Read complete books and articles on: Women Missionaries

Missions - term generally applied to organizations formed for the purpose of extending religious teaching, whether at home or abroad. It also indicates the stations or the fields where such teaching is given. In a more particular sense it designates the efforts to disseminate the Christian religion.

From the first steps taken by the disciples of Jesus to carry out his direction to preach his

From the first steps taken by the disciples of Jesus to carry out his direction to preach his gospel throughout "all the world," the history of the Christian church has been in great part a history of missions. Christianity rapidly gained converts, spreading through Asia Minor to Alexandria and into Europe by way of Greece and Rome. There were centers of Christian mission in Alexandria by the 2d cent., and at Constantinople by 404. Through his missionary efforts Ulfilas (311–83) converted the Goths to Arian Christianity (also see Arianism). The following centuries were marked by notable missionary labors in Scotland, Ireland, and Central Europe and among the Northmen, reaching even to Iceland and Greenland. St. Patrick, St. Augustine of Canterbury, and St. Boniface are great names of that era. After the Christianization of Europe there was little missionary effort until the 16th cent.

Roman Catholic Missions

Roman Catholic missions were in the past, as now, almost entirely in the hands of the religious orders. The great missionary orders are the Benedictines (which evangelized medieval Germany), Franciscans (especially the Capuchins), Dominicans (founded for missions among the Albigenses), Carmelites, and Jesuits (involved with the education of boys). The Jesuits (see Jesus, Society of) were the great missionaries of the Counter Reformation. They went to East Asia (see Francis Xavier, Saint), to America, and to Protestant N Europe. It was the Jesuits who kept up the English missions in the 16th and 17th cent.

The first Catholic missionaries in Canada were Recollects, who worked in the first part of the 17th cent.; they were soon followed by Jesuits. Notable of these Jesuits were Jerome Lalemant, Jean de Brébeuf, and Isaac Jogues; they may be regarded as a principal factor in the growth of the Canadian frontier and in the exploration of Canada and the upper Mississippi. The Jesuit Relations, the individual journals of these Jesuits, are exceedingly important sources of early American history. In the period of the conquest of Central and South America by Spain the church sent its missionaries with the conquerors. The Franciscans and Jesuits were the most important orders in Mexico. In the late 18th and early 19th cent. there was an extensive Catholic missionary interest in the Mississippi valley, and many Italians and French came to America to teach in the newly opened country. Bardstown, Ky., was the chief center.

Since the 17th cent. practically all Roman Catholic missions have been administered by one of the Roman congregations, the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples (formerly the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith or Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, often called the Propaganda). This is made up of cardinals, whose office is in Rome. The foreign missions are administered by the religious orders, the missionaries being responsible to the congregation in Rome. A policy adopted in the middle of the 19th cent. emphasized the training of native clergy and the ordination of native bishops. Roman Catholic missions are supported by the congregation, by the religious orders, and by lay missionary societies.

Protestant Missions

Early History

Two unsuccessful attempts were made to establish Protestant missions in the middle of the 16th cent., one by French Protestants for a colony in Brazil and the other a plan of King Gustavus I of Sweden for work among the Laplanders. The Dutch East India Company sent missionaries to the Malaysians early in the 17th cent., and a seminary for the training of missionaries for work among the Native Americans was carried on in New England in the 17th cent. by John Eliot and Roger Williams (see also Stockbridge). The Society of Friends also made converts among Native Americans.

In Great Britain associations were formed to encourage the extension of the faith among the American colonists—the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England (1649), the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (c.1698), and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (1701). The Scottish Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge appointed (1742) David Brainerd as a missionary to the Native Americans. Denmark sent into its colonial fields of the East and West Indies the first Lutheran missionaries—mainly German Pietists—in 1705. Members of the Moravian Church went as missionaries to all continents except Australia before 1760.

Nineteenth Century to the Present

A new missionary spirit was aroused in Great Britain at the end of the 18th cent. by the evangelistic fervor of John Wesley and George Whitefield. The Baptist Missionary Society was formed (1792), and William Carey went to India. Then followed the founding of the London Missionary Society (1795), which in 1797 laid the foundations of missionary work in the South Sea Islands, and, among the Anglicans, the Church Missionary Society for Africa and the East (1799). In 1813 the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society was added.

In Holland, Germany, Switzerland, and France missionary societies were organized. In the United States they sprang up all through the early part of the 19th cent.—the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (1810), the American Baptist Missionary Union (1814), which supported the mission in Myanmar of Adoniram Judson, the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church (1819), and the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Episcopal Church (1820). Although its work had started much earlier, the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions was not actually constituted until 1837. American home mission societies began addressing their efforts to Native Americans, Eskimo, blacks, and settlers on the expanding Western frontier, and, later, to immigrants from Europe and Asia and to persons in isolated mountain regions of the South.

Many missionaries have specialized in providing medical and educational services as an effective means of opening the way for spiritual ministry. Two of the most famous missionaries to Africa, David Livingstone and Albert Schweitzer, were medical missionaries. Organized medical work in India started in the middle of the 19th cent. under doctors sent by the London Missionary Society and the American Board. With the work of Alexander Duff in India in 1830, a new enterprise in missionary effort on educational lines was launched.

In China a number of Christian colleges and universities were established. Work there was started (1807) by Robert Morrison, representing the London Missionary Society. The China Inland Mission, with funds and personnel drawn from several denominations and countries, was founded (1865) by J. H. Taylor. The opening of Japan by treaties in 1858 offered an opportunity to introduce foreign missionaries. Educational work has been an important part of missionary activity there. A marked trend in missionary work in recent years has been the training of indigenous leadership for church offices and administrative positions in mission enterprises.

In 1921 the International Missionary Council, composed of some 26 national and regional missionary organizations and Christian councils in various parts of the world, was formed. During and after World War II missionary accomplishments in many lands were severely curtailed or destroyed, but as quickly as possible new mission schools, hospitals, orphanages, and churches were built to replace those destroyed (except in China, which was closed to missionaries after 1949). In 1961 the International Missionary Council became part of the World Council of Churches, and there has been a high level of cooperation among Protestant churches in mission work. There continues to be a strong emphasis on medical care and education in mission work throughout the world. By the end of the 20th cent. the number of missionaries was around 400,000 worldwide, an all-time high. Of those, about a quarter were non-Westerners serving in countries other than their native lands. In the 1990s evangelical Christian missionaries were a source of tension and controversy in the Orthodox countries of E Europe and in the Roman Catholic countries of Latin America.

Bibliography

See K. S. Latourette, A History of the Expansion of Christianity (7 vol., 1937–45; repr. 1971); S. C. Niell, Christian Missions (1964) and Colonialism and Christian Missions (1966); D. A. Roozen, Varieties of Religious Presence: Mission in Public Life (1984); T. Hiney, On the Missionary Trail: A Journey through Polynesia, Asia, and Africa with the London Missionary Society (2000). For Roman Catholic missions, see works on the religious orders and the publications (in America) of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.

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13 of the Best Books and Articles on: Women Missionaries

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

A Contest of Faiths: Missionary Women and Pluralism in the American Southwest » Read Now
by Susan M. Yohn. 266 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, History, Entire Library
2.

American Women Missionaries at Kobe College, 1873-1909: New Dimensions of Gender » Read Now
by Noriko Kawamura Ishii. 265 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Education, Entire Library

This study examines one aspect of American women's professionalization and the implications of the cross-cultural dialogue between American woman missionaries and Japanese students and supporters at Kobe College between 1873 and 1909.
3.

Mary Lyon and the Mount Holyoke Missionaries » Read Now
by Amanda Porterfield. 179 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

American women played in important part in Protestant foreign missionary work from its early days at the beginning of the nineteenth century. This work allowed them to disseminate the Prostestant religious principles in which they believed, and by enabling them to acquire professional competence as...
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American women played in important part in Protestant foreign missionary work from its early days at the beginning of the nineteenth century. This work allowed them to disseminate the Prostestant religious principles in which they believed, and by enabling them to acquire professional competence as teachers, to break into public life and create new opportunities for themselves and other women. No institution was more closely associated with women missionaries than Mount Holyoke College. In this book, Amanda Porterfield examines Mount Holyoke founder Mary Lyon and the missionary women she trained. Her students assembled in a number of particular mission fields, most importantly Persia, India, Ceylon, Hawaii, and Africa. Porterfield focuses on three sites where documentation about their activities is especially rich-- northwest Persia, Maharashtra in western India, and Natal in southeast Africa. All three of these sites figured importantly in antebellum missionary strategy; missionaries envisioned their converts launching the conquest of Islam from Persia, overturning "Satan's seat" in India, and drawing the African descendants of Ham into the fold of Christendom. Porterfield shows that although their primary goal of converting large numbers of women to Protestant Christianity remained elusive, antebellum missionary women promoted female literacy everywhere they went, along with belief in the superiority and scientific validity of Protestant orthodoxy, the necessity of monogamy and the importance of marital affection, and concern for the well-being of children and women. In this way, the missionary women contributed to cultural change in many parts of the world, and to the development of new cultures that combined missionary concepts with traditional ideals.
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4.

Counting the Cost of Faith: America's Early Female Missionaries, in Church History » Read Now
by Ann White. 12 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

...Americas first unmarried female missionaries, women who went out to Asia and...compromise. The unmarried women missionaries were neither the first nor...Most of the ABCFMs...
5.

Married Women in Missions: The Effects of Cross-Cultural and Self Gender-Role Expectations on Well-Being, Stress, and Self-Esteem, in Journal of Psychology and Theology » Read Now
by Nancy S. Duval, M. Elizabeth Lewis Hall. 11 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Psychology, Entire Library
6.

You Have Stept out of Your Place: A History of Women and Religion in America (Chap. 8 "The Foreign Missionary Movement") » Read Now
by Susan Hill Lindley. 500 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

...punishment of Quaker women missionaries who challenged the...Quakers, men and women, continued their witness as missionaries in Massachusetts...There were twenty-six women...
7.

Stepping out of the Shadows: Alabama Women, 1819-1990 (Chap. 3 "White and Black Female Missionaries to Former Slaves during Reconstruction") » Read Now
by Mary Martha Thomas. 240 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...bondage. 2 Scores of women entered Alabama as teacher-missionaries during Reconstruction...In many localities, women missionaries led their own separate...their race."...
8.

The Mountains We Have Crossed: Diaries and Letters of the Oregon Mission, 1838 » Read Now
by Clifford Merrill Drury, Sarah Gilbert White Smith. 336 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, History, Entire Library

Four newly wed couples, along with one single man, were sent to Oregon in 1838 to reinforce the two-year-old mission established by Marcus Whitman and Henry Spalding. These reinforcements were to become legendary in the history of the Pacific Northwest for the incessant bickering and petty...
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Four newly wed couples, along with one single man, were sent to Oregon in 1838 to reinforce the two-year-old mission established by Marcus Whitman and Henry Spalding. These reinforcements were to become legendary in the history of the Pacific Northwest for the incessant bickering and petty jealousies that eventually caused the deaths of Marcus and Narcissa Whitman and forced the abandonment of the mission effort.
Uncertainty and conflict as well as willpower and endurance mark the story of the Oregon Mission and its charismatic, though contentious, missionaries. Simply getting to Oregon in the 1830s was a feat. Once they arrived, their efforts were doomed by their inability to agree on strategies for converting the Nez Perce and Spokane Indians.
This Bison Books edition contains the very personal diary of Sarah Smith, "the weeping one" as the Indians remembered her. When read in chronological sequence with the nearly one hundred letters written by her husband, Asa, a compelling picture of their journey to Oregon and subsequent life at the mission emerges. Other letters, documents, and biographical sketches enhance the volume.
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9.

Western Women in Colonial Africa (Chap. 4 "Mary Slessor: Missionary and Magistrate" and Chap. 5 "Mother Kevin: Missionary and Foundress") » Read Now
by Caroline Oliver. 201 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, History, Entire Library

...12 Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Women -- Africa -- Biography. 2. Explorers, Women -- Biography. 3. Missionaries, Women -- Biography. 4. Travelers -- Africa --...
10.

Kiowa: A Woman Missionary in Indian Territory » Read Now
by Isabel Crawford. 230 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, History, Entire Library

Near the close of the nineteenth century, Isabel Crawford went to the Kiowa-Comanche Reservation in Oklahoma and founded the Saddle Mountain Baptist Mission. This book, written in journal form, begins with her arrival at the reservation in 1896 and describes her decade-long crusade to convert the...
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Near the close of the nineteenth century, Isabel Crawford went to the Kiowa-Comanche Reservation in Oklahoma and founded the Saddle Mountain Baptist Mission. This book, written in journal form, begins with her arrival at the reservation in 1896 and describes her decade-long crusade to convert the Indians to Christianity. She and her assistant were the only white women at the isolated station in the Wichita Mountains. Crawford's experience there tested her resourcefulness, her endurance, and sometimes her faith. Humor marks her journal as she recounts her struggles to establish a formal mission. She lived with the Indians, at first putting up in a tipi and adjusting, not without difficulty, to their ways. She was "the Jesus woman" who taught the Ten Commandments. In her wake came camp meetings, baptisms, and "big eats". Through the years Isabel Crawford and her Indian brothers and sisters were bound more closely as they raised money to build a church. Though written with Christian purpose, Kiowa: A Woman Missionary in Indian Territory shows Crawford's sensitivity to Kiowa history and culture during a period of transition. The mission still exists and Isabel Crawford is still remembered kindly.
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11.

The Cumberland Incident of 1928: Gender, Nationalism, and Social Change in American Mission Schools in China, in Journal of Women's History » Read Now
by Gael Graham. 27 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
12.

American Goddess at the Rape of Nanking: The Courage of Minnie Vautrin » Read Now
by Hua-Ling Hu. 186 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, History, Entire Library

The Japanese army's brutal occupation of the city of Nanking during the 1937 Sino-Japanese War is known, for good reason, as "the rape of Nanking". As they slaughtered an estimated three hundred thousand people, the invading soldiers raped more than twenty thousand women -- some estimates run as...
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The Japanese army's brutal occupation of the city of Nanking during the 1937 Sino-Japanese War is known, for good reason, as "the rape of Nanking". As they slaughtered an estimated three hundred thousand people, the invading soldiers raped more than twenty thousand women -- some estimates run as high as eighty thousand. Hua-ling Hu presents here the amazing untold story of the American missionary Minnie Vautrin, whose unswerving defiance of the Japanese protected ten thousand Chinese women and children and made her a legend among the Chinese people she served.
Vautrin, who came to be known in China as the "Living Goddess" or the "Goddess of Mercy", joined the Foreign Christian Missionary Society and went to China during the Chinese Nationalist Revolution in 1912. As dean of studies at Ginling College in Nanking, she devoted her life to promoting Chinese women's education and to helping the poor.
At the outbreak of the war in July 1937, Vautrin defied the American embassy's order to evacuate the city. After the fall of Nanking in December, Japanese soldiers went on a rampage of killing, burning, looting, rape, and torture, rapidly reducing the city to a hell on earth. On the fourth day of the occupation, Minnie Vautrin wrote in her diary: "There probably is no crime that has not been committed in this city today.... Oh, God, control the cruel beastliness of the soldiers in Nanking".
When the Japanese soldiers ordered Vautrin to leave the campus, she replied: "This is my home. I cannot leave". Facing down the blood-stained bayonets constantly waved in her face, Vautrin shielded the desperate Chinese who sought asylum behind the gates of the college. Vautrin exhausted herself defyingthe Japanese army and caring for the refugees after the siege ended in March 1938. She even helped the women locate husbands and sons who had been taken away by the Japanese soldiers. She taught destitute widows the skills
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13.

A Heart at Leisure from Itself: Caroline MacDonald of Japan » Read Now
by Margaret Prang. 352 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

...in womens history has made women missionaries legitimate subjects of intellectual...understanding of groups of women missionaries is well served by a handful...Gospel of...