Show Us Your God
Marilla Baker Ingalls and the Power of Religious Objects in Nineteenth-Century Burma
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3506473 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Alexandra Kaloyanides (Stanford University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 7 |
| Issue | 7 |
| Pages | 81 |
| Publication date | 2016-06-23 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Religions (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2077-1444 • E-ISSN: 2077-1444 |
| Publisher | MDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT) |
| DOI | 10.3390/rel7070081 |
| OpenAlex | W2463549166 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 16 |
This essay examines the unusual evangelical work of Marilla Baker Ingalls, an American Baptist missionary to Burma from 1851-1902. By the time of her death in Burma at the age of 75, Ingalls was known as one of the most successful Baptist evangelists among Burmese Buddhists. To understand the extraordinary dynamic of Ingalls' expanding Christian community, this essay focuses on two prominent objects at the Baptist mission: A life-sized dog statue that Ingalls kept chained at the edge of her property and a massive banyan tree covered with biblical illustrations and revered by locals as an abode of divine beings. This essay argues that these objects transformed Ingalls' American Baptist Christianity into a kind of Burmese religion that revolved around revered objects. Through an examination of the particular shrine practices that pulled people into the Baptist mission, this essay reflects on the larger context of religious encounter, conflict, and representation in modernizing Burma
Ancient history · Archaeology · Burmese · Christianity · Political science · Politics · Statue · Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography · History · Law · Philosophy · Religious studies · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies
Errand to the world
The Birth of Insight
Saving Buddhism
The Social Life of Things
Buddhist Manuscript Cultures
The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture
Sibling Relationships in the Nat Stories of the Burmese Cult to the “Thirty-seven”
American Women in Mission
The Visual Culture of American Religions
Theravada Buddhism ‐ Continuity, Diversity and Identity
Sons of the Buddha
The Invention of World Religions
| Citations per year | 0.4 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2021 - 2023 (3) |
| Highly cited | No |