Book Review: The Bible and the Flag: Protestant Missions and British Imperialism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Smith, Alexandra; Thompson, Jack

doi:10.1177/009182969101900410

Cited by 4 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…Because of the connection between Christianity and colonialism, "Christian mission seen from the perspective of postcolonialism has had to wrestle with the legacy of mission during the colonial period" (Sebastian 2022:348). Indeed, much writing has looked at this relationship between mission and colonialism (e.g., Stanley 1990, Etherington 2005, Robert 2008, and Carey 2011.…”

Section: Missiologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Listening to the Other: Kuang’s Babel, Postcolonialism, and Bible Translation

Liao

2024

Journal of Translation

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Despite its influence in the broader academy, postcolonial thought has had minimal impact on the study of Bible translation. This article examines postcolonialism, drawing out common themes from the contested descriptions of the discipline, and briefly reviews some of the ways postcolonial thought has contributed to Missiology, Biblical Studies, and Translation Studies. It then explores the general lack of interaction between postcolonial criticism and studies of Bible translation and suggests ways that attending to postcolonial critiques could benefit the field. The article concludes with a case study using the history of Thai translations of the Bible to illustrate some of the benefits that could be brought to studies of Bible translation by an increased sensitivity to postcolonial thought.

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Section: Missiologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Listening to the Other: Kuang’s Babel, Postcolonialism, and Bible Translation

Liao

2024

Journal of Translation

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“…Another key player in the study of missionary activity in the Portuguese empire was the Protestant missionaries and their societies that outlined projects to evangelise the African populations living in the regions administered or claimed by Portugal. Set up by Protestant churches or individuals imbued with a deep pietistic zeal and committed to converting the "pagans" to the Christian faith and the supposed "benefits of civilisation", these organisations fuelled various evangelising journeys beyond Europe and, later, beyond North America, in some cases before those territories were touched by any form of European political rule (Stanley 1990;Etherington 1999;Porter 2004). The emergence of Protestant missionary work from the end of the eighteenth century onwards altered the predominance of Catholicism in the evangelisation of non-Christians, opening up space for intense interdenominational competition within Protestantism, and inter-confessional competition with the Catholic world, which would mark the growth of Christianity throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Prudhomme and Lenoble-Bart 2011).…”

Section: A Transnational Castmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, missions were (and still are) more than merely a conversion process. Missions were in constant and simultaneous dialogue with other societal dimensions-politics, economics, and culture (Stanley 1990;Porter 2003Porter , 2004Prudhomme 2004;Etherington 2005;Daughton and White 2012). Obviously, for its constituents-the missionaries-the primary goal of every mission was converting the increasing number of colonial subjects.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Nation and Empire? Questioning the Role of Religious Missions under Portuguese Colonial Rule at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

Dores

2024

Religions

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From the beginning of European overseas expansion in the fifteenth century, religious missions occupied an important place in the internal organisation of colonial empires. Their contribution to the ideological structuring of imperialism and the interaction with local populations is undeniable. With the emergence of the new imperialism and the scramble for Africa (after the 1870s), the missions, often anticipating the colonial political and administrative presence, enhanced their role as advocates of Europe’s “civilising mission”, above all through the education of the colonised peoples. For Portuguese decision-makers, the religious missions, with a multi-century tradition, had an important role in defending territorial claims overseas and promoting the empire’s nationalisation. However, the lack of national missionaries, Christianity’s inter-confessional competition in the nineteenth century and the emergence of international legal rules protecting missionary activities hindered Portugal’s strategies. Using sources from several archives (in Lisbon, the Vatican, and elsewhere) to emphasise the role of a transnational missionary staff and the international law of missions, this text intersects these aspects, examining their convergence in the controversial case of the exit and replacement of Jesuit missionaries in Mozambique in 1910–1911, to demonstrate the need to look at the missionary issues in the Portuguese overseas domains from perspectives that go beyond nation and empire.

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“…Many aspects of the Mission to Seamen's relationship to the objects of their evangelising is familiar to those who have studied the entanglement between Christian missions and imperial ideologies, practices and institutions (Cox, 2002;Skinner and Lester, 2012: 740;Stanley, 1990;Viswanathan, 1998, inter alia). In some places, the Christianity the missions brought was adopted and indigenised; in others, it was vociferously resisted.…”

Section: The Mission To Seafarersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In some places, the Christianity the missions brought was adopted and indigenised; in others, it was vociferously resisted. Many 19th-century British missionaries saw colonial commerce as a part of God's plan for civilising Asians and Africans (Cox, 2002;Stanley, 1990). Sometimes, Anglican missions represented the empire while simultaneously contesting commercial enterprises that exploited the indigenous populations, in what Jane Samson has called 'protective supremacy' (Samson, 1998: 50-54).…”

Section: The Mission To Seafarersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Humanitarianism and racial capitalism in the age of global shipping

Khalili

2022

European Journal of International Relations

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In what ways does humanitarianism uphold racial capitalism? The article draws on and expands Cedric Robinson’s arguments about the relationship between humanitarianism and racial capitalism in his Black Marxism. It does so by focusing on the Mission to Seafarers in the countries of the Persian/Arabian Gulf. The Mission has worked alongside state institutions and businesses, both before and after independence from Britain, to facilitate maritime trade through these Arabian ports. In the context of seafarer exploitation, these institutions – the extractive, the governing and the caring – need to ensure worker productivity to facilitate racial accumulation of capital. I argue that the Mission acts as part of the structure of political economic order to produce a racially striated, capitalist politics of care to individuated and atomised seafarers, acting to conciliate conflicts between seafarers and shipowners, maintain seafarer productivity and diminish the possibility of collective mobilisation.

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Book Review: The Bible and the Flag: Protestant Missions and British Imperialism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

Listening to the Other: Kuang’s Babel, Postcolonialism, and Bible Translation

Listening to the Other: Kuang’s Babel, Postcolonialism, and Bible Translation

Beyond Nation and Empire? Questioning the Role of Religious Missions under Portuguese Colonial Rule at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

Humanitarianism and racial capitalism in the age of global shipping

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