(Special Section) Translating Race: Mission Hymns and the Challenge of Christian Identity

“Ye seed of Israel’s chosen race,” “The race that long in darkness pined,” “To heal and save a undone,” “Sanctify ransomed race” are few examples many references to “race” exist English-language hymnody. Throughout the nineteenth-century, hymns containing lines such as these, were exported from Britain into mission fields where translators had find new ways conceptualize notions and, effect, created group identities. This requires asking critical questions about implications what happened when ideas race, Christian sense, interacted with non-religious colonial contexts these missions established, how be rethought received settings often established. Accordingly, this article explores different expressed hymnody reference specific various around world, show missionary dealt term was Indigenous languages, understood, for creation communities.