An Historical Account Of The Incorporated Society For The Propagation Of The Gospel In Foreign Parts

The book investigates facets of global Protestantism through Anglican, Quaker, Episcopalian, Moravian, Lutheran Pietist, and Pentecostal missions to enslaved and indigenous peoples and political reform endeavours in a global purview that spans the 1730s to the 1930s. The book uses key examples to trace both the local and the global impacts of this multi-denominational Christian movement. The essays in this volume explore three of the critical ways in which Protestant communities were established and became part of a worldwide network: the founding of far-flung missions in which Western missionaries worked alongside enslaved and indigenous converts; the interface between Protestant outreach and political reform endeavours such as abolitionism; and the establishment of a global epistolary through print communication networks. Demonstrating how Protestantism came to be both global and ecumenical, this book will be a key resource for scholars of religious history, religion and politics, and missiology as well as those interested in issues of postcolonialism and imperialism.

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Excerpt from An Historical Account of the Incorporated Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts: Containing Their Foundation, Proceedings, and the Success of Their Missionaries in the British Colonies, to the Year 1728 H E fie/ign of tbe following Treetije, is to inform toe Y'izbliel: of tbe tree/eze'iiom of flee Society for Propa gating the Gofpel; tloeir Efiozbli/bmem, Laboure, and Soeeefi. Tloir Aoooomt if compiled from f'olpem, traefmitteel to Ibo Society, by Governor: of Colonies, or ?>oi [om of Note abroad or from Congregation. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Between the English Civil War of 1642 and the American Revolution, countless British missionaries announced their intention to "spread the gospel" among the native North American population. Despite the scope of their endeavors, they converted only a handful of American Indians to Christianity. Their attempts to secure moral and financial support at home proved much more successful. In The Poor Indians, Laura Stevens delves deeply into the language and ideology British missionaries used to gain support, and she examines their wider cultural significance. Invoking pity and compassion for "the poor Indian"—a purely fictional construct—British missionaries used the Black Legend of cruelties perpetrated by Spanish conquistadors to contrast their own projects with those of Catholic missionaries, whose methods were often brutal and deceitful. They also tapped into a remarkably effective means of swaying British Christians by connecting the latter's feelings of religious superiority with moral obligation. Describing mission work through metaphors of commerce, missionaries asked their readers in England to invest, financially and emotionally, in the cultivation of Indian souls. As they saved Indians from afar, supporters renewed their own faith, strengthened the empire against the corrosive effects of paganism, and invested in British Christianity with philanthropic fervor. The Poor Indians thus uncovers the importance of religious feeling and commercial metaphor in strengthening imperial identity and colonial ties, and it shows how missionary writings helped fashion British subjects who were self-consciously transatlantic and imperial because they were religious, sentimental, and actively charitable.

Literature on North American slavery is almost inexhaustible but negligent of the religious culture of the slaves, most especially African-American Christianity. As noted in Robert Handy’s insightful article, for several decades African–American Christianity appeared only as incidentals in the general historiography of American Church history. Considering the immeasurably positive role of the Church in the lives of African-Americans, this oversight is almost inexcusable. Even where studies in slave Christianity have been attempted one would search in vain for any substantial discussion of the mutual effects of the slaves’ original African religion and Christianity. Thus this study is a contribution to recent explorations into that vital aspect of the history of African slaves in North America – their Christianization. The study focuses on the question of why the African slaves were apparently more responsive to Christianity in the Great Awakenings than during the previous evangelization efforts by the Anglican missionaries. I propose that the continuities as well as discontinuities between Christianity and African Traditional Religion were key among determinant factors in the slaves’ response to Christianity. Basically, the slaves responded to the type of Christianity in which these factors were more prominent, the Great Awakenings vis-à-vis the Anglican version. The first chapter of this study highlights the problem of past inattention to slave Christianity, especially as it relates to African Traditional Religion. In Chapter two, I argue for both West Africa as the original home of the slaves and African Traditional Religion as the predominant religious culture of that region. The third chapter describes the process, personnel, and problems encountered in slave Christianization. Chapters four and five analyze and evaluate the impact of Christianizing efforts by the Anglican missionaries and revival evangelists respectively. Chapter six summarizes and discusses the value of my findings for the African-American Church and Christianity in general. The study contains suggestions for further research.