Recommended Reading: Dictionary of Christian Biography in Asia

The Dictionary of Christian Biography in Asia launched at the beginning of the month. This online resource contains life stories of Christian leaders from Asia, both indigenous leaders and foreign missionaries. The project will continue to add biographies from across Asia, but the initial batch of biographies draw especially from Malaysia, Singapore, and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Many of those biographies are of Methodists. Thus, the Dictionary makes an excellent resource for those interested in learning about the history of Methodism in Southeast Asia. There will be an official launch event online on April 17th at 8:00pm Malaysia time at which more information about the Dictionary will be shared.

130th anniversary of Methodism in Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, & Angola

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Assistant Professor of Religion and Pieper Chair of Servant Leadership at Ripon College.

We here at UM & Global would be remiss if we let the month end without mentioning that April marked the 130th anniversary of Methodism in Korea. As you can read about here and here, the first missionaries of the Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC) arrived in Korea on Easter Sunday, April 5, 1885. That event was the germ that led to the growth of Methodism in Korea and Korean Methodism in the United States, reshaping the religious landscape of both countries as well as the MEC and its successor body, the UMC. The Korean Methodist Church has become autonomous from American Methodism, but the strength of Korean-American Methodists in the UMC have kept those relationships vital.

This year is also the 130th anniversary of Methodism in Singapore and Malaysia. On February 7, 1885, missionaries from the MEC arrived in Singapore for the first time, leading to the growth of Methodism there, as you can read more about here. Methodism was less successful in Singapore and Malaysia than it was in Korea, though there were for a while connections between Methodism in Malaysia and Methodism in the Philippines, which continues to be an important part of the UMC. In addition, there have been fewer Methodist immigrants from Singapore and Malaysia to the US who have ended up in UMC churches. The Methodist Church in Singapore and the Methodist Church in Malaysia are now both autonomous, and connections with the US have declined.

1885 is also the 130th anniversary of the start of Methodism in Angola. Missionary Bishop William Taylor began his work for the MEC in Luanda, Angola, on March 18, 1885. That work led to the growth of Methodism in Angola, and there are currently two Annual Conferences of The United Methodist Church in Angola, each of which is also an episcopal area. These Angolan conferences are part of the growing African contingent of United Methodists that is reshaping the face of the UMC as a denomination.

When remembering these historical events, it's worth thinking about the different trajectories that Methodism took in each of these three cases: continued affiliation, autonomy with substantial continuing connections, and autonomy with diminished connections. None of these routes is inherently better or worse, but as we think about what it means to be a global denomination, it is important that we remember the range of ways in which our global connections as a denomination have evolved historically.

The changing times of Minnesotan Methodist mission support for Southeast Asia

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Assistant Professor of Religion and Pieper Chair of Servant Leadership at Ripon College.

The Minnesota Conference of the UMC recently signed an In Mission Together 50/50 Partnership Covenant with the United Methodist Mission in Vietnam.  This is not the first time that Minnesotan Methodists have made pledges to missions in Southeast Asia.  130 years ago, Mary Clarke Nind, WFMS leader from the Minnesota Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, pledged that her branch of the WFMS would financially support Sophia Blackmore as a WFMS missionary in Singapore.  Nind famously exclaimed, "Frozen Minnesota will send the gospel to the Equator!"

In both of these cases, Minnesotan Methodists pledged financial support of mission work.  In both of these cases, they pledged to support a mission that was already underway.  In both cases, their support helped underwrite care for children - through an orphan ministry in Vietnam and through girls' education in Singapore.

Yet there is a significant difference in these two stories.  When Minnesotan Methodists recently signed their pledge of support for mission in Vietnam, it was as part of a "50/50 Partnership."  When Minnesotan Methodists sent Sophia Blackmore to Singapore, it was a decision made by Western missionaries and Western mission supporters.  Mark Clarke Nind and Sophia Blackmore are founding heroes to the Methodist Church in Singapore and the Methodist Church in Malaysia, and there were locals who were involved in supporting the mission in Singapore financially and programmatically.  Yet that instance of mission was not seen as an equal partnership.  It was seen as Westerners coming over to impart something that benighted Easterners did not have but needed.

How Methodists think about mission has changed over the past 100 years, and Minnesotans have been part of that change no less than others.  Ways of approaching mission have become less imperialistic and less Western-dominated.  Locals now have more voice, more initiative, more involvement in determining how mission should be shaped and what forms of mission would be most life-giving to them.  The In Mission Together team has worked hard to promote this "paradigm shift" in thinking about mission.

Hence, in some ways history repeats itself -- but not quite.  Vietnam is not Singapore.  2015 is not 1885.  And partnership is not making decisions on behalf of others, but with others.