The twentieth century saw the spectacular growth of Christianity in much of the global south, the transformation of mission fields into self-governing Churches, schemes of church union (some successful, others abortive), evolving attitudes to other faiths and significant Christian engagement with issues of racial justice and world poverty. This book examines the contribution of the Methodist Missionary Society (and its predecessors before 1932) to these world-changing movements, from the remarkable mass conversions in south-west China and west Africa early in the century to the controversy over grants to liberation movements in the 1970s and 1980s. Pritchard traces the MMS contribution to education, health care, rural development and social welfare and describes the administration of the Societies and the selection and preparation of candidates for missionary service. This is a ground-breaking study of Methodist Overseas Mission in the twentieth century, how it adjusted to changing circumstances - including the forced withdrawals from China and Burma - and developed new initiatives and partnerships, including its World Church in Britain programme which brought missionaries from the younger Churches to serve in Britain and Ireland.

The twentieth century saw the spectacular growth of Christianity in much of the global south, the transformation of mission fields into self-governing Churches, schemes of church union (some successful, others abortive), evolving attitudes to other faiths and significant Christian engagement with issues of racial justice and world poverty. This book examines the contribution of the Methodist Missionary Society (and its predecessors before 1932) to these world-changing movements, from the remarkable mass conversions in south-west China and west Africa early in the century to the controversy over grants to liberation movements in the 1970s and 1980s. Pritchard traces the MMS contribution to education, health care, rural development and social welfare and describes the administration of the Societies and the selection and preparation of candidates for missionary service. This is a ground-breaking study of Methodist Overseas Mission in the twentieth century, how it adjusted to changing circumstances - including the forced withdrawals from China and Burma - and developed new initiatives and partnerships, including its World Church in Britain programme which brought missionaries from the younger Churches to serve in Britain and Ireland.

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.

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.

This book brings together Methodist scholars and reflective practitioners from around the world to consider how emerging practices of mission and evangelism shape contemporary theologies of mission. Engaging contemporary issues including migration, nationalism, climate change, postcolonial contexts, and the growth of the Methodist church in the Global South, this book examines multiple forms of mission, including evangelism, education, health, and ministries of compassion. A global group of contributors discusses mission as no longer primarily a Western activity but an enterprise of the entire church throughout the world. This volume will be of interest to researchers studying missiology, evangelism, global Christianity, and Methodism and to students of Methodism and mission.

Hymnody is widely recognised as a central tenet of Methodism’s theological, doctrinal, spiritual, and liturgical identity. Theologically and doctrinally, the content of the hymns has traditionally been a primary vehicle for expressing Methodism’s emphasis on salvation for all, social holiness, and personal commitment, while particular hymns and the communal act of participating in hymn singing have been key elements in the spiritual lives of Methodists. An important contribution to the history of Methodism, British Methodist Hymnody argues that the significance of hymnody in British Methodism is best understood as a combination of its official status, spiritual expression, popular appeal, and practical application. Seeking to consider what, when, how, and why Methodists sing, British Methodist Hymnody examines the history, perception, and practice of hymnody from Methodism’s small-scale eighteenth-century origins to its place as a worldwide denomination today.

This book explores the development and activity of the Methodist Church in Poland, focusing on the political conditions under which it functioned after 1945. In particular it considers the role of party and state power, and the nature and impact of religious policy towards the Church. The chapters touch on organizational issues, missionary activity, and key figures in the recent history of the Church. Drawing on more than 20 years of research on Polish Methodism and the increasing availability of archival material, this volume will be of interest to scholars of religion, politics and history.

Drawing on a wealth of material from children’s periodicals from the Victorian era to the early twentieth century, Kristine Moruzi examines how the concept of the charitable child has been defined through the press. Charitable ideals became increasingly prevalent at a time of burgeoning social inequities and cultural change, shaping expectations that children were capable of and responsible for charitable giving. While the child as the object of charity has received considerable attention, less focus has been paid to how and why children have been encouraged to help others. Yet the ways in which children were positioned to see themselves as people who could and should help – in whatever forms that assistance might take – are crucial to understanding how children and childhood were conceptualised in the past. This book uses children’s print culture to examine the relationship between children and charitable institutions in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and to foreground children’s active roles.

The aim of this exceptional book is to explore some of the contributions made by Protestant Nonconformity to Christian missions. The occasion of the conference which gave rise to the volume was the centenary of the Edinburgh Missionary Conference of 1910, but the topics treated here deliberately range more widely, covering missions in Britain and the wider world from the eighteenth to the twentieth century.

Volume V extends the study of the Oxford History of Dissenting Protestant Traditions series into the twentieth century, following the spatial, cultural, and intellectual changes in dissenting identity and practice as these once European traditions globalized and settled down in other places.