PhD Title

Evangelical Christianity in Modern Mongolia: Missionary, Religious and Cultural Encounters and Reactions

Supervisors

Dr Judith Nordby and Dr Kevin Ward (Religious Studies)

Research Study

Mongolian society is traditionally shamanist and Buddhist. The form of Buddhism is that of Tibet. Evangelical Christian mission work first started in 17th century Russia amongst the Mongolian Kalmyks who dwell between the Black and Caspian Seas. Moravian missionaries published the first part of the Bible in Kalmyk in 1815. Scottish Congregational missionaries went to the Buryat Mongolians in Siberia, on the east of Lake Baikal. They also translated the Bible. There were major differences as to how they translated. Neither work produced very many converts.

Modern day evangelical mission started in 1971 in a Mongolia that was emulating the Soviet Union and almost cut off from the rest of the world. Today, Mongolia has a burgeoning rich class as well as plenty of very poor people. Making enough money to live on is a major struggle for many. From 1990, when Mongolia became open to other countries, several thousand evangelical missionaries came from both east and west, mainly from the United States and South Korea. Using large sums of money, they say they hurried to do their work. Today there is said to be some 43,000 Mongolian adherants to Evangelical Christianity. There is also a schism over the nature of God, with one side using Buddhist language for Christianity, the other using terms which are distinctly Christian.

The thesis examines how Evangelical beliefs have been translated into modern Mongolian culture with how Christianity is understood both by missionaries to Mongolia and the definitions of such Evangelicalism traditionally.

Background

Studied Leeds University 1971-1972 (Mongolian), Mongolian State University 1972-1973 (Mongolian), Leeds 1973-1977 (Russian and Mongolian), Mongolian State University 1978-1980 (Mongolian). I am part of a team translating the Bible from Greek and Hebrew into Mongolian from 1971 to the present. I have been living in Mongolia continuously since 1991. I also lead aid work in Mongolia aimed at helping the visually handicapped. My research is part time. My wife, Altaa, is Mongolian.

Email: j.w.gibbens02@leeds.ac.uk