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Preston, Andrew --- "Faith and Empire: American Missionaries, Humanitarianism, and the Spread of Human Rights" [2012] ELECD 289; in Porsdam, Helle (ed), "Civil Religion, Human Rights and International Relations" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012)

Book Title: Civil Religion, Human Rights and International Relations

Editor(s): Porsdam, Helle

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781781000519

Section: Chapter 6

Section Title: Faith and Empire: American Missionaries, Humanitarianism, and the Spread of Human Rights

Author(s): Preston, Andrew

Number of pages: 19

Extract:

6. Faith and empire: American
missionaries, humanitarianism, and
the spread of human rights
Andrew Preston

Charles Wesley and Eva Jane Price were typical American Protestant
missionaries. Raised in Des Moines, Iowa, and educated at Oberlin College
in Ohio, they exhibited the steadfast, well-intentioned earnestness of the
evangelicalism that predominated their era, especially in the Midwest. In
1889, the Boston-based American Board of Commissioners for Foreign
Missions sent the Prices to Shanxi province in northern China, where the
existing ABCFM mission was languishing after several years of poor
leadership, apostasy, and sexual scandal. They packed what belongings
they could and, with two young sons in tow, began the 15,000 mile journey
from Ohio to Shanxi.
It was a vast distance geographically from middle America to the
Chinese interior, but an even greater separation culturally. Nonetheless,
the Prices worked hard to bring education and medical treatment to the
people of Shanxi, for whom they felt genuine affection. There is a large
amount of paternal condescension in Eva's journal and letters home, but
an equal amount of love. Their objectives were to spread the Christian
gospel, to uplift the lives of ordinary Chinese, and to make these
improvements a permanent part of Chinese life, just as they were in
America. The Prices were horrified by the common use of opium, by the
lack of education and basic health care except for the wealthy, and,
especially, by the practice of foot-binding. `How can these women suffer
so, then make ...