Mission, Race, and Empire

The Episcopal Church, by virtue of its chosen acceptance within the American ruling class, holds an outsized influence in comparison to its size within American religious history. The Episcopal Church is a denomination of social elites that held immense power in American governmental structures, a relationship that has historically positioned the Episcopal Church as a church of white male elites guiding change for the good of American exceptionalism. For example, Episcopal missionaries entered the Philippines, Japan, and China alongside American imperialist forces as the history of the Episcopal Church closely mirrored any advances in the history of American empire. Jennifer C. Snow’s Mission, Race, and Empire: The Episcopal Church in Global Context charts the relationship between church and nation admirably, where she pinpoints moments through American history where nation and church existed in lockstep, often bolstering one another in larger understandings of race and empire—but instead of focusing on the denominational leadership she tracks this story through the histories of the missionized. Snow offers a new history of the Episcopal Church from the colonial era to the contemporary moment that centers how the denomination’s attempts at missionary activity, either foreign or domestic, provide an essential lens for understanding the Episcopal Church’s conceptions of race and empire. Snow’s book is a necessary addition to the growing movement to decenter the history of the Episcopal Church as an exclusively white, male, elite denominational project which previously existed outside of broader histories of American empire. Overall, Snow provides a sweeping narrative that works to integrate not just the actions of the men at the top of the hierarchy, but also the people these missionary activities attempted to reach, whether successful or not.

Snow divides this volume into three chronological sections: the colonial era until 1800, 1800 until 1920, and 1920 until the present. In the first part, Snow traces the difficulties of missionary work within the colonial context, in which the constraints of hierarchy inhibited the church’s desire to Christianize and civilize. The second part tracks the aftermath of the financial upheaval of the early republic brought on by disestablishment and the centering of mission work as the central duty of the denomination, to varying levels of success. The final part nuances the work of the Episcopal Church in the 20^th century and its shift to a postcolonial and liberal evangelical model of missionary work amidst conservative backlash. Over the course of her narrative, Snow moves through stories of free and enslaved Black Episcopalians, Japanese Episcopalians (both in Japan and California), indigenous missionary activities in the Midwest, and the divergence of the contemporary Episcopal Church from the Anglican churches in the Global South.

Snow engages a range of scholars with this work, linking the work of scholars who study slavery, denominational historians, and scholars of global Christianity (3). She places these scholars in conversation with one another to underscore the relationship between mission and empire within the Episcopal context over three hundred years of history, proving that the actions of the contemporary church are rooted in historical understandings of race and mission. The focus on mission shifts the history of the Episcopal Church to the margins, where the stories and beliefs of indigenous, enslaved, Black, and queer Episcopalians are centered above the institutional histories of bishops (5). Snow uses the existing secondary literature and institutional sources within her narrative, but with a focus on the Church’s missionary work, supplementing the official narrative of the denomination with the personal papers and experiences of priests, bishops, and their parishioners.

Moreover, Snow argues against the segmentation of the study of foreign and domestic mission work, instead offering her history as an attempt to contextualize the way that all forms of missionary activity shift the narrative of this denomination (4). She argues that scholars must work towards a holistic understanding of this missionary history in order to properly account for the impact of colonialism on the Episcopal Church. Snow writes this narrative as an insider of this denomination, as a white Christian Episcopalian lesbian (5). She envisions this narrative not just as a history for academics, but as a guide for Episcopalians to understand the complicated ties of race and empire to their denomination’s mission and theology.

While Snow’s narrative privileges a vast chronology, she works to emphasize important case studies within that chronology. She follows the broad sweeps of American history with emphasis on race relations and imperialism. Snow relies heavily on secondary literature and digital archives, which allow her narrative to compile various strands of scholarship into one volume. Snow’s grand narrative approach does not allow for in-depth study of any one particular segment of marginalized Episcopalians, but it does provide a necessary foundation for future scholarly research into any one of the case studies Snow offers in this book. This book is an important first step in the reframing of Episcopal Church history beyond its white elite confines, but this book should not be taken as a complete history of marginalized Episcopalians. There is still essential archival and scholarly work to be done in excavating their stories, especially to further complicate the relationship between white supremacy and Episcopal Church history. Nevertheless, Snow ably ties recent scholarship on indigenous, Black, and Asian Episcopalians, among other groups, together, laying the groundwork for future work that can apply Snow’s understanding of mission when studying the intersection of the Episcopal Church and race.

Mission, Race, and Empire is an essential addition to the study of the Episcopal Church and race, both for American religion scholars and non-specialists. Snow makes the often-confusing institutional history of the Episcopal Church accessible through her emphasis on missionary work and laity. She ties the history of the Episcopal Church to the legacies of American westward expansion, imperialism, and racism to give equal space to domestic and foreign missions. In so doing, Snow offers a history of the Episcopal Church that explains its long and fraught relationship to missionary work from the colonial era to the contemporary moment, offering a path for reinterrogating the colonialism at the heart of this history. Overall, this work is an excellent step toward the renewed study of the Episcopal Church from the perspective of the margins.

Devin Burns received her PhD in American Religious History from Florida State University in 2024.

Devin Burns

Date Of Review:

May 23, 2024