Converting Colonialism: Vision and Realities in Mission History, 1706-1914

Series: Studies in the History of Christian Missions (SHCM)

In this volume, leading historians of Christianity in the non-Western world examine the relationship between missionaries and nineteenth-century European colonialism, and between indigenous converts and the colonial contexts in which they lived. Forced to operate within a political framework of European expansionism that lay outside their power to control, missionaries and early converts variously attempted to co-opt certain aspects of colonialism and to change what seemed prejudicial to gospel values.

These contributors are the leading historians in their fields, and the concrete historical situations that they explore show the real complexity of missionary efforts to "convert" colonialism.

Contributors: J. F. Ade Ajayi
Roy Bridges
Richard Elphick
Eleanor Jackson
Daniel Jeyaraj
Andrew Porter
Dana L. Robert
R. G. Tiedemann
C. Peter Williams

Dana L. Robert is Truman Collins Professor of World Christianity and History of Mission at the Boston University School of Theology. She has published widely on mission history, world Christianity, and African Christianity, including Christian Mission: How Christianity Became a World Religion.