Missions in the 20th Century Overview

The 20th century would bring challenges to the mission enterprise from both inside and outside the church.

1 Increasing nationalism would lead to a desire to break free of the colonial powers, which in the minds of some would include the missionaries and their churches.

The Boxer Rebellion illustrated this trend.  In 1900 the Chinese Emperor ordered the death of all foreigners and the expulsion of Christianity.  Attacks began almost immediately, before there could be any evacuation of mission personnel. Before the British regained control 135 missionaries and 53 missionary children were killed.

Half a century later, when India gained its independence, the expulsion of the missionaries was much more peaceful.

2  The rise of totalitarian dictatorships would lead to the expulsion of missionaries and the oppression of their churches.

This would happen in China and elsewhere.

3  Theological changes would challenge orthodoxy and undermine the very foundations of missionary work.

Although radical views of the Bible had been taught in Europe for  over a century, the mid-1870s in the United States introduced this thinking into the American thought world.

Calling into question the reliability of the Bible and employing anthropological and social theories inspired by Darwin's biological theories suggested that Biblical religion was subject to developmental processes just like any other religion.  In short, Christianity was no more inspired than any world religion, though its ethical norms might be of a higher order.

New views of the Bible and Christianity led to the development of theological liberalism.  It represented an attempt to be "modern" and intellectually suited to a new era.

Many of the chief doctrines of Christian orthodoxy were gutted by liberalism.  The Bible was just another religious book, not part of God's special revelation to humankind.  The threat of eternal punishment for those who did not repent and become Christians was laid aside in favor of greater toleration and openness.  The gospel message was reduced to "the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man."  H. Richard Niebuhr, in a model of brevity, defined the overall impact of liberalism in a single sentence:  "A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross."

Of course, the liberals weren't denying Christ died on the cross; they simply denied his death was needed for our salvation.  It was an example to us, not a sacrifice for us. 

Liberalism was characterized by optimism.  Many believed God's Kingdom of brotherhood and love would appear soon after the turn of the new century.  Instead, the second decade of that century brought one of the bloodiest conflicts in human history--World War I.

While not every liberal raised the white flag following the war, some embraced what came to be known as "neo-orthodoxy."  It echoed the old themes of human sin and the need for God's intervention: but, in truth, the thinking was more "neo" than "orthodox."  The Bible was not a book of history meant to be taken literally; Jesus' resurrection was symbolic. 

Inevitably, this would impact the cause of missions.  Ruth Tucker  writes, "By the end of the [19th] century, carrying the title of missionary was no guarantee that an individual was orthodox in his Christian beliefs." (p. 283)

Evangelical Christians did not accept these changes without responding.  Evangelical theologians wrote books and articles defending historic Christianity.  Though the best known of the responses to these threats was the fundamentalist movement; many of the defenders were far from poorly educated Bible thumpers.  One of the most articulate was J. Gresham Machen, In 1923, while still a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, Machen wrote a book called Christianity and Liberalism.   The title is important because Machen refused to be called anything but a "Christian," arguing that liberalism was a new religion and Christianity was the authentic religion of the Bible.

Before the conflict was over, most American denominations were impacted, or even split.  Some would create new mission boards to guarantee orthodox candidates were being sent to the mission fields. 

TODAY

As the 20^th century progressed, more and more mainline denominations expressed a new attitude toward missionary work.

Following WWII, there seemed to be a very clear movement toward secularization.  In European nations like Germany, England, and Scandinavia church attendance went into sharp decline.   The percentage of church attendance dropped into the single digits. 

On the continent, some theologians initiated radical attempts to make the church seem modern and relevant.  Rudolph Bultmann proposed the process of “demythologization” by which he hoped to remove offensive elements like miracles from the scripture.  We should seek to find the truth behind the story which moderns cannot believe.  His goal was to preserve “the ethical core” of Jesus’ teaching. 

Some mainline churches gave up the notion of evangelizing the “lost” and the tradition of evangelism.  While the World Council of Churches was born in 1910 out of a desire to more efficiently reach out to non-Christians, by the end of the century it was focused on improving the living conditions of the world’s poorest (embracing some of the tenants of liberation theology) and dialoging with members of other religions.  The old impulse to evangelize was quashed, forgotten, and sometimes apologized for. 

For instance, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, the spiritual descendents of the Moravians, has some 305 missionaries in the world.  (Some critics within the denomination claim that figure is inflated and the true number is closer to 165.) The United Methodist Church, heirs of John Wesley, has some 8.25 members and 1050 personnel listed as foreign missionaries.  These missionaries appear to be involved primarily in social ministries.

Compare those statistics.  Roughly, twice the size of the UMC, the Southern Baptist Convention has 4874 missionaries.  With a membership of just over 3,040,000, the Assemblies of God has 2005 missionaries.   Those churches that were born in and maintained an evangelical worldview have also maintained a healthier involvement in missions.

The late 20^th and early 21^st centuries would be times of surprises.  Philip Jenkins, the author of The Next Christendom, has shown how the “Global South” is now the real center of Christian growth.  It is no longer in the West.  The “typical” Christian is not European or American, but an African or a South American.

China—closed to missionary activity for more than a half-century—is witnessing young Chinese becoming Christians at a phenomenal rate.  Philip Yancey suggests China may be “the next major center of Christian faith.”

In the early 1990s an author suggested that one reason for the increasing anger in the Muslim world was the increase in conversion to Christianity by people in these supposedly “closed” nations.

As traditional missions continue, God also has a few surprises.