,

World and “Protestant America”: Historical Narratives and the Limits of Christian Pluralism Mallampalli

merica’s identity as a Protestant nation has long been a This mythology views the Gospel as necessarily producing a A topic of extensive research. Relationships between certain type of history, one that begins in either chaos or tyranny America’s “civil religion,” exceptionalism, and global mission and leads ultimately to a stable, powerful, and prosperous have sparked reflection across many disciplines.1 Into the world democracy. of the twenty-first century, two momentous yet paradoxical If the southward expansion of Christianity levels any cri- developments are casting new light upon America’s identity and tique at all of Protestant America, it is by delinking the Gospel mission. The first is the dramatic growth of Christianity in Africa, from grand narratives that are used to explain American progress.3 Latin America, and Asia. The second is the rise of America to a Liberalism, rational debate, free enterprise, and rule of law are status of unrivaled military and economic power. Demographi- cherished ideals of both America and the former British Empire. cally, the global South has created new Christian centers. But Within these histories such ideals have come to represent a even as this trend continues, America remains the world’s politi- Judeo-Christian imprint on modernity, a biblical way of respect- cal and economic center, whose religious heritage continues to ing persons, creating wealth, and holding states accountable to a sanction its political mission.2 higher law. Today, however, Christian congregations flourish in I use this paradox as an occasion to reflect upon historical places where these institutions are at best partially formed. Does narratives, specifically, their tendency either to stifle or to le- the absence of political or economic stability in Sierra Leone, gitimate different ways of being Christian in the world. Demo- Nigeria, or Guatemala call their Christian experience into ques- graphics show overwhelmingly that it is possible to be Chris- tion? Or does Christian growth in these lands serve in some way without being American. But they tell us very little about to provincialize Protestant America, perhaps by making its uni- whether Africans or Asians can be Christian without reproduc- versal claims less universal or by releasing the Gospel from the ing “the American story.” Can Christianity incarnate itself in story of the modern democratic nation-state?4 ways that tell stories that depart from that of Protestant America? The following sections describe the tension between world A mythology, deeply embedded in the consciousness of Ameri- Christianity and Protestant America as a tension between can Protestantism, makes this possibility highly problematic. incarnational and covenantal historical narratives. Incarnational narratives, developed in the work of Andrew Walls and Lamin Chandra Mallampalli is Assistant Professor of History at Westmont College, Sanneh, describe how the Christian religion was freed from its Santa Barbara, California. He is the author of Christians and Public Life in attachment to European lands and came to be appropriated by Colonial South India, 1863–1937 (RoutledgeCurzon, 2004). non-European peoples on their own cultural terms.5 Such narra-

8 I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 30, No. 1 tives are centered upon the doctrine of the , of the ity, according to Walls, “is at home in African religion; it is Word becoming flesh, the translation of the Gospel into the African religion.”8 As such, it often expresses itself within a language and categories of local culture. In contrast, covenantal worldview that affirms the role of the in everyday narratives are centered upon the Old Testament doctrine of God’s life. The introduction of the Gospel into African society does not covenant with Israel. Central to early Puritan faith, this doctrine eliminate traditional belief in spiritual healing and exorcism, but formed the basis of America’s sense of chosenness, its commit- it does often present Christ as the central source of such power. ment to democracy and rule of law, and its mission to spread Translation, according to Sanneh, also instilled in West Africans these ideals abroad. While incarnational narratives validate Chris- a sense of cultural pride and provided them with the self- tian pluralism, covenantal narratives diminish this pluralism by awareness needed to challenge colonial rule.9 Indeed, as Adrian linking Christianity inseparably to the projects of democracy and the construction of an international order. Can cultural and historical factors that differentiated Afri- Debates concerning Third can or Indian Christianity from that of their colonial masters do the same now, when the United States is the superpower? An World Christianity bear a important aspect of this debate concerns the persistence of striking resemblance to ethnicity, tribe, caste, and supernaturalist belief in the lives of non-Western converts. Can these factors be part of a genuine debates concerning the Christian experience, or must they eventually give way to a nature of Third World universal mission of political liberty, of which America now stands as the chief agent and example? This article tackles this nationalism. question, first, by outlining incarnational and covenantal motifs in Christian history. Second, it brings them face to face with each other in a discussion of Christian internationalism. Third, it Hastings aptly observes, “African nationalism . . . has hardly critiques the attempt to understand Third World Christianity existed except where it has been ethnically based, linguistically primarily in relation to the growth of democracy. Finally, it held together and biblically watered.”10 suggests how current trends might de-center America by mak- Within colonial India, missionary translation projects have ing other voices more audible. had similar effects in catalyzing cultural pride and regional consciousness among Bengalis, Tamils, and Telugus.11 This con- Incarnation as Ethnicity, Covenant as Nation sciousness was nurtured through the thriving vernacular print cultures in each of those regions. “Translation,” however, is not A major issue debated among scholars of Africa and Asia con- strictly a linguistic enterprise but encompasses many aspects of cerns the relationship between Protestant missions, colonialism, local culture. Telugu converts to Christ in rural South India have and the emergence of indigenous Christianity. Some view non- often retained key elements of their local worldview. Many have Western Christianity as the direct result of cultural imperialism, been motivated by a quest for healing from such diseases as an aspect of metropolitan culture reproducing itself in the colony, smallpox and deliverance from evil spirits, and many retained a a purely derived identity. Others highlight indigenous factors— strong sense of caste identity long after conversion.12 Within catechists, translators, traditional institutions, belief systems, such contexts, the incarnation might therefore be seen as a and interests—that have shaped African and Asian Christian means of cultural preservation and as the antithesis of cultural expansion.6 imperialism of any kind. These debates concerning Third World Christianity bear a Christianity can also express itself in various parts of the striking resemblance to debates concerning the nature of Third world through notions of covenant. Indeed, throughout the high World nationalism. Are they products of independent, creative imperial era, notions of covenantal chosenness shaped the na- imaginations, or do they derive their basic characteristics from tionalist ideologies and politics of many European nations.13 the patterns of Western nations? South Asia scholar Partha Ideas of chosenness also prevailed within a variety of African Chatterjee argues that Third World nationalisms differentiate an and Asian contexts. Among Christians of Ethiopia, Kenya, South “inner domain” of culture and religion from an “outer domain” Korea, and Northeast India, Bible translation and literacy have of science, technology, and statecraft. While conceding the contributed to a sense of chosenness centered upon the notion of West’s superiority in the outer domain, Third World nationalists the Abrahamic covenant.14 uphold the distinctiveness and superiority of their own cultural The notion of the covenant occupied a central place in the and religious values. This inner domain of family and “religion” thinking of Puritans in North America. In America, covenantal becomes the site of a creative national project.7 thinking combined a longing for political liberty with resolve to Very similar concerns have guided the efforts of Walls and live a holy life. The Puritans interpreted the covenant to mean that Sanneh to explain the emergence of Christianity as a world the welfare of their souls and their society were linked insepara- religion. Their aim is to help us appreciate how non-Western bly. In America’s God Mark Noll describes key transitions and peoples have become Christian while preserving historical dif- episodes in the theological history of America. For instance, the ference from Europe and North America. This possibility of Puritan canopy that once nurtured comprehensive Christian “becoming Christian without becoming Western” has resulted thinking about God and society eventually disintegrated into from larger processes associated with the dissolution of Euro- multiple ways of interpreting the covenant, including those of pean Christendom and the translation of the Bible into the Baptist radicals, Old Calvinist traditionalists, rationalistic Con- mother tongues of various non-Western cultures. gregationalists, and moderate Calvinists, to name only a few. By way of translation, the Gospel has entered the “inner By the end of the eighteenth century, a plethora of theologi- domain” of non-Western societies, the part which often has cal viewpoints nevertheless managed to form a consensus around remained unshaped by the European Enlightenment. Christian- Republican virtues, which provided a new vocabulary for the

January 2006 9 integration of faith and politics. According to Noll, this fusion of (1901). This particular account summarizes an encounter in 1871 Christianity with Republican virtues was of utmost importance between Reverend James Davidson Hepburn and the Ngwato in defining American Protestant identity. It is what distinguished clan at Shoshong, in Botswana. In language reminiscent of ac- American Protestants from those found elsewhere in the North counts of the great American revivals, it discusses the confronta- Atlantic world.15 tion of the Gospel with a long list of pagan vices, which included Protestant consciousness in America has always resulted alcohol smuggling, sorcery, slave trading, and harems. It credits from the confluence of theological, societal, and international Khama, a righteous Christian African chief, for having rescued developments. One could identify the Great Awakenings, the Shoshong from its descent into tyranny and anarchy and its Civil War, the World Wars, the 1960s, and September 11, 2001, as “hoary ceremonies of superstition.” It credits Khama for having key episodes in America’s political and theological history. All of established a Christian state in southern Africa.18 these formative moments are similar in that they sparked fresh Another way of interpreting Khama’s legacy, however, is to reflection on the relationship between Protestant faith and the stress the indigenous framework within which Khama’s story identity and mission of the American nation. needs to be situated. During Khama’s brief reign Christians had co-opted many ritual ceremonies of the dingaka, or priest healers. America’s Christian Internationalism In contrast to the missionary narratives, which highlight Khama’s moral credentials as a Christian ruler, historian Paul Landau During the early twentieth century, Protestant missions became argues that Khama’s “cult of the Word” refashioned missionary a key element, not only in shaping American identity, but also in discourse to serve his own rise to power within the early colonial defining America’s mission to spread democracy abroad. At this context of southern Africa.19 From this perspective, Khama’s time evangelicals and liberals alike had embraced “internation- Christianity operated not according to missionary ideals of civi- alism” as a framework for understanding missions. They came to lization but according to local understandings of spiritual, social, believe in “a moral vision of one world” consisting of nation- and political life. states that carried inherent rights to sovereignty and self-deter- Similar interpretive problems are present in the legacy of mination. Dana Robert describes how “Christian international- Pandita Ramabai, a high-caste Hindu convert to Christianity ism” flourished during the interwar period. It gained currency who championed social reform for women in India. Recent after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, the presentation of scholarship has highlighted tensions between the multiple as- President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points concerning the pects of Ramabai’s identity: an ardent feminist, a Christian, an rights of nations, and the growing prominence of the League of Indian reformer, a nationalist and critic of British cultural impe- Nations.16 The seeds of this vision, however, reside within the rialism, and, finally, one who developed a deep admiration for American Protestant formula that links Christianity to the pro- the United States. Ramabai praised the elevated status of Ameri- duction of a just society and in the belief that missions could bring can women along with other achievements of the American this winning formula “to the nations.” polity in The Peoples of the United States, her recently translated The central observation of this section is that internationalism travel narrative. appears to be incarnational, but in fact it is covenantal. International- Underlying Ramabai’s praise of American institutions, ac- ist perspectives appear to validate difference by recognizing cording to Meera Kosambi, lay her Indian nationalism. Ramabai multiple nationalities and their distinctive cultural symbols. viewed England as an oppressive imperial force, but America as They limit difference, however, by enclosing these symbols “an ideal liberating force and indirectly as a precedent for India within the political project of the modern nation, a project whose to follow in its pursuit of political freedom and social reform.”20 course is already defined and steered by advanced Western Should one conclude from this that there is fundamental agree- nations. Christian internationalism validates African, Asian, or ment between Ramabai’s Indianness and the universal telos of Protestant America? Such reasoning wrongly suggests that whenever a prominent Third World Christian criticizes her or his Some view the rapid own society or praises another, it universalizes the path of the other’s history. expansion of Christianity Recent scholarship also has highlighted how Ramabai re- as a reproduction of the tained a voice of her own, indeed, an “Indian voice,” amid her conversion to Christianity and interactions with the West. Her “American gospel” abroad. conversion, as Robert Frykenberg has observed, occurred through multiple stages, during which time she invested classical Hindu notions of svarga (), bhakti (devotion), and mukti (liberty) Latin American Christian experience only if it catalyzes move- with new, Christian meanings.21 The underlying Indianness of ment toward political modernity. If Christian conversion in any Ramabai’s Christianity can easily be missed if her life is exam- way impedes this movement—for instance, by reinforcing tradi- ined uncritically through the lens of Western Christian media. tional bonds of kinship or working within “nonrational,” super- naturalist frameworks—internationalism renders its place in the The Gospel of Nation Building world insignificant. By the end of the nineteenth century, evangelicals came to Some are inclined to view the rapid expansion of Christianity as appreciate the need for indigenous expressions of Christianity a reproduction of the “American gospel” abroad. This is most within predominantly non-Christian societies.17 Indigenization, evident in the use of megacrusades and the growth of mega- however, simply packaged Western ideals of progress in new churches in places such as Nigeria, South Korea, and Brazil, as cultural clothing. A good illustration of this meaning appears in well as in the conflation of Protestantism with modernization, the much-anthologized story “Khama the Good—the Christian telecommunications, corporate dollars, and nationalism. This Chief of Africa,” included in A. T. Pierson’s Miracles of Missions global Christianity, according to Paul Gifford, operates within

10 I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 30, No. 1 the theological parameters of American fundamentalism, par- voice for non-elite peoples, the ability of churches to hold states ticularly the aspect that stresses prosperity as a sign of God’s accountable, or the role of Christians in facilitating transitions blessing. It taps into American Christian broadcasting, a global from dictatorship to freedom or civility. Conversely, we may network of charismatic leaders, and multinational sources of speak of the failure of Nigerians, in spite of Christian growth, to funding. Though the cultural veneer may differ from country to produce a stable democracy; the ongoing pathology of ethnic country, Gifford regards this phenomenon of “global Christian- strife in Northeast India, in spite of its Christian majority; or the ity” as essentially American.22 saliency of caste and tribalism within any context where Chris- Recent projects, largely grounded in political science, more tianity was expected to have displaced local identities. What subtly locate global Christianity within an essentially American alternatives are there to the evaluative mechanisms implied in story. They have examined the church’s role in facilitating certain the very questions we bring to the table? “transitions” within Third World societies—for example, transi- tions out of both colonialism and authoritarian nationalism into De-centering America the growth of civil society, multiparty systems, and other demo- cratic reforms.23 At issue in any of the above cases are not the merits of democratic Global Pentecostalism provides an interesting point of analy- institutions but how a non-Western Christian subject is consti- sis because it can be treated either as a highly America-driven tuted almost exclusively in relation to them. With Protestant movement or as one that is fully grounded in local supernatural- America as the prototype, Third World Christianities are at best ist worldviews of various non-Western societies. Much of fledgling variations on a theme. Though one may catch glimpses Pentecostalism rejected the discourse of civilization so engrained of the distinctive contours of African or Asian churches, the real in other Protestant missions. As science, industrialization, capi- point of interest is often whether those churches are en route to talism, and modern bureaucracies structured the lives of ordi- producing citizens of modern democratic states. That churches nary Westerners, Pentecostals maintained a belief in the unme- elsewhere might present alternative ways of being Christian or diated and spontaneous activity of God in the lives of believers.24 of conceiving the mission of the Gospel is largely ignored. God was clearly active in the world, but more as a source of If the Gospel truly embraces the particularities of history, it healing and spiritual power than as the underwriter of political must engage worldviews that offer supernatural explanations liberalism. American Pentecostals eventually appropriated as- for everyday events, even as it engages caste, tribe, and ethnicity pects of modernity for their own ends. Such adaptation to a as important aspects of the human experience. But do not these technological age (including the use of print and broadcast “irrational” beliefs and “archaic” categories of belonging block media, modern communications, and organizational strategies) any attempt to construct democracy from first principles? Do accompanied their belief in the supernatural activity of the Spirit they not present “an intellectually unmanageable excess when without replacing it. translated into the politics and language of political philosophies Nigerian Pentecostalism, according to Ruth Marshall, pre- we owe to European intellectual traditions”?27 sents a “new political language” in which power is not the In Provincializing Europe, Dipesh Chakrabarty addresses the monopoly solely of the nation-state. Pentecostal churches offer challenge faced by professional historians of representing super- believers a more democratic access to spiritual power by inviting naturalist views of peasants. He presents an account of the Santal them to participate in healings, speaking in tongues, exorcisms, the breaking of spells and curses, and other expressions of Christ’s authority over the demonic realm. In providing spiritual Global Pentecostalism can and material resources to ordinary people, Pentecostalism draws them into “alternative forms of citizenship” that stand at the be treated either as a highly nexus of both spiritual and worldly (including, but not restricted America-driven movement to, “political”) events.25 As Pentecostals have grown numerically in Brazil, so has or as fully grounded in local their involvement in politics. The Assemblies of God, Universal supernaturalist worldviews of Church of the Kingdom of God, and the Foursquare Church have all produced political candidates who have upheld their sectar- various non-Western societies. ian interests. Their involvement dramatically increased after 1985, when Brazil’s military regime came to an end and a Con- stituent Assembly was established.26 rebellion of 1855, in which the Santals, a tribal people of eastern These studies are careful to assign agency and creativity to India, claimed to have been instructed by their god, Thakur, to African and Latin American Christians in charting out their launch an insurgency against both the British and the Indian political destinies. But in the very attempt to identify democratiz- elites. Chakrabarty identifies a conflict between the subaltern ing impulses of Third World Christianity, to what extent are historian, who wants to assign agency to the Santals in creating other kinds of questions ignored—questions, for instance, relat- their own history, and the Santals themselves, who have identi- ing to how conversion redefines or is defined within local com- fied Thakur as the chief agent of their history. Bound by the munities; how Christian identity takes shape within indigenous discipline of empirical history—however inclusive or demo- knowledge systems; or how conversion affects the way people cratic be its aims—the historian is unable to explain an event live their daily lives? from within the mind-set of the Santals: “The Santal leaders’ own The preoccupation with whether Third World Christianities understanding of the rebellion does not directly serve the his- contribute to political democracy is anchored in the hope that torical cause of democracy or citizenship or socialism. It needs to they will eventually do so. Analysis of Christian political in- be reinterpreted. Historians will grant the supernatural a place in volvement assumes an evaluative character. We are inclined to somebody’s belief system or ritual practices, but to ascribe to it speak of the effectiveness of Pentecostals in securing a political any real agency in historical events will be [to] go against the

January 2006 11 rules of evidence that give historical discourse procedures for this model imposes limits on the radical pluralism of world settling disputes about the past.”28 In order to bridge the gap Christianity. Perhaps we might consider “freedom in Christ” as between the historian’s worldview and that of the Santal, we a more fitting extension. “Freedom” here would not be con- must, according to Chakrabarty, recognize both as belonging to ceived as a doctrine of political liberty but as New Testament a plurality of experience that belongs to our present. To truly eschatological freedom, freedom from the law or the command understand the nineteenth-century Santals, we must regard that kills (Romans 7). For early Gentile converts, this freedom them in some real sense as our contemporaries. had profoundly subversive implications, not only with respect Chakrabarty’s insights speak to how our historical narra- to the ritual order of first-century , but also in relation tives can impose limits on the nature and extent of Christian to the cult of the Roman emperor. difference. Can African or Indian accounts of their own Christian Within more contemporary contexts, eschatological free- experience be taken at face value, or must they be filtered dom could inspire movement toward associational life, social activism, popular movements, electoral participation, and other characteristics typically associated with democracy. But such Historical trajectories paths of development are neither historically nor theologically of Christians are not necessary. Neither are they the exclusive property of Protestant- ism. The same freedom may yield other forms of political expres- determined by a single story. sion or non-expression. Converts may reconstitute their ethnic selves and restructure relationships with other groups, resist certain forms of capitalist expansion or American power, or through stories and ideologies of progress that have shaped the thrive indefinitely as oppressed minorities. They may also dis- American experience? What would happen if we were to release play “recessive” tendencies of Christian history well-documented non-Western Christians from the trammels of our national myths by Latourette and Walls. Whatever the case may be, historical and view them as fellow citizens of the present? trajectories of Christians are not determined by a single story but First, we might consider how some aspects of Pentecos- are being worked out according to the unpredictable guidance of talism could draw non-Western Christianity into global the Spirit working upon the human will. contemporaneity with Protestant America. Earlier expressions One possible objection to this alternative view of freedom of American Pentecostalism rarely employed the idiom of Ameri- would be to argue that it separates faith from the larger workings can republicanism or progress. They tended not to link personal of politics and society, thus marginalizing Christians from these piety to republican institutions and the pursuit of national aspects of history. The problem with this objection is that it progress. On the contrary, early Pentecostal notables such as assumes that conversion within Third World contexts never Charles Parham and Susan Duncan sometimes leveled a blister- had significant societal implications to begin with, or that such ing critique of America, democracy, and false promises of the implications can be appreciated only in relation to an American political realm.29 From the days of the Azusa Street Revival template for historical progress. Recent studies on conversion in (1906)—a movement whose global impact is still being docu- South India and East Africa clearly demonstrate how conversion, mented—many American Pentecostals have understood them- rather than consisting purely of a change in belief, functioned as selves to be engaged in a cosmic battle against demonic forces. a form of cultural criticism and engagement.30 Dalit conversion in Their strength derives not from political representation but from India was an act of social protest against upper-caste domina- Jesus’ “blood-based vicarious atonement,” the power of his tion. Similarly, “Bible women” within churches of colonial Kenya name, and tangible manifestations of the Holy Spirit. confronted a moral crisis within Kikuyu culture that resulted No doubt some elements of an America-centered universe from their men being dispossessed of land.31 Far from being have entered the Pentecostal tradition. Broadcasters such as Pat steeped in a detached, inward piety, conversion within such Robertson clearly have channeled Pentecostal zeal into a rightist contexts bears immediate connections to cultural, social, and interpretation of America’s mission. Still, by remaining out of political reality. But do scholars possess the interest or the tools step with the dominant themes of American civil religion, Pente- for exploring these connections? costals, perhaps more than other American denominations, Simply said, to assume that the only way to think compre- present a way of encountering African, Asian, or Latin American hensively about faith and society is to do so within the theological Christians that actually makes their voices audible. categories of Protestant America is to ignore the richness and A second result of releasing non-Western Christians from variety of other forms of Christian engagement occurring else- our national myths is that we might resist the tendency of recent where in the world. How scholars narrativize the changing scholarship to extend the path from Christendom to world demographics of the church carries weighty implications. Their Christianity into the story of covenant and democratization. By accounts may deepen our appreciation for the incarnation or co- identifying “nation building” as the step that follows conversion, opt new Christian movements for the cause of Pax-Americana.

Notes 1. My sincerest thanks to colleagues who have read and offered valuable Bush and God: A Hot Line to Heaven,” Economist, December 18–31, feedback on earlier drafts of this essay: Eric Carlsson, Elesha Coff- 2004, p. 39. man, Thomas Fikes, Michael Jindra, Mark Noll, Derek Peterson, and 3. In 1941 Lesslie Newbigin delivered a series of lectures in Bangalore, Richard Pointer. India, attempting to delink the Christian message from Western 2. The support given by conservative evangelicals to the Bush ideals of progress. These lectures have recently been published in administration’s “war on terror” and the president’s own assertion Signs amid the Rubble: The Purposes of God in Human History, ed. that “God is for freedom” shows how a relationship between religion Geoffrey Wainwright (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003). and “America’s mission” has sustained itself to this day. See “George 4. This question parallels those raised by Dipesh Chakrabarty in

12 I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 30, No. 1 Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference Wilbert R. Shenk, “Henry Venn, 1796–1873: Champion of Indig- (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 2000). I discuss Chakrabarty’s enous Church Principles,” and R. Pierce Beaver, “Rufus Anderson, ideas below. 1796–1880: To Evangelize, Not Civilize,” in Mission Legacies: Bio- 5. “From Christendom to World Christianity” was the theme of the graphical Studies of Leaders of the Modern Missionary Movement, ed. first of the Yale-Edinburgh Meetings on the Missionary Movement Gerald H. Anderson et al. (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1994), pp. and Non-Western Christianity, organized by Sanneh and Walls, 541–47 and 548–53. March 26–28, 1992. This theme is developed in Andrew Walls, The 18. “On the ruins of anarchy and social chaos he built up a Christian Cross-Cultural Process in Christian History (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis state, stable and orderly, and he made home sacred and a purer Books, 2002), pp. 49–71, and in Lamin Sanneh, Encountering the West: morality to grow up side by side with better crops” (A. T. Pierson, Christianity and the Global Cultural Process; The African Dimension The Miracles of Missions, 4th ser. [New York: Funk & Wagnalls, (London: HarperCollins, 1993), pp. 184–229. 1901], p. 36). 6. For an excellent review of the Africa literature, see the opening 19. Paul Landau, The Realm of the Word: Language, Gender, and Chris- chapter, “Narratives of Religion and Empire,” in J. D. Y. Peel, tianity in a Southern African Kingdom (Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann, Religious Encounter and the Making of the Yoruba(Bloomington: Indiana 1995), pp. 8, 17–29. Univ. Press, 2000). 20. Pandita Ramabai, Pandita Ramabai’s American Encounter: The Peoples 7. Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial of the United States, trans. Meera Kosambi (Bloomington: Indiana Histories (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1993), p. 5. Univ. Press, 2003), p. 6. 8. Walls, Cross-Cultural Process, p. 132. Regarding Enlightenment values 21. See Robert Frykenberg’s extremely thorough biographical such as formal education, economic development, and introduction to Pandita Ramabai in Pandita Ramabai’s America: modernization, Walls notes, “It is important to recognize that Conditions of Life in the United States (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), Christianity has made itself at home in Africa independently of these pp. 1–54. things as well as in association with them” (ibid.). 22. For a thorough treatment of this “American gospel” abroad, see 9. Lamin Sanneh, Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Steve Brouwer, Paul Gifford, and Susan D. Rose, Exporting the Culture (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1989), pp. 174–81. See also American Gospel: Global Christian Fundamentalism (New York: Adrian Hastings, The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion, Routledge, 1996). and Nationalism (New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997), pp. 23. In June 2002, for instance, the Pew Charitable Trusts sponsored a 151–52, 194–95. conference, “The Bible and the Ballot Box: Evangelical Christianity 10. Hastings, Construction of Nationhood, p. 163. and Third World Democracy,” directed by Vinay Samuel and Tim- 11. B. S. Kesavan acknowledges missionary contributions throughout othy Samuel Shah. The conference drew scholars from Africa, Asia, his History of Printing and Publishing in India: A Story of Cultural Re- and Latin America to address the question of how evangelicalism is awakening, vol. 2 (New Delhi: National Book Trust, 1988). See also influencing the development of democracy within non-Western Peter Schmitthenner, Telugu Resurgence: C. P. Brown and Cultural societies. Consolidation in Nineteenth-Century South India (New Delhi: 24. Jay Riley Case, “Ignoring Civilization? Conversion in the Holiness Manohar, 2001). and Pentecostal Missionary Movements, 1880–1920” (paper 12. See P. Y. Luke and John B. Carman, Village Christians and Hindu presented at the Yale-Edinburgh Meeting on the Missionary Culture: Study of a Rural Church in Andhra Pradesh, South India Movement and Non-Western Christianity, New Haven, July 3–5, (London: Lutterworth Press, 1968), pp. 149–54. 2003), p. 8. 13. For a detailed discussion of European examples, see William R. 25. Ruth Marshall, “God Is Not a Democrat: Pentecostalism and Hutchinson and Hartmut Lehmann, eds., Many Are Chosen: Divine Democratization in Nigeria,” in The Christian Churches and the Election and Western Nationalism (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994). Democratization of Africa, ed. Paul Gifford (Leiden: Brill, 1995), p. 247. 14. See Hastings, Construction of Nationhood, pp. 185–97, and Philip 26. On the subject of Pentecostal politicization in Brazil, see Paul Freston, Jenkins, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity Evangelicals in Asia, Africa, and Latin America(Cambridge: Cambridge (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2002), pp. 131–39. Univ. Press, 2001), pp. 21, 22. 15. Mark Noll, America’s God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln 27. Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe , p. 148. (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2002), p. 54. 28. Ibid, p. 104. 16. Dana Robert, “The First Globalization: The Internationalization of 29. Grant Wacker, Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture the Protestant Missionary Movement Between the World Wars,” (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 2001), pp. 218–19. International Bulletin of Missionary Research 26 (April 2002): 50–57. 30. See, for instance, Gauri Viswanathan, Outside the Fold: Conversion, 17. Many adopted the insights of Henry Venn, the renowned advocate Modernity, and Belief (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1998). of “missionary euthanasia,” and Rufus Anderson, the foreign 31. Derek Peterson, Creative Writing: Translation, Bookkeeping, and the corresponding secretary of the American Board of Commissioners Work of Imagination in Colonial Kenya (Portsmouth, N.H.: Heine- for Foreign Missions, who tried to separate Scripture-based goals of mann, 2004), pp. 163–88. Christian missions from the “civilizing mission” of colonialism. See

Online Access to the I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH

All issues of the I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RE - countries do not need a password at this time. If a subscription SEARCH since January 2004 are now available online. Subscrib- has expired, online access will not be available until the ers may read the IBMR, including this issue, online by visiting subscription is renewed. www.OMSC.org/ibmr.html. IBMR subscribers are now able, also, to log in at the same To log in use the subscription account number that ap- URL to do online searches in the database Researching World pears above the address on your mailing label. Type in the full Christianity: Doctoral Dissertations on Mission Since 1900. This eight-digit number. Do not include the pound signs (#) before comprehensive database indexes over 5,000 doctoral disserta- or after the account number. tions relevant for mission studies. For example, if the second line of the address imprint Back issues of the IBMR are available through university, reads “ACCOUNT: #00052183#,” type in “00052183”. Note seminary, and public libraries via the ATLA and EBSCO that only subscribers in the United States must enter a pass- online journal indexes. Printed copies of back issues may be word (the subscriber’s five-digit zip code). Residents of other purchased for $8.00 each by e-mailing [email protected].

January 2006 13