Salvation and Sociology in the Methodist Episcopal Deaconess Movement

Excerpt: Rather than being an American innovation which was spread to missionary contexts abroad, the deaconess movement in the Methodist Episcopal Church began on the Methodist missionary frontiers of India and Germany in the late 19th century. The appeals to General Conference in April 1888 to establish the office of deaconess originated in the Bengal Conference in India and the Rock River Conference in Illinois. Bishop James Thoburn, a well-known missionary from India, led the petitions through the intricacies of the General Conference with the urging of his missionary sister, Isabella Thoburn, who had recently joined forces with Chicago\u27s Lucy Rider Meyer in their common cause to gain General Conference recognition of the deaconess movement

Christian Missions and Colonial Empires Reconsidered: A Black Evangelist in West Africa, 1766-1816

The article presents an exploration into the work of the late 18th-century West African Anglican missionary Philip Quaque and the relationship between imperialism and religion during the colonial era. The author points out and criticizes the dominant historiographical trend of over-conflating White imperialism with Christian missions. Quaque\u27s life and writings are examined, highlighting the lack of forced cultural conversion within his missionary activities. Discussion is also given regarding the complex identity dynamics within Quaque as a Christian and as an African

Mission: Agnes C. L. Donohugh, early apostle for ethnography

In the spring of 1915, the Kennedy School of Missions at Hartford Theological Seminary, the leading graduate school for missionary training in the United States at this time, offered the first graduate-level course on ethnology ever to be taught in America to missionary candidates.1 The seminary\u27s leadership had identified the need for teaching ethnology to missionariesin- training as early as 1913 - when the school of missions was just two years old. 2 This American curricular innovation followed a practice begun a decade earlier in Britain of teaching ethnology to missionary candidates (Kuklick 1991).3 Hartford Seminary President W. Douglas Mackenzie was also inspired to make this curricular change because he had chaired Commission V on The Training of Teachers at the Edinburgh Missionary Conference of 1910. That Commission sounded a sobering call for more cross-cultural sensitivity in missionary training: Christian missionaries do not always show consummate wisdom in their methods. Christianity is under no inherent compulsion to impose any special form of civilization on its adherents, else we should all be Judaised. It is certainly strange that we should take an Eastern religion, adapt it to Western needs, and then impose those Western adaptations on Eastern races. I can conceive no better way of swamping and stamping out all true individuality in our converts.4 In light of Edinburgh 1910\u27s call for change, it only made sense that Mackenzie would want his own institution to take the lead in improving mission ary training. And so it did

Letter from Julia to family April 28, 1942

This letter talks about a visit from the Oriental Missionary Society

Letter from K.R. Haines to Marie October 23, 1947

This is a letter from a missionary to Marie back home, perhaps a relative of Marie Haine

Letter from Helen Cammack to Marie March 3, 1944

In this letter Helen talks about how well a loudspeaker works for their missionary wor

Encountering China: the evolution of Timothy Richard's missionary thought (1870-1891)

In pursuit of the conversion of others, cross-cultural missionaries often experience their own “conversions.” This thesis explores the ways in which one particular missionary, the Welshman Timothy Richard (1845–1919), was transformed by his encounter with China. Focusing specifically on the evolution of his understanding and practice of Christian mission during the first half of his career with the Baptist Missionary Society, the study is structured chronologically in order to capture the important ways in which Richard’s experiences shaped his adaptations in mission. Each of Richard’s adaptations is examined within its appropriate historical and cultural context through analysis of his published and unpublished writings—all while paying careful attention to Richard’s identity as a Welsh Baptist missionary. This approach reveals that rather than softening his commitment to conversion in response to his encounters with China, Richard was driven by his persistent evangelical convictions to adapt his missionary methods in pursuit of greater results. When his experiences in Shandong and Shanxi provinces convinced him that Christianity fulfilled China’s own religious past and that God’s Kingdom promised blessings for souls in this life as well as in the next, Richard widened his theological horizons to incorporate these ideas without abandoning his essential understanding of the Christian gospel. As Richard adjusted to the realities of mission in the Chinese context, his growing empathy for Chinese people and their culture increasingly shaped his adaptations, ultimately leading him to advocate methods and emphases on the moral evidences for Christianity that were unacceptable to some of his missionary colleagues and to leaders in other missions, notably James Hudson Taylor. As the first critical work of length to focus on the early half of Richard’s missionary career, this thesis fills a gap in current scholarship on Victorian Protestant missions in China, offering a challenge to the simplistic conservative/liberal dichotomies often used to categorize missionaries. The revised picture of Richard that emerges reveals his original understanding of “the worthy” in Matthew 10, his indebtedness to Chinese sectarian religion, his early application of indigenous principles, his integration of evangelism and famine relief work, his relative unimportance in the China Inland Mission “Shanxi spirit” controversies of the 1880s, and—most significantly—his instrumental rather than evangelistic interest in the scholar-officials of China. By highlighting the priority of the Chinese (religious) context for Richard’s transformation, this thesis also contributes to the growing volume of historiography on Christianity in modern China that emphasizes the multidirectional influences present in the encounters between Christianity and Chinese culture and religion. Finally, connections between Richard’s evolution and changes taking place within the larger missionary community are also explored, situating Richard within wider discussions of accommodationism in mission, the rise of social Christianity, and evangelistic precursors to fulfillment theology.Accepted manuscrip

A Missiology of With: The Catalyst for Missionary Effectiveness in the 21st Century

The world is a very a different place than it was a century ago, and while the modern missionary movement has slightly evolved through time, many of the accepted standards and approaches are predicated on realities that no longer exist. Global connectivity, the ease of travel, and shift of the global center of Christianity mean that practices which may have been effective even fifty years ago are becoming outdated and fruitless. Nevertheless, mission agencies continue to employ these archaic practices, burning-out missionaries, alienating nationals, and wasting Kingdom resources. This dissertation proposes cross-cultural collaboration as the needed paradigm for missionary effectiveness and sustainability in the 21st century. Section One explores the current challenges facing cross-cultural Christian missions and describes existing barriers to fruitfulness. It includes a brief overview of modern realities that must be addressed in order to establish mission practices that are relevant to our time. Section Two analyzes the three dominant approaches to cross-cultural mission—the apostolic method, contextualization, and indigenization—and considers their viability for today. It also surveys and evaluates current missionary training and support methods. Section Three recommends a modification of the standard approaches to missions by suggesting a missiology of “With,” in which mission agencies, missionaries, and national partners prioritize collaborative efforts and relational methods. It suggests that doing Mission With would not only increase missionary effectiveness (particularly for future generations of missionaries, including Millennials), but may also reduce missionary attrition. Section Four introduces the artifact, a three-year program called Elan that is designed to help missionaries adapt to the field in France while equipping them to do Mission With. Section Five offers a detailed description of the Elan program, including the program specifications, standards, budget, and evaluative measures. Finally, Section Six is a reflection on my personal learning through the dissertation writing process, with a call for further research on the topic