Imagined Communion: Volkskirche, Imagined Communities, and German Missionary Theology

In a presentation drawing on his book, Heavenly Fatherland: German Missionary Culture in the Age of Empire, Jeremy Best will discuss how German Protestant missionaries converted thought and word into deed and action. Shaped by their own histories, the missionaries’ theology of Volkskirche set out to build national churches in service to an internationalist imagination that contradicted Anglophonic mission theory and German nationalist intention. Best is an assistant professor of modern Europe at Iowa State University with a specific interest in the cultural history of Germany during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His 2021 book, Heavenly Fatherland, won the Phi Alpha Theta Best First Book Prize. His work has also appeared in Central European History and edited collections on the history of missionaries. His research has received support from the German-American Fulbright Commission, the German Historical Institute, and the Center for Excellence in the Arts and Humanities at Iowa State University.