Origins
Mission—organized effort to spread religion beyond its existing boundaries—emerges from traditions believing their message is universal and should reach all peoples. Not all religions are missionary: Judaism, Hinduism, and many traditions define membership through birth rather than conversion. But Christianity and Islam emerged with universalist claims that generated missionary impulses from their origins. Buddhism spread through missionary monks across Asia. The Apostle Paul’s journeys established the paradigm of Christian mission: crossing cultural boundaries to preach, convert, and establish communities of faith in new populations.
The institutional form of mission developed as expansion efforts became organized. Early Christianity spread through individual initiative and informal networks. Medieval missions—to Germanic peoples, Slavic lands, and beyond—often received royal support and involved monastic communities. The great age of European mission coincided with colonial expansion from the 16th century: religious orders (especially Jesuits, Franciscans, Dominicans) and later Protestant missionary societies organized systematic efforts to convert colonized peoples. These missions established the organizational templates—missionary societies, training institutions, support networks—that persist today.
Mission forms varied with context and tradition. Catholic missions emphasized sacramental incorporation into the Church; Protestant missions stressed individual conversion and scripture access. Some missions worked closely with colonial authorities; others maintained distance or critique. Some adopted local cultures; others demanded cultural transformation. Islamic expansion combined military conquest, commercial contact, and Sufi missionary activity. Buddhist missions relied on monastic establishments and royal patronage. The variety reflects both theological differences and practical adaptations to diverse circumstances.
Structure & Function
Mission organizations coordinate sending missionaries, supporting their work, and establishing religious presence in target populations. Missionary societies—Protestant innovation adopted by Catholics—recruit, train, fund, and deploy missionaries. Training includes language study, cultural orientation, and theological preparation. Funding comes from sending churches, individual donors, and institutional resources. Coordination links home bases with field operations, managing personnel, resources, and strategic decisions.
Field operations establish religious presence through varied activities. Preaching and evangelism seek conversions; church planting establishes congregations; social services (schools, hospitals, development projects) build relationships and demonstrate concern. Translation of scriptures makes texts accessible in local languages. Training local leaders enables indigenous church development. The balance among these activities—evangelism versus social service, foreign leadership versus indigenous development—has shifted over time and varies across organizations.
Contemporary missions face transformed conditions. Post-colonial critique has challenged mission associations with imperialism. “Partnership” models replace paternalistic approaches. Indigenous churches now send missionaries themselves; non-Western missionary movements are growing. Short-term missions involve thousands in brief cross-cultural experiences. Debate continues about mission’s proper relationship to culture: how much adaptation (inculturation, contextualization) is legitimate before faith’s core is compromised? These questions, present from Paul’s debates about Gentile practice, persist in contemporary mission theology and practice.
Historical Significance
Mission spread religions across continents, transforming religious geography. Christianity expanded from Palestinian sect to global religion through centuries of missionary activity. Islam spread through conquest, trade, and Sufi mission from Arabia across Africa and Asia. Buddhism’s movement from India to Southeast Asia, China, and beyond depended on missionary monks. These expansions reshaped civilizations: converting populations, transforming cultures, establishing institutions that endure for centuries. The religious map of the contemporary world largely reflects historical missionary patterns.
Mission carried cultural as well as religious content. Missionaries brought literacy, establishing schools and translating texts. They introduced technologies, medical practices, and agricultural innovations. They documented languages, creating writing systems for oral cultures. They served as cultural mediators—sometimes preserving, sometimes transforming local traditions. Critics note that missionaries also disrupted cultures, delegitimized local practices, and served colonial interests. The historical record includes both cultural enrichment and cultural destruction, making mission’s legacy deeply contested.
Contemporary global Christianity reflects mission history. The dramatic growth of Christianity in Africa, Asia, and Latin America—now home to Christianity’s demographic center—resulted from 19th and 20th century missions, though African and Asian Christianity has developed distinctive characteristics beyond missionary origins. The emergence of reverse mission—missionaries from formerly missionized regions serving in secularized West—symbolizes mission’s historical trajectory. Whether as colonial imposition or liberating message, mission transformed the religious composition of humanity.
Key Developments
- c. 50 CE: Paul’s missionary journeys establish Gentile churches
- c. 100: Thomas tradition claims mission to India
- 432: Patrick’s mission to Ireland
- 596: Augustine’s mission to Anglo-Saxon England
- 863: Cyril and Methodius mission to Slavic peoples
- 1219: Francis of Assisi attempts mission to Sultan during Crusade
- 1540: Jesuits founded; become premier Catholic missionary order
- 1542: Francis Xavier reaches India; begins Asian missions
- 1622: Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith established
- 1792: Baptist Missionary Society founded; Protestant missionary era begins
- 1799: Church Missionary Society founded
- 1810: American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
- 1865: China Inland Mission; faith mission model
- 1910: Edinburgh World Missionary Conference
- 1974: Lausanne Congress; evangelical mission movement
- 1991: Soviet collapse opens former USSR to mission activity
- 2000s: Non-Western missionary movements grow