REL 253-4 : Foundations of Mission

British and Foreign Bible Society.
Bible Publication and distribution.
Bible.
Publishers and publishing.

British and Foreign Bible Society in Canada.

In the 19 papers of this volume, focusing on Britain, West Africa, East Asia, Russia, Europe and North America, readers will find a wealth of absorbing detail. There are the stories of those who translated the Bible into the languages of China and Russia, into the native languages of nineteenth-century Canada, and into many other languages of the world. There are the intriguing tales of those who distributed Bibles, including the many women such as the Bible Women, who found a freedom they otherwise lacked in organizing networks for circulating the Scriptures. Not forgotten either are those colourful characters, like the maverick George Borrow in Spain, who took enormous risks for the Society in selling Bibles in countries where a vernacular Bible was not welcomed by the authorities.

Matthew Engelke offers an insightful new way to think about the relationships between secular and religious formations: our current understanding of religion needs to be complemented by greater attention to the process of generating publicity. Engelke argues that we are witnessing the dynamics of religious publicity, which allows us to see the ways in which conceptual divides such as public/private, religious/secular, and faith/knowledge are challenged and redefined by social actors on the ground.