The Social Dimension of Christian Missions in the Middle East

by Friedrich, Norbert; Kaminsky, Uwe; Loffler, Roland

• ISBN13: 9783515096560
• ISBN10: 3515096566
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-12-10
• Publisher: Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden gmbh

Summary

Christian missions in the Middle East were and still are a highly sensitive topic. For a number of academics, they have destroyed indigenous cultures and are nothing less than the religious wing of imperialism. A new development in historiography gives a different interpretation: Missions seem to have strongly contributed to the development of social work, healthcare, education, and science in certain regions of the world - sometimes even implementing basic social infrastructure that has been neglected by local rulers for decades or centuries. In particular, the missions in the Middle East have exhibited a strong social dimension. Thus, one could even say that a specific trademark for conversions took place in the house of Islam, and also among Jews during the 19th and 20th century. This volume brings together some of the essential papers of a conference dealing with questions of cultural, religious and social history in this field of research. It contributes to the historiography of Christian missions, welfare organisations, and Christian Churches in the Middle East. The book challenges the predominantly eurocentric depiction of the history of Christianity by juxtaposing a transnational reading of Christian activism in the Orient.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. 7
Framing the social dimension of the German Protestant mission to Palestine. Methodological and theoretical remarks	p. 11
The study of western missions in the Middle East (1820-1920): an annotated bibliography	p. 35
The Catholic Church in the concepts of French and German foreign cultural policies in the Middle East. From the end of the 19th century up to l945	p. 55
Educational principles and activities in the schools run by Bishop Gobat and the CMS in Palestine (1846-1879)	p. 67
School- and mission-conceptions of the German Catholics in Palestine until the First World War	p. 87
Missions and identity formation among the peoples of Palestine: the case of the Jewish population	p. 101
The Catholic Jerusalem milieu of the Habsburg Monarchy and its contribution to the mission in the Holy Land	p. 121
Medical treatment as a missionary instrument and its social consequences. Aspects of the work by the London Jews Society in Palestine up to 1914	p. 147
The theology and practice of Scottish medical missions: the study of missions in Palestine through a postcolonial lens	p. 155
German Mission-Propaganda-Movies in Palestine: how to do missionary fundraising and motivate donors	p. 179
Considerations of the correlations between social welfare, missionary activities and foreign policy: German Protestant communities in Istanbul and Izmir and the diaspora care	p. 191
Attitudes in West German Protestantism towards the state of Israel 1948-1967	p. 205
The reconstruction of German Protestant institutions after the Second World War - the ôPalaestinawerkö	p. 231
Index	p. 245
List of authors	p. 249
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