Vol. 29, No. 3 July 2005

Finding Our Own Voice: The Quest for Authentic Conversion

harles Forman is to be thanked for his masterful over- denigrated as to no longer serve as trustworthy guides to life. C view of theological developments in the Pacific Islands, The indigenous cultures having been exorcised, the inrush a part of the world too seldom mentioned in this journal. His title, Continued next page “Finding Our Own Voice,” aptly reflects a ubiquitous and quintessentially human quest that manifests itself at all levels of life—individual, community, ethnic group, and nation—and across the spectrum of languages, societies, and religions. This On Page quest is implicit in several of the articles in this issue of the IBMR. To be spoken for implies a degree of powerlessness on the 115 Finding Our Own Voice: The Reinterpreting of part of those who are represented by the voice of another. This Christianity by Oceanian Theologians incapacity may issue from intrinsic reasons having to do with Charles W. Forman one’s degree of maturity, mental development, or medical con- 123 “It Is Our Bounden Duty”: Theological dition; or it may be the result of extrinsic conditions that foster and Contours of New Zealand’s Missionary perpetuate marginalization, rendering certain individuals and Movement, 1890–1930 groups voiceless. Hugh Morrison Representation does not always reflect the wishes of those represented and sometimes is brutally imposed, as with colonies 128 Women, Mission, and Medicine: Clara Swain, and possessions of empires. Those on whose behalf the powerful Anna Kugler, and Early Medical Endeavors in voice of domination is raised are obliged to sit mutely by while Colonial India others explain what is “really” on their minds. In other cases, Maina Chawla Singh socially amplified voices represent or misrepresent others in 130 Noteworthy matters pertaining to the Ultimate and the innermost. Theolo- 134 The Religious Worldview of the Indigenous gians speak for God, bishops speak for dioceses, clergy speak for Population of the Northern Ob’ as Understood congregations, and missionaries speak for converts. by Christian Missionaries Anatoliy M. Ablazhei’s article, translated by David Collins, Anatoliy M. Ablazhei; translated by David N. Collins illustrates ways in which a people can be rendered voiceless through the well-intentioned actions of missionaries. Through 139 My Pilgrimage in Mission his careful study of the religious worldview of the indigenous Gerald H. Anderson population of the northern Ob’, in western Siberia, Ablazhei 140 John Paul II, 1920–2005; Benedict XVI reminds us that while the Christian Gospel should be good news Stephen Bevans, S.V.D. for all peoples, regardless of their cultures, destructive forces are 144 The Legacy of Samuel Bacon Fairbank unleashed when insensitive outsiders too quickly presume to Jennifer M. Trafton represent God within a complex cultural and linguistic milieu that they neither adequately comprehend nor fully appreciate. 150 The Legacy of John Duncan Such ignorance has at times issued in the evisceration of indig- John S. Ross enous cultures through the agency of Western boarding schools 154 Book Reviews for the young. Years spent on the Procrustean bed of Eurocentric 166 Dissertation Notices education inevitably spawn sterile hybrid cultures whose indig- enous memories and traditions have been obliterated or so 168 Book Notes of an incoherent concoction of values and orientations has pro- prediction that if such qualitative conversion occurs in African duced miserably dysfunctional communities whose condition is societies, “we may see something like what appeared in the third, worse now than before the “Good News” arrived. fourth and fifth centuries. We may see a great creative develop- Yet, as Jennifer Trafton reminds us in her article on Samuel ment of Christian theology; new discoveries about Christ that Fairbank, missionaries often got things right. It was the adapta- Christians everywhere can share; mature, discriminating stan- tion of the kirttan (an indigenous style of teaching and singing) to dards of Christian living; people and groups responding to the Christian purposes in the mid-nineteenth century that most gospel at the deep level of understanding and personality; a long- compellingly and effectively communicated the Gospel to the term Christ-shaped imprint on the thinking of Africa . . . a new people of Wadalé, India, resulting in what today is a socially stage in the church’s growth toward the full stature of Christ.” vibrant and predominantly Christian region. The story of Walls warned, however, that if this deep translation does not Fairbank’s agricultural work is a sober rebuke to doctrinaire occur, if African Christianity is but the hollow echo of European insistence on Rufus Anderson’s “self-supporting churches” ideal, Christian forms and theological formulations, “we shall see whatever the cultural and economic circumstances of a people. distortion, confusion, uncertainty and, almost certainly, hypoc- Those subsisting as landless laborers, sharecroppers, or beggars, risy on a large scale” (p. 46). whose destitution is compounded by droughts, blights, and “Finding our own voice” and “hypocrisy on a large scale” famines, have never well complied with the comfortable West- represent poles at either end of the Christian conversion con- ern missionary’s insistence that they be self-supporting. Some- tinuum. The latter requires only a few years, or perhaps a decade thing more was needed—in Fairbank’s case industrial schools, or two, while the former consumes many generations. The sec- agricultural work, and English classes—so that Christian un- ond pole quickly translates into the church growth figures so touchables might develop the capacity not merely to speak but to craved by our measurement-driven culture, while the first repre- be heard in their own voice. sents a sustained, complicated, sometimes controversial process In his essay “Christian Scholarship in Africa in the Twenty- that eventually touches the very heart of a culture and transforms first Century,” appearing in the December 2001 issue of the Journal its every fiber. The second may be a resurfacing of the same of African Christian Thought, Andrew Walls noted that while the fatally flawed proselytizing as practiced by those whom our health and survival of Christianity depend upon cross-cultural Lord accused of crossing “sea and land to make a single convert,” diffusion, Christian conversion involves more than a cognitive and then making “the new convert twice as much a child of hell” shift from incorrect to correct theological propositions. Any as they themselves (Matt. 23:15), while the first contributes richly transformative process aiming to redirect the breadth and width to “building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to . . . the and height and depth of a people’s culture toward Christ must measure of the full stature of Christ” (Eph. 4:12–13). Not shallow penetrate to the very DNA of that culture. And “deep transla- hypocrisy but authentic conversion should be our object, an tion,” as he calls it, takes multiple generations to accomplish. aspiration that we think you will agree is modestly supported by Walls went on in the same article to make the startling this issue of the IBMR.

I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH Established 1950 by R. Pierce Beaver as Occasional Bulletin from the Missionary Research Library. Named Occasional Bulletin of Missionary Research in 1977. Renamed I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH in1981. Published quarterly in January,April, July, and Octoberby the

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114 I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 29, No. 3 Finding Our Own Voice: The Reinterpreting of Christianity by Oceanian Theologians Charles W. Forman

he study of Christianity in the Pacific Islands is nothing ers gradually replaced the European missionaries in the colleges T new. What is new is that the study is being carried out by (the term “European” applying to all people of European ances- islanders themselves. Recent years have seen a surge of fresh try, whether they came directly from Europe or from Australia, thinking by theologically trained Pacific Islanders dealing with New Zealand, or North America). A survey of the sixteen Prot- the Christian religion. This new thinking is the result of a great estant colleges made by the present author in 1968 found all the variety of changes in island life. The most obvious change has principals of these colleges to be European, while another survey been the transition from colonial status to independence in most in 1984 found all the principals to be islanders. From the Pacific island countries. Equally important has been independence for Theological College also came the great majority of the theolo- the island churches. Starting with Tonga in the nineteenth cen- gians who are included in this study. Not included here, it should tury and continuing with the other islands from the 1930s to the be noted, are Papua New Guinea theologians, since they are so 1960s, church independence for all but the Roman Catholic abundant as to require separate treatment, and they have already churches was established.1 The Catholics received native-born attracted considerable attention.5 bishops and regional bishops’ conferences to care for them, even though, as in the Roman Catholic Church worldwide, the bish- Role of the Worldwide Ecumenical Movement ops continued to be appointed by Rome. Independent churches in independent countries have given an impetus to independent The new theological thinking in the Pacific has been closely thinking. related to the ecumenical movement, which has brought the Simultaneously, a revolutionary change has taken place in churches of the world closer together. One islander has written: theological colleges in the Pacific Islands, making fresh thinking “It was the ecumenical movement that made possible serious possible. The old theological colleges provided only limited theological reflection.”6 The chief ecumenical agency in the Pa- opportunity for students to study, for the students had to grow cific has been the Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC), which their own food or catch their own fish, and they had to construct emerged at the same time as the Pacific Theological College. or maintain their own homes and the college buildings. In this Conference meetings have provided occasions when theologi- way the colleges were economically independent, reflecting the cally trained people could get together and share their ideas. The economic independence of traditional Pacific societies, but less PCC meeting in 1976 heard one of the first calls for a Pacific than half of the workday could be spent on studies. Academic theology, and the delegates there voted to call a consultation on standards were usually low. But starting about 1960, standards theological education, which was held in Papauta, Samoa, in began to rise. With outside financial help, that highly privileged 1978.7 This gathering in turn led to three Pacific-wide consulta- character—the full-time student—began to appear.2 tions on theology, held in Fiji in 1985, 1987, and 2001,8 and to The flagship for the new style was a special college estab- smaller national consultations thereafter. In these consultations lished jointly by the Protestant churches from all over the South ecumenical connections far beyond the Pacific were important. A Pacific in 1966. It was the Pacific Theological College, located in secretary of the World Council of Churches was the one who Suva, Fiji. It was the first degree-granting institution in the South suggested the first consultation, and all consultations were funded Pacific Islands and received the top students from the churches by the World Council and other world agencies.9 of most of the island countries. Its purpose was to train theologi- World ecumenism gave another boost to Pacific theology by cal teachers and church administrators, rather than local pas- helping to provide a journal in which the island theologians tors.3 It also had a further goal, as stated in its original statement could publish their ideas. The Pacific Journal of Theology was of purpose: “To make available to the world the distinctive started on a small scale in 1961. Because there was not yet a theological insights which God has given to Pacific Christians.”4 sufficient number of Pacific theologians to support the venture, In other words, its establishment implied the creation of a Pacific however, most of the writing was done by a small group of theology, and from the beginning it took this intention seriously. European missionaries. Besides the great difficulty in securing Students were required to write theses or projects, most of which articles, a rapidly declining circulation forced the abandonment were about Pacific theology, conditions, or history. Of the 291 of the effort in 1970.10 By the time of the theological consultation theses written before 1994, fully 275, or 95 percent, focused on a in 1987, however, there was a new generation of trained islanders Pacific theme. These theses, an important expression of Pacific and strong pressure to revive the Journal. 11 European, Australian, thinking, have been microfilmed by the Pacific Manuscripts and American financial support was secured, and the Journal has Bureau, in Canberra, Australia. had a continuous existence ever since. The Pacific Theological College naturally became the main The extent of the world ecumenical interest in helping Pa- source for teachers and principals of the lower-level theological cific theology is understandable if one looks at it in connection colleges in all the island countries, and these graduates were the with what was going on in the rest of the globe. The 1983 prime force in raising the standards of those institutions. Island- Assembly of the World Council of Churches, which was devoted to issues of Gospel and culture, proclaimed that every culture 12 Charles W. Forman is Professor Emeritus of Missions, Yale University Divin- should have its own access to the Gospel. Under World Council ity School. He has published extensively on Pacific Island Christianity, includ- auspices the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theolo- ing The Island Churches of the South Pacific (Orbis, 1982) and The Voice gians (EATWOT) was launched in 1976 and held periodic meet- of Many Waters (Lotu Pasifika Productions, 1986). ings in Third World countries. A Pacific chapter was organized

July 2005 115 in 1994.13 In these several ways the ecumenical movement pro- land. So the land has a history, and the God of history is likewise vided the context and stimulus for distinctive theological think- the God of the land. Western writers have often missed this ing in the Pacific. understanding in their one-sided emphasis on the God of his- tory.17 Tuwere speaks of “the trinitarian solemnity of Vanua, Four Leading Islander Theologians Lotu and Matanitu”—land, church, and government.18 He wants to keep these three together. He believes that the church has erred It is appropriate now to consider the men and women who have in teaching a kind of dualism, with one side of a person belonging led in the development of islander theological thinking. First to the land and the other side to the church, thus dividing the must come the one who may be regarded as the father of Pacific physical from the spiritual. There is, in his view, only one reality: theology, the late Sione ’Amanaki Havea, of Tonga. He was long the land, in which the physical and the spiritual are related. the president of the main Methodist Church of Tonga, guiding Christian teaching has mistakenly emphasized a spiritual salva- that church through critical times as the one person who had the tion, the side of the church, as over against creation, the side of the confidence of both the king, with his conservative cohorts, and land. But salvation takes place within creation, the land, and pre- the liberalizing, democratizing young churchmen. He was the supposes creation.19 Creation indeed provides a framework for first chairman of the PCC and the first islander to serve as salvation. And the history of salvation includes the history of the principal of the Pacific Theological College. He issued one of the land as it is remembered in myths, legends, dances, and idioms.20 earliest calls for a Pacific theology, doing so at a World Council This thinking may sound like an absorption of Christianity of Churches meeting in Toronto in 1983, a call that made headline into Fijian culture, but Tuwere balances these ideas with other news in Fiji.14 considerations. The history of salvation includes, he says, not Havea coined the term “coconut theology,” suggesting that only the history of the land with its myths and legends; it includes it might well be the description of Pacific theology. In many ways also Christ at its center. There is one continuous history of the coconut could symbolize Christ, since it gives life to human salvation in Fiji in which God has been at work, first in the history beings, and when it is broken new life springs forth. The Pacific of the land with its beliefs and value systems, and then in the use of time might be called coconut time, since the coconut comes coming of Christianity and the growth of the church. Christ to fruition at its own pace, without hurry or concern for punctu- stands at the center of this single history.21 Fijian culture is ality. Havea claimed that the Gospel, instead of coming with the therefore not the final reality. The message of Christ should be missionaries to the Pacific, affected the whole world simulta- used for “brutal self-criticism” within the culture.22 In order to neously at the time of Christ. The missionaries came only to make allow this self-criticism to operate, the church must be indepen- known the Good News that was already present,15 being hinted dent of the state, and there is no place for a Christian state such at in the sharing and caring that were already common among as the nationalist Methodists have been demanding.23 So Tuwere Pacific peoples.16 On the whole, however, Havea was not so has kept a precarious balance and has been a voice for modera- much a contributor to Pacific theology as he was an instigator, tion in strife-ridden Fiji. one who saw the need and got people interested in the subject. The third of our leading theologian-statesmen is Bishop Leslie The second important figure has had much to contribute. Ilaitia Boseto, the first Melanesian to serve as moderator of the United Sevati Tuwere, from Fiji, has also been a principal of the Pacific Church of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, which Theological College. He has as well been the general secretary has now become, for his area, the United Church in the Solomon and president of the Methodist Church of Fiji, where he did a Islands. Though he is most at home in his Solomon Island miraculous work in pulling back together the narrow national- villages, he is an effective leader on the national level, having ists and the broad ecumenists who had shredded the church by been a cabinet minister in the government, and also on the world stage, having been on the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches and becoming, as some have said, “the This thinking may sound authentic ‘Voice of the Pacific’ in international gatherings.”24 He has published one book, which is primarily an account of his year like an absorption of as moderator.25 Christianity into Fijian In his theological writings Boseto, like Havea, often appeals for indigenized theology. The Gospel is indeed universal, but culture, but Christ stands at theology, he says, must be local, interpreting the Gospel in terms the center. Fijian culture is of the local culture. Yet Boseto also goes beyond this general call, stressing the strong sense of community among Pacific peoples. not the final reality. God prepared the peoples of Melanesia to hear the Gospel by making them community-minded people. The Pacific way of interdependence, he declares, is a way derived from God, whereas their fierce struggle following the 1987 coup. He succeeded in the way of individualism, coming from the West and leading to part because of the theological outlook that he has advocated, the pursuit of profit and the accumulation of things, is not in the one expressed most fully in his book Vanua: Towards a Fijian interests of God’s kingdom.26 He does not go so far as to claim that Theology of Place (2002), based on his doctoral dissertation. Pacific ways can provide the foundation for the church; that is Though Tuwere has broad relationships in the ecumenical provided by the ways of Jesus.27 Boseto spent two years visiting church, he has felt strongly the power of Vanua, or land, for the every village on his home island of Choiseul to learn the needs of Fijian soul. Land, seen in the Fijian way, includes more than the the village communities, which are the heart of the church.28 physical turf. It includes the people and the ways of life that exist From his village experience he became concerned about the on the land. A Fijian proverb says, “Land is people, people is environmental damage to the islands. “The more we love Christ,” land.” The land is linked to the things that have happened on the he says, “the more we love the earth.”29 He believes God’s spirit

116 I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 29, No. 3 is angered and pained by what is happening to his forests and his seen as mystically related to the people, as something that is life- seas. God’s people should protect God’s creation.30 Thus he giving rather than being a commodity that can be bought and includes social ethics in his theology. sold. But he is clear that the land is not itself divine, only a gift Boseto also includes a concern for church unity. Wherever from God.36 And he has some of the same interest as Boseto in there has been a union between separated churches, as in the case God’s involvement with the community. Samoans experience of his own church, he sees it as a gift from God. Church unity life always in community, and God deals with the community. “must be seen within the center of God’s being and his will.”31 Still, they should not idealize the community or let it become Boseto has been able to speak more forcibly for church unity than tyrannical.37 He believes that the original creator God of the have other Pacific theologians, since the denomination of which he was moderator has presented the only example in the Pacific Islands of churches coming together from diverse Christian Unlike some of the other traditions.32 theologians, Finau saw The fourth and last of the major theologians may be regarded as much to criticize in Pacific one who has dealt principally with social ethics: Bishop Patelesio Finau of the Roman Catholic Church in Tonga. Finau, who died cultures. suddenly in 1993 while chairman of the PCC and at the height of his great influence, was a champion of action in society. His great effort was to get the churches out of their ecclesiastical closets and Samoans, long denounced by the missionaries and their stu- into the public life of society. He wanted the church to be the dents, was essentially the same as the Christian creator God, now conscience of the nation. With this message he inspired and related through Christianity to a much bigger creation.38 The excited the young theological students and the younger priests worship of God, in Kamu’s view, needs to be both more localized and pastors. and more universalized. Kamu thus maintains a constant sense Finau, however, was not just a social activist. He gave strong of balance in his writing. theological foundations to his ethical demands. The Hebrew prophets were his examples. The incarnation was his pattern, In contrast to Kamu, Pothin Wete is far from looking for a balance. especially in Jesus’ identification with the poor and the op- Coming from New Caledonia, he is an ardent champion of the pressed. His theology in general was very traditional, but he Kanaks, the indigenous people of that land. He has been a teacher gave it a contemporary application. Unlike some of the other at the Pacific Theological College, and his book is a revised theologians, he saw much to criticize in Pacific cultures, includ- version of the master’s thesis he submitted there.39 ing frequent lack of respect for women and youth, abuse of Wete’s writing follows in the line of an earlier thesis written authority, domineering and unforgiving attitudes, and family at the Pacific Theological College by another Kanak, Djoubelly values that pushed aside gospel values. He was little inclined to Wea, who wrote on the subject “An Education for the Kanak hold up Pacific culture as congruent with Christian faith.33 Fol- Liberation.”40 After his theological education Wea became one of lowing in his wake, other Tongan theologians have spoken out, the leaders of the independence movement in his homeland. more than have theologians in other islands, against injustices in When Jean-Marie Tjibaou, the chief leader for independence and the old social structures.34 a believer in nonviolence, went to France for negotiations in 1988 Finau seems to be the only Roman Catholic man who has and signed the compromise involved in the Matignon Accord, been a major figure in island theology. The Catholics were late in under which New Caledonia might never get complete indepen- developing higher theological education. Their Pacific Regional dence, Wea was horrified. He later invited Tjibaou and his chief Seminary, located close to the Pacific Theological College in colleague to a memorial service for independence martyrs, and Suva, was seven years later in getting started. Catholics did not as they were entering, he shot and killed both of them. Wea and indigenize their teaching staff in their seminaries as quickly as his accomplice were immediately killed by the bodyguards. the Protestants did. Their writing was more on practical church Wete is like Tjibaou in calling for nonviolent resistance, but operations and spiritual development than on theology.35 Finau like Wea in demanding complete independence. He describes his was an outstanding exception, which gives his work special thought as “Kanak liberation theology.” In most of the world, significance. liberation theology has expressed a protest against forms of class domination and economic oppression. But Wete carries the Three Other Important Islander Thinkers liberation theme to a more fundamental level. He believes Kanak liberation theology will enrich and deepen the liberation theolo- In close connection with the four leading figures just discussed, gies of other lands because it expresses the cry of a people not just we must recognize three other outstanding islanders who have for political or economic liberation but for their very existence. published full-length books on theological subjects. The first is The Kanaks, he feels, are in danger of losing their existence Lalomilo Kamu. His book The Samoan Culture and the Christian through the loss of traditional values and the adoption of foreign Gospel (1996) is a revision of his doctoral dissertation at the ways.41 His concern is based not simply on national identity; it University of Birmingham, published posthumously by his has biblical roots as well. The demand for independence flows American-born wife. The book wrestles throughout with the from all that the Hebrew prophets have said about justice and Gospel-culture question, which has been raised by so many freedom. It is also related to the Christian hope for the new islanders. The first part criticizes the European missionaries for creation. That hope leads the Kanaks forward on the path toward having been too condemnatory of the culture, and the last part independence, which is hard and full of obstacles, where the criticizes the Samoan church for having been too conciliatory conflict will intensify over the years.42 Wete is a theological toward the culture. Both criticisms have much truth in them. thinker rather than an activist, but his thinking points clearly to Kamu has some of the same interest as Tuwere in the land, vigorous action.

July 2005 117 Ama’amalele Tofaeono, the third of this group, is the most recent plish their own decisions. It should not rely heavily on outside major theologian to emerge in the Pacific. Coming from Ameri- aid, which only creates dependence and destroys the self-reli- can Samoa and trained in Germany, he recently published his ance of the people.46 Ratuvili thus stood against what were then doctoral dissertation as Eco-theology: Aiga—the Household of Life the major trends of international development programs. (2000). Tofaeono takes his cue from today’s global ecological The most famous advocate of social action by the church has crisis and more particularly from the serious environmental been the Anglican priest Walter Lini, the first prime minister of degradation of Samoa. His work is thoroughly researched and Vanuatu. He declared that in the Pacific tradition there was no explores rich veins of myth and history. Christianity, he shows, division between religion and politics and that churchmen, has concentrated too narrowly on the human scene and has including ministers, should hold political office. In fact, the first neglected the wider creation. Traditional Samoan religion was Vanuatu parliament included six ministers of religion, and four aware of the whole of creation and human dependence on of the seven cabinet members were ministers. This involvement nature. In the present crisis there is need to recapture the values he saw as appropriate, because the church is required to fight of the old tradition and to combine them with Christianity. The injustice.47 People like Lini and Tevi took for granted the theo- sacredness of the land and sea need to be respected again as they logical grounds for action and did not get into much examination were of old. Tofaeono examines the biblical as well as the tradi- of those grounds. tional grounds for this view, seeing in the Bible the purpose of Another group of activists who have often taken the theo- God as the production of “sustainable life in communion and logical grounds largely for granted have been the advocates of unity of all things in creation.”43 The Samoan concept of aiga, or women’s rights. Pacific church women, often supported by the family, which is all-powerful in Samoan social life, includes the world church, have been holding national and then regional whole family of creation. Tofaeono’s thoughts carry a challenge meetings. In the 1990s they formed an organization known as the to Christianity far beyond the bounds of Samoa. Weavers. At their meetings the speakers have examined the life of Pacific women and have told their stories. They have reported Important Social Activists on the disabilities that women suffer in traditional culture. The most theologically articulate of the women has been Keiti Ann Many other church leaders among islanders offer a broad chal- Kanongata’a, a Roman Catholic from Tonga, superior general of lenge, though more as social activists than as theological think- the indigenous order Sisters of Our Lady of Nazareth. She ers. They deserve some attention here, however, since their believes that the stories the women have been telling need more action reflects important lines of theological thought. They ad- theological depth. She asks the question, Where is God in women’s dress the major social and economic problems of the Pacific and domestic life? She compares women’s life to life in the womb and the world. They are concerned about nuclear testing and nuclear their present liberation to the process of birthing. “God’s female waste, national independence, global warming, tourism, maternal womb is fertile and compassionate,” she writes. “It transnational corporations, drift-net fishing, and the like. The enables our birthing to come about with forcefulness and firm- primary locus for the expression of these concerns has been the ness, but also with creativity and gentleness.” Obviously the PCC. Various programs of the PCC have been aimed at these view of God as Mother is present here, but she also makes room problems, especially the Church and Society Program.44 The for God as Father.48 She links the oppression experienced by periodic assemblies of the PCC have been great occasions for women to the wider oppression experienced by Pacific cul- social pronouncements. tures.49 The general secretary of the PCC who did the most to arouse A centerpiece for women’s theology has been the book social concerns was Lorine Tevi, who served as secretary from Weavings: Women Doing Theology in Oceania (2003), published by the Weavers. The book is a collection of essays by twenty-three women drawn from all over the South Pacific. It puts its first The Samoan concept of emphasis on the need for inclusivity in the view of God, who should no longer be seen as only male. Biblical and traditional aiga, or family, includes the arguments are presented for the full equality of women with men whole family of creation. in church and society. Many personal testimonies are also given by women who have broken with tradition and forged new places for themselves.50 1977 to 1981. She opened up the churches to a sense of social Only a few men have spoken for the women’s theological responsibility as no one else in her position has done. She felt that cause. Two Samoans, Otele Perelini and Peteru Tone, both on the the churches should not look back to their island traditions so staff of the Malua Theological College, are noticeable. Perelini much as forward to the needs for justice, peace, and develop- maintains that since Jesus frees all the oppressed, any church ment. 45 structures that prevent the full emancipation of women fall short Tevi’s thinking on rural development was related to, and of the Gospel of Jesus.51 Tone examines the limitations on women partly based on, the work of one of her staff, Sitiveni Ratuvili, a found in the Bible and points out that they all followed upon the minister of the Fiji Methodist Church. In a booklet entitled Fall of humanity. The church is to bring liberation from the effects Spiritual Bases of Rural Development in the Pacific (1979), Ratuvili of the Fall, and therefore women should not be subordinate in the stressed the theological reasons for new directions in develop- church.52 ment policies worldwide. Development, he said, should encour- age people to follow God’s way of love and care for each other, Adapting Christianity to Pacific Culture and of faith and hope in one another and in God. Development should therefore not lead to fragmentation in the community and The procession of all islander theological thinkers is a long one, enhancement of selfishness, as it often does, but should encour- and here we sample only a few more of them, and then only on age people to work together, using their own resources to accom- one major topic: the adaptation of Christianity to Pacific culture.

118 I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 29, No. 3 July 2005 119 They, like several of the thinkers already mentioned, feel that ciation. Sermons and ceremonies should be given plenty of time there has been an unfortunate separation between Christianity in order to demonstrate their importance in life. Decisions should and Pacific culture and that the task today is to heal that separa- be made with great deliberation. “This Pacific way of expressing tion.53 They see the Pacific cultures as complementary to the ourselves theologically must be allowed to permeate and take Gospel. “Our cultures and traditions,” says one, “still carry root.”65 precious concepts and ideals that are complementary to the Jovili Meo, a former principal of the Pacific Theological message of the Gospel.”54 Or, to quote another, “Those cultures College, notes that islanders live in small communities within are the best instruments given to women and men by God to small countries. In his view, this proclivity toward smallness is understand his ways.”55 A PCC assembly gave its official ap- something for which God should be thanked. God seems to value proval to such thinking when it said there should be “a marriage small things, as in the case of the widow’s mite or the lost sheep of theology and culture.”56 in Jesus’ parables, or in the case of God’s choosing Israel, a small Implicit in this endorsement of Pacific culture are a criticism people, rather than choosing the great empires between which of modern Western culture and accusations that it is incompat- Israel was squeezed.66 ible with Christian life. A Tahitian church leader criticizes “the Several authors have related the traditional kava ceremony Western missionary invading zeal” and the negative, foreign to the Christian Eucharist. There are recollections of self-sacrifice distortions that came with it to a Pacific where God, Christ, Spirit, in both ceremonies, and in both a relationship is shown between and Gospel were already present.57 A Fijian theologian points out leadership and service.67 An Anglican priest from the Solomon that while Pacific culture values cooperation, generosity, family Islands goes further in pointing out that all island ritual is like the loyalty, sharing, and community life, Western culture stresses Eucharist in that it requires food to make the action effective.68 money, violence, sex, sports, and individual power.58 Capitalism Island culture is therefore especially hospitable to Eucharistic from the West, says a Samoan, is damaging the environment and celebration. Another Solomon Islander elaborates the connec- deforming Pacific societies. The deformation is shown in the way tion between the sacrificial system of his own tribal group and that traditional holders of power are making themselves wealthy the sacrificial system of the Old Testament and feels that both of rather than serving the common good.59 Capitalism is not accept- them foreshadow the sacrifice of Christ and are replaced and able in Pacific cultures, with their emphasis on sharing. Pacific fulfilled by Christ.69 Islanders are sometimes criticized because they do not do well in More than one islander has pointed out that the awareness business, but this so-called weakness is a virtue because business of the divine and the belief in an afterlife, which have character- involves individual aggressiveness and acquisitiveness, which ized most Pacific peoples, have made them especially open to islanders do not have and should not want.60 Capitalist globaliza- Christian faith and have produced a remarkable strength of tion has had a negative effect on the islands, with its depletion of belief among them. Islanders, they say, have a deep awareness of resources, its global warming, and its toxic wastes.61 the spiritual realm, a gift that they bring to Christianity.70 Chris- Along with Western culture, Western theology comes in for tians would do well to reclaim the kind of respect for God and its share of criticism. It is common to argue that Western theology fear of God that their ancestors had toward their traditional is relevant only to Western conditions. To try to apply it to the deities.71 One or two islanders have gone so far as to say that Pacific is to engage in theological imperialism.62 Theology must Christ should be seen as a Pacific Islander, since the doctrine of be reformulated for each time and place, and the would-be the incarnation applies not only to Palestine but also to the universal theologies from the West are ineffective for Oceanians.63 islands. As one puts it, “Christ was the Melanesian Christ, who knew Melanesians in the depths of their hearts.”72 And the suggestion has been made that the Pacific has its own “old Pacific culture values testament”—namely, its culture, which can be to some extent equated with the Old Testament of the Bible.73 cooperation, generosity, Pacific theologizing reached a new stage in 1999, the stage of family loyalty, sharing, academic self-reflectiveness. In that year Kambati Uriam, from Kiribati, wrote a doctoral dissertation at the Australian National and community life. University on the subject of Pacific Island theology. Uriam had been trained at the Pacific Theological College before entering the university and returned to teach at the college after comple- A more trenchant criticism, this one from the recent principal of tion of his doctorate. His dissertation uncovered a wide field of the theological seminary in American Samoa, is that the whole sources, as is shown in its bibliography. In the text the range of European way of studying theology is faulty because it fails to thinkers is more restricted, with concentration on Havea and the humble human reason before God. It tries to capture the tran- fourth assembly of the Pacific Conference of Churches.74 This scendence of God in human rationality. Theology should be dissertation is a valuable initial survey by a Pacific Islander of the more a reflection of inward experience and should follow a more study of religion by islanders. intuitive approach. It is interesting and a bit ironic that this author appeals to two Germans, Karl Barth and Paul Tillich, to Summary support his criticism of Western theology.64 Some of the most creative thrusts in the adaptation of Chris- Looking back at the whole field, it is clear that what we have seen tianity to the Pacific have been made by means of singling out is a major reinterpretation of Christianity moving along two particular Pacific traits that might enhance Christianity. Kilione lines. Along one line we have seen the creation of a much more Mafaufau, a young Samoan theologian following on Havea’s socially responsible and socially critical Christianity. The estab- thought, has claimed theological value for the Pacific way of lished churches in the past were otherworldly in their interests, using time. Time, in his view, is not something to be rushed concerned primarily with eternal souls, while being comfortably through, but something to be used deliberately and with appre- conformed to the local social structures. No one could say they

120 I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 29, No. 3 were socially irrelevant, for they were deeply intertwined with for the traditional culture. As the older type of village Christian- the traditional society and contributed to its strength. Occasion- ity helped shape the identity of many villagers, the new theology ally a local pastor or priest would criticize a morally wayward helps shape the identity of cosmopolitan Christian islanders. chief or headman, but mostly they cooperated with the local The question inevitably arises as to how far these theolo- power structures. They had little to say about national affairs or gians are participants in the “invention of tradition,” the ideali- international matters. But now we have seen a widespread zation of traditional culture that has been much discussed by interest in effecting social and political change, especially in the scholars.76 There can be no clear-cut answer to the question. Of international realm. Church leaders have awakened to the way the major thinkers we have covered, Havea and Wete, and world-encompassing powers and policies are damaging the perhaps Boseto and Tofaeono, show a wholly positive and Pacific, and they are calling for the protection of their lands and therefore somewhat idealized picture of traditional culture. But seas. others—Finau, Tuwere, Kamu, Tevi, and the feminists—recog- The other line of reinterpretation has brought Christian nize that there are negative elements in the inherited ways. Many belief into a more appreciative relation with traditional culture. writers make it their task to identify particular traits in the The links to Western culture have been weakened, and the links tradition that they believe can improve island Christianity, with- to Pacific culture have been strengthened. This change has, out having a totally positive evaluation of the past. On the whole rather strangely, been brought about by people who are more we may say that the idealization of the old culture—what has closely in touch with Western culture than were their village- been called “traditionalism,” as distinct from tradition—has had bound predecessors. The men and women whose thoughts have a considerable influence, but it has not been allowed to go been examined here are part of the new cosmopolitan elite, the unchallenged. ones who have traveled around the Pacific or to other parts of the Alongside of some “invention of tradition” we may speak of world and are at home with the use of English as their interna- some “invention of Christianity.” The particular ways of think- tional language. They are not, by and large, village people who ing set forth by the men and women of the Pacific constitute a are steeped in the traditional society, nor are they likely to be new formulation of Christianity. It is not a bitter rejection of what suffering personal heartache at the loss of traditional ways like an has been received from the common Christian heritage, for the old villager who shed tears over the loss of communication with new formulation carries forward the basic Christian heritage. ancestors.75 Rather, they are comfortable in moving outside But it adds its own perspectives and emphases, which then traditional ways of life at the same time that they are filled with modify the whole. The result is a new kind of religion, a new a new confidence regarding those traditional ways. Their writ- stream blending two different tributaries. For those who are ings are not for the rank-and-file Christians but for the intellec- involved in the study of missions, the emerging voices from the tually advanced, for whom they have provided a new standing Pacific offer a significant enrichment of the field of study.

Notes 1. Charles W. Forman, The Island Churches of the South Pacific: Emergence 8. Towards a Relevant Pacific Theology; J. Russell Chandran, ed., The Cross in the Twentieth Century (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1982), pp. and the Tanoa: Gospel and Culture in the Pacific (Suva: South Pacific 124–37, 164–81. Association of Theological Schools, 1988); Ama’amalele Tofaeono, 2. Charles W. Forman, “Theological Education in the South Pacific: editorial, Pacific Journal of Theology, 2nd series [henceforth PJT] 27 A Quiet Revolution,” Journal de la Société des Océanistes 25 (1969): (2002): 1–6. 151–67. 9. Towards a Relevant Pacific Theology, p. vi; Chandran, The Cross and the 3. Charles W. Forman, The Voice of Many Waters: The Story of the Life and Tanoa, p. iv. Ministry of the Pacific Conference of Churches in the Last Twenty-five 10. Forman, Voice of Many Waters, pp. 32–33. Years (Suva: Lotu Pasifika Productions, 1986), pp. 21–30. 11. Chandran, The Cross and the Tanoa, p. 16. See John Bradshaw, “In the 4. Towards a Relevant Pacific Theology: The Role of the Churches and Beginning Was the Journal,” PJT 6 (1991): 3–6. Theological Education; A Report of a Theological Consultation Held in 12. Otele Perelini, “Gospel and Culture: Biblical Perspectives,” in The Bergengren House, Suva, Fiji, July 8–12 1985 (Suva: Lotu Pasifika, Cross and the Tanoa, ed. Chandran, p. 34. 1986), p. 170. 13. Jovili Meo, “Introduction to the Ecumenical Association of Third 5. For example, Horst Bürkle, ed., Theologische Beiträge aus Papua World Theologians (EATWOT),” PJT 13 (1995): 1–2; Jovili Meo, “An Neuguinea (Erlangen: Verlag der Ev.-Luth. Mission, 1978); Garry W. Introduction to the Second Consultation on Quest for Pacific Trompf, ed., The Gospel Is Not Western: Black Theologies from the Theology—Pacific EATWOT,” PJT 17 (1997): 2. Southwest Pacific (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1987); Garry W. 14. Winston Halapua, “Fakakakato: Symbols in a Pacific Context,” PJT Trompf, “Melanesian and Pacific Theologies,” in Melanesian Religion, 20 (1998): 26. ed. Garry W. Trompf (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1991), 15. Ma’afu’a Tu’itonga Palu has challenged this view in his “Pacific pp. 260–73; G. Fugmann, “Melanesische Theologie,” in Papua- Theology,” PJT 28 (2002): 36–39. Neuguinea—Gesellschaft und Kirche: Ein ökumenisches Handbuch, ed. 16. Sione ‘Amanaki Havea, “Pacific Theology,” in Towards a Relevant Herwig Wagner, Gernot Fugmann, and Hermann Janssen Pacific Theology, pp. 22–23; Havea, “Christianity in the Pacific (Neuendettelsau: Freimund-Verlag, 1989), pp. 229–46; John D’Arcy Context,” pp. 12, 14. See also Horst Rzepkowski, “Stepping Stones to May, ed., Living Theology in Melanesia: A Reader (Goroka: Melanesian a Pacific Theology—a Report,” Mission Studies: Journal of International Institute, 1985). Association for Mission Studies 9, no. 17 (1992): 46. 6. Kambati Kaunibwe Uriam, “Theology and Practice in the Islands: 17. Ilaitia Sevati Tuwere, Vanua: Towards a Fijian Theology of Place (Suva: Christianity and Island Communities in the New Pacific, 1947–1997” Institute of Pacific Studies, Univ. of the South Pacific, 2002), pp. 121, (Ph.D. diss., Australian National Univ., 1999), p. 64. 91–92, 95–96. 7. Sione ‘Amanaki Havea, “Foreword,” in South Pacific Theology: Papers 18. Ibid., p. 171. from the Consultation on Pacific Theology, Papua New Guinea, 1986 19. Ilaitia Sevati Tuwere, “Thinking Theology Aloud in Fiji,” in The (Oxford: Regnum Books, 1987), p. 7; John Kadiba, “In Search of a Gospel Is Not Western, ed. Trompf, pp. 152–53. Melanesian Theology,” in The Gospel Is Not Western, ed. Trompf, 20. Ilaitia Sevati Tuwere, “An Agenda for the Theological Task of the p. 139. Church in Oceania,” PJT 13 (1995): 10–11.

July 2005 121 21. Ibid.; Ilaitia Sevati Tuwere, “What Is Contextual Theology?” PJT 27 Women Doing Theology in Oceania (Suva: Weavers, SPATS Publication, (2002): 11. 2003). See also Marie Ropeti, “Women’s Theology—Pacific 22. Ilaitia Sevati Tuwere, “Emerging Themes for a Pacific Theology,” Perspectives,” in Women’s Visions: Theological Reflection, Celebration, PJT 7 (1992): 53. Action, ed. Ofelia Ortega-Montoya (Geneva: World Council of 23. Joseph Bush, “Claiming a Christian State Where None Exists: Church Churches, 1995), pp. 172–76. and State in the Republic of Fiji,” Pacifica 12, no. 1 (1999): 61. 51. Otele Perelini, “The Emancipation of Church Women,” PJT 22 24. May, Living Theology in Melanesia, p. xii. (1999): 15–18. 25. Leslie Boseto, I Have a Strong Belief (Rabaul: Unichurch Books, 1983). 52. Peteru Tone, “The Place of Women in the Church and Society of the 26. Leslie Boseto, “God as Community—God in Melanesian Theology,” Pacific,” in Towards a Relevant Pacific Theology, pp. 59–67. PJT 10 (1993): 41–45. 53. For example, Ulisese Sala, “An Attempt to Do Pacific Theology,” PJT 27. Boseto, I Have a Strong Belief, p. 5. 16 (1996): 12. 28. Leslie Boseto, “Environment and Community in Melanesia,” 54. Kilione Mafaufau, “Pacific Time and the Times: A Theological Melanesian Journal of Theology 1 (1985): 170. Reflection,” PJT 6 (1991): 29. 29. Leslie Boseto, “Do Not Separate Us from Our Land and Sea,” PJT 13 55. Aaron Tolen, Remarks in PJT 17 (1997): 115. (1995): 71. 56. Pacific Conference of Churches, Report of the Fourth Assembly, May 30. Boseto, “Environment and Community,” pp. 166, 169. 3–15, 1981 (Suva: Pacific Conference of Churches, 1981), p. 217. 31. Leslie Boseto, “The United Church: The Will and the Gift of God— 57. Joel Hoiore, “Elements of an Ethic of Pacific/Oceanic Theologising,” Some Historical Reflections,” PJT 14 (1995): 91. PJT 13 (1995): 51–52. 32. Forman, Island Churches, p. 205. 58. Masulame Nainoca, “The Danger of Losing the New Testament 33. Patelisio Finau, “Prayer, Persuasion, and Politics,” in The Pacific Pattern of Simple Life-style,” in South Pacific Theology, pp. 68, 70. Way: Social Issues in National Development, ed. Sione Tupouniu, Ron 59. Perelini, “Gospel and Culture,” pp. 36, 38. Crocombe, and Claire Slatters (Suva: SPSS Association, 1975), pp. 60. Suliana Siwatibau, “A Theology of Justice and Peace in the Pacific,” 166–67; Patelisio Finau, “Confessing Jesus Christ in the Pacific in The Gospel Is Not Western, ed. Trompf, p. 194. Today,” PJT 11 (1994): 69–72. 61. Meo, “Quest for Pacific Theology,” p. 4. 34. Finau Lokotui, “Theological Reflection on Gospel and Culture in 62. Halapua, “Fakakakato,” p. 22. the Pacific,” in The Cross and the Tanoa, ed. Chandran, pp. 43–44; 63. Ama’amalele Tofaeono, editorial, PJT 27 (2002): 1–6. Stephanie Lawson, “Le traditionalisme et les politiques de l’identité 64. Sala, “An Attempt,” pp. 8–9. culturelle en Asie et dans le Pacifique: Une mise au point critique,” 65. Mafaufau, “Pacific Time and the Times,” p. 28. Journal de la Société des Océanistes 109, no. 2 (1999): 43; Kafoa Solomone, 66. Jovili Meo, “Smallness and Solidarity,” PJT 6 (1991): 92–93. “One Gospel: Contextually Inclusive and/or Exclusive,” PJT 17 67. Urima Fa’asi, “Gospel and Culture in the Ava Ceremony,” PJT 10 (1997): 7–23. (1993): 61–63; Halapua, “Fakakakato,” p. 27. 35. See, for example, the articles in PJT 19 (1998). See Martin Everi, “Eco- 68. James Mason, cited in “A Report of the Consultation,” in The Cross theology and Its Application to the Pacific Context,” PJT 26 (2001): and the Tanoa, ed. Chandran, p. 9. See also Leslie Fugui, “Melanesian 69–99. Sacrifice and Christianity,” in Christ in South Pacific Cultures, ed. C. 36. Lalomilo Kamu, The Samoan Culture and the Christian Gospel (Suva: Wright and Leslie Fugui (Suva: Lotu Pasifika Productions, 1985), pp. Donna Lou Kamu, 1996), pp. 134, 137. 36–41. 37. Ibid., pp. 127–29. 69. Penuel Ben Idusulia, “Biblical Sacrifice Through Melanesian Eyes,” 38. Ibid., pp. 30–31. in Living Theology in Melanesia, ed. May, pp. 283–86, 297. 39. Pothin Wete, Le développement de la prise de conscience politique dans 70. Mohenoa Puloka, “An Attempt at Contextualizing Theology for the l’église évangélique Kanak en Nouvelle-Calédonie et aux Îles Loyauté de Tongan Church,” in South Pacific Theology, pp. 90–91; Fiama Rakau, 1960 à 1988 (Suva: Lotu Pasifika, 1991). “Wholeness of Life (Perspective from Life in the Island),” in The 40. Djoubelly Wea, “An Education for the Kanak Liberation” (B.D. Cross and the Tanoa, ed. Chandran, pp. 97–98; Maroti Rimon, “The Project, Pacific Theological College, 1977). Land of Bouru: Understanding the Kingdom of God as Self-Realizing 41. Wete, Développement de la prise, pp. 117–21. Eschatology,” in The Cross and the Tanoa, ed. Chandran, pp. 99–105; 42. Ibid., pp. 71, 88–91, 104. Faitala Talapusi, “The Future of Theology in the Pacific,” PJT 13 43. Ama’amalele Tofaeono, Eco-theology: Aiga—the Household of Life; A (1995): 44. Perspective from the Living Myths and Traditions of Samoa (Erlangen: 71. John Pratt, “Traditional and Christian Understanding of God,” in Erlangen Verlag für Mission und Ökumene, 2000), p. 217. Christ in South Pacific Cultures, ed. Wright and Fugui, pp. 15–22. 44. Forman, Voice of Many Waters, pp. 102–33; see Suliana Siwatibau and 72. Joe Gaqurae, “Indigenization as Incarnation: The Concept of a David Williams, A Call to a New Exodus: An Anti-Nuclear Primer for Melanesian Christ,” in Living Theology in Melanesia, ed. May, p. 214; Pacific People (Suva: Lotu Pasifika, 1982). see Rakau, “Wholeness of Life,” p. 97. 45. Lorine Tevi, “Remarks,” in Towards a Relevant Pacific Theology, p. 20. 73. Hoiore, “Elements of an Ethic,” p. 53. 46. Sitiveni Ratuvili, Spiritual Bases for Rural Development in the Pacific 74. Uriam, “Theology and Practice in the Islands.” (Suva: Lotu Pasifika, 1979), pp. 9, 11, 15. 75. Idusulia, “Biblical Sacrifice,” p. 260. 47. Walter Lini, “Should the Church Play Politics?” in The Pacific Way, 76. Roger M. Keesing, “Creating the Past: Custom and Identity in the ed. Tupouniu et al., p. 176. Walter Lini, “Christians in Politics,” in Contemporary Pacific,” Contemporary Pacific 1 (1989): 19–42; Eric The Gospel Is Not Western, ed. Trompf, pp. 183–85. Hobsbawn and Terrence Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition 48. Keiti Ann Kanongata’a, “A Pacific Women’s Theology of Birthing (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1983); Patrick Pillon, “Identité, and Liberation,” PJT 7 (1992): 4–7; Keiti Ann Kanongata’a, “Domestic culture et catégories de l’action: Autours des fondemonts idéels du Theology,” PJT 15 (1996): 73–74. territoire et de l’organisation sociale en pays Mèa et Houailou 49. Keiti Ann Kanongata’a, “Why Contextual?” PJT 27 (2002): 21–40. (Nouvelle-Calédonie),” Journal de la Société des Océanistes 109, no. 2 50. Lydia Johnson and Joan H. Filemoni-Tofaeono, eds., Weavings: (1999): 83–96.

122 I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 29, No. 3 “It Is Our Bounden Duty”: Theological Contours of New Zealand’s Missionary Movement, 1890–1930 Hugh Morrison

p to 1930, at least 750 New Zealanders went overseas as sion was broadly defined and consistently understood across U Protestant missionaries, 60 percent of them women. lines of gender and denomination. The focus on conversion Drawn from a broad spectrum of Protestant denominations encompassed a fundamental concern for both the spiritual state (with Presbyterians, Brethren, Baptists, Methodists, and Angli- of non-Christians and the moral and societal transformation of cans in the majority), they went to a variety of destinations, non-Christian societies. Conversion was variously understood particularly India, the Southwest Pacific, China, and South to be an act of enlightenment, liberation, and spiritual or social America. They were supported by a growing network of churches, transformation, as well as a metaphysical shift of individuals or organizations, and individual supporters. Women and children societies from the sphere of heathenism into the new and pro- were especially involved and enthusiastic supporters. By the gressive sphere of Christendom. Both the philosophy and the 1920s missions occupied a central position in the priorities, methods of conversion were broadly defined and conceived, rhetoric, and self-identity of many New Zealand churches and encompassing the conversion alike of souls, bodies, and minds, denominations. Mission theology in this period, framed within as well as of geographic, cultural, and social space. a broadly evangelical construction, varied in both definition and There was a similar breadth of understanding of the term conception. In this article I outline these theological contours and “evangelization,” which is best understood within its context in their changing nature, focusing particularly on the language and the 1890s and early 1900s. Historically, the use of the word in the imagery employed by men and women across the denomina- New Zealand context was most directly affected by the American tional spectrum between 1890 and 1930.1 Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions (established in Australasia in 1896) and by this movement’s slogan, “the Theological Construction of Foreign Missions evangelization of the world in this generation.”3 While early international formulations of the watchword were originally Analysis of a wide range of documentary material indicates that premillennial in tone (reflecting a popular concern to hasten the New Zealanders employed an astonishingly wide range of words, return of Christ), from around 1900 the American missionary images, and concepts in their approach to and understanding of statesman John R. Mott helped to broaden its focus, arguing that foreign missions. These concepts, as well as the importance given “the evangelization of the world in this generation . . . means the to them in different time periods, are indicated in table 1. These preaching of the Gospel to those who are now living.”4 The different ways in which people understood the purpose and emphasis here lay on proclamation rather than conversion. essence of mission were by no means discrete or mutually In the New Zealand literature the term “evangelization,” exclusive. Some of the categories mentioned in table 1 increased in perceived importance; others decreased. One Table 1. Ranked Descriptions of Missions (establishing an indigenous church as the goal of missions) by New Zealanders, 1890–1930 was not mentioned before 1919. A number of antithetical word pairs appeared in dis- Missions viewed as: Overall rank 1890–1918 1919–30 cussion of these descriptors and became defining images in Salvation/conversion 111 the theological construction of missions (table 2). Underly- Response to great need 232 ing these antithetical word pairs was a dualistic view of the Going with/taking the Gospel 324 world that differentiated sharply between Christendom Duty/obligation 447 and heathen non-Christendom. Preaching/teaching 558 Additionally, the data show that a variety of biblical Spiritual warfare 696 texts were appealed to in missionary sermons and ad- Extending God’s kingdom 7610 (tie) dresses. From 1890 onward, use of the Psalms and Isaiah Christian leavening of society 8712 was noticeable, although most texts cited were from the Enlightenment 989 New Testament, particularly the Synoptic Gospels. The Response to God’s command 10 10 5 two most popular passages were Matthew 28:19–20 and Service/sacrifice 11 11 3 Representing Christ 12 13 10 (tie) Mark 16:15. By the 1920s these two passages were com- Reaping a harvest 13 12 13 monly conflated into one command by God to go and Liberation 14 15 14 preach the Gospel worldwide, and they became the defin- Premillennial urgency 15 14 16 ing texts for both the New Zealand and international Biblical fulfillment 16 16 17 missionary movements as they developed in the 1900s.2 Establishing an indigenous church 17 not mentioned 15

Missions as Conversion and Evangelization Source: The information in this and the following table is based on comments and phrases from 623 individual documentary sources for the period 1890- Foreign missions were theologically understood in pre- 1930. Of these sources, the largest number are Presbyterian (217), followed by dominantly conversionist terms. The concept of conver- Baptist (127), Anglican (122), China Inland Mission (58), Bolivian Indian Mission (45), and other (54). For further details, see Hugh Douglas Morrison, “‘It Is Our Bounden Duty’: The Emergence of the New Zealand Protestant Hugh Morrison is currently (2005) a contract Lecturer in History at the Missionary Movement, 1868–1926” (Ph.D. diss., Massey University [Albany], University of Waikato, New Zealand. 2004).

July 2005 123 though still ambiguous, was understood as referring more to Yet missionary writers and speakers also articulated a fairly missionary proclamation than to conversion. The Church Mis- accurate sense of the specific needs of others that reflected their sionary Society Gleaners’ Union, for example, sought to unite everyday realities. Dr. John Kirk reported in 1910 that “the name “all who are interested in the cause [the CMS] represents, viz. the of our hospital [Ko T’ong] stands for ‘Universal Love,’ and if this Evangelisation of the world; all who desire to take, in any way, is to have any meaning at all in the hearts of the people—aye, if a personal share in its work of preaching the Gospel to the the Gospel of Jesus Christ is to have any meaning at all—we Heathen and Mohammedan nations.”5 Yet “evangelization” was cannot afford to turn poor, pain-burdened, weary souls from our also occasionally used as a synonym for the act of conversion. door.”9 Writings from the Bolivian Indian Mission also indicated George Allan (founder of the Bolivian Indian Mission) used it in that social amelioration of the Quechua Indians and the righting the 1890s in the context of observing that South American people of injustices were very important. Some people clearly saw were ready for Christian conversion.6 Evangelization received specialist activities such as medical and educational missions as further definition after 1900. A Baptist leader argued that “the inherently valid and important, and not merely as precursors to purpose of God” found its “best, and indeed only adequate overt evangelism. This perspective also filtered back to the New expression, in [the phrase] the Evangelisation of the World.” Zealand public. Missionary applications after 1918 indicate that Here evangelization incorporated both the means by which the a growing number of people were applying specifically to be Christian message could be communicated and its intended medical or educational missionaries. outcome of conversion. A Presbyterian missionary suggested more explicitly that “a country is evangelised when every man, Obligation, Duty, Service, and Sacrifice woman and child has had an adequate opportunity of hearing carefully and fully expounded the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”7 From the early 1900s the “great need” motif was conflated with In most cases “evangelization” was thus a form of shorthand a cluster of theological categories popularly perceived to be for conveying the message of Jesus Christ that the vast majority God’s commandment to spread the Gospel worldwide, the mis- of the world’s population still had not heard. While some New sionary duty attendant upon both individuals and churches, and a strong undercurrent of spirituality that emphasized service Table 2. Dualistic Images of Missions and sacrifice. A variety of factors contributed to this aspect of by New Zealanders, 1890–1930 missions: women’s missionary unions, missionary literature and study circles, visiting speakers, Christian conventions, and youth Christendom Non-Christendom movements like Christian Endeavour, the Student Christian Unions, and the emerging Bible Class movement. LightDarkness The focus on service and sacrifice was evident throughout Sight Blindness the entire period 1890–1930, becoming particularly obvious after Freedom Slavery World War I. Also present were notions of personal usefulness, Knowledge Ignorance Life Death service motivated by love, personal surrender to God’s call, and Wealth Poverty the view that human agency was indispensable to completing Saved Unsaved the missionary task. Nourished Starving The impact of war on New Zealand society was unprece- Happy Wretched dented. Of 100,000 men sent to fight, 18,000 died and many more Pure Degraded were wounded. The trauma of these losses branded the public Blessed Cursed consciousness and psyche and, in the 1920s, resulted in the Whole Incomplete erection of public memorials and the annual ritual of Anzac Day. Hopeful Hopeless It was not surprising that the potent language of warfare and of Cultured Uncultured sacrificial service and duty was co-opted for the missionary cause in the postwar period. Missionary publicists exhorted Zealanders understood the word in premillennial terms, most young people to emulate the spirit of sacrifice shown by soldiers perceived that the signs of the times indicated that the time was and other wartime volunteers. ripe for a concerted response to the great needs of the world. Such Also, by the 1920s the general call to responsibility and a conclusion tended to open up the methods and strategies of sacrificial service had been intensely personalized. Many people missionaries and mission organizations to broad and imagina- applied a highly individualized biblical hermeneutic, as illus- tive definition. trated by the notion of missions as a response to God’s command (as embodied in the Matthean and Markan texts). The original Missions as a Response to Great Need Greek of both texts clearly indicates that the task of missions was entrusted to a community of people, not to any one individual. From the 1890s on, missions increasingly became viewed as a Yet a generation or more of evangelical theology and spirituality response to great need. Statistics of Asian populations and non- that increasingly emphasized individual conversion, devotional Christian religions were increasingly employed in order to rally practices, and personal accountability before God caused a gen- the church to the missionary cause. There is evidence that at the eral commandment to the whole church to be subconsciously same time the “great need of the heathen world” was also internalized as a personal imperative. understood in humanitarian terms, with Christians being par- ticularly concerned about the perceived plight of Asian women Expansion and a Changing World and children and the reports of widespread famines in India and China. New Zealand missionaries often wrote accounts that Another cluster of terms or images emphasized the expansionist reinforced these stereotypical images for the general public, a nature of Christianity: going with, carrying, or taking the Gospel; trend also discernible in international missionary literature.8 conquest; and extending the kingdom of God. This expansionist

124 I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 29, No. 3 theme was hardly surprising in this period, which witnessed the held this relationship together.11 Women and students were also climax of European global power. Missionary rhetoric was not important initiators and organizers of formal mission study, always easily disentangled from language extolling the particu- especially following the world missionary conference in lar virtues of the British Empire. John Takle, a missionary with Edinburgh in 1910. They helped to shape a core of church-going the New Zealand Baptist Missionary Society (NZBMS), com- people who were quite well informed in terms of international mented that “every true Britisher thrills with the privilege of awareness and understanding. Furthermore, through books and belonging to an Empire so extensive that nearly one quarter of magazines women accentuated the motif of need by highlighting the world’s population has come under its sway, an Empire that the perceived plight of women and children in places like India has done more than any other for the emancipation of peoples, and China. In so doing, they reinforced, rather than subverted, and for the evangelisation of the native races.”10 In New Zealand prevailing Western stereotypes of the non-Western world and such sentiments were born out of historical, cultural, and familial accentuated notions of racial superiority.12 Women did, how- proximity to British roots and were voiced most stridently in ever, develop a greater sense of connectedness between New times of heightened imperial awareness. New Zealand’s rela- Zealand missionary supporters and their international “sisters.” tionship to Britain, however, was not necessarily uncritical. For example, a formal association existed between the PWMU Missionary commentators, for example, were ready to admit Britain’s flawed reputation. John Takle was quick to remind his 1916 audience that ultimately the Christian community should Missionary publicists be more concerned “with a greater Imperium, to whose Imperator we have bowed in reverence, obedience and loyal submission. exhorted young people Our supreme interest is the Kingdom of God . . . for Christ shall to emulate the spirit of reign.” sacrifice shown by soldiers The decade after World War I marked a slight change in missionary attitudes toward imperialism and the British Empire. and wartime volunteers. New Zealand was still intensely proud and supportive of the British Empire, but there were indications that significant changes lay ahead. The war itself had exposed a disturbing human heart and a North American Presbyterian women’s missionary alli- of darkness, raising serious questions about human progress. ance. This association in turn had links with the American Many people now understood that world peace was a fragile World’s Missionary Committee of Christian Women. By philo- commodity and, rightly or wrongly, that new forces of colonial sophically and theologically identifying with their international liberation were a potential threat to that peace. On the one hand, sisters, Presbyterian women understood themselves to be em- nationalist movements and sentiments were having a ripple powered by the incarnational Christ to form part of a great effect among indigenous Christian communities. It became in- feminine “girdle round the earth.”13 creasingly obvious to many missionary societies that a key task The second question asks about a distinctive body of New in this period would be the establishment of independent indig- Zealand mission theology by 1930. Early on, the missionary enous churches and structures. On the other hand, the fear movement was largely the product of a missionary worldview increased that these modernizing societies would be swamped imported from Great Britain. As it developed, a variety of contex- by the more invidious elements of Western civilization and that tual factors served to further shape and entrench this movement indigenous churches would not be mature or strong enough to as an integral participant in the wider Anglo-American mission- stop or reverse this process. ary movement. Although New Zealanders were increasingly informed by local literature and speakers, the content was not An Evaluation of the Theological Contours substantively different from what was being written, read, and preached in Australia, South Africa, North America, or Great Three questions are worth pursuing in light of the above discus- Britain. sion. First, to what extent was early New Zealand mission Despite this common foundation, there are a number of theology gendered? Second, to what extent was a distinctive indications that this question may be worth further reflection. In body of New Zealand mission theology emerging by 1930? And New Zealand’s Bolivian Indian Mission, for instance, one can third, to what extent had differences in mission theology become detect the influence of an earlier pioneering mentality that spurred significant by 1930? on its initial workers before 1914, as well as a self-effacing First, what was the extent of gender differentiation in New attitude that directed the honors away from the mission and its Zealand mission theology? On the surface there was little. Women, personnel.14 Among New Zealand Baptists generally there was a though, seem to have placed a greater emphasis than men on curious blend of colonial independence, self-congratulation, and mission either as a response to great need or as sacrificial service, sense of imperial obligation. An oft-repeated exhortation in while men seem to have emphasized more than women did the NZBMS reports was that the several million people in East socially ameliorative aspects of mission and the imperative of Bengal were New Zealand’s special responsibility, entirely de- missionary duty. pendent upon a handful of colonial Baptists for their eternal There are some indications, however, that women had an salvation and well-being.15 Among Anglican and Presbyterian important role in shaping popular missionary thinking. The missionary applicants there was also a note of responsibility that Baptist and Presbyterian Women’s Missionary Unions (BWMU, issued from a sense of dual privilege. It was a great privilege not PWMU) drew attention to the fundamentally theological and only to be a Christian and live in a Christian society but also to spiritual nature of mission through their devotion to and empha- live specifically in New Zealand, especially in light of the global sis upon prayer. Foreign missions was conceived of as a four-way socioeconomic inequalities that became increasingly apparent partnership between God, missionaries, indigenous Christians, after World War I. and supporters at home, and prayer was the essential glue that The third question asks what differences in mission theology

July 2005 125 had become significant by 1930. Late nineteenth-century and tude in turn served to locate missionary work at varying points early twentieth-century theological developments, as well as the along a missiological continuum. Thus mission could be vari- impact of World War I, helped precipitate a general crisis for ously defined as both conversion and social amelioration, as both Western Protestantism. New Zealand was not wholly untouched proclamation and Christianization, and as both an act of Chris- by this situation. Changing views on the rationale and practice of tian obedience and religious or social activism. It was only as a mission and the forming of various theological camps in re- conservative defensiveness emerged after World War I that this sponse were a reflection of wider debates and developments. underlying breadth of thinking began to disappear. In the New Zealand context before 1930, the extent to which Further research and reflection are needed to carry this these debates had an impact was limited to certain groups and discussion through to the end of the twentieth century. I antici- contexts. For example, World War I had a particular impact on pate that such discussion would highlight at least two lines of the emerging missionary thinking of the various Western stu- thought. The first is that after 1918, at least two streams of dent movements. The New Zealand Student Christian Move- thought emerged with respect to mission theology. These streams, ment debated missionary policy in the mid-1920s and produced which could be broadly labeled “conservative” and “ecumeni- at least one reformulated policy statement as a result. This cal,” were local manifestations of broader international trends. In statement placed a new emphasis on intelligent engagement the 1930s and 1940s this division was most manifest in things like with world issues and on identification with other peoples under the growth of interdenominational missions, the growing domi- the rubrics “fatherhood of God” and “brotherhood of man.” nance of the Auckland-based New Zealand Bible Training Insti- Mission was viewed as a cooperative exercise with indigenous tute, and the creation of two divergent Christian movements peoples and churches.16 In response to this statement, one critic among students in secondary schools and universities. From the identified the “dangers of the present position” as being an 1950s this dividing of the ways between the two streams was also overemphasis on these very phrases, which blurred distinctions a feature of much denominational thinking, as church assemblies between “the saved and the unsaved,” and a misunderstanding and synods wrestled with the postcolonial era of indigenous of the concept “kingdom of God.” The critic concluded that political and ecclesiastical independence. Many of the main foreign missions would be weakened as a result, warning that “it denominations moved away from a conversionist or expansion- is at our peril that we turn aside from our divinely appointed task ist mode of thought to embrace the notion of partnership and a to some fascinating programme of social betterment and interna- commitment to wider socioeconomic aid and development. tionalism.”17 Such views were representative of a conservative The second line of thought is that the theological gap be- sector of New Zealand Protestantism that emerged in the 1920s. tween the two streams was often more rhetorical than real. Great Differences in opinion over the content and direction of foreign emphasis continued to be placed on the ameliorative aspects of missions separated those willing to embrace new modes of mission, regardless of where organizations or denominations lay thought from those seeking to defend what they understood to along the theological spectrum. This underlying commonality be nonnegotiable orthodoxies. While the growing theological became a more pronounced reality from the 1980s onward, as divide in New Zealand was less dramatic than in North America, evangelicals in particular embraced a more holistic approach to it was obvious that the underlying theological rationale for, and mission. Mission was thus still predominantly defined as a the ecumenicity of, the missionary movement was under threat response to the physical, socioeconomic, and spiritual needs of by the late 1920s. others, even while it retained areas of ambiguity and variety. Innovative ventures such as Servants to Asia’s Urban Poor In conclusion, it seems clear that up to 1930 most mission groups (which originated from New Zealand)18 and wide support for and denominations in New Zealand accepted a number of core both interchurch aid ventures and organizations like World theological components that did not restrict missionaries and Vision and Tearfund underscore an essentially pragmatic ap- organizations to any one philosophy or methodology. This lati- proach to the wider world by New Zealand Christians.

Notes 1. This article is derived from my recently completed Ph.D. dissertation, Davies, Four Studies in Worldwide Evangelisation (Dunedin: ASCU, Massey University (Albany, 2004), on the growing involvement of 1909), pp. 5–7. New Zealand Protestant churches in overseas missions between 8. Joan Brumberg, “Zenanas and Girlless Villages: The Ethnology of 1868 and 1930. I gratefully acknowledge helpful comments on this American Evangelical Women, 1870–1910,” Journal of American History article that I have received from Janet Crawford, Allan Davidson, 69, no. 2 (1982): 347–71; Judith Rowbotham, “‘Hear an Indian Sister’s Peter Lineham, and John Roxborogh. Plea’: Reporting the Work of Nineteenth-Century British Female 2. David Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Missionaries,” Women’s Studies International Forum 21, no. 3 (1998): Mission (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1991), pp. 339–41. 247–61. 3. Nelson (New Zealand) Evening Mail, January 19, 1899, p. 2; January 9. “Missions Report, 1910,” Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, 20, 1899, p. 2. Proceedings of the General Assembly (Dunedin: Otago Daily Times, 4. Dana L. Robert, “The Origin of the Student Volunteer Watchword: 1910), p. 116. ‘The Evangelization of the World in This Generation,’” International 10. New Zealand Baptist (henceforth NZB), November 1916, p. 210. Bulletin of Missionary Research 10 (1986): 146–48; J. R. Mott, The 11. For example, “BWMU Member’s Card,” undated, Folder 1, Box Evangelization of the World in This Generation (London: Student 0036, New Zealand Baptist Historical Society Archives, Carey Baptist Volunteer Missionary Union, 1900), pp. 7–8. College, Auckland. 5. “Ivens,” ANG 143/3.70, Box 10, New Zealand Church Missionary 12. Joan Brumberg argues that similar literature encouraged American Society Archives, Auckland. women to represent their non-Western counterparts predominantly 6. South American Messenger 3, no. 3 (1899): 170–71. in terms of intellectual deprivation, domestic oppression, and sexual 7. New Zealand Baptist Union (henceforth NZBU) Baptist Handbook, degradation (“Zenanas and Girlless Villages,” pp. 356–67). 1903–4 (New Zealand Baptist Union, 1904), pp. 14–23; Herbert 13. This construction, however, contained inherent racial hierarchies

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July 2005 127 implying that “superior” Western sisters had to rescue their “inferior” 15. For example, “NZBMS Report, 1903,” NZBU Baptist Handbook, Indian sisters. Sarah Coleman, “‘Come Over and Help Us’: White 1903–4, p. 68. Women, Reform, and the Missionary Endeavour in India, 1876– 16. “Report of the Commission Appointed to Consider the Missionary 1920” (M.A. thesis, Univ. of Canterbury, Christchurch, 2002), pp. Policy of the NZSCM,” ca. 1925–26, Miscellaneous Publications, MS- 198–99; Presbyterian Church of Southland–Otago, Proceedings of Synod Papers-1617-503, New Zealand Student Christian Movement 1899 (Dunedin: Otago Daily Times, 1899), p. 74; NZBU Baptist Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington. Handbook, 1913–14 (New Zealand Baptist Union, 1914), p. 101. See 17. Typewritten report in “Pacific Basin Tour 1926—NZ,” Series 7, also Yvonne Robertson, “Girdle Round the Earth”: New Zealand Biographical Documentation, Folder 2590, Box 156, Mott Papers, Presbyterian Women’s Ideal of Universal Sisterhood, 1878–1918 (Dunedin: Record Group 45, Yale Divinity School Library, New Haven, Conn. Presbyterian Historical Society of New Zealand, 1994). 18. Viv Grigg, Companion to the Poor, rev. ed. (Monrovia, Calif.: MARC, 14. Margarita Allen Hudspith, Ripening Fruit: A History of the Bolivian 1990); Jenni M. Craig, Servants Among the Poor (Manila: OMF Indian Mission (Harrington Park, N.J.: Harrington Press, 1958), pp. Literature, 1998). 16–19; The Bolivian Indian, January–February 1929, p. 8.

Women, Mission, and Medicine: Clara Swain, Anna Kugler, and Early Medical Endeavors in Colonial India Maina Chawla Singh

The recovery from disease is the kindliest exhibition of divine of Western allopathic medicine. In a society like colonial India in power, and the Christian medical missionary occupies a lofty the nineteenth century, missionary women had an advantage vantage ground in his work. over their male brethren and were able to access women of the —Mrs. J. T. Gracey local communities, to whom male missionaries had no access.4 Women’s Medical Work in Foreign Lands (1881) Thus, after the second half of the nineteenth century, Western missionary women working in colonial India had an array of rom the early days of mission, medical work was recog- opportunities for medical work and for managing projects inde- F nized as an important means of evangelism. Mytholo- pendently. This, in turn, had the significant effect of disrupting gies circulated about missionary physicians and their work in the gendered hierarchies in the missionary world by providing “heathen lands.” For instance, it was said about a certain Dr. women missionaries opportunities for professional growth.5 Parker that he “opened the gates of China with a lancet when The first qualified woman missionary physician to be sent European cannon could not heave a single bar.”1 By the middle for overseas work was Clara Swain, a North American. Swain of the nineteenth century, missionary men began speaking more was assigned to India and arrived in 1870, preceding her first and more about the importance of gaining access to the women British counterpart, Fanny Butler, by ten years.6 The first mis- in non-Christian societies by means of medical ministry. Mis- sionary women to start dispensing medicines, however, were sionaries on furlough spoke to home churches of “the great value not professionally trained—some were missionary wives, and of medical knowledge” as an “aid in reaching the heathen others, both British and American, were zenana workers. women in their homes.”2 Gradually, mission-inclined men and “Zenana,” an Urdu word, was a widely used generic term to women, both British and American, were convinced that to gain denote spaces in households which were marked off exclusively access to women in non-Christian societies, it was essential to for women, where they would cook, do domestic work, and minister to their bodily ailments as an “entering wedge” for the spend leisure hours. The practice was prevalent in upper-middle- missionary enterprise. As a result, many British and North class families among Hindus and Muslims. American women, especially single women, sought mission Medical work for women in non-Western societies was sponsorship overseas to “save” their “heathen sisters” from initially tentative and experimental in nature. It grew as an “suffering and disease.” offshoot of missionaries’ organizing children’s schools, holding These images, which were pervasive in nineteenth-century sewing and literacy classes for women, and zenana-visiting,7 and missionary writings, overlooked the existence of indigenous these missionary women relied for their prescriptions on medi- systems of medicine such as Ayurveda and Unani that predated cal handbooks and common sense. Although some missionaries Western medicine and were always available to local communi- dispensing medicines (as opposed to qualified physicians) made ties. Missionaries, however, dwelled constantly on the idea that a mark by setting up enduring projects, they faced many ob- women living in segregated societies, with limited access to stacles. The daunting cultural issues included gaining access to public spaces, were “in need” of “Christian Light” which they the zenana women, persuading them to try Western medicines in sought to impart through educational and medical work.3 It was place of traditional remedies, and wooing them from their se- common in missionary writings to encounter stereotypes of cluded homes to visit the dispensary, which was perceived as a Indian women as “languishing in pain,” waiting for the benefits public space. Even after professionally qualified female physi- cians began working in India in the 1870s, medical work in cross- Maina Chawla Singh, Associate Professor at the College of Vocational Studies, cultural contexts offered many challenges. Inadequate surgical University of Delhi, India, is the author of Gender, Religion, and the equipment, a support staff of mostly untrained assistants, and “Heathen Lands”: American Missionary Women in South Asia, 1860s– the constant drain on resources were problems frequently cited 1940s (Garland, 2000). in the reports sent home to mission boards. In addition, the caste

128 I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 29, No. 3 and class realities of the patients constantly challenged Western terian mission for the use of their small church as a hospital. By notions of hospital care and frequently caused the medical work 1889 this work grew to become the Charlotte Hospital.11 In 1891 to begin slowly.8 Dr. Edith Brown became the first qualified physician to take over This article describes some of these early scenarios of this initiative. Under Brown’s leadership, it became the Women’s gendered medical work and the processes by which many such Medical School, Ludhiana (1914), and finally a full-fledged medi- initiatives expanded from little dispensaries to become hospitals cal center, the Christian Medical College, Ludhiana, which exists with training classes for assistants, midwives, and medical sup- to this day.12 port staff. Although some of the projects were extremely success- Elizabeth Bielby, who arrived from Britain in 1876, had some ful and eventually became full-fledged degree-awarding institu- previous medical training before she began her dispensary, and tions—notably the medical colleges at Ludhiana (North India) later hospital, in Lucknow (North India). Her experiences in local and Vellore (South India)—I am not concerned here with the later society convinced her of the necessity of proper medical educa- process of institutionalization, which I have discussed else- tion and training. In 1881 she returned to England to study where.9 Rather, I highlight some of the early challenges that medical women faced in dealing with the paucity of resources, issues of local culture, and indigenous resistance as they sought Medical work for women to combine their goal of evangelism with professional aspira- tions in a culture that resisted both Christianity and Western usually began as a useful therapeutics. instrument of access to The first part of this essay focuses on the initiatives of missionary women who were not trained as medical missionar- local women living within ies but who began by dispensing basic medicines, often adding gender-segregated to their training by taking medical courses later in their careers. Subsequently, I turn the spotlight on two of the early North structures. American Protestant female missionary physicians: Clara Swain (1834–1910) and Anna Kugler (1856–1930). Swain, sponsored by the Women’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Epis- medicine. By 1885 she had obtained the license of the Kings and copal Church, arrived in 1870 to open work in Bareilly (North Queens College of Physicians, Ireland, and an M.D. (a post- India), and Kugler founded the missionary medical work in the graduate degree in medicine) in Berne, Switzerland.13 While in Guntur district (South India), where she arrived in 1883. Both Britain, Bielby had an audience with Queen Victoria, during started medical missionary work for women in regions where which she described the “sufferings of Indian women.”14 After there were no precedents for such work, yet they chose very having attracted considerable attention at home in England, different paths to do so. Bielby returned to work in India, this time to Lahore (now in Neither Swain nor Kugler attained the heights of profes- Pakistan). In 1888 the hospital in Lahore under Bielby’s charge sional recognition achieved later by Ida Scudder of Vellore or was inaugurated as Lady Aitchison Hospital. Edith Brown of Ludhiana. Yet the project of recovering their Sarah Hewlett of the Church of England Zenana Missionary work is important not only for issues of gender and the history of Society arrived in India in 1877. She first spent six months in mission but also for deepening our understanding of the inter- Lucknow with Elizabeth Bielby, learning the local language sections of gender, mission, and the history of Western medicine before she began work in Amritsar (Punjab, North India). in non-Western societies. Equipped with some previous experience in nursing and mid- wifery, she took charge of the Amritsar Dais School, a modest The Beginnings: Zenana Medical Work institution set up in 1866 by the colonial civil surgeon Dr. Aitchison to train local dais (midwives).15 Hewlett subsequently began a Medical work for women usually began as auxiliary to zenana class to train girls to serve as medical assistants in hospitals. With outreach, because missionary women found it a useful instru- her active medical and surgical work over the years, she acquired ment of access to local women living within gender-segregated some repute in the surrounding community. structures. The pioneers who began organized medical work in India included some British missionaries, prominent among Early Women Physicians whom were Rose Greenfield, Elizabeth Bielby, and Sarah Hewlett, who were sponsored by three different British missionary soci- Clara Swain. In 1869 Clara Swain arrived in India.16 Born the eties. Although none of them was a qualified physician, their youngest of ten children in Elmira, New York, Swain, like many initiatives nevertheless flourished, bringing to each of them a educated girls from middle-class American families in late nine- degree of prestige. The work of these women reveals some teenth-century America, began her professional life as a school- typical patterns and processes that marked such early initiatives. teacher, first in Castile, New York, and later at Canandigua, also Rose Greenfield, a Scottish missionary sponsored by the in New York. Subsequently changing gears, she began training at Society for Female Education in the East, arrived in Ludhiana in the Castile Sanitarium. Following a three-year program there, 1875. She set up the Ludhiana Zenana Mission, supported by she entered Woman’s Medical College, Philadelphia, from which other female teachers and evangelists. She began by organizing she graduated in the spring of 1869.17 In 1868 Swain was one of the children’s schools and then moved to offering medical help and first two female candidates to be sponsored for overseas mission- “prescribing cleanliness” to the women.10 Greenfield was not ary work by the newly founded Women’s Foreign Missionary professionally qualified, but her medical work grew out of Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church; the other was Isabella zenana work and eventually reached a professional level. Thoburn, founder of the Isabella Thoburn College, Lucknow. Greenfield’s dispensary began in a rented room in 1881. By 1888 They sailed from New York on November 3, 1869, reaching India the growth of her work enabled her to negotiate with the Presby- on January 20, 1870.

July 2005 129 When a Mrs. Thomas, a missionary wife in the Bareilly physician, in Ludhiana (Punjab) in the 1890s. Brown’s initiative region, lobbied her home church to support a woman physician finally led to the founding of the Ludhiana Medical College for to attend to the welfare of the native Christians in Bareilly (then Women in North India. about thirty families), her main argument was that a “lady The little dispensary Swain started in 1870 grew, and within physician” would be an effective way to open doors to the upper a couple of years a local princely ruler, the Nawab of Rampur, class families and zenanas of Bareilly, which were otherwise donated a portion of his estate adjoining the mission property in closed to them. Issues of class and access were thus central from Bareilly for establishing a hospital for women. This generosity was the outset. Missionary women were always conscious that for not unusual, for many of the local princely families in this region their work to gain credibility, it was important to attract women were early supporters of mission-sponsored initiatives for female patients from upper caste and upper class families who were education or medical work for women. Swain moved into the new wealthy and enjoyed status and social prestige among the local premises on January 1, 1872. A dispensary building was com- community. pleted in May 1873, and the first in-house patients were admitted Swain settled in Bareilly, taking over a medical work already in January 1874.19 In March 1876 Swain went to the United States present in embryonic form, begun by a missionary wife who had on furlough, returning to India on November 6, 1879.20 initiated “a small class of native Christian women” for a “limited In March 1885 Swain treated the rani (i.e., wife) of the raja of course of instruction in medicine.”18 Like most early women Khetri, also a local princely ruler in that region. After two weeks physicians, Swain realized that training local women to join of “successful treatment,” Swain was offered the job of being her medical work, at least as assistants and perhaps later as qualified personal physician. This offer was not unusual, although female professionals, was key to the success of the medical projects. missionary physicians usually continued to treat their elite pa- Using a student from her class as an assistant, Swain thus began tients alongside their community outreach work. Swain, how- efforts to train local women in rudimentary medicine. Her first ever, as mission sources narrate, after “much thought and prayer” class was modest, consisting of sixteen girls from the missionary consented to give up her work in Bareilly and to remain in Khetri orphanage and three disabled women. They were taught anatomy, to do for the Lord “what she could . . . in this place where there physiology, and some rudimentary medicine, but their level of were no Christian influences.” She obtained permission to take professional training reached only a basic certificate level of her companion Miss P. E. Pannell with her so as to “carry on the practice. It took another two decades before formalized medical work as Christians should.”21 In March 1888 Swain took another classes were begun by Edith Brown, the British missionary furlough to America, traveling with Pannell. Noteworthy

Announcing [email protected]. The next phase of the Yale-WCC The fourth International Conference on Baptist Studies will archives endeavor will catalogue correspondence of the WCC be held July 12–15, 2006, at Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova general secretariat. Scotia, with “Missions” as the theme, encompassing home and The Pacific Journal of Baptist Research will be launched foreign mission, as well as evangelism and social concern. Thir- in October 2005. Providing an international vehicle for re- teen main speakers will address aspects of the subject, search and debate, the journal will be published twice a year, but short papers related to Baptists and missions are also in April and October. The editor, Martin Sutherland, is direc- welcome. Selected conference papers will be published in the tor of the Center for Theological Studies at Carey Baptist series “Studies in Baptist History and Thought,” published by College, Auckland, New Zealand. Topics are not limited to the Paternoster Press. Papers from the first conference have been Pacific region; all subject matter potentially of significance for published as The Gospel in the World: International Baptist Stud- Baptist communities will be considered, especially theological ies, edited by D. W. Bebbington. For details contact Bebbington, and historical themes. Submissions for the first issue should be Department of History, University of Stirling, Scotland, at received by July 31, 2005. Manuscripts may be submitted to the [email protected]. editor at [email protected]. The annual meeting of the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association and the Evangelical Missiological Soci- Personalia ety will be held September 22 - 24, 2005, in Minneapolis, James J. Stamoolis has been appointed senior vice president Minnesota. For details, visit www.ifmamissions.org. of academic affairs and dean for Trinity College and Trinity The International Association for Mission Studies ar- Graduate School, Deerfield, Illinois, effective July 1, 2005. chives are now being housed as part of Special Collections at Stamoolis will also hold the rank of professor of biblical the Yale Divinity School Library, New Haven, Connecticut. studies. His teaching career has included professorial roles For details, contact Martha Smalley, research services librar- and lectureships on missions and intercultural studies at ian and curator of the Day Missions Collection, at Wheaton College and the Bible Institute of South Africa. He [email protected]. has served as president of the American Society of Missiology The World Council of Churches and the Yale Divinity and is author of Eastern Orthodox Mission Theology Today (Orbis School Library are collaborating on a five-year microfilming Books, 1986; reprint, Light and Life Publishing, 2001). project that will result in the preservation and publication of Died. Frederick Hollander Bronkema, 71, American Pres- documents important to mission history. For questions about byterian missionary and ecumenist, April 3, 2005, following a the current phase, “Dialogue with People of Living Faith,” diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, at Penney Farms, Florida. A contact Paul Stuehrenberg, the divinity librarian, at graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, he helped estab-

130 I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 29, No. 3 Swain’s decision to serve the royal family clearly limited her In 1882 Dr. Kugler applied to the Board of Foreign Missions future career opportunities. She continued to hold Bible classes of the General Synod of the Lutheran Church in America (later a alongside performing her duties to the family. Her letters reveal part of the United Lutheran Church) for sponsorship to do that she enjoyed being a close associate of the royal family and medical work for women in India. Although Clara Swain had that she lived in considerable luxury as compared with other preceded her by over a decade, the board officially replied that missionaries, who lived either in mission compounds or in the organization was “not yet ready to undertake work of this simply constructed mission bungalows located close to the rural kind”—but she could do “general work.”23 Although women’s communities they served. When in October 1895 Swain’s assign- foreign missionary societies began gaining ground within home ment with the royal family came to an end, she sailed from India churches in many denominations in the 1870s, the board’s resis- to retire in the United States. tant attitude toward Kugler illustrates the unevenness that marked Several years later, in 1906, Swain revisited India to attend the policies and attitudes prevailing among the foreign mission- the jubilee celebrations of the Methodist Mission in India (founded ary societies in North America at the time. Kugler, however, in 1856). In April 1908 she returned to the United States, retiring agreed to be sponsored as a “general” missionary and sailed to the sanitarium in Castile, New York.22 Her health deteriorated from Philadelphia in the company of seven other missionaries. gradually, and she died on December 28, 1910. Through the They arrived in India in November 1883. initiative of a friend, the many letters that Swain had written over When Kugler arrived in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh (South the years were collected, compiled, and published as A Glimpse India), there was no precedent for Western-style medical work of India (1909). among women in that region. She performed her medical work in addition to her more general missionary duties, but when her Anna Kugler. Born in 1856 in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, Anna stock of medicines was depleted, the work had to be discontin- Kugler was the daughter of Charles and Harriet Sheaff Kugler. ued until her fellow missionaries raised $350 to start a hospital. Described in her biographies as “serious-minded” and “sensi- Finally in 1885 Kugler was officially appointed for medical work tive to impressions,” the young Anna was educated at a private and there were sufficient funds to rent a house to function as a school in Bryn Mawr and at Friends’ School in Philadelphia. dispensary. In 1887 two dispensaries were opened at Mangalgiri After graduating from the Woman’s Medical College, Philadel- and Guntur. It took fifteen years, though, for Kugler’s project to phia, she worked as an assistant physician at the state asylum at become a full-fledged hospital with a children’s ward, maternity Norristown. block, chapel, and nurses’ home.24

lish the ecumenical Center for Reconciliation in the 1960s in Texas, until he retired in 1987 as professor emeritus of world Portugal and was president of Lisbon’s Ecumenical Group. In Christianity. Among his publications are Ecumenical Founda- the 1970s he directed a documentation project, “The Future of tions: A History of the International Missionary Council and Its the Missionary Enterprise,” out of the International Documen- Nineteenth-Century Background (1952) and One World, One tation Center in Rome. From 1977 to 1986 he helped build up Mission (1960). His presidential address to the American Soci- the Ecumenical Development Cooperative Society, today ety of Missiology in June 1984, “The Scriptures in the Christian known as Oikocredit with a portfolio of more than $200 World Mission: Three Historical Considerations,” was pub- million, into one of the first socially responsible investment lished in Missiology, October 1984. funds and microcredit institutions geared toward using the Died. Louis J. Luzbetak, S.V.D., 86, Roman Catholic capital of churches for the developing world. Bronkema di- missionary anthropologist, March 22, 2005, of a heart attack, in rected the Project of Reconciliation for the Christian Commis- Techny, Illinois. Luzbetak, born in 1918 in Joliet, Illinois, was sion for Development in Honduras from 1986 to 1988 and ordained a priest in 1945. He obtained a licentiate degree in served as director of the human rights office of the National theology at Gregorian University, Rome, and a doctorate in Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. from 1989 to 1993. anthropology from the University of Fribourg (Freiburg) in In 1995 he retired to Florida with his wife, Marguerite. Switzerland. As a result of doing fieldwork in Papua New Died. William Richey Hogg, 83, American missiologist Guinea (1952–56), Luzbetak was convinced that missionaries, and ecumenist, January 29, 2005, in Dallas, Texas. He received while highly dedicated, needed anthropological tools to help his B.A. from Duke University in 1943 and a B.D. in 1946 and them understand Melanesian culture, a conviction that led Ph.D. in 1951 from Yale University. While at Yale he worked him into missionary anthropology. Luzbetak was best known as the student secretary to Kenneth Scott Latourette, with for his Church and Cultures: An Applied Anthropology for the whom he coauthored Tomorrow Is Here: A Survey of the World- Religious Worker (1963, 1989). A founder of the Center for wide Mission and Work of the Christian Church (1948). The Applied Research in the Apostolate, Washington, D.C., he appointment in 1950 of Richey and his wife, Wilma, by the became the first Catholic president of the American Society of Methodist Board of Missions to teach in Nanjing, China, was Missiology (1975–76) and also was president of Divine Word aborted by political events in China, and they were reassigned College, Epworth, Iowa (1973–79). In 1979 Luzbetak became to the New York office of the International Missionary Coun- editor of Anthropos and director of the Anthropos Institute in cil. In 1952 the two were assigned to Jabalpur, India, where Germany. From 1987 to 1989 he was on the staff of the Richey taught at Leonard Theological Seminary. In 1955 they Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Culture, and in 1998 the returned to the United States, where he taught at Perkins Catholic Theological Union, Chicago, established the Louis J. School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Luzbetak S.V.D. Chair in Mission and Culture.

July 2005 131 During the early years Kugler, like other Western women sections of the local community. She was twice awarded the physicians, was confronted with cultural issues. For instance, Kaiser-i-Hind Medal (an award of distinction bestowed by the Western-style instructions about administering medicine, which British colonial state)—in 1905, and again in 1917.29 A few days assumed literacy among the patients, were mostly ineffective. In before her death Kugler reportedly said to Dr. Ida Scudder, her addition, the use of a spoon was not common among the local colleague and close associate, “I would like to get well and work people. Simple directions and ingenious solutions were thus longer, for I would like to feel I had served India for fifty years, needed to indicate medicine dosage. Strips of paper were pasted and I have served only forty-seven.” Upon Kugler’s death in on the side of the medicine bottles, with notches or marks on the 1930, Scudder remembered her as one of “those noble pioneering paper to indicate the amount of each dose. Issues of caste and women who made it easy for us who follow in their trail”; she race, also, impeded medical work at every step, although Muslim remarked that “a star of great magnitude has fallen from the and lower-caste Hindus were easier to access than high-caste galaxy in our medical missionary firmament.”30 Hindus. Despite her medical knowledge and success, the white woman physician was widely viewed as the cultural other, Dealing with Caste, Class, and Culture without caste and therefore unclean, even for the most basic physical contact. This was a prejudice based on race and religion Women physicians like Swain and Kugler, who initiated medical work in a particular region, had no precedents and little previous experience. They had to treat all manner of medical needs, from Despite her medical snakebites and broken bones to childbirth and basic surgery. Their resources were meager, and local conditions challenged knowledge and success, them on multiple levels. Learning local languages and attempt- the white woman physician ing to understand local mores, they plodded patiently onward, even as indigenous resistance to Western therapeutics and to was viewed as the cultural themselves as white women persisted in upper-caste Hindu other, without caste and communities. Caste sensitivities operated at several levels: first, in the personal contacts with patients, then within the dispensa- therefore unclean. ries, where ailments were treated and medicines dispensed. When medical work expanded to become a hospital or an insti- tutionalized training center, the logistics became even more rather than gender. Male missionaries confronted similar issues complex. Missionaries attempted to avoid caste-related contro- in Hindu and Muslim society. As Kugler discovered, even when versies by hiring upper-caste hospital cooks and men to draw local women were persuaded to try her medicine, many “would water from the well. They also encouraged patients to live and not accept a dose of medicine from her outcaste hand and had to eat together. Christians readily agreed, but Hindu patients were receive it from the hand of a relative.” Liquid medicine (with an more reluctant, not wanting to defile caste purity. They preferred alcoholic content) was less acceptable than medicine in powder to be accompanied by a family member who would use their own form. Such conservative Hindu interpretations of “purity” and brass cooking utensils to prepare food for them at the hospital. “pollution” were irksome, even humiliating, for the missionary Despite the difficulties in treating the upper castes, the women, as Kugler recounted: “It was not pleasant to be con- missionary physicians were conscious of the need to garner local stantly reminded as one entered high-caste Hindu homes, that support and were eager to develop connections with women of one was an unclean object, defiling everything one touched. It the zenanas, especially from the princely families, who often was not pleasant to have all the bedclothes put to one side while became their donors and supporters. Besides Swain, Kugler also one examined the patient or to have a very ill patient taken out of was supported by such local patrons.31 bed and brought into the courtyard because the doctor was too Early female medical professionals were inevitably drawn unclean to go inside. . . . Neither did one enjoy stooping down and into administrative and organizational roles. Rose Greenfield, picking up the medicine bottle because one was too unclean to Swain, and Kugler worked on the expansion, architectural de- take it directly from the hand of the Brahman. But it was all in the sign, and planning of their hospitals. They all were sensitive to way of opening up the path for those who came later.”25 the specific cultural and climatic requirements for a hospital in a During 1889–91 Kugler went to the United States on fur- South Asian context. Innovative in the planning and organiza- lough to study hospital-building and equipment. On her return tion of their hospitals, they ingeniously adapted local materials a large plot of land was purchased in Guntur, where a new and resources for their purposes. dispensary was opened in 1893 and the foundation was laid for a hospital building, which became functional in 1897.26 Over the Conclusion years the medical work expanded in the Telugu-speaking region surrounding Guntur. In 1906 Kugler began rural outreach work Early women physicians in India chose to modify Western in Chirala. It involved waking up at 2:00 A . M . to take two different medical practices in order to attract clientele. Over time, they trains from Guntur to Chirala in order to reach patients by 7:30 realized that attracting women to Western therapeutics was A . M . A regular dispensary and hospital evolved out of these easier than expecting them to submit to a Western-style hospital, beginnings when Dr. Mary Baer took over the work at Chirala.27 with its imported social and cultural ethos of a highly regulated A nurses’ training program was another important feature of the space. Their strategies to attract patients, dispel local resistance, missionary medical work at Guntur. and conform to local preferences reflected missionary anxieties Anna Kugler lived in India for forty-seven years. The hospi- about how issues of religion and culture needed to be sur- tal she founded was celebrated in mission sources as “a beautiful mounted before their hospitals and dispensaries could become and lasting monument of our Church.”28 Widely known in the successful. Guntur region, she was highly regarded by colonial officials and An important theme that emerges from such a study is that

132 I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 29, No. 3 the histories of these early medical projects reveal a reverse missionary and lay, which they could then adapt to the changing process of acculturation through which female physicians were times. Even in the 1970s and 1980s, missionary hospitals and influenced by their local experiences across race and culture. nursing homes, particularly for gynecological and obstetric care, Their adaptations, born of either cultural compulsions or social continued to enjoy favor among middle- and upper-class Indi- pragmatism, paved the way for mission schools and hospitals ans, most of whom associated them with good nursing, compe- that had a South Asian flavor. Although they were run by tent medical care, and good hygiene. As large numbers of secular missionary societies and although Western missionary women medical institutions, both state-sponsored and privately owned, were visible on the faculties even until the 1960s, their function- with advanced technology and equipment began to emerge after ing reflected the adaptations missionaries had to make in a non- the 1970s, missionary institutions have been challenged to match Christian culture. Many of these early medical ventures still exist new standards. today. Clara Swain Hospital, a moderately sized institution in Understanding these earlier histories enhances our under- Bareilly, still trains medical assistants and midwives, and the standing of the ways in which the early female physicians work at Ludhiana, after the 1930s, grew to acquire prestige as a negotiated mission patriarchies and the colonial bureaucracy to premier national medical institution. carve out spaces for professional work. Their stories enable us to In general, missionary schools and hospitals in modern map out how gender and medicine intersected with race and South Asia grew unevenly. They faced major challenges after the religion in early cross-cultural medical initiatives for Indian end of British colonial rule in 1947 and subsequently, when the women. At another level, they also reveal that, however sporadic governments of both India and Pakistan began to restrict the or uneven the success of these early female physicians, they did access of foreigners for missionary work around the 1960s. The manage to found the first hospitals exclusively devoted to work of the early female physicians and teachers, however, women’s health care. Thus they created models and precedents created precedents for subsequent generations of women, both for other such ventures in the decades to follow. Notes 1. George A. Huntley, Oriental Windows: Arresting Missionary Stories 17. In a puzzling admission, her biographer claims that “we have no (Boston: Judson Press, 1933), p. 137. special record of Dr. Swain’s years of study in Woman’s Medical 2. Matilda Faulkner Churchill, Letters from My Home in India (New College” (Hoskins, Clara A. Swain, p. 12). York: George H. Doran, 1916), letter dated 1872. 18. J. M. Thoburn, Life of Isabella Thoburn (Cincinnati: Jennings & Pye, 3. Geraldine H. Forbes, “In Search of the ‘Pure Heathen’: Missionary 1903), p. 73. Women in Nineteenth- Century India,” Economic and Political Weekly, 19. This dispensary grew to become the first hospital exclusively for April 26, 1986. women in India, subsequently named after Swain. 4. Maina Chawla Singh, Gender, Religion, and “Heathen Lands”: American 20. Hoskins, Clara A. Swain, p. 20. Missionary Women in South Asia, 1860s–1940s (New York: Garland, 21. Ibid., p. 21. 2000), chap. 3. 22. Swain lived with Dr. Mary T. Greene, the niece of Dr. Cordelia 5. This was starkly so in the case of single women missionaries who Greene, who had established the sanitarium. The two women were qualified physicians or educators. See Singh, Gender, chap. 6. remained deeply involved with the institution. 6. Dr. Fanny Butler came to Jabalpur (in central India) in 1880. See 23. This society had been conducting mission work in Guntur since Arthur Judson Brown, One Hundred Years: A History of the Foreign 1842. See Paul E. Kretzmann, Glimpses of the Lives of Great Missionary Missionary Work of the Presbyterian Church in U.S.A. (New York: Women (St. Louis, Mo.: Concordia Publishing House, 1930), p. 78. Revell, 1936). 24. In the first four years 8,000 operations were performed and over 7. J. K. M. Denny, Toward the Sunrising: A History of Work for the Women 1,500 babies were delivered in the hospital (ibid., p. 82). For a of India (1852–1901) (London: Zenana Bible & Medical Mission, 1902). detailed account of Kugler’s work, see Anna S. Kugler, Guntur 8. I have briefly touched upon some of these issues elsewhere (Singh, Mission Hospital, Guntur, India (n.p.: United Lutheran Church in Gender, pp. 62–67). Here I focus exclusively on detailed analysis of America, Women’s Missionary Society, 1928). the early missionary work, which targeted Indian women and had 25. Kretzmann, Glimpses, p. 80. a specifically medical focus. 26. When the hospital actually opened, Kugler was away in America 9. Maina Chawla Singh, “Gender, Medicine and Empire: Early because of ill health. The first in-patients were accepted by Dr. Mary Initiatives in Institution-Building and Professionalization (1870s– Baer and Katharine Fahs, who founded the nurses’ training program 1940s),” in Exploring Gender Equations: Colonial and Post-Colonial at Guntur. Kugler took over the work in October 1899. See Kugler, India, ed. Shakti Kak and Biswamoy Pati (New Delhi: Teen Murti Guntur Mission Hospital, pp. 49, 135. Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, forthcoming). 27. Dr. Baer had already served at Guntur (1895–1909). Ibid., p. 99. 10. Charles Reynolds, Punjab Pioneer (London: Word Books, n.d.), p. 47. 28. Dr. Lydia Woerner, in ibid., foreword. 11. Margaret I. Balfour and Ruth Young, The Work of Medical Women in 29. The ceremonies were hosted by the governor of Madras Presidency India (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1929), p. 190. in full colonial pomp. Poor health prevented Kugler from being 12. I have discussed Edith Brown’s work and the institutionalization present at the ceremony in 1917. of medical education for women at the Christian Medical College, 30. Ida Scudder, handwritten speech (n.d.), Box 3, Scudder Papers, Ludhiana, in a separate essay, to appear in Kak and Pati, Exploring Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Mass. The Gender Equations (forthcoming). following comments by Scudder about Kugler are from the same 13. The Kings and Queens College of Physicians, Ireland, was the first source. licensing board in the British Isles to open its doors to women. 31. Bhuyanga Rao Bahadur of Ellore (now Eluru), a local raja, became a 14. Balfour and Young, Work, pp. 18–21. supporter of Kugler’s work after she successfully treated the rani 15. Ibid., pp. 13, 200. (i.e., wife of the raja) and “saved the life of his son and heir.” At 16. For biographical information on Clara Swain, see Mrs. Robert Kugler’s request he funded the construction of a rest house near the Hoskins, Clara A. Swain, M.D., First Medical Missionary to the Women mission hospital where the Hindu families could stay while their of the Orient (Boston: Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society, Methodist patients were in the hospital. It is believed that the youngest child of Episcopal Church, 1912); Clara Swain, A Glimpse of India: Extracts the raja was named Annamma, after Anna Kugler. See Kretzmann, from Letters of Clara Swain (New York: James Pott, 1909); Dorothy Glimpses, p. 85. Clara Swain’s association with the rani of Khetri was Clarke Wilson, Palace of Healing (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968). similarly beneficial.

July 2005 133 The Religious Worldview of the Indigenous Population of the Northern Ob’ as Understood by Christian Missionaries Anatoliy M. Ablazhei; translated by David N. Collins

n the eve of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the Russian that enter during conflict with a different culture, thus increasing O Orthodox Church had at least nine missions operating the value of the sources used. among Siberia’s indigenous peoples. The Red victory in the ensuing Missionary documents as sources bear specific characteris- civil war led to the elimination of all missionary activity, whose tics stemming both from the particular worldview of the mis- resumption was possible only after the fall of the Communist regime sionaries as bearers of alien cultural traditions and from the type seventy years later. The few accounts of Christian missions published of relationships they had with the indigenous population. As a in the USSR were tendentious in the extreme. Only in the post- rule, the missionaries gained their information by indirect obser- Communist era have scholars in the former Soviet Union been free to vation, such as knowledge of one or another traditional rite explore the rich archival and journalistic resources left by the mission- obtained by chance or through disclosure during conversation aries. with a local inhabitant. Communications of the latter type were Anatoliy Ablazhei’s article was chiefly addressed to scholars in rather rare, considering the attitude of the overwhelming major- Russia. It explores the extent to which the newly available missionary ity of the missionaries to the native people’s cultural riches and accounts are useful sources for contemporary scholars investigating the staunch unwillingness of the latter to reveal their ancestral native religion and cosmology. His work is reproduced here in transla- secrets to outsiders. This limitation was compounded by the tion for several reasons. It exemplifies the new wave of Russian almost universal lack of knowledge of local languages and scholarship about missions history, giving us a glimpse of the mass of customs (especially characteristic of the earlier period of Ortho- documentary material available for researchers to use. Its critique of dox missions in the Northern Ob’) and, with rare exceptions, by Russian Orthodox perceptions of native religion and the imperfect a general unwillingness to investigate in depth the specifics of methods employed to spread Christianity in Siberia provides us with traditional culture. Serious attempts to become deeply involved material from a mission field little known in the outside world. This in the local milieu and fulfill the role of spiritual mentors, as well information can prove useful for comparative missiological investiga- as a sincere determination to enlighten the “lost natives” rather tions. Above all, however, its value lies in its contribution to the ongoing than simply formally baptizing them, date from the final years of debates about contextualization and syncretism, the validity of the the missions, mainly the early twentieth century. Gospel for all peoples, and the appropriation of Christianity by the world’s indigenous peoples. It exemplifies the errors of ignorance often Missionary Methods committed by outsiders trying to spread the Gospel within a thoroughly alien culture. As Terence Ranger reminded us in the first Adrian According to the 1822 [Russian government] Statute on the Hastings Memorial Lecture at Leeds University in November 2002, Administration of the Natives, the indigenous peoples were authentic Christianity is indeed possible among indigenous peoples. accorded full freedom of religious belief. Adoption of Orthodoxy The Holy Spirit can inspire a transformation of their lives and culture, was encouraged but was not obligatory, which ruled out the without an excess of Eurocentric accretions.1 methods of forcible baptism characteristic during the eighteenth century. This legislation forced the missionaries to seek new The fullest possible reconstruction of traditional worldviews modes of activity based more on seriously plunging themselves requires the use of a wide range of sources. Among these are the into the life of their existing and potential flocks. They began documents of the [Russian] Orthodox religious missions to the single-mindedly gathering information about the local peoples, pagans that operated in the Northern Ob’ region [of western studying their religious beliefs and the details of their everyday Siberia] for more than three hundred years. The present article lives. Study of the local languages was encouraged; missionaries uses materials relating to the concluding period of the missions’ in fact compiled several dictionaries, and portions of Sacred activity, from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth centu- Scripture were translated. The Obdorsk branch of the missionary ries. The information of interest to us is found in various types of Brotherhood of St. Gury had a special “museum of the Brother- diaries, reports, and accounts emanating from missions as a hood, or repository for a collection on the ethnography of the whole and from individual missionaries, predominantly those peoples of the Tobol’sk North, whose aim was to assist the study who had interacted directly with the local population during of the life, customs, and mores of the natives by graphic means.”2 their missionary trips. Most of the material used for the analysis Several missionaries, particularly the hieromonk Irinarkh (Ivan is from the Obdorsk Mission, founded in 1854, which worked for Semyonovich Shemanovsky), published works on the ethnogra- the most part among the Nenets, Khanty, and Mansi popula- phy of the people of the Northern Ob’. tions, who knew very little or nothing about Christianity. There The main conditions for success in Christianizing in the are grounds for believing that in this case we are dealing with period under review consisted in making missionary trips through cultural traditions little affected by the alien cultural influences the localities where the baptized population had lived from time immemorial, relating to them within the confines of their cus- tomary dwellings and establishing close contact with represen- Anatoliy M. Ablazhei is a member of the Institute of Philosophy and Law of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, based in Novosibirsk. tatives of the various categories of traditional society. The mis- David N. Collins, translator, was Senior Lecturer and Head, Department sionaries frequently made no distinction between the peoples of of Russian and Slavonic Studies, University of Leeds, Leeds, England. Collins the north, lumping them together under the general term “na- has written extensively on Siberian missions and history, including editing the tives,” which demonstrated a lack of understanding of the differ- twelve-volume series Siberian Discovery (Curzon: 2000). ences between their ethnic cultures. Nevertheless, there were

134 I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 29, No. 3 instances of intelligent discerning of the discreteness of the missionaries pointed out that “the beliefs of the Ostiaks and cultures of the region’s peoples. The missionaries began to Samoyeds were formed partly under the influence of the condi- “hear” and “listen to” the voices of these cultures. Instead of a tions of life . . . economic, family, and social.”7 In the missionaries’ monologue, the predominant form of contact became dialogue, opinion, “the peculiar conditions of life of the natives inhabiting a clear example of which we see in the following missionary the region of the Obdorsk Mission, their distance from the parish account: “At first the conversation, as ever, was general. We church (between 300 and 600 versts [320–640 km. / 200–400 mi.]), talked of the daily life of the natives, about their troubles and their frequent absences from their dwellings for hunting, and in misfortunes, about buying and selling, about the lives of the general their nomadic way of life” also created obstacles in the Russians. . . . We touched on Christ . . . an old pagan man said how path of Christianization.8 From the missionaries’ point of view much he liked the way the priest sings in church and how the the natural environment also determined various elements of the Russians pray. To my question ‘Why don’t you get baptized and worldview that arose through contemplating it: “The Ostiaks become a member of the church?’ the old man replied that the regard elevated locations and mountains as holy, because, as priest had spoken to him many times about this, but he did not they say, ‘God could see better’ from such places.”9 But “God want to be baptized now. . . . The old man said . . . that we sees” through the eyes of people; in one of these high places a foreigners should also sacrifice reindeer to God.”3 missionary saw “a heap of antlers that, according to Vasia, were Two elements in this account are significant: the missionary placed on the summit to show the route.”10 view that conversation is the best form of communication with The missionaries considered that strict observance of ritual the native population (which can also be found in other docu- was another extremely important facet of the indigenous ments) and the mention of sacrifices to “God.” It is not clear population’s spiritual life. As one observed, “The kernel or which “God” is meant—Christ, the icon of St. Nicholas the leaven of morals, rituals, and beliefs of tundra paganism is Miracle Worker (whose identity was transmuted through the unshakable fidelity to the traditions of the ancestors.”11 Irrespec- local worldview, a matter to be discussed in more detail below), tive of rational bases for the retention of traditional religions, the or a figure from the native pantheon. Regardless of the answer, missionaries saw the root of the evil in the habitual nature of the the missionary’s interlocutor considers sacrifice the best gift (as beliefs, which led to “deep-rooted fanaticism.” A missionary the Russians do singing or prayer). From this incident we can writing in 1910 came to the following conclusion: “If he sticks to draw the conclusion that to the traditional worldview both his shamanistic belief, it is mainly through habit.”12 religions (paganism and Christianity) coexisted on an equal Striving to overcome such tradition, the missionaries de- basis. They were distinguished only by the objects and means of voted enormous attention to educating children in school. In worship used by one people or the other. 1919 the missionary Shikhalev wrote: “I consider that the most important question for the mission, for our missionary life, the Missionary Evaluation of Native Worldviews basis and main foundation for the mission are native boarding and day schools and orphanages.”13 It is no accident that the Since the elements of traditional worldviews that missionaries missionaries encountered strong opposition from the indig- found most interesting were religious perceptions, not a single enous population over the issue of education. The latter correctly missionary account omitted a distinctive “theoretical section” in saw the schools as a special institution to destroy their traditional which the authors attempted to interpret local beliefs. One re- way of life. One of the teachers in a mission school wrote in his port, for example, described the people’s “religious cult of sha- manism” as “one of the oldest religions of mankind. It has no doctrine, and all its power and essence consist in beliefs indis- For the missionaries solubly linked to ceremonies making scant appeal to human reason. They subjugate people mentally, filling all the natives’ shamanism was the most fearful and timid interior world with images and perceptions, significant element of forcing them to live and struggle with visible and invisible enemies under the most severe and burdensome conditions.”4 In indigenous religion. this particular case the peculiarities of the indigenous religion are explained (which was one of the basic tasks) from the point of view of its specific role in the natives’ daily lives. This approach report: “The reason [for the small number of students and the coincides in many respects with contemporary views on the continual dropping off of their numbers—A.A.] was their un- character and role of traditional worldviews, which for “the willingness, which they expressed to me, to educate their chil- majority of the northern peoples are not only spiritual expres- dren. This unwillingness came from die-hard superstitious con- sions of the various layers of ethnic cultures, but are also a special victions, for they saw that if their children became literate, they means (mechanism) of psychological adaptation to the extreme would no longer imitate the people’s superstitions.”14 social and climatic conditions of the Far North.”5 As regards the term “shamanism,” within which the mis- The Shaman sionaries typically subsumed the whole gamut of traditional beliefs, it obviously cannot reflect all their complexity and mul- Mission documents pay tremendous attention to the figure of the tiple layers. For the missionaries shamanism was the most tan- shaman, whom missionaries viewed as their basic ideological gible, understandable, and significant element of indigenous opponent. According to the missionaries, the shaman in tradi- religion. It therefore became the object of the most strenuous tional society had an exceptionally important role, not only in the opposition on their part, even though the level of its develop- religious sphere, but in all aspects of life. The shaman is “a person ment among various peoples differed.6 possessing the ability to enter into communication with invisible In explaining the peculiarities of the environment within spirits and to learn their demands under a trance. . . . In all the which traditional worldviews were formed and functioned, the circumstances of life a native needs the shaman’s help, and the

July 2005 135 shaman, according to the words and beliefs of the natives, is discern that the owner of the chum had lost a large quantity of chosen by God, a teacher and doctor.”15 I draw your attention to fur trade goods and had asked the witch doctor ‘Tachibe’ and the fact that the word “God” here has been written with a capital was seeking the thief. . . . The assembly included simple spec- letter, as in the case of the Christian God, even though it has been tators and a large number of those upon whom suspicion of used to refer to a pagan deity. As becomes clear from missionary theft had fallen. ‘Tachibe’ had practiced his sorcery for five days accounts, the shaman also performed the task of protector, which already and yet had not been able to ferret out the necessary was extremely important in traditional worldviews. At the same suspect. To my question about whether he really knew any- time, he was the interpreter of the principles of traditional beliefs, thing and whether he could find the thief by this means, being in the eyes of his fellow tribesmen the guarantor of their ‘Tachibe’ spoke his mind, not without fear, in the presence of retention and continuance. the assembly of natives, saying that he knew nothing positive, In 1857 one of the missionaries visited, in his own words, “an but if he took on himself the role of ‘Tachibe’ and beat the elder and shaman famous for his influence on other idol wor- ‘Pender’ drum, it was only because he had been asked to shippers, who kept two idols. . . . Acquaintanceship and friendly practice sorcery.”19 communication forced the shaman to relate the absurd history of This description coincides with the characteristic noted in the significance and influence of old idols on the Ostiak clan.” We ethnographic investigations of the Nentsy, according to which “shamans of the ia nayy (ia nayy tadibia) category are shamans connected with the spirits of the earth. They ‘healed’ the less Missionaries accorded seriously ill, sought lost reindeer, and so on. Unlike other sha- mans they performed their rites at night around the campfire.”20 to shamans a decisive In analyzing the missionaries’ conceptions about shamans significance as protectors and shamanism, it is important to reemphasize that they ac- and transmitters of corded them a decisive significance as protectors and transmit- ters of traditional culture, predominantly religion. This recogni- traditional culture. tion is evident from the means proposed to struggle against them, namely, the missionaries would “compile and present to the consistory a list of all shamans, having obtained signatures must distinguish several important points about this descrip- from them to the effect that they would not do this [i.e., would not tion. First of all, taking into account the reasons advanced above, offer sacrifices—A.A.] again.”21 we do not have to agree with the missionary in defining the “protector of idols” as a shaman. Z. P. Sokolova notes that the Nature Spirits and Spirit Protectors images of the ancestors (and these images were probably what the missionaries meant when they referred to idols) were usually In recording the various aspects of traditional religion, the mis- guarded by a special person, but “this was not the shaman, sionaries noted the existence of a cult of nature spirits: “Accord- although often identified as one.”16 The missionary’s direct refer- ing to Ostiak and Samoed notions, the world is full of numerous ence makes it clear that he was convinced that shamanism and spirits, both good and evil. Everything has its own deity—water, “idol worship” were things of the same order. fire, wood, stone, and locality—and these deities have an enor- Finally, and most important, the document refers to “friendly mous influence on the fate of humankind. Particularly danger- communication” as forcing the interlocutor to relate something ous is the influence of evil spirits, which try to harm people important to the other person. This is one of many examples of wherever possible. They send various fears. People must beware the complex process of intercultural interaction, which is mutu- of angering them in any way, thus attracting their wrath. If, ally enriching when information passes in both directions: from despite everything, they become angry, then attempts must be the native to the missionary and vice versa. In the excerpt in made to mollify them, or else something very bad would happen. question the conduct of the “shaman” is comparable to the way . . . According to Ostiak and Samoed beliefs, no medicines can in which the missionary behaves: he explains the principles of his help poor humans. The only way to combat disease is to offer religion, its significance, its influence on the life of his people, and penitentiary sacrifices to the spirit that has sent the disease.”22 its necessity for their continued existence. These functions are Missionaries cite examples of cult practices with regard to significant in the practice of traditional religion, for in order to these deities: “At one sacred place I saw reindeer antlers scat- explain them, the “shaman” himself must think through and tered about with dried bread rings [ baranki] threaded on them. formulate his convictions. For a member of a traditional society, Reindeer hides, antlers, and heads had been placed on two this communication is an absolutely new phenomenon, formed sticks.”23 The accuracy of this observation is confirmed by the under the influence of cultural interaction. description of a similar location in one of V. N. Chernetsov’s The missionaries gained reasonably clear views about the travel diaries: “It [the sacred place—A.A.] consists of a large heap role of the shaman in the daily lives of the indigenous population, of antlers. . . . Omdiu [the guide—A.A.] placed a dried bread ring and not only in the sphere of the sacred. In some accounts dealing on the ialia (sacred tree).”24 The missionaries transferred the specifically with shamans, however, the missionaries preferred division of the world into good and evil, which is characteristic to use the name they heard: “The natives express complete faith of Christianity, to the traditional religion of the indigenous in witch doctors, prophets and exorcists, Tadibe, who travel all peoples. Judging by contemporary data, however, there was no over the tundra with the aim of enticing their brothers and sisters such division, and the spirits of the underworld (naturally seen into the world of superstitions and prejudices.”17 From another as evil by the missionaries) could perform good deeds as well.25 account it is also evident that the missionary did not know that The missionaries recorded the presence of family spirit the Tadibe [also Tachibe—A.A.] is one of the categories of sha- protectors quite accurately. In the description included below, a man: “I entered the chum. 18 There was a great assembly of natives distinction between specific aspects of the Khanty and Mansi cult in it. Evidently something special was afoot. Soon I managed to is also mentioned. “Besides shamanism the Samoeds, and in

136 I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 29, No. 3 N EW! Orbis Mission Studies

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July 2005 137 particular the Ostiaks, practice idol worship. Worship of the The missionaries themselves paid a great deal of attention to shaitans, anthropomorphic depictions of the deities . . . continues the worldview phenomenon connected with the figure of St. in almost every yurt or chum. There is a deity—a shaitan—which Nicholas the Miracle Worker. If we compare accounts from the whole family reveres, bows down to, and makes prostrations different periods, we can clearly follow the evolution of religious to as a sacrifice. They keep their shaitans in boxes in the front stereotypes and the gradual adaptation of figures of the Chris- corner. When you go in to the chum, they try to hide this box.”26 tian pantheon by traditional religion. A mission report from 1857 From this description it is obvious that in this case the mission- notes, “Some, however, extended their folly as far as calling their aries were in contact with a population ignorant of Christianity, idol [in this case meaning the family spirit protector] St. Nicholas because their neighbors, the Mansi and southern Khanty, who the Miracle Worker’s brother.”30 Gradually, however, the au- had experienced Christian influence, already had icons in many thority of the Christian saint rose, and in 1916 the missionary of their homes. The missionary would have made direct refer- Tutomlin pointed out that “among the native shamanists St. Nicholas Mirlikskii the Miracle Worker is revered everywhere. The natives consider him a Russian god stronger than pagan St. Nicholas the Miracle ones.”31 The Khanty Mikola, however, was not the Christian St. Nicholas the Miracle Worker but a substantially new deity Worker was the most subsuming within itself traits of various religious traditions. popular Christian saint According to M. B. Shatilov’s observations, “Ostiak religion contains elements of a whole range of beliefs. . . . there is an among both the Russian identification of Christian saints with Ostiak deities or heroes of and the aboriginal the national epic, for example Mikola-Torum or Mikola-Ike.”32 A corresponding cult rooted in traditional observances de- populations of the area. veloped in relation to the new deity. The missionaries were correct in considering it a result of Christianization, when they wrote about the practice of “vows” made to Mikola to ward off ence to their existence, as, for example, in the following report: various misfortunes such as reindeer plague, diseases, failure “Some of our informants state quite categorically that earlier during the hunt, and so forth. Analysis of reports about such ‘before the Russians’ they had puby in the right corner.”27 This vows (a usual expression of which was the obligation to cross comment refers to the fact that icons, which had to be placed in oneself) allows us to conclude that baptism (an important act the right corner, had displaced the spirit images, now found on from the point of view of the church) had very little significance the left. Also, the missionary would not have been given access for the newly baptized person. It was understood to be a super- to a box that had been retained, since “relations between humans ficial formality and therefore was undergone perfunctorily. Chris- and the spirit protectors had an intimate character.”28 Infringe- tianity could thus be partially adopted, merely by accepting ment of this prohibition, all the more so when missionaries were some of its propositions and ceremonies. The result was addi- concerned, laid the owner open to the supreme penalty. tions to the structure of the traditional worldview and limited modification of certain elements of religious consciousness—all Christian Influence on Traditional Worldviews changes that fit the needs of traditional society. One of the most complex questions in the context of the theme Conclusion under discussion is that of the influence of Christianity on the traditional worldview of the peoples of the Northern Ob’. In the In conclusion, the evidence demonstrates that because of a whole present article analysis of this matter will be concentrated on the series of objective and subjective reasons, missionaries, as bear- transformations to which the figure of St. Nicholas the Miracle ers of Christian traditions, formed perceptions of the traditional Worker was subjected through cross-cultural interaction. He worldview of the indigenous population of the Northern Ob’ was the most popular Christian saint among both the Russian that were in many ways incomplete and frequently incorrect. and the aboriginal populations of the area. Two reasons for these Their conceptions must be carefully checked against the data of changes must be distinguished. First, the church itself contrib- ethnographic investigations. Nonetheless, they did record a uted significantly to the process by building a church of St. series of elements completely correctly. The missionaries distin- Nicholas in almost every newly founded Russian settlement. guished three constituent parts of the aboriginal religious con- Second, and more important, was the phenomenon of so-called sciousness: shamanism, worship of nature spirits, and the family folk orthodoxy, that is, a noncanonical variant of official doctrine spirit protectors. They considered the main figure in ceremonial that included a considerable number of pagan elements charac- cult practices to be the shaman, who also played an important teristic of the Russian peasant population ever since [early medi- role in daily life, fulfilling medical and other functions. Mission- eval] Kievan Rus’. Speaking of the influence exerted on the ary statements about the adaptive role of the traditional worldview aboriginals’ worldview by proximity to the Russian population, also coincide with ethnographic data. The adoption of Christian- investigators concluded that “only in the few places where the ity could take the form of simply incorporating individual Chris- Ostiaks were significantly influenced by the culture of the Rus- tian elements as additions to the existing structures of traditional sian population do we have a gradual modification of the general consciousness, while rethinking and reinterpreting the new ele- Ostiak worldview.”29 ments as appropriate. Notes 1. The remainder of this article, following these introductory remarks text are by the translator, who also supplied subheadings. Preparation by the translator, is a translation of Anatoliy M. Ablazhei’s text. of the original article by Ablazhei was funded by the Russian Except where marked “A.A.,” bracketed comments inserted in the Humanities Scientific Fund.

138 I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 29, No. 3 2. The Tobol’sk Section of the State Archive of Tiumen Oblast’ (TF 15. Ibid., fond 58. GATiumO), fond 58 (Tobol’sk Diocesan Committee of the Orthodox 16. Sokolova, “Perezhitki religioznykh verovanii,” p. 214. Missionary Society). 17. TF GATiumO, fond 58. 3. Ibid., fond 703 (Khensk missionary station). 18. Chum is the Russianized form of an indigenous word for tepee. 4. Ibid., fond 58. 19. TF GATiumO, fond 703. 5. Z. P. Sokolova, “Adaptivnye svoistva kul’tury narodov Severa” 20. L. V. Khomich, Nentsy. Istorkio-etnograficheskie ocherki (The Nentsy. (Adaptive characteristics in the culture of the peoples of the north), Historical and ethnographic studies) (Moscow and Leningrad, 1966), Sovetskaia etnografiia 4 (1991): 15. p. 212. 6. Z. P. Sokolova, “Perezhitki religioznykh verovanii u Obskikh Ugrov” 21. TF GATiumO, fond 156. (Remnants of religion among the Ob’ Ugrians), in Religioznye 22. Ibid., fond 58. predstavleniia i obriadov narodov Sibiri v XIX–nachale XXvv. (Religious 23. Ibid. perceptions and rituals of the Siberian peoples in the nineteenth and 24. Istochniki po etnografii Zapadnoi Sibiri, p. 73. early twentieth centuries) (Leningrad, 1971), p. 223. 25. I. N. Gemuev, Mirovozzrenie Mansi. Dom i kosmos (The Mansi 7. TF GATiumO, fond 58. worldview. Home and the cosmos) (Novosibirsk, 1990), p. 20. 8. Ibid. 26. TF GATiumO, fond 58. 9. Ibid. 27. Gemuev, Mirovozzrenie Mansi, p. 20. 10. Istochniki po etnografii Zapadnoi Sibiri (Sources of the ethnography of 28. Ibid., p. 30. West Siberia) (Tomsk, 1987), p. 59. 29. M. B. Shatilov, Vakhovskie ostiaki (The Vakhov Ostiaks) (Tomsk, 11. TF GATiumO, fond 58. 1931), p. 99. 12. Ibid. 30. TF GATiumO, fond 156. 13. Ibid. 31. Ibid., fond 58. 14. Ibid., fond 156 (Tobol’sk religious consistory). 32. Shatilov, Vakhovskie ostiaki, p. 99.

My Pilgrimage in Mission Gerald H. Anderson

he theme of my pilgrimage is that I have ended up where memorable, and where students from Asia challenged my theo- T I never imagined and have done what I never expected. logical views as we discussed Hendrik Kraemer’s recently pub- The lesson is that God’s providence prevails. lished book Religion and the Christian Faith (1956). This was the beginning of my lifelong engagement with mission studies and From Sax to Seminary the theology of mission. Returning to Boston University to complete a Ph.D. in church Born in New Castle, Pennsylvania, in 1930, I grew up in the history, I decided to write my dissertation on the theology of depression era, attended a small Methodist church with my missions in the twentieth century. By the time I finished, I felt parents, became proficient on the clarinet and saxophone, and compelled to go to Asia as a missionary. Fortunately for me, was the first member of my extended family ever to go to college. Joanne Pemberton, whom I had met during my doctoral studies In high school I led a thirteen-piece dance orchestra, then in the church where I was an associate minister in Providence, majored in business administration at Grove City College to Rhode Island, shared my love and my missionary vocational better handle the business side of my “big band.” In my senior calling. A few weeks after my graduation in 1960, we were year of college, however, I felt that God was calling me to the married and sailed to the Philippines as Methodist missionaries. ministry. I sold my orchestra business and my sax and went off to Boston University School of Theology to prepare to be a The Philippine Decade Methodist pastor. Following graduation from seminary in 1955, I was ordained I had been appointed to teach church history at Union Theologi- in the Methodist Church, served for a summer in Alaska helping cal Seminary, which was in Manila when we arrived, but it soon to plant a new church on the Kenai Peninsula, then sailed for moved to a new campus twenty-three miles south of Manila in Europe to study at the University of Marburg, Germany, on a Dasmariñas, Cavite. There Joanne and I enjoyed nearly ten years Fulbright scholarship. A second year in Europe was divided of richly rewarding service and fellowship with missionary and between the Ecumenical Institute near Geneva, Switzerland, and Filipino colleagues and students. Both of our children were born New College at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. My in Manila and flourished in our rural campus setting. We were interest in missions, first sparked at Boston University, grew at also happily involved with the growing Philippine Methodist Marburg and at the Ecumenical Institute, where meetings with Church. It was the beginning of a lifelong love affair with the Karl Barth, P. D. Devanandan, and Willem Visser ‘t Hooft were Filipino people. About 80 percent of Filipinos are at least nominally Roman Catholic, with a conservative Spanish heritage. It was fascinating Gerald H. Anderson, a senior contributing editor, is Director Emeritus of the Overseas Ministries Study Center, New Haven, Connecticut. He was recently to be in that context during and after the Second Vatican Council, presented with the Maclin Award by the Mission Society for United Methodists to see changes slowly taking place in the Catholic Church and in “in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the advancement of world relations with Protestants. As a result of my involvement in missions.” numerous ecumenical dialogues, I developed lasting friendships

July 2005 139 with several Jesuit and Society of the Divine Word priests, as well Scarritt College and Cornell University as a greater appreciation for certain aspects of the Catholic tradition. In 1970 an invitation came to serve as president of Scarritt College for Christian Workers in Nashville, Tennessee. While it was dif- Publishing Ventures ficult to leave our colleagues and such a fulfilling ministry in the Philippines, we felt it was time to move on and open the way for As an outgrowth of my doctoral studies, I edited my first book, a Filipino to teach church history at Union Theological Seminary. The Theology of the Christian Mission, which was published by Being at Scarritt was a good experience for our family’s McGraw-Hill in 1961. I was distressed when Carl Henry wrote an reentry to life in America at a tumultuous time (with Vietnam, eleven-page critical review of the book in Christianity Today racial tensions, and Watergate), but I soon realized that I did not magazine. Nevertheless, the book became quite a publishing want to spend my career absorbed in fund-raising for a small success, with American, British, and Japanese hardback editions, college. So after three years I resigned and went to Cornell followed by two paperback editions. University as a senior research scholar in the Southeast Asia Other, more personal benefits followed. Stephen Neill, who Program. A few years earlier Cornell University Press had pub- had seen and appreciated the book before we first met in Singapore lished a book on Philippine church history that I edited, so it was in 1963, invited me to join him in coediting the Concise Dictionary a good fit, and we had a happy year there. During that year I of the Christian World Mission (1970). This began a friendship that published articles on President Marcos’s corrupt regime in the lasted until his death in 1984. One of the last series of public Philippines; an interview with Raul Manglapus, former foreign lectures he gave was at the Overseas Ministries Study Center in secretary of the Philippines (who had an office next to mine at Ventnor, New Jersey, on the assigned theme “How My Mind Has Cornell); and an article warning about the possibility that Presi- Changed About Mission.” Privately he said to me, “You know, dent Nixon might declare martial law to avoid impeachment. I Gerald, my mind really hasn’t changed!” also edited Asian Voices in Christian Theology (1976), the first book Lesslie Newbigin had written the foreword to The Theology from a Protestant to be published by Orbis Books. of the Christian Mission. Later I visited him in Madras, India, en route to the Fourth Assembly of the World Council of Churches, Missiology Networks: IAMS and ASM in 1968 in Uppsala, Sweden. (I was a delegate of the Philippine Independent Church.) Newbigin also became a mentor, friend, Soon after returning to the United States from the Philippines, I and collaborator in numerous projects over the next thirty years. was invited to join the committee of European missiologists

John Paul II The church shaped by John Paul II is committed to the 1920–2005 world’s poor, to the establishment of justice, peace, and the integrity of creation, to inculturation, to ecumenism and As the world prayed and kept vigil, Pope John Paul II (Karol interreligious dialogue (despite some vacillations in docu- Jozef Wojtyla) died at the Vatican the night of April 2, 2005. ments like Dominus Iesus), and to continuing Jesus’ mission The pope’s death marked the end of an extraordinary pa- among all peoples and to the ends of the earth. This commit- pacy. No pope in history had been such a public figure, had ment was expressed with particular force by the pope him- traveled so extensively, had written so much, or had canon- self in his 1990 encyclical Redemptoris missio, which was ized so many saints (more than all his predecessors put explicitly written to encourage the church’s missionary ac- together!). No pope in history had acted so dramatically and tivity among peoples who have not yet come to believe in symbolically—praying with leaders of other religions at Christ. Assisi, praying at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, asking While recognizing the possibility of salvation outside pardon for the church’s many mistakes in the past, meeting explicit Christian faith, the pope insisted nevertheless that with and forgiving his would-be assassin, and sitting beside “no one . . . can enter into communion with God except the archbishop of Canterbury in St. Peter’s Basilica on an through Christ, by the working of the Holy Spirit” (par. 5). identical throne. While the pope spoke of mission as a “single but complex John Paul’s quarter-century as “servant of the servants reality,” including witness, justice, dialogue, and inculturation of God” set his church on a course that will be difficult to as constitutive elements, he also spoke of explicit proclama- change. Today’s Roman Catholic Church is still hesitant in tion as mission’s “permanent priority” (par. 44). This inclu- regard to women’s full and equal participation at all levels, sive yet distinctly Christocentric and Trinitarian mission still determined to follow the traditional strictures regarding theology will characterize the discussions of missiologists contraception, still upholding the right to life of both the well into this present century. Also central to John Paul’s unborn and convicted criminals, and has taken cautious and missionary agenda was his articulation of a “new evangeli- even condemnatory positions on the burning questions of zation” among cultures and peoples who, though baptized medical ethics. John Paul II presided over a church whose or living in traditionally Christian milieus, have lost a sense center of gravity was shifting from Europe and North America of faith’s importance in their lives. to Latin America, Africa, and Asia. His appointments to the Roman Catholics are secure in their belief that the Holy Roman curia and the episcopacy, as well as the destinations Spirit will entrust the church to a worthy successor. Neverthe- of his many “pilgrimages,” reflected this crucial demographic less they, along with much of the world, mourn the passing of change. a charismatic and, indeed, holy man.

140 I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 29, No. 3 headed by Olav Myklebust from Oslo and Hans-Werner and I cultivated those in the mainline churches related to the Gensichen from Heidelberg that was planning to establish the National Council of Churches. International Association for Mission Studies (IAMS). The inau- Forty-five people, including quite a few members of APM, gural meeting was held at Driebegen, Netherlands, in the sum- responded to our invitation and met on June 9–10 to consider the mer of 1972, at which time I was elected to the executive commit- founding of the American Society of Missiology (ASM). Some tee. I eventually served a three-year term as president. This feared the new organization would compete with and kill the ecumenical association has flourished, with 207 participants APM. In the end, however, the participants unanimously agreed from 43 countries at its general assembly in Malaysia in 2004, and to proceed, and everyone signed up as charter members. When its journal Mission Studies is outstanding. the APM met a few days later, its members not only supported During my first summer at Scarritt College in 1970, I at- the proposal but also contributed $250 from the APM treasury to tended a meeting of the Association of Professors of Mission help start the new organization. It was decided to hold the (APM) in North America. It was depressing to find only fourteen inaugural meeting of ASM a year later at Concordia Seminary in persons in attendance, mostly from seminaries of the mainline St. Louis, Missouri. I was elected chairman, Donald M. Wodarz, Protestant churches. I felt that if this poor turnout represented S.S.C., was vice-chairman, and Ralph Winter was secretary/ the future of mission studies in North America, we were in treasurer of the continuation committee. serious trouble. The inaugural meeting, in June 1973 on the theme “Salvation Ralph Winter from Fuller Seminary shared my concerns, Today,” was attended by more than ninety persons. I was elected and over the next year or so we strategized about the need for a president, Wodarz vice-president, and Winter secretary/trea- new organization that would encompass broader membership surer. Alan Tippett, of the Fuller School of World Mission, than the APM and be able to revitalize the discipline of mission became the editor of ASM’s new journal, Missiology: An Interna- studies. I invited APM to have its 1972 meeting at Scarritt tional Review, which began publication in January 1973. Tippett College. A few months before the meeting, Ralph and I sent out was a well-known missionary anthropologist, and his involve- a letter to the APM membership and to some evangelical and ment facilitated the merging of the small but influential journal Roman Catholic professors, inviting them to a special consulta- Practical Anthropology into Missiology, which gave Missiology a tion at Scarritt just prior to the APM meeting to consider the good start-up circulation. Today the annual meetings of the ASM formation of a new organization focused on the advancement of regularly record an attendance of 140 to 150. ASM has also helped mission studies in North America that would supplement the to revitalize the APM, which holds its meetings in conjunction efforts of the APM. Ralph encouraged evangelicals to attend, with the ASM and normally draws about 80 participants.

Benedict XVI in which (quoting Vatican II) Protestant churches are spoken of as “defective” (par. 19). One may well wonder what Christian On April 19, 2005, after only four ballots in conclave, Cardinal unity may mean in such an interpretation. Also in Dominus Iesus Joseph Ratzinger at the age of seventy-eight was elected other religions are seen as “gravely deficient” (par. 22). Espe- bishop of Rome, taking the name “Benedict XVI.” In his first cially because of this latter position, the new pope will certainly official public audience, on April 27, the new pope indicated be committed to the act of proclamation as—in the words of that the name “Benedict” recalls the papacy of Benedict XV John Paul II—“the permanent priority of mission” ( Redemptoris (1914–22), and so his choice of name bears a good deal of missio, 44). There is no doubt that, like his predecessor, Benedict significance. Benedict XV succeeded the saintly but rigid Pius XVI will be unshakable in his commitment to the church’s faith X, who had attempted to restrict any theological inquiry that in “the fullness and definitiveness of the revelation of Jesus would make use of “modern” methods of history and philoso- Christ” (the title of section 1 of Dominus Iesus). There is no doubt phy. Benedict XV also reversed a previous papal policy that as well, however, that such a position will be worked out within banned Catholic participation in Italian politics and, in what an equally firm commitment to dialogue both with the world’s may have been his most important contribution, issued the religions and with people persuaded by postmodern secular- apostolic letter Maximum illud (1919), the first of a series of ism, relativism, and individualism. “mission encyclicals” appearing throughout the twentieth Benedict XVI is no liberal. He is suspicious of human century, and one in which the pope insisted pointedly on the culture and sees the church more as a universal reality, of cultivation of indigenous clergies throughout the world. which he is the chief pastor, than as a communion of local The new pope’s name also calls to mind Benedict of Nursia churches, each with a certain autonomy. He was deeply af- (ca. 480–ca. 550), the founder of Western monasticism, who set fected both by the Nazi co-option of the church during the in motion a movement that preserved European faith and 1930s and by what he considers misunderstandings of Vatican culture in the wake of the migration of new and vigorous II in the years immediately following its conclusion. But he is peoples from the east and the north. Benedict is the patron of a brilliant theologian and, in these first days of his pontificate, Europe, and so his name resonates with the concerns of the new has proved to be extraordinarily sensitive pastorally. The pope about the decline of Christianity in Europe and the West. world’s peoples have good reason to hope that he will provide Benedict XVI has pledged to work for the unity of all the leadership necessary for our turbulent but exciting times. Christians and also has reached out especially to Muslims. —Stephen Bevans, S.V.D. Christians should be aware, however, that as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the new pope was Stephen Bevans, S.V.D., a contributing editor, is the Louis J. Luzbetak S.V.D. responsible for the publication of the document Dominus Iesus, Professor of Mission and Culture, Catholic Theological Union, Chicago.

July 2005 141 Over the next couple of years several Catholic and Protestant When I came to OMSC, one of our goals was to make it more mission agencies provided grants for a revolving fund that ecumenical and representative of the global church. Few Roman enabled ASM, in cooperation with Orbis Books, to publish the Catholics had ever been there, and 90 percent of the residents ASM Series, devoted to scholarly missiological monographs. were North American missionaries on furlough, while only 10 The formation of the ASM, together with the journal and the book percent were church workers from the non-Western world. series, helped missiology gain recognition as an academic disci- Twenty-five years later this ratio was reversed: 10 percent of pline in North America, and in 1976 ASM was granted member- residents and program participants were North American per- ship in the Council on the Study of Religion. sonnel, and 90 percent were Asian and African missionaries and In St. Louis in 1973, at the inaugural meeting of the ASM, I church workers, from many church traditions—mainline Protes- first met Thomas Stransky, president of the Paulist Fathers and tants, evangelicals, Pentecostals, Roman Catholics, and an occa- formerly on the staff of the Vatican Secretariat for Promoting sional Orthodox. Christian Unity. We soon agreed to work together as coeditors of One of the personal benefits of this kind of involvement and a series titled “Mission Trends”; five paperback volumes were association with a broad spectrum of mission personnel and published jointly by Paulist Press and Eerdmans and gained agencies was that at one point in the 1980s, I was serving wide circulation. (Friends jokingly referred to it as the Tom and simultaneously on committees or commissions of the World Jerry series.) Council of Churches, the Lausanne movement, and the United States Catholic Mission Association. I was eager to build bridges OMSC in Ventnor, New Jersey for the sake of unity and cooperation in the advancement of the Christian mission, and OMSC facilitated these efforts. Near the end of our year at Cornell, I was invited to speak at a conference at the Overseas Ministries Study Center (OMSC) in A Controversy Among Methodists Ventnor, New Jersey, where my friend R. Pierce Beaver had recently come as director after retiring from the University of At the same time, I had a growing concern about the increasing Chicago Divinity School. While I was there, he took me aside and relativism in mission theology that I observed in various Protes- asked if I would be willing to come and join him as associate tant mission agencies, especially in the General Board of Global director of the center. His invitation came as quite a surprise, and Ministries of my own United Methodist Church. I had been I was not sure this was what I wanted to do, as I thought I would educated in some of the premier liberal theological schools both prefer a teaching position on a seminary faculty. But it was an in the United States and Europe. But I had also devoted much of attractive setting for our family, the program focused on continu- my research and writing to developments in mission theology, ing education for missionaries, and Pierce was widely regarded and I recognized institutional malaise when I saw it. It was as the doyen of American missiologists. He told me that he increasingly clear that evangelism was no longer on the agenda; planned to stay only a couple more years and that it was likely mission was mainly social action and dialogue. Not surprisingly, that I could succeed him as director. So after Joanne and I talked the United Methodist Church had lost a million members in it over, we decided this was a calling we should accept. That was twenty years. 1974, which marked the beginning of twenty-six years at OMSC, Private discussions over several years with staff in the Board first as associate director, then, following the retirement of Pierce of Global Ministries failed to effect any change, and I finally in 1976, as director. I realized early on that OMSC, while small in decided to “go public” with my concerns. In an address to some size, had the potential to exercise some influence in the develop- Methodist clergy in Dallas in October 1983, I proposed the ment and direction of the missionary movement and mission creation of a new, alternative mission agency for United Method- studies in North America. ists. My proposal was widely reported in the Methodist press, As soon as I became the director of OMSC in 1976, I negoti- and suddenly I found myself at the center of a maelstrom in the ated to assume the publication of the Occasional Bulletin from the church. It was an agonizing time for me personally, because until Missionary Research Library in New York City. While it had a this point I had always been a part of the official system, whereas now I was challenging the structure. Soon thereafter I was invited to speak to another gathering OMSC, while small in size, of pastors who shared my concern and wanted to do something had potential to influence about it. We met in November 1983 in St. Louis, Missouri, out of which came a decision to form a new unofficial agency known as the development and the Mission Society for United Methodists. Those of us who direction of mission studies participated were viewed as disloyal clergy, and some careers suffered. Fortunately I had the support of the OMSC board, and in North America. I served as a trustee of the Mission Society for the next twenty years. Today the Mission Society has over 170 missionaries serving in holistic ministries in 31 countries on five continents. Its distinguished reputation, the Bulletin had languished in recent combined annual budget of $9 million comes from churches and years, with a circulation of about 300, of which about half were individuals nationwide. There is also a growing recognition that complimentary subscriptions. We redesigned it into a quarterly the Mission Society is not a threat to the denomination, but rather journal, beginning in 1977, and began an aggressive campaign to an agent for renewal in the church and for the advancement of the increase the circulation. Within four years the circulation was worldwide Christian mission. While my involvement in the over 5,000 worldwide, and we had changed the name to I NTERNA- creation of the Mission Society was difficult in many respects, it TIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH. It continues as a signa- was one of the most rewarding experiences of my career, because ture ministry of OMSC, for the advancement of scholarship in the I strongly believed that we were engaged in a struggle for the soul study of world mission. of the church. At the time of my retirement, I was deeply moved

142 I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 29, No. 3 when, despite all that had happened, I received a certificate of OMSC, the Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions (1998) was appreciation from my bishop for my service as a minister of the published. It was a massive project with nearly a million words, United Methodist Church. with articles on 2,400 outstanding missionaries in the history of the church, written by 349 authors from 45 countries. Soon after OMSC to New Haven, Connecticut it appeared, Bob Coote and I went to Rome and personally presented copies to Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Josef Tomko, The continuing education program of OMSC flourished, but in who was head of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Ventnor, New Jersey, we were too isolated from the academic Peoples, known earlier as Propaganda Fide. A year later, and cultural resources of a great educational center. I felt we had Eerdmans Publishing Company brought out a paperback to relocate the center to be close to a major university with a edition. theological faculty that had a strong interest in mission and the Thirty years earlier, in the editorial preface to the Concise global church. Dictionary of the Christian World Mission, we said, “Only rarely is After considering several options, the trustees of OMSC it possible for authors and editors to claim that they have done decided that New Haven, Connecticut, the home of Yale Univer- something that has never been done before. The editors of this sity, had the most to offer. Yale Divinity School had a distin- guished tradition of professors of mission with Kenneth Scott Latourette and Charles Forman (who was vice president of our I came to realize that a OMSC board). The Day Missions Collection in the Yale Divinity School Library offers the best collection of resources for mission comprehensive reference studies in North America, perhaps in the world. We were fortu- work of missionary nate to find and purchase attractive property just one and a half biographies had never blocks from the Divinity School. Lesslie Newbigin gave the address at our dedication of the new facility on October 5, 1987, been published. and David Bosch from South Africa taught the first seminar in the new location. With the expansion of our programs we added a spacious new building in 1999, aptly named Great Commission Dictionary, however, believe that this is a claim they are entitled Hall. to make.” To be involved with two such pioneering projects was I was greatly blessed at OMSC to work with three outstand- beyond my expectations, and was accomplished only with the ing associate directors: Norman Horner, James Phillips, and generous cooperation and support of a great many colleagues. Jonathan Bonk. Each of them brought remarkable gifts, vision, and vitality to the program, and we worked well together. In Retirement Jonathan became my successor when I retired in 2000. We also benefited from the financial administration of Eugenia N. Dilg, Since retirement in June 2000, I have had opportunities to con- tireless business manager of OMSC for twenty years. tinue what I enjoy most: teaching and writing about the chal- lenges facing the Christian mission today, especially in Asia, The Biographical Dictionary from Kazakhstan to Kota Kinabalu. I also enjoy serving on the Foundation for Theological Education in South East Asia, which Sometime in 1990 I went to the Yale Divinity Library to look up provides assistance to theological schools in South East Asia and some biographical information about an early missionary. I China. This enables me to keep in touch with some of the assumed I would find one or more biographical reference works important developments that are taking place in the churches about missionaries, but I found none. After consulting several and seminaries in Asia. colleagues and librarians, I came to realize that such a major I also take great pleasure and satisfaction in the fact that the comprehensive reference work of missionary biographies had IAMS, ASM, OMSC, the I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY never been published. R ESEARCH, and the Mission Society for United Methodists— It was a project and opportunity that appealed to my inter- projects that have meant much to me—are all flourishing. ests: church history, biography, missions, editing, and publish- My pilgrimage continues. Joanne and I enjoy our children ing. Simon and Schuster Macmillan, one of the largest publishing and their spouses, our grandchildren, and various opportunities firms in the United States, said it would be interested in publish- to grow and serve the church in mission. Looking back over these ing such a volume, and the Pew Charitable Trusts provided years at a pilgrimage that has often taken me by surprise, I have generous funding to support the project. Robert Coote, my long- learned to work and wait, with confidence that God will lead, time OMSC colleague, who had strong editing skills and jour- and grateful that “the boundary lines have fallen for me in nalistic experience, readily agreed to serve as assistant editor. pleasant places; I have a goodly heritage” (Ps. 16:6). Five years after we opened an editorial office for the project at

IBMR Receives Associated Church Press Award of Excellence

When Christian magazine editors and publishers gathered Reflection: Long Format category, for the January 2004 feature in Nashville in April 2005 for the Associated Church Press “Converts or Proselytes? The Crisis over Conversion in the convention, the I NTERNATIONAL B ULLETIN OF M ISSIONARY R ESEARCH Early Church,” by Prof. Andrew F. Walls. The award was received the top Award of Excellence in the Theological presented April 26. Congratulations, Andrew!

July 2005 143 The Legacy of Samuel Bacon Fairbank Jennifer M. Trafton

he 1913 centennial report of the American Marathi Mis- Fruitful Ministry in Wadalé T sion in India included a large photo with the caption “Samuel B. Fairbank, D.D., Missionary, 1846–1898. Evangelist, Samuel Bacon Fairbank was born on December 14, 1822, in Writer, Translator, Editor, Scientist, Agriculturist.”1 The photo Stamford, Connecticut. He was the eldest son of John Barnard and attribution show the high regard in which Fairbank was held Fairbank, who was principal of an academy in Stamford and later and the amazing breadth of his talents and activities during his moved to Massachusetts, where he manufactured straw hats. long service in India. Though an unknown name now in missions Fairbank studied at Illinois College (A.B. 1842, A.M. 1845) and history, Samuel Bacon Fairbank (1822–98) was in his own time a Andover Theological Seminary, where he became convinced missionary of rare personal giftedness and revered status both that he was called to be a missionary.5 After his graduation from on the home front and in the area of India where he spent his life Andover and ordination in 1845, he married Abbie Allen. The and where he is still remembered. Moreover, he became the couple immediately left for India to join the American Marathi patriarch of a missionary dynasty in western India that lasted Mission, arriving in Bombay in 1846. over a century. Fairbank took charge of the mission press, based in Bombay. Fairbank never served as an administrator of a mission During that time he helped supervise the translation, revision, board, never developed a unique theory of mission or published and printing of the Marathi Scriptures, as well as coediting a any books for an American audience, spent most of his life in a quarterly journal on temperance. In 1852 Abbie died following tiny village, and, perhaps also to be noted, never did anything childbirth, having been in poor health for some time. After her blameworthy enough to attract the attention of modern critics of death and the dismantling of the press because of the Anderson the missionary enterprise. Nevertheless, Fairbank’s career as a deputation, Fairbank went to the United States for a furlough. missionary spanned a period of many developments and changes While he was there, he married Mary Ballantine, the daughter of in American mission policy and reveals the relationship—and fellow missionary Henry Ballantine. often the tension—between mission theory from afar and actual Upon returning to India in 1857, Fairbank heeded Rufus experience on the field. His many letters that survive in manu- Anderson’s admonition to begin a rural Christian movement script, together with his contributions to the mission’s annual by establishing one of the first mission outstations in Wadalé reports, magazines, and memorial volumes, provide a helpful (later spelled Vadala). A village of fewer than three hundred window into larger issues of the nineteenth-century American people, Wadalé was located twenty-six miles northeast of missionary movement. Studying the life of a missionary like Ahmednagar in the Godaveri valley and within ten miles of at Samuel B. Fairbank can do much to dispel the prevailing image least eighty-two other villages. From this central location, of nineteenth-century missionaries as narrow, paternalistic, eth- Fairbank single-handedly exercised oversight of what became nocentric agents of imperialism. It can, in fact, shed light on the known as the Wadalé district.6 Wadalé was the most fruitful complexities of life on the mission field for those pioneers who outstation of the entire mission, growing rapidly over the lacked our privilege of hindsight as they tried to navigate the following decades and eventually having more churches, na- wilderness of cross-cultural encounters. tive pastors, teachers, and schools than any other district—a The American Marathi Mission was one of the firstfruits of distinction it could claim well into the twentieth century.7 Many the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions Wadalé converts became involved in Christian ministry and (ABCFM), which sent out its pioneering group of missionaries to government work throughout the Marathi-speaking region. By India in 1810. Two of this group, Gordon Hall and Samuel Nott, 1900 the churches of the Wadalé district had over 4,000 mem- began work in Bombay in 1813, spending much of their time bers, with Christians composing 35 percent of the total popula- translating the New Testament into the Marathi language. Even- tion of the region.8 tually the mission spread east and south throughout the Marathi- Fairbank’s historical essay on the evangelistic work of the speaking areas of western central India and established three mission for the 1882 Memorial Papers gives a detailed picture of other urban centers in Ahmednagar, Satura, and Sholapur.2 In how evangelistic work was conducted and how missionaries 1854 the ABCFM sent a deputation to India led by Rufus Ander- adapted their methods to specific situations and needs. The son, who urged the missionaries, then including Fairbank, to methods varied widely and included regular religious services, focus on evangelizing rather than “civilizing” the people and to street preaching in the city, and itinerancy among the villages aim toward building self-supporting, self-governing churches.3 (periodic visitation, preaching tours lasting several months, or— The members of the Marathi Mission took Anderson’s advice to his own favored mode—lengthy visits to individual villages). heart and over the following years attempted to put it into Believing evangelism to be his most important task, Fairbank practice. They closed the mission press and many of its schools, often took long preaching tours—sometimes alone with his began training and ordaining native pastors, and expanded native assistant, sometimes with his wife or a fellow missionary. beyond the urban centers into the surrounding villages, planting He traveled from village to village in an ox cart he had specially local churches. The changes inspired by the deputation in the designed to serve as transportation, shelter from weather, bed- following years resulted in unprecedented growth for the mis- room, kitchen, study, bath, and storeroom. It even included sion.4 bookshelves and a small writing desk. He fondly called it his “tent on wheels.”9 He made a special point of indicating in his Jennifer M. Trafton is associate editor of the magazine Christian History & report that the wives of the missionaries (including his own wife, Biography. The August 2005 issue will focus on indigenous Christians in India Mary) “were also sent” and, when they were not otherwise during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. occupied with schools and work among women, went on itiner-

144 I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 29, No. 3 ating tours and “gave themselves as thoroughly to evangelistic Indian climate and soil, setting up an experimental farm of his work as did their husbands.”10 own as a model for others.20 This initiative brought him into The missionaries soon found that they had to provide some much personal contact with the local people, as he would walk sort of spectacle or arouse people’s curiosity in order to gather from village to village and chat with them at work in their fields. (and keep) a large audience. One method, employed often by His letters and mission reports show an intimate knowledge of Fairbank, was to use a Magic Lantern or its improved form, the climate and economic conditions and a deep sympathy for the Sciopticon, to provide visual illustrations to a Scripture story. daily practical challenges the farmers faced. Illustrations and Fairbank’s mission reports also praised the use of native music in metaphors drawn from nature and agriculture filled his sermons evangelism: “among a people so fond of singing as the Hindus and writings. are, it would seem that such use might be made of this agency During the many years of drought and famine that ravaged that it would become a powerful means of conversions as well as the region, Fairbank and his fellow missionaries were involved of evangelization.”11 Fairbank himself contributed to this trend in relief work, assisting governmental efforts and offering food by preparing a tune book and music manual in Marathi, giving and shelter to famine victims, taking in orphans, and buying and singing lessons, and writing and translating hymns.12 The most successful musical venture of the mission was its adaptation of the kirttan to Christian purposes. A kirttan, as performed by a The missionaries found that company of trained Indian singers and instrumentalists, in- volved alternating periods of recitative teaching and musical they had to provide some response. From the time of its first use, wrote Fairbank, “the sort of spectacle in order kirttan has been a favorite, as well as a most important and impressive mode of Evangelism. A good kirttan is sure to draw to gather a large audience. a crowded audience and to secure its pleased attention. The instruction given in it is remembered, and some of the hymns and tunes are learned by the hearers and are sung with joy and profit dispensing seed to farmers.21 Fairbank himself lost money over for many a day.”13 With a kirttan, portable organ, Sciopticon, or the years by lending out of his own personal allowance to poor other attraction, a missionary could preach to attentive crowds of farmers and native workers who could not repay him, at least for several hundred up to a thousand people at a time, including a long time. He found, however, that in the long run it was better large numbers of higher-caste women, who were otherwise for the morale of the people that they learn to earn their own almost impossible to reach.14 living rather than be dependent on aid from others. He was a strong advocate of industrial schools, in which the students Beyond Evangelism spent half of each day doing manual labor and learning farming or other trade skills. He insisted that this practical work was Fairbank’s duties soon extended far beyond itinerant evange- excellent for their health, reduced the cost of their board, taught lism. He did a great deal of literary work for the mission, them the dignity of work, and helped them gain a livelihood.22 By publishing Sabbath school notes in Marathi and several vernacu- the turn of the century, perhaps partly owing to Fairbank’s lar schoolbooks, including a multivolume arithmetic, a Marathi advocacy, industrial education became a major emphasis in the grammar, and illustrations for a geography textbook. He also mission.23 prepared references for an edition of the New Testament. In later The missionaries eventually decided that, though admirable years he was asked to take over the editing of the mission’s in theory, in practice Rufus Anderson’s ideals of “evangelism annual Marathi almanac. In Wadalé he supervised the native only” and “self-supporting churches” were not always mutually pastors and teachers, who regularly came to him for instruction compatible. The American Marathi Mission was committed to and advice,15 established schools and taught English to a group the goal of helping the local congregations to become indepen- of boys in his home,16 dispensed medicines and provided medi- dent of foreign aid.24 According to Fairbank, the work of the cal care, and settled both ecclesiastical and legal disputes among missionary is not complete until the native church is self-sup- the villagers, who came to revere his counsel.17 porting and stable. He added this qualification, however: “A Although he sometimes regretted that such tasks—espe- Christian must have sources of independent income before he cially medical care—took him away from preaching, he reflected, can become a pillar in a self-supporting church.”25 People in these “When the Master sent forth his disciples, the first direction he village churches were poor landless laborers or tenant farmers gave them was to preach, and the second was to heal the sick. He who lived by subsistence sharecropping or by begging. Their also set them an example and not only in the same order but also financial struggles were compounded by droughts, locust plagues, by first healing and then preaching. So, acknowledging that and famines, and they were often dependent by necessity upon healing is a necessary part of the Missionary work, I have always mission funds. The majority were Mahars—”untouchables” ex- done what I could for the sick.”18 Often he gave entire afternoons cluded from caste society and from regular employment. Living to this task of healing, which he regarded as intimately connected in servile dependence upon the farmers, they were unable to with evangelism. Missionary work, for Fairbank, involved not contribute very much to the support of their churches and were only preaching a plan of salvation to the “heathen” but also being also reluctant to “contend for their faith” and challenge the a living presence among the people, who, in seeing the love of the beliefs and practices of those in society on whom their livelihood missionary for them expressed in his daily words and actions, depended.26 Fairbank therefore took Mahar Christians under his would be drawn thereby to the substance of his message.19 wing, both personally and financially, to help them become Fairbank also made great contributions to agriculture in the farmers. valley. A farmer at heart, he was disturbed by the extreme Though flying directly in the face of Anderson’s mission poverty and primitive farming methods of the villagers and ideology, Fairbank’s agricultural work, industrial schools, and helped develop better farming tools and methods adapted to the English classes (English being the ticket into government service

July 2005 145 and other higher professions) were not consciously efforts to Missionary Herald, “At the time of his death Rev. Samuel Bacon “civilize,” a word that never appears in his writings, but attempts Fairbank, D.D., was, in length of service, the senior male Protes- to enable Indian Christians to stand on their own feet financially tant missionary in India.”31 He had outlived two wives (Mary so that self-supporting churches would have a basis on which to Fairbank having died in 1878 soon after the birth of her tenth grow and eventually become independent of the mission. The child) and served a total of fifty-two years in India, with only letters and reports of Samuel Fairbank show a lack of interest in three short furloughs in America. By all accounts, he conducted politics except when governmental assistance was needed to his life with good humor, honesty, equanimity, and great sensi- assist or protect the mission and the native people to whom it tivity to the people among whom he ministered.32 ministered, such as in the case of a legal controversy over the Fairbank’s personal impact on the Wadalé district was incal- rights of Christian converts to use communal wells and send culable. When he first arrived in Wadalé and requested permis- their children to state schools.27 Though Fairbank spoke of “hea- sion from the village leaders to build a house there, they gave him thenism,” as did every other man of his century, his words are a plot of land that had been an outcaste burial site, hoping the never denigrating of the people, unsympathetic, or championing foreigner would be driven away by ghosts.33 Decades later, the of American culture over Indian. The relation between missions villagers not only regretted their earlier distrust but organized a homecoming celebration for the aged missionary after he re- turned from his final furlough in America. They also built a well Samuel B. Fairbank became for him out of their own funds to commemorate the fifty-year anniversary of his arrival in India. The water appeared quickly in something of a local saint the well, and a worker on the project was fortuitously spared in the Wadalé district, and from injury, both of which occurrences the villagers attributed to his name is still known Fairbank’s meritorious life.34 Fairbank’s son Henry, who took his father’s place in Wadalé, and revered. reported that the village had been so transformed by his father’s ministry that “Christian” had become a name of honor to them, and “this Wadalé is known in distinction from other Wadalés as and colonialism, especially in the context of nineteenth-century the ‘Christian Wadalé.’”35 Fairbank’s second son, Edward, arriv- India, is an issue far too complex to be settled by individual case ing several years later, remarked on the self-reliance of the native studies, and this article makes no pretense of resolving this Christians in that area. Indeed, Samuel B. Fairbank became difficult issue. When studied on their own terms, however, apart something of a local saint in the Wadalé district, and his name is from the often unforeseen consequences of their work, the evi- still known and revered. The Wadalé church, built after a famine dence suggests that many of these early missionaries were not by Edward and dedicated in 1903, is called the Samuel Bacon consciously intending to impose standards of Western culture Fairbank Memorial Church, and another nearby village has also but were simply ministering to the needs of people around them, recently renamed its church after him. using the only methods they knew, motivated by convictions that transcended cultural considerations and willing to give their The Family Legacy lives to the cause. Samuel Fairbank’s significance lies not only in the particular Window on Mission Life accomplishments of his lifetime but also in his legacy carried on by succeeding generations of Fairbanks in India and beyond— The career of Samuel Bacon Fairbank provides a fascinating what became known in the ABCFM as “the Fairbank Saga.”36 His window into other historical issues of the American missionary first wife, Abbie, bore four children, only one of whom (Emily) movement. For example, his letters and mission reports show the survived to adulthood. Abbie died soon after the birth of their development of female education in India and the role of women fourth child.37 His second wife, Mary, bore ten children, eight of in the mission, the serious difficulties missionaries faced because whom survived to adulthood. All of the Fairbank children went of the caste system, the development of indigenous leadership, to the United States when they were old enough for formal and the snowball effects of American board financial decisions, schooling and lived with various family members and friends, funding cuts, and doctrinal disputes on the life of the missionar- with Fairbank sending them as much money as he could. After ies on the field. His letters also reveal the complex relationships the death of their mother Mary, Anna Fairbank Woods, Fairbank’s between denominations and local competition between various second eldest daughter, who had married a minister and was mission agencies. living in the United States, became a surrogate mother to her Fairbank’s work as an amateur naturalist illustrates how younger siblings. Fairbank’s fatherly hopes were fulfilled when missionaries often contributed to scientific knowledge. Fairbank six of his nine surviving children became missionaries: Emily in had a lifelong love for natural science and pursued this interest Ceylon, and the others returning to western India, where they in India by planting gardens wherever he went, collecting and grew up. (Another daughter wanted to come, but the ABCFM sending shells and bird skins back to American museums (which lacked the funds to send her.) Many grandchildren also returned. helped finance his scientific and agricultural pursuits),28 and In 1930 there were twenty-five members of his family in India, publishing articles for the Bombay government on local birds, including in-laws and great-grandchildren.38 plants, reptiles, and fish.29 As a result of his accomplishments, in Samuel Fairbank’s work in Wadalé was carried on first by 1868 he was nominated to be a fellow of the University of his son Henry, then by his son Edward, and finally by Edward’s Bombay. 30 son Robert, all of whom found that the reputation of Samuel Samuel Fairbank died, possibly of heat apoplexy, during a Fairbank among both Christian and non-Christian villagers paved train journey to Kodaikanal (in South India) on May 31, 1898. He the way for their own acceptance and ministry there. According was buried in Ahmednagar. According to the obituary in the to one descendant’s account, the mission twice attempted to send

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July 2005 147 Edward to another area, since he was no longer needed in valuable resource for probing more deeply into the lives of Wadalé, but each time the Wadalé church protested, saying, “ordinary” missionaries. The combined careers of the Fairbanks “But there has always been a Fairbank Sahib in Vadala; always in India, spanning over a century, offer a firsthand glimpse at ever since our grandfather’s time a Fairbank Sahib has been our long-range developments in missionary methods, mission theory, Vadala Sahib.” The second time this occurred, the Wadalé and cross-cultural relations between Americans and Indians in delegation submitted to the mission a petition with the names the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Fairbank himself, as of over 3,000 villagers asking that the Fairbanks be allowed to a man of broad and deep—though perhaps not highly visible— stay in Wadalé.39 Joseph Moulton, writing for the Marathi accomplishments, is worthy of notice on his own merits. Resid- mission sesquicentennial in 1963, said, “The Fairbank name is ing among the villagers for so many years, Fairbank daily faced still a household word in many a home in the area; their their physical and social needs, as well as their spiritual ones. He memory is cherished by Hindus and Moslems as well as by prefaced his essay on evangelism by placing evangelistic work Christians.”40 within the context of the whole range of missionary tasks, using Although Fairbank never wavered in his belief that the a natural analogy characteristic of him. preaching of the Gospel was the primary work of the missionary, his holistic understanding of Christian life and witness as encom- Missionary activity is like a great tree with various branches, passing the soul, mind, and body surely left its mark on his which are like Joseph’s vine, and “run over the wall.” These descendants, most of whom were involved in educational, agri- branches are in some sense separate and bear diverse fruit; but cultural, and medical work.41 For example, his daughter Rose they are all branches of one Mission tree whose fruit is for food to received her M.D. from Johns Hopkins in 1900 and immediately hungry souls, and “whose leaves are for the healing of the na- tions.” The Preacher, the Teacher, the Bookmaker, and the Doctor, returned to India to serve as head of a mission hospital. She then have each most important work in hand and each in his way married another doctor, Lester Beals, and with him established a impresses and blesses others, and earns the “Well done” from the hospital in Wai, near Bombay, that is still in operation. Fairbank’s Master. Each uses his special opportunities for communicating daughter Katie married Robert A. Hume, a well-known and Christian truth, and is a light into the darkness. Each has the gifted missionary teacher and statesman who became the first privilege of doing what is for him the most important work. 43 moderator of the United Church of North India, corresponded with Gandhi, and was awarded for his public service in India.42 Fairbank’s reminder that Jesus combined healing with preach- Fairbank’s progeny attended leading academic institutions such ing, as well as his belief that being a living presence among the as Mount Holyoke, Amherst College, Andover Seminary, and people was as important as words in the goal of spreading the Yale. They inherited Fairbank’s deep respect for the cultures of Gospel, anticipated the shift in missions toward social and phil- Asia. anthropic work by the twentieth century. In his case, however, In conclusion, the surviving letters and papers of Samuel these beliefs did not reflect a changing theology but flowed from Bacon Fairbank and his family provide the historian with a a life of experience on the mission field.

Notes 1. William Hazen, A Century in India: A Historical Sketch of the Marathi Joseph Langdon Moulton, Faith for the Future: The American Marathi Mission of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions Mission India Sesquicentennial, 1963 (New York: United Church Board (American Marathi Mission) from 1813 to 1913 (Bombay: American for World Ministries, 1967), pp. 56–57; and Robert A. Hume, “The Marathi Mission, 1913). Semi-Centennial of the Arrival of Rev. Dr. Fairbank,” Missionary 2. See Rufus Anderson, History of the Missions of the American Board of Herald 92, no. 12 (December 1896): 527. Commissioners for Foreign Missions in India (Boston: Congregational 8. “A Grain of Mustard Seed Which Became a Great Tree: Dedication Publishing Society, 1874). of a New Church in Vadala,” Fairbank Family Papers. See also Alden 3. Ibid., p. 101. H. Clark, “The Fairbanks of India,” Advance, October 1946, Fairbank 4. See R. V. Modak, 4th paper, in Memorial Papers of the American Marathi Family Papers. Mission, 1813–1881 (Bombay: Education Society’s Press, Byculla, 9. Report 1890, pp. 54–55; Samuel Bacon Fairbank to James Fairbank, 1882), pp. 13–14; and Henry Ballantine, “Letters from Mr. Ballantine, June 28–July 1, 1874, Fairbank Family Papers (the location of all February 7, 1961,” Missionary Herald 57, no. 6 (June 1861): 178. personal letters cited below). 5. Lorenzo Sayles Fairbank, Genealogy of the Fairbank Family in America, 10. Samuel B. Fairbank, 6th paper, in Memorial Papers, p. 44. 1633–1897 (Boston: American Printing and Engraving, 1897), pp. 11. Report 1885, p. 56. See also Report 1882, p. 47. 664–66; and Biographical Information on Samuel Bacon Fairbank by 12. See Robert A. Hume, “Samuel Bacon Fairbank, D.D.,” Missionary the Genealogical Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Herald 94, no. 8 (August 1898): 301; and Fred Field Goodsell, They Saints, Inc., 1972, Fairbank Family Papers, Rare Book, Manuscript, Lived Their Faith: An Almanac of Faith, Hope, and Love (Boston: American and Special Collections Library, Duke University, Durham, North Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 1961), p. 31. Carolina. For clarification of genealogical and biographical details, 13. Fairbank, 6th paper, Memorial Papers, p. 51; Report 1884, p. 51; Report Henry and Martha Fairbank of Durham, North Carolina, were of 1885, pp. 53–54. See also Anderson, History of the Missions, p. 294. great help during the writing of this article. I am also indebted to 14. See, for example, Report 1889, pp. 70–71. Robert Eric Frykenberg for his insights into the social background 15. Samuel wrote to his brother James that most of his work was “the and caste system of western India. superintendence of workers, who live several miles (from 5 to 25 6. See Samuel Bacon Fairbank, “Letter from Mr. Fairbank,” Missionary miles) away” (Samuel Bacon Fairbank to James Fairbank, October Herald 53, no. 7 (July 1857): 231; Historical Sketch of the Mission to the 21, 1881). Mahrattas of Western India (New York: American Board of 16. Report 1883, p. 35. Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 1862), p. 22; and Anderson, 17. See, for example, Report 1882, p. 40; Samuel Bacon Fairbank to James History of the Missions, p. 268. Fairbank, March 10, 1883, and August 8, 1880; Clark, “The Fairbanks 7. See Report of the American Marathi Mission for the Year 1881 (Poona, of India”; and Hume, “Semi-Centennial,” p. 528. According to Robert A. India: Orphanage Press, 1882), p. 7 (henceforth annual reports of the Hume, “In his district he was the chief authority for many Hindus, American Marathi Mission will be cited as Report [year]). See also as well as for Christians” (“Samuel Bacon Fairbank, D.D.,” p. 301).

148 I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 29, No. 3 18. Report 1882, p. 59. See also Report 1883, p. 67. 31. Hume, “Samuel Bacon Fairbank, D.D,” p. 300. 19. Report 1881, p. 32. 32. See ibid., and Hume, “Semi-Centennial,” p. 528. 20. See Marian Fairbank, “The Fairbank Family in India” (1930), Fairbank 33. Edward Fairbank, “Samuel Bacon Fairbank Anecdote: A True Story Family Papers; Goodsell, They Lived Their Faith, p. 31; Hume, “Semi- from India,” as told to Marie Fairbank, Fairbank Family Papers. Centennial,” p. 527; Samuel Bacon Fairbank to James Fairbank, April 34. See Report 1896, pp. 11–12. 9, 1882; and Samuel Bacon Fairbank to his mother, brothers, and 35. Report 1887, p. 22. sisters, March 30, 1880. 36. Moulton, Faith for the Future, p. 126. 21. See Hazen, A Century in India, pp. 70–71; and Samuel Bacon Fairbank 37. There is some discrepancy as to the number of children Abbie bore. to James Fairbank, August 10, 1878. A letter from Samuel to a friend shortly after her death seems to 22. See Report 1882, pp. 31–37; Report 1884, p. 34; and Report 1892, p. 11. indicate only three pregnancies (Samuel Bacon Fairbank to Mrs. 23. See Hazen, A Century in India, p. 85. Kimball, August 25, 1852). In any event, only one of the babies 24. R. A. Hume, 1st paper, Memorial Papers, p. 3. survived. 25. Report 1882, p. 18. See also Report 1885, p. 18. 38. Marian Fairbank, “The Fairbank Family in India.” 26. See Modak, 4th paper, Memorial Papers, p. 26; and Report 1885, 39. Ibid. pp. 18–19. 40. Moulton, Faith for the Future, p. 175. 27. Anderson, History of the Missions, pp. 283–85; Historical Sketch, p. 10. 41. His son Henry, reporting on the work of the Wadalé mission in 1896, 28. For example, the family papers include a receipt from Amherst echoed his father’s belief that healing was a necessary corollary to College that reads: “The Trustees of Amherst College have received evangelism: “It is easy to forget the spiritual side of the medical work from Rev. S. B. Fairbank numerous specimens of shells, collected by in caring for the bodies of the patients. However, I feel that the the donor in Bombay, as a gift to the Zoological Museum, for which Gospel is commended in many villages, because bodily suffering they return a grateful acknowledgment” (Amherst College, letter has been relieved, and indirectly the Evangelistic work in the district acknowledging donation, March 30, 1852). is advanced” (Report 1896, p. 69). 29. Henry J. Bruce, 8th paper, Memorial Papers, p. 106. 42. Goodsell, They Lived Their Faith, pp. 402–3. 30. C. Gonne, Secretary to Government, Bombay, to Samuel Bacon 43. Fairbank, 6th paper, Memorial Papers, p. 43. Fairbank, December 29, 1868.

Selected Bibliography The main source of material related to Samuel Bacon Fairbank and his Hazen, William. A Century in India: A Historical Sketch of the Marathi descendents is the massive collection of Fairbank Family Papers in the Mission of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library of Duke (American Marathi Mission) from 1813 to 1913. Bombay: American University, Durham, North Carolina. The annual reports of the American Marathi Mission, 1913. Marathi Mission also provide a wealth of information. Other general Historical Sketch of the Mission to the Mahrattas of Western India. New York: sources include the following: American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 1862. Memorial Papers of the American Marathi Mission, 1813–1881. Bombay: Anderson, Rufus. History of the Missions of the American Board of Education Society’s Press, Byculla, 1882. Commissioners for Foreign Missions in India. Boston: Congregational Moulton, Joseph Langdon. Faith for the Future: The American Marathi Publishing Society, 1874. Mission India Sesquicentennial, 1963. New York: United Church Goodsell, Fred Field. They Lived Their Faith: An Almanac of Faith, Hope, and Board for World Ministries, 1967. Love. Boston: American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 1961.

Catholic Sources of Global Documentation

Catholic literature on theology and mission is very extensive. Theologie im Kontext, initiated in 1980 by the Institute of There are several excellent bibliographical sources to retrieve Missiology-Missio (Aachen, Germany), has an English ver- this wide variety of materials and documents. Following are sion, Theology in Context, which began appearing in 1984. The three pivotal indexes for the English-speaking world. special focus of this index is to provide access to journals from the young churches of the so-called Third-World countries. The Guide to Catholic Literature began publication in 1888, and The Catholic Periodical Index dates from 1930. In July 1968 These three indexes are truly indispensable resources if these two publications were combined to form The Catholic one wishes to understand the theology and practice of the Periodical and Literature Index. This authoritative index is now world mission endeavors undertaken by the Catholic Church. available in both electronic and print forms. It is imperative that they appear in any comprehensive listing of global documentation on mission. Bibliografia Missionaria has been published under the su- pervision of the Roman Congregation Propaganda Fide since — James H. Kroeger, M.M. 1935. This is the most authoritative resource for Catholic Loyola School of Theology mission literature of the past sixty years; citations in various Manila, Philippines languages.

July 2005 149 The Legacy of John Duncan John S. Ross

ohn Duncan was born in 1796 in Old Aberdeen, Scotland, conversion. As a consequence he retained a lifelong dread of J to parents who were members of the Associate Presbytery, superficial Christianity, often entertaining doubts as to the au- or Secession Church. When John was nine years old, he entered thenticity of his own faith. He never enjoyed a permanent sense Aberdeen Grammar School, where from the outset he showed of assurance, and although this experience proved painful for great interest in languages and metaphysics, the two subjects himself and his family, it gave him great empathy for others and that were to be lifelong intellectual passions. He was once discov- unusual depth in his evangelistic ministry. ered, during class, furtively reading a copy of Aristotle hidden Duncan was a man of remarkable intellect. In October 1839 under his desk.1 In 1810 he matriculated and, obtaining a schol- he applied for the chair of Oriental Languages in the University arship, entered Marischal College, Aberdeen, from which he of Glasgow and could claim familiarity with Hebrew and all the graduated with an M.A. in 1814. Despite the evangelical influ- cognate languages, as well as with Sanskrit, Bengali, Hindustani, ences surrounding him, Duncan as a student had espoused the and Marathi; furthermore, he had a high degree of fluency in atheistic pantheism of Baruch Spinoza. He nevertheless became European languages and an amazing facility to express himself a student for the Christian ministry, studying at the theological in the most elegant Latin. One of Duncan’s very few surviving halls of the Associate Presbytery (1814–16) and the Church of fragments consists of scribbled annotations on 2 Corinthians 9:6. Scotland (1817–21). It was through the influence of one of his Of its approximately one hundred words, six are Greek, eight are tutors, Dr. Mearns, that his skepticism fell away, and he was able Hebrew, and four are Sanskrit!8 His linguistic ability, knowledge to believe in the existence of God. This change happened sud- of Jewish and rabbinic literature, style of teaching, and deep denly, when he was crossing one of the bridges in Aberdeen. He interest in the Jewish people led others to call him Rabbi Duncan. later recalled the impact: “When I was convinced that there was Joined to his intellectual powers was an endearing eccentric- a God, I danced on the Brig o’ Dee with delight.”2 ity and absentmindedness. One example must suffice. In 1841, on Dalliance with atheism left a legacy of remorse, which Duncan the day of his second marriage (to Janet Torrance, the widow of summarized in the words of John Paul Freidrich Richter, “I an army officer), he went to his room to dress. Some time later wandered to the furthest edge of Creation . . . and I heard the when his cab arrived, he was not to be found, so his niece went shriek of a Fatherless world.”3 His recovery of orthodox Chris- to his room and discovered him asleep in his bed, with a Hebrew tian faith was long and tortuous. Rejecting atheism, he first book in his hand. Taking off his clothes had automatically moved to Unitarianism and for nine years opposed all the central triggered his nighttime routine, which included getting into bed doctrines of Reformed theology, living, as he himself acknowl- and reading Hebrew!9 Such strangeness of character, however, edged, in habitual sin and without prayer. In 1825 he was would have its missionary value. One of his fellow missionaries licensed to preach, a step taken “in ungodliness and doctrinal in Budapest, Robert Smith, spoke of him as “a child and a giant unbelief and heresy.”4 in one, both characters curiously intermingled. . . . No man ever To supplement his meager income, Duncan became a pri- inspired less awe, nor called forth deeper reverence.”10 But vate tutor to a number of wealthy families in Aberdeenshire, neither his brilliant scholarship nor his endearing eccentricities including a family called Towers. He became romantically at- are the true measure of the man; he was above all a devoted tracted to their daughter, Janet, and notwithstanding the consid- Christian, serving his Savior with all his powers, which were erable disparity in their economic and social status, he proposed dedicated to the salvation of Israel for the short but crucial period marriage but was refused. Two years later, on hearing that Janet between August 1841 and September 1843. Towers did in fact harbor an affection for him, he proposed again and was accepted. The letters that passed between them before Scottish Interest in the Jewish People their marriage reflect both Duncan’s eccentricity and his scholar- ship. In one, having already written diagonally across his origi- John Duncan himself entered into the heritage of Scottish interest nal tightly spaced sentences, he continued to fill “every available in and sympathy for the Jewish people. Personal acquaintance quarter inch of space in the margins and corners of the quarto with Jewish people probably dates from about 1290, when Jewish pages.” He then set “himself to teach her Greek . . . illustrates this refugees arrived in Scotland following their violent expulsion by a comparison with the structure of Latin . . . and breaks off into from England. Jack C. Whytock reports that Scottish theological French.”5 They married in 1837 and had one daughter, Annie. halls of the seventeenth century employed Jewish instructors in The following year Janet died, following the premature stillbirth Hebrew.11 Undergraduates in Scottish universities enjoyed so- of their second daughter.6 cial contact with Jewish students from the late eighteenth cen- Duncan’s conversion, under César Malan in May 1826, tury.12 By 1780 there was an established Jewish community in brought to him an immediate sense of peace that nevertheless, in Scotland, although it was not religiously organized until some time, subsided into pessimism. He found help from his reading years later.13 Popular Romantic literature, such as the novels of of John Owen, Hermann Witsius, and John Love, and from Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832), often portrayed Jews with sympa- personal association with Gavin Parker and James Kidd.7 These thy. Significantly, there are no records of Scottish anti-Semitism; relationships led to a deeper experience he called his second the Encyclopaedia Judaica comments: “Relations between Jews and non-Jews in Scotland have always been harmonious.”14 John S. Ross is the minister of Greyfriars Free Church of Scotland, Inverness. Jewish author Abel Philips described the Scots as “a people who From 1992 to 2002 he served as general secretary of Christian Witness to Israel. held in reverence the teaching and moral principles of the Old He is the author of “Time for Favour: Scottish Missions to the Jews, 1838–1852” Testament.”15 Through its reading of the Bible, its use of the (Ph.D. diss., University of Wales, Lampeter, 2004). Psalms in worship, its reverence for the sanctity of the Sabbath,

150 I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 29, No. 3 and its tradition of religious covenanting, the Scottish church strangers, are imperatively called. Warm fraternal love bound entered into what Andrew Walls has described as the church’s our fathers together.”22 There were, however, practical as well as “adoptive past,” its indissoluble link with the historical and ideological reasons for working closely with the Hungarian religious heritage of ancient Israel.16 church. The Hapsburg administration was opposed to its citi- In its religious literature the Scottish church reiterated a zens changing their religious affiliation, except when Protestant profound indebtedness to the Jewish people as the source of its spouses became Catholics. In the twelve-month period ending greatest good. This attitude is typically expressed by Thomas June 1839, altogether 103 persons had sought permission to Boston (1676–1732): “All the means of grace, and acceptance through Jesus Christ, that we have now, we had originally from them. . . . It was the light that came out from among them, that A major part of Duncan’s enlightened our dark part of the world.”17 Gratitude for such blessings, rather than the recrudescence of millennial prophecy, missionary strategy was motivated nineteenth-century evangelistic activity aimed at the to hold public services spiritual restoration of Israel.18 The foundation, in 1809, of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews, each Lord’s Day. with its Scottish auxiliaries, gave many Scottish Christians their first engagement in mission to the Jewish people. Duncan and David Brown, his friend and biographer, were both involved in become Protestants, but only 20 applications were successful. In the formation of an Aberdeen auxiliary, Duncan being one of the the same year Hungarian printers had been ordered not to secretaries.19 produce Protestant catechisms or confessional books without Through the pages of his hugely influential Edinburgh Chris- special license.23 The activities of foreign ministers and mission- tian Instructor, Andrew Mitchell Thomson actively promoted aries were subject to grave suspicion; officially, Duncan could mission to the Jews. In 1839 the Church of Scotland established operate in Pest only as the pastor of the families of the British its own Committee for the Conversion of the Jews. There was engineers who were engaged in building the Széchenyi Chain never a more popular missionary project. Evangelical leader Bridge (the first bridge over the Danube, constructed 1839–49).24 Thomas Chalmers considered that “the evangelization of the Being a Württemberg pietist, Archduchess Maria Dorothea Jews should rank as a first and foremost object of Christian herself was liable to Hapsburg intolerance; the Catholic clergy policy.”20 constantly intrigued against her, for it was darkly rumored that The committee sought to determine where it should estab- Scottish Protestants planned to establish a mission for the con- lish the first mission stations. In 1839 a four-man deputation— version of Catholics. She dismissed such dangers as inconse- Alexander Black, Alexander Keith, Robert Murray M’Cheyne, quential, commenting to Alexander Keith that “they can only and Andrew Bonar—was sent to investigate Jewish communi- lodge a complaint with Metternich, and all he can do is to present ties in Europe and Palestine. A fall from a camel in Egypt and the it to the Empress . . . so make yourself easy about me.”25 The general rigors of travel led Black, accompanied by Keith, to missionaries, however, recognized that her situation was not return to Europe ahead of the younger men. In Budapest, through without risk and so referred to her in code as “the sister on the a remarkable sequence of events, the archduchess, Maria hill.”26 Dorothea, came to support a Church of Scotland mission to the As a Presbyterian, it was natural for Duncan to ally himself Jews of Pest.21 to the Reformed Church, but he also established close friend- On their return, though, when M’Cheyne and Bonar pub- ships with the Lutherans. When Maria Dorothea sought, and lished their Narrative of a Visit to the Holy Land and Mission of obtained, permission of the archduke to build a Lutheran place Inquiry to the Jews, it advocated establishing the mission in of worship in the Buda Castle district, Duncan appealed to the Palestine. In fact, the decision was neither Pest nor Palestine, for Scottish church for help: “I beg the Gospel for Hungary; I beg it in 1840 the first missionary, Daniel Edward, commenced work in for God, I beg it of you. Remember the fathers of the Reformation. Ia i, Moldavia (from 1861, part of Romania). But the following Rekindle the lamp that kindled ours. Even amidst domestic year a small team of missionaries, under the leadership of John afflictions liberally devise liberal things.”27 After the 1843 Dis- Duncan, departed for Budapest. ruption, the Free Church of Scotland contributed 20,000 Hungar- ian florins, and the archduchess an additional 10,000.28 John Duncan and the Budapest Mission Within three months of his arrival Duncan had mastered the grammar of the Magyar language, but he did not attempt to The first missionary party consisted of Duncan and his wife, speak it in public. His friend and helper Pal Torok, superinten- assisted by Robert Smith, William Wingate, and William Allan. dent of the Hungarian Reformed Church in Pest, bore testimony With the exception of Wingate, they arrived in Hungary on to his “wisdom, modesty, and judicious procedure. He thus won August, 21, 1841, very conscious of the place they held in the us all, and carefully and happily avoided every cause of of- hearts and prayers not only of the Scottish church but also of the fence—all conflict with the political and ecclesiastical authori- archduchess. ties.”29 Duncan’s identification with the Magyar people and their Duncan held that mission to the Jews could prosper only as cause was so strong that on a visit to Hungary after the 1848 the Hungarian church generally prospered. In one of his earliest revolution, Duncan, willing to incur the wrath of the Hapsburgs, letters home he wrote, “I am . . . very decidedly of the opinion that loudly cheered the sight of the red, white, and green flag of whoever shall be stationed here must . . . labour for the revival of Hungary and, discarding his tall silk hat, the badge of the true religion in the Protestant Churches of the land; which, if it Austrians, went bareheaded until he could purchase one of the please the Lord to visit them graciously, . . . would then become distinctive flat Magyar felt hats.30 . . . the best instruments for carrying on the work.” Emphasizing A major part of Duncan’s chosen missionary strategy was to this need for partnership, he added, “To this work . . . we, though hold public services each Lord’s Day. Although conducted in

July 2005 151 English, ostensibly for the British engineers working on the Scotland. Duncan was recalled to the chair of Hebrew at New bridge, they attracted many Jewish Hungarians who wanted to College, a post he occupied until his death in 1870. improve their English. It was through one of these meetings, at which Wingate preached, that a breakthrough came when Israel Role as Teacher and Advocate of Jewish Missions Saphir, a highly respected member of the Jewish community, came to believe in Jesus as his Messiah. Although a brilliant Hebraist, Duncan was considered a poor In private, Duncan cultivated close friendships with mem- teacher of elementary Hebrew, lacking the discipline and appli- bers of the Jewish community, including the chief rabbi, Low cation necessary to keep order in his class. His own minister, Schwab (1794–1857), who was responsible for the building of the Alexander Moody Stuart, commented, “From his student days magnificent Dohany Street Synagogue. Duncan and Schwab till the end of his life he taught his pupils with ardour in his own shared a particularly warm friendship, each having a conserva- way, however irregularly and however unsuccessfully.”33 Duncan tive understanding of the Bible and an interest in mathematics acknowledged his failures, remarking that he never should have and philosophy. Schwab invited Duncan to attend the marriage left the Jewish Mission merely to teach Hebrew. Brown’s opinion of his daughter to a young rabbi, who was delighted to make the was that very little of the best of Duncan came out in either the acquaintance of a man he had heard so much about. professor’s chair or the pulpit.34 Duncan was in the habit of spending whole days in receiving Duncan’s finest contributions came through the less formal visitors and bringing into play his remarkable conversational discussions he held with his students. One of his colleagues and persuasive powers. His home was “thrown open to the Jews; considered that the church would have been better served if he they saw all their habits and ways, and had Christianity pre- had been permitted to abandon the classroom, to conduct walks sented before them without being forced upon them. His very twice a week with his students in Princes Street Gardens. Refer- peculiarities seemed to suit them, and to attract rather than ring to Duncan’s peripatetic conversations, one of his students offend.”31 Perhaps Duncan’s major legacy is best understood in said, “It seemed as if Pascal had shuffled into the sandals of terms of the people who, through his witness, though not his Socrates, and walked up and down Edinburgh streets.”35 Will- alone, embraced Christianity as the fulfillment of Old Testament iam Knight noted down for posterity some of his musings and promise. These included Israel Saphir and his whole family, as soliloquies, aptly calling them Colloquia Peripatetica. 36 well as Sandor Tomory and Alfred Edersheim. Duncan’s most powerful contributions to the cause of Jewish After the Disruption in 1843 Adolph Saphir (1831–91) went mission were made in the General Assembly of the Free Church. with Duncan to Edinburgh to be educated at New College. All six of his assembly addresses, given between 1847 and 1867, (Anachronistically, he appears in D. O. Hill’s important painting concentrate on mission to the Jews and the future of the Jewish of the Disruption Assembly, standing beside John Duncan and people.37 Although more optimistic than appears justified in the the other Jewish missionaries, pointing to a map of Palestine.) In 1854 he was ordained to the Jewish mission of the Irish Presby- terian Church, later becoming one of the best-known expositors Duncan’s major legacy of the Jewish origins of Christianity and a strong, though not uncritical, advocate of Jewish missions. Adolph’s sister Elizabeth is the people who, and their brother Philip were cofounders of the school that through his witness, became the center of the Scottish Mission in Budapest. Sandor Tomory (1818–95) became a missionary to his people embraced Christianity in Constantinople. When he first began to show an interest in as the fulfillment of Christianity, a Roman Catholic bishop suggested he should go to Pest and see John Duncan. “Three days later I was introduced to Old Testament promise. the dear man. In a most syllogistic way, and in fluent Latin, he brought out the truth of the gospel, and urged me to accept Christ as my Saviour. . . . But quite in keeping with the character of the light of subsequent events, they form an inspiring and motivat- doctor, . . . in the same breath he began to teach me in English. ing series of reflections. Duncan’s use of language is breathtak- While the tears were yet in my eyes and his, he began to conjugate ing; his originality, clarity of expression, and precision of vo- an English verb, and made me repeat it. After that I saw him cabulary amply justify Moody Stuart’s comment that he had a almost daily till he left for Italy. This was in the year 1842. He left, “fastidious sense of the music of words.”38 but the blessing remained behind.”32 Duncan died on February 26, 1870, and is buried, along with Alfred Edersheim (1823–89) went with Duncan and Saphir his second wife, Janet Torrance, and their daughter Maria- to Edinburgh. After attending New College, he was ordained as Dorothea Spaeth, in Edinburgh’s Grange Cemetery. An inscrip- a Free Church missionary to Ia i, Moldavia, and in 1849 he tion on the obelisk pays tribute to “an eminent scholar and accepted a call to Old Aberdeen. When illness took its toll, he metaphysician, a profound theologian, a man of tender piety, moved to England, becoming in 1884 select preacher to the and of a lowly and loving spirit.” University of Oxford. Edersheim’s literary output was immense; his Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah remains in print to the Duncan’s Legacy present day and is still considered useful, though challenged in parts by modern scholarship. Apart from shaping the lives already referred to, Duncan’s When, after about a year, Duncan’s ministry was inter- influence continued to be felt for many years after his departure rupted by ill health, he was persuaded to recuperate in Italy. He from Budapest. Through reading, correspondence, and occa- did return to Pest, though only briefly. On May 24, 1843, the sional visits, he maintained a lively interest in all that was taking Disruption of the Church of Scotland took place, with most of the place. He corresponded in French with Archduchess Maria committee and all the missionaries joining the Free Church of Dorothea, who became the patron of many evangelical causes in

152 I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 29, No. 3 Hungary.39 Through the medium of Latin he also kept in touch J. F. A. De la Roi, in whose opinion the Scottish Mission was “a with his friend and former colleague Pal Torok, the Reformed very blessed influence on the church. By the spread of Bibles and bishop in Budapest.40 literature, its evangelistic outreach, its Deaconesses’ home and Modern opinion holds that the Scottish missionaries were its school, the mission gained the biggest influence on the Prot- the catalyst for the revival of Protestant spiritual life in Hungary. estants and Jews of Hungary. The mission to the Jews is nowhere A. M. Kool considers that through their network of influence, else considered to be such a blessing as in Hungary.”41 Such including Maria Dorothea and Count István Széchenyi, the comment stands testimony to the successful legacy of Duncan’s missionaries communicated “a vision for missions.” She cites church and mission strategy. Notes 1. David Brown, The Life of Rabbi Duncan (1872; reprint, Glasgow: Free 21. Gavin Carlyle, “Mighty in the Scriptures”: A Memoir of Adolph Saphir, Presbyterian Publications, 1986), p. 14. D.D. (London: John F. Shaw, 1884), pp. 430–36. 2. Ibid., p. 76. 22. Brown, Life of Rabbi Duncan, p. 319. 3. Ibid., p. 58. 23. [Georg Bauhofer], The History of the Protestant Church in Hungary, 4. Ibid., p. 110. from the Beginning of the Reformation to 1850, trans. J. Craig (London: 5. Alexander Moody Stuart, The Life of John Duncan (1872; reprint, James Nisbet, 1854), p. 432. The author was a Lutheran pastor in Pest. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1991), pp. 60–61. Because this volume was considered subversive, the publishers 6. Brown, Life of Rabbi Duncan, pp. 258–60, 268–70. preserved the anonymity of the author. 7. Ibid., p. 72. 24. Ibid., pp. 437–38. See Carlyle, “Mighty in the Scriptures,” p. 10; Brown, 8. New College, Edinburgh, MSS CM/D60 7/327/14. Life of Rabbi Duncan, pp. 314–15. 9. Moody Stuart, Life of John Duncan, p. 118. 25. Brown, Life of Rabbi Duncan, p. 310. 10. Brown, Life of Rabbi Duncan, p. 295 n. 1. 26. E.g., John Duncan, “Assembly Address V,” in Rich Gleanings After the 11. Jack C. Whytock, “The History and Development of Scottish Vintage from “Rabbi” Duncan, ed. James S. Sinclair (London: Chas. J. Theological Education and Training, Kirk and Secession, c. 1560–c. Thynne & Jarvis, 1925), p. 378. 1850” (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Wales, Lampeter, 2001), pp. 475–77. 27. Brown, Life of Rabbi Duncan, p. 321. 12. Kenneth E. Collins, “Jewish Medical Students and Graduates in 28. [Bauhofer], History of the Protestant Church in Hungary, p. 444. Scotland, 1739–1862,” Jewish Historical Studies 29 (1982–86): 75–76. 29. Brown, Life of Rabbi Duncan, p. 317. 13. Standard Jewish Encyclopaedia (London: W. H. Allen, 1959), s.v. 30. Kenneth Moody Stuart, Alexander Moody Stuart (London: Hodder & “Scotland.” Stoughton, 1900), p. 164. 14. Encyclopaedia Judaica (New York: Macmillan, 1972), s.v. “Scotland.” 31. Carlyle, “Mighty in the Scriptures,” p. 437. 15. Abel Philips, A History of the Origins of the First Jewish Community in 32. Ibid., p. 441. Scotland, Edinburgh, 1816 (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1979), p. 44. 33. Moody Stuart, Life of John Duncan, p. 161. 16. Andrew F. Walls, “The Gospel as Prisoner and Liberator of Culture,” 34. Brown, Life of Rabbi Duncan, p. 447. in The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the 35. A. Taylor Innes, Studies in Scottish History (London: Hodder & Transmission of Faith (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1996), p. 9. Stoughton, 1892), p. 183. 17. Samuel McMillan, ed., The Whole Works of the Late Rev’d Thomas 36. William Knight, ed., Colloquia Peripatetica (Edinburgh: David Douglas, Boston of Ettrick, 12 vols. (Aberdeen: George & Robert King, 1848), 1879). A selection of Duncan’s sayings and reflections has been 3:466–67. edited by John M. Brentnall, “Just a Talker”: The Sayings of Dr. John 18. John G. Lorimer, “Immediate Duties of the Christian Church in Duncan (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1997). Relation to Israel: Answers to Objections,” and Alexander Black, 37. Sinclair, Rich Gleanings, pp. 359–88. “Statement Submitted to the Committee of the General Assembly 38. Moody Stuart, Life of John Duncan, p. 165. on the Conversion of the Jews,” in A Course of Lectures on the Jews, by 39. Anne-Marie Kool, God Moves in a Mysterious Way: The Hungarian Ministers of the Established Church in Glasgow (Glasgow: William Protestant Foreign Mission Movement, 1756–1951 (Zoetermeer: Collins, 1839), pp. vi, 409. See also W. T. Gidney, The History of the Boekcentrum, 1993). London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews: From 1809 40. New College, Edinburgh, MSS Box 49.2.1. to 1908 (London: LSPCJ, 1908), p. 35. 41. Kool, God Moves in a Mysterious Way, p. 107. 19. Brown, Life of John Duncan, p. 232. 20. Thomas Chalmers, Lectures on the Epistle to the Romans, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: Thomas Constable, 1854), 2:377.

Selected Bibliography Works by John Duncan Works About John Duncan Brentnall, John M. “Just a Talker”: The Sayings of Dr. John Duncan. Bonar, Andrew A., and Robert Murray M’Cheyne. Narrative of a Mission Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1997. of Inquiry to the Jews from the Church of Scotland in 1839. Edinburgh: Knight, William, ed. Colloquia Peripatetica. By the Late John Duncan. 2d ed. W. Whyte, 1842. Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1879. Brown, David. The Life of Rabbi Duncan [formerly published as Memoir of Ross, John S., ed. “A Family Correspondence: Letters of John Duncan John Duncan]. Glasgow: Free Presbyterian Publications, 1986. and His Daughter, Maria Dorothea, and Her Husband, Adolph Facsimile reprint of the 1872 ed. Spaeth, with Extracts from Maria’s Diary.” Reformed Theological Carlyle, Gavin. Life and Works of the Rev. Wingate: A Missionary to the Jews. Journal (Belfast) 14 (1998): 28–55. Glasgow: R. L. Alan, 1900. Sinclair, James Steven, ed. Rich Gleanings After the Vintage from “Rabbi” ——. “Mighty in the Scriptures”: A Memoir of Adolph Saphir, D.D. London: Duncan. London: Chas. J. Thynne & Jarvis, 1925. Shaw, 1884. Kool, Anne-Marie. God Moves in a Mysterious Way: The Hungarian Protestant Foreign Mission Movement, 1756–1951. Zoetermeer: Boekcentrum, 1993. Moody Stuart, Alexander. Recollections of the Late John Duncan, LL.D. Edinburgh: Edmonston & Douglas, 1872.

July 2005 153 Book Reviews

Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures. Vol. 1: Methodologies, Paradigms, and Sources.

Edited by Suad Joseph. Leiden: Brill, 2003. Pp. xlix, 682. » 228 / $326 (with series subscription: » 207 / $296).

The Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic and Afghanistan—have separate chapters political climate, when the specter of Cultures is a mammoth work that surveys of their own or are treated in small regional Islamic terrorism and of U.S. intervention major issues and themes in the study of clusters (e.g., Malaysia and Singapore). in the Middle East looms so large in global women and gender in the Islamic world. By contrast, there are only two chapters imaginations. The first volume, she writes, When complete, it will include six volumes surveying all of sub-Saharan Africa (in the “comes at a time when there . . . is incessant and will draw on contributions from an pre- and post-eighteenth-century periods). stereotyping of Muslims, and ongoing international team of over a thousand Given the importance of Islamic culture to conflation of Muslims with Arabs and of researchers, whose specializations vary the African continent and the diversity of Islam with the Middle East, a time when by discipline, region, and period of study. Muslim experiences therein, the coverage the political stakes in relation to Islamic The first volume of this series, of the sub-Saharan region is meager cultures have risen globally, heightened Methodologies, Paradigms, and Sources, is an relative to the rest of the essays. by misrepresentation and misunder- impressive scholarly compendium. It is Readers will find few direct references standing.” Since women are so often made organized in three sections. The first to Christian missions except in the articles to be the “litmus test of what constitutes contains thematic articles assessing the by Julia Clancy-Smith (surveying Western ‘modernity,’” she observes, women often state of scholarship on women in particular colonialism in the Islamic world) and serve as symbolic vehicles of cultural periods, regions, and genres and provid- Linda Benson (examining the history of struggles and debates (pp. xlviii–xlix). She ing short specialized bibliographies. (For eastern Turkestan in the past two hopes that this encyclopedia will present example, there are entries on the literatures centuries) and in the bibliography of a treatment of women in the Islamic world of the Crusades and Andalusia, and on section 3. Those interested in missionary that is at once rigorous in its scholarship Mughal India, the late Ottoman empire, studies in the Islamic world or in the and sympathetic in its approach—a work, and twentieth-century Eastern Europe.) history of Christian-Muslim relations in other words, that will be somehow The second section surveys the scholar- stand to benefit from the book nonetheless. conducive to cross-cultural understanding ship on women through disciplinary Its synthesis and presentation of and mutual respect. lenses, assessing fields as diverse as scholarship is at once wide-ranging and Like most books published by Brill, a anthropology, law, and linguistics. The detailed, while its clear language makes it Dutch academic press with Islamic studies articles in this section also provide short accessible to specialists and to the as one of its special emphases, this volume specialized bibliographies. The third proverbial “lay readers.” is too expensive for most individual book- section consists of a much larger and more In her introduction to the volume and buyers. It nevertheless belongs in serious general bibliography (supplemented by to the larger encyclopedia project, the research libraries, where it will function author and subject indexes) listing books general editor, Suad Joseph (a professor of as a valuable reference tool and guide to and articles about women in the Islamic anthropology at the University of Cali- further study. world that have appeared in European fornia at Davis), suggests that the series —Heather J. Sharkey languages since 1993. will fill a large gap in the reference The volume solidly covers the Middle literature of Islamic studies, especially Heather J. Sharkey is Assistant Professor of Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and considering that scholarship on women Eastern and Islamic Studies in the Department of Central Asia and also includes North and gender has burgeoned in the past Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the America and Western Europe. Several generation. She suggests, too, that the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. countries—for example, Egypt, Morocco, series has a role to play in the current

North American Foreign Missions, topics receive frequent attention. Half of 1810–1914: Theology, Theory, and the essays deal with the founding phase of Policy. 1810–1865, and the others with the maturing phase of 1865–1914. The earlier Edited by Wilbert R. Shenk. Grand Rapids: set concentrates on how mission agencies, Eerdmans, 2004. Pp. xiv, 349. Paperback $45. especially the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, This collection of twelve essays, a volume provides an excellent historical context shaped the ideology of foreign missions in the series “Studies in the History of for the essays and sets out the main themes for the future, even in light of its limited Christian Missions,” is a product of two of the book. experience. The strategic role of Rufus consultations held in 1997 and 1998 as While each chapter treats a specific Anderson is highlighted. part of the North Atlantic Missiology aspect of nineteenth-century North The chapters on the period from 1865 Project. Wilbert Shenk’s introduction American Protestant missions, certain to 1914 stress the impact of the high

154 I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 29, No. 3 imperial period on the maturing of the Yao uses a series of case studies of Pandita Ramabai’s America: foreign missions enterprise. This section major fundamentalist missionary Conditions of Life in the United covers such persons as Josiah Strong, institutions and campaigns to trace the States. with his concept of manifest destiny, and historical process from a theological Robert E. Speer, missionary statesman and perspective. In some cases, though, events Edited, with a biographical introduction, by successor to Rufus Anderson. appear more as anecdotes than as part of Robert Eric Frykenberg; translated by Kshitija The book includes a fine balance of a meaningful context. We read, for Gomes; Philip C. Engblom, translation editor. topics between the domestic scene of example, of schisms in the Nanjing Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003. Pp. xxii, 322. missions in North America and the practice Theological Seminary and Shandong $49. of missions overseas. Essays on the Christian University that gave birth to the domestic scene explore subjects such as North China Theological Seminary (“the Happily, the author of this extraordinary the impact on missions of the New Westminster Seminary of China”) (p. 164) memoir, Pandita Ramabai (1858–1922), a Divinity, millennialism, the social gospel and of the China Inland Mission joining Christian Brahman reviled for her apostasy movement, slavery, and the emergence of the National Christian Council but then and rebuked for her protofeminist nondenominational missions such as the separating. These stories could have been activism, is again receiving attention after China Inland Mission. Other chapters related more clearly to the larger picture. years of undeserved obscurity. focus on the mission field itself, including Overall, Yao has connected the dots Disenchanted with Hinduism, which China, Burma, Hawaii, and India. Three well, placing the events in a coherent, con- condemned her for being a widow, contributions treat women missionaries. nected historical context. “The funda- Ramabai undertook a journey that few This volume provides twelve mentalist movement in China was not an Indians had attempted—to England and perceptive insights into the contributions isolated phenomenon but part of a larger then America to study early childhood and complexities of North American international fundamentalist movement education. Ramabai’s observations, Protestant missions during its formative in the 1920s and 1930s,” Yao concludes. It originally published in Marathi, vividly period. “was deep-rooted, its scope was wide, its portray a society she calls the “Nether —Charles W. Weber dynamics powerful, and its impact was World,” which indeed is what America deep and long-lasting. The movement’s was in the imagination of her stay-at-home Charles W. Weber, Professor of History at Wheaton concerns, its debates with the modernists, compatriots. (Ill.) College, writes on the impact of missions on and its organizational dynamics were far There’s delicious irony here. “Nether social development and national identity in Africa more complicated than what we have World” translates back into Marathi as and East Asia. grasped so far” (pp. 279–81). patalaloka, that is, “hell,” the abode of the —Alvyn Austin damned; Ramabai, after all, had to hold an audience that had been inured against the Alvyn Austin is a Canadian with roots in the China possibility of barbarous folk being models Inland Mission. He teaches Asian history at Brock for anything but moral chaos. Being on the University, St. Catharines, Ontario. He has written edges of cultures far beyond their The Fundamentalist Movement China’s Millions: The China Inland Mission Indocentric world, Ramabai had a vantage Among Protestant Missionaries in and Late Qing Society, 1832–1905 (Eerdmans, point for cross-cultural criticism that China, 1920–1937. forthcoming). would have made her home-bound

By Kevin Xiyi Yao. Lanham, Md.: Univ. Press of America, 2003. Pp. xii, 319. $74; paperback $44. A computer and your IBMR mailing label—that’s all you need

As Dana L. Robert notes in the foreword, this book “will change the historiography of the missionary movement in China” (p. viii). Kevin Xiyi Yao writes about and fundamentalism, narrowly defined, and not necessarily the broader evangelical world. He draws upon the historiography of Ernest Sandeen, George Marsden, and Joel Carpenter, who each alluded to China missions as battlegrounds in the Get the Research fundamentalist-modernist wars of the 1920s. This book is also about missionaries, mostly American Presbyterians and Advantage of the IBMR Baptists, not necessarily about the Chinese church. In fact, for the first hundred pages the Chinese are almost entirely absent—a telling indication of the movement. ONLINE! Kevin Xiyi Yao, a graduate of Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary Subscribers to the IBMR now have an added benefit—online access with your (Elkhart, Ind.), obtained his doctor of seven-digit subscriber number to the most current issues! If you already have a theology degree from Boston University paid subscription, you may use the subscriber number found on the outer envelope under Robert. After two years at the in which you received this journal to access a subscriber-only Web page. The IBMR Institute of World Religions in Beijing, he online is yours without added cost! is now assistant professor at China Graduate School of Theology in Hong For details, visit www.OMSC.org/ibmr.html Kong.

July 2005 155 readers wonder who inhabited the more Controlling Immigration: A Global infernal region. It would be groundless, Perspective. however, to suspect that America overawed Ramabai. “[Americans] have Edited by Wayne A. Cornelius, Takeyuki developed a veritable habit, when it comes Tsuda, Philip L. Martin, and James F. to describing everything belonging to their Hollifield. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Univ. country, of comparing it with everything Press, 2004. 2d ed. Pp. viii, 534. $65; paper- belonging to other countries—and then of back $27.95. saying that they and theirs are always best” (p. 126). In times like ours, Ramabai Migration is a fact of history, but never The study focuses on two hypotheses: sounds uncomfortably contemporaneous. more so than in our time. Stimulated by the gap hypothesis, which stipulates that a In 2003, the year this volume was decolonization, modernization, demo- significant and persistent gap exists published, a second translation appeared: graphic imbalances, and global economic between official immigration policies and Meera Kosambi’s Pandita Ramabai’s inequalities, international migrant actual policy outcomes; and the conver- American Encounter (Bloomington: Indiana movement (overwhelmingly from the gence hypothesis, which claims that there Univ. Press). The volume under review South to the North) has reached is growing similarity among labor- has no index; Kosambi’s does. While unprecedented levels and continues to importing countries in terms of policies of Robert Frykenberg’s introduction rides accelerate. In Controlling Migration: A immigration control and immigrant his favorite historiographical hobbyhorses Global Impact (2d ed.), an interdisciplinary integration and of public attitudes toward a bit hard, Kosambi has hers too. Her group of twenty-nine scholars based in immigrants. The profiles of the individual translation is tepid; theirs is lively: compare the United States, Canada, and western countries are presented in rich detail and Gomes-Engblom on Ramabai’s first Europe provides in-depth analyses of with thoroughgoing assessment, further American winter (“Ha ha ha! Hoo hoo immigration-control policies and their enhanced by dialogic responses. The issues hoo! Oo! Hoo!” p. 157) with Kosambi (“Brr! outcomes in eleven advanced industrial addressed are complex and wide ranging, Brr!” p. 125). The difference makes theirs countries: the United States, Canada, but a few major themes consistently appear the better choice. Australia (deemed “classic” countries of throughout the volume. —Richard Fox Young immigration); Britain, France, Germany, In advanced industrial countries the Netherlands (“reluctant” countries of aging populations and low birth rates Richard Fox Young is Timby Associate Professor of immigration); and Italy, Spain, Japan, have intensified the need for substantial the History of Religions at Princeton Theological and South Korea (“latecomers” to immi- immigration (to meet huge labor Seminary, Princeton, New Jersey. gration). demands); at the same time, populist

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156 I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 29, No. 3 backlash against immigration, attended wider canvas, immigration is a primary The Riddle of Sadhu Sundar by evocative appeals to national myths, is source of religious plurality, ethnic tension, Singh. influencing the political landscape. and many other social dilemmas that Essentially, the new immigrants are Christian communities in receiving By Eric J. Sharpe. New Delhi: Intercultural wanted but not welcome, which accounts countries can ill afford to ignore. The Publications, 2004. Pp. 244. $24.95. for the ambivalence and inconsistency presence of immigrants, often as of governmental approaches to immi- vulnerable and exploited populations, also Called from Obscurity: The Life gration. Restrictive policies mostly target reminds the church of the challenges of and Times of a True Son of Tibet, nonwhite immigrants, while favoring globalization and raises urgent questions Gergan Dorje Tharchin. Vol. 1. highly skilled professionals. So, although about its role in social transformation. most receiving countries claim to be liberal For wealthy developed countries, By H. Louis Fader. Kalimpong: Tibet Mirror democracies, immigrants face cultural immigration will remain one of the most Press, 2002. Pp. xl, 557. $42.95. rejection, social stigma, racial discrim- perplexing sociopolitical issues for a long ination, and human rights abuses. time to come. From a missiological point These books are reviewed together because Contributors in this volume pay little of view, Christian leaders will do well to they present two different perspectives attention to religion, outside of the oc- attend to the public debate and inform on the life of Sadhu Sundar Singh. The late casional reference to strong antipathy (in themselves about shifting governmental Eric Sharpe invested decades in scholarly places like France and Italy) to Muslim policies—which is precisely the kind of research on religion in South Asia and immigrants or to church involvement assessment provided in this highly brings that perspective to his study of (typically Roman Catholic) among readable study. Sundar Singh. He is deeply respectful of advocacy groups. Nonetheless, immi- —Jehu J. Hanciles the sadhu but does not shrink from gration issues and the strong social addressing the complex historical and reactions they evoke have significant Jehu J. Hanciles, a Sierra Leonean, is Associate missiological issues that arise in careful implications for Christian ministry and Professor of Mission History and Globalization at study of his life. global witness. Migrant flows correlate Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California. Sharpe tells the story of Sundar with recent shifts in global Christianity, He is author of Euthanasia of a Mission: African Singh’s life from beginning to end, and included among the waves of Church Autonomy in a Colonial Context examining the standard account of the immigrants are Christians, who bring (2002). sadhu’s story as it appears in numerous with them new spiritual fervor and popular publications. A historical scholar missionary intent that is certain to impact must question why the first published the post-Christian Western societies. On a account of Sundar Singh’s conversion mission insurance. nothing else.

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July 2005 157 testimony did not mention the famous out the different motives and agendas of introduces readers to Tibet and to issues vision he had of Jesus; this event appeared the critics and defenders of the sadhu. Yet in mission to Tibet that are invaluable. without explanation in the second edition by far the most important contribution of Called from Obscurity is the first of of Alfred Zahir’s little biography of the this book is the defining of a hermeneutical three projected volumes. All who are sadhu. Careful historiography, which key for understanding Sundar Singh in interested in the study of Christianity in insists on questioning miracle stories from his last years. The key is that Emanuel Tibet will want access to these volumes. Tibet, uncovers a fascinating origin for the Swedenborg in effect became the guru of Fader follows numerous tangents, legend of the martyr Kartar Singh. Sundar Singh. however, making the book rather Questions about the reputed forty-day H. Louis Fader has been involved in ponderous reading; this first volume is as fast of the sadhu, and about what black- Asian Christian history and publication much about Sundar Singh as about robed person sent telegrams announcing for many years. In his book he tells in Sundar’s one-time coworker Tharchin. Sundar Singh’s death, receive no detail how he met Gergan Dorje Tharchin, Students of South Asian church history conclusive answer; this book, after all, the subject of his study, giving the history will be grateful for these important works. studies the riddle of Sundar Singh. of the Moravian Mission to Tibet and the —H. L. Richard But Sharpe is clearly not writing to early life of Tharchin (until 1914, when he throw dust in the air related to these and turned twenty-four). Fader vigorously H. L. Richard, author of Following Jesus in the other old controversies. His treatment of defends the traditional Sundar Singh story, Hindu Context (1998), is a research scholar pres- the controversies that spun around Sundar even though Tharchin himself doubted ently focused on issues in South Asian culture and Singh in the 1920s is exemplary, pointing parts of it. Fader’s fascinating account religion.

Asian Christian Theologies: in South Asia (Bangladesh, India, Nepal, A Research Guide to Authors, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka) and Austral Asia Movements, and Sources. Vol. 1: (Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia). Overview from the Seventh to the The survey of each country begins with a Twentieth Centuries; South Asia, brief history of the country, a history of Austral Asia (pp. xlv, 679); vol. 2: Christianity in the country, then the Southeast Asia (pp. xlix, 684); vol. 3: development of theological reflection in Northeast Asia (pp. xlvii, 768). that country, highlighting theological themes, institutions, associations, and Edited by John C. England et al. Delhi: ISPCK; movements, with brief biographies of Quezon City: Claretian Publishers; Maryknoll, individual theologians that list their N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2002–4. 3 vols. $40 each, insights and publications. These or $100 for all 3 vols. biographical profiles are especially valuable; the chapter on India alone has Here is a gold mine of documentation possible of Asian Christian theologies in more than a hundred of them. about theological developments in a region all their varied forms, and to provide Volume 2 deals with Southeast Asia. with more than half of the world’s adequate guidance for their discovery, In a foreword to this volume, José M. de population. It is a comprehensive guide to study and research” (3:x). Special attention Mesa, from the Philippines, says, “The authors, movements, and sources for is given to contextualization, the work of views on Christianity represented here research and study of Asian Christian Asian women theologians, liturgy, art, speak of a genuine re-appropriation, theologies. In the foreword to volume 1, and music. within concrete Asian settings, of faith in Michael Amaladoss, S.J., says, “Asian The editors suggest that the Guide Jesus the Christ in its many dimensions” theology has come of age,” and these could be used for country or thematic (p. xxi). After a summary historical survey volumes are “a precious tool that helps us studies, study of regional movements or of the groundwork and context for to take stock of what has been so far of selected texts, or further study of theological construction in the region, the achieved and to become aware of the road primary sources from a particular country, authors cover the past two centuries in that we have so far traversed, so that we movement, or period. Helpful study detail for each country: Burma/Myanmar, can boldly take the plunge to push outlines for each region and country are Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Malaysia and forward” (p. xiii). He points out that provided. The volumes could very well be Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, and “English is the common link language of the basic texts in a semester-long seminar Vietnam. Each country’s chapter covers Asia . . . but this does not mean that the on Asian Christian theologies in context. the historical and religious context, theology is less Asian, for English here is Volume 1 begins with a 166-page Christian response in terms of contextual less an embodiment of culture than a overview of the groundwork and heritage theological construction, and profiles of medium of communication”; the work of Asian regional and ecumenical theologians, scholars, and activists, with draws on “the writings in many languages theologies from the seventh to the bibliographies and lists of periodicals for of the region” (p. xvi). twentieth centuries. Especially valuable research. New Zealanders John England and here is the thorough attention given to the Volume 3, covering Northeast Asia, his wife, Rita, who have served widely in role and development of the East Asia is the largest. It has more than 800 total Asia for many years, coordinated the Christian Conference (now the Christian pages and follows the general format of research, writing, and editing of this Conference of Asia) and other regional the other volumes. It includes China, Hong project, which involved a broad network ecumenical associations, along with the Kong, Inner or Central Asia (limited here of coeditors, contributors, and consultants Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences. to Afghanistan, Mongolia, and Tibet), in virtually every country of Asia, as well This overview is followed by a 500-page Japan, Korea, North Korea, Macau, and as some in the West. A principal concern guide to theological developments, mainly Taiwan. In her foreword, Theresa Chu was “to make available as wide a range as in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Mei-fen, from Beijing, says this volume

158 I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 29, No. 3 shows how Christian leaders and volume introduction to the rise and fall of Constantine’s Roman Empire normative theologians in each country of the region Christianity in the West. for the entire story. Power from on high is have “reflected upon the path of God’s Woodhead says in her introduction consistently associated in Christian history Spirit in their histories, have often that the focus of the book is on Chris- with a male image of a supreme king, a participated in forward-looking social or tianity’s relation to social power. She seeks jealous and exclusive God who is political movements, and have allowed to analyze this relation using two continuously being re-formed in the image their theology to be shaped by their competing models: “power from on high of male social power. How this model people’s suffering and aspiration” (p. xix). and power from below” (p. 1). In fact the affected women and how women resisted Representative Asian Christian art in book is overwhelmingly about Chris- come into view more clearly from the color is included in each volume. Oddly, tianity’s relationship to power from on sixteenth century on in the book. The in volume 1 the description about the art high. Woodhead begins the book with a author’s analysis of gender relations in and the artists is in the front matter of the quotation from Eusebius that makes the modern Western Christianity and her book (pp. xxxiv–xxxvi), but there is no coming to power of Christianity in interpretation of the dynamics of gender clue as to where the pictures themselves may be found. The enterprising reader will find them sandwiched between pages 538 and 539 on unnumbered pages. Surprisingly, nothing is included from Nalini Jayasuriya from Sri Lanka, one of the best-known Asian Christian artists. In contrast to the very thorough attention given to Roman Catholics and ecumenical Protestants, evangelicals in Asia may feel that there is inadequate attention to their work. Some of their prominent theologians are not even   "&   &  & mentioned in the text, such as Saphir Athyal, Sunand Sumithra, and Ken R.  $
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July 2005 159 as they relate to power are excellent. But Anglo-America. The modern history of Ghana’s New Christianity: the longer history of Christian dissent Christianity in Africa, Asia, and Latin Pentecostalism in a Globalising against power is seriously under- America is dealt with almost as an African Economy. represented and too often entirely lost, afterthought. Modern Catholic history is despite the author’s stated intentions. explored in some detail, but again is By Paul Gifford. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. The book follows the story of dominated by concerns of the North Press, 2004. Pp. 230. $60; paperback $24.95. Christianity almost exclusively through Atlantic world. I found the work severely the Western world. One is hard-pressed limited in its usefulness in this regard. Paul Gifford has had a long-standing to find a name in the book that does not —Dale T. Irvin interest in the charismatic movements in belong to the Western canon of saints and Ghana. In this book he focuses on four sinners. Woodhead’s discussion of the Dale T. Irvin is Academic Dean and Professor of megachurches and one prophet-type modern period becomes preoccupied with World Christianity, New York Theological leader in the Greater Accra area, examples the story of Christianity in England and Seminary, New York. that can serve as bridgeheads to understanding the larger Pentecostal movement in Accra and in Ghana. Gifford has two concerns: profile the charismatic scene over time, and delineate its various public roles, especially given the Histories of the Hanged: The Dirty background of Ghana’s pathology under War in Kenya and the End of strongman Jerry Rawlings. Gifford Empire. concludes that Ghana is a textbook illustration of an unaccountable By David Anderson. New York: W. W. Norton, neopatrimonial regime, and that Africa’s 2005. Pp. 406. $25.95. ills are overwhelmingly due, not to external forces, but to internal problems, Imperial Reckoning: The Untold especially poor governance, cronyism, Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya. clientelism, and the desire to hold power (pp. 11–13). By Caroline Elkins. New York: Henry Holt, The charismatic groups Gifford 2005. Pp. xvi, 475. $27.50. surveys display several positive features, including a lively sense of fellowship and Mau Mau was a rebellion of the Kikuyu imprisoning the entire Kikuyu tribe. a healthy gender ideology. But they against British rule in Kenya. Caused by Elkins’s critique of British rule—and of perpetuate the country’s pathology by genuine socioeconomic grievances, it most things British—is shrill. Even the insisting upon success, wealth, and status employed violent means: the murder of London Public Record Office, where she (p. 44). In many cases, “faith, giving, white farmers and their families, and the obtained archival material, is described as deliverance and the pastor’s gifts are more massacre of Kikuyu loyalists—men, “coldly efficient.” The book makes important than hard work” (p. 156). Ghana women, and children. Sadly, the reaction sweeping generalizations on the basis of is enmeshed in the global economy of the colonial authorities and security specific incidents. Interview transcripts discourse. For him, the new Christianity forces was in many ways more violent, remain in the author’s possession. obscures rationality by appealing to the especially the settlers in the Police Reserve Elkins places more emphasis than demonic and seeking miraculous success. and the Kenya Regiment. Interrogation of Anderson on the churches’ alleged The exploding deliverance and prophetic suspects was brutal, and court proceedings ambivalence towards the gulag, especially ministries privilege “a word of knowl- were biased. In 1954 “Operation Anvil” the Catholics. Neither mentions the edge” but lack moral seriousness; they swept thousands of Kikuyu into vast remarkable movement of former Mau Mau use anointing, mantras, and testimonies camps for screening. In this gulag there members and sympathizers to the Catholic to encourage members to sit back and let were horrific abuses that were eventually Church when the rebellion was over. The God work. exposed, despite a long-running Kikuyu Catholic historian Lawrence M. Gifford hardly acknowledges that government cover-up. Anvil, however, Njoroge has pointed out that Italian and some Pentecostal denominations have broke the back of Mau Mau, which Irish missionaries did not identify with engaged in true development. Rather, they degenerated into a Kikuyu civil war the British, that they appreciated the manifest diverse political attitudes: some fomented by the authorities. By the time socioeconomic causes of the conflict and critique the political landscape; others the last forest gangs were rounded up, stayed out of cultural controversies in spiritualize politics with a theology of London had a draft independence which other denominations were territorial spirits or emphasis on the sins constitution ready that ignored the embroiled. of rulers that require national repentance. vengeful settlers. Jomo Kenyatta, who had These two books shed further light Birgit Meyer argues that “Africans use not sided with the men of violence, took on a dark chapter of Kenya’s history. They this demonic cosmology to make sense of power as president of an independent should not be allowed to give the the evils that befall them, and many Afri- Kenya in 1963. impression that the Kikuyu were merely can Christians claim to be transforming David Anderson of Oxford has given passive victims of colonial injustice. Once the societies around them” (p. 172). us the first complete history of Mau Mau. the conflict was over, they settled down to Gifford’s portraits of some leaders It is a balanced account, carefully the work of peaceful reconstruction, in are skewed, as is his verdict that they lack researched. Caroline Elkins of Harvard spite of the many injustices that were the a valid theology and that they have failed concentrates on the experience of the legacy of Mau Mau. to inculcate values that could liberate gulag, based mainly on oral interviews —Aylward Shorter, M.Afr. Ghana (p. 156). Gifford ignores the with survivors. It is a damning indictment. spiritual power that the people feel. This The inclusion of rural resettlement villages Aylward Shorter, M.Afr., is Principal Emeritus of book is like a thick description of dancers in her definition of the gulag makes it Tangaza College in the Catholic University of Eastern without hearing their music. The dancers possible for her to accuse the British of Africa, Nairobi, Kenya. in fact praise God for the immense

160 I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 29, No. 3 economic recovery and the successful History of the Church in Namibia. democratic political transition in 2001. The national symbol, Gye Nyame (except for By Gerhard L. Buys and S. V. V. Nambala. God), is most appropriate. Windhoek: Gamsberg Macmillan, 2003. Pp. —Ogbu U. Kalu xxxix, 449. Paperback N$250.

Ogbu U. Kalu is the Henry Winters Luce Professor The two authors of this volume, senior literature” (p. xiv). Their stated point of of World Christianity and Missions, McCormick Namibian theologians, wrote this book in departure is a search to perceive and Theological Seminary, Chicago. order “to provide a standard Church understand the lordship of Christ in History for Namibia,” as they indicate Namibian history by discovering and there is at present “no general introduction describing the acts of Jesus Christ in available in English, except for some Namibia in the life and witness of Christian topical publications and selective church churches. They also clearly state their Challenged Identities: North American Missionaries in Korea, 1884–1934.

By Elizabeth Underwood. Seoul: Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch, 2004. Pp. 328. $33.

This book, written by a descendant of one of the great missionary dynasties of Korea, is a fresh attempt to look at the first two generations of mission history in Korea. The book enters into the postcolonial debate, and more broadly the negatively critical view of missions, by examining the issue of the personal and cultural identities of the missionaries who served in Korea between 1884 and 1934. Eschewing both an overly critical and an overly hagiographic view of the first missionaries, Underwood shows in a balanced manner how the missionaries’ self-understanding not only influenced how they dealt with the Korean people whom they encountered but also how they themselves changed in the course of an extensive encounter with the Korean people and culture. The book is full of good insights, especially the initial comment that what distinguishes missions in Korea is the fact that imperialism in Korea was not Western but Japanese. Although providing an excellent discussion of its defined topic, the book has one major flaw—the almost exclusive focus on Presbyterian missions and missionaries to the exclusion of the Methodists and other church bodies. The history of the Methodist Church in Korea, despite its considerable size within Korean Christianity as well as within global Methodism, is little discussed. The book would have benefited from an examination of the differences and similarities between the two major mission groups and their missionaries. A table of the plates that appear in the book and a better index also would have improved this contribution to mission studies. —James Huntley Grayson

James Huntley Grayson, an anthropologist and ordained Methodist minister, is Professor of Modern Korean Studies in the School of East Asian Studies of the University of Sheffield, England. He was a Methodist missionary in Korea from 1971 to 1987.

July 2005 161 Study with these desire to be self-critical and to write an topics. As this is the first attempt at an OMSC Senior ecumenical history. As Namibian inclusive, ecumenical church history for theologians and members of different Namibia, the authors obviously had to Mission Scholars Namibian churches, they had excellent formulate their own periodization. At first access to all published and unpublished glance their effort seems quite adequate, in Residence material in Afrikaans, English, German, yet it provides an inviting and stimulating and several Namibian languages, while topic for further research. Senior Mission Scholars provide they also worked with, and could Buys and Nambala set themselves a leadership in OMSC’sstudy program interview, many of the important role worthy but mammoth task, and in many and are available to residents for players who are still alive. respects they have achieved their counsel regarding their own mission As can be expected with such an objectives. The outline or road map for an research interests. ambitious project, the book is quite inclusive Namibian church history has extensive and densely written. There are been provided, and it will doubtless be of Fall 2005 thirty-one chapters, arranged in seven great value to theologians, students, and sections. The sections deal with church church members alike. I congratulate the planting in the precolonial era (1805–84), authors on their worthy effort and the church in the colonial era (1884–1924), recommend the book wholeheartedly. the growing selfhood of the church (1922– —Willem Saayman 57), the independent ministries of the church (1957–78), the churches and the Willem Saayman is Professor Emeritus, Department liberation struggle (1963–99), and present- of Missiology, University of South Africa, Pretoria. day cooperation, ecumenism, and other

Dr. Alan Kreider Father of Faith Missions: The Life Dr. Kreider is associate professor of and Times of Anthony Norris church history and mission at Groves (1795–1853). Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, Indiana. For 26 By Robert Bernard Dann. Waynesboro, years he and Eleanor, his wife, were Ga.: Authentic Paternoster, 2004. Pp. 606. mission workers in England at the $19.99 / £8.99. London Mennonite Centre. While in England, he served as director of the This is a book that should have been characters are also generous. Particularly Centre for the Study of Christianity written long ago but thankfully was not. valuable are his substantial accounts of and Culture at Regent’s Park College, Partisan loyalties would have been too such men as John Kitto, Frank Newman, Oxford University. strong. Barely twenty years ago Stephen and Edward Groves, who usually get only Neill claimed that Groves intentionally brief mention to the extent that they created divisions wherever he went illumine the Norris Groves story. Dann’s ( History of Christianity in India, 1985), and book is enriched by informative many Brethren have felt that Groves was appendixes, maps, and a genealogical tree, rather too ecumenical to be truly one of but above all it breathes the charitable them. Meanwhile, the more open Brethren, faith of its subject—a faith clearly shared for whom Groves has been an exemplar, by the author. have been satisfied with the somewhat —Timothy C. F. Stunt hagiographic Memoir (1856) by his widow. Rob Dann has used a considerable Timothy C. F. Stunt, author of From Awakening range of printed sources to bring to life a to Secession: Radical Evangelicals in Swit- Dr. Marcella Hoesl, M.M. wonderfully human Groves—a man who zerland and Britain, 1815–35 (Edinburgh, 2000), both inspired and irritated but whose recently coedited Prisoners of Hope? Aspects of Since 2002, Dr. Hoesl has been gentle humility usually elicited affection. Evangelical Millennialism in Britain and professor of systematic theology at His early years, the development of his Ireland, 1800–1880 (Carlisle, Eng., 2004). Oblate School of Theology, San distinctive approach to wealth, his Antonio. She previously was association with the earliest Brethren, his academic dean of the Texas school break with the Church Missionary Society, and dean and head of the department and his decision to go to Persia as a of mission at Selly Oak Colleges freelance missionary are all treated as (1982–90). Her service as a episodes in their own right rather than as “The Heaviest Blow”—The Maryknoll sister includes experience a mere prelude to Groves’s later career. Catholic Church and the East in Mexico, Guatemala, southern Dann’s own firsthand familiarity with Timor Issue. Sudan, and the United Kingdom. Islam usefully informs his account of Groves’s tragic experience in Baghdad, Patrick A. Smythe. Münster: Lit Verlag, 2004. and the account of Groves’s later years in Pp. vii, 235. » 29.90. India is similarly enlightening. O VERSEAS MINISTRIES STUDY CENTER Dann clearly sympathizes with Does church engagement in political Call (203) 624-6672, ext. 315, or visit Groves’s approach to mission, but his advocacy jeopardize opportunities for www.OMSC.org (Continuing Education) assessments of other, less attractive evangelization in sensitive contexts? How

162 I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 29, No. 3 and why does the church reflect rather specialized in the modern literature of especially the Psalms and the Book of than challenge national political and China, where he unexpectedly discovered Lamentations, as a history of national commercial interests? Does church silence that the Bible was very much alive. suffering), Zhu Yunbin and Niu Yongmao in the face of oppression protect, stifle, or This volume, separated into two parts, (interested in the love poems of the Song compromise Christian witness in different gathers sixteen essays, most of them of Songs), and Du Benhai (focusing on the circumstances? previously published. Unavoidably, the creation story of Genesis). Patrick Smythe, who has served as a reader will find some repetitions. The first Part 2 analyzes several creative works diocesan priest for more than thirty years, part deals with translations of the Bible inspired by the Bible. In a 1942 novel Mao grapples with these questions as he into Chinese, especially the Union Version Dun tells the story of the revenge of Samson reflectively examines eight nonunified (1919), and it discusses literary critics such against the femme fatale Delilah, where church responses to the human rights as Zhu Weizhi (himself a Christian, the Philistines symbolize the Japanese; abuses during the Indonesian occupation discussing the status of the Bible as part of Xiang Peiliang in Annen (1926), a one-act of East Timor from 1975 to 1999. He world literature and looking at the Bible, play, turns the love of Amnon for Tamar historically contextualizes the reactions of church leadership and laity in East Timor, Indonesia, former colonizer Portugal, neighboring Australia, the United States, Japan, England, and the Vatican. Despite Choose a FREE gift when individuals’ commitments to justice, you subscribe or renew institutional responses were largely your subscription today characterized by pragmatic apathy, abandonment, inconsistency, or inaction. While the church inside East Timor I NTERNATIONAL showed courageous solidarity with the local suffering (and grew from 30 percent to include 90 percent of the East Timorese B ULLETINOF population under the occupation), outside actors were prudently complicit, reticent M ISSIONARY to criticize government policy and endanger their own precarious situations, R ESEARCH or unwilling to upset the fragile politics surrounding Indonesia. 1year (four issues) plus The Best of IBMR, $ 23 Throughout the text, Smythe relates Save 28% off the single-copy price by using code 3Z79. Fifty articles on a CD-ROM each response to an ambiguous practice including “Toward a Global Church History,” by Wilbert Shenk; “Repositioning of Catholic social doctrine that highlights some of the inherent shortcomings of the Mission Agencies for the Twenty-first Century,” by Ted Ward; “Structural Problems in existing doctrine, calling for the church to Mission Studies,” by Andrew F. Walls; and “Evangelism: Theological Currents and revisit the practical utility of Cross-Currents Today,” by David Bosch. decontextualized principles of social 2years (eight issues) plus Islam and Christianity: justice. Linking this detailed case study to Contemporary Mission Insights, $ 41 overarching difficulties in applying the abstractions of Christian social Save 36% off the single-copy price by using code 3Z79. transformation, this book is relevant far This 47-page booklet of informative reprints from past beyond its regional and ecclesiastical issues of the IBMR —a $10 value—features J. Dudley bounds. Woodberry, “Terrorism, Islam, and Mission: Reflections —Laura S. Meitzner Yoder of a Guest in Muslim Lands”; Heather J. Sharkey, “Arabic Antimissionary Treatises: Muslim Responses to Christian Laura S. Meitzner Yoder recently completed a Evangelism in the Modern Middle East”;Colin Chapman, doctorate in forestry and environmental studies at “Time to Give Up the Idea of Christian Mission to Muslims? Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. She has Some Reflections from the Middle East”; and others. worked with education and community development in Latin America, Indonesia, and East Timor. Every issue offers thought-provoking research and reflection. You will receive: • Reports on regional mission trends and major conferences • Annual statistical updates on global Christianity • Profiles of current and past missionary leaders • Book reviews and notices Influence, Translation, and Parallels: Selected Studies on the Bible in China. Subscribers receive another free benefit: online access to current issues. By Marián Gálik. Nettetal, Ger.: Steyler Verlag, 2004. (Institut Monumenta Serica, Visit www.OMSC.org/ibmr.html . Sankt Augustin.) Pp. 351. » 48. Call(203)624-6672, ext. 309 or mail acheck payable in U.S. funds to: Marián Gálik explains in the epilogue that IBMR, P.O. Box 3000, Denville, NJ 07834 the Bible was the first book he read, though he was unable to read it freely in his native PUBLISHED QUARTERLY BY THE OVERSEAS MINISTRIES STUDY CENTER Communist Czechoslovakia. Later he 3Z79

July 2005 163 into a sexual aberration; the writer Gu Tiananmen, takes inspiration from the was still unable to redeem a world that Cheng, personally obsessed by the death Apocalypse, describing in The Cross (1988) was finally condemned to absurdity. of Christ, writes the novel Ying’er, then how the fourth animal, Christ’s negative —Thierry Meynard becomes insane, killing his wife and mirror, brings destruction into the world. hanging himself in 1993; Wang Duqing Chinese writers searched in the Bible Thierry Meynard, Lecturer of Philosophy at Fordham understands Jesus as an illegitimate son, for some hope amid the tragedies their University, New York, is a French Jesuit who has displaying in a poem on the Virgin Mary country experienced in the twentieth spent ten years in China. He obtained his Ph.D. in (1925) some decadent tendencies; Wang century. The prevailing feeling among Chinese philosophy from Peking University, Beijing. Meng, minister of culture before them, however, is that the cross of Christ

The First and the Last: The Claim from Revelation 1:8, 21:6, and 22:13 of Jesus Christ and the Claims of (“Alpha and Omega”). But the book does Other Religious Traditions. not offer a thorough exegesis of these texts because time does not play a crucial role in By George R. Sumner. Grand Rapids: the author’s systematic reflections. Eerdmans, 2004. Pp. 219. $26. Chapters 6 and 7, dealing with India and Africa, confront Christ’s claim with those In The First and the Last, George Sumner, turation theologies (African Christian of religions adhering to the idea of cyclic principal of Wycliffe College, Toronto, theology as test case). In the conclusion of rather than linear time. The book deals Canada, considers the reality of religious his study, the author opts for disputation less with Christ’s claim in relation to the pluralism. His postliberal theology of over against dialogue: “Christians world of Judaism and Islam, which, like religions has one key term, “final working from the assumption of final Christianity, adhere to a linear view of primacy,” which relates non-Christian primacy must engage in dialogue as time and history. religions to Christ and the truth claims of disputation” (p. 213). This book is an excellent tool to be these religions to the grace of Christ as an Sumner attempts to overcome the used in graduate courses and outside overarching theme of Christianity. unsatisfying contemporary framework in academia. After an investigation of Gotthold the theology of religions; he regards —Jan A. B. Jongeneel Lessing’s viewpoint (chap. 2), Sumner exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism analyzes “final primacy” in five areas not as three models or types of approach Jan A. B. Jongeneel, a contributing editor, recently (chaps. 3–7): modern theology (Barth, but as three necessary dimensions of retired as professor of missions at Utrecht University, Rahner, and Pannenberg), salvation Christian life (compare Pannenberg, Netherlands. He wrote the two-volume Philosophy, economy (Trinitarian theologies of Newbigin, D’Costa). I wonder whether Science, and Theology of Mission in the Nine- religions), mission theology (Farquhar, we may not need to be much more radical teenth and Twentieth Centuries: A Missiological Kraemer, Hogg, Barth, Brunner, and than Sumner, utilizing an entirely new Encyclopedia (Peter Lang, 1995–97). Gutmann), Indian Christian theology (the paradigm and vocabulary. encounter with Hinduism), and incul- The title of Sumner’s book is derived

2001–2004 Converting Women: Gender and The Seventh Bound Volume of the Protestant Christianity in Colonial South India. I NTERNATIONAL By Eliza F. Kent. New York: Oxford Univ. B ULLETIN OF Press, 2004. Pp. ix, 315. $47.50.

M ISSIONARY Only Eliza F. Kent, assistant professor of $68.95 philosophy and religion at Colgate R ESEARCH University, Hamilton, New York, has put together a large number of often conflicting monographs on many different aspects of conversion and gender in Indian society Here is more “Missionary Gold” for every theological library and scholar of mission under British rule. studies. Sixteen issues of the IBMR. Bound in red buckram with vellum finish and This work makes a valuable embossed in gold lettering. Limited edition. Each volume is numbered and signed contribution to an often-neglected area of by the editors. Complete and return with payment to: research: religion and gender. Kent examines the method and motivation that enlisted women “in a grand, trans- O VERSEAS MINISTRIES STUDY CENTER historical venture to transform human 490 Prospect Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06511 U.S.A. society at home and in the colonies” (p. (203) 624-6672, ext. 309 Fax (203) 865-2857 E-MAIL [email protected] 123). The vignettes of Indian Christian life Visit www.OMSC.org to purchase online with a credit card. showing the reformation of gender roles are fascinating, and are a tribute to both the dedicated perseverance of the

164 I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 29, No. 3 missionaries and Kent’s meticulous (p. 11), who wrote about evangelicals in comes to some conclusions about research. his now-classic study God and Production evangelicals on the basis of observations While this book would make an in a Guatemalan Town (1987), a work that we about the Witnesses. excellent classroom textbook, its very find summarized here (pp. 152–54). Cahn’s —Samuel Escobar breadth makes it difficult for the author to thesis is that the coming of evangelicals to tie all the research together in a focused Tzintzuntzan did not result in interfaith Samuel Escobar teaches missiology at Eastern Baptist manner. The themes covered include clashes because of an egalitarian attitude Theological Seminary, Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, Christian communities, “colonial knowl- characteristic of their inhabitants. He also and serves part of the year as a missionary in Spain. edge,” the construction of “respectable” questions the idea, held by many students castes, women’s missionary societies, and of Latin American Protestantism, that domesticity, marriage, and sartorial style conversion to evangelicalism has brought among Christian women. These themes economic improvement to believers. are so broad and so extensively dealt with Cahn offers valuable ethnographic that it would be impossible to fairly report descriptions of Catholic fiestas and One Gospel—Many Cultures: Case her arguments here. Protestant missionary methods as the Studies and Reflections on Cross- Although Kent attempts to be fair result of careful observation and recording. Cultural Theology. and even-handed, her book would benefit His vivid insights into the way some from a more sympathetic understanding people live their faith and explain it are Edited by Mercy Amba Oduyoye and Hendrik of the missionaries’ particular contexts. first-class. His summaries of current M. Vroom. Amsterdam and New York: Kent’s dilemma regarding the scholarship, using sources from old and Editions Rodopi, 2003. Pp. v, 254. $62. missionaries—that “one can neither new studies, for issues such as alcoholism absolve . . . nor assign them sole (pp. 39–52) or conspiracy theories (pp. 65– This book is a collection of essays on responsibility” (p. 85)—can be resolved 72) are helpful. The book is structured in a contextual theology sponsored by the by contextualization. Specifically, logical way, moving from descriptions of Theological Subcommittee of the Christianity empowered female Catholic religiosity centered in fiestas, to European Area Committee of the World missionaries to inspired work among the effects of conversions to evangelical Alliance of Reformed Churches. Although low-caste groups, offering them a chance churches, analysis of evangelical under European sponsorship, the to empower and reinvent themselves. missionary patterns, and attempts at volume’s contributors come from and have Kent’s strongly modern feminist reading reform within some segments of the worked around the world. The articles tends, however, to undermine the value Catholic majority church. reflect discussion of theoretical and of reform projects undertaken by the This reviewer finds that the theological issues around the practice of missionaries. arguments do not prove the thesis offered contextualization itself, and also offer We must not judge the missionaries by the author, though they provide good helpful reflections on concrete instances by our current standards but by the good clues for future studies that may help to of inculturation. they achieved, even by the good they were nuance our understanding of religious An opening essay by the editors (who aiming for. This magnanimous standard persecution, as well as the relationship are from Ghana and the Netherlands, of judgment was a principle taught by between evangelical faith and social respectively) lays out some of the issues Christianity, and it is only just that a study change in Mexico. One evident weakness that the practice of contextualization poses of Christianity follow that principle. of the book is that Cahn views Jehovah’s for Christianity as a whole and for the —Shashi Joshi Witnesses as an evangelical church and Reformed tradition in particular. Themes

Shashi Joshi has taught history at Miranda House, Delhi University, and is the author of the three- volume Struggle for Hegemony in India, 1920– 47 (Sage Publications, 1992–94). She is a Senior A Time for My Fellow, Indian Council of Historical Research, New Delhi. Singing: Witness of a Life All Religions Are Good in Tzintzuntzan: Evangelicals in by Nalini Marcia Jayasuriya Catholic Mexico.

By Peter S. Cahn. Austin: Univ. of Texas $29.95 plus shipping Press, 2003. Pp. xiii, 197. $45; paperback $22.95. New from OMSC Publications—a 127-page book that displays the paintings of Nalini Jayasuriya of Sri Lanka. Known around The author of this carefully crafted the world, the former OMSC artist in residence offers richly anthropological study started researching diverse and evocative expressions of faith from an Asian artisanship in the Mexican town of perspective, in full-color paintings and in poetry. Visit Tzintzuntzan and changed to the study of www.OMSC.org (Research and Publications) for a printable religion when he realized how important order form, or call (203) 624-6672, ext. 315, with a credit card. it was in the life of people (p. 72). In that sense it reminds us of Sheldon Annis, PUBLICATIONS another Jewish anthropologist scholar

July 2005 165 Are you missing an issue? explored include how to understand the place and role of the Gospel, the impact of contextualization upon the church, and communication between cultures. Some of the essays deal with the challenge of various contexts to Christian faith (such as the challenge of secularization in Europe and North America); others explore cross- cultural or intercultural hermeneutics (from South and Southeast Asian perspectives); others look at specific instances of contextualization (in Central and South Africa, Korea, and Latin America). Hendrik Vroom reports in a final chapter on the conversation among the contributors, especially as it relates to questions of hermeneutics. While I must admit that I did not find any new insights into questions of contextualization (especially in the hermeneutical area), the contributions nonetheless represent very competent work in this area of theology. Having them together in this fashion raises again ORDER A BACK ISSUES OF THE IBMR ONLINE. the question of the Reformed contribution to contextual theology, a point raised Dramatic savings offour single-copy price for recent issues! helpfully in the introduction but not really Just $2 plus shipping,while the supply lasts. returned to in the conclusion. Print an order form at www.omsc.org/backissues.pdf. —Robert Schreiter, C.P.P.S. Return it withpayment in full. Robert Schreiter, C.P.P.S., teaches at Catholic Acomplete list of 1981–2000issues is foundonline. Theological Union in Chicago and at the Radboud University in Nijmegen, Netherlands.

Dissertation Notices

Close, Robin Elizabeth. “Literacy, Identity, and Protest: The Khoi of South Africa and the Ojibwa of Upper Canada, c. 1820–1850.” Ph.D. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ., 2003.

Grant, Virgle R. “The Practice of Spiritual Disciplines Among Kentucky Baptist Pastors Who Remain Spiritually Vital.” D.Min. Columbia, S.C.: Columbia Biblical Seminary and School of Missions, 2003. Grigorenko, Donald Clifford. “The Moral Vision of the Jharuwarashi Chhetris.” Ph.D. Deerfield, Ill.: Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 2004. Konikkara, Joycy. “Pluralismo religioso e missione secondo il pensiero di Michael Amaladoss.” Ph.D. Rome: Pontifical Urban Univ., 2004.

166 I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 29, No. 3 “LIVING AND PROCLAIMING THE GOOD NEWS””” Seminars for International Church Leaders, Missionaries, Mission Executives, Pastors, Educators, Students, and Lay Leaders

September 12–16, 2005 October 31–November 4 How to Develop Mission and Church Mission in the Early Church. Archives. Dr. Alan Kreider, associate professor of church Ms. Martha Lund Smalley, Yale Divinity School history and mission, Associated Mennonite research services librarian, helps missionaries Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, Indiana, and OMSC and church leaders identify, organize, and senior mission scholar in residence, leads preserve essential records. Cosponsored by the participants to ponder dissimilarities and Episcopal Church/Archives. Eight sessions. affinities between the missional experiences $145 of early Christians and Christians today. Cosponsored by the Episcopal Church/Mission September 19–23 Personnel, Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod The Internet and Mission: Getting Started. World Mission, Mennonite Central In a hands-on workshop, Mr. Wilson Thomas, Wilson Thomas Committee, and Moravian Church Board of World Mission. Eight Systems, Bedford, N.H., and Dr. Dwight Baker, OMSC program sessions. $145 director, show how to get the most out of the World Wide Web for mission research. Cosponsored by Christian Reformed World Missions. DISTINGUISHED MISSION LECTURESHIP Eight sessions. $145 November 8–11, 2005 Understanding the Western Missionary Movement: September 26–30 Developments in a Formative Phase Nurturing and Educating Transcultural Kids. Dr.Andrew F. Walls, honorary professor,University of Edinburgh, Ms. Janet Blomberg and Ms. Elizabeth Stephens of Interaction and former director of the Centre for the Study of Christianity International help you help your children meet the challenges they in the Non-Western World, will inaugurate OMSC’s distinguished face as third-culture persons. Cosponsored by Eastern Mennonite mission lectureship series—four midday lectures with discussions. Missions, Evangelical Covenant Church World Mission, Presbyterian Consultation is offered on topics of interest to participants. Church (USA) Worldwide Ministries, SIM USA, and St. John’s Cosponsored by American Baptist International Ministries, the Episcopal Church (New Haven). Eight sessions. $145 Episcopal Church/Anglican and Global Relations, and Park Street Church (Boston). $90 October 10–14 Doing Oral History: Helping Christians Tell Their Own Story. November 28–December 2 Dr. Jean-Paul Wiest, director of the Jesuit Beijing Center, shares Islam and Christianity in Dynamic Encounter. skills and techniques for documenting church and mission history. Dr. J. Dudley Woodberry, dean emeritus and professor of Islamic Eight sessions. $145 studies, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California, outlines principles for Christian presence and witness within the Muslim October 17–21 community. Cosponsored by Christar and the U.S. Center for World Mission, Ecumenism, and Interfaith Dialogue. Mission. Eight sessions. $145 Dr. Marcella Hoesl, M.M., professor of systematic theology, Oblate School of Theology, San Antonio, Texas, and OMSC senior mission December 5–7 scholar in residence, will consider the importance for mission of Leadership, Fund-raising, and Donor Development for Missions. conversation among people of varied faiths. Cosponsored by Mr. Rob Martin, director, First Fruit, Inc., Newport Beach, California, Areopagos, Maryknoll Mission Institute, and United Methodist outlines steps for building the support base, including foundation General Board of Global Ministries. Eight sessions. $145 funding, for mission. Five sessions in three days. $90

O VERSEAS MINISTRIES STUDY CENTER 490 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511 USA (203) 624-6672, ext. 315 [email protected] www.OMSC.org Visit www.OMSC.org/study.html for details and a registration form Book Notes In Coming Barker, Gregory A., ed. Jesus in the World’s Faiths: Leading Thinkers from Five Religions Reflect on Issues His Meaning. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2005. Pp. ix, 198. Paperback $18. The Congregational Leadership Brown, G. Thompson. Crisis Facing the Japanese Church Legacy: Frank A. Brown of China. Thomas J. Hastings and Mark R. Atlanta: published by author, 2004. Pp. xiv, 216. Paperback $10. Mullins The Church in North Korea: Catlos, Brian A. Retrospect and Prospect The Victors and the Vanquished: Christians and Muslims of Catalonia and Hyun-Sik Kim Aragon, 1050–1300. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2004. Pp. xxiv, 449. $100. Catholic Missionaries and Civil Power in Africa, 1878–1914 Horton, Michael, et al. Aylward Shorter, M.Afr. Three Views on Eastern Orthodoxy and Evangelicalism. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004. Pp. 294. Paperback $14.99. Conversion and Community: The Challenge of Churchless Christianity Komulainen, Jyri. Timothy C. Tennent An Emerging Cosmotheandric Religion? Raimon Panikkar’s Pluralistic Theology of Religions. Changed by the East: Notes on Leiden: Brill, 2005. Pp. ix, 234. » 79 / $105. Missionary Communication and Transformation Krabill, James R., David W. Shenk, and Linford Stutzman, eds. Notto R. Thelle Anabaptists Meeting Muslims: A Calling for Presence in the Way of Christ. Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, 2005. Pp. 566. Paperback $24.99. John Howard Yoder as Mission Theologian Lim, David, and Steve Spaulding, eds. Joon-Sik Park Sharing Jesus Holistically with the Buddhist World. Pre-Revolution Russian Mission to Pasadena, Calif.: William Carey Library, 2005. Pp. x, 325. Paperback $15.99. Central Asia: A Contextualized Ma, Wonsuk, William W. Menzies, and Hyeon-sung Bae, eds. Legacy David Yonggi Cho: A Close Look at His Theology and Ministry. David M. Johnstone Baguio, Philippines: Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies Books; Kyunggi-do, Korea: Hansei Univ. Press, 2004. Pp. x, 309. Paperback $14.50. In our Series on the Legacy of Outstanding Missionary Figures of Musser, Donald W., and D. Dixon Sutherland, eds. the Nineteenth and Twentieth War or Words? Interreligious Dialogue as an Instrument of Peace. Centuries, articles about Cleveland, Ohio: Pilgrim Press, 2005. Pp. vii, 247. Paperback $28. Norman Anderson Thomas Barclay Nussbaum, Stan. George Bowen A Reader’s Guide to Transforming Mission. Hélène de Chappotin Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2005. Pp. xviii, 174. Paperback $18. John Amos Comenius Robson, Andrew E. Pa Yohanna Gowon Prelude to Empire: Consuls, Missionary Kingdoms, and the Pre-colonial South Carl Fredrik Hallencreutz Seas Seen Through the Life of William Thomas Pritchard. Hannah Kilham Vienna: LIT Verlag, 2004. Pp. 206. Paperback » 19.90. Rudolf Lechler George Leslie Mackay Singh, Sundar. Edited by Charles E. Moore. Lesslie Newbigin Sadhu Sundar Singh: Essential Writings. Constance Padwick Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2005. Pp. 143. Paperback $16. Peter Parker Wesley, Luke [pseud.]. James Howell Pyke The Church in China: Persecuted, Pentecostal, and Powerful. Pandita Ramabai Baguio, Philippines: Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies Books, 2004. Pp. xv, 123. Elizabeth Russell Paperback $7.50. Bakht Singh James Stephen Woodberry, J. Dudley, Osman Zü mrü t, and Mustafa Kö ylü , eds. Philip B. Sullivan Muslim and Christian Reflections on Peace: Divine and Human Dimensions. John V. Taylor Lanham, Md.: Univ. Press of America, 2005. Pp. xiii, 157. Paperback $27. James M. Thoburn Zorn, Jean-François. Edited by Elizabeth Visinand-Fernie. Translated by Dora Atger. M. M. Thomas The Transforming Gospel: The Mission of François Coillard and Basuto Harold W. Turner Evangelists in Barotseland. Johannes Verkuyl Geneva: WCC Publications, 2004. Pp. xi, 80. Paperback $12.50. William Vories