Remembering Jamestown

For many Americans, Christian missionary efforts have usually involved distant and exotic places. Sometimes, however, we can learn more about missions and interreligious engagement by looking in our own backyard. This collection of essays deriving from a consultation on missionary history and attitudes in colonial Jamestown, Virginia, explores long-standing assumptions related to Christian mission by listening to Native American voices. What were the ideologies and theologies that motivated early Virginia colonists? How did certain understandings of mission and church provide support and legitimacy for invasion and exploitation? What were, and are, the responses of indigenous populations, and how should Christian mission to Native Americans continue in light of this history? This book addresses these still very relevant questions and explores ways in which new understandings of Christian mission are needed in the expanding religious and cultural diversity of the twenty-first century.

Amos Yong is J. Rodman Williams Professor of Theology at Regent University School of Divinity, Virginia Beach, Virginia. He has authored or edited ten books, including Hospitality and the Other (2008). Barbara Brown Zikmund is a retired historian living in Washington, DC. She is the former chair of the Interfaith Relations Commission of the National Council of Churches and served as President of Hartford Seminary 1990-2000.