REL 253-4 : Foundations of Mission

This volume explores how an Anglican and originally English expression of Christianity took root in non-Western soil and developed a life of its own. Among other things, the book tells the harrowing story of CMS endeavors to spread the gospel in the Islamic Middle East and analyzes the immense but often-forgotten contributions of women and German Lutherans to the early history of the Society.

This study is aimed at abolishing the old cliche that Congregationalism failed to adapt to the democratizing culture of the westward migration. The author argues that Congregational missionaries were aggressive evangelists who successfully adjusted to the egalitarian demands of the early republican frontier. Keepers of the Covenant critically examines the various explanations for the decline of Congregationalism after the American Revolution, and in the process, overturns generalizations that have prevailed for years. The conclusion offers a reinterpretation of Congregationalist decline that challenges much conventional wisdom about church growth.

The Church of England in 1760-1870 was the predominant organizer of Protestant overseas missions. Through close attention to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK, founded 1699), the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG, 1701), and the Church Missionary Society (CMS, 1799) Tennant offers a systematic exploration of the complex relationship between the Societies' policies, decision-making systems, and administration, as recorded in their unpublished minutebooks, and the rhetorical and theological activity of their sermon literature. Thus their 'corporate holiness' is shown to be a synthesis of theology, ministry, rhetoric, administration, and methods of building public support.