RT Article
T1 Mission Impossible: Causes behind the Abandonment of Mission Stations in Nias between 1865 to 1890
JF Mission studies
VO 42
IS 2
SP 187
OP 215
A1 Dinkelaar, Bianca
LA English
YR 2025
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1933348046
AB In places where, today, Christianity is successfully established, the historical narrative is often one of growth: tracing the path from the first converts to the seemingly inevitable triumph of Christianity. Within such a narrative, little attention is given to the failures and disappointments that occurred along the way. This article analyses a large collection of missionary letters from the recently digitized Nias archive of the Rheinische Missionsgesellschaft, to investigate the abandonment of three mission stations during the first decades of the mission. These stories of failure highlight how major factors, like colonial power, as well as idiosyncratic elements or even singular events, can steer the fate of a mission station in unexpected ways. The article aims to broaden knowledge of the early history of Niasan Christianity, and to show how points of divergence, misalignment and resistance can contribute to our understanding of the complex dynamics involved in missionary encounters.
K1 missionary failure
K1 Rhenish Mission
K1 Nias island
K1 Colonialism
K1 Indonesia
K1 Missionaries
DO 10.1163/15733831-12342025