Vol. 32, No. 3 July 2008 Missionaries as Heroes and Villains hen I asked Jamie Scott, author of two articles in this his talkin’ with his fists. There is one great scene . where some Wissue, to suggest a visual illustration for this editorial, hopped up lumberjack is beatin’ on a helpless Eskimo. Sky Pilot he sent two cover images of Sky Pilot: Fighting Missionary of the Far sees this and steps in. As he is removing the lumberjack’s teeth North, a short-lived comic series (1950–51) featuring the heroics of with his knuckles [he says], “The meek shall inherit the earth, fictional missionary John Hawks. My search for information on as it is written, but sometimes they need a little help” (www. comicsbulletin.com/busted/111023108897158.htm). Public perceptions of missionaries have typically oscillated between eulogy and vilification. Both extremes contain elements of truth, but neither can tell the whole truth. Conspicuously religious do-gooders have always been an easy and natural target for those of us whose own standards of piety are more relaxed. Sydney Smith’s wry explanation for the Anglican Church’s opposition to social activist and prison reformer Elizabeth Fry (1780–1845) contains more than a little truth: “She is very unpopular with the clergy,” he observed. “Examples of living, active virtue disturb Continued next page On Page 115 Missions and Film Jamie S. Scott 121 Missions in Fiction Jamie S. Scott 126 David A. Kerr, 1945–2008 130 Oral Theology in Lomwe Songs Stuart J. Foster 134 History of Missiology Web Site Dana L. Robert and Jack W. Ammerman 136 My Pilgrimage in Mission John B. Carman 141 The Legacy of Jacob A. Loewen Harvey G. Neufeldt Sky Pilot, Comic Book, 1950 144 Noteworthy 150 The Literary Legacy of Stephen Neill the comics led me to Beau Smith’s Web site “Busted Knuckles,” Dyron B. Daughrity where in his column of March 7, 2005, he nominated the Sky Pilot series as “Manly Comic of the Week.” “As you can see by the cov- 156 Book Reviews ers,” he explains, Hawks “was a real man . [who] did most of 168 Book Notes our repose, and give birth to distressing comparisons: we long aries in film and fiction are a first for theIBMR . His lead article, to burn her alive” (George W. E. Russell, Sydney Smith [London: “Missions and Film,” surveys everything from silent movies to Macmillan, 1905], p. 85n.). contemporary big-screen television. Whether sympathetic or Since the speakers of each human language have recourse to hostile, visual depictions of missionaries reveal as much about only a limited number of words and idioms and must with these those who produce the films as they do about the missionaries address and describe an infinitely complex and varied world, we themselves. Literary portrayals of missionary subjects may be turn naturally to the use of metaphor. Given the immensity of the similarly judged. Roman Catholic and Protestant missionaries linguistic task and the limitation of linguistic resources (whether have been featured in the fiction of both Western and non-Western spoken, contemplated, or written), we drift instinctively toward authors for nearly two hundred years. Fiction allows for more stereotypes of all kinds—racial, social, cultural, religious, and nuanced and contextually satisfying portrayals of missions and vocational. The advent of mass media—radio, film, television, missionaries than is possible in film, yet anyone—friend or and the Web—has simply accelerated the dissemination of such foe—who is familiar with actual missionaries and specific missions stereotypes and has amplified the influence of the metaphors cannot expect to be entirely satisfied, no matter how attuned they we favor, as well as the influence of our underlying personal might be to the agenda of a given author. limitations (and sins!). The worst generalizations smooth the The deeply human quest to understand and represent our- way for us to practice war, torture, or genocide. Euphemisms selves, our world, and the mysteries of Christian faith through are then woven into a cover that is used to hide our pathologies language is poignantly conveyed by Stuart Foster in his article from ourselves and our posterity. Other generalizations leave us “Oral Theology in Lomwe Songs.” Not all of Mozambique’s simply misguided or ignorant. Lomwe people read or write, but through singing and storytelling, Take the word “missionary,” for example. The Oxford English histories are remembered, important values are reiterated and Dictionary traces the word to the French missionnaire, which made reinforced, theologies are shaped and transmitted, and the deep its first published appearance in G. Sagard’sHistoire du Canada, mysteries of faith are grasped and appropriated. Lomwe religious published in 1636. Whether this derivation is correct or not, few consciousness reflects both the unique insights and the limitations speakers and readers of European languages during the past two resident in the people’s communal narrative and reminds all of us, hundred years can have been unfamiliar with the term, as mission- whatever our own narrative and worldview, expressed in whatever aries pursued their vocations within the framework of European language, that we are similarly both enabled and limited. global hegemony. The word “missionary” has since constituted Three articles in this issue feature missionary-scholars well a virtual lexicon of flattery and disparagement. According to the known to, and admired by, many of my generation—Stephen online Wiktionary, the word means either “a person who travels Neill, Jacob Loewen, and John Carman. Even granted the limita- attempting to spread a religion or a creed” or “a naive religious tions of language, it is by means of such stories that we learn how fanatic” (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/missionary). to live into our individual and collective futures. Scott’s two essays examining the representation of mission- —Jonathan J. Bonk INTERNATIONAL 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 INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH in 1981. Published quarterly in January, April, July, and October by the Editor OVERSEAS MINISTRIES STUDY CENTER, 490 Prospect Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06511, U.S.A. Jonathan J. Bonk (203) 624-6672 • Fax (203) 865-2857 • [email protected] • www.InternationalBulletin.org Associate Editor Contributing Editors Dwight P. Baker Catalino G. Arévalo, S.J. Philip Jenkins Gary B. McGee Brian Stanley Assistant Editor David B. Barrett Daniel Jeyaraj Mary Motte, F.M.M. Tite Tiénou Craig A. Noll Daniel H. Bays Jan A. B. Jongeneel C. René Padilla Ruth A. Tucker Managing Editor Stephen B. Bevans, S.V.D. Sebastian Karotemprel, S.D.B. James M. Phillips Desmond Tutu Daniel J. Nicholas Samuel Escobar Kirsteen Kim Dana L. Robert Andrew F. Walls Senior Contributing Editors John F. Gorski, M.M. Graham Kings Lamin Sanneh Anastasios Yannoulatos Gerald H. Anderson Darrell L. Guder Anne-Marie Kool Wilbert R. Shenk Robert T. Coote Books for review and correspondence regarding editorial matters should be addressed to the editors. Manuscripts Circulation unaccompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope (or international postal coupons) will not be returned. Opinions Grace Inae Blum expressed in the IBMR are those of the authors and not necessarily of the Overseas Ministries Study Center. [email protected] The articles in this journal are abstracted and indexed in Bibliografia Missionaria, Book Review Index, Christian (203) 624-6672, ext. 309 Periodical Index, Guide to People in Periodical Literature, Guide to Social Science and Religion in Periodical Literature, IBR (International Bibliography of Book Reviews), IBZ (International Bibliography of Periodical Literature), Missionalia, Advertising Religious and Theological Abstracts, and Religion Index One: Periodicals. Charles A. Roth Jr. SUBSCRIPTIONS: Subscribe, renew, or change an address at www.OMSC.org/ibmr.html or write INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN CA Roth Jr Inc. OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, P.O. Box 3000, Denville, NJ 07834-3000. Address correspondence concerning subscriptions and 86 Underwood Rd. missing issues to: Circulation Coordinator, [email protected]. Single copy price: $8. Subscription rate worldwide: one Falmouth, Maine 04105-1418 year (4 issues) $32. Foreign subscribers must pay with U.S. funds drawn on a U.S. bank, Visa, MasterCard, or International Mobile: (516) 729-3509 Money Order. Airmail delivery $16 per year extra. The IBMR is available in print and e-journal editions. Fax: (914) 470-0483 ONLINE ACCESS: Use the subscriber number and postal code from the mailing envelope for online access to the journal. [email protected] Visit www.OMSC.org/ibmr.html for details. Index, abstracts, and full text of this journal are available on databases provided Copyright © 2008 by ATLAS, EBSCO, H. W. Wilson Company, The Gale Group, and University Microfilms. Back issues may be purchased Overseas Ministries Study Center from OMSC or read on ATLAS, www.ATLA.com. Consult InfoTrac database at academic and public libraries. All rights reserved POSTMASTER: Send address changes to International Bulletin of Missionary Research, P.O. Box 3000, Denville, New Jersey 07834-3000. Periodicals postage paid at New Haven, CT. (ISSN 0272-6122) 114 INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 32, No. 3 Missions and Film Jamie S. Scott e are all familiar with the phenomenon of the “Jesus” city children like the film’s abused New York newsboy, Little Wfilm, but various kinds of movies—some adapted from Joe. In Susan Rocks the Boat (1916; dir. Paul Powell) a society girl literature or life, some original in conception—have portrayed a discovers meaning in life after founding the Joan of Arc Mission, variety of Christian missions and missionaries. If “Jesus” films while a disgraced seminarian finds redemption serving in an give us different readings of the kerygmatic paradox of divine urban mission in The Waifs (1916; dir.