The Religious Space of Knowledge: The Basel Mission, Worldwide Webs and Pietist Purity

Abstract

This chapter examines the ideological and social context in which the Basel Mission emerged and scrutinises the changing meaning of Pietist purity over the nineteenth century. The Basel Mission drew upon the support of wealthy and powerful patrician families from Basel and far-flung Pietist networks across Europe and beyond. However, it swiftly transformed into a grassroots movement, funded by small donations from a large number of people in urban and rural areas of Switzerland and Germany. The Basel Mission’s evangelising efforts abroad were linked to charitable activities at home, which tackled the ostensible problem of de-Christianisation within Europe and fundamentally depended on voluntary work, especially by women and children. Although healing had been part of Pietism ever since the movement gained momentum, most adherents had reservations about the morality and efficacy of scientific medicine, discernible in their preference for healing and deliverance theology. The Basel missionaries’ prolonged experience of death and illness in West Africa, however, allowed for the reformulation of Pietist concepts of purity and healing through the integration of scientific theories of disease and hygiene.