The Legacy of James Stephen

Abstract

T he interpenetration of missions and politics has been complicated, often ambiguous, and consistently fraught with conflict. The caricature entrenched in the popular imagination-missionaries were nothing more than the religious accomplices of the marauding Western imperialists who took hostage much of the non-Western world between 1492 and 1900-will not stand up to close scrutiny. 1 The mutual suspicion of missionaries