The
Billy Graham Center Holdings Related to Thailand
The
Billy Graham Center Archives houses a variety of materials related
to the church in Thailand, materials that are difficult to include
in the Christianity in Thailand Bibliography on this
website. Holdings relevant to Thailand include, for example,
the Records of the Overseas Missionary Fellowship’s US
Home Council (Collection 215), Committee to Assist Ministry
Overseas (Collection 091), the Evangelical Fellowship of Mission
Agencies (Collection 165), Lausanne Committee on World Evangelization
(Collection 046), Papers of McGavran, Donald Anderson and Mary
Elizabeth (Howard Collection 178), World Evangelical Fellowship
(Collection 338), Fellowship Foundation (Collection 459), and
several collections of individual papers and individual oral
history interviews from missionaries in Thailand. In addition,
the archives has 551 reels of microfilm of the Records of the
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (Collection
261), which includes records from its 19th century Siam Mission.
The following website address will take you to the Center Archives’
home page: http://www.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/archhp1.html.
Email may be addressed to: bgcarc@wheaton.edu.
T.
L. Osborn: a Research Note
HeRB 6 contains
an article on the early history of Pentecostalism in Thailand,
which article notes that the Rev. T. L. (Tommy Lee) Osborn's
revival in Bangkok in 1956 was a key moment in Thailand Pentecostal
history. The event itself has received far less attention "in
the literature" than it deserves. While at the Yale Divinity
School Library this last summer, I spent a couple of hours searching
various online catalogs concerning Osborn and found a couple
of avenues for pursuing further research into his relationship
to the church in Thailand that are of potential value.
WorldCat
(a.k.a. OCLC) contains a number of entries for books written
by Osborn and his wife, Daisy. It turns out that the Oral Roberts
University library (www.oru.edu/university/library/catalogs.html)
contains quite a number of his older books and some more recent
ones as well. Among those books is a set entitled Faith
Library in 23 Volumes: 20th Century Legacy of Apostolic Evangelism;
Autobiographical Anthology (Tulsa, Oklahoma: OSFO International,
2000). The ORU catalog indicates that volumes 2 and 3 probably
contain material relevant to the Osborn crusade in Bangkok.
Osborn
was only 33 when he led that crusade and is still alive today.
Inevitably, he has a website, www.osborn.org.
The website includes a listing of current publications written
by the Osborns that are available for purchase.
Osborn
has also been related, somehow, to a number of somewhat obscure
periodicals: Voice of Healing, The Voice of Faith, and Native
Evangelism. Finally, the New International Dictionary
of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements contains a biographical
entry with a brief bibliography for "Osborn, Tommy Lee."
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The
4th International Lausanne Researchers' Conference
HeRB
is particularly pleased to share with its readers the announcement
of the 4th Lausanne Conference for church-based researchers.
The 4th Conference will be held on 10-14 April 2005 (yes, 2005)
at the Miramare Hotel, Limassol, Cyprus. Some readers will remember
that the Office of History had the privilege of serving as the
Local Committee for the 3rd Conference, held in Chiang Mai in
September 2001. As was true of the 3rd Conference, the Cyprus
event is being organized by Dr. Peter Brierley and the staff
of the Christian Research Association, Britain. In spite of
the "Lausanne" tag, these research conferences bring
together a diversity of voices, experiences, and insights.
For more
details and the Booking Form, contact The Christian Research
Association, 4 Foots Cray Road, Lethal, London SE9 2TZ, UK.
Or visit the CRA website: www.christian-research.org.uk.
The CRA's email address is admin@christian-research.org.uk.
www.aljazeerah.info&
www.politicsandscience.org
Some
time ago, the western Asian news service, Al Jazeerah, tried
to start up an English-language website, only to have that site
attacked and sabotaged to keep it off the Web. In recent months,
Al Jazeerah has finally made an unobtrusive and successful second
attempt to open an English-language site, www.aljazeerah.info.
HeRB recommends this site
to any of its readers who are seeking alternative sources of
world news. This is not to endorse all of the views expressed
on the Al Jazeerah site; rather, Al Jazeerah is important because
it gives voice to a wide range of opinions, wider than we normally
receive from the Western media.
Scientists
and some liberal political leaders in the United States, meanwhile,
have become increasingly alarmed at the ways in which the Bush
Misgovernment misuses science to further its own right-wing
political agenda. Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) has posted
on the Web a forty-page report entitled "Politics and Science
in the Bush Administration," which was prepared by the
minority staff of the House Government Reform Committee's special
investigations division. If you are interested, that report
can be found at www.politicsandscience.org.
It is to be updated periodically as new instances of administration
abuses of science come to light.
PTCA
Call for Papers
The
Programme for Theology & Cultures in Asia (PTCA) has re-issued
its call for papers on the topic of "Religious Fundamentalism
and Its Challenges to Doing Theology in Asia" for a consultation
to be held in Taiwan at an as yet unspecified date in July 2004.
This topic was originally to be considered at a consultation
scheduled for July-August 2003, but that consultation was cancelled
because of the SARS epidemic. Those who are interested in submitting
a paper or otherwise attending the PTCA 2004 consultation should
contact either the Dean of PTCA, Dr. Nam-Soon Kang at nshoffnung@yahoo.com
or the PTCA Programme Coordinator, Dr. Simon Kwan at smkwan@cuhk.edu.hk.
McFarland
Family Papers at Berkeley: A Brief Description
The
University of California at Berkeley contains a collection of
materials entitled "The McFarland Family Papers,"
a small but apparently rich source for the history of Protestant
missions in Siam that is also relevant to the study of Thai
history
55
more generally. That collection was recently
processed by Ms. Leslie Woodhouse, a graduate student at Berkeley,
who has kindly provided me with an electronic copy of the finding
aid for the collection. What follows is a brief description
of the collection based on that finding aid and further information
provided by Ms. Woodhouse.
The McFarland
Papers are contained in three boxes. Box 1
contains bound copies of the Siam Repository
vols. 1 (1869), 4 (1872), 5 (1873), and 6 (1874) as well as
copies of the Siam Directory: for 1883, 1884, 1885,
and 1886. Box 1 also contains photographs of Dr. Samuel R. House,
notebooks with contents relevant to Bertha Blount McFarland,
Laura Olmstead Eakin, and John A. Eakin, as well as a few published
works and other photographs. Box 2 contains
a small treasure trove of photographs listed in the following
series: Angkor Group, ca. 1878; Angkor & Cambodia, ca. 1928;
Various People, Families, Occupations; Urban Life: Canals, Streets,
Boats, Markets, etc; Rural Life: Agriculture, Forestry, Labor,
Housing; Life in Bangkok, 1870 – 1900 & 1901-1950;
Early Missionary Photos; Various Travels; Mission Buildings;
People of the Missions; McFarland Reminington; Various Royal
Ceremonies; Library of Prince Damrong; Funeral of Queen Saowapa;
Coronation of Vajiravudh; Cremation of Chulalongkorn, vol. I
and vol. II. Box 3 contains two sets of photos
and materials listed as: McFarland Family Photos & Info
and Blount Family Photos & Info. Box 4
contains a large, ledger-size volume used as a family scrapbook,
which includes various ephemera ranging from family photos to
news clippings to invitations to local (and some royal) events.
Ms. Woodhouse
adds the further note that the collection is or soon will undergo
extensive conservation by Berkeley's Bancroft Library and will
probably not be available for research purposes again until
2005. Many of the collections photographs, however, have been
digitized and are accessible on a CD-ROM. For further information,
interested researchers should contact Virginia Shih, the Southeast
Asia librarian, at the South & SE Asia Library at UC Berkeley.
Her email address is vshih@library.berkeley.edu,
Woodhouse writes that she too will be happy to respond to inquires
about the McFarland Family Papers. Readers can contact her at
lesliew@uclink.berkeley.edu.
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