Some contradictions in missionizing

Abstract

Opening Paragraph In a recent paper Beidelman (1974: 235—249) has argued cogently for a more systematic study of missions on the part of students of colonial societies and has indicated, in a preliminary fashion, several analytical themes which might provide a general theoretical framework for such a study. The present paper is not offered as a comment on Beidelman's overall scheme but has a somewhat narrower focus, addressing itself to two aspects of missionary study mentioned by that author: the contradictions in missionizing and the nature of colonial society. Given the preliminary nature and schematic intent of Beidelman's paper it is understandable that the connections between these aspects are not made explicit. One of our tasks, therefore, will be to show how the contradictions revealed in the practice of missionizing relate to the kind of society in which missions typically operate. Like Beidelman, we illustrate our argument with references to the work of an African mission, in this case the Wesleyan Methodist mission in southern Ghana (formerly the Gold Coast).

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 20 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.