Christian Missions and the Enlightenment

The nature of the influence of the European Enlightenment on the beliefs and practice of the Protestant missionaries who went to Asia and Africa from the mid-eighteenth century onwards is attracting increasing interest and debate among scholars. This volume is the first to address the subject in a focused way. It concentrates on British missions and the formative role of the Scottish Enlightenment on their thinking on such topics as education and the appropriate relationship between ‘civilisation’ and conversion. After discussing the problematic nature of all attempts to define the Enlightenment, it sets the British missionary awakening in its European context, and includes regional studies of missions in India, the Cape Colony, and the South Pacific.