Reviewing American Methodism's expansion around the world during the late 19th and early_ 20th ce... more Reviewing American Methodism's expansion around the world during the late 19th and early_ 20th centuries, one is struck .bythe large number of educational institutions Methodists founded. Shaped by the antiintellectualism of the frontier, Methodism had nevertheless by 1844 established thirteen colleges, putting it second only to the Presbyterians with their historic emphasis on a learned ministry. 1 By 1897, the M• ethodist Episcopal Church, the largest of the American Methodist bodies, was sponsoring fifty-four colleges and universities in the United States. 2 Around the turn of the century, American Methodists were busy establishing nascent colleges and universities in China, Japan, Korea, Latin America, and India. Pioneer missionaries in Africa dreamed of founding Methodist colleges in their mission field as well. The mission policy of 19th century Methodism, whether in the United States or beyond, was that of expansion. As soon as Methodism had established itself in one location, it moved on. In the words of missionary Stephen Baldwin, "With an ambition like Alexander's, only that it is holy and unselfish, it is ever longing for 'more worlds to conquer.' " 3 Despite thin ranks and shoestring budgets, Methodist missions pushed onward, driven by evangelistic zeal. How does one reconcile the evangelistic, church-planting focus of 19th century Methodism with its record of founding institutions of higher education around the world? From a late 20th century secular perspective, evangelism and higher education seem to be at odds with each other. Indeed, the argument that advanced education undercuts the Christian faith has been a theme in the Methodist press from the early 19th century to the present. It can be argued, however, that a connection between evangelism and education is precisely what fuelled Methodist expansion in thela~e 19th 1
The workshop brought together some twenty persons from varied and diverse nations and political-e... more The workshop brought together some twenty persons from varied and diverse nations and political-economic circumstances - Ghana, Netherlands, New Zealand, Republic of South Africa, United Kingdom, United States of America, West Germany and Zimbabwe. The workshop also reflected a number of Christian denominations - Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Reformed, Roman Catholic and Seventh Day Adventist. The gathering then was truly pluralistic and ecumenical. Such composition made for a rich encounter of varied and diverse understandings and approaches.
Addison, James Thayer. The Medieval Missionary: A Study of the Conversion of Northern Europe, A.D... more Addison, James Thayer. The Medieval Missionary: A Study of the Conversion of Northern Europe, A.D. 500-1300. (Perspectives on European History Series, No. I.) New York, NY: International Missionary Council, 1936. Philadelphia, PA: Porcupine Press, 1976. xiv, I76pp. 08799-1610-9. An analysis of missionary methods in an often neglected period of mission history. Glover, Robert Hall. The Progress of WorldWide Missions. Revised and enlarged by J. Herbert Kane. New York, NY: Harper and Row, 1960. 502pp. LC 60-11775. A summary of the expansion of world missions from the apostolic age to the early 19th century, with an analysis of missionary activity in the two thirds world.
Greetings to all of you! I am pleased and humbled to receive this award. I wish to thank all the ... more Greetings to all of you! I am pleased and humbled to receive this award. I wish to thank all the officers who decided to honor me in this way. My husband Inus Daneel sends his greetings. He is 80 and in poor health, but he is here in spirit. As an expert on African Indigenous Churches in Zimbabwe, Inus has shared with me his life as a missionary and taught me much about service. I hope you will allow me to say a few words about what this Society means to me. When I walked through the doors for my first APM/ASM meeting in 1984, at age 27, I was welcomed with open arms. I remember how I was greeted. It was Alan Neely, I think, who walked up to me and said "Welcome, finally a woman missiologist. We knew this would happen someday." Of course I was not the first woman. There were a few Catholic sisters including Janet Carroll and Mary Motte. There were two Protestant women-Pearl McNeil and Lois McKinney. But I was a full ten years younger than the youngest in attendance. The collapse of mission studies in the 1960s-1970s within mainline schools meant that I was the beginning of a new generation-and the only doctoral student of Charles Forman, who had been the successor of Kenneth Scott Latourette at Yale. 1 Despite my inexperience and inadequacies, I was welcomed by the Society. This sense of openness is what, in my experience, characterizes the ASM. The generosity of other missiologists allowed me to grow into my position. This spirit of grace, through the ASM, has made me who I am today. The attractiveness of the American Society of Missiology as a professional society lies also in its holism. Together we pursue excellent scholarship, but we also worship and pray together, eat together, and share resources together. The retreat-like atmosphere, as well as the ecumenical spirit of inclusion, makes our Society stand out from others. The mixture of academics and practitioners also keeps the ASM fresh and relevant to the work we do. I wish to thank several people who took time to mentor me, when I started my life as a missiologist nearly 35 years ago. First was Gerald H. "Jerry" Anderson, who included me in many important academic discussions, and who even pressured my dean to fund me to attend professional meetings! As an outstanding alumnus of Boston University, Jerry has been gracious and generous to me as professor at his alma mater. 746653M IS0010.
International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 1993
O ne of the hallmarks of American Protestant mission work abroad has been its inclusion of women ... more O ne of the hallmarks of American Protestant mission work abroad has been its inclusion of women from the beginning. When the first five men commissioned by the Ameri can Board departed for India in 1812,three were accompanied by their wives. The inclusion of women in the mission force, albeit as "assistant missionaries," was a startling departure from the usual American idea that a missionary was a loner like David Brainerd, bereft of family for the efficiency of the mission work. Despite the public outcry against the horrible dangers that pre sumably awaited them, Ann Judson, Roxana Nott, and Harriet Newell took their places in the pioneer group of foreign mission aries from the United States. Not only was opinion divided over whether women should be permitted to go to the mission field, but arguments continued for forty years over the proper role of the missionary wife. Granting that the "Go" of the Great Commission applied to women did not solve the disputes over their role. The missionary charge given before departure to Harriet Newell and Ann Judson by PastorJonathan Allen commanded them to evangelize women to whom their husbands could get little access. He encouraged the missionary wives to teach women that they"stand upon a par with men." One of the goals of the missionary wives would be to "raise" the women's"character to the dignity of rational beings." Pastor Allen expected the missionary wives to be educators, evangelists of women, and crusaders for New England-style women's equality.' Allen's ambitions for the missionary wife were soon tem pered by the hard realities of missionary life in a foreign culture. By 1840, missionary pioneer William Goodell of Turkey was arguing that the typical missionary wife found raising a family in an alien culture so difficult that only the exceptional wife should be expected to engage in teaching or other active mission work. Devotion to her family was the best way a missionary wife could witness to Christ. Whether the missionary wife "looketh well to the ways of her household" indicated whether the missionary family was a successful example of Christian living for the surrounding culture.' Goodell spoke for many when he argued that the test of the missionary wife was the missionary family. American historians have argued that with the development of industrialization in the early nineteenth century, married middle-class women increasingly were confined to domestic roles. An ideology of domesticity emerged from the interaction of evangelical religion and industrial capitalism." Although women in the mission field kept in touch with the changing roles of women at home, I contend here that disputes over the proper role of the missionary wife did not emerge solely from changing roles of women in the United States. The character of the mission field itself affected the role of the missionary wife. Life on the mission field and the structure of the missions deeply influenced how American wives participated in mission and how they interpreted what they did. The internal debate within the mis
International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 2006
, is author of a number of books and articles on women in mission and world Christianity. In the ... more , is author of a number of books and articles on women in mission and world Christianity. In the late 1990s she conducted research on women's participation in eight denominations in central Zimbabwe.
Transformation: An International Journal of Holistic Mission Studies, 2016
This paper surveys the relationship between mission and Christian unity from the Edinburgh 1910 c... more This paper surveys the relationship between mission and Christian unity from the Edinburgh 1910 conference to the present. It then identifies several factors that cohere in recent missiological reflection, and concludes with a scriptural model for our contemporary pilgrimage together.
This study compares the worldwide growth of The United Methodist Church to that of its “sister” d... more This study compares the worldwide growth of The United Methodist Church to that of its “sister” denominations such as the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church, and the Church of the Nazarene. Among the key findings of the study is the fact that since 2000, on a country-by-country basis, United Methodism generally has been growing more slowly than its sister denominations. The authors explore the significance of their findings, and identify the need for a robust missiological research agenda to understand the reasons behind the relatively low growth rates of United Methodism worldwide. They suggest several avenues for this future research and speculate about possible sociological, structural, ecclesiological, and cultural explanations for the phenomenon.
In 1910, 1200 representatives of Protestant missionary societies met in Edinburgh, Scotland, to c... more In 1910, 1200 representatives of Protestant missionary societies met in Edinburgh, Scotland, to consider the meaning of Christian mission for their generation. In 2010, we gather as part of a worldwide network of meetings asking the same question. What has been the shape of Christian mission over the past century, and what is its future? Because human beings are God's hands and feet at work in the world, we must also ask the related question: What has it meant to be a missionary over the course of the last century? And most relevant to our gathering today, what does it mean to be United Methodist missionaries today? To "rethink mission" requires that we also "rethink missionaries," both for our own generation, and for those who will follow. Although apostolic vocation is a timeless calling, the work of mission takes its cue from its contemporary sociocultural context. Nobody expressed this as well as the great 20 th century Methodist missionary E. Stanley Jones, who wrote in The Christ of the India Road, "Evangelize the inevitable." In other words, the missionary must bring the Gospel into contact with whatever is going on in the world. To "evangelize the inevitable" requires crossing boundaries to witness to Jesus Christ. But the nature of those boundaries changes according to the circumstances of each age. In this address, I will reflect on a few of the changing definitions of " missionary" from 1910 to today. "Rethinking missionaries" means asking what it means for us to "evangelize the inevitable." Except for the proverbial death and taxes, what seemed inevitable a century ago does not seem inevitable a hundred years later. And yet, the accumulated decisions of past generations continue to shape our understanding of the missionary vocation today. I. The missionary under colonialism. A. Missionary as Professional A century ago, the 1200 delegates who gathered at the World Missionary Conference knew exactly how to define a missionary, and there was no doubt in their minds about their importance. Study Commission Five on the Preparation of Missionaries stated as follows: "the word 'missionary' must be taken in its widest signification to include all those European and American agents whom the Missionary Societies directly appoint and use on the mission field in any capacity connected with the work of a station. Hence we must think of ordained missionaries, medical missionaries, educationists, nurses, industrial teachers, Bible readers, zenana visitors, secretaries or business agents, etc." 1 The report described the core functions of the "missionary force": 1. Presentation of the Christian message, i.e. direct evangelization and the making of converts. 2. Manifestation of the Christian life, e.g. "medical, educational, and industrial work." While such work was seen as acts of Christian love, the report noted that in some countries promoting Christian life would require introducing "elements of civilization." 3. Organization of a Christian church and nation. "A living and effective Church in a Christian nation is the end of missionary work." 2
Reviewing American Methodism's expansion around the world during the late 19th and early_ 20th ce... more Reviewing American Methodism's expansion around the world during the late 19th and early_ 20th centuries, one is struck .bythe large number of educational institutions Methodists founded. Shaped by the antiintellectualism of the frontier, Methodism had nevertheless by 1844 established thirteen colleges, putting it second only to the Presbyterians with their historic emphasis on a learned ministry. 1 By 1897, the M• ethodist Episcopal Church, the largest of the American Methodist bodies, was sponsoring fifty-four colleges and universities in the United States. 2 Around the turn of the century, American Methodists were busy establishing nascent colleges and universities in China, Japan, Korea, Latin America, and India. Pioneer missionaries in Africa dreamed of founding Methodist colleges in their mission field as well. The mission policy of 19th century Methodism, whether in the United States or beyond, was that of expansion. As soon as Methodism had established itself in one location, it moved on. In the words of missionary Stephen Baldwin, "With an ambition like Alexander's, only that it is holy and unselfish, it is ever longing for 'more worlds to conquer.' " 3 Despite thin ranks and shoestring budgets, Methodist missions pushed onward, driven by evangelistic zeal. How does one reconcile the evangelistic, church-planting focus of 19th century Methodism with its record of founding institutions of higher education around the world? From a late 20th century secular perspective, evangelism and higher education seem to be at odds with each other. Indeed, the argument that advanced education undercuts the Christian faith has been a theme in the Methodist press from the early 19th century to the present. It can be argued, however, that a connection between evangelism and education is precisely what fuelled Methodist expansion in thela~e 19th 1
The workshop brought together some twenty persons from varied and diverse nations and political-e... more The workshop brought together some twenty persons from varied and diverse nations and political-economic circumstances - Ghana, Netherlands, New Zealand, Republic of South Africa, United Kingdom, United States of America, West Germany and Zimbabwe. The workshop also reflected a number of Christian denominations - Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Reformed, Roman Catholic and Seventh Day Adventist. The gathering then was truly pluralistic and ecumenical. Such composition made for a rich encounter of varied and diverse understandings and approaches.
Addison, James Thayer. The Medieval Missionary: A Study of the Conversion of Northern Europe, A.D... more Addison, James Thayer. The Medieval Missionary: A Study of the Conversion of Northern Europe, A.D. 500-1300. (Perspectives on European History Series, No. I.) New York, NY: International Missionary Council, 1936. Philadelphia, PA: Porcupine Press, 1976. xiv, I76pp. 08799-1610-9. An analysis of missionary methods in an often neglected period of mission history. Glover, Robert Hall. The Progress of WorldWide Missions. Revised and enlarged by J. Herbert Kane. New York, NY: Harper and Row, 1960. 502pp. LC 60-11775. A summary of the expansion of world missions from the apostolic age to the early 19th century, with an analysis of missionary activity in the two thirds world.
Greetings to all of you! I am pleased and humbled to receive this award. I wish to thank all the ... more Greetings to all of you! I am pleased and humbled to receive this award. I wish to thank all the officers who decided to honor me in this way. My husband Inus Daneel sends his greetings. He is 80 and in poor health, but he is here in spirit. As an expert on African Indigenous Churches in Zimbabwe, Inus has shared with me his life as a missionary and taught me much about service. I hope you will allow me to say a few words about what this Society means to me. When I walked through the doors for my first APM/ASM meeting in 1984, at age 27, I was welcomed with open arms. I remember how I was greeted. It was Alan Neely, I think, who walked up to me and said "Welcome, finally a woman missiologist. We knew this would happen someday." Of course I was not the first woman. There were a few Catholic sisters including Janet Carroll and Mary Motte. There were two Protestant women-Pearl McNeil and Lois McKinney. But I was a full ten years younger than the youngest in attendance. The collapse of mission studies in the 1960s-1970s within mainline schools meant that I was the beginning of a new generation-and the only doctoral student of Charles Forman, who had been the successor of Kenneth Scott Latourette at Yale. 1 Despite my inexperience and inadequacies, I was welcomed by the Society. This sense of openness is what, in my experience, characterizes the ASM. The generosity of other missiologists allowed me to grow into my position. This spirit of grace, through the ASM, has made me who I am today. The attractiveness of the American Society of Missiology as a professional society lies also in its holism. Together we pursue excellent scholarship, but we also worship and pray together, eat together, and share resources together. The retreat-like atmosphere, as well as the ecumenical spirit of inclusion, makes our Society stand out from others. The mixture of academics and practitioners also keeps the ASM fresh and relevant to the work we do. I wish to thank several people who took time to mentor me, when I started my life as a missiologist nearly 35 years ago. First was Gerald H. "Jerry" Anderson, who included me in many important academic discussions, and who even pressured my dean to fund me to attend professional meetings! As an outstanding alumnus of Boston University, Jerry has been gracious and generous to me as professor at his alma mater. 746653M IS0010.
International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 1993
O ne of the hallmarks of American Protestant mission work abroad has been its inclusion of women ... more O ne of the hallmarks of American Protestant mission work abroad has been its inclusion of women from the beginning. When the first five men commissioned by the Ameri can Board departed for India in 1812,three were accompanied by their wives. The inclusion of women in the mission force, albeit as "assistant missionaries," was a startling departure from the usual American idea that a missionary was a loner like David Brainerd, bereft of family for the efficiency of the mission work. Despite the public outcry against the horrible dangers that pre sumably awaited them, Ann Judson, Roxana Nott, and Harriet Newell took their places in the pioneer group of foreign mission aries from the United States. Not only was opinion divided over whether women should be permitted to go to the mission field, but arguments continued for forty years over the proper role of the missionary wife. Granting that the "Go" of the Great Commission applied to women did not solve the disputes over their role. The missionary charge given before departure to Harriet Newell and Ann Judson by PastorJonathan Allen commanded them to evangelize women to whom their husbands could get little access. He encouraged the missionary wives to teach women that they"stand upon a par with men." One of the goals of the missionary wives would be to "raise" the women's"character to the dignity of rational beings." Pastor Allen expected the missionary wives to be educators, evangelists of women, and crusaders for New England-style women's equality.' Allen's ambitions for the missionary wife were soon tem pered by the hard realities of missionary life in a foreign culture. By 1840, missionary pioneer William Goodell of Turkey was arguing that the typical missionary wife found raising a family in an alien culture so difficult that only the exceptional wife should be expected to engage in teaching or other active mission work. Devotion to her family was the best way a missionary wife could witness to Christ. Whether the missionary wife "looketh well to the ways of her household" indicated whether the missionary family was a successful example of Christian living for the surrounding culture.' Goodell spoke for many when he argued that the test of the missionary wife was the missionary family. American historians have argued that with the development of industrialization in the early nineteenth century, married middle-class women increasingly were confined to domestic roles. An ideology of domesticity emerged from the interaction of evangelical religion and industrial capitalism." Although women in the mission field kept in touch with the changing roles of women at home, I contend here that disputes over the proper role of the missionary wife did not emerge solely from changing roles of women in the United States. The character of the mission field itself affected the role of the missionary wife. Life on the mission field and the structure of the missions deeply influenced how American wives participated in mission and how they interpreted what they did. The internal debate within the mis
International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 2006
, is author of a number of books and articles on women in mission and world Christianity. In the ... more , is author of a number of books and articles on women in mission and world Christianity. In the late 1990s she conducted research on women's participation in eight denominations in central Zimbabwe.
Transformation: An International Journal of Holistic Mission Studies, 2016
This paper surveys the relationship between mission and Christian unity from the Edinburgh 1910 c... more This paper surveys the relationship between mission and Christian unity from the Edinburgh 1910 conference to the present. It then identifies several factors that cohere in recent missiological reflection, and concludes with a scriptural model for our contemporary pilgrimage together.
This study compares the worldwide growth of The United Methodist Church to that of its “sister” d... more This study compares the worldwide growth of The United Methodist Church to that of its “sister” denominations such as the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church, and the Church of the Nazarene. Among the key findings of the study is the fact that since 2000, on a country-by-country basis, United Methodism generally has been growing more slowly than its sister denominations. The authors explore the significance of their findings, and identify the need for a robust missiological research agenda to understand the reasons behind the relatively low growth rates of United Methodism worldwide. They suggest several avenues for this future research and speculate about possible sociological, structural, ecclesiological, and cultural explanations for the phenomenon.
In 1910, 1200 representatives of Protestant missionary societies met in Edinburgh, Scotland, to c... more In 1910, 1200 representatives of Protestant missionary societies met in Edinburgh, Scotland, to consider the meaning of Christian mission for their generation. In 2010, we gather as part of a worldwide network of meetings asking the same question. What has been the shape of Christian mission over the past century, and what is its future? Because human beings are God's hands and feet at work in the world, we must also ask the related question: What has it meant to be a missionary over the course of the last century? And most relevant to our gathering today, what does it mean to be United Methodist missionaries today? To "rethink mission" requires that we also "rethink missionaries," both for our own generation, and for those who will follow. Although apostolic vocation is a timeless calling, the work of mission takes its cue from its contemporary sociocultural context. Nobody expressed this as well as the great 20 th century Methodist missionary E. Stanley Jones, who wrote in The Christ of the India Road, "Evangelize the inevitable." In other words, the missionary must bring the Gospel into contact with whatever is going on in the world. To "evangelize the inevitable" requires crossing boundaries to witness to Jesus Christ. But the nature of those boundaries changes according to the circumstances of each age. In this address, I will reflect on a few of the changing definitions of " missionary" from 1910 to today. "Rethinking missionaries" means asking what it means for us to "evangelize the inevitable." Except for the proverbial death and taxes, what seemed inevitable a century ago does not seem inevitable a hundred years later. And yet, the accumulated decisions of past generations continue to shape our understanding of the missionary vocation today. I. The missionary under colonialism. A. Missionary as Professional A century ago, the 1200 delegates who gathered at the World Missionary Conference knew exactly how to define a missionary, and there was no doubt in their minds about their importance. Study Commission Five on the Preparation of Missionaries stated as follows: "the word 'missionary' must be taken in its widest signification to include all those European and American agents whom the Missionary Societies directly appoint and use on the mission field in any capacity connected with the work of a station. Hence we must think of ordained missionaries, medical missionaries, educationists, nurses, industrial teachers, Bible readers, zenana visitors, secretaries or business agents, etc." 1 The report described the core functions of the "missionary force": 1. Presentation of the Christian message, i.e. direct evangelization and the making of converts. 2. Manifestation of the Christian life, e.g. "medical, educational, and industrial work." While such work was seen as acts of Christian love, the report noted that in some countries promoting Christian life would require introducing "elements of civilization." 3. Organization of a Christian church and nation. "A living and effective Church in a Christian nation is the end of missionary work." 2
Issue of the October 2024 Journal of African Christian Biography on my late husband M.L. Daneel, ... more Issue of the October 2024 Journal of African Christian Biography on my late husband M.L. Daneel, with articles by Dana Robert Daneel, Allan Anderson, Kapya Kaoma, Charles Fensham, and others
Journal of African Christian Biography 8:4 (October 2023), 2023
Editorial introduction to JACB issue on African ecumenists in mid to late twentieth century south... more Editorial introduction to JACB issue on African ecumenists in mid to late twentieth century southern Africa
In May 2019, the University of Chicago Divinity School hosted a conference entitled "Global Chris... more In May 2019, the University of Chicago Divinity School hosted a conference entitled "Global Christianities: Perspectives, Methods, and Challenges." This gathering was the second installment in a five-year conference series dedicated to taking stock of the field of Global Christianities and engaging in an interdisciplinary, interreligious conversation on the promise and challenge of studying Christianity in its global dynamics-past, present, and future.
This issue of Ecumenical Trends features an interview with the 2019 conference's keynote speaker, Prof. Dana Robert of the Boston University School of Theology.
This reflection was presented at the American Society of Church History in 2006 in the context of... more This reflection was presented at the American Society of Church History in 2006 in the context of a panel on the writing of religious biography. In it I discuss the meaning and importance of biography as a scholarly genre, especially in its ability to surface the relationship between the subject's religious motivations and actions.
This was the draft version of the article by the same name published in Yerxa, ed., Religion and ... more This was the draft version of the article by the same name published in Yerxa, ed., Religion and Innovation. Unfortunately the published version gutted the content of the section on Nitobe and Bushido, as it was edited for length. I am attaching the draft here to correct the missing sections.
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Papers by Dana L Robert
This issue of Ecumenical Trends features an interview with the 2019 conference's keynote speaker, Prof. Dana Robert of the Boston University School of Theology.