Methodism played an important part in the spread of Christianity from its European heartlands to the Americas, Asia, Africa and the Pacific. From John Wesley’s initial reluctance, via haphazard ventures and over-ambitious targets, a well-organized and supported Wesleyan Society developed. Smaller branches of British Methodism undertook their own foreign missions. This book, together with a companion volume on the 20th century, offers an account of the overseas mission activity of British and Irish Methodists, its roots and fruits. John Pritchard explores many aspects of mission, ranging from Labrador to New Zealand and from Sierra Leone to Sri Lanka, from open air preaching to political engagement, from the isolation of early pioneers to the creation of self-governing churches. Tracing the nineteenth-century missionary work of the Churches with Wesleyan roots which went on to unite in 1932, Pritchard explores the shifting theologies and attitudes of missionaries who crossed cultural and geographical frontiers as well as those at home who sent and supported them. Necessarily selective in the personalities and events it describes, this book offers a comprehensive overview of a world-changing movement - a story packed with heroism, mistakes, achievements, frustrations, arguments, personalities, rascals and saints.

The book investigates the "Entangled History of Colonialism and Mission" in a historical, global, regional-political, social, post-colonial, ethical, cultural-anthropological, religious, as well as missiological perspective. Past injustices and failures, as well as sustainable developments must be methodically clarified and understood that conclusions can positively influence our understanding. Traumata of the colonial past and its entanglement with mission shape the self-understanding of since long independent churches. Reflections on their experiences are important for an ongoing culture of remembrance.

Is the language of mission clearly evident across the broad reaches of time? Or has the modern missionary enterprise distorted our view of the past? Michael Stroope investigates how the modern church has come to understand, speak of, and engage in the global expansion of Christianity, offering a hopeful way forward in this pressing conversation.

For many Americans, Christian missionary efforts have usually involved distant and exotic places. Sometimes, however, we can learn more about missions and interreligious engagement by looking in our own backyard. This collection of essays deriving from a consultation on missionary history and attitudes in colonial Jamestown, Virginia, explores long-standing assumptions related to Christian mission by listening to Native American voices. What were the ideologies and theologies that motivated early Virginia colonists? How did certain understandings of mission and church provide support and legitimacy for invasion and exploitation? What were, and are, the responses of indigenous populations, and how should Christian mission to Native Americans continue in light of this history? This book addresses these still very relevant questions and explores ways in which new understandings of Christian mission are needed in the expanding religious and cultural diversity of the twenty-first century.

Annotation Avoiding the study of specific religions, religious communities, and comparative theology, Perry (theology, Providence College and Seminary, Manitoba) focuses narrowly on Christian theology concerning other religions. The treatise is revised from his 1996 Ph. D. dissertation for the University of Durham. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).