Remembering Jamestown: Hard Questions About Christian Mission

by Amos Yong (Editor), Barbara Brown Zikmund (Series Editor), Richard Twiss (Contributor)

For many Americans, Christian missionary efforts have usually involved distant and exotic places. Sometimes, however, we can learn more about missions and interreligious engagement by looking in our own backyard. This collection of essays deriving from a consultation on missionary history and attitudes in colonial Jamestown, Virginia, explores long-standing assumptions related to Christian mission by listening to Native American voices. What were the ideologies and theologies that motivated early Virginia colonists? How did certain understandings of mission and church provide support and legitimacy for invasion and exploitation? What were, and are, the responses of indigenous populations, and how should Christian mission to Native Americans continue in light of this history? This book addresses these still very relevant questions and explores ways in which new understandings of Christian mission are needed in the expanding religious and cultural diversity of the twenty-first century.

186 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2010

About the author

Amos Yong is the J. Rodman Williams Professor of Theology and Director of the Ph.D. in Renewal Studies program at Regent University Divinity School in Virginia Beach, VA. He is the Co-editor of Pneuma, the journal of the Society of Pentecostal Studies.

Reviews

[joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent collection of diverse voices for some of what the North American Church needs to consider in her past as she is present to experiencing the Gospel in the present. I appreciated the attention to mission to Natives on this continent being Bad News for the most part and still continuing through policy and practice by Christians and horrible government interference - rethinking mission to the First Peoples requires some change in thinking and behavior.

[Daniel Kleven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. Wrestles with the nature of the Christian conquest of America and interaction with Native peoples. Contributions by George E. Tinker, Robert J. Miller, and Richard Twiss, among others. Miller's chapter is probably the best short overview of "The Doctrine of Discovery" that I've read (but don't miss his much more extended Discovering Indigenous Lands: The Doctrine of Discovery in the English Colonies). I'm glad to see the Doctrine of Discovery starting to come more into mainstream conversations (most recently in Robert P. Jones, The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy and the Path to a Shared American Future, but also in several others). We have to reckon with this fundamental question, and Remember Jamestown was another small step in that direction