Motivated by a theology that declared missionary work was independent of secular colonial pursuits, Protestant missionaries from Germany operated in ways that contradict current and prevailing interpretations of nineteenth-century missionary work. As a result of their travels, these missionaries contributed to Germany's colonial culture. Because of their theology of Christian universalism, they worked against the bigoted racialism and ultra-nationalism of secular German empire-building. Heavenly Fatherland provides a detailed political and cultural analysis of missionaries, mission societies, mission intellectuals, and missionary supporters.
Combining case studies from East Africa with studies of the metropole, this book demonstrates that missionaries' ideas about race and colonialism influenced ordinary Germans' experience of globalization and colonialism at the same time that the missionaries shaped colonial governance. By bringing together religious and colonial history, the book opens new avenues of inquiry into Christian participation in colonialism. During the Age of Empire, German missionaries promoted an internationalist vision of the modern world that aimed to create a multinational, multiracial ""heavenly Fatherland"" spread across the globe.
By:
Jeremy Best
Imprint: University of Toronto Press
Country of Publication: Canada
Dimensions:
Height: 236mm,
Width: 159mm,
Spine: 28mm
Weight: 660g
ISBN: 9781487505639
ISBN 10: 1487505639
Series: German and European Studies
Pages: 277
Publication Date: 10 February 2021
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Primary
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Preach the Gospel to All Creation: Missionswissenschaft and a German Protestant Mission 2. Speaking in Tongues: Language, Education, and Volkskirchen 3. Give... to God the Things That Are God’s: Labour and Capital in the Mission Field 4. Go In and Take Possession of the Land: Anti-Catholicism and the Limits of Protestant Missionary Internationalism 5. Tending the Flock: Bringing Mission to the Heimat 6. Iron Sharpens Iron: International Missionary Conferences and Their German Roots Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index
Jeremy Best is an assistant professor in the Department of History at Iowa State University of Science and Technology.
Reviews for Heavenly Fatherland: German Missionary Culture and Globalization in the Age of Empire
In Heavenly Fatherland, an important new study of German Protestant missionary work in the years 1860-1914, Jeremy Best challenges his readers to rethink what they understand to be true about Germany's colonial past by shedding light on the prominent role that Protestant missionaries played in that project. -- Robert E. Alvis, Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology * <em>H-Transnational German Studies</em> * In the past twenty-five years, historians of Germany's short-lived colonial empire have delved into the impact of colonialism on ideas of race and nation in imperial Germany. Jeremy Best's Heavenly Fatherland is a lively and illuminating contribution to this literature. -- Brandon Bloch, University of Wisconsin-Madison * <i>German Studies Review</i> *
- Short-listed for 2021 WCGS Book Prize awarded by the Waterloo Centre for German Studies 2022 (Canada)
- Winner of Phi Alpha Theta History Honor Society First Book Award 2021 (United States)
