Protestant Missions and European Empires: Allies or Adversaries?

By the later eighteenth century, Protestant countries’ empires were spreading across the globe but Protestant churches were wriggling free of state control. What were the lessons from the early history of the missionary movement, and how did they underpin the wave of imperialism that followed? The missions’ later success depended on their increasing freedom from political control and their readiness to act independently; but also on the deep imperial assumptions they had imbibed. A lecture b...