Missionaries and modernity

Felicity Jensz is a historian in the Cluster of Excellence for Religion and Politics at the University of Münster, Germany

• Introduction: entangled histories of missionary education 1 ‘Liberal and comprehensive’ education: the Negro Education Grant and Nonconforming missionary societies in the 1830s2 ‘The blessings of civilization’: the Select Committee on Aborigines (British Settlements)3 Female education and the Liverpool Missionary Conference of 18604 Sustaining and secularising mission schools 5 Missionary lessons for Secular States: the Edinburgh World Missionary Conference, 1910 ConclusionBibliographyIndex

'Missionaries and Modernity is an invaluable contribution to the burgeoning fields of mission studies, education, and humanitarianism, and should be a key assigned reading for numerous graduate courses as well as a discursive linchpin for any further discussion of imperialism, mission education, and competing definitions of “modernity” and subjecthood.'Journal of Moravian History, Volume 23, Number 2, 2023, pp. 157-160'This book is a must for any scholar wishing to study empire and the missionary dynamic that operated within it.'International Journal for Indian Studies, Volume 8, Issue 2. December 2023, pp. 116-117'Overall, Missionaries and modernity is a valuable analysis of how missionaries adapted to an increasingly secularised environment in order to justify their existence. The book provides an impressive survey of key moments in missionary societies’ histories, through carefully selected case studies of policy and conferences, to demonstrate how a ‘missionary modernity’ was sought after, sometimes in polarity with colonial government ideals.'The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 76 , Issue 3, July 2025 , pp. 700 - 702'Missionaries and Modernity offers a valuable contribution to an expanding field of studies on the education of non-Europeans in the British Empire through examining the role of Protestant missionary schooling in the process of empire building... Notwithstanding, by amplifying the voices and experiences of non-European missionaries and converts, Jensz makes an important and compelling contribution to studies on missionary and colonial education in the British Empire.'Inge Dornan, Journal of British Studies (2025), 64, e140, 1–3