Author: Cherrie Kwok (University of Virgnia)
External Peer-Reviewer: Winter Jade Werner (Wheaton College)
Internal Peer-Reviewing Editor: Adrian S. Wisnicki (University of Nebraska-Lincoln)
Copyeditor: Dino Franco Felluga (Purdue University)
Coming Soon
This essay has passed internal and exteranl peer review and is now being finalized by the author. We anticipate that it will be published in early 2023.
Lead Image Details
Lead image caption: Anonymous, “The Missionary Ship ‘Olive Branch’ ,” The Church Missionary Gleaner 1, no. 11 (November 1874): 131. Public domain. Courtesy of Adam Matthew Digital.
Lead image commentary: This image depicts a piggy bank carved in the shape of a Church Missionary Society (CMS) ship named “The Olive Branch, with the words “Freely ye have received. Freely give” (Matthew 10:8) written on its base. The image alludes to the fact that churchgoers and other members of CMS outposts were expected to contribute to the Society on a regular basis. While the CMS ship’s benevolent name and biblical caption strive to portray the CMS’s activities as a form of generous and global peace-making, Victorian-era ships more generally also served as central symbols of the British Empire and its conquests. The dual symbolism in the image (and the fact that it literally depicts an object that collects money) epitomizes the present essay’s focus on the manner in which the Gleaner editors often portrayed CMS work in ways that tied it to imperialism and English jingoism in order to connect with the public and raise popular support.
