The Basel Mission in South India in the 19th Century: Traditional Values and New Experiences

Speaker: Professor Dr. Judith Becker, Chair, Early Modern and Modern History of Christianity, Faculty of Theology, Humboldt University, Berlin

Chair: Dr. Swapna Liddle

When German-speaking missionaries came to India in 1834, they travelled with backpacks full of presumptions and inherited values that they intended to transfer to Indian people. Very quickly, they had to learn that life and people in India were quite different from what they had assumed. The talk asks how their values and imaginations were altered due to this experience. Furthermore, the representations of the values changed when the missionaries ascribed certain values to Indians and depicted converts as "model Christians". The talk will describe this history while asking how best to write a history of Christian missions.   

(Collaboration: The History Collective)