Pendekatan Thomas Beighton (1790-1844) dalam Penyebaran Agama Kristian di Pulau Pinang dan Kedah (1819-1844) (Thomas Beighton (1790-1844)’s Approaches to Propagate Christianity in Penang and Kedah (1819-1844))

Abstract

Studies on the history of Christian propagation among Muslim communities in Malaya are mostly limited to certain aspects such as education, printing, and others. Hence the need for a thorough study of the approaches used by Christian missionaries was discovered to be significant because the European Christian missionaries typically developed closer relationships with the local community and the Sultan than the colonists themselves. Therefore, this study aims to identify the approaches used by Thomas Beighton (1790-1844), an LMS missionary, in propagating to the Malay committees in Penang and Kedah. Also, the historical analysis used in this study is based on Beighton’s letters and reports, which were obtained from the collection of the Council of World Mission-London Missionary Society (CWM-LMS) Penang in the archives of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), the University of London. Thus, based on the research, there are three main approaches that Beighton has used: education, writing and publications, and his relation with the local ruler. This is where Beighton indirectly played a role as an agent of British colonialism through certain approaches. This indirectly shows that there are elements of Westernization in Beighton’s approach to the local community in both states.