Vol. 36, No. 3 July 2012 Faith, Flags, and Identities n March 24–25, 2011, Duke Divinity School, Durham, ONorth Carolina, hosted a two-day conference focused on the somewhat cumbersome theme “Saving the World? The On Page Changing Terrain of American Protestant Missions, 1910 to the 115 Change and Continuity in American Protestant Present” (see http://isae.wheaton.edu/projects/missions). Orga- Foreign Missions nized and sponsored by Wheaton College’s Institute for the Study Edith L. Blumhofer of American Evangelicals, the conference involved nearly one hundred academ- 115 The Presbyterian Church in Canada’s Mission ics, who presented to Canada’s Native Peoples, 1900–2000 and listened to Peter Bush papers and lec- 122 Pentecostal Missions and the Changing tures exploring the Character of Global Christianity evolving nature of Heather D. Curtis American Protes- The Sister Church Phenomenon: A Case Study tant missions since 129 of the Restructuring of American Christianity the Edinburgh Against the Backdrop of Globalization World Mission- ary Conference of Janel Kragt Bakker 1910, and who dis- 136 Changes in African American Mission: cussed the nation’s Rediscovering African Roots Courtesy of Affordable Creations, http://peggymunday.blogspot.com continuing influ- Mark Ellingsen ence on Christianity globally. This issue of the journal is pleased to 138 Noteworthy feature five of the papers presented at this conference. “Americans,” the late Tony Judt observed, “have trouble 143 The Wesleys of Blessed Memory: Hagiography, with the idea that they are not the world’s most heroic warriors Missions, and the Study of World Methodism or that their soldiers have not fought harder and died braver Jason E. Vickers than everyone else’s” (Thinking the Twentieth Century [Penguin, 148 My Pilgrimage in Mission 2012], p. 76). This foible—by no means a uniquely American Jan A. B. Jongeneel vanity—has its analog in missions. The seemingly natural inclination is for all humans to imagine 150 Finding the Grave of Roland Allen in Nairobi themselves, their tribe, their religion, their nation as part of an Samuel M. Sigg exceptional story of a singular people. Such stories—“myths,” 154 The Legacy of Josiah Pratt we call them when observing the predisposition in others—offer William C. Barnhart us humans a way of merging our temporal lives with the eternal. Arthur Walter Hughes: He Spent Himself for The histories in which we locate ourselves are older, bigger, and 158 Africa grander than our puny finite selves. A collage of highly selec- tive partial truths and sometimes outright lies, our constructed Maurice Billingsley histories are uncritically absorbed and internalized by children, 162 Book Reviews in the process becoming incontestable truth. To question or deny 174 Dissertation Notices them can in perilous times be interpreted as an act of sedition. Continued next page 176 Book Notes Christianity—which, if one reads Paul and the Gospels care- the nation’s Native peoples became integral to the colonial fully, helps us to recognize and resist the self-flattering reduction- system’s management of the indigenous population, despite ist anthropologies of nationalism—has often been employed in missiological and ecclesiastical theory to the contrary. The the service of various egocentric schemes of order and domina- fateful results, evident for some time but only more recently tion. From where I sit, this phenomenon is most visible right acknowledged, elicited an official confession but raised here in the United States, where church-going visitors from troubling, deeply complex “now what?” questions. How can abroad are startled to discover that the Star Spangled Banner present and future generations of Presbyterians, unwitting has been granted conspicuous pride of place behind the altar, beneficiaries of the unintentional sins of their fathers and as though belief in God and fealty to nation were inseparable. grandfathers, “bring forth fruit in keeping with repentance” I write as a Canadian Mennonite whose proclivity, sadly, is to (Luke 3:8 NASB)? The institutional church’s response has make sniffily invidious comparisons between the two countries been to shift the church’s emphasis from customary mission by highlighting the imperfections of one and exalting the virtues programs (indigenous churches, boarding schools, theological of the other. While the various shortcomings of the United States, training) to justice, healing, and reconciliation. Too little? Too given its size, power, and global reach, draw the attention and late? Undoubtedly. But one must start somewhere. self-righteous ire of citizens of lesser nations, in truth the coun- In her essay, Heather Curtis notes that Pentecostals—at the try does not have a monopoly on the fusion of “Christian” with time of Edinburgh 1910 a small, marginalized, and fragmented nationalistic self-promotion. Jesus’ third temptation—in which group within the larger Protestant mission pantheon—were he is offered temporal suzerainty in return for his obeisance to doubtful about the popular notion that spiritual light and darkness the one who asserts controlling interest in “the powers of this were neatly demarcated civilizationally between the West and dark world” (Matt. 4:8–9; Eph. 6:12 NIV)—is a universally effec- the rest. There was no direct correspondence between spiritual tive ploy. The ease with which we humans succumb to the siren darkness, on the one hand, and geography, race, or nationality, allure of nationalism’s collective “me first” modus operandi on the other. The West was at least as lost as the rest. attests to that. Missionaries from the West have sometimes embraced as Things are by no means as simple as my characterization their own the memories and narratives of other peoples, at con- might seem to imply. In his carefully researched lead article, siderable cost to their own identities as citizens of Western lands. Peter Bush describes how Canadian missionaries to the indig- Benefit has come when these stalwarts have been able to share enous peoples of Canada could not claim—unlike the authors their hard-gained perspectives with their fellow citizens—but of the report of Commission I of Edinburgh 1910—that “the only insofar as the latter are willing to receive these subversive reproach that missionaries desire to Europeanise the inhabit- notions. Such a process is much to be valued. After all, only the ants of mission lands, if ever true, is now absurdly false.” As truth, known and applied, will set us free. he explains, the Presbyterian Church in Canada’s mission to —Jonathan J. Bonk Editor InternatIonal BulletIn of MIssIonary research Jonathan J. Bonk Established 1950 by R. Pierce Beaver as Occasional Bulletin from the Missionary Research Library. Named Occasional Bulletin Senior Associate Editor of Missionary Research in 1977. Renamed International Bulletin of Missionary Research in 1981. Published quarterly in Dwight P. Baker January, April, July, and October by the Overseas Ministries Study Center, 490 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511 Associate Editor (203) 624-6672 • Fax (203) 865-2857 • [email protected] • www.internationalbulletin.org J. Nelson Jennings Contributing Editors Assistant Editors Catalino G. Arévalo, S.J. Darrell L. Guder Anne-Marie Kool Wilbert R. Shenk Craig A. Noll Daniel H. 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