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Assessing Nineteenth-Century Missionary Motivation: Some Considerations of Theory and Method

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Stuart Piggin
Stuart Piggin*
Affiliation:
University of Wollongong
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Extract

‘It is possible that no breed of men and women can be so safely assessed as the nineteenth-century Protestant missionaries. No other breed, certainly, left more voluminous accounts of themselves to posterity.’ If the volume of documentation is a guarantee of safe assessment then Moorhouse’s bold assertion is particularly applicable to the subject of missionary motivation in Britain in die nineteenth century. Statements of motive, explicitly requested by directors of missionary societies, prayerfully considered and copiously detailed by candidates, and lovingly preserved by missionary-society archivists, might comprise the most voluminous extant documentation on religious motivation (Moorhouse’s boldness is infectious). Furthermore, this vast corpus of primary source material has been thoroughly ransacked by postgraduate students of history and sociology, so that the motives of English and Scottish missionaries for the whole of the nineteenth century have now been explored.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 15: Religious Motivation Biographical and Sociological Problems for the Church Historian , 1978 , pp. 327 - 337
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1978

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References

1 Moorhouse, G., The Missionaries (London 1973) p 170 Google Scholar.

2 The four major theses on this subject of which I am aware are Dow, [D. A.], [‘Domestic Response and Reaction to the Foreign Missionary Enterprises of the Principal Scottish Presbyterian Churches, 1873-1929;] 2 vols PhD, university of Edinburgh 1977 Google Scholar; Piggin, [F. S.], [‘The Social Background, Motivation, and Training of British Protestant Missionaries to India, 1789-1858’], PhD, university of London 1974 Google Scholar; Potter, [S. C.], [‘The Social Origins and Recruitment of English Protestant Missionaries in the Nineteenth Century’], PhD, university of London 1974 Google Scholar; and Williams, [C. P.], [‘The Recruitment and Training of Overseas Missionaries in England between 1850 and 1900’], MLitt, university of Bristol 1976 Google Scholar. Other related studies include van den Berg, J., Constrained by Jesus’ Love (Kampen 1956)Google Scholar; Warren, [M. A. C], [The Missionary Movement from Britain in Modern History] (London 1965)Google Scholar; and Oddie, [G.], [‘India and Missionary Motives, c. 1850-1900’], JEH, 25 no 1 (January 1974)Google Scholar.

3 Piggin pp 145-8.

4 J. T. Pattison’s answers to questions, 12 April, 1836, candidates’ papers, London missionary society archives, school of oriental and african studies.

5 H. Dixon to the committee, 23 February, 1853, church missionary society archives, C/AC1/3/496.

6 Oddie p 64.

7 Mitchell, J. M., Memoir of the Reu. Robert Nesbit (London 1858) pp 27–38 Google Scholar.

8 Piggin p 192.

9 Anscombe, G.E.M., Intention (Oxford 1957) pp 21–2 Google Scholar.

10 For a discussion of the relative importance attached by psychologists to conscious and unconscious motives, see [Assessment of Human Motives], ed Lindzey, [G.] (New York 1964) pp 19–20 Google Scholar.

11 Schmitt, R., ‘The Desire for Private Gain: Capitalism and the Theory of Motives’, Inquiry, 16 (London 1973) p 156 Google Scholar.

12 Burns, [T.] and Saul, [S.B.], [Social Theory and Economic Change] (London 1967) p 76 Google Scholar.

13 Samuel, R., ‘Local History and Oral Tradition,’ History Workshop, 1 (London 1976) p 204 Google Scholar.

14 Oddie p 69.

15 Warren p 48.

16 Quoted in Williams p 195.

17 Ibid.

18 Ibid p 196.

19 Piggin pp 118-23.

20 Dow p 32.

21 Ibid, see also p 411.

22 Williams p 173. See also Potter pp 134-5.

23 Dow pp 118-28.

24 Williams pp 245-8.

25 Piggin pp 177-8. See Warren p 46.

26 Wright, M., German Missionaries in Tanganyika 1891-1941: Lutherans and Moraviam in the Southern Highlands (Oxford 1971) p 3 Google Scholar.

27 Quoted in Williams p 239.

28 Ibid p 173, but contrast A. Porter, ‘Cambridge, Keswick and late nineteenth-century Attitudes to Africa,’ [The] J[oumal of] I[mperial and] Commonwealth] H[istory], 5 no I (London October 1976) pp 5-34.

29 Quoted in Binfield, C., So down to Prayers: Studies in English Nonconformity 1780-1920 (London 1977) p 214 Google Scholar.

30 Semmel, B., The Methodist Revolution, (London 1974) pp 5 Google Scholar, 125, 137, 144-5,147-8, 153, 171, 177

31 My article ‘The Origins of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society: an Examination of Semmel’s Thesis’ is due to be published in JICH shortly.

32 Warren p 44.

33 Quoted in Williams p 227.

34 Allport, G. W., ‘Religious Context of Prejudice,’ J[ournal for the] Scientific] S[tudy of] R[eligion] 5 (London 1966) pp 447-57Google Scholar. See also Allport, G. W., The Individual and his Religion (New York 1950)Google Scholar.

35 ‘Religious motivation cannot be inferred from theological positions or external behaviour but requires some intimate knowledge of the subject. The discernment of intrinsic religious motivation can probably best be done by a judge who is well acquainted with the person in question and can understand his system of motivation.’ Hoge, D.R., ‘A Validated Intrinsic Religious Motivation Scale,’JSSi 11 no 4 (December 1972) p 370 Google Scholar. The historian is not usually sufficiently informed to act as such a judge.

38 Lindzey p 242.

37 Piggin p 191.

38 Potter p 142.

39 Ibid p 135.

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid p 141.

42 Ibid p 161.

43 Hagen, E. E., On the Theory of Social Change (London 1964); Burns and Saul pp 1–4, 9-34Google Scholar.

44 Dow pp 16, 23, 137.

45 Piggin pp 249-50.

46 Ibid 168-70; Potter p 161.

47 Piggin p 160.

48 Ibid p 189, Williams p 170.

49 Potter p 143.