Shayla Sturgess and Dr. Kirk Larsen, Department of History
My project began as a supervision course for the Cambridge Direct Enrollment program. Although I initially had planned a project focused around Chinese history I was unable to find a supervisor with that area of expertise and therefore my project changed entirely from what I had planned. Instead, under the direction of Dr. Peter Martland, I was directed to archives that he hoped would satisfy my interest in Chinese history. I was then sent to the large University Library with a letter of introduction in order to search for a topic within the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) archives. The BFBS archivist, Onesmus Ngundu, rolled out a large cart of BFBS committee minutes and that is where I began my search. By searching through indexes I was drawn to the number of times that the Subcommittees of the BFBS referred to the Chinese Term Controversy. Not only did it compose almost the entirety of the content referring to China, but the Controversy was still being worked out into the 1890s. In consultation with my supervisor, I began my research on the term controversy and on the BFBS.
One of the biggest problems that I ran into from the start was the startling lack of secondary literature on the topic. While there had been many contemporary histories written about the BFBS and even the American Bible Society, there is very little recent scholarship about either of them. As missionary history in China has fallen out of favor for many years in the academic world it was important that I could use this scholarship to help explain new themes and important aspects of British and American history.
The purpose of British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) and the American Bible Society (ABS) resonated deeply with 19th century British and American society. As ecumenical charitable institutions, their sole mission was to provide cheap Bibles established by public authority and without ‘note or comment.’ Their success was entirely dependent upon their ability to unite their constituents around the Bible, however, with the advent of foreign language translation they became embroiled in theological and translation disputes. My project traces how the Chinese Term Controversy affected the roles and responsibilities of members within the BFBS and the ABS and how they and their missionary counterparts responded to the heated debates surrounding translation. Their responses reflect a strong hope for ecumenical unity in the mission field; however, they ultimately failed to produce a standard Bible and accepted a status of mutual toleration instead.
Another theme that I had hoped to be able to elaborate upon was the division between the British and the Americans. Early on in my research, both my supervisor and I had hoped that my paper would be completely focused on how the British and Americans had separated and divided on the term question in China, however, I was able to find little substantial content along those lines and I had to adjust my paper to change my focus. I was, however, later on able to visit the ABS archives in New York City and to find more sources containing an American perspective. While these sources did little to explain the American and British divide on the issue, the sources I did find were very helpful and gave me a more complete understanding of the personalities and people working within the ABS. However, in order to have a truly comparative study between the BFBS and the ABS I would need to have the Committee Minutes from the ABS as well as the BFBS. Right now my sources are primarily from the BFBS archives and so the British perspective is represented much more fully in my paper. In order to publish this paper, I would need to focus on the BFBS and occasionally note what happened in the ABS rather than try to treat the two equally.
I have used this paper as a writing sample for graduate applications, which has allowed me to be accepted by the graduate program of my choice. While I have had to work through the paper and rework it for multiple applications, I have cut down the length and substituted a substantial amount of information since I turned this paper in for a grade at Cambridge in the summer of 2012. The primary purpose of my research has been to complete an honors thesis so I can graduate with honors, and this week on April 25, 2013 I will be defending my thesis.