There is a hidden history of mission and Empire that is only partially disclosed in written records. European mission societies and missionaries were conduits for the spread of Christianity from Europe, but they would have failed in their endeavours if indigenous people at the periphery had not created their own channels of communication to direct the flow of evangelism beyond the mission stations into the villages and hinterlands of the Empire. Mission statistics in many regions indicate the gigantic scale of this localized Christian evangelism, but few accounts present the perspective of the new Christians. Those accounts we can access suggest there was a strong impetus among first-generation Christians to introduce others to their newfound spiritual world. But these new Christian missionaries were for the most part far removed from the European metropole of the mission organizations. Their knowledge and understanding of the metropolitan culture—in European terms, civilization—was at best superficial.
Many of these evangelists encountered Christianity before the full impact of colonialism was felt by their societies. In some instances, the Arrernte for example, missionaries provided their first experience of distant outsiders. In other regions the missionaries followed traders who had established relationships with indigenous groups over many decades. Whatever the circumstances in which Christianity was introduced, the first generation of Christians who became evangelists may have functioned as agents of an ideology closely associated with Britain and other European powers, but that was not the way they viewed themselves. They were embedded in their own societies as critics of existing religious beliefs, practices, and moral codes. The basis of their critique was their understanding of the Bible, not an unfavourable comparison between their own culture and a faraway metropolitan society most of them had never experienced. Their evangelical strategies were grounded in the political structures and cultural standards of the societies among whom they preached. While European periodicals and propaganda portrayed mission operations as a Manichaean contest between Christian civilization and paganism, evangelists on the ground were profoundly shaped by the cultures around them. It could not have been otherwise, given the vital role of new Christian evangelists in spreading religious knowledge.
The accounts considered in this chapter plainly display salient characteristics of their cultures. Tsimshian admired oratory and were impressed by the display of material accumulation: attributes very much epitomized in the career of Arthur Wellington Clah. Moses Tjalkabota’s life and preaching reflected the mobile nature of Australia’s central desert societies, where a church was the dome of heaven and material accumulation was neither an aspiration nor a possibility. Moses’ religious authority was based on his knowledge of the Scriptures and his general wisdom. His blindness probably added to this aura. Thus the first-hand accounts of each of the five evangelists are predicated on the values of their birth cultures and the people among whom they worked. Missionaries from Europe approached potential converts with no knowledge of their language or culture and made many mistakes as they tried to impose their values. Local evangelists did not make these mistakes. When they challenged ingrained beliefs and practices, they did it knowingly.
Being embedded in local communities also had disadvantages. Sometimes these evangelists were ignored or vilified by host societies precisely because they were not agents of Britain. Although Britain did not generally perceive the mission enterprise as part of the imperial agenda, many indigenous people seeking access to trade, technologies, and the political and military support of the outsiders wanted European missionaries. Thus the relationship between Empire and mission is more complex than it appears when attention is concentrated on European personnel. Local circumstances were a decisive influence on the relationship. Some new Christian evangelists became critics of Empire. Others influenced their people to turn to Christianity as a protection against the havoc wreaked on them by violence, introduced diseases, and the pressures of modernity.