Throughout the difficult 16th
century Roman Catholics continued to reach out to new lands and peoples with
the gospel as they understood it. We’ve
seen this in the new world but there were also great efforts to reach Asia as
well. This was the period when Francis
Xavier (1506-1552) would do his work in Asia; he would minister in India where
he left behind some 20,000 converts, Japan where he would baptize 2,000, and
die while waiting to enter China. Although he too was a Spaniard, Xavier’s
approach was markedly different than those of his countrymen in the new
world.
But what about the Protestants?
Large scale involvement by
Protestants in world missions would wait until the seventeenth century, though
there were some few exceptions. Calvin
sent a group of Huguenots to Brazil in 1555, two years later they founded a
church in Rio de Janeiro. But in less
than a decade the missionaries of were hounded out of Brazil by the Portuguese.
There were other efforts but they
were of limited scope. Even the Moravian
efforts were limited to already-established European colonies; advance on a
nationwide scale would come later.
There were understandable reasons
for this:
1. Throughout much of the 16th
century Protestantism was struggling to survive. There was little time to plan, gather
support, and initiate foreign campaigns.
2. Protestant strongholds did not
have overseas interests. Only after
England became a major colonial power did a Protestant nation have bases from
which missionaries could operate.
Theological confusion caused some delay in
engaging in missions but these factors did not involve all Protestants.
--Protestants knew that portion of
the New Testament known as the Great Commission but concluded it was directed
to the Apostles and not to the church at large.
In time, of course, most Protestants would come to apply the commission
to every age of the church.
--Despite their famous commitment
to missions, some Moravians feared they might be somehow getting ahead of God
in doing their work. Zinzendorf and
others held the view that the worldwide dissemination of the gospel would
follow a great ingathering of Jews to the Christian faith; since that had not
happened, they wondered if they might be out of order in pursuing the work of
missions. Nevertheless, the Moravians
eventually accepted that God’s will for the church includes the attempt to take
the gospel to the whole world.
The Moravians
Count Nikolaus von Zinzendorf
(1700-1760) was an heir to the Pietistic Revival initiated under Philip Spener
and carried on by August Hermann Francke in Germany during the latter half of
the seventeenth century. While the
movement is known for its emphasis upon a personal faith and devotion to
Christ, it also stressed the importance of reaching out with the gospel to
others.
Zinzendorf became involved with a
group of religious refugees from Bohemia called Moravians when he allowed them
to settle on his estates in Saxony. As
the community grew it took the name Herrnhut.
A revival that broke out in 1727, transformed the community from one
rife with strife into one filled with a vision to serve God.
Herrnhut became a community which
tirelessly worked to spread the gospel
·
Zinzendorf sent emissaries to European capitals
to spread the news of the revival to other denominations. One writer says that Zinzendorf may have been
the first churchman to use the word “ecumenism.”
·
They sent representatives to Oxford and London
to tell what had happened. These
“ambassadors of revival” even made contact within the court of King George I.
·
Herrnhut sent missionaries to Georgia to
minister to the Creek Indians.
·
After meeting a converted slave while attending
the coronation of Denmark’s King Christian VI, Zinzendorf determined to send
missionaries to the West Indies. Before
Zinzendorf’s death, the Moravians would send missionaries around the globe.[2]
Zinzendorf himself would preach a
series of sermons in Berlin which were published in several languages. Because of his noble heritage, Zinzendorf was
able to reach out to some who would never have heard a commoner. He even gained the approval of Prussian King
Friedrich Wilhelm I.
Zinzendorf traveled to the American
colonies to review some of the work there and unsuccessfully attempted to unite
the Lutherans in Pennsylvania.
After the Moravians were expelled
from Saxony in 1736, Zinzendorf travelled widely, finally settling in London
where he stayed from 1749 to 1755. In
time, Parliament declared the Moravian Church to be “An Ancient Protestant
Episcopal Church.” This allowed the
Moravians remarkable freedom to work and Zinzendorf temporarily made London the
center of Brethren activity. He was able
to return to Saxony in 1756.[3]
By the time of Zinzendorf’s death
in 1760, there were over 1700 mission stations operated by the Moravians in the
American colonies, Greenland, the West Indies, Jamaica, Antigua, Surinam, and
Berbice (a region of British Guiana in SA).
At the time, there were just over 9,000 Moravian Brethren in Europe and
Great Britain. The ratio of missionaries
to home-based members has probably never been reproduced by any other
denomination.
Their work extended into Ohio in a
manner that ended tragically. The
Moravians who settled in Pennsylvania attempted to reach out to the Indians
living there. Some were converted but
life was difficult for Indians during this period since the British efforts to
recruit the Indians as allies during the Revolutionary War had made all Indians
suspect as enemies of the Americans.
In 1782, about 90 Delaware Indians
were attacked and killed on the Muskingum River in Ohio territory. These Indians had been Christianized by
Moravian missionaries and had settled there after being harried out of
Pennsylvania. The Moravians had
instilled pacifism into their converts who did not resist white militiamen
attacked. Their attackers mistakenly
believe the Delaware were responsible for raids into Pennsylvania territory.
These Moravian Delaware would
eventually settle in Canada where they believed they would be safe from further
attack.
At the end of the eighteenth
century fully half the Protestant missionaries in the world were
Moravians. They had won great respect
even among national leaders in the nations where they served. If you could see the title search for the
land on which our house is built you’d find it was once part of a land
grant—some of you may live on land that was also part of that grant. This grant, given in 1796, gave a large
portion of what is now central Ohio to veterans of the Revolution and to the
Moravian Brethren to help them in their efforts in “propagating the Gospel to
the heathen.”
Mission Efforts by the English Settlers
When the English
establish colonies in the new world it seemed the reasonable and Christian
thing to reach out to the indigenous peoples.
John Eliot (1604-1690) became pastor in
Roxbury, MA, where he spent his life. He
became interested in the Algonquin people through getting to know a captured
Indian who had become his servant. Eliot
learned the language and began preaching to them, having some success making
converts. He reduced the language to writing and translated the Bible; it would
be the first Bible published in America.
One writer says, “Eliot believed that Indians themselves were best
suited to carry the gospel to their people, so he carefully trained twenty-four
Indians as preachers. Because of his tireless efforts among the Indians, Eliot
was given the title ‘Apostle to the Indians.’”
Eliot was by no
means the only missionary to the Indians.
David Brainerd (1718-1747) who was expelled from Yale for criticizing a
teacher and defying the rector by attending a revival also ministered to the
Indians. He worked in Massachusetts,
Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. He died of
tuberculosis in 1747, at 29 years old.
He spent his final days in the home of Jonathan Edwards, who was to have
become his father-in-law. Edwards wrote
his biography which inspired many others to either support missions or become
missionaries.
Some efforts by
Protestants were carried out by individual missionaries, often working on their
own with little support from other churches.
That would change on the eve of the nineteenth century.
The Great Century
Called “the Great
Century” of foreign missions, the nineteenth century was the most productive
century in terms of missionary outreach.
The man whose passion and labors initiated this burst of growth was an
English Baptist, a cobbler by trade, named William Carey.
Bruce Shelley
writes:
Carey was born in
1761 near Northampton. He was the son of
a weaver and would become a cobbler, first apprenticing when he was
sixteen. During this time a fellow
apprentice persuaded to become a Baptist.
He married in 1781 to his employer’s daughter Dorothy. In 1785, despite the fact the family was
struggling financially, he began a career as a Baptist lay-preacher. Already, through his privat study of
Scripture he had become convinced that the church must reach out to the
uttermost parts of the earth.
Not everyone was
ready to hear this message. In the 18th
century many Protestants believed the Great Commission applied only to the
apostles. So, according to a widely told
story, that may not be entirely accurate, when Carey presented his ideas to a
group of ministers one said to him, “Young man, sit down. When God pleases to convert the heathen, He
will do it without your aid or mine.”
Carey may have sat
down on that occasion but he would not remain silent. In 1692, Carey presented his ideas in a brief
book. When he was invited to speak to
the Baptist association in Nottingham, he challenged the crowd’s timidity by saying,
“Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.”
The next day the
association formed the Baptist Missionary Society. Carey volunteered to be one of the first
missionaries. Though his wife and family
opposed the idea, they reluctantly agreed to join him and in June 1793 set sail
to India.
--Carey would face
opposition from the British East India Company, finally winning support from
one of the local supervisors.
--Carey’s wife
would become increasingly unbalanced, especially after their young son Peter
died in 1794. She began publically
accusing him of adultery, though all the missionaries knew the charges were
groundless.
--He would labor
some seven years in Malda without a convert; he then was moved to Serampore to
set up a base of operations for the Baptist Missionary Society.
--He worked hard
learning the language and slowly translating the scriptures. In 1812, a fire destroyed his manuscripts and
he had to do much of his work over.
Still only an uneducated cobbler, Carey’s translations were sometimes
rough. The society’s secretary
criticized him and he began the reworked the manuscripts again.
--Serampore became
an important place for missionaries to find spiritual support and guidance as
they began their difficult work.
--Dorothy Carey
died in 1807 and William remarried only six months later, which shocked some of
his fellow missionaries, but there was never any reason to believe he had had
anything but a proper relationship with his new wife. In one sense, he had been emotionally widowed
for years.
--Biographers
admit that the very busy Carey had often neglected his children; sadly, this
would become a trait that other Christian leaders would emulate.
--In 1818, after
25 years of work in India, the Baptist Mission could claim 600 converts and a
few thousand of what we might call “seekers.” Carey and the other missionaries often used
music to convey their message and attract the curious. On one occasion, he and some other
missionaries participated in a local festival where people were expected to
sing ballads. Carey, Joshua Marshman,
and William Ward sang a ballad about an Indian man who had found Christ. Copies
of the ballad were distributed.
--In 1834, Carey
died having spent forty years on the mission field with no furlough. Some of his strategy continues to be used by
missionary, including the translation of Scripture and the use of indigenous
people to minister.
During the Great Century—
Great Britain would provide most of the
world’s missionaries. (America would
surpass Britain in the 20th century.)
Some of these
missionaries would become heroes, much like astronauts would in the next
century. One of these was John Gibson
Paton (1824-1907). Paton’s autobiography
was a best-seller.
While training at
the University of Glascow in both medicine and theology, Paton served in the
inner city as a missionary. Then,
following his ordination in 1858 as a Presbyterian missionary, he sailed to the
New Hebrides. The difficulties of his
first term, which included hostilities from local natives and the death of his
wife and infant son, led to his going to Australia in 1862 where he promoted
the missionary cause. Back in Scotland
in 1864, he was elected moderator of the Reformed Presbyterian Church. This allowed him to promote missions
throughout the nation. In 1866, he
returned to the South Pacific, settling on the island of Aniwa. During his almost two decades of ministry,
most of the inhabitants were converted.
He remained there
until 1881 when he settled in Melbourne where he directed the efforts of other
missionaries and traveled extensively promoting missions. He was known for his defense of the islanders
which often caused clashes with the whites.
A. R. Tippett writes:
Paton was a
forceful, descriptive speaker and writer. He was an aggressive crusader against
the social evils of the white man in the Pacific: the traffic in liquor, in
western arms and ammunition, and particularly in laborers, which displaced many
islanders and cost many lives. Thus incurring the wrath of his enemies, he
became a controversial figure.
His autobiography,
edited by his brother in 1907, contains some fascinating stories. Paton told of one incident when the mission
compound was seemingly saved by a band of angels guarding it.
Paton comments on
the joy of his work in this recollection:
At the moment when I put the
bread and the cup into those dark hands, once stained with the blood of
cannibalism, but now stretched out to receive and partake the emblems and seals
of the Redeemer's love, I had a foretaste of the joy of Glory that well-nigh
broke my heart to pieces. I shall never
taste a deeper bliss till I gaze on the glorified face of Jesus Himself.”
Women would provide one-half to two-thirds
of the mission personnel. Some of
them would become voices for greater freedom for women to minister (eg. Lottie
Moon, patron saint of Southern Baptist missionaries said, “What women want who
come to China is free opportunity to do the largest possible work….. What women have a right to demand is perfect
equality.”).
Another such woman
was Mary Slessor.
When Mary Slessor
died in 1915 she was far from her home in Scotland., in fact for more than
forty years she had lived outside the “comfort zone” of European life. Historian Ruth Tucker writes:
The exploration and
missionary work of Livingston and Stanley inspired scores of others to embark
on Africa—women as well as men. Most of
the women, not surprisingly, envisioned their ministry sheltered within the
confines of an established mission station, such as Kuruman where Mary Moffrat
spent most of her life. Exploration and
pioneer work was not even an option for a single female missionary—at least not
until Mary Slessor arrived on the scene.
The story of Mary Slessor,
as much as the life of any missionary in modern history, has been romanticized
almost beyond recognition. The image of
her as a Victorian lady dressed in high-necked, ankle-length flowing dresses,
pompously escorted through the African rain forest in a canoe by painted tribal
warriors, is far removed from the reality of the barefooted, scantily clad,
red-haired, working-class woman, who lived African-style in a mud hovel…
In her four
decades as a missionary Mary Slessor rescued abandoned children, befriended
outcast women, settled disputes, fought brutal practices, opened the way to
other missionaries, and won the respect of African and British alike. In fact, she became the first woman
vice-consul in the Empire. Today, her
image is on a Scottish 10 pound note.
All of this because at the age of 27 she was willing to leave her
familiar neighborhood and church to become a pioneer missionary in Calabar,
Nigeria.
The Mission Societies would be the backbone
of much outreach.
Carey’s work
illustrates one of the important features of the nineteenth century missionary
effort. The great work done during the
great century could not have been done without the societies that formed for
the promotion, support, and recruitment of missions and missionaries. It was the age of societies.
Some of these
societies were formed when denominations were slow in taking up the cause of
missions. An example would be the London
Missionary Society which was multi-denominational. Other societies, like Carey’s Baptist Missionary
Society, were formed when the members of a denomination determined to follow
the Great Commission. The first such
society in the United States would be the American Board of Commissioners of
Foreign Missions in 1810. The board sent
out its first missionaries in 1812.
Two of these
missionaries, Luther Rice and Adoniram Judson were Congregationalists when they
set sail to India. On shipboard, both
Rice and Judson became convinced the Baptist understanding to baptism was the
biblically correct view and they resigned their commissions. Rice returned to
the US to try to organize American Baptists for the cause of missions. Judson and his wife Ann went on to
Burma.
There his ministry
and suffering became the stuff of legends—at least Baptist legends. He learned the language, translated the NT,
attempted to understand the Buddhism of the culture, and tried to reach
individuals. Accused as a British spy,
he was imprisoned for a lengthy period.
Ann smuggled writing materials to him in handmade pillows so he could
continue his work of translation. When
Ann died, she became a heroine to the American people. In the end, Judson was not an especially
successful missionary but he inspired others.
A verse attributed to him says:
Through sorrow, loss, and pain,
Our course be onward still;
We sow on Burma’s barren plain;
We reap on Zion’s hill.
Faith Missions would begin to minister.
Most missionary
organizations work with funds already in hand or, at least, promised. Faith missions depend upon God to
provide. They have done great work but
have sometimes placed great pressure on their missionaries who go out with no
guarantee of salary. In some instances,
missionaries work a grueling term on the field and then come home on “furlough”
where they must go from church to church attempting to garner support for their
return.
Despite the
drawbacks of this approach, some faith missions have done remarkable work. The best known was the China Inland Mission
founded by Hudson Taylor in 1866. By
1895, they were providing 40% of the Protestant missionaries in China; by 1935
they had more than 1300 missionaries in the country and were represented in
every province. Like other mission
groups, they were expelled following the 1949 communist takeover.
Mission theory would struggle between those
who were willing to accommodate their method to the culture they were trying to
reach and those who confused Christianity and western culture.
While some
missionaries insisted on maintaining little outposts of England (complete with
tea-time), others recognized the need to accommodate to the culture. Hudson Taylor risked the charge of “going
native” by wearing Chinese dress and allowing his hair to grow so he could wear
the traditional queue.
Determining the
best approach to the Muslim world with the gospel has been debated for
centuries. This reflects the fact the
Muslim community is very difficult to reach. There are sociological, political,
and theological reasons for this. To
illustrate the last category, let me suggest an analogy. The early Christians tended to believe that
Christianity completed or fulfilled Judaism.
To return to the Jewish lifestyle with its dependence upon animal
sacrifice would be to leave the better for the lesser. In the same way, the Muslim believes Islam is
an improvement on Christianity. So to
become a Christian would be to settle for less than the best.
Several approaches
have been used in attempting to reach the Muslims, ranging from outright
confrontation which didn’t produce many results to a variation of “friendship
evangelism” which seems to have had somewhat better results. Some groups attempting outreach to the
Islamic world made use of institutions like hospitals. Charles Foster (1787-1871) attempted to
interpret Islam in a way that made Mohammed into a figure like Moses who was
leading his people toward a better way; he believed Islam would eventually move
naturally toward Christianity.
Samuel Zwemer who
would become the so-called “Apostle to Islam” was born in Holland,
Michigan. He came from a family
committed to ministry—four of his five brothers were ministers and his sister
spent forty years as a missionary in China.
Volunteering for the mission field during his senior year, Zwemer
attended Princeton Seminary and also pursued medical training. In 1890, he sailed to Arabia, having earned
his own support since the Reformed Board felt efforts to reach the Muslims to
be impractical. After a few years on the
field, the Dutch Reformed Church took responsibility for the mission.
After several
years serving in Basra and Bahrein, Zwemer was asked to come to Cairo to become
a missionary-at-large to the Muslim world.
He traveled throughout the Middle East and made trips to other nations
to promote missions. In 1929, feeling
his work in Cairo was well-grounded he
accepted an invitation to become professor of missions at Princeton
Seminary. He retired in 1936 but
continued editing the quarterly Moslem
World until 1947; he had founded the journal in 1911.
He died in
1952. Norman Hope said about
Zwemer: “Zwemer was a most unusual
person. He had the mind of a scholar and the heart of an evangelist, and to the
end he maintained a perfect balance of the two. He was without doubt the
greatest missionary statesman to the Muslim world during his sixty-year
ministry.”
An advocate of an
approach that fostered friendship with Muslims rather than confrontation,
Zwemer accepted the fact that progress might be slowly. But he held onto the conviction that a
faithful presentation of the gospel would resonate with the Muslims.
His two little
daughters and his wife would die while he served in Arabia. His perspectives on his sufferings can be
heard in this statement:
“Does it
really matter how many die or how much money we spend in opening closed doors,
and in occupying the different fields, if we really believe that missions are
warfare and that the King’s glory is at stake?
War always means blood and treasure.
Our only concern should be to keep the fight aggressive and to win
victory regardless of cost or sacrifice.
The unoccupied fields of the world must have their Calvary before they
have their Pentecost.”
One person Zwemer influenced during
a chapel message at Yale was a young man named William Borden.
When this young man graduated from a Chicago high school he was different
than most of his fellow graduates. He
was a millionaire. He was also fully
committed to Christ. While enjoying his
graduation present—a trip around the world—he resolved to become a
missionary. In 1905, this heir to the
Borden dairy fortune enrolled at Yale.
While at Yale he participated in several student-led prayer groups and
Bible studies. During his remaining
years at Yale he worked to help the poor in New Haven and to prepare for
mission work in China, among the Muslims of that country. During his senior year he hosted a large
student missionary conference and served as president of Phi Beta Kappa.
After graduating from Yale, he
turned down several lucrative job offers to enroll at Princeton Seminary. When he completed his seminary work he set
out for China,
where he hoped to work with some of the Muslims who had settled there. Before leaving he gave away hundreds of
thousands of dollars for mission causes.
His plans called for him to stop in Egypt for language study. He worked under Zwemer passing out gospel
tracts. While in Egypt he contracted
spinal meningitis and died on 9 April 1913,
at the age of twenty-five.
Missionaries blended the preaching of the
gospel and ministering to physical and social needs.
Both RC and Protestant
missionaries would build hospitals, clinics, and schools to help the people
they were trying to reach. We’ve already
seen that hospitals were the “invention” of the Christians. They continued to be a venue for sharing the
love of Christ.
Missionaries also
attempted to deal with grave social problems and injustices. This brings us to a man who, I presume, is
the most famous missionary ever. Dr
David Livingstone.
In the minds of
some the most famous missionary of the modern period wasn’t. Wasn’t a missionary, that is. David Livingstone (1813-1873), a native of
Scotland, was born into a poor family
. He grew up working fourteen hour days
at the cotton mills. Converted at age 12
during one of the periodic revivals that swept Scotland, he resolved to become
a missionary.
He had a bright
mind and with hard work was accepted at the University of Glascow to study
theology and medicine. He would qualify
for both. Due to the Opium wars
China—his first choice for service—was closed so he applied to serve in
Africa. He had heard famous missionary
Robert Moffat speak in chapel of seeing the smoke of a thousand villages where
no one had heard the name of Christ.
Livingstone was
commissioned by the London Missionary Society to serve in South Africa in 1840. Even before arriving at his first post in
modern-day Malawi, Livingstone began preaching against the abuse of the
blacks. His hatred of slavery would be a
powerful force in shaping his future ministry.
For his first
twelve years, he and his wife Mary (Moffat’s daughter) moved further and
further into the interior, into previously unsettled territory. Then in 1852, Livingstone sent Mary and their
children back to England so he could further explore. That year he began what would be a four year
six-thousand mile trek from Africa’s Atlantic coast to the Indian Ocean. All the while he recorded what he saw and
offered his observations on what he thought might be the financial rewards to
be had in the country. He hoped these
would prove more rewarding than the slave trade.
In 1857, a
furlough took him back to England where he challenged students at Cambridge
with the opportunities to bring the gospel to Africa. His reports on what he had seen led the
government to commission him to explore the Zambezi river, hoping to confirm
the riches of the area. The government
withdrew their support when Livingstone outraged locals by his condemnation of
the slave-trade. However, before this he
had discovered the Victoria Falls.
Following his
wife’s death in 1861, Livingstone plunged back into his mission work. Then he disappeared. There was so much interest in the mission
missionary that the New York Herald commissioned Henry Morton Stanley to find
him.
On November 10,
1871, Stanley found him near Lake Tanganyika, in what is now Tanzania. Historians question whether he actually said,
“Dr. Livingstone, I presume.”
The two explored a while together and then
Stanley left to report his success.
Stanley would be knighted for his work in exploring Africa. Sadly, he never cared for the African people
as Livingstone did.
Eighteen months
later, Livingstone was found dead in his tent in Ilala, Zambia. He was kneeing next to his cot in
prayer. Natives removed his heart and
buried it under a tree. They then mummified
his body and took it fifteen hundred
miles to the coast.
He was buried in
Westminster Abbey with this inscription on the tomb: “For thirty years his life was spent in an
unwearied effort to evangelize the native races, to explore the undiscovered
secrets, to abolish the desolating slave trade of Central Africa.”
Livingstone is a
missionary people love to hate. There’s
little doubt he treated his wife shabbily, basically abandoning her in
England. His explorations, which
included an obsession with finding the source of the Nile, kept him from
settled mission work. This has caused
some critics to describe him as an explorer rather than a missionary.
Still, there’s
little doubt he cared for the African people—though he demonstrated the common
paternalism from time to time. Moreover,
it seems clear they loved him.
[4]
Shelley, B. L. (1995). Church history in
plain language (Updated 2nd ed.) (374). Dallas, TX: Word Pub.
