Missionary

==Impact of missions==
A 2020 study by Elena Nikolova and Jakub Polansky replicates Woodberry's analysis<ref name=":1">Robert D. Woodberry, "The Missionary Roots of Liberal Democracy." [http://www.hillcountryinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/missionaryrootsofliberaldemocracy.pdf ''American Political Science Review'' (2012) 106#2: 244-274. online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170809065449/http://www.hillcountryinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/missionaryrootsofliberaldemocracy.pdf|date=2017-08-09}}</ref> using twenty-six alternative democracy measures and extends the time period over which the democracy measures are averaged. These two simple modifications lead to the breakdown of Woodberry's results.<ref name=":1" /> Overall, no significant relationship between Protestant missions and the development of democracy can be established.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Nikolova|first1=Elena|last2=Polansky|first2=Jakub|date=2020|title=Conversionary Protestants Do Not Cause Democracy|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-political-science/article/conversionary-protestants-do-not-cause-democracy/89D4552E3CEED18F62E94E4ABEF322F6|journal=British Journal of Political Science|volume=51 |issue=4 |language=en|pages=1723–1733|doi=10.1017/S0007123420000174|issn=0007-1234|hdl=10419/214629|s2cid=234540943 |hdl-access=free}}</ref>

A 2017 study found that areas of colonial Mexico that had Mendicant missions have higher rates of literacy and educational attainment today than regions that did not have missions.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Waldinger|first=Maria|date=July 2017|title=The long-run effects of missionary orders in Mexico|url= http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/68841/1/Waldinger_The%20Long%20Run%20Effects.pdf|journal=Journal of Development Economics|volume=127|pages=355–378|doi=10.1016/j.jdeveco.2016.12.010}}</ref> Areas that had Jesuit missions are today indistinct from the areas that had no missions.<ref name=":0" /> The study also found that "the share of Catholics is higher in regions where Catholic missions of any kind were a historical present."<ref name=":0" />

A 2016 study found that regions in Sub-Saharan Africa that Protestant missionaries brought printing presses to are today "associated with higher newspaper readership, trust, education, and political participation."<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Cagé|first1=Julia|last2=Rueda|first2=Valeria|date=July 2016|title=The Long-Term Effects of the Printing Press in sub-Saharan Africa|journal=American Economic Journal: Applied Economics|language=en|volume=8|issue=3|pages=69–99|doi=10.1257/app.20140379|issn=1945-7782|citeseerx=10.1.1.635.9580}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://voxeu.org/article/christian-missions-and-development-sub-saharan-africa|title=The devil is in the detail: Christian missions' heterogeneous effects on development in sub-Saharan Africa|last1=Cagé|first1=Julia|last2=Rueda|first2=Valeria|date=2017-03-04|website=VoxEU.org|access-date=2017-06-07}}</ref>

Missionaries have also made significant contributions to linguistics and the description and documentation of many languages. "Many languages today exist only in missionary records. More than anywhere else, our knowledge of the native languages in South America has been the product of missionary activity… Without missionary documentation the reclamation [of several languages] would have been completely impossible"<ref>p. 223, 224. [[Tove Skutnabb-Kangas|Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove]]. 2000. ''Linguistic Genocide in Education -- Or Worldwide Diversity and Human Rights?'' Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.</ref>  "A satisfactory history of linguistics cannot be written before the impressive contribution of missionaries is recognised."<ref>p. 7. Hovdhaugen, Even. 1996b. Missionary Grammars. An attempt at defining a field of research. Hovdhaugen, ed. ''...and the Word was God: Missionary linguistics and missionary grammar,'', pp. 9–22. (=Studium Sprachwissenschaft, 25.) Münster: Nodus.</ref>