Protestant missionary interest in Latin America reaches far back, to American colonial times. No less a figure than the great Boston preacher Cotton Mather, along with his seminary-trained friend and chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, Samuel Sewall, tried to spark a Protestant missionary effort in Middle and South America. At that time the European powers were struggling with Spain for supremacy of the West Indies in the conflicts that led up to the War of the Spanish Succession. A brilliant linguist and prolific writer, Mather taught himself Spanish and authored the first American-printed book in that language. His purpose in writing it was to evangelize Latin America. In his Diary (January, 1699), Mather reports:
[As] the way for our communication with the Spanish Indies opens more and more I sett myself to learn the Spanish Language. The Lord wonderfully prospered mee in this Undertaking; a few leisure Minutes in the Evening of every Day in about a Fortnight, or three weeks time, so accomplish’d mee, I could write very good Spanish. Accordingly I compos’d a little Body of the Protestant Religion, in certain Articles, back’d with irresistible sentences of Scripture. This I turn’d into the Spanish Tongue; and am now printing it with a Design to send it by all the ways that I can into the several parts of South America … as not knowing whether the time of our Lord Jesus Christ to have glorious Churches in America bee not at hand (Harry Bernstein, Making An Inter-American Mind, 1961, pp. 6 ff.).
Apparently it was not yet the “time of our Lord” for the Gospel to penetrate the Southlands.
About five years after Mather’s little book had broken trail, Judge Sewall kept the large design alive by writing to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in London, urging that
… it would be well if you could set on foot the printing of the Spanish Bible in a fair Octave, Ten Thousand Copies; and then you might attempt the bombing of Santa Domingo, the Havanna, Porto Rico, and Mexico itself. I would willingly give five pounds toward the charge of it.… Mr. Leigh commends the translation of Cipriano Valera, which I am the Owner of in Folio (ibid.).
A further attempt—patient, sincere, but unsuccessful—to convert the distinguished governor of Cartagena, Carlos Sucre y Borda, while he languished in a Boston jail after being captured by the British as a prisoner of war, concluded the missionary efforts of Mather and Sewall. Their life-long vision was frustrated. As Bernstein points out, “their religious design may have been premature, but more than anything it introduced Boston and New England to a historic reputation for interest in things Hispanic” (ibid.).
Although the Bible societies carried on some significant evangelism and colportage work during the early decades of independence and several missions entered the lists in the mid 1800s, it remained for the twentieth century to see the Gospel gain a real foothold in Latin America and for the last two decades to see missions reach the zenith of their impact. Up and down the continent the national church has now emerged in adult strength. It is a witnessing church (see “Evangelical Surge,” page 5). It is a Bible-centered church whose evangelical theology re-echoes Luther’s Reformation emphasis of “justification by faith.” It is a Pentecost-oriented church that seeks to honor the Holy Spirit (see News feature, page 29).
In an address at the University of Puerto Rico in the spring of 1962, historian Arnold J. Toynbee remarked: “Things are happening in Latin America today which, in my judgment, may have the same significance for history as the Renaissance of the Fifteenth Century.” To which Dr. John A. Mackay has added: “Things are happening among the Latin American Churches today which may have the same significance for Christ’s Church Universal and for the Ecumenical Movement at its truest and best, that the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century had through the rediscovery of the Bible and the Gospel of Christ.” Evangelical forces agree that they are unquestionably living in Latin America’s most challenging day—a day of change, of growth, and of opportunity. It is a day of unprecedented evangelistic outreach, when efforts like the Billy Graham crusades and the Evangelism-in-Depth movement enlist almost the total support of the evangelical community and enjoy a hospitable reception in virtually every country.
But what does this new day of opportunity hold for foreign missions and for foreign missionaries? To reassess their role in the current growth and program of Protestantism south of the border is one of the urgent imperatives of the times.
To arrive at some definite conclusions, CHRISTIANITY TODAY polled one hundred Latin American evangelical leaders—most of them pastors—on the general subject of “Foreign Missions and the National Church.” About a third of them responded. This is what they said:
Latin Americans are deeply grateful for the work of the foreign missionary societies. Have these societies made a significant impact? The almost unanimous reply was, emphatically yes! Missions made their biggest contribution, however, more than ten years ago. The majority of respondents feel that the presence of foreign missions is still desirable. But financial subsidies seem even more essential than the missionaries themselves. The majority feel that any prohibition of entrance of new missionaries into their country would pose no insurmountable problem.
There is some anti-missionary spirit on the part of national Christians, but not a great deal. Nearly half our informants say there is none. Frequently the mood merely reflects the anti-Yankee-ism of political leftists. Some reasons given for anti-missionary prejudice where it exists are: (1) different standards of living and the economic gap between missionaries and pastors; (2) “wasteful” spending of money on “superfluous” things; (3) superior attitudes on the part of missionaries, who “act like tourists” and expect the nationals to “do the work,” taking the best jobs, hanging onto the administrative positions, and forcing the adoption of their own ideas; (4) lack of adequate training, theological insights, creative thinking, and flexibility on the part of missionaries; (5) inability of missionaries to identify themselves with the Latins, failure to understand their attitudes, speaking Spanish or Portuguese poorly, performing thoughtless discourtesies, and in general holding themselves aloof and acting as if they were from a superior race. Most disturbing, not a few respondents accused many missionaries of (6) failing to do personal work and to carry on evangelistic witness, avoiding the tough assignments, and “managing a subsidy” rather than communicating a message.
The pastors stated that both missions and church bodies are facing up to some of these problems, but much more can and should be done. More church-mission consultations would help. The national church stands ready to assume greater partnership responsibility, but it still needs more leaders, adequately prepared, and financial help from overseas. The Church is trying to meet the challenge of local evangelism, but with the exception of the Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, and Pentecostals in Argentina and Brazil, no significant foreign missionary effort is anywhere underway.
In summary, it is the conviction of the pastors polled that foreign missionary funds and personnel are still needed and perhaps will always be needed, if the right kind of foreign missionary can be provided. This is a big “if,” they emphasize; at present we are sending too few of the right kind.
The missionary movement which first welled up in the dedicated hearts of Cotton Mather and Samuel Sewall, and which by God’s grace has now swelled to a great tide of ongoing evangelistic expansion, has not yet begun to ebb. But unless evangelical missions are willing to reassess their methods and can provide missionaries who possess the qualities welcomed by the Latin American Church, they may very well find themselves pushed into the eddies and backwashes while the tide of church growth leaves them behind.
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Evangelical Coordinating Agency Needed For Spanish Work
Our sometimes over-organized Protestantism in the United States has failed to provide an adequate agency for the coordination of work among the many and varied colonies of Spanish-speaking peoples scattered across the country. Local organizations have done a great deal, particularly in New York City, greater Miami, and the Southwestern states. Denominational home missions have reached into many areas where migrant workers, “braceros,” or other Latin Americans live and work. The Spanish-American Committee of the National Council of Churches has met to discuss some common problems, but it has not yet published basic data, nor has it been able to draw all evangelical groups into consultation. The gaps are legion.
Perhaps this should not surprise us, since some of the related sociological problems perplex even the United States Bureau of Census. Classifications, whether by Spanish surname, language spoken, or place of foreign birth, fail to provide statistics about Hispanic Americans that suffice for every purpose.
These complications, however, merely highlight a situation which should not be allowed to continue. Working in consultation with the NCC’s Spanish-American Committee, some representative agency should convene an evangelical conference which would: (1) draw in all those who are engaged in evangelistic or social work in Spanish from every part of the United States; (2) produce the necessary sociological and statistical data for plotting a nation-wide strategy and program; and (3) serve to emphasize to each local church and Christian the evangelistic challenge represented by their Spanish-speaking neighbors. There are five million of them who need Christ.
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God’S Laws Cannot Be Flouted Without Ultimate Judgment
One can but wonder whether the Church has become so preoccupied with social and economic affairs that she has lost the ability to raise her voice in clear moral issues. Aside from a few feeble words of remonstrance and a censure directed towards the minister performing the marriage, the church courts of our land and the religious press in general have reacted lamely to the Rockefeller and Murphy divorces and the subsequent marriage.
Rockefeller’s discarding and divorcing of his wife of thirty-one years, the mother of their grown children, and Mrs. Murphy’s similar action towards her husband and four small children are a disgrace. Insofar as this has been taken without vigorous protest by our nation, it is a blot on us as a people.
Britain has been rocked by evidences of immorality in high places. But to many the chief concern has been possible security leaks, not the disclosure of moral turpitude. The prostitute in the Profumo case has now become a celebrity, with numerous offers from the stage, movies, and scandal magazines.
The sordid exchange of husbands and wives in Hollywood and the escapades of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton have become sins of our nation, exploited by the producers of Cleopatra and by dozens of magazines which pander to such things.
America has unquestionably lost the grace to blush and stand up in righteous indignation to repudiate such behavior, and in so doing stands subject to the just judgment of a righteous God.
Nothing which falls short of renewed convictions on the rightness and wrongness of things, convictions proceeding from the Judeo-Christian heritage, can stem a tide which otherwise means national peril and ultimate judgment.
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Protestant Prayers And Roman Crowns
No doubt more prayers were said in Protestant pulpits for Pope Paul VI than for any other pontiff since the Reformation. Encouraged by a friendlier climate, Protestants could only wish Paul VI well, and pray God’s blessing upon him. This inclination to bless chokes up in most Protestants’ throats, however, as they think of a minister of Christ being exalted, crowned, and carried about on a portable throne. The thought of a man of God with a high triple crown on his head and men prostrate at his feet grates on a Protestant’s sense of the Christian ministry. Heeding an earlier Paul, Protestants regard their ministers “worthy of double honor,” yet hardly expect them to forge and parade symbols of clerical power and glory. Crowns are for Christians—as for Christ—by the hand of God, when life is done. Most Protestants quite understand that ecclesiastic who reminded an enthroned Paul VI on parade that the glory of the world passes as did the burning flax in his hand.
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Magazine Interest Soars; Plans Include Format Change
This issue devoted to the spiritual situation in Latin America is another in CHRISTIANITY TODAY’s annual series on the Protestant world scene. To implement the project dependably, we asked the Rev. W. Dayton Roberts of Latin America Mission to join our Washington staff for a month. The issue also includes News Editor David E. Kucharsky’s special reports from Europe on Pope Paul VI’s coronation and President Kennedy’s audience with the new pope.
This summer our staff again includes James Boice, former editor of the Princeton Seminarian. Recent recipient of Princeton’s $1000 fellowship in New Testament, he will be heading abroad in the fall for doctoral studies.
CHRISTIANITY TODAY’s next issue will appear in a delightful new format. Our readers will find the change refreshing. And we, in turn, are delighted with our circulation department’s report that paid subscriptions have doubled in the last three years.
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Vatican Policy And U. S. Policy: Some Fear Possible Correlation
As President Kennedy visited Pope Paul, there were those who raised questions concerning possible correlation of policies of the two huge bodies represented. Uneasy over certain reports, some raised the question of possible influence of papal encyclicals on American policy. Concerning the President’s new peace offensive, Newsweek had said he “seemed to be taking a cue from Pope John XXIII’s Pacem in Terris.” In his papal visit, said The New York Times, Kennedy was almost certain to raise the issue of Vatican efforts to reach practical accommodation with Communist governments.
The Times noted Washington’s pleasure at such efforts and at Vatican moves to align the church with “socially progressive elements.” Times columnist Arthur Krock noted that Mater et Magistra has been interpreted by some as a papal sanction of the AFL-CIO opposition to “right-to-work” laws. And some foresee papal influence indirectly brought to bear upon the American racial problem. Any Vatican-White House policy correlation beyond coincidence will sound an alarm in this nation.
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Quality Of Church Membership As Measured By Twice-Born Persons
To ask any mere mortal how many born-again believers there are in the United States might well amount to addressing “the wrong throne.” But at intervals one reader or another has put the question to CHRISTIANITY TODAY, and we have ventured in turn to ask several men of good judgment and active ecclesiastical life to estimate the number of such persons within their own particular denominations or churches. The replies, it was felt, might be of value for evangelism as such, and for appraising the American religious scene as a whole.
Thirty-four men replied. Each one without exception noted the difficulty of answering such a question; about 40 per cent either expressed unwillingness to do so or considered themselves unqualified. One minister remarked: “It is grossly presumptuous for anyone to venture such an estimate.” He felt, moreover, that to publish any such kind of estimate would be detrimental to the magazine. Another respondent, however, believed that some judgments in this area are permissible on the basis of Matthew 7:20, which says: “By their fruits ye shall know them.”
Certainly whatever right there may be to voice such a judgment is limited to those who are specifically entrusted with the spiritual welfare of souls. The province of a servant of Christ is to minister to those who do not profess Christ; it is also his province to minister to those who profess but do not possess Christ. Jesus did not hesitate to say: “This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me” (Matt. 15:8). Ought not Christ’s ministers to be aware of such ones in their congregations? Noted one Christian leader in his letter: “There is not enough effort to make sure (as much as is humanly possible) that those who profess faith really have it.”
One minister said: “There is no way I can possibly establish what is known only to God.” A Southern Baptist seminary professor gave way to a bit of humor. “Regarding my estimate of the percentage of Southern Baptists who are twice-born,” he wrote, “100 per cent is about as close as I could come (though it might be higher).”
Every earnest minister, whatever his denomination, would like to think 100 per cent is correct. Certain problems, however, make this rather unlikely. For one thing, churches vary in their requirements concerning the substance of a vocal profession of faith prior to church membership. For instance, one denomination requires “satisfactory evidence of regeneration, belief in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and in the vicarious atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ …” whereas another merely asks, “Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Saviour and Lord …? Do you receive and profess the Christian faith as contained in the New Testament of our Lord Jesus Christ …?”
Said a seminary professor: “I would assume there are many people who have been born again who are theologically confused and hold views which are not easily identified as evangelical.” Theological orthodoxy is not necessarily a guarantee of salvation, either. “It is quite conceivable,” observed a national church official, “that a number that are theologically sound may not be born again.”
It was Jesus himself who said in Matthew 2:20, 21: “… by their fruits ye shall know them. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.” In other words, it is the evidence and quality of fruitfulness that differentiates among the professed followers of Christ. The same emphasis occurs in Titus 1:16. According to one prominent United Presbyterian minister, in most congregations one-third of the members are heavy givers, one-third occasional givers, and one-third give nothing at all to the various phases of the church’s program of Kingdom work.
There is the problem, too, of church records and of inactive members. In one large city 20 per cent of the official church membership was comprised of people who had moved away but had not transferred their letters. Elsewhere a Baptist church of 2,600 finally dropped from the rolls 600 for whom addresses had been lacking for ten years.
A number of those we queried did, indeed, venture to furnish some statistics. These figures were based admittedly on “human judgment” and showed a wide disparity. Of 650,000 members in the American Baptist Association, one leader estimated 80 per cent, another 90 per cent, to be truly regenerate. Of the 1,600,000 in the American Baptist Convention, 50 per cent was one answer, 65 per cent another. Of the 75,000 in the Baptist General Conference, 66 per cent was the figure cited, and of the 300,000 Conservative Baptists, 50 to 66 per cent. A spokesman for the 70,000 Christian and Missionary Alliance judged almost 100 per cent to be born again. Of the 2,500,000 Missouri Synod Lutherans one estimate was 33 per cent, another 35 to 50 per cent, a third 80 per cent. Fifty per cent was cited for the 900,000 Southern Presbyterians; 80 per cent for the 230,000 in the Reformed Church in America; and 75 per cent for the 8,000 in the Reformed Episcopal Church. Of the ten million Southern Baptists (of whom 25 per cent are non-resident)—estimates of 70, 75, and 90 per cent were given.
Several replies reminded us that Elijah’s estimate that he was the only remaining true believer on earth turned out to be grossly in error. Actually there were 7,000 believers. Others reminded us that wheat and tares look very similar. There are those, too, as described in Matthew 7:22, whose outward profession of faith and works belies their inner evil state. To judge in these matters is precarious indeed and always open to error. “I am constantly amazed,” revealed one pastor, “to find that people whom I have regarded as indifferent, have turned out in their own quiet way with very strong Christian convictions.”
It is difficult, in view of ecclesiastical variations of procedure and of individual differences in evidences of discipleship, to estimate the number of regenerate believers in the United States. This is clear, however—active concern for a sound and thriving Body of Christ is not only scripturally enjoined, but even required of those who shepherd the flock. And this is our joy in the midst of this sometimes darksome task: “The Lord knoweth them that are his.”
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