World Christianity and Indigenous Experience: A Global History, 1500–2000

426 Pages·2021·3.133 MB·English

by  David Lindenfeld

World Christianity and Indigenous Experience
Inthisbook,DavidLindenfeldproposesanewdimensiontothestudy
ofworldhistory.Here,heexplorestheglobalexpansionofChristianity
since 1500 from the perspectives of the indigenous people who were
affected by it and helped change it, giving them active agency.
Integratingthestudyofreligionintoworldhistory,hisvolumesurveys
indigenous experience in colonial Latin America, Native North
America,AfricaandtheAfricandiaspora,theMiddleEast,India,East
Asia, and the Pacific. Lindenfeld demonstrates how religion is closely
interwoven with political, economic, and social history. Wide-ranging
in scope, and offering a synoptic perspective of our interconnected
world,Lindenfeldcombinesin-depthanalysisofindividualregionswith
comprehensive global coverage. He also provides a new vocabulary,
withaspectrumrangingfromresistancetoacceptanceandcommitment
toChristianity,thatarticulatestherangeandcomplexityoftheindigen-
ous conversion experience. Lindenfeld’s cross-cultural reflections pro-
vide a compelling alternative to the Western narrative of progressive
development.
DavidLindenfeldisProfessorEmeritusintheDepartmentofHistoryat
LouisianaStateUniversity.Hehasbeenresearchingcross-culturalreli-
gious interactions worldwide for nearly two decades and is coeditor,
with Miles Richardson, of Beyond Conversion and Syncretism:
Indigenous Encounters with Missionary Christianity, 1800-2000
(2011). Lindenfeld is an active member of the World History
AssociationandtheYale-EdinburghGrouponMissionaryChristianity.
Published online by Cambridge University Press
Published online by Cambridge University Press
World Christianity and Indigenous
Experience
–
A Global History, 1500 2000
DAVID LINDENFELD
LouisianaStateUniversity
Published online by Cambridge University Press
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Firstpublished2021
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names:Lindenfeld,David,author.
title:WorldChristianityandindigenousexperience:aglobalhistory,1500–2000/
DavidLindenfeld,author.
description:Cambridge,UnitedKingdom;NewYork,NY,USA:CambridgeUniversity
Press,2021.|Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
identifiers:lccn2020042270(print)|lccn2020042271(ebook)|
isbn9781108831567(hardback)|isbn9781108926874(paperback)|
isbn9781108917643(epub)
subjects:lcsh:Christianityandculture–History.|Conversion–Christianity–History.|
Indigenouspeoples–Religion.|Agent(Philosophy)
classification:lccbr115.c8l5552021(print)|lccbr115.c8(ebook)|
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Published online by Cambridge University Press
Contents
List of Mapsand Illustrations page vi
List of Tables vii
Acknowledgments viii
1 Introduction 1
2 Colonial Latin America: TheNahuas (Aztecs) and
TheirNeighbors 31
3 NativeNorthAmerica: The Colonial Northeast,
the Cherokees, and theSioux 50
4 Sub-Saharan Africa and theDiaspora 91
5 The MiddleEast 142
6 India 178
7 East Asia: China, Japan, and Korea 210
8 The Pacific 257
Conclusion:ReflectionsonConcentratedandDiffuseSpirituality 293
Endnotes 305
GeneralBibliography 400
Index 407
v
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Maps and Illustrations
2.1 Mexicanindigenous languages page 39
2.2 Facade and open chapelof the Parish of the Purisima
Concepcionin Otumba, Mexico State. 49
3.1 Native North America 90
4.1 The Atlantic slave trade 131
4.2 South African language groups 141
5.1 The Middle East 176
6.1 India 208
7.1 EastAsia 255
8.1 The Pacific 292
vi
Published online by Cambridge University Press
Tables
7.1 Estimated numbers ofmissionaries, Chinese clergy,
and Christians inChina,1590–1820 page 223
9.1 The varieties of concentrated and diffuse spirituality 297
vii
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Acknowledgments
This book was roughly sixteen years in the making, as it involved my
shiftingofresearchfieldsfromEuropeantoworldhistory.Asabbaticalin
2003enabledmetoacceptavisitingfellowshipattheCenterforHistory,
Society, andCulture attheUniversityofCalifornia,Davis.Amongthose
at Davis who provided helpful advice and encouragement in getting me
startedwereJohnR.HallandJacobOlupona. In2008,theGeorgetown
University Department of Theology provided me the opportunity for
organizing a workshop on indigenous encounters with missionary
Christianity, together with my Louisiana State University colleague in
anthropology, the late Miles Richardson. Georgetown faculty members
Peter C. Phan and Joseph Murphy were instrumental in providing this
venue, with the help of Anh Q. Tran, SJ. The other participants contrib-
utedgreatlytomyunderstandingofthefield:SaurabhDube,C.Mathews
Samson,ElizabethElbourne, Richard FoxYoung, SylviaFrey, andAnne
Keary. This workshop led to the publication of a collection of essays,
BeyondConversionandSyncretism(NewYork:BerghahnBooks,2011).
A number of specialists in different cultural regions generously
reviewed individual chapters and the articles that fed into them, provid-
ing invaluable criticism and advice along the way. Foremost was my
longtime colleague and friend, the late John Henderson, an East Asian
scholarwithabroadcomparativeperspective,whoreviewedmostofthe
manuscript. Others included Katherine Benton-Cohen, Gibril Cole,
Philip J. Deloria, Carter Findley, Susan Schroeder, Peter Sutherland,
Joel Tishken, Catherine Wessinger, Deanna Ferree Womack, William
Worger, and Richard Fox Young. The manuscript reviewers for
viii
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Acknowledgments ix
Cambridge University Press provided many valuable suggestionsas well.
Cartographer Mary Lee Eggart provided invaluable assistance
with maps.
For a book that deals centrally with religion, readers are entitled to
know an author’s upbringing, affiliation, and biases. Raised in the reli-
gionsofmyparents,namelyJudaismandQuakerism,Ifoundmywayto
Unitarian Universalism in the 1970s and have remained there ever since
thanks to a vibrant church community in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The
themeandapproachofthisbookhavebeeninspiredbythatfaith,which
finds human wisdom to be distributed among all cultures, with no one
tradition havinga monopoly.
Finally,Idedicatethisbooktomywife,JerriBecnel,whohaslovingly
shared mewith this project formost of ourmarriage.
Published online by Cambridge University Press
Published online by Cambridge University Press