Missionary Zeal and Institutional Control: Organizational Contradictions in the Basel Mission on the Gold Coast, 1828-1917

In the historical literature on mission, this book stands out for its detailed examination of the organizational dynamics that gave shape – and brought enduring success – to the Evangelical Missionary Society at Basel. A first-rate account of the early Basel Mission on the Gold Coast of West Africa (present-day Ghana), this volume takes readers inside the mission itself, revealing its dynamic, though sometimes contradictory, methods of motivation and discipline and how they impacted effective evangelism both at home and abroad. Working from archival records, Jon Miller details the collaboration across class lines that made the mission possible, and he shows how basic pietist beliefs about authority and obedience were the source of both the mission's strengths and its most serious internal weaknesses. Also included are two dozen photographs, a foreword by Richard V. Pierard, and an afterword by Paul Jenkins.