The North Atlantic Missionary Project (NAMP, 1996–1998) and its successor, Currents in World Christianity (1999–2001), provided a network and an impetus for international research into mission history and Christian movements across the globe that enabled scholars to reassess the standard arguments about missions and colonialism. This volume, like many of the other books in the same series, is a product of the projects. Robert has edited ten papers originally presented at conferences organized through NAMP.

Robert's introductory chapter positions the contributions as critiques of previous arguments about the relationship between the Protestant missionary movement and western colonial power. The authors treat the modern missionary movement “neither as idealism nor ideology, but as a pragmatic product of the historical encounter between Western Christianity and local settings” (5) by providing close analysis of the complex interrelations and collisions between mission theory, mission practice, local issues, and colonial administration. The contributors recognize that the particular mix of these factors in any one location could engender very varied results, results that might lead to empowerment of individuals in one circumstance and subservience in another. Robert emphasizes this in her own chapter in which she demonstrates that the missionary concepts of the Christian home formed the basis of a missionary method that developed the role of women in missions. She acknowledges that the domestic training offered by missionaries could both be carried out and received as a form of self-reliance, inducing self-respect and modernization for indigenous women, or it could be seen as a form of disempowerment and control, depending on the expectations of domestic labor by both missionary and convert. The deliberate ambiguity of the title is reflected in the nuanced treatment of colonial relationships. For example, the theory that imperial power inevitably led to a “colonization of the mind,” most cogently argued in John L. Comaroff and Jean Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution: Christianity, Colonialism and Consciousness in South Africa (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), is questioned throughout the book. Its critique is particularly strong in three chapters, by Eleanor Jackson, R. G. Tiedemann, and J. F. A. Ajayi on the perspectives of converts in India, China, and West Africa, respectively, who made Christianity their own and entered into dialogue with the missionary values offered to them. Jackson and Tiedemann demonstrate the influence of active indigenous agents in the spread of Christianity while Ajayi focuses on the political activities of mission-educated elites and their modification of the missionary ethos for the purposes of their nationalist aspirations. The “colonization of the mind” theory is also tackled by inverting the flow of influence under study in the first chapter by Daniel Jeyaraj, “Mission Reports from South India and Their Impact on the Western Mind: The Tranquebar Mission of the Eighteenth Century.” Jeyaraj helpfully examines missionary activity and reflection before the high colonial period, thus disentangling Christian missions from the colonial enterprise and demonstrating the positive influence the missionary movement could have on western thought.

All the chapters demonstrate nuanced argumentation as the result of careful examination of archives from churches, mission institutions, and colonial sources, among others. Peter Williams, for example, charts the minor shifts in CMS thought influenced by British concerns and by the changing fortunes of colonial administrations, which caused larger changes in perspective. He demonstrates how, as a result of reacting to the realities of the colonial situation rather than critiquing them, Henry Venn's famous championing of autonomous indigenous churches was also used to encourage the introduction of a racially split system of governance with British bishops for colonial settlers and indigenous bishops for the indigenous populations. Thus he shows the importance of closely charting attitudinal shifts within the nineteenth century and of appreciating both the fluidity of missionary situations and the pragmatism of policies. His dense writing and incremental development of argument repay the effort. A similar demand for careful attention to the historical development of arguments about the response of mission societies to Islam is made by Andrew Porter in his chapter, “Evangelicalism, Islam, and Millennial Expectation in the Nineteenth Century.” Richard Elphick, writing on the South African context, has an engaging style with clearly presented arguments and well-articulated questions for further research. He examines the fissures between and within churches and missions revealed by the Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902) and shows that idealist visions of racial equality were compromised by the colonial situation. Elphick displays one of the ironies that appear frequently in this book: although missionaries usually supported black civil rights, they were often unwilling to share leadership with Africans. Their paternalism and racism influenced the formation of African-initiated churches.

A volume such as this is rightly detailed rather than comprehensive. There is, for example, less attention given to Roman Catholic or continental European missions and a noticeable emphasis on English-speaking Protestantism. It is regrettable that ten years have elapsed between the first presentation of these papers and their publication, apparent from the fact that the bibliography has only a few references after the mid-1990s. During this time the position of the book has become more mainstream. Nevertheless, its contribution to mission scholarship, both in terms of the overarching thesis and the specific circumstances on which they reflect, remains as solid, if less novel, than it was a decade ago.