User:DonaldRichardSands/Comity (faith groups)
Comity, as used by faith groups, refers to efforts between different missionary endeavors to avoid interfering with one another's activities.
Comity is a term that loosely refers to all forms of agreement and cooperation on the mission field, but more strictly it refers to the mutual division of territory into spheres of mission work and to agreement not to interfere with the converts or affairs of other missions. Its purpose was to prevent wasteful duplication, competition, and a confusing diversity in the presentation of the gospel, but it produced "denominationalism by geography" (Beaver, 1971:123a). It also increased the likelihood that individual missions would have de facto responsibility for a specific community or caste group even though such ethnic exclusiveness went against the better judgment of some missionaries....
Williams, Raymond Brady (1996). Christian Pluralism in the United States: The Indian Immigrant Experience. Cambridge Studies in Religious Traditions, Volume 9. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p. 75. ISBN 0-521-57016-6.
An outline for the article[edit]
1. Lead
2. Etymology
- Terms, Christian Comity, Mission Comity, Church Comity, Partial comity, oral comity agreements,
3. History
3a. Participating denominations
3b. Comity in the United States and Canada
- Congregationalism
3c. Comity in Africa
- Government imposed comity
- Countries
- Sudan
- Tanzania
- Zimbabwe (Rhodesia)
- Nigeria
- Ethiopia
3d. Comity in Latin America
- Countries
- Guatemala
3e. Comity in Southern Asia
Comity is a term that loosely refers to all forms of agreement and cooperation on the mission field, but more strictly it refers to the mutual division of territory into spheres of mission work and to agreement not to interfere with the converts or affairs of other missions. Its purpose was to prevent wasteful duplication, competition, and a confusing diversity in the presentation of the gospel, but it produced "denominationalism by geography" (Beaver, 1971:123a). It also increased the likelihood that individual missions would have de facto responsibility for a specific community or caste group even though such ethnic exclusiveness went against the better judgment of some missionaries....
Williams, Raymond Brady (1996). Christian Pluralism in the United States: The Indian Immigrant Experience. Cambridge Studies in Religious Traditions, Volume 9. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p. 75. ISBN 0-521-57016-6.
7. Comity thought leaders
- Robert E. Speer promoted comity as interdenominational policy. See Piper, John F. (2000)Denominalationalism by Geography, p. 192-195 in Robert E. Speer: Prophet of the American Church. Geneva Press. Louisville, KY. ISBN 0-664-50132-X
8. Issues
- Membership transfer
- Should be based upon religious conviction
- Repentance and reformation expectations if discipline by another denomination
- Employment
- Consultation with the last society's thinking regarding the transfer
- Salaries paid by other groups
- Self-perception of denominational mandate
- SDA, Revelation 14:6,7 to all
- Schools
- Comity and Urban Missions
Sources for faith groups comity[edit]
- THE EASTERN CHURCH IN THE WESTERN WORLD BY WM. CHAUNCEY EMHARDT, Ph.D. THOMAS BURGESS, D.D. ROBERT FREDERICK LAU, D.D. Officers of the Foreign-Born Americans Division, Department of Missions, National Council,
Episcopal Church. MOREHOUSE PUBLISHING CO. MILWAUKEE, WIS.
- Garrard-Burnett, Virginia (1998). Protestantism in Guatemala: Living in the New Jerusalem. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. pp. 29–31, 37–40, 85–86, 126, 177. ISBN 0-292-72816-6. (Includes map, 'Guatemala, the Comity Agreement' showing five participating denominations: Presbyterian, Primitive Methodist, Friends, Nazarene and CAM. Also a table of the same and where they located.)
- Höschele, Stefan (2007). Christian Remnant-African Folk Church: Seventh-Day Adventism in Tanzania, 1903-1980. Studies in Christian Mission. Vol. 34. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. pp. 59, 76–79, 97–105, 137–142, 461, 549. ISBN 978-90-04-16233-4.
- SDA Mission Board Berne Switzerland (1926). "Statement of our relationship to other societies" (PDF). Quarterly Review. 12 (3). Berne, Switzerland: The European Division of Seventh-day Adventists: 2, 18. Retrieved 2012-04-28.
- Wilcox, F.M., ed (August 19, 1920). "Our relationship to other societies" (PDF). Review and Herald. 97 (34). Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association: 5, 6. Retrieved 2012-04-28.
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"Early missionaries to the country, recognizing that the task of evangelizing the country was larger than the resources of any one church body, entered into comity agreements with each other. By these a specific geographical area was assigned to one denomination. Although some denominations declined to participate in such agreements (Roman Catholic, Anglican, Seventh-day Adventist, etc.) government educational policies encouraged a modicum of unity on the local level. By requiring a minimum of three-mile distance between rural primary schools, the government fostered a pattern of one church (and school) for one village.
"The comity principle, however, has rarely succeeded in Rhodesia's towns. The deep desire of rural migrants to find a sub-group in which they feel at home thwarts urban attempts to rationalize church extension. Town planners often scatter church sites in African townships, one in each neighbourhood, on the false assumption that residents prefer to attend the nearest church. They have failed to recognize that stronger than proximity is the pull to participate in a group using those familiar patterns of worship, hymnody, organization, and discipline, learned in the rural area." pp 239,240
Also available at:
- Gambrell discusses Baptist congregationalist thinking, the comity that exists among the congregations, and how all the sovereign congregations relate to the "great conventions" of Baptists.
- Bertsche, James E. (1989). Comity. Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 26 April 2012 drs (talk) 04:24, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
- This source does not mention the term "comity" but it addresses one of the main issues of faith groups comity, i.e. voluntary restriction of geographical mission. This has been referred to as Mission Comity. drs (talk) 04:58, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
- Fiedler, Klaus (1994). The story of faith missions: from Hudson Taylor to present day Africa. Oxford, UK: Regnum Books International. p. 187-193. ISBN 1-870345-18-5.
- A different concept of unity in Africa
- Maps:
- Comity agreements in northern Nigeria
- Sudan: Comity borders prescribed by the colonial government.
- Comity in Burundi
- Maps:
- Beaver, R. Pierce (1962). Ecumenical Beginnings in Protestant World Mission: A History of Comity. New York, NY. Thomas Nelson.
Related topics[edit]
I. The Lead[edit]
"Since the mid-nineteenth century, cooperation and a sense of shared responsibility had been cast as the ruling principles of Western missionary planning. To prevent competition and the duplication of services in the field, "comity" or an agreed division of labour was introduced. This system remained the cornerstone of mission planning well into the twentieth century."
- Wright, Robert A. (1991). A World Mission: Canadian Protestantism and the Quest for a New International Order, 1918-1939. Studies in the history of religion. Vol. 7. Montreal, Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press. p. 108. ISBN 0-7735-0873-2.
II. Etymology[edit]
"Denominationalism by Geography"
"Comity arrangements were agreements among the mission organisations about where the various missions were to work so as not to compete with one another in the same geographical area. Comity Committees give advice, point to "open" areas, and settle disputes among the participating missions."
- Launhardt, Johannes (2005 (2004)). Evangelicals in Addis Ababa (1919-1991): With Special Reference to the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus and the Addis Ababa Synod, dissertation, Universität Hamburg, Asien-Afrika-Institut. Studies of Oriental Church History. Vol. 31. Hamburg: LIT Verlag Münster. pp. 119, 120. ISBN 3-8258-7791-4.
{{cite book}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) (This source also discusses the comity arrangements in Ethiopia, lists the participants and briefly discusses the Adventists as not participating. It also mentions the government's preference in dealing with individual missions rather than with comity representative.)