American Evangelicals between “Christ and Culture” in Iran

This paper explores the history of Presbyterian evangelicals in late Pahlavi Iran. Prior to 1965, the Presbyterian Church of the USA’s “Iran Mission” ran churches and a variety of other institutions. An examination of the PCUSA’s Iran Mission during the mid-twentieth century offers insight into the multiple worlds of “mainline” evangelicalism in its domestic context and transnational extensions. On the one hand, the Presbyterians in Iran were evangelicals, committed to church-planting and religious organizing. On the other hand, missionaries ran schools and other seemingly modern institutions that facilitated dialogue between people of different national, religious, and linguistic backgrounds. This paper captures the dualities – “Christ and culture” – of the mainline mission movement, just prior to its collapse. It examines these dualities by looking at two communities within the PCUSA’s Iran Mission. The first were the evangelists, and this group had a strict interpretation of the New Testament’s “Great Commission.” In Iran, they focused on religious institutions and training. They created the Evangelical Church of Iran, and, upon returning to the United States, some of the most active evangelists became interpreters of “Islam” for American audiences, primarily through the genre of the apologetic. In contrast to that “old mission” the second group pursued a “new mission.” This group had a looser interpretation of religious mission, and they tended to work in educational establishments. In post-1940 Iran, educationalists ran historically significant schools in Tehran, most notably the Community School and Iran Bethel. In retirement, many former missionary educationalists continued their careers in colleges in the United States. Both groups were part of a transnational evangelical culture whose missions became manifest in Iran and the United States. More broadly, this paper speaks to the importance of religion and the ideology of mission as approaches to studying the history of US-Iran relations.