From New England into New Lands: The Beginning of the American Missionary Activities in the Middle East

This talk will examine the historical roots of the American missions in the Middle East. These missions began amid the early nineteenth-century movement that historians call the Second Great Awakening. Critical to this missionary engagement was the establishment of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), which in the 1820s sent American missionary pioneers to the Ottoman Empire. These early ABCFM initiatives in the Middle East were of an experimental nature. Nevertheless, they set the foundations for subsequent American Protestant missionary encounters in the region.