How to Write about the Religious Other

Groundbreaking research has breathed new life into the study of Protestantism, exploring the global interconnectedness of early modern Protestant groups. Most importantly, this has heightened awareness of how Protestantism extended over the globe in a multidirectional manner. Consequently, scholars have reconsidered the questions they ask, the groups of people they study, as well as the geography of religious history. However, this also perpetuates a stereotype: Protestantism appears as characteristically marked by plurality and polycentrism. This article attempts to correct this simplistic scholarly picture using the example of the journal kept by the Danish-English-Halle Mission in South India, the Hallesche Berichte and Neue Hallesche Berichte. Based on internal correspondence between the missionaries, the editors, and the readers of the mission journal, this contribution demonstrates that the historical actors themselves did not recognize Protestant polycentricity but, on the contrary, placed Europe and Europeans at the center of God's kingdom on Earth. The question of centrality in missionary history affects, the article argues, how scholars should think about early modern Christian plurality.