What kind of impact have missionaries had on the world? Robert Woodberry talks with Scott Hildreth about this question and more in this video from April 2015 at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.
In a separate lecture, Woodbery explained how missionaries made an overall positive impact on the world, and they influenced healthcare, education, printing, social reform, economic development and democracy.
“Protestant missionaries are pioneering mass education… [and] printing where it doesn’t exist…, which has profound economic and political consequences for the places that they go,” Woodberry said.
Woodberry is the director of the Project on Religion and Economic Change, associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore and visiting fellow at the University of Notre Dame. His research uses both historical and statistical methods to analyze the long-term effects of Protestant and Catholic missionaries on the societies where they worked.
Woodberry’s works can be found in “The American Political Science Review,” “Social Forces,” “American Sociological Review” and “Journal of Democracy.” He received awards from the American Political Science Association, the American Sociological Association, the Association for the Sociology of Religion, and the Excellent Research Award from the National University of Singapore for his research on the social impact of missions.
Comments and Pingbacks
2019-01-11 11:25:08
Jonathan Snider
I was wondering if I could get a way to contact Mr. Robert Woodberry. Our family were missionaries in the Cameroon back in the early 1900's and we have a lot of documents from that time that he might want to look at.
2019-01-11 13:53:48
Intersect Staff
Great question! You can learn more about Dr. Woodberry and find a way to contact him at his professor page: http://www.baylorisr.org/about-isr/professors/robert-woodberry/