The critique of mission history often involves perpetuating the overestimated impact of the missionaries from opposite sides. It was not so much the missionaries who mattered, but what mattered more was whether the people were responding to the message or not. Today we see the translating function of the missionaries in a clearer way and the people’s reception as the crucial factor in the process of modern Christianization. The World Council of Churches in its declaration “Together Towards Life” (2013) separates mission from its entanglement with colonialism as a mission from the margins by grounding it in the triune God (missio Dei), but it seems to overlook the contributing factor of the people as the human subject of the Christianization process. Instead of following a simple input-impact model, we have to acknowledge more those who were adapting themselves to the Christian faith from within their own context.
AleazKP (2002) A tribal theology from a tribal world-view. Indian Journal Theology44(2): 20–30.
2.
AndersCBiehlMKnuthA (2010) Mission zwischen Macht und Ohnmacht. 100 Jahre nach der Weltmissionskonferenz von Edinburgh. In: EdinburghWege nach. Standortbestimmung im Dialog mit der ersten Weltmissionskonferenz 1910, Studienheft Weltmission Bd. 68, ed. by Evangelischen Missionswerk in Deutschland, Hamburg, 14–69.
3.
BargatzkyT (1997) The Kava ceremony is a prophecy: an interpretation of the transition to Christianity in Samoa. In: HieryHJMacKenzieJM (eds) European Impact and Pacific Influence: British and German Colonial Policy in the Pacific Islands and the Indigenous Response. London: Tauris Academic Studies, 82–99.
4.
BarkerJ (1989) Ethnographic perspectives on Christianity in oceanic societies. In: BarkerJ (ed.) Christianity in Oceania: Ethnographic Perspectives. Lanham/ New York/ London: University Press of America, 1–24.
5.
BeheraMN (2018) Heavenly citizenship: a concept for Union and an identity marker for Mizo Christians. Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai Theologia Orthodoxa (SUBBTO) 63(2): 75–90.
6.
BergerPLLuckmannT (1966) The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. Garden City, New York: Doubleday.
7.
DownsFS (1980) Christianity as a tribal response to change on Northeast India. Miss8(4): 407–416.
8.
DownsFS (1992) History of Christianity in India: North East India in the Nineteenth and Twentieth, Vol. V, Part 5. Bangalore: Church History Association of India.
9.
FernandoL (2013) Rewriting the history of Christianity in Asia from an ecumenical perspective. In: HopeA [and others] (eds) Asian Handbook for Theological Education and Ecumenism. Eugene, Oxford: Regnum Books International.
10.
FormanCW (1989) Some next steps in the study of pacific Island Christianity. In: BarkerJ (ed.) Christianity in Oceania: Ethnographic Perspectives. Lanham/ New York/ London: University Press of America, 25–31.
11.
GarretJ (1985) To Live among the Stars: Christian Origins in the Pacific. Geneva: World Council of Churches.
12.
Hau’ofaE (1993) Our Sea of Islands. In: Hau‘ofaENaiduVWaddellE (eds) A New Oceania: Rediscovering our Sea of Islands. US: University of Hawai’i Press, Center for Pacific Islands Studies 1993.
13.
KoschorkeK (2014) Polycentric structures in the history of world Christianity (Inaugural Lecture). In: KoschorkeKMeierJ (eds) Studies in the History of Christianity in the Non-Western World [Studien zur Außereuropäischen Christentumsgeschichte (Asien, Afrika, Lateinamerika)]. Vol. 25, Germany: Harrasowitz Verlag, 15–27.
14.
LangiJ (1992) The history of the methodist church in its rotuman setting. In: FormanCW (ed.) Island Churches: Challenge and Change. Fiji: Pacific Theological College and Institute of Pacific Studies of the University of the South Pacific1992, 2–66.
15.
PachuauL (2002) Ethnic Identity and Christianity: A Socio-Historical and Missiological Study of Christianity in Northeast India with Special Reference to Mizoram. Frankfurt/M: Peter Lang.
16.
PachuauL (2018) World Christianity: A Historical and Theological Introduction. Nashville: Abindong Press.
17.
ReinboldW (2000) Propaganda und Mission im ältesten Christentum: Eine Untersuchung zu den Modalitäten der Ausbreitung der frühen Kirche (Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
18.
SchiederD (2012) Das Phänomen der coup culture: Politische Konflikte auf den Fidschi-Inseln (Quellen und Forschungen zur Südsee, Band 5). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
19.
SunquistSW (2015) The Unexpected Christian Century: The Reversal and Transformation of Global Christianity, 1900–2000. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic.
20.
StarckR (1996) The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History. San Francisco: Harper Collins.
21.
TauiraMGNineteenth Century Indigenous Mission in the Pacific. BDExtension Course. Suva: Pacific Theological College (Manuscript).
22.
TrompfG (1995) Pacific Islands. In: SwainTTrompfG (eds) The Religions of Oceania. London and New York: Routledge, 121–222.
TuwereIS (2002) Vanua: Towards a Fijian Theology of Place. Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies.
25.
WilfredFThomasMM (1992) Theologiegeschichte der Dritten Welt. Indien. Aus dem Englischen übersetzt von E. Anneliese Gensichen, Hans-Werner Gensichen und Theodora Karnasch. München: Chr. Kaiser.
26.
WeirC (2014) “We visit the colo towns … when it is safe to go”: indigenous Adoption of Methodist Christianity in the Wainibuka and Wainimala Valleys, Fiji, in the 1870s. The Journal of Pacific History49(2): 129–150.
