Book Review

Asia

The work of missionaries is conventionally perceived as that of public preaching. From pulpit sermons to televangelism, the missionary is historically a presence in public places, spreading the word of God by oratory and audience capture in places as diverse as bazaars, parks, and street corners. Itinerating, or the movement from place to place, is regarded as intrinsic to the missionary's vocation, so much so that the missionary is seen as the prototypical explorer, prefiguring the colonialist adventurer. If, in time, the work of Christianization dovetails with the work of empire, the missionary's role must be seen as key in charting the path to global domination.	1
Why, then, when empire was so successful in consolidating the hold of Christian countries over non-Christian ones, did the missionary enterprise of preaching by itinerating constantly struggle to sustain itself, often diverting its resources to other activities such as social reform and education? This was particularly true in colonial India, where Christianity had to take on religions so deeply entrenched in the social system that missionaries found the only way they could communicate Christian teachings was, paradoxically, by submitting themselves to a strenuous course of studies in Indian religions. Driven by a spirit of Christian apologetics, missionaries proved to be not only explorers but also proto-Orientalists, turning the study of indigeneous traditions into a demonstration of Christianity's superior doctrinal merits. The fact that the work of missionaries was engaged by a range of activities taking them away from a straightforward dissemination of Christian truths—handing out Bibles at street corners being its most uncomplicated expression—suggests how stressful was the process of missionization. The success rate in gaining converts was never quite proportionate to the efforts expended.	2
Antony Copley's book surveys the shifts in missionary purposes in nineteenth-century India, concluding that the latter part of the century marked a departure from itinerating to education. Such a shift, notes Copley, was a concession to the diminished returns on door-to-door preaching and the fact that education offered strategic access both to the lower castes seeking escape from the debilitating hold of Hinduism and the upper castes desiring the accoutrements of Western culture. If missionaries were drawn into the work of education rather than itinerating, it is a measure of the greater social reach offered by educating young Indians, who looked to selfless missionaries as alternative father figures. Although homoeroticism is a muted theme in Copley's book, there are strong suggestions that the missionaries presented a model of gentleness and effeminate caring that attracted young males to them, especially those burdened by the strictures of Hindu patriarchy. Indeed, intense personal relations between missionary and pupil accounted for far greater success in gaining converts than the most ardent preachings in bazaars and other public places.	3
To illuminate these connections and shifts, Copley divides his book into three sections: first, a critical overview of the main issues in Indian missiology; second, a regional examination of English missionaries working in North, East, and South India; and third, a study of Indian converts in the same three regions of India. The book's chief contribution lies in its account of regional differences in the growth of missions and Christian conversions. At times, however, the short sketches of missionaries and converts have too much of a profile-oriented approach that obscures the enunciation of broader themes and developments, particularly those related to colonial policy and new alignments of metropole and colony. Nonetheless, Copley's reading of the missionary archives yields fresh documentation of the ongoing tension between itinerating and education. Even though education may have superseded itinerating in the 1880s, this tension was never effectively resolved. Following the disastrous Mutiny of 1857, itinerating allowed missionaries to project their own narrative of events, contesting the official view that their zeal provoked the rebellion. One might add that even the intense missionary desire to ghost-author converts' life stories must be related to the same urge to control the narrative point of view of mission.	. . .