alexithymia reduction treatment, which is designed to prepare men to engage more fully in psychotherapy and to experience greater benefit from it." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved).     

The Double Face of Christian Mission and Education in India from Dalit and Decolonial Perspectives

Missionaries from Europe came to India starting in the 15th century to preach the gospel. Their mission works have both intended and unintended consequences that affect people even today. Missionaries brought modern education to India and gave Western education to Dalits, leading to the social uplifting of Dalits, who were denied education by the oppressive caste system. Some missionaries also spoke against the social evils during their time. On the other hand, some missionaries’ work at times highlighted the Brahmanic religion as a pan-India religion which placed popular religions in a disadvantaged position. Furthermore, their work also helped the British colonial government to maintain control and become powerful. The translation work of the missionaries and the educational institutions helped the colonial government to strengthen its control over the local population. This article discusses the mission work of Robert de Nobili, Bartholomew Ziegenbalg, and William Carey and evaluates their mission works from Dalit and decolonial perspectives.     

Few,Uncooperative, and Endangered: The Troubled Activity of the Roman Catholic Missionaries in Acadia (1610-1710)

Abstract

This paper analyzes the evangelizing process commenced by the Roman Catholic missionaries established along the Atlantic coasts of Canada from the beginning of the seventeenth century until the first decade of the eighteenth century. Paying particular attention to the case of Acadia, it demonstrates how the effects of the Anglo-French dispute over North America affected missionary results in the Atlantic region. Chronologically arranged, the paper also examines the manner in which, beyond the impact of political factors, the evangelizing activity was affected by a paucity of resources, inconsistencies in the number of missionaries deployed, and poor levels of co-operation between the various religious orders present. Furthermore, it emphasizes that the flimsiness of the missionaries’ links to their hierarchical authorities was crucial to the outcome of their activities in the Atlantic region, and that this operational difficulty was compounded by the progressive disengagement of the papal curia from the French missionary framework as the influence of the Gallican church rose.     

From great commission to inclusive education: a tangible illustration of missionaries’ legacy

This article analysed missionaries’ roles in the development of general and special education by examining the relationship between the Great Commission and education and the biblical perspective on disabilities as the foundational links between their work and inclusive education. While missionaries have not been directly involved in the practices of inclusive education today, their work in initiating and formalising special education services has facilitated a more welcoming attitude toward individuals with disabilities, and propelled governments around the globe to make special and inclusive education a public responsibility when socio-political environments demand it. To provide a concrete illustration, this article used Hong Kong as an example by examining missionaries’ key involvements and impact in its development of public education from the early colonial era to today’s inclusive education. The missionaries’ legacy in Hong Kong’s inclusive education development lay in their nurturing of Christian educators as supported by a high number of public Christian schools and Christian educators advocated for inclusive education, and in their efforts to formalise special education during the early colonial era (175).     

In Search of the Supracultural: American Missionaries in the Gulf in 1920s–1930s

ABSTRACT

This article examines the dynamics of cultural encounters, with reference to the concept of Gustav Warneck (1834–1910) of the connections between mission and culture. It introduces the reader to the personal experience of the missionaries of the Arabian Mission, which was launched in 1889 and operated until 1973 in Basra, Amara, Bahrain, Kuwait and Muscat. While the Mission did not bring about the mass conversion of Muslims, its activities resulted in numerous everyday contacts with the local population. The article stresses that missionaries were a diverse group of individuals with different methods and aspirations, and explores how these diversities challenge a narrative on missions that usually reduces them to a homogenized missiology. Much of the content focuses on the 1920s–1930s, a very unique period in the Middle East, and seeks to show the way that the historical and local context shaped the diversities of missiology. Findings suggest that missionaries, as outsiders in the process of contacting the alien culture, often crossed cultural borders, and that these cultural encounters exhibited contrasting dynamics: the exclusion and rejection of local culture was accompanied by the ‘discovery’ of Islam and the search for ‘supracultural’ components of Islamic culture.     

Spiritual healing of disrupted childhood

This essay suggests ways in which spiritual resources--healing stories, psalms of lament and reassurance, rituals, and meditative practices--can be used to foster emotional and spiritual healing for people, such as the adult children of missionaries, who have experienced disrupted relationships with parents during childhood.     

Attitudes to the early Church and the Age of Conversion in late medieval Scotland

The conversion of Scotland, in the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries, was carried out largely by Gaelic-speaking missionaries from Ireland. When Scotland was largely Gaelic-speaking it was freely acknowledged that the conversion had come mainly from Ireland. But in the later Middle Ages, as Gaelic retreated from the Lowlands and became increasingly seen there as barbaric and uncivilised, new historical models were developed in Scottish hagiography which portrayed missionaries as civilised Lowlanders penetrating and pacifying the barbaric Highlands. In the course of this process the ancient Picts disappeared from view. This rewriting of history could not overcome the known facts about St Columba, however, and on the eve of the Reformation Roderick MacLean, a Gaelic-speaking bishop (with Lutheran sympathies), wrote elaborate and sophisticated Latin poems proclaiming the achievements of Columba and Iona.     

Guns and gospel: a critical examination of Christian missions in China

This article focuses on the British attempt to enter China, the role of the East India Company, the opium trade and the ensuing war (1839–1842). It examines the missionaries’ ambivalent attitudes towards the opium trade and wars, which vacillated between silence, conniving and condemnation. From the missionaries’ point of view, everything was calculated towards furthering the Great Commission (Matt. 28.18–20), and so most Christians at that time did not think it was odd that opium trading and gospel preaching could be endorsed in the same treaty. Opium traffickers and Christian preachers may make strange bedfellows but, in this case, they supported the unequal treaties that Britain imposed on China for different reasons.     

Korean Christian Zionism: A Sociological Study of Mission

From the perspective of the sociology of missions, this study explores the Korean Christian Zionists' mission work after 9/11. The current Pentecostal success in South Korea has spurred the nation to send more missionaries abroad than any other country except the United States. As America has been losing the trust of the world since 9/11, some evangelical fundamentalists argue that Korea should take over the initiative of world mission from the United States. The Jerusalem Jesus March in 2004 and the South Korean hostage crisis in Afghanistan in 2007 have served to admonish Korean churches to hastily reconsider coercing their missionaries to proselytize in dangerous areas such as Islamic lands. This study unfolds issues such as “spiritual subjectivism” and “Korea‐centrism”, illustrated by the Jesus March incident and the Afghan controversy, and suggests that the expansionism of Korean Pentecostal/evangelical missionaries taken up with the idea of “global spiritual conquest” is a manifestation of “Korean Christian Zionism”.     

Empire and Muslim conversion: historical reflections on Christian missions in Egypt

This article considers Christian evangelization among Muslims in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries and traces its relationship to the global and local dynamics of Western imperialism. Focusing on Egypt, where Anglo-American Protestant missionaries were active, the article examines why missionaries encountered fierce resistance from Muslim audiences despite the small number of Muslim conversions and how they inadvertently galvanized Egyptian anti-colonial nationalist and Islamist movements. Reflecting on this history of cultural encounter from a postcolonial perspective, the article then discusses the challenge of assessing missionary motives, social influences, and long-term legacies given the sharp differences of interpretation that have often prevailed among Christian and Muslim scholars and polemicists. It draws special attention to an Arabic postcolonial genre of anti-missionary treatises that portray Christian missionaries as neo-Crusaders whose legacies have posed a continuing threat to the integrity of Muslim societies.     

传教士与近代新疆社会

本文研究了近代新疆天主教和基督教的传教历史,分析了他们的西学传播活动和对少数民族传统文化的研究成果与贡献,并对传教士与新疆社会民族矛盾进行了剖析。传教士对新疆少数民族的传教虽以失败而告终,但对近代新疆社会的影响是多方面的。     

近代基督教在西南少数民族地区的文字布道及其影响

自从19世纪下半叶西方差会进入西南地区后,传教事业在少数民族中取得了长足的发展,其中文字布道起了重要的作用。传教士通过翻译、出版圣经,编撰赞美诗、小册子、课本等,使少数民族有了读书识字的条件;同时,这些出版物成为传教士传播福音的有力手段。     

Moratorium and reconciliation in a post-missionary era

The moratorium on Western missionary labour and financial resources has been a matter of lively interest over the past five decades. Postcolonial theologians and missiologists have blamed Western missionaries for introducing Christianity without paying attention to existing cultures of local people. Despite this, the work of Western missionaries has undeniably contributed to evangelization and the advancing of Western civilization in Africa. In this context, this paper considers Colin Morris’s views on the moratorium to prevent sending missionaries and financial resources from the West. Based on an examination of his views, it analyzes two elements that shape the discourse on the moratorium in the post-missionary era: the impact of the moratorium on Christian mission and the need for reconciliation and partnership between the churches in the global North and the global South. This paper concludes that we must promote the interdependence and mutuality of churches in the global North and the global South if the Christian imperative of making disciples of all nations is to be fulfilled.     

A rose by any other name: Maintaining the name and highlighting the uniqueness of psychology as a health care profession

In this article, we reply to the comments made by Holden and Levant (preceding articles). While we agree with their goals of expanding the scope of practice of psychology, standardizing training, and educating the public and other health care professionals about the field of clinical psychology, we do not agree that changing the discipline's name to psychological physician is a necessary or sufficient means to these ends. We outline the bases for our disagreement with the name change proposal and provide other proposals for reaching the goals set forth by Holden and Levant.     

Receiving the promised blessing: Missionary reflections on ‘Ishmae's (mostly female) descendants‘

The Arabian Mission of the Dutch Reformed Church set out in 1889 to introduce Christianity to the Muslims of the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula. The Mission failed in its efforts at proselytism, but persevered for 70 years providing medical and educational services. In the process, the Arabian missionaries produced an historical record of culture and society — especially about women — that is unparalleled in any other available sources. These sources are both technical and dispassionate as well as up‐close and highly personal, and are written with a point of view that tells us as much about the missionaries and their changing times as about men, women and society in the villages and towns of the Gulf, Hasa and Najd.     

AMERICAN MISSIONARIES TRANSMITTING SCIENCE IN EARLY TWENTIETH‐CENTURY EASTERN TIBET

This article is based on the author's extensive research on the missionaries to Tibet from the Disciples of Christ (Christian Church) USA, and discusses various missionary efforts to transmit scientific and practical knowledge such as medicine, building, and agriculture in Eastern Tibet from 1904–1919. It shows that American missionaries played a prominent and distinctive role in the dissemination of scientific and practical knowledge as a result of their hard work and wisdom. In this sense, they made an important contribution to the development of Tibetan society and the modernization movement in early twentieth‐century Eastern Tibet.