Missionaries interpreted imperial conquest as divine endorsement of Christianity.
Evidence
Samuel M. Zwemer, one of the most famous – and perhaps the most well published – missionaries to Muslims summed up this view: “In India and Malaysia God’s favor has given us an open door to 100,000,000 Mohammedans. Under Queen Wilhelmina, the Christian Queen of Holland and under George V, the Christian Emperor of India, 100,000,000 Mohammedans are enjoying the blessings of Protestant Christian rule.” — Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon Fear, 113
Categorization
- SEED: Essay angle: how the providential reading of empire — conquest as proof of doctrinal truth — recurs across religions and eras, from early modern wars to 21st-century triumphalism.
- FICTION: The Protestant Crown as divine mandate is a ready-made ironic tension for a historical character torn between loyalty to empire and faith.
- XREF: connects to: Contact with the Catholic mission confirmed the Sayyid’s view of Christian colonization; Sudanese tribes interpreted the expedition within their own religious frameworks; Missionary conversion relied on state power more than persuasion (+6 more)
Broader Connections
- Exploration and transportation were framed as religious acts of extending God’s kingdom
#expands(0.70) — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 154 - Calvinist predestination let colonizers rationalize Native dispossession as divine judgment.
#exemplifies(0.60) — Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the…, 119