2. Chapter Outline
• Introduction
• The Glory of All Christendom
• Reformers and Mission
• The Great Century
• Revivals and Their Impact
3. Introduction
• Given the vigorous new mission thrust of
the Catholic Church in the sixteenth
century, it might have been remembered as
a new era in Catholic mission.
• Instead, Martin Luther guaranteed that
historians would call it the period of the
Reformation.
4. Introduction (cont.)
• The ensuing division of Western Christianity
between Catholics and Protestants, their respective
mission endeavors, and the widening influence of
European culture transformed the world scene in
the centuries that followed.
• This chapter explores Christian missions in the
age of discovery and colonial expansion during
the early modern era (1500–1800) and most of the
“Great Century” in mission (1800–1914).
5. The Glory
of All Christendom
• Royal Patronage
• Beyond the Royal Patronage in Asia
• New Developments in Catholic Mission
6. Royal Patronage
• Portugal and Spain were the primary Catholic
powers.
• The “Right of Royal Patronage” was conferred,
giving monarchs and their successors control of
the church in their colonies by allowing them to
• create new dioceses and
• nominate persons for all church offices.
• Greed for gold and new diseases decimated
indigenous populations.
7. Royal Patronage (cont.)
• Active religious orders in the western
hemisphere:
• Augustinians
• Dominicans
• Franciscans
• The Society of Jesus (Jesuits)
• Rare voices for the oppressed:
• Bartolomé de Las Casas
• Peter Claver for slaves
8. Royal Patronage (cont.):
Toward the East
• Vasco de Gama to India via the Cape
• Portugal’s control of Goa (“Rome of the East”)
“The two swords of the civil and the ecclesiastical power
were always . . . close together in the conquest of the
East. . . . For the weapons only conquered through the
right that the preaching of the Gospel gave them, and the
preaching was only of some use when it was accompanied
and protected by the weapons” (Boxer 1978, 75).
9. Beyond the
Royal Patronage in Asia
• Jesuits
• Francis Xavier (Goa and Japan)
• Allesandro Valignano (Japan)
• Matteo Ricci (China)
• Alexandre de Rhodes (Vietnam)
• Franciscans and Dominicans
• The Chinese “Rites Controversy”
10. New Developments
in Catholic Mission
• Spain and Portugal fell into military and economic
decline.
• French missionaries in North America
• Marie Guyart
• Isaac Jogues
• Jacques Marquette
• The Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of
the Faith (“Propaganda Fide”) was established in
1622.
• The Jesuit order was dissolved in 1773.
12. Reformers and Mission
• The Reformers, faced with a host of other
problems, gave relatively little attention to
mission in non-Christian lands.
• Anabaptists focused on evangelism:
• First missionary conference in 1527
• “Apostles” sent throughout Europe
• Persecution hampered their efforts
14. Hope for the World
• Renewal sparked revivals:
• Revivalism in the Lutheran and
Reformed churches in continental Europe
• Evangelical and Methodist revivals in the
United Kingdom
• The Great Awakening in the North
American English colonies
15. Hope for the World (cont.)
• Renewed mission focus:
• Pietists: Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg and
Heinrich Plütschau to the coast of
southern India (1706)
• Moravians:
• “Moravian Pentecost”
• One hundred years of constant prayer
• All Moravians sent abroad considered
missionaries
16. Hope for the World (cont.)
• William Carey:
• An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians
to Use Means for the Conversion of the
Heathens (1792)
• Baptist Missionary Society founded (1792)
• Other new agencies:
• London Missionary Society (1795)
• Church Missionary Society (1799)
• Netherlands Missionary Society (1797)
17. The Great Century
• The Command of Christ
• Woman’s Work for Woman
• Mission Societies
• Mission Strategies
19. The Great Century
• Colonialism meant legal standing and
protection for missionaries.
• Many missionaries believed that God had
sovereignly given the subcontinent to
England for its Christianization.
• Colonialism gave businessmen unrestricted
access to natural resources, cheap labor, and
sizable profits.
20. The Great Century
• The close connection of colonialism and
mission appeared to serve the common
good, as evident in the explorations of
missionaries.
• Greed sidetracked missionary efforts, and
exploitation by colonial powers
contradicted Christian preaching and
“civilization.”
21. The Command
of Christ
• A flood of missionaries went in obedience
to Christ’s Great Commission.
• Missionary casualties abounded, but faith to
send more remained strong:
• Within twenty years fifty Church Missionary
Society missionaries died in Sierra Leone.
• During the first two decades of its work in
India, more missionaries of the American
Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
(ABCFM) died than people converted.
22. The Command
of Christ (cont.)
• Cannibals took the lives of John Williams in
the New Hebrides and James Chalmers in New
Guinea.
• Jean Théophane Vénard and other Catholic
missionaries were executed in Vietnam.
• Approximately two hundred twenty-five
missionaries and thirty thousand Chinese
Christians were killed in the Boxer uprising in
China in 1900.
23. Woman’s Work
for Woman
• Women as missionaries:
• Cynthia Farrar (India) in 1827
• Charlotte (“Lottie”) Moon (China) in 1872
• Fidelia Fiske (Iran)
• Amanda Berry Smith (India and Africa)
• Women as mobilizers and trainers:
• Mary Lyon (Mount Holyoke Female Seminary)
• Sarah Doremus (Woman’s Union Missionary Society
of America)
24. Mission Societies
• Mission societies and agencies mushroomed:
• North American
• European
• Catholic (Jesuits restored in 1814)
• Russian Orthodox
• Society activities:
• Missionary gatherings (e.g., Ecumenical Missionary
Conference in New York City [1900])
• Comity agreements
• Growth, development, and impact of “faith
missions”
26. Revivals and Their Impact
• Second Great Awakening in America
(1776–1810)
• Dwight Moody’s annual student
conferences
• Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign
Missions organized
• Holiness revivals and supernatural power
• Indigenous revivals (Jamaica)
