Session Abstract

Protestant missionaries infused with the evangelical imperative to ‘make live’ their faith joined the settlers and the civil and military administrators in British-claimed territories around the world in an effort to both civilize and evangelize new imperial citizens in the 19 and 20C
This panel seeks to examine ways in which evangelicalism, mission work and mission personnel participated in the moral and civic projects that challenged the legitimacy of nation-states and empires and laid the conditions for anti-colonial activity in the 20C. At times mission-acquired tools were used by mission adherents not only to work for national self-determination, but also to define for themselves a gendered discourse of social well-being and material prosperity. Focusing on case studies in East and West Africa, Elizabeth Prevost’s paper will examine the growth of women’s movements, the spread and consolidation of Christian institutions and the growth of an educated populace, organized through mission schools and engaged in anti-colonial protest through strikes, in the press, and through boycotts. At other times such organization happened despite the effort of missionaries. Andreana Prichard’s paper examines the creation of a racialized spiritual community in Tanganyika separate from their white Anglican sisters – the Chama cha Mariamu Mtakatifu (CMM)  performed work vital to the development of a cohesive African ‘nation’ of Christ, spreading the values of a Christian cultural nationalism that would come to constitute a powerful strand of Tanzanian anti-colonial nationalist thought. John Stuart’s paper focuses on missionaries themselves and their responses to the changing nature of personal service by western men and women in the non-western world during the period 1957-67. Although some such people chose to work with religious organizations either mission- or indigenous church-based, many others chose instead the opportunities provided by secular INGOs and voluntary organizations. Finally, Ruth Compton Brouwer argues that the support of the Christian Medical Association of India in the 1930s, for what came to be called family planning in the late 1950s, both anticipated and reflected the new Indian government’s commitment to this cause; it also benefitted from the abundant support available from Western governments and NGOs. The CMAI’s family planning project  focused on the quality of the lives of India’s mothers and their living children.  Canadian nurses, provided by a secular NGO (Canadian University Service Overseas, ‘Canada’s Peace Corps’), became enthusiastic participants in this project.  This paper provides an opportunity to consider changing understandings of the sacredness of life in a cross-cultural context. In the 20C the work of various mission organizations was examined and reconfigured, both from within and without. Papers in this panel examine this project, looking at moments where missions and multi-national communities of Christians negotiated within and in fact shaped the shifting territory of a modern world moving from colonial to post-colonial, and nationally-defined religious humanitarian work being replaced by the work of both governmental and non-governmental organizations.