Abstract
Christine Heyrman (Professor of History at the University of Delaware) has produced a highly useful exploration of the lives and ministries of early American missionaries to the Middle East. Pliny Fisk, Levi Parsons, Henry Martyn, and Jonas King are the main subjects of her study, along with such persons as William Bentley, representative of the secular journalists of the time who provided a much more balanced and “down-to-earth” contrast to the lurid accounts in missionary journals.
The most striking conclusion one comes to is that Heyrman’s research reveals that nothing has changed over the last 200 years with respect to several items. Note the following:
First, the backgrounds of these “apostles” were varied, ranging from “tightly orthodox” to “interestingly eclectic.” Pliny Fisk, for example, was a member of Samuel Mills’ highly conservative Brethren—but also a Freemason, believing the latter to be a “passport to society in foreign countries.”
Second, views regarding the Muslims of the Middle East and North Africa were tremendously varied. Muhammad was described by some as the “George Washington of Arabia” and a “political and religious genius,” and by others as a “bloody-minded, sex-crazed pretender.”
Third, we learn that seminaries then as now completely ignored the need for education regarding the world religions. For instance, with respect to Andover’s curriculum for missionary training, it was said that “conspicuous by its absence was any instruction in the history of religion—not even the history of Christianity” (p.36).
Fourth, we find that some early missionaries were prone to colorful, extensive, and at times even unethical exaggeration with respect to their abilities to debate with Muslims, their “victories” over the demonic aspects of Islam, and the like.
Finally, we find that in many cases, missionaries underwent a subtle transformation in their thinking regarding Muslims after living among them and conversing extensively with them. To such persons it was a revelation, Heyrman claims, that allegiance to Islam rose not from blind obedience or rapacious lust, but that “Islam commanded the wholehearted (and full-throated) loyalty of smart, cultivated, articulate people” (p.107). Most puzzling of all were the renegadoes—the Westerners who chose to leave Christianity and convert to Islam.
While many will find Heyrman’s consistent sarcasm regarding Evangelicals off-putting—she is unprofessionally harsh when she describes these men in general as “self-righteous, tribal hicks” (p.22) and Fisk as a “rumpled hayseed” (p.39)—her work provides important insights into a little-known aspect of earlier missionary work among Muslims.