Short-term youth mission practice and the visualization of global christianity

Bibliographic Data

ID4317606
AuthorsMary Hancock (University of California, Santa Barbara, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume10
Issue2
Pages154-180
Publication date2014-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueMaterial Religion (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1743-2200 • E-ISSN: 1751-8342
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.2752/175183414x13990269049365
OpenAlexW1998017578
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited46

This article examines the visual mediation of evangelical short-term mission and the theologically inflected global imaginary that these forms engender. Recent decades have seen the resurgence of long-term mission and the emergence of short-term mission among US Christians. The latter, combining evangelization, service, and tourism, is a staple within evangelical youth culture. I argue that it is used by Christians to constitute themselves as global formations, while also offering theological frames for global Christianity. Central to this global theological imaginary are visual representations of mission encounters with ethnic, sectarian, and racial Others, which illustrate the global scope of mission and missionaries' understandings of their own efforts to engage and overcome those differences. Through an analysis of the visual content of four short-term mission agencies' websites, I examine the mediation of global Christianity in contemporary mission and its recruitment of global Christian subjects.Keywords: short-term missionglobal Christianityvisual media

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Christianity · Ethnic group · History of Christianity · Mediation · Political science · Psychoanalysis · Social science · Sociology · The Imaginary · Tourism · Anthropology · Christian Theology and Mission · History · Law · Pentecostalism and Christianity Studies · Philosophy · Psychology · Religion, Society, and Development

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