"Taking Stock": The Church Missionary Society and Its Historians

2019 ◽  
pp. 15-42
Author(s):  
Kevin Ward
Keyword(s):  
Church Missionary Society ◽  
The Church

Ethnographical Costume at the Church Missionary Society

Costume ◽  
1965 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 16-16
Author(s):  
Madeleine Ginsburg
Keyword(s):  
Church Missionary Society ◽  
The Church

Deaconesses in the South China Missions of the Church Missionary Society (CMS), 1922–1951

2018 ◽  
pp. 85-106
Author(s):  
Peter Cunich
Keyword(s):  
South China ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Southern China ◽  
Women Missionaries ◽  
Northern European ◽  
Potential Benefits ◽  
Church Missionary Society ◽  
Christian Order ◽  
Mission Field ◽  
The Church

The ancient Christian order of deaconess, reintroduced into the northern European churches from the 1830s, had grown to include nearly 60,000 women around the world by the 1950s. The Church of England set aside its first deaconess in 1862, but the potential benefits of deploying deaconesses in the southern China missions was not appreciated so quickly by the Church Missionary Society. The Fukien mission ordained the first six deaconesses for southern China in 1922, and another three were ordained in the Kwangsi-Hunan diocese in 1932, but these were all European women. Seven Chinese deaconesses were ultimately ordained in Fukien before 1942, but the only other mission field where the female diaconate rose to prominence was Hong Kong, where Florence Li Tim-oi’s ordination as a deaconess in 1941 led to her controversial ordination to the priesthood in 1944. This essay examines the slow growth of the deaconess movement in the CMS south China missions up to 1950 and evaluates the achievements of these women before the closure of China to Western missionaries. It also suggests some reasons why the widespread hopes that the female diaconate would provide an ‘enlarged sphere of service’ for women missionaries in south China ultimately proved elusive.

The Church Missionary Society and Architecture in the Mission Field: Evangelical Anglican Perspectives on Church Building Abroad, c. 1850-1900

2015 ◽  
Vol 58 ◽  
pp. 197-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Turner
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Infrastructure Development ◽  
Gothic Revival ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Church Building ◽  
Church Missionary Society ◽  
Architectural Development ◽  
The Church

The Gothic Revival occupies a central place in the architectural development of the Church of England in the nineteenth century, both at home and abroad. Within the expanding British colonial world, in particular, the neo-Gothic church became a centrally important expression of both faith and identity throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. From a symbolic and communicative perspective, the style represented not only a visual link to Britain, but also the fundamental expression of the Church of England as an institution and of the culture of Englishness. As such, it carried with it a wide range of cultural implications that suited the needs of settler communities wishing to re-established their identity abroad. Expansion during this period, however, was not only limited to the growth of settler communities but was also reflected in growing Anglican missions to the non-Christian peoples of annexed territories. The two primary organs of the Church of England in the field, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) and the Church Missionary Society (CMS), actively employed the revived medieval style throughout the Empire as missions were solidified through infrastructure development. As a popular style with direct connotations to the Christian faith, revived medieval design became increasingly popular with Anglican missionaries abroad in the period between the early 1840s and the end of the century. Not only did its origins in ecclesiastical buildings make it attractive, but it was also stylistically distinctive, and set apart as a sacred style from both secular and ‘heathen’ structures.

Mission, Empire, and the Ultimate Good: Colonel John Munro, Benjamin Bailey, and the Church Missionary Society “Mission of Help” to Travancore (1816–18)

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 218-241
Author(s):  
Gary McKee
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Transformation ◽  
Great Commission ◽  
Societal Transformation ◽  
Specific Instance ◽  
Imperial Period ◽  
Great Commandment ◽  
Church Missionary Society ◽  
The Church

Abstract The Church Missionary Society “Mission of Help” to the Syrian Church of Travancore in the nineteenth century provides much instructive food for thought concerning debates that continue in mission up to the present day. In particular, the episode shows that the links between mission and empire cannot be reduced to seeing mission as a mere handmaiden to imperial concerns, although empire certainly provided a context to missionary endeavor throughout the imperial period. In this specific instance it was the forceful personality of Colonel John Munro who ensured that the Mission of Help became more intertwined with empire than might otherwise have been the case. Another effect of this imperial context for the Mission of Help was that the nature and scope of mission inevitably ended up being broadened to include aspects of societal transformation. It is shown that Benjamin Bailey was not primarily motivated by such concerns, yet was not unconcerned about them. Bailey’s thinking through of these tensions perhaps provide a way to think today about the links between the “Great Commission,” the “Great Commandment,” and cultural transformation.

The Publication and Distribution of Karamanli Texts by the British and Foreign Bible Society Before 1850, II

1968 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Clogg
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Full Time ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Church Missionary Society ◽  
Short Time ◽  
The Church

The Rev. H. D. Leeves, recently appointed as the British and Foreign Bible Society's first full time agent in the Levant, arrived in Constantinople in January 1821. Before this time the Society's interests in Turkey had been promoted at different times by the Rev. Robert Pinkerton; the Rev. Henry Lindsay, Chaplain to the Embassy in Constantinople; and the Rev. James Connor, an agent of the Church Missionary Society. Within a short time of his arrival Leeves was reporting to the Committee in London on the position with regard to the Society's proposed edition of the New Testament in Karamanlidika, that is, in Turkish printed with Greek characters. In a letter of 8 February 1821 he reported that ‘the transcription of the Turkish Testament, in Greek characters, has advanced very little. This is upon the whole fortunate, and I think it will be best to suspend it entirely until the corrected edition is ready. The Secretary to the Patriarch (i.e., Alexander Petropolis), who has undertaken this work, has so little time to spare, that I believe it will be necessary to look out for another person to perform it, when the amended copy is ready to be put into his hands’.

CHRISTIANS AMONG MUSLIMS: THE CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY IN THE NORTHERN SUDAN

2002 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
HEATHER J. SHARKEY
Keyword(s):  
Religious Identity ◽  
Urban Centers ◽  
Education Services ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
History Of ◽  
Church Missionary Society ◽  
Colloquial Arabic ◽  
Local Opposition ◽  
Egyptian Government ◽  
The Church

Church Missionary Society missionaries arrived in the northern Sudan in 1899 with the goal of converting Muslims. Restricted by the Anglo-Egyptian government and by local opposition to their evangelism, they gained only one Muslim convert during sixty years of work. The missionaries nevertheless provided medical and education services in urban centers and in the Nuba Mountains, and pioneered girls' schools. Yet few of their Sudanese graduates achieved functional Arabic literacy, since missionaries taught ‘romanized Arabic', a form of written colloquial Arabic, in Latin print, that lacked practical applications. Thus the history of the CMS in the northern Sudan yields insights into issues of education, power and religious identity within a colonial context.

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