On The American Student Volunteer Movement For Foreign Missions (1886-1914)

Springing up from the end of the19thcentury and the beginning of the20thcentury, theAmerican Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions developed rapidly in a strongdomestic religions atmosphere and the broad involvement of the college students. From thevery beginning, the movement’s participant is mainly limited to college students. By a seriesof propaganda tour, recruitment and professional training of the missionaries in colleges anduniversities across the country, it successfully finished the mission to dispatch students tooverseas, such as Asia, Africa, Latin America, Australia and Middle East etc. The wholeprocess discussed above assured that the comprehensive quality (especially educationalbackground) of student volunteer is much better than traditional priest. These intellectualmissionaries influenced the place where they preached in a free but varied missionary way.Moreover, a series of activities prior to the dispatch brought about important influence to theAmerican religious circles and educational circles representative of college and universities.The paper consists of three sections: introduction, main text and conclusion.In the first part, the paper introduces the basis of the selected title, research status,reference material, research method, innovation points and deficiencies.The main text is divided into three subsections.The first part traces back to the religious background of the Student Volunteer Movementfor Foreign Missions. During the end of the19thcentury, a strong religious atmosphere of thewhole society and the Sunday School Movement led by Moody provided an opportunity forthe rise of the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions. Additionally, collegestudent’s active participation to religion organization promoted people’s enthusiasm foroverseas missionary work.The second part introduces the rise and development of the Student Volunteer Movementfor Foreign Missions. It examines the rise, early propaganda, and structural establishment ofthe movement, illustrates a series of preparatory work, like propaganda tour, recruitment, andtraining, etc. before the dispatch in detail, holds the features of the dispatch place, number ofstudent and movement fund, showing a “liberal” missionary way of student volunteer.The last part analyses the common on the Student Volunteer Movement for ForeignMissions and its influence. The influence of the movement is multi-dimensional. It not onlyinfluenced the countries that student preaches, but also the American society. At the sametime, under the propaganda, and encouragement of the movement, European Christiancountries, such as Britain, Germany etc, begin to learn from America, organizing similarstudent volunteer missionary ally, which is influencing the religious environment of thesecountries to some extent, and promoting the whole unity Christianity’ missionary work.The section of conclusion makes a brief summary about the student volunteer movementfor foreign missions and its influence in America and overseas. The ultimate purpose of themovement was not achieved.