Echoes of the Call : Identity and Ideology Among American Missionaries in Ecuador

Drawing on the personal histories of one hundred evangelical missionaries in Ecuador, Echoes of the Call explores the lives of missionaries as sociological strangers. In a study as compelling as it is insightful, Jeffrey Swanson illustrates how missionaries are distanced, not only from their culture and homeland, but also from their own era. The work begins with Swanson's interpretation of how his own experience as a child of missionaries shaped the viewpoint of estrangement from which the book is written. Swanson renders the formation of a missionary identity as the rhetorical composition of a personal testimony, in which life stories of separation, loss, conflict, and conversion are melded symbolically with historical mission themes of sacrifice, heroism, spiritual militancy, and divine calling. Relying on his subjects' own narratives, he traces the missionaries' personal journeys as their sense of calling first emerges, and then as it must be reinterpreted to account for unexpected, ambiguous, and often disillusioning experiences in their host country. Swanson argues that missionaries are marginal individuals who use their vocation creatively to produce a meaningful social world, and who use rhetoric effectively to maintain that world, for themselves and for supporters in their home countries. An informative and nuanced study, this book is a significant contribution to present sociological literature concerning missionaries and American evangelicals. Anyone interested in the sociology of religion, culture, and folklore will find Echoes of the Call to be a valuable and intriguing work. 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Themes in the Early Lives of Missionaries 47 A Background Sketch 48 The Shape of Things Set Apart: Child Missionaries 49 Sarah 49 Karen 50 Keith 51 Maxine 52 Marie 52 Don 53 Ralph 53 Walter 53 Jean 54 Testimonies of Conversion 55 Self, Other, and God: Ambivalence in the Formation of a Spiritual Identity 63 Sharon 64 Yvonne 66 Jack 68 Rob 69 Death and Resurrection in the Moral Career 71 Margaret 72 Dan 73 Jenny 74 Anne 75 3. The Missionary Call 77 The Call, Then and Now 78 Sociological Considerations 82 Divine Calling as a Biblical Ideal 85 The Call and the Missionary Legacy 86 Patterns of Calling among HCJB Missionaries 98 The Call as Transformation: Preparation and Passage 112 4. Living Out the Call on the Mission Field 118 Ideals of Redemption and the Redemption of Ideals 120 The Work of Ideology in Discourse among Insiders 134 Audience and Identity in the Moral Career 138 The First Audience: God and the Other-Worldly Self 138 The Second Audience: the Missionary Community 139 The Third Audience: Evangelicals at Home 143 The Fourth Audience: Targets of Mission 149 The Sacrifice of Sacrifice 151 5. Missionary Strangerhood and American Evangelical Identity 162 Meaning, Belonging, and Identity: A Survey 162 Missionaries Today: Remnants or Representatives of Evangelical America? 176 Missionaries and the Cultural Tensions of American Evangelicalism 181 Conclusion 190 Notes 192 References 200 Index 206 A 206 B 207 C 207 D 208 E 208 F 209 G 209 H 209 I 210 J 210 K 210 L 210 M 211 N 212 O 212 P 212 Q 213 R 213 S 213 T 215 U 215 V 215 W 215 Y 215 "Drawing on the personal histories of one hundred evangelical missionaries in Ecuador, Echoes of the Call explores the lives of missionaries as sociological "strangers." Jeffrey Swanson illustrates how missionaries are distanced, not only from their culture and homeland, but also from their own era.". "The work begins with Swanson's interpretation of how his own experience as a child of missionaries shaped the viewpoint of estrangement from which the book is written. Swanson renders the formation of a missionary identity as the rhetorical composition of a personal testimony, in which life stories of separation, loss, conflict, and conversion are melded symbolically with historical mission themes of sacrifice, heroism, spiritual militancy, and divine calling. Relying on his subjects' own narratives, he traces the missionaries' personal journeys as their sense of calling first emerges, and then as it must be reinterpreted to account for unexpected, ambiguous, and often disillusioning experiences in their host country.". "Swanson argues that missionaries are marginal individuals who use their vocation creatively to produce a meaningful social world, and who use rhetoric effectively to maintain that world, for themselves and for supporters in their home countries."--BOOK JACKET. Drawing on the life histories and testimonies of 100 missionaries to Ecuador, this study analyzes the social estrangement and cultural conditioning associated with this divine calling