Christian Mission - How Christianity Became A World Religion

Exploring how Christianity became a world religion, this brief history examines Christian missions and their relationship to the current globalization of Christianity.
A short and enlightening history of Christian missions: a phenomenon that many say reflects the single most important intercultural movement over a sustained period of human history
Offers a thematic overview that takes into account the political, cultural, social, and theological issues
Discusses the significance of missions to the globalization of Christianity, and broadens our understanding of Christianity as a multicultural world religion
Helps Western audiences understand the meaning of mission as a historical process
Contains several new maps that illustrate demographic shifts in world Christianity

Dana L. Robert is the Truman Collins Professor of World Christianity and the History of Mission at Boston University. She is the author or editor of numerous works on the history of Christian missions and non-western Christianity, including American Women in Mission: A Social History of their Thought and Practice (1997).

"Robert's book, by drawing on more recent scholarship incorporates a global view and puts world Christianity at the center of the narrative, where it belongs, This re-writing" of the history of Christian missions has just begun and likely will occupy scholars for years to come." (Church History, June 2010)
"This work is a valuable contribution to the subject." (CHOICE, December 2009)"Roberts helpfully reminds the readers that this...must be understood by accounting for the various players and settings in which it unfolds: "It is important to study the spiders, but it is equally important to notice the web" (177).Christian Mission, appropriate as a college or graduate level text, is a commendable introduction to those seeking to make sense of this tangled web." (Missology, 2010)"[This book] does a lot of things (including a chronological and thematic study of 2000 years of Christian mission!). Along the way, Robert points out that Christian missionaries have done much good for the societies they have entered." (The Gospel Coalition, January 2010)
"A masterful survey of mission in Christian history from the very origins of the religion to the present. … It should be required reading for any undergraduate course on Christianity or world religions." (International Bulletin of Missionary Research, October 2009)
"Robert unerringly focuses on the most important issues. She is especially good on the persistence of gender issues in mission history." (Christian Century, October 2009)
" Dana Robert distils a quarter of a century of her research into an erudite and accessible single-volume account of how Christianity became the largest religious tradition in the world. There is no better place for any reader to start becoming informed about this important subject."
–David Hempton, Harvard University
"Remarkable for the range and depth of the material Robert is able to pack into so short a book. Reliable and readable, it is especially valuable for its treatment of the relation between western and non-western missionary activity."
–David A. Hollinger, University of California, Berkeley
"Dana Robert's richly textured book shows us that the history of Christian missions is far from being merely a European colonial story, and will be immensely valuable to students and general readers who are concerned to uncover the historical roots of Christianity's current status as a truly global faith."
–Brian Stanley, University of Edinburgh

List of Illustrations.
Acknowledgments.
Introduction.
Part I: The Making of a World Religion: Christian Mission through the Ages:.
1. From Christ to Christendom.
From Jerusalem into “All the World”.
The Creation of Catholic Europe, 400–1400.
2. Vernaculars and Volunteers, 1450–.
Bible Translation and the Roots of Modern Missions.
The Revitalization of Catholic Missions.
The Beginnings of Protestant Missions.
Voluntarism and Mission.
Protestant Missionary Activities in the Nineteenth Century.
3. Global Networking for the Nations, 1910–.
The Growth of Global Networks.
International Awakenings.
Awakening Internationalism.
Post-Colonial Rejection of Christian Mission.
Africans, Asians, and Latin Americans in Mission.
Part II: Themes in Mission History:.
4. The Politics of Missions: Empire, Human Rights, and Land.
Critiques of Missions.
Missionaries and Human Rights.
Missionaries and the Land.
Missions and Ecology.
5. Women in World Mission: Purity, Motherhood, and Women’s Well-Being.
Women as Missionaries.
Purity and Gender Neutrality.
The Mission of Motherhood.
Women’s Well-Being and Social Change.
6. Conversion and Christian Community: The Missionary from St. Patrick to Bernard Mizeki.
Who Was St. Patrick?.
Bernard Mizeki, “Apostle to the Shona”.
Missionaries and the Formation of Communal Christian Identities.
7. Postscript: Multicultural Missions in Global Context.
Bibliography.
Index