It’s usually said that Protestant and evangelical Christians made very little missionary effort in the 16th-18th centuries. In fact, there was much more than we remember. But they used strategies that look very alien to modern eyes: whether trying to spread ‘civilisation’ as a prerequisite for conversion, or seeing these efforts as part of a global apocalyptic conflict.

This lecture will introduce this series about these early missionary projects; why they mostly failed; and why they still matter.

A lecture by Alec Ryrie

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/protestant-failure

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

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