From Missionaries to Missionary Labour: Hypotheses on Evangelicalism in Contemporary Istanbul

Abstract

Introduction: The Missionary ChimeraMuch contemporary discourse on Christian missions in Turkey shares the image of their relations with the West as an imperialist threat and with indigenous minorities as separatist in tendency. Academic and para-academic historical narratives have addressed "cultural imperialism" or the "culture of imperialism" during the late Ottoman period,1 while some identify Western missionaries as promoters of Armenian nationalism.2 Anti-missionary critics discussed below look somewhat anachronistically at "missionary actions" (misyoner faaliyetleri)3 and inscribe the present Western Evangelical presence as a continuity in the expansion of late nineteenth-century US influence. Simultaneously, Western Evangelicals hold as a teleological teaching the understanding of their predecessors' "mistakes" with Ottoman Christians as a condition for their better achievements with contemporary Muslims,4 and non-Muslim Evangelicals emphasise the agency of the Armenian Protestant reformists in