The American Missionary Enterprise and Foreign Aid

Abstract

The missionaries were the primary and earliest contributors for holding knowledge of areas outside the European and North American territory. However, as demonstrated in historical studies, knowledge does not "advance," but is linked to power. With a literate congregation supporting the missionaries' demand from abroad, their knowledge of the heathen world, like that of the Third World, was spread through their home institutions. The researcher's purpose of pursuing an analysis on the network of individuals of the Liberal Establishment is not to determine any causal relationship of the policy formation between the political and religious establishment, but rather to provide the reader with a historical and cultural context of the missionary enterprise, foreign aid, and knowledge of social science, which are inextricably intertwined. The American foreign missionary activities from the 1930s paved the way for the bi-lateral and international technical assistance program which intensified in the late 1950s and 1960s.