A History of Christian Missions

Just what i ordered!

I got the book soon and book is okay. come together with another book . I don't have much requirement, just want it come on time and it did. no big issue on the book.

The history of Christian missions is a fascinating and multifaceted topic, and Stephen Neill does a decent job of distilling it in his book. Given that from the issuing of the Great Commission to the present, Christian missions have had nearly two millennia to spread throughout the globe, a comprehensive study would take several volumes. (Such a comprehensive study was attempted by Kenneth Scott LaTourette in his seven-volume "History of the Expansion of Christianity." This work, which is detailed beyond belief, suffers only in that it covers only to around the middle of the twentieth century.) All of which is to say that Neill's work is not comprehensive. However, it provides a decent introduction to the major periods in the mission of the church over its history. Even so, some of the fascinating stories are told more briefly than I would have liked. (Although Neill makes a valiant attempt to describe the Jesuit missionary work in Asia during the age of exploration and shortly thereafter, I found that he glossed over many of the fascinating details of the penetration of Christianity into cultures, such as the Chinese, that were initially thoroughly resistant.) I should also note that the Second Edition, which is the last update (as far as I know), was done in 1986. As a result, many of the more recent stories are left untold, such as the rapid spread of Christianity in sub-Sahara Africa and the Pentecostal revival in South America, the reopening of the former Communist countries of Eastern Europe to the Gospel, and the advance of the faith in the face of persecution in China. Perhaps some day someone will do us a service and will update this book so that it will include these fascinating stories.

Ordered it as required reading for a seminary course. Great book.

Stephen Neill’s The History of Christian Missions provides a concise overview of the spread of the global church that is quite solid and thorough in its discussion of “old world” missions from the apostolic era through the colonial period of the 1800s, but is lacking in its treatment of missions from 1900 onward, and particularly in the regions of North and South America. In the first half of the book, Neill provides exemplary and well-researched discussion of the church’s spread through the Roman Empire and medieval Europe. He goes to great lengths to avoid the “Western bias” that has plagued treatments of the ancient church, being careful to recount not only the spread of mainstream Christianity through the Roman Church, but also the spread of minority movements such as the Copts and the Celtic missionaries, and even sects that were decreed heretical, such as the work of Ulfilas (a follower of Arius) and the ancient Nestorian outreach into China. Neill is to be commended for this section of his work. Writing from his own background as an Anglican missionary in India, Neill tends to favor discussion of Indian and South Asian Christianity. His strongest and most detailed accounts deal with India, China, Japan, and Southeast Asia. His accounts of European and African evangelization are also remarkably thorough. As his study draws on through the period of the Protestant Reformations, Neill’s own ecclesiology tends to show stronger and stronger, as he gives more time and emphasis to detailed discussions of the complexities of “high church” polity on the mission field, with less emphasis on “low church” missionaries and their work. This devolves into blatant editorial bias as he delves into twentieth-century missions and the ensuing split between “liberal” and “fundamentalist” groups. His treatment of this era focuses exclusively on the “mainline” denominations that formed the World Council of Churches, and there is no mention of the many early “Fundamentalist” and later “Evangelical” missions that arose and eventually eclipsed the mission outreach of the mainline denominations. Tellingly, the updated edition published in 1986 makes absolutely no mention of the Lausanne Convention or its effects on world missions. Neill’s perspective is blinded to certain major factors in world missions due to his “high ecclesiology” that tends to emphasize geographic expansion of the church across political rather than ethnic boundaries. He tends to consider an entire nation “reached” once some branch of the church has become sufficiently established to support itself. (The exception to this statement would be Neill’s treatment of India, presumably since he is quite aware from personal experience of the need for a distinct manifestation of the church in each of India’s many people groups.) This is most glaringly evidenced in his discussion of the history of missions in the Americas. He provides a brief discussion of how the church became established in the early colonial areas of Canada and the United States, but gives hardly any discussion to the later evangelization of the various indigenous groups across the American and Canadian West. Similarly, he considers the work of missions in Latin America to have been completed once the formal organization of the Roman Catholic Church in those regions was finished. After discussion of the Roman Catholic expansion during the colonial era that ended in the late 1700s (143-150), Neill provides no further mention of outreach in South America until his brief, condescending dismissal of Protestant outreach in the late 1800s (328-330). He gives no consideration to the fact that many indigenous people groups in Latin America are still without the gospel, even though they might technically fall under the jurisdiction of a Roman Catholic diocese. Neill is highly critical of later protestant efforts to evangelize these groups, arguing that they were simply attempting to “re-evangelize” Roman Catholic areas (328). Indeed, his discussion of twentieth-century missions in Latin America focuses nearly exclusively on the development of liberation theology, with the exception of two pages that briefly summarize some mainline Protestant efforts in the region (470-472). Considering Neill’s extraordinary efforts to provide an all-inclusive treatment of world missions in the early periods of Church history, his bias towards mainline denominations in later periods is a significant flaw in his work. His work could demonstrate more balance if he was to reduce the amount of space given to the complex minutiae of ecclesiastical polity in India, and instead include a more well-rounded discussion of missions in the New World. One can hardly consider “complete” a history of world missions that lacks any mention of Nate Saint, William Cameron Townsend, or the 1974 Lausanne Convention!

I found the work yet unequalled among those I have read on missions. I have recommended and is recommending it to all who are intrested in the study of missions and to those who may like to why mission today is still a necessity. Eliseus.

Fast Deliver/Good Product

This book is very interesting. It is written as scholarly work and takes a lot of attention to understand. But it is a great book for anyone who wants to know the history of Christian Missions from the very beginning.

very noble

A wonderful book. How anyone can pull together such historical detail amazes me.

大学の「アジア伝道論」の授業でインドについての発表をするために使いました。各国への各教派によるキリスト教伝道の状況、成果、問題点が、歴史を追って記述されています。記述は、教団出版局の「アジア・キリスト教の歴史」に匹敵する詳細さで、存分にレポートに使用させていただきました。 表紙は、サントリー美術館の「南蛮美術の光と影 泰西王侯騎馬図屏風の謎」展でも展示されていた「長崎殉教の図」の内の一枚です。右半分だけが表紙になっていて、左側の首を切られているキリシタンの人たちは出ていないのですが、それでも、焚刑に処される宣教師の人たち、腰に縄をつけられ、首切りを待っている人たち、周りを取り囲む弓や隊や鉄砲隊、さらにその周囲にいる多くの人々が見えます。女性たちは髪の上から着物を被っています。着物がミサの時に女性が被るベールとして使われていたことが窺われ、彼女たちもまたキリシタンであることがうかがい知れるのです。キリストの十字架を取り囲んだ女性たちを思い出します。 通常、Christian Mission と言えば、19世紀のリバイバル運動のことが頭に浮かぶでしょうが、この本のユニークさはキリスト教の伝播を、2世紀から追っていることです。このため、通常あまり紹介されない16世紀のイエズス会の活動も詳細に紹介されています。さらに、中南米からアフリカについての記述も、日本語ではなかなか見つからないでしょう。難を言えば、各章が時代ごとに区切られているだけで、地域が異なっていても特に区切られることなく記述されている点です。私の場合は、地域研究のために使用したので、こういう構成だと、全体を拾い読みする必要があり、構成的には教団出版局のものの方がありがたいと思いました。もともとは Stephen Neill によって書かれたものですが、1986年に Owen Chadwick によって改訂されました。それ以後の歴史は、同じOwen Chadwick が同じシリーズで "The Christian Church in the Cold War" で記述されています。巻末に豊富な文献リストがあるのも、ありがたい点です。

Excellent book

I first read this book years ago for research that I was then doing into the history of Britain's Protestant Missions to China from 1807-1929 and the Rise of Chinese Nationalism. I still think that it is a very informative and good read covering all the major denominations of Christendom, including the Roman Catholics, in a fairly irenic tone. At times this may make it a little dull but it is certainly packed with facts and with some analysis.