An account of American missionary activity abetted by Mexican nationalists. Lázaro Cárdenas, president of Mexico 1934-40, is widely remembered as the most nationalistic and populist Mexican executive and was demonized by foreign investors scandalized by his nationalization programs, particularly in the oil industry. Less well known are his efforts to 'Mexicanize' indigenous populations and to reduce the power of the conservative Catholic hierarchy by encouraging anti-clericalism and Protestant evangelical activity. Common aims therefore united Cárdenas and Cameron Townsend, an American Protestant missionary. With the support of Cárdenas and like-minded Mexican officials, Townsend formed the Summer Institute of Linguistics, or SIL, a training school for Protestant missionaries who undertook to learn indigenous languages and to translate the Bible into those tongues. The official justification of this project was that the Indians' new vernacular literacy would serve as a bridge to learning Spanish and thus to assimilation into the larger national population. If at the same time Townsend's linguists also served as evangelists of a fundamentalist form of Protestantism, so much the better; in doing so, the SIL effort would undermine the Catholic hierarchy, which was seen as a rival of the Mexican state and its plans for secular national development. This unusual yet enduring alliance of a national government not known for friendship to foreigners and an unlikely collection of North Americans who united scholarship, political savvy, and religious zeal is this book's topic. The author relates the development of the SIL from its close association with official Mexico in the early 1930s to the late 1970s, when a growing anti-SIL alliance led by a new generation of Mexican anthropologists induced the Mexican government to curtail its support for the SIL. Hartch contributes objectivity to a topic that has been dominated by the polemics of either SIL supporters or opponents, recognizing the self-interest that actuated all parties, but also acknowledging that SIL, whether or not it meant to, empowered and enriched many indigenous communities through the provision of literacy.

Whether you're the parent of a missionary recruit or a parent of an experienced missionary, this resource will help you thrive and stay connected with your children and grandchildren serving cross-culturally. Combining a counselor's professional insight and a parent's personal journey, the authors help you understand missionary life, grandparent long-distance and say good-bye well.

The untold story of the Christian missionaries who played a crucial role in the allied victory in World War II What makes a good missionary makes a good spy. Or so thought "Wild" Bill Donovan when he secretly recruited a team of religious activists for the Office of Strategic Services. They entered into a world of lies, deception, and murder, confident that their nefarious deeds would eventually help them expand the kingdom of God. In Double Crossed, historian Matthew Avery Sutton tells the extraordinary story of the entwined roles of spy-craft and faith in a world at war. Missionaries, priests, and rabbis, acutely aware of how their actions seemingly conflicted with their spiritual calling, carried out covert operations, bombings, and assassinations within the centers of global religious power, including Mecca, the Vatican, and Palestine. Working for eternal rewards rather than temporal spoils, these loyal secret soldiers proved willing to sacrifice and even to die for Franklin Roosevelt's crusade for global freedom of religion. Chosen for their intelligence, powers of persuasion, and ability to seamlessly blend into different environments, Donovan's recruits included people like John Birch, who led guerilla attacks against the Japanese, William Eddy, who laid the groundwork for the Allied invasion of North Africa, and Stewart Herman, who dropped lone-wolf agents into Nazi Germany. After securing victory, those who survived helped establish the CIA, ensuring that religion continued to influence American foreign policy. Surprising and absorbing at every turn, Double Crossed is the untold story of World War II espionage and a profound account of the compromises and doubts that war forces on those who wage it.

Bible & Treaty: Missionaries among the Māori is a complex and colourful adventure of faith, bravery, perseverance and betrayal that seeks to recover lost connections in the story of modern New Zealand. It brings a fresh perspective to the missionary story, from the lead-up to Samuel Marsden's first sermon on New Zealand soil, and the intervening struggle for survival and understanding, to the dramatic events that unfolded around the Treaty of Waitangi and the disillusionment that led to the Land Wars in the 1860s. While some missionaries clearly failed to live up to their high calling, the majority committed their lives to Māori and were instrumental in spreading Christianity, brokering peace between warring tribes, and promoting literacy – resulting in a Māori-language edition of the Bible. This highly readable account, from the author of Ratana Revisited: An Unfinished Legacy (2006) and Ratana: The Prophet (2009), shines a new light on the ever-evolving business of New Zealand's early history.

This book examines the state-building process of Travancore and its relations with Christian missionaries and British paramountcy. It investigates the nature of the `Hindu State', the relationship between missionaries and imperialism, education and medicine, and caste and communal policies of the state.

One of President Obama's Favorite Books of the Year | A New York Times Notable Book | One of the Wall Street Journal Ten Best Books of the Year "Missionaries is a courageous book: It doesn’t shy away, as so much fiction does, from the real world.” —Juan Gabriel Vásquez, The New York Times Book Review “A sweeping, interconnected novel of ideas in the tradition of Joseph Conrad and Norman Mailer . . . By taking a long view of the ‘rational insanity’ of global warfare, Missionaries brilliantly fills one of the largest gaps in contemporary literature.” —The Wall Street Journal The debut novel from the National Book Award-winning author of Redeployment A group of Colombian soldiers prepares to raid a drug lord's safe house on the Venezuelan border. They're watching him with an American-made drone, about to strike using military tactics taught to them by U.S. soldiers who honed their skills to lethal perfection in Iraq. In Missionaries, Phil Klay examines the globalization of violence through the interlocking stories of four characters and the conflicts that define their lives. For Mason, a U.S. Army Special Forces medic, and Lisette, a foreign correspondent, America's long post-9/11 wars in the Middle East exerted a terrible draw that neither is able to shake. Where can such a person go next? All roads lead to Colombia, where the US has partnered with local government to keep predatory narco gangs at bay. Mason, now a liaison to the Colombian military, is ready for the good war, and Lisette is more than ready to cover it. Juan Pablo, a Colombian officer, must juggle managing the Americans' presence and navigating a viper's nest of factions bidding for power. Meanwhile, Abel, a lieutenant in a local militia, has lost almost everything in the seemingly endless carnage of his home province, where the lines between drug cartels, militias, and the state are semi-permeable. Drawing on six years of research in America and Colombia into the effects of the modern way of war on regular people, Klay has written a novel of extraordinary suspense infused with geopolitical sophistication and storytelling instincts that are second to none. Missionaries is a window not only into modern war, but into the individual lives that go on long after the drones have left the skies.

The dawn of the Cold War marked a new stage of complex U.S. foreign policy involvement in the Middle East. More recently, globalization and the region’s ongoing conflicts and political violence have led to the U.S. being more politically, economically, and militarily enmeshed – for better or worse—throughout the region. This book examines the emergence and development of U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East from the early 1900s to the present. With contributions from some of the world’s leading scholars, it takes a fresh, interdisciplinary, and insightful look into the many antecedents that led to current U.S. foreign policy. Exploring the historical challenges, regional alliances, rapid political change, economic interests, domestic politics, and other sources of regional instability, this volume comprises critical analysis from Iranian, Turkish, Israeli, American, and Arab perspectives to provide a comprehensive examination of the evolution and transformation of U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East. This volume is an important resource for scholars and students working in the fields of Political Science, Sociology, International Relations, Islamic, Turkish, Iranian, Arab, and Israeli Studies.