Remembering Jamestown: Hard Questions About Christian Mission

Publisher Description

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. Contents Acknowledgments / vii Introduction: Using Jamestown in 1607 to Stimulate Questions about Christian Mission in 2007-- Barbara Brown Zikmund / 1 Part One: Re-Visiting Native-American Beliefs and Practices Chapter 1: The Romance and Tragedy of Christian Mission among American Indians -- Tink Tinker / 13 Chapter 2: A Failure to Communicate: How Christian Missionary Assumptions Ignore Binary Patterns of Thinking within Native-American Communities -- Barbara Alice Mann / 29 Part Two: Re-Discovering the Concept of Discovery in the Christian Mission to Native America Chapter 3: Christianity, American Indians, and the Doctrine of Discovery -- Robert J. Miller / 51 Chapter 4: Colonial Virginia Mission Attitudes toward Native Peoples and African-American Slaves -- Edward L. Bond / 69 Part Three: Re-Engaging the Christian Mission to Native America Chapter 5: Living in Transition, Embracing Community, and Envisioning God's Mission as Trinitarian Mutuality: Reflections from a Native-American Follower of Jesus -- Richard Twiss / 93 Chapter 6: Salvation History and the Mission of God: Implications for the Mission of the Church among Native Americans -- Richard E. Waldrop and J. L. Corky Alexander Jr. / 109 Part Four: Re-Thinking Theology of Mission in a Multifaith World Chapter 7: Jamestown and the Future of Mission: Mending Creation and Claiming Full Humanity in Interreligious Partnership -- Shanta Premawardhana / 127 Chapter 8: Moving beyond Christian Imperialism to Mission as Reconciliation with all Creation -- William R. Burrows / 145 Conclusion: The Missiology of Jamestown -- 1607--2007 and Beyond: Toward a Postcolonial Theology of Mission in North America -- Amos Yong / 157 Contributors / 169 Author Index / 171 Subject Index / 175