2026-2027 Faculty Research Grants

Andrew Tompkins (World Mission). 

The Influence of Economic Ethos and Practice in Eighteenth-Century Protestant Missions and Faith.

During the eighteenth century, the British East India Company went from being a significant commercial entity to a dominating world trade conglomerate that drastically changed how global connections functioned. Its center of influence was in India, where it operated numerous trading centers, fought wars, and grappled with governing territory as a private company. In the midst of these massive economic changes, other movements were also taking place. The Protestant mission movement was first established in India, in 1706, on a sustained basis by Pietist Lutheran missionaries who lived and worked along the Eastern coast of India throughout the eighteenth century. These missionaries labored primarily within the realm of the British East India Company’s trade centers, creating entangled relationships with significant implications. This project evaluates the forms of relationship between the missionaries and the British East India Company, and how the economic approaches of each entity developed and informed their daily lives and their sense of purpose. To understand these relationships, it is essential to narrow down specific instances in which the British East India Company discussed the missionaries and made decisions in reaction to the Protestant missionary presence in India. Therefore, this research intends to:

1. Locate specific instances where British East India Company employees at Fort St. George, Fort St. David, and Madras make statements about or directly engage with Protestant missionaries in India in the eighteenth century.

2. Locate actions recorded in the minutes of the British East Company that pertained to its relationship with Protestant missionaries.

3. Evaluate the ways economic theory and practice informed the British East India Company’s relationship to Protestant missionaries.