Nature and the Godly Empire: Science and Evangelical Mission in the Pacific, 1795-1850

ISBN-13: 9780521848367 / Angielski / Twarda / 2005 / 258 str.

Sujit Sivasundaram; Margot C. Finn; Keith Wrightson

Opis

Nineteenth-century historians have described how science became secular and how scientific theories such as evolution justified colonialism. This book changes this narrative by offering the first account of the relationship between nineteenth-century science and Christianity outside the Western world. At focus are the intrepid missionaries of the London Missionary Society who reverently surveyed the oceans and islands of the Pacific and instructed converts to observe nature in order to interpret God's designs. Sujit Sivasundaram argues that the knowledge that these missionaries practiced functioned as a popular science that was inextricably linked with religious expansion.

Recenzje

'Sivasundaram's book is a mine of new or off-the-beaten track information … It would appear to be essential reading for the historian of Christian expansion … for the missiologist reflecting on the cross-cultural communication of the Gospel; and to be sure, for any student of British Christianity in the early nineteenth century.' Journal of Ecclesiastical History

Spis treści

1. The light of the sun: stimulus for mission; 2. The growth of the mind: nature and mission education; 3. The seed of the soul: conversion illustrated by nature; 4. The body that will bloom: death and its theology of nature; 5. The plants of the land: building settlements of civilisation; 6. The idol of weeds: the exchange and display of nature.