In the early 1960s, Congo was in crisis. As the newly independent nation’s first prime minister was assassinated and violence wracked the country, a white American evangelical missionary was murdered in the streets of the capital city. The story of his death became national news, and US evangelicals, white and black, struggled to understand the politics of race, religion, and revolution that led to [read more»]

Abstract: During the 1930s, Filipinos struggled over how and whether to integrate territory and people from “Non-Christian” areas into the newly emerging nation-state. Under US colonial rule, these regions had been managed separately from the rest of the archipelago. Beginning in 1935, however, the Philippines began its 10-year transition to independence. Filipino governing elites, the vast majority of whom were Christian, [read more»]

Abstract It has been commonplace to contrast Christian philanthropic charity and modern social rights and welfare provision. Protagonists of social policy reform in the first half of the twentieth century argued for the need to do away with ‘the hat-wearing ladies’, patronage and compassion-based poor relief in order to establish rights-based social welfare as part of the realization of universal [read more»]