A study tracing the relationships between missionaries and African Church workers in Kenya in the years 1850-1900, as missionaries increasingly adopted imperial assumptions of Western superiority. It tells the story of the first Anglican clergy in Kenya, their wives and colleagues; their rescue from slavery, their education in India and their subsequent work in East Africa. It demonstrates their contribution to the rapid growth of the Church and of indigenous Christian communities. Yet later missionaries were not willing to accord to the Africans the position they had a right to expect. The book recounts their protest and the development of a Church order. Similar events in West Africa have been documented, but this is the first time such a pattern in East Africa has been outlined.

The Christian movement is entering a new postcolonial era with centers of the faith on all continents. American Christians have often felt uniquely qualified to lead this growing movement because of a long history of sending missionaries and funding mission projects. Yet something is hampering the relationship between Western and non-Western churches, preventing the dynamic synergism that Christians might expect. Roots and Remedies of the Dependency Syndrome in World Missions, Robert Reese identifies this hindrance as the Dependency Syndrome, a relic of colonial mission methods. With three decades of experience in Zimbabwe, Reese explains the roots of dependency and how this continues to cloud the vision of many well-meaning Western Christians. He documents the tragic results of relying too much on foreign ideas, institutions, personnel, and funding that sideline non-Western churches from fulfilling the Great Commission. Reese addresses remedies for dependency, examining healthy mission models tried and tested since the days of the apostle Paul. From issues that arise from globalization to best mission practices in the twenty-first century, Roots and Remedies aims to achieve what most Christians are seeking but find elusive: how all parts of the diverse Body of Christ around the world can cooperate productively to bring Christ where He is not now known without creating dependency.

This book is a survey of the life writings by and about Canadian missionaries at home and abroad, over the last one hundred and thirty years. A general missionary history of Canada appears first, to introduce separate chapters on the forms and themes of this body of literature. The critical problems presented by writing that has resisted modern and post-modern developments are discussed. Partial and fictional life writing, as well as marginal forms, are also explored. The book concludes with general statements about the whole of this literature and its effects. The first attempt at a comprehensive bibliography of Canadian missionary life writing is appended.

This book is a study of the writings of a group of Chinese Christian apologists in the seventeenth century, focussing on Xu Guangqi. Eleven of his shorter writings are included in Chinese and in translation. The first part of the book is devoted to a study of Latin Christian apologists within the Roman Empire to provide a comparison for the analysis of Xu Guangqi's work. Minucius Felix, Tertullian and Lactantius are shown to have faced, in regard to imperial power and Graeco-Roman culture, a situation comparable to that of Xu Guangqi, Li Zhizao and Yang Tinqyun in regard to imperial power and culture in the late Ming period. The final chapters of the book reconsider general issues of confrontation and adaptation in the inculturation of Christianity.

The resurgence of indigenous cultures and the reappearance of their ancient spiritualities, during the 1990s, is of great interest to social scientists. Several such cultures are featured in this book. The indigenous populations of struggling multi-ethnic "democracies" in Latin America are demanding to be integrated into the national mainstream, together with their holistic values of family, economics and ecology. Institutional Christianity is being challenged by indigenous theologies that are critical of both traditional Christianity and liberation theology. While some see here a danger of syncretism, these developments can be experienced as a breath of fresh air. "Much has been said about the Mayas, but they have not been allowed to speak for themselves" (anthropologist Rafael Girardi, 1962). This book is an attempt to allow religious spokespersons from a very ancient and creative civilization to share their faith, which has remained hidden for five centuries.

The purpose of this book is to gather in a single narrative the rather disparate stories of Dominican friars in Southern Africa over the past four centuries. It is a social history of the Dominicans in Southern Africa, that is, a history that deals specifically with the social and cultural factors of historical development.

Provides new and fascinating information about a major 19th century Bible translator, S.I.J. Schereschewsky, the early years of the Episcopal mission in China, his translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew into northern vernacular Chinese and its Chinese reception.