“Pray for Europe!”: Framing a Mission Field

This paper draws on periodicals of American missionary societies from the first half of the twentieth century to investigate how Europe came to be framed as a mission field. The main source is a series of illustrated periodicals published during the interwar years and through the Second World War by the European Christian Mission, a conservative Brooklyn-based Baptist missionary society founded by an Estonian immigrant. I argue that American missionary activities in Europe were not simply a response to an objective decline in Christian adherence and practice on the continent. Rather, organizations like the ECM had to frame Europe's religious and broader social situation in a way that rendered missionary activities on the old continent meaningful to convince American denominations and congregations of the importance of their work. I focus on this work of mediation that missionary societies had to perform and give an account of the frames that were mobilized, which prominently include anticommunist and anti-Catholic frames. I also discuss historical continuities with how present-day evangelistic movements approach Europe. For this part, I draw on interviews conducted with pastors of newly-founded evangelical churches in several urban areas in central and western Europe.