Christian History Corner: The Day the Ransoming Began
A gripping new book details the first American missionary hostage crisis, over 100 years ago
Chris Armstrong | posted 5/01/2003 12:00AM
2 of 3
When the tabloids of Pulitzer and Hearst made Miss Stone's plight a cause celebre, however, Roosevelt, though still insisting "of course the government has no power whatever to guarantee the payment of the ransom," began to consider sending warships to the area to cow the Turkish government into action. (He never did it.)
Finally, Carpenter allows us to peer back through the years at a gaping Victorian public. Ordinary Americans looked on as the details of their compatriots' ordeal unfolded—drawn magnetically by life-and-death negotiations charged with political, economic, and religious interest.
Banner headlines and appeals from Christian pulpits kept Stone's plight before this concerned public, and soon even children were emptying pennies from their piggy banks into collection plates. Unfortunately, the amounts raised through such appeals were published in the American papers, and the kidnappers, reading the figures, proved less and less motivated to release their captives any time soon.
Ellen Stone's ordeal ended as well as possible. Through complex political negotiations, the money was raised and delivered, and the captors, after several weeks' delay, released the missionary and her companions. (Reaching this point in Carpenter's masterful telling, I finally felt free to exhale.)
In the intervening years, not all such crises, of course, have ended so well. Today we still mourn with Gracia Burnham over the loss of her husband Martin. Whenever a new hostage situation grabs the headlines, we are cast back into the same web of conflicted interests and difficult decisions that Carpenter details so vividly in The Miss Stone Affair.
And the answers haven't gotten any easier.
Chris Armstrong is managing editor of Christian History magazine. More Christian history, including a list of events that occurred this week in the church's past, is available at ChristianHistory.net. Subscriptions to the quarterly print magazine are also available.
Copyright © 2004 Christianity Today. Click
for reprint information.
Related Elsewhere:
Other stories appearing on our site today include:
Did Martin Die Needlessly? | Gracia Burnham believes her husband would be alive today if someone had paid the proper ransom—but mission agencies wonder how many other missionaries would have been kidnapped as a result.
Gracia Burnham: 'I Speak My Mind' | The former hostage talks openly about what she learned about God, her Muslim captors, and herself during her captivity.
Dogging the Story | Christian media can play a special role in cases like the kidnapping of the Burnhams.
Christian History Corner appears every Friday at ChristianityToday.com. Previous editions include:
When World Leaders Pray | Some observers are upset with Tony Blair's recent public avowal of faith. But what impact has Christianity really had on our leaders? (May 16, 2003)
Got Your 'Spiritual Director' Yet? | The roots of a resurgent practice, plus 14 books for further study. (May 2, 2003)
Missionary Tales from the Iraqi Front | The modern Anglican mission to Iraq met with initial success, but its story sounds a cautionary note. (April 25, 2003)
The Goodness of Good Friday | An unhappy celebration—isn't that an oxymoron? (Apr. 17, 2003)
Top Ten Entry Points to Christian History | Some enjoyable ways to get the most out of the work of church historians. (Apr. 11, 2003)
RSS Feeds
Audio
Twitter
share this page
E-mail
Print
Post
Subscribe to Christianity Today magazine today!
