The Anglican Church in Singapore

Mission and Multiculture, Renewal and Realignment

Edward Jarvis - Foreword by Robbie B. H. Goh

The Anglican Church in Singapore has a unique place both in the study of World Christianity and in the history of Southeast Asia. From its beginnings as a Church for colonial settlers, to its role as an unlikely agent of change in Singapore’s postcolonial transition, and its reinvention as part of a highly prosperous, hyperglobalized, supercapitalist, aspiration-driven modern state, the extraordinary trajectory of the Anglican Church in Singapore merits considerable attention.

This study draws on archival material, incisive scholarship, and candid memoirs to chart the two-hundred-year history of Singapore’s Anglican Church, through world wars and communist insurgency towards hard-won national independence and the unparalleled social transformation of today, but this book goes far beyond mere chronological narrative. The author’s approach is inquisitive, rigorous, and ardently multidisciplinary, providing insights from theological, anthropological, political, and sociolinguistic perspectives.

Homing-in on critically important and currently relevant themes, this book subjects the colonial-era Anglican Church’s social, ethnic, and interreligious engagement to scrutiny. The Church’s more recent and controversial commitment to the Anglican Realignment movement and its unexpected reorientation towards Pentecostalism are thoroughly investigated. The remarkable case of Singapore’s Anglican Church is indispensable for a complete understanding of World Christianity and Christianity in Asia today.

Lexington Books / Fortress Academic

Pages: 210 • Trim: 6¼ x 9¼

978-1-9787-1698-8 • Hardback • April 2024 • $105.00 • (£81.00)

978-1-9787-1699-5 • eBook • April 2024 • $45.00 • (£35.00)

Series: Anglican Studies

Subjects: Religion / Christianity / Anglican, Religion / Christianity / History, History / Asia / Southeast Asia, Social Science / World / Asia

The Anglican Church in Singapore

Mission and Multiculture, Renewal and Realignment

Hardback

eBook

Summary

The Anglican Church in Singapore has a unique place both in the study of World Christianity and in the history of Southeast Asia. From its beginnings as a Church for colonial settlers, to its role as an unlikely agent of change in Singapore’s postcolonial transition, and its reinvention as part of a highly prosperous, hyperglobalized, supercapitalist, aspiration-driven modern state, the extraordinary trajectory of the Anglican Church in Singapore merits considerable attention.
This study draws on archival material, incisive scholarship, and candid memoirs to chart the two-hundred-year history of Singapore’s Anglican Church, through world wars and communist insurgency towards hard-won national independence and the unparalleled social transformation of today, but this book goes far beyond mere chronological narrative. The author’s approach is inquisitive, rigorous, and ardently multidisciplinary, providing insights from theological, anthropological, political, and sociolinguistic perspectives.
Homing-in on critically important and currently relevant themes, this book subjects the colonial-era Anglican Church’s social, ethnic, and interreligious engagement to scrutiny. The Church’s more recent and controversial commitment to the Anglican Realignment movement and its unexpected reorientation towards Pentecostalism are thoroughly investigated. The remarkable case of Singapore’s Anglican Church is indispensable for a complete understanding of World Christianity and Christianity in Asia today.

Details

Lexington Books / Fortress Academic

Pages: 210 • Trim: 6¼ x 9¼

978-1-9787-1698-8 • Hardback • April 2024 • $105.00 • (£81.00)

978-1-9787-1699-5 • eBook • April 2024 • $45.00 • (£35.00)

Series: Anglican Studies

Subjects: Religion / Christianity / Anglican, Religion / Christianity / History, History / Asia / Southeast Asia, Social Science / World / Asia

Author

Edward Jarvis, PhD, is fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society, fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and an Anglican priest.

Table of Contents

1“To Pave the Way for Better Things” — The Arrival of Church and Empire in Southeast Asia and Singapore
2“Desiring to Enter the Fold of Christ” — Struggling to Balance Priorities in a Missionary Church
3“Wherever the Sun Shines” — From the Victorian Mission Boom to the End of Empire’s Golden Era
4“Between What is Christian and What is Western” — Evolving Outlooks in an Age of Change
5“The Church in Times of Suffering and Persecution” — The Second World War, the Japanese Occupation, and the Aftermath
6 “More Fruitful and Urgent Tasks” — The Postwar Church amidst Conflict, Controversy, and Merdeka
7“The Deepening and Renewal of Her Spiritual Life” — Tension and Transformation in Singapore’s Anglican Church
8“Indifferent to the Agenda of the Western Theological Intelligentsia” — Singapore’s Anglican Church: Realization and Realignment

Reviews

Jarvis has a gift for sifting through extensive and diverse archival material to find the key figures whose lives are pivotal in the controversial history of the Anglican church. In this volume, the under-researched relationship between colonizers and Christians in Singapore is explored historically and in engaging narrative style. Careful to avoid the easy binary approaches that either praise or condemn colonizing developments, Jarvis’ account is detailed and nuanced, not afraid to criticize or to tease out the unexpected. While the colonial administrators sought to present their efforts as Christian, they simultaneously constrained church leaders: for the East India Company profitable trade and commerce was the real priority. Consequently, the early Church in Singapore was both entwined in the expansion of the British Empire and subverting its restrictions. With established church leaders interned during World War Two, the Church in Singapore faced a crisis, but one from which it was to benefit. As local leaders took over, the scene was set for a path to independence that saw a post-colonial Church find growth rather than decline by embracing Asian identity and a new Pentecostalism in place of the High-Church of Anglo-Catholicism. A rewarding read for anyone interested in the spread of Christianity in Southeast Asia.

— Esther McIntosh, York St John University

The place of the Anglican Church in Singapore is of sufficient currency that it definitively needs a historical narrative such as this one. This history has not been widely studied before, and the author demonstrates a masterful awareness of the depth and breadth of the subject, opening new ground on the historical record of the church. Clergy and interested laypeople in Singapore will doubtlessly find it of interest, but its primary audience of scholars of Church history, colonialism/imperialism, especially with interest in the British Empire and South Asian history, will find it of the upmost importance.

— John L. Kater, Ming Hua Theological College and Professor Emeritus, Church Divinity School of the Pacific

Jarvis, in this study, offers a well-researched and deeply insightful critique of today’s dynamic culture in one of the richest and most religious cities in the world. His book will challenge the reader to address anew the issues arising from the nature, charism, and potential of Anglicanism.

— Laurie Green, Bishop, UK