The founding principles of the Africa Inland Mission and their interaction with the African context in Kenya from 1895 to 1939 : the study of a faith mission

• Main Author: Morad, Stephen Daniel
• Published: University of Edinburgh 1998
• Subjects: 270
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.657979

Faith missions have been largely overlooked in scholarly study, and when noted often with varying degrees of misunderstanding. The purpose of this study is to examine the founding principles of a faith mission, the Africa Inland Mission. Because A.I.M. is predominantly an American mission, these principles will be studied in their American, religious context. The development and application of these principles and their interaction with the African context in Kenya is examined. Mission correspondence, documents, articles and memoirs provide the sources for this study. As a lay mission, A.I.M. thought that education and training were not needed by missionaries to African. The qualities that were thought to be needed, particularly Keswick piety and a missionary "call", are examined. After arriving in Kenya, the missionaries discovered that more education was required by the African context than they thought. As a faith mission, A.I.M. did not believe in soliciting funds, preferring to rely upon God alone, through prayer to supply her needs. The origin of this policy and its relationship to the Mission's Keswich piety are examined along with the change in the faith basis introduced by Charles Hurlburt. The tensions produced between the need to rely upon God alone for the Mission's needs, the need of communication with the Mission's constituency, and the need to develop adequate administrative structures and conflicts within the Mission produced by these tensions are examined. As a field-governed mission, A.I.M. was to be governed by the missionaries on the field. In practice the Mission was first dominated by the charismatic leadership of the founder Peter Cameron Scott, then by a strong General Director, Charles Hurlburt, and finally by the home councils. The tensions that caused these changes and the results of the changes are examined.