２０１６年度宣教師研究期間
所属・職・氏名：

研究成果概要社会学部・教授・Ruth M. GRUBEL

研究課題：Reports from the Field: The role of missionaries in forming
the worldviews held by their home country people.
研究期間：

２０１６年０４月０１日〜

２０１６年０９月１９日

研究成果概要：Overview
This research began by assessing the evolution of the worldview on which the North
American Christian missionary movement has been based. The theological andsocial attitudes held by Protestant missionaries sent by North American churches
influenced the people they met in Asia, Africa, and South America, but the reports ofwork they were pursuing around the world also influenced the people in their homechurches.
During the research period, I have been studying this subject from three different
perspectives:
1) Surveying the general literature on Christianity and world missions,comparing works in English from the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-firstcenturies.
2) Examining the writings of Kwansei Gakuin missionaries from thenineteenth and twentieth centuries to see how their perspectives reflect theliterature in 1) above, and their own experiences in Asia.
3) Exploring the roles played by Kwansei Gakuin missionaries and theirfamily members who had returned to communities in North America. By gathering
information on their activities in California, I am hoping to see if they had any
influence on the attitudes toward Japan and its immigrants in the state in the earlytwentieth century.
Methodology

With the research grant, I purchased some significant volumes on world Christianity,mission studies, and Christianity in Japan. Beginning the process by reading theseand other background works helped me frame my questions for field study.
In addition to the above books and journals, I have been accessing materials at theKwansei Gakuin Archives. Particularly, I have been reading the letters anddocuments related to California, where Walter R. Lambuth lived in his final years,and where Dr. C.J.L. Bates's mother lived with other family members after having
lived for several years with her son in Nishinomiya, Japan. I was also fortunate to beable to meet with and correspond with several Lambuth descendants through theArchive connection.

From July, I purchased membership in Ancestry, an online family history database toresearch the Lambuth and Bates families in California. Through those records, I wasable to locate details on other family members there and the communities wherethey lived.
After contacting various people at historical societies, funeral homes, libraries, andso on, in Santa Paula (where Dr. Bates's relatives lived), and Oakdale (where Dr.
Lambuth lived with his wife and daughter), I was able to spend several days at eachplace in August. During this research trip, I was able to interview local authorities,
find additional documents, and visit actual places related to the families.
Research Questions

Broad, long-term question: What impact do Christian missionaries have on shaping
the worldviews of their home country people?
Medium-term question:
California questions:

How did Kwansei Gakuin missionaries influence theworldviews of people in their home countries?
How is the development of California related to theevolution of Methodism's world missions in the latenineteenth and early twentieth centuries?

Why did Dr. Lambuth and his family move to California,
away from their previous homes in the South?

Results and Discussion

What influence did the Kwansei Gakuin missionaries
and their families have on attitudes toward Asian
immigrants in California?

The literature on world missions indicates that the North American churches, socialchanges, and international missionary activities all worked to reinforce their mutualdevelopments. The push for world missions in the nineteenth century was related,
not only to evangelical movements in many churches, but the rise in interest groups
and benevolent societies that had the improvement of lives, both within and without
their own countries as their goals. Effective publications circulated by churches andmissionary societies were shared across denominations and across the Atlantic, so
the efforts to send missionaries occurred nearly simultaneously in Britain, and in
North America (Shenk, 2004, pgs. 3 - 6). Shenk cites the argument given by mission
societies that their activities abroad served to create a "blessed reflex" invigorating
the sending churches and their communities (pg. 5).

It was near the end of the nineteenth century that Kwansei Gakuin was established(1889) by dedicated missionaries with years of experience and devoted supporters
in the U.S. The newsletters of the Methodist Episcopal Church South often hadmessages and articles from the missionaries, and even mention of the School,Kwansei Gakuin. I have not been able to assess the impact of these messages on
their readership in the U.S., but support for Kwansei Gakuin continued into the1920s, until the Great Depression significantly limited the financial resources of thechurches.

In the search for Kwansei Gakuin's "California connection," I was able to find initialhints in the Archive documents and through the Ancestry website, but when I
visited both Santa Paula (for Bates connections) and Oakdale (for Lambuthconnections), I was able to find information about the respective communities
during the times that Mrs. Bates and Dr. Lambuth lived there. Both families wereinvolved in agriculture in smaller farming communities. Santa Paula was known for
its citrus growing - especially lemons, and even today, one of the world's largest
lemon producers, Limoneira, is located there. Although Oakdale has become
predominantly an almond-growing area now, Dr. Lambuth wrote about growing
grain and many tree fruits (such as pears, apricots, and figs), and his daughter, Mary,
who was in charge of the farming, made a contract with Sunmaid Raisin Company tobuy all of the grapes from some of her land. Through the Oakdale Historical Society,
I was able to find copies of newspaper articles from various California towns andcities, reporting on Dr. Lambuth's activities as General Secretary of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, South's Board of Missions, and as Bishop of the Pacific Coast
Conference.
Although I have not been able to reach any conclusions about the impact of theBates family and Lambuth family on California worldviews in the early twentiethcentury, I hope to find some additional letters or writings that may discuss theperspectives of their communities. I would also like to learn why Mrs. Bates left
Japan and went to California, and also why Dr. Lambuth and his family moved fromTennessee to California around 1913. These goals will require more searching, but I
plan to write about my findings so far in an article for the Kwansei Gakuin Archives
in the near future.
References

Bays, D.H. and G. Wacker (eds.). 2003. The Foreign Missionary Enterprise at Home:
Explorations in North American Cultural History. Tuscaloosa, AL: Universityof Alabama Press.
Ion, A.H.. 1990. The Cross and the Rising Sun: The Canadian Protestant Missionary
Movement in the Japanese Empire, 1872- 1931. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid
Laurier University Press.
Robert, D.L.. 1997. American Women in Mission: A social history of their thought andpractice. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.

_____________2009. Christian Mission: How Christianity became a world religion.
Chichester, United Kingdom: Wiley-Blackwell.
Shenk, W.R. (ed). 2004. North American Foreign Missions, 1810 - 1914. GrandRapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.