Black Missionary in an Age of Enslavement

Baptists often identify themselves as a missionary people, and they customarily begin their narration of this identity by invoking William Carey's voyage to India in 1793. But this starting point for a story of White Baptist mission to other ethnic groups in other lands ignores the fact that ten years before Carey set sail for India, a formerly enslaved African American Baptist named George Liele had become the first Baptist to travel to another land to engage in mission with his arrival in Jamaica in 1783. Dr. Erskine succeeds in re-centering the story of Baptist mission with Liele as its pioneer, not only by detailing the remarkable story of Liele's life and ministry, but by exploring the liberative framework of Liele's theology that motivated his missionary work and left an enduring legacy. --Steven R. Harmon, professor of Historical Theology, Gardner-Webb University School of Divinity Readers will love this book because it tells the extraordinary story of a late 18th century enslaved Africa named George Liele who was converted to Christianity by his master's pastor, preached the gospel to other slaves, became the first African to receive ordination and founded the first black church in both the United States and Jamaica. --Peter J. Paris, Elmer G. Homrighausen Professor Emeritus of Christian Social Ethics, Princeton Theological Seminary