The Value of Money: Funding Sources and Philanthropic Priorities in Twentieth-Century American Mission
Journal Title: Religions - Year 2018, Vol 9, Issue 4
Abstract
At the turn of the twentieth century, Western missionaries and mission organizations sought to develop financial strategies that would facilitate the further expansion of the Western mission enterprise. Three such strategies emerged: an increasingly sophisticated, corporatized approach to fundraising by mission boards; faith missions that shifted the economic risks associated with fundraising from mission agencies to missionaries; and self-supporting missions that cultivated economic funding available in the mission field. Each of these strategies had different implications for power configurations in the mission enterprise and allowed the values and views of different groups to prevail. The board approach empowered mission executives and large donors. The faith mission approach empowered missionaries and supporters with a conservative theology. The self-supporting mission approach made missionaries arbiters among a variety of competing interests. This economic approach to the study of mission provides new insights into the complex and contested power arrangements involved in Western foreign mission that extend beyond those gained from traditional political and cultural analyses.
Authors and Affiliations
David W. Scott
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP25986
- DOI https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9040122
- Views 306
- Downloads 11
Introduction to “Transforming Encounters and Critical Reflection: African Thought, Critical Theory, and Liberation Theology in Dialogue”
This special issue of Religions, entitled “Transforming Encounters and Critical Reflection: African Thought, Critical Theory, and Liberation Theology in Dialogue”, brought together diverse international scholars and ex...
Transcending Gender: Female Non-Buddhists’ Experiences of the Vipassana¯ Meditation Retreat
Female non-Buddhists have been writing detailed descriptions of their personal experiences in vipassana¯ meditation retreats since the 1960s. These memoirists relate to the English-speaking world their experience of th...
Black Lesbians to the Rescue! A Brief Correction with Implications for Womanist Christian Theology and Womanist Buddhology
Foundational Black Womanist Christian Theology has suffered from the focus on Alice Walker’s 1983 four-part womanist definition at the exclusion of her 1979 short story, Coming Apart. The focus on the 1983 definition a...
Buddhist Mind and Matter
Classic Buddhist thought understands the mind as arising in dependence on the body. This causal dependence may be fashioned as a kind of “Buddhist materialism”. However, this should not be confused with any variety of...
The Dialogue between Science and Religion: A Taxonomic Contribution
Many present day scientists think that religion can never come to terms with science. In sharp contrast with this widespread opinion, this paper argues that, historically, scientific reasoning and religious belief join...