United Society

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The United Society (dt. "United Society", also: Us ; registered no. 234518) is a non-profit organization with a missionary focus, which was founded in Great Britain and still exists today.

It was founded in 1701 by a Royal Charter as Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG) and had the goal of the Church of England's missionary work abroad to finance and coordinate. The society was renamed the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (USPG) in 1965 after the Universities' Mission to Central Africa (UMCA) joined. In 1968 the Cambridge Mission to Delhi also joined. Another name change to United Society (Us) was completed in November 2012.

In the more than three hundred years of its existence, the Society has supported more than 15,000 men and women in missionary roles within the worldwide Anglican communion . In cooperation with partner churches, the focus is currently on emergency aid programs, long-term development aid and church staff training. The organization encourages churches in the UK and Ireland to support missionary work through donations, prayer and face-to-face contacts.

history

Founding and Missionary Work in North America

1700 asked Henry Compton , the Bishop of London (1675-1713), the Reverend Thomas Bray to report on the state of the Church of England in the American colonies . Bray brought the news after extensive travels that the Anglican Church in America had "little spiritual life" and that they were in "bad organizational shape". On June 16, 1701, under Bray's initiative, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was convened and confirmed by the Royal Charter. William III. enacted a charter that set up the SPG as "an organization empowered to send priests and teachers to America to support the service of the Church to the colonists." The new organization had two main missions: "Ecclesiastical service to the British overseas people and evangelism for the non-Christian tribes of the world."

The first two missionaries, graduates of the University of Aberdeen , George Keith and Patrick Gordon, embarked for North America on April 24, 1702. The order of society had been expanded as early as 1710 and now included work among African slaves in the West Indies and Indians in North America. The SPG financed clergy and teachers, mailed books and supported baptized children through annual fundraising sermons in London, through which the work of the society was publicized. Queen Anne was a famous early supporter. It contributed money from its own coffers and in 1711 allowed the publication of the first of many annual Royal Letters instructing congregations in England to make a "voluntary contribution" (liberal contribution) to the Society's work overseas donate.

In New England, the Society encountered a growing congregationalist movement, but with capable leaders it gained solid support in more traditionally Puritan states like Connecticut and Massachusetts . The SPG also helped design special plans for new churches using locally available building materials, including the steeples. The "white church with steeple" was copied by other churches and became an icon of the "New England-style churches" among the Protestant denominations. This architectural style was copied even in the southern colonies.

From 1702 until the end of the American Revolution in 1783, the SPG had recruited more than 309 missionaries and sent them to the colonies. Many of the parishes established by SPG workers on the east coast of the United States are now listed as Historic Parishes of the Episcopal Church . SPG employees were encouraged to lead simple lives, but notable funds were used to set up new church properties. The ordained, university-trained SPG clergy were once referred to by Thomas Jefferson as "Anglican Jesuits" and were recruited from all over the British Isles and beyond. Only a third of the missionaries in the 18th century were English. Her collaborators included such famous people as George Keith and John Wesley , the founder of Methodism .

West Indies

A bequest from Christopher Codrington in 1710, with the obligation to establish Codrington College , made the SPG a major slave owner in Barbados in the 18th and early 19th centuries. While the goal was to raise funds for college, society benefited from the unpaid and forced labor of thousands of slaves at Codrington Plantations . Many of the slaves died of dysentery , typhus, and exhaustion .

During this period, many institutions were funded from funds acquired through slave labor and trafficking, such as All Souls College and Harvard University . The ownership of the Codrington Plantations , however, has been a constant source of controversy for the SPG and the Church of England . In 1783, Bishop Beilby Porteus , an early pioneer of abolitionism , used the annual SPG sermon to portray the conditions on the Codrington Plantations and called on the SPG to finally give up their association with the slave trade. But it wasn't until 1833 that the SPG dissolved their slave ownership after the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 came into force. At the meeting of the General Synod of the Church of England in February 2006, delegates unanimously voted to apologize to the descendants of the slaves after recalling the Church's role in enforcing the Slave Trade Act 1807 . Rt. Revd Tom Butler , Bishop of Southwark, confirmed in a speech before the vote that the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts had owned the Codrington Plantations.

Africa

Rev. Thomas Thompson, who first served as a missionary in New Jersey, established the Society's first mission in 1752 at Cape Coast Castle on the Gold Coast . In 1754 he enabled three students from there to travel to England and to be trained as missionaries at the Society's expense. Two of them died, but the survivor, Philip Quaque , became the first African to be ordained into the Anglican Communion . He returned to the Gulf Coast in 1765 and worked as a missionary until his death in 1816.

Missionary work in South Africa began in 1821, and the work progressed in a wider setting under the direction of Bishop Robert Gray . In 1850 the influence reached as far as Natal , in 1859 as far as Zululand , in 1871 in Swaziland and in 1894 as far as Mozambique .

Between 1752 and 1906 the Society had 668 European and native missionaries in Africa.

Worldwide spread

As one of the primary agencies sending missionaries out, the Society established mission outposts in Canada (1759), Australia (1793), and India (1820). Later it spread outside of the British Empire to China (1863), Japan (1873) and Korea (1890). In the mid-19th century, the Society's work was more focused on developing and supporting native Anglican churches and training local church leaders. The management and maintenance of colonial and foreign congregations had already faded into the background.

From the mid-18th century until World War II , the method of missionary work remained similar: pastoral, evangelistic, educational, and medical work that contributed to the growth of the Anglican Church and efforts to improve the lives of the local people. During this time the SPG supported more and more local missionaries and medical missions .

Women in leadership roles

The Society was socially progressive to some extent. Since the mid-18th century, she has encouraged even single women from Great Britain to work as missionaries on their own. In 1866 the SPG founded the Ladies' Association for Promoting the Education of Females in India and other Heathen Countries in collaboration with the Society's missions. In 1895 this group was upgraded to the Women's Mission Association for the Promotion of Female Education in the Missions of the SPG .

The advancement of women in leadership positions was promoted for many years primarily by the women's suffrage activist Louise Creighton . During the heyday of the SPG's missionary activity in India between 1910 and 1930, more than 60 European missionaries worked as teachers, doctors or in crucial administrative tasks on site. In Japan, Mary Cornwall Legh , who worked among Hansen's disease patients in Kusatsu (Gunma) , became known as the most effective missionary of the Nippon Sei Ko Kai .

Reorganization after the Second World War

The SPG, along with the Church Mission Society (CMS), remained the leading evangelistic organization for the churches of England, Wales and Ireland even after World War II . In the context of decolonization and India's independence in 1947, new models of global missionary tasks between the interconnected member provinces of the Anglican Communion became necessary. In the course of the union of the SPG with the Universities' Mission to Central Africa (UMCA), 1965, and with the Cambridge Mission to Delhi , 1968, from which the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (USPG) emerged, the Society developed a new one Role by focusing on clerical training and support for development specialists.

Important churches and educational institutions

The list of institutions established and supported by the SPG and USPG is very long and includes institutions from all over the world. Sometimes these were founded directly, sometimes only employees of the Society played important roles as founders, fundraisers and administrative employees.

United States
New Zealand
South Africa
Myanmar
Japan
India
China
Ghana

Current activities

Today society is no longer limited to sending missionaries, but promotes the ability of local churches to campaign for positive change. The United Society endeavors to "spread the Christian religion" according to its statutes and to support local Anglican partner churches in their mission. The projects include medical and social programs for pregnant women and AIDS patients, as well as educational and qualification programs. It also supports the formation of lay and ordained workers and is involved in a number of development aid programs at the local level. The NGO is still firmly linked to the Church of England , the President is the Archbishop of Canterbury . Projects in Africa make up the largest share of the United Society's fundraising. In 2013 the United Society supported programs in 20 different countries.

literature

  • J. Harry Bennett Jr. (1958) Bondsmen and Bishops: slavery and apprenticeship on the Codrington plantations of Barbados, 1710-1838 . Berkeley: University of California Press
  • Stephen R. Haynes, (2002) Noah's Curse: The Biblical Justification of American Slavery . Oxford: Oxford University Press
  • Adam Hochschild (2005) Bury the Chains, the British Struggle to Abolish Slavery . Macmillan
  • Milton Meltzer (1993) Slavery: a world history . Da Capo Press
  • CE Pierre, (1916) “The Work of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts among the Negroes in the Colonies.” Journal of Negro History ; 1 (October 1916): 349-60.
  • A collection of SPG-related missionary narratives
  • Margaret Dewey, (1975). The Messengers: a Concise History of the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel . London: Mowbrays. vi, 158 p. ISBN 0-264-66089-7 (paperback)
  • Charles Frederick Pascoe, (1901) Two Hundred Years of the SPG: an historical account of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 1701-1900 (based on a digest of the society's records) . 2 vols. London: Society for the Propagation of the Gospel
  • Henry Paget Thompson, (1951) Into All Lands: a history of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 1701-1950 . London: SPCK

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Registered Charities in England and Wales . UK Government. Retrieved June 18, 2015.
  2. ^ Anglican mission agency USPG announces plan to change its name , Anglican Communion News Service. June 26, 2012. Retrieved June 18, 2015. 
  3. ↑ "little spiritual vitality"
  4. ↑ "in a poor organizational condition"
  5. ^ Cross, FL, ed. (1957) The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church . London: Oxford University Press; P. 1280
  6. ↑ "An organization able to send priests and schoolteachers to America to help provide the Church's ministry to the colonists". Michael Howard: Transnationalism and Society: An Introduction . McFarland & Co Inc Pub, London 2011, ISBN 978-0786464548 , p. 211 (accessed June 22, 2015).
  7. ↑ Christian ministry to British people overseas; and evangelization of the non-Christian races of the world. Cross (1957); P. 1280
  8. ^ Thomas Parry: Codrington College . Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, London 1847, 11 (accessed June 18, 2015).
  9. ↑ Michael Howard: Transnationalism and Society: An Introduction . McFarland & Co Inc Pub, London 2011, ISBN 978-0786464548 , p. 211 (accessed June 22, 2015).
  10. ↑ Jeremy Gregory: Stephen Foster (ed.): Britain and North America in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2013, ISBN 978-0-19-920612-4 , p. 160, (accessed June 23, 2015).
  11. ^ Daniel O'Conner: Three Centuries of Mission . Continuum, London 2000, ISBN 0-8264-4989-1 , p. 10 (accessed June 24, 2015).
  12. ^ The Refinement of America
  13. ^ Travis Glasson: Mastering Christianity: Missionary Anglicanism and Slavery in the Atlantic World . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2012, ISBN 978-0-19-977396-1 , p. 30, (accessed June 24, 2015).
  14. ^ Travis Glasson: Mastering Christianity: Missionary Anglicanism and Slavery in the Atlantic World . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2012, ISBN 978-0-19-977396-1 , p. 30, (accessed June 24, 2015).
  15. ^ David Holmes: A Brief History of the Episcopal Church . Trinity Press International, Harrisburg, PA 1993, ISBN 1-56338-060-9 , p. 46 (accessed June 23, 2015).
  16. ↑ Craig Wilder: Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America's Universities . Bloomsbury Press, New York 2013, ISBN 978-1-59691-681-4 , p. 84 (Retrieved June 23, 2015).
  17. ↑ Church apologizes for bene fitting from slave trade , The Guardian. February 7, 2006. Retrieved June 25, 2015. 
  18. ^ The Churchman's Missionary Atlas . USPG, 1908, p. 31 (Retrieved June 30, 2015).
  19. ^ The Churchman's Missionary Atlas . USPG, 1908, p. 32 (Retrieved June 30, 2015).
  20. ^ Rosemary Seton: Western Daughters in Eastern Lands: British Missionary Women in Asia . Praeger, Santa Barbara 2013, ISBN 978-1-84645-017-4 , p. 98 (accessed June 30, 2015).
  21. ↑ Jeffrey Cox: Imperial Fault Lines: Christianity and Colonial Power in India, 1818-1940 . Stanford University Press, Stanford, California 2002, ISBN 0-8047-4318-5 , p. 156, (Retrieved July 1, 2015).
  22. ^ A. Hamish Ion: The Cross and the Rising Sun , Volume 2nd Edition, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada 1993, ISBN 978-1-55458-216-7 , p. 178 (accessed July 2 2015).
  23. ^ "Seeks to advance Christian religion,"
  24. ^ Trustees' Report and Financial Statements 2013 . United Society. Retrieved June 19, 2015.