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Book Review: A History of Christianity in Asia. Vol. 2: 1500 to 1900

Article  in  International Bulletin of Mission Research · January 2007

DOI: 10.1177/239693930703100118

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Robert Frykenberg
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numinous and the translated Word as
socially transformative, spiritual powers
and principalities, healing, the existential
reality of the message amid extreme
poverty, apocalyptic judgment, and so
forth.
Second, Southern Christianity is
often categorized through use of an easy
dichotomy between liberationist versus
patriarchal. Jenkins shows how this
dichotomy breaks down. Supposedly
conservative groups preach the truth
to power, and women are liberated
by Methodist-style virtues and the
redefinition of male headship in an
A History of Christianity in Asia.
Vol. 2: 1500 to 1900.
By Samuel Hugh Moffett. Maryknoll, N.Y.:
Orbis Books, 2005. Pp. xxvi, 742. $65.
This immense and long-awaited work is
an extremely important contribution to the
history of the missionary movement, with
special reference to the role of European
Christians in bringing the Gospel to
the vast reaches of western, southern,
eastern, and northern Asia during the four
centuries following Vasco da Gama’s 1498
arrival in Calicut (now also Kozhikode),
India. The almost impossible task of
adequately covering such a vast subject,
with all its incredible complexities, is
so daunting that only the most intrepid
and seasoned among our senior scholars
would have contemplated making such
an attempt. Only a dean among historians
of Christianity could have accomplished
such a feat, and done it so well.
Yet even Moffett, with his advantages
of birth, nurture, and many years of
teaching in Korea and China, could hardly
grasp all of the cultural idioms and intricate
complexities required for a work such
as this. Understandably, the very best
parts of this work are those that focus
on China, Japan, and Korea. The many
Christianities of India (or South Asia) are
not as well represented, which is hardly
surprising. Not surprising either is the
largely conventional tone of this work
as a whole. To expect more in a work
striving for such comprehensive breadth,
especially in light of the vast missiological
literatures from which its substance has
been drawn, would be churlish.
Together with the first volume, this
work is unlikely to be replaced very soon.
Henceforth, generations of students and
scholars alike will find this standard on
the shelves of most libraries. The author
deserves praise for his wonderfully
evocative and immensely useful work on
Christians in those worlds so long lumped
International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 31, No. 1
antimachismo direction. The common
thread is taking the Scripture seriously
and believing that it can address with
power the immediacy of the social and
political situation.
Jenkins closes with a call to Christian
North and South alike to a fuller, more
mutually informed reading of Holy
Writ.
—George Sumner
George Sumner, the principal of Wycliffe College,
Toronto, formerly served in Tanzania and in
Navajoland in the U.S. Southwest.
together under that incongruous category
“Asia.” One hopes that the author will
soon favor us with a third volume.
Robert Eric Frykenberg
Robert Eric Frykenberg, born and reared in India
by missionaries, has specialized in the history and
cultures of India for over sixty years, forty-four of
which have been at the University of Wisconsin–
Madison. His books include History of Christianity
in India (Clarendon, in press).
The Road to Delhi: Bishop Pickett
Remembered.
By Arthur G. McPhee. Bangalore: SAIACS
Press, 2005. Pp. 394. Rs 200.
The subtitle of McPhee’s biography of
Bishop J. Waskom Pickett (1890–1981) is
an apt description of this well-researched
and well-written work. The author,
who is currently associate professor of
evangelization at Asbury Theological
Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky, has
gathered thousands of remembrances of
Bishop Pickett from people, documents,
photographs, and even buildings and has
synthesized them into a highly engaging
account of his life. Administrators like
Pickett rarely get the recognition of
prominent public figures such as his friend
and colleague E. Stanley Jones, yet the
former do as much as, and perhaps more
than, the latter to establish the foundations
of ecclesiastical life, which, after all, vitally
shapes and forms Christians.
The one question I have with regard
to this monograph concerns its audience.