Because the heart of Christian missions, whether at home or abroad, has to do with the message it is inevitable that Satan will do everything possible to divert, distort, dilute or deny that message, and in its place substitute anything which omits the Cross and the Resurrection.

Christian missions have ever been in a state of crisis because of opposition, ignorance and indifference. There is always the wall of opposing forces, different and yet the same, forces which are totally opposed to the claims of Christ. The Apostle Paul confronted these forces on every hand. Many times there must have been those who looked on him and his efforts as having failed. Judging by worldly standards it must have seemed that his efforts were weak and pitiful in the face of established religions, cultures and national alignments.

The things of God, eternal in their implications, are not seen except with insight given by him. When the church ignores the power and work of the Holy Spirit it has always been possible for the world to belittle the missionary efforts of individuals and churches.

We may also err in looking for outward permanence as a token of evangelizing success. Dare we say that because today there probably are no more than 200 professing Christians in one area of Paul’s endeavors—the part of present-day Turkey where the “Seven Churches” of Revelation were located—that his work was a failure?

Or dare we say that Christianity has failed because the simplicity of the early Church has been followed by accretions of ecclesiastical pretensions, shifting of emphasis from the message to organization, and failures in every generation faithfully to follow the Great Commission?

Today world missions are in crisis while at the same time emerging churches in many lands bear active testimony to the power of the Gospel.

But the major crisis of today, as has always been the case, does not center in missionary methods and policies, as important as these always are, but in the nature of the message being preached, taught and lived. It is this vital point that must be guarded at all costs.

Methods become meaningless without the basic message. Policies but add to the confusion unless based on a clear understanding and faithful proclaiming of the message itself.

It is always necessary to distinguish between corollaries to and developments proceeding from the Gospel message and the content of that message; between the fruits inherent in Christianity, and those which have their roots in Christian doctrine itself. To confuse the fruits of Christianity (and this is frequently done) with the root from which these fruits proceed is a fatal error. Nor is it possible to produce fruit where there is no root.

It is for this reason that the essential Christian message must at all times be kept in view as we face changing conditions, meet new diversions, and appropriate new methods of proclaiming the message itself.

For missionary endeavor to remain static in a changing world would be tragic. For changes in method, policies and approach to be coupled with a change in the message itself would be more than tragic; it would be fatal.

The Apostle Paul was certainly the greatest missionary of the first Christian century. Fortunately for each succeeding generation not only are the accounts of his missionary journeys preserved but through his letters to the young churches we know the message which he preached, a message on which there rested the power and blessing of the Holy Spirit.

In his letter to the Corinthian church Paul gives a thumbnail sketch of the heart of that message: “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.” (1 Cor. 15:1–4).

In this short space Paul affirms man’s need of salvation; Christ’s death for sinners; the fact of his burial and resurrection—all in accord with the Old Testament plan and prediction.

A study of Paul’s message reveals his abiding conviction as to the uniqueness and exclusiveness of Christ and his claims. He did not doubt that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, and that man’s only access to God is through his Son. He did not question Peter’s assertion that there is no other way of salvation other than in the name of Jesus Christ.

In every generation there have been “other gospels” which deny the unique Person and Work of Christ and this generation is no exception.

Probably outstanding among the various types of divergence from the Christian message today is the siren voice of universalism, so appealing and at the same time so deadening.

If it is not true that those who believe on the Son have everlasting life while those who reject him shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on them, then the heart of the Christian message has been removed and in its place a wishful, speculative philosophy substituted which cuts the nerve of evangelistic zeal and missionary endeavor.

Wherever the lost condition of the sinner is reduced to a mere ignorance of the fact that he is saved, the whole thrust of preaching is changed. Paul never made that mistake; salvation was on a “whosoever” basis but it was attained by faith and in no other way. To the Philippian jailer Paul used neither nondirective counseling, nor a warning to take care because he was confronted with an emotional crisis. To the question as to the means of salvation the answer was equally direct, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved …” (Acts 16:31).

Furthermore, both the integrity of the Old Testament record and its authority were held up to the early Christian Church. The Berean Christians were “more honourable” because by the Scriptures they evaluated the preaching they heard to see whether its message was true.

Humanitarianism, social progress, physical healing, educational advance and multiplied techniques have their definite place in Christian missions, but whether these shall serve the body and mind alone depends on the message behind such work.

The preaching of the Cross is still foolishness to the world in general, but the Cross and its implications are central to the missionary message.

It is a message of an occupied Cross and of an empty Tomb and they must come first.

L. NELSON BELL

FRANK E. KEAY¹Frank E. Keay was ordained a clergyman of the Church of England in 1908. He went to India that same year under the Church Missionary Society and was stationed at Jubbulpore as Principal of the Mission High School until 1922. He served in India intermittently until 1957. He holds the B.A., M.A., and D. Litt. degrees from London University.

The history of Christianity’s great expansion in early days and of the subsequent disappearance of the Church in Asia and in other areas has much to teach us in these days. But to most Christians it is not known. Few Christian people pay much attention to Church history.

Tradition has it that some of the apostles carried the Gospel to Eastern lands. In the Acts of the Apostles we read that Christians who left their homes because of persecution “went everywhere preaching the Word.” It is probable that persecution drove many of them out of the Roman Empire and into the East.

Just when Christianity first came to Persia (Iran) is uncertain; but what was called the Church of the East centered there and spread all over Asia. Later it was called (by nonmembers) the Nestorian Church, for it accepted the views of Nestorius, who was condemned by the Council of Ephesus, A.D. 431. The Church of the East was certainly very active in spreading the Gospel.

Edessa, with its theological school, in northern Mesopotamia was the center of Christianity in the early days. During the Decian and Diocletian persecutions Christians left the Roman Empire, and a century and a half later the Nestorians fled into Persia. Here, under Sapor II (A.D. 339 to 379) there was fierce persecution and Christians suffered martyrdom rather than deny Christ. The price that was paid was heavy, but it purged the Church and deepened its spirituality, and led also to the spread of the Gospel to other lands.

Missionaries at this time had to support themselves by trade, as artisans or clerks, with some offering their services as skilled physicians.

By the end of the fifth century the area which the Nestorians had evangelized included Egypt, Syria, Arabia, the Island of Soqotra, Mesopotamia, Persia, Media, Bactria, Hyrcania, Turkestan, India, and Ceylon. Thus, by the seventh century the Church had spread far and wide in Asia, but its internal divisions greatly hindered an effective witness for Christ.

Christianity probably came to China about the early part of the seventh century or before, and spread throughout the land during the period of the T’ang dynasty (A.D. 618 to 906). At first the rulers favored it. However, in 845 persecution began, and the Church greatly diminished by the end of the tenth century. At the beginning of the eleventh century there was a remarkable mass movement towards Christianity among the Kerait Turks north of Mongolia. In the thirteenth century European friars, traveling in Asia, found Christian communities in existence all over East Turkestan and China, and the Mongol ruler of China, Kublai Khan, though not a Christian, was favorable towards them. Under the Ming dynasty Christianity was extirpated from China.

The advent of Islam in the seventh century was a setback to the Christian church. Much of the survival of the church depended on the rulers, and some of them were guilty of persecution. The church went on spreading, however, and became established in places as far away as Mongolia and Siberia, even Burma.

By the end of the thirteenth century Nestorian Christianity was so widely spread over Asia that one writer gives a list of 27 metropolitan sees with 200 bishops that extended over the whole of Asia from the River Tigris to China and from Lake Baikal to Cape Comorin. Today many of these areas are closed to Christian missionaries.

Tradition says it was the Apostle Bartholomew who first brought the Gospel to South Arabia. Churches were built and bishoprics established. In A.D. 523 a fierce persecution broke out. Under this trial the Christians showed great constancy and steadfastness. The Christian king of Ethiopia came to their rescue and a Christian dynasty came into power. The church emerged from the crisis too ready to take revenge on enemies—an indication of spiritual deterioration. In 570 Muhammad was born, and after his advent to power Christianity rapidly declined in Arabia. For 1,300 years the greater part of Arabia has been a land closed to the Christian Gospel.

We may mention here two other areas where there had been a Christian church that later vanished. In the Island of Soqotra the people were once Christians. But at some time Islam came in and today Soqotra is solidly Muslim.

In the north of Eritrea the Ethiopian church became decadent, ignorant of the truths of the Gospel, and superstitious. Then Muslim missionaries came in, and the Christians in that area all became Muslims. Today Christian missionaries are facing the uphill task of winning them back to the true Christian faith.

In North Africa there was a flourishing church in the early centuries of the Christian era, with great church leaders like Tertullian, Cyprian, and Augustine. Within 10 years after Muhammad died (A.D. 632), the Muslims had mastered Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, and then swept through North Africa. The church in North Africa, which had survived the previous shock of the Vandal invasions, was obliterated. Today North Africa also is a land of the vanished Church.

The Causes Of Decline

What led to such eclipse of the Christian church in Asia and North Africa?

One reason was the advance of Islam. In many Muslim areas Christians were given religious freedom on the promise that they would not openly propagate their faith and would agree to pay heavy taxes. However, this often resulted in wholesale secession to Islam or emigration.

Most of the ruin to the Christian church was due to the wars of conquest conducted by Mongol rulers. Genghis Khan, who first began his exploits in 1203, and died in 1227, was not a Muslim. In the dominions under his rule he was a good administrator and often favored Christians. But there was ruthless slaughter and destruction in his wars.

Still a greater blow to the Christian church in central and northern Asia was the devastation wrought by Amir Timur (Tamerlane). While still under 30 years of age he became ruler of Transoxiana with his capital at Samarkand. When he started his career of conquest, whole provinces were turned into deserts by the ravages of his troops. In 1390 he invaded Persia and brought about massacres and ruin. This destruction was spread over large areas. Churches and temples were destroyed wherever he went and the Christian church almost vanished from the greater part of Asia.

It was not, however, only the shock of ruthless invasions that brought an end to the church in such vast areas. Whatever may have been its pristine purity and zeal in early days, the church became sadly decadent. Again and again it had survived severe persecution, but in large areas it failed to arise after the heavy blows. Even in some of the areas not affected the church ceased to be, or fell away from the high ideals of earlier days and became ignorant and full of error and superstition. Many factors, including lack of real spiritual life and formal ecclesiasticism, resulted in its inability to stand up to the assaults made upon it.

In many areas of our world, missionaries do not seem to have given to the people the Scriptures in their own language. Services have often been held in a foreign language. Existing remnants of the Nestorian and Jacobite churches still use liturgies in Syriac.

Then in many cases churches relied too heavily on foreign missionaries. For example, of the 75 names of presbyters mentioned on the Nestorian monument in China, there are hardly any Chinese names.

In countries where Christians, with no sound biblical knowledge, came in contact with Buddhism, they let their doctrines become infiltrated with Buddhist ideas. Similar disintegrating influence occurred with Islam. For instance, Muslims do not believe that Christ was crucified because God would not have allowed his prophet to be so treated. Its rapid spread seems proof to Islam of its divine origin, for the Muslim accepts success as a main criterion of truth. There was also the tendency among Christians to rely on the favor of rulers.

Serious divisions within the Christian church also caused its weakness; often there were squabbles in the same church over the election of leaders.

We may observe then that where spiritual life has been weakened there has been a lowering of scriptural standards, and the church has become a prey to corrupting influence and therefore cannot stand up to persecution. Where people are not grounded in the teaching of the Bible, and where their Christianity becomes only a nominal adherence to a creed, they are easily overcome by carnal motives and become open to influences that draw them away from loyalty to Christ.

What lessons can Christians learn from all this? First, it must be said that we need to beware of a shallow optimism about the church. In many lands it is passing through a time of severe testing. Persecution in Communist countries is ruthless and subtle. It is well known that Communism is out to destroy faith in God. Young people are being indoctrinated in atheism, and there is an unending pressure on Christians to put loyalty to a Communist state above loyalty to Jesus Christ. Islam also is advancing in many areas, and even Hinduism is seeking to win back to its fold weak and uninstructed Christians.

Do we realize our responsibility to pray for these Christian brothers and sisters in lands where they are subject to pressure? The church in vast areas was obliterated in years gone by. We must face this as a real danger today.

There is urgent need in all lands for the Christian church to be established in God’s Word. Christian communities must be built up to meet the onslaughts of Communism and other ideologies. A mere nominal Christianity can never withstand the attacks that are being made against it.

Many professing Christians treat the matter of missions like an elective in the school of Christ—like something they may either support or ignore according to personal inclination.

Interestingly enough, missionary societies in local churches unwittingly may have encouraged this attitude. Although designed to foster missionary interest within the entire congregation, the existence and nature of these groups may have suggested, at least to some people, that missions are a kind of extra curricular activity for certain but not all believers.

We thank God for those who have worked to promote missions through such societies. We dare not relegate the church’s missionary responsibility wholly to them, however. All believers must awaken to the fact that missions are not optional, that missionary interest both nourishes and reveals the pulse and heartbeat of the church. Apart from a consuming sense of mission the church has no reason to exist. Although needed and invaluable, the work of missionary organizations ought only augment and not replace or substitute for the obligations of the entire congregation.

The Missionary Imperative

It is significant that the Scriptures propound no specific argument for missions. Nowhere does the Bible suggest merely the advisability of sharing the Christian mission. Instead we find precise commands: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations …” (Matt. 28:19); “… that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations …” (Luke 24:47); “… you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Each instance employs an imperative mood. In Matthew 28:19 it is obvious. In Luke the imperative comes to light only by studying the Greek root of the word translated “should.” It connotes the meaning of concern strengthened by expectation, a concept that involves purpose, duty, or necessity. In Acts the grammatical construction implies even the command’s certainty: “You shall be my witnesses.…”

God has so united Christian experience and Christian mission that true discipleship manifests itself in missionary zeal. As we read the Acts of the Apostles we are impressed how Christ’s followers fulfilled this mission. They had one consuming passion—to present Christ to an unknowing, unbelieving world. “They did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ” (Acts 5:42). Whether witnessing to individuals or to multitudes, the Apostles were men of mission. Philip enjoyed considerable success in proclaiming Christ to many in Samaria (Acts 8:1–25), but he was equally sensitive and responsive to the need of one Ethiopian on a lonely desert road (Acts 8:26–40). God’s Spirit mightily used Peter on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1–47), but Peter’s mission, like that of all faithful disciples, was not fulfilled with one day’s service. Paul, from the day of his conversion, became “a chosen instrument … to carry … [Christ’s] … name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel” (Acts 9:15). A deep urgency that underlies all Christian fruitfulness led Paul to exclaim, “… necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” (1 Cor. 9:16).

While for the disciples this mission no doubt represented an integral part of their call to preach, it implies for all believers an awareness of man’s need and the imperative nature of the Christian message. All believers have different gifts, but as members of the church, the body of Christ, they have but one ministry and one mission.

Someone is reported to have said to James Denny, the Scottish theologian, “Some people do not believe in missions. They have no right to believe in missions: they do not believe in Christ.” Harsh as this observation may be, it is nonetheless true to the spirit of New Testament Christianity. On the other hand, to believe in Christ is to believe and to accept a mission, for he “came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10). An awareness of mission was crucial to Christ’s ministry, for it is indeed at the very heart of the Gospel. This same awareness is no less essential for the contemporary church.

Where sensitivity to the missionary imperative is absent the church becomes ingrown, complacent, and self-satisfied. It lives and thrives only so long as it spends itself in ministering to the spiritual and material needs of men. What Christ said of discipleship is just as true for the church at large, “He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matt. 10:29).

The Missionary Responsibility

The missionary imperative makes plain also the missionary responsibility. “Go ye …” (Matt. 28:19, KJV). “You shall be my witnesses …” (Acts 1:8). The pronoun is absolutely inescapable. The responsibility for extending the Christian mission falls on all believers. It involves you!3 John 5–7 speaks of missionaries who went about preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ. The account adds: “So we ought to support such men, that we may be fellow workers in the truth” (3 John 8). In 2 Corinthians 8:3–4 Paul records the desire—even the longing—of the Macedonians to share in the Christian mission of compassion, “For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own free will, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part.…” Paul’s challenge and admonition to the Corinthians is, “Now as you excell in everything—in faith, in utterance, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in your love for us—see that you excell in this gracious work also” (2 Cor. 8:7). The Scriptures reveal beyond any reasonable doubt that each of us as a believer literally possesses a missionary responsibility to witness, to work, and to give, that Christ may be known “to the end of the earth.”

Occasionally we meet people who cling to the principles of evangelical faith but are totally oblivious to any missionary responsibility. While they claim Christ as Lord, they either do not or will not understand that his Lordship calls for and merits the utmost sacrifical service. He expects us to work that all men may acknowledge and experience his Saviourhood and Lord ship for his glory. The unique message of the Gospel demands constant repetition: “… for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Christ alone is the way. He himself said “… no one comes to the Father but by me” (John 14:6). Our missionary responsibility, then, involves more than obedience to Christ’s command to go; for those who have not yet come to Christ in saving faith our measure of missionary response is a matter of life or death. Concern over the utter lostness of those outside of Christ kindles a real urgency to share the Gospel. Necessity is laid upon us because we know that without Christ men live in the wrath of God (John 3:36). Christ reveals himself as the bread of life; the light of the world; the door of salvation; the good shepherd; the resurrection and the life. He speaks of himself as the true vine through whom, if we abide, we may bear fruit. In him “we live and move, and have our being.” His Incarnation to provide salvation has changed the course of history; his person and work have immeasurably affected all mankind, Christian or not. He is Lord, and men must be brought to know him!

Paul pointedly summarizes the matter: “But how are men to call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher? And how can men preach unless they are sent?” (Romans 10:14, 15). Not everyone can go afar to preach or minister in Christ’s name, but all believers can support the church’s mission of redemption and reconciliation and thus become “… fellow workers in the truth” (3 John 8).

The Missionary Scope

No Christian can escape the missionary imperative or evade the missionary responsibility set forth in the Scriptures. But what of the scope of this mission? Christ answers: “… make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28: 19); “… you shall be my witnesses … to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). The Christian mission is ecumenical. It embraces the whole inhabited earth, all classes and cultures, all tribes and nations. The apostles preached the Gospel in synagogues, in pagan courts, in the open fields, on highways, in prison, before religious leaders, before government officials, to their own nation, to neighboring and to distant lands. We must do no less.

It is imperative that American Christians bear testimony for Christ in their own country and address the problems peculiar to their community and culture. Through mission boards and agencies they must witness for Christ in both metropolitan and rural areas, to both cosmopolitan and provincial people of all classes. Every American outside of Christ is a mission field. Christians must support the missionary enterprise abroad as well as to the uttermost parts of the world. So long as there are people who do not accept and follow Christ, whether they be rich or poor, learned or unlearned, the church cannot relinquish its missionary dedication. The field is the world, and it is white unto harvest.

In geographic scope the Christian mission includes all the inhabited earth. In range of method, it includes preaching, teaching, and healing. In fact, the breadth of the church’s mission is declared by Christ at the beginning of his ministry: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has appointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord” (Luke 4:18, 19). The church therefore ministers in Christ’s name through schools and colleges, hospitals and clinics, homes for orphans and the aged. Remembering Jesus’ words: “… whoever gives … even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple … shall not lose his reward” (Matt. 10:42) the church provides clothing for the naked, food for the hungry and shelter for the homeless. The field is the world; entering every door of opportunity whether by preaching, teaching, or healing is the method of missions that Christ and his salvation may be known among all men.

Missions are not optional. Scripture unequivocally states the imperative, the responsibility, and the scope of this task. The question for every believer is not “shall I take part in this mission?” but rather “what part shall I take?” In our own communities and to the whole world we must witness for Christ.

How can we fulfill this command? First of all we must yield ourselves to the Lord and to the guidance of his Spirit. Sons and daughters of succeeding generations must be challenged with church related vocations, must be encouraged to share the missionary responsibility of Christ’s church. Overwhelming concern for lost men and women, some of them our immediate neighbors, must engage us in intercessory prayer and in witness. Those who have accepted Christ’s call to circle the globe with the Gospel we must support with our substance.

The day is far spent. Go!

Are missionaries unbalanced? Of course they are. I’m one. I ought to know.

A missionary probably began as an ordinary person. He dressed like other people, he liked to play tennis and listen to music.

But even before leaving for the field he became “different.’ Admired by some, pitied by others, he was known as one who was leaving parents, prospects and home for—a vision. So he seemed to be a visionary.

Now that he’s come home again he’s even more different. To him some things—big things—just don’t seem important. Even the World Series or the Davis Cup matches don’t interest him especially. And apparently he doesn’t see things as other people see them. The chance of a lifetime—to meet Toscanini personally—seems to leave him cold. It makes you want to ask where he’s been.

Well, where has he been?

Where the conflict with evil is open and intense, a fight not a fashion—where clothes don’t matter, because there’s little time to take care of them—where people are dying for help he might give, most of them not even knowing he has the help—where the sun means 120 in the shade, and he can’t spend his time in the shade.

But not only space; time too seems to have passed him by. When you talk about beatniks he looks puzzled. When you mention Harry Belafonte he asks who he is. You wonder how long he’s been away.

All right, how long has he been away? Long enough for thirty million people to go into eternity without Christ, with no chance to hear the Gospel—and some of them went right before his eyes: when that flimsy riverboat overturned; when that cholera epidemic struck; when that Hindu-Moslem riot broke out.

How long has he been gone? Long enough to have had two sieges of amoebic dysentery, to nurse his wife through repeated attacks of malaria, to get the news of his mother’s death before he knew she was sick.

How long? Long enough to see a few outcaste men and women turn to Christ, to see them drink in the Bible teaching he gave them, to struggle and suffer with them through the persecution that developed from non-Christian relatives, to see them grow into a steady band of believers conducting their own worship, to see this group develop an indigenous church that is reaching out to the community.

Yes, he’s been away a long time.

So he’s different. But unnecessarily so. At least, since he’s in this country, he could pay more attention to his clothes, to what’s going on around the country, to recreation, to social life.

Of course he could.

But he can’t forget—at least most of the time—that the price of a new suit would buy 3,200 Gospels; that while an American spends one day in business, 5,000 Indians or Chinese go into eternity without Christ.

So when a missionary comes to your church or your Christian group, remember that he will probably be different. If he stumbles for a word now and then, he may have been speaking a foreign tongue almost exclusively for seven years, and possibly is fluent in it. If he isn’t in the orator class, he may not have had a chance to speak English from a pulpit for awhile. He may be eloquent on the street of an Indian bazaar.

If he doesn’t seem to warm up as quickly as you want, if he seems less approachable than a youth evangelist or college professor, remember he’s been under a radically different social system since before you started high school, and maybe is unfamiliar with casual conversation.

Sure the missionary is unbalanced.

But by whose scales? Yours or God’s?—An article by T. NORTON STERRETT, reprinted by permission from His, student magazine of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship.

For the past generation pioneer thinking about missionary methods has focused in the deepening conviction that the goal of missions everywhere should be the development of mature, responsible, and self-governing local churches. Continuing debate has not questioned this consensus, yet radically different conclusions have emerged therefrom.

Out of respect for the “indigenous” church’s responsibility should the missionary or should he not be insofar as possible a “normal member” of the emergent fellowship? Examination of this question continues in the current issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. Seldom does such discussion reveal, however, that this problem is not the deepest nor the most urgent in planning for tomorrow’s witnessing outreach. The same vulnerable definition of “missionary” is presupposed by both sides as they debate the missionary’s relationship to the indigenous church, or even his selection and training. A “missionary” is presumed to be a Christian from North America or Western Europe, someone sent and financially supported by churches in the “homeland” while he is “on the field,” and until he returns “home.”

By-Product Of A Modern Era

This universally accepted definition of the “missionary” has its obvious place in the foreign missionary movement of the last two centuries. But we do not seem to recognize to what extent this great movement, including its concept of missionary “sending,” was the product of an era of Western cultural and political expansion—an age whose passing we may welcome or deplore, but cannot prevent.

We are not discounting nor discrediting the immeasurable achievements of this epochal work of God in the recent past when we ask how the old mission approach is to be carried out in a new day. Nor do we imply any concession to anti-Christian misinterpretation of missionaries’ motives when we recognize the cultural context of their work and the particular congruence of their methods with the political and economic expansion of their nations.

Normal Expansion Of The Church

If we study historical precedents for Christianity’s response to shifting cultural tides and to the closing of many younger nations to professional missionaries, we soon discover that the Church’s growth down through the ages was not usually the result of sending “foreign missionaries” to untouched pagan peoples. Rather, it was the migration of groups of self-supporting Christians to found local self-governing, self-propagating, self-supporting churches that started the evangelization of any given region. Christian migrants went first; ministers and teachers followed. This pattern has been the case in every age of church expansion from apostolic times to the settling of the American frontier.

Even the Apostle Paul was no “missionary” in the modern sense of the term; he received no regular financial support from either Jerusalem or Antioch. When he arrived in a new city, he did not preach to the pagan multitudes; rather, he sought out the synagogue, that is, God-fearing migrants from Palestine who had rooted themselves in every major city of the Roman world. The migration of numbers of God’s people preceded his outreach with the Gospel into new ethnic and cultural groups.

So today, while doors and hearts around the world are closing to religious professionals who maintain their cultural and financial base in North America, what could be more normal than a return to the classic means of church growth? Why cannot we help plan and guide what in other ages issued spontaneously from Christians’ search for greater freedom and opportunity? In architecture, food processing, medicine, education, science, engineering, agriculture—professionals are needed and wanted around the world in every category but “religion”! Let these experts migrate, taking with them their faith and their future. Let them earn their bread by serving the real needs of the people and of the land that will henceforth be their home. Let them go in sufficient numbers to form a sturdy Christian fellowship from the start and to help one another in making the necessary adjustments to a different way of life. Let them be neither so numerous nor so unadventurous, however, that they form a culturally self-sufficient island. From the outset they are to serve and not to rule. For themselves and for their neighbors let them provide schools, hospitals, churches, and preachers only as they themselves can support them. Let them be prepared to surrender their mother tongue, their racial distinctives, their denominational attachments, even their political preferences; “sowing” these precious particularities that they may die as a grain of wheat to bring forth fruit for the household of God in the land of their choice.

“Mission” literally means “sending.” But the Great Commission nowhere talks about sending. Its subject, rather, is going. The Lord expects not just a few specialists, chosen for their deeper spirituality to be sent abroad at others’ expense, but the whole church to go and to make disciples as it goes. Perhaps the worst shortcoming of the modern idea of “missionary” is not its effect on the pagans who hear the preaching or the young churches under foreign guidance, but what it does to the “nonmissionary” in the homeland. Missionaries and preachers would certainly never deny that bearing the Gospel witness is every person’s duty; but the title, the training, the furlough privileges, and the financial situation of the special few deny this implicitly. Only by rediscovering that the entire phrasing of the Great Commission is in the plural, is an imperative to the whole Church, can we sever the fetters of professionalization in missions that has immobilized our evangelistic imagination and commitment. God sends not a heroic minority but the whole Church. Linguistic, pastoral, institutional, or other special assignments do not therefore cease to exist. Rather, their particular place and function must no longer divert or excuse the rest of us from choosing that profession and that homeland in which to exercise our joint missionary responsibility to the world.

Missionary-minded believers everywhere are interested in establishing indigenous churches among people who once knew nothing of the grace of God in Christ. Recent years have witnessed a great impetus toward this end. National Christian leaders in what were formerly called mission lands are increasingly and rapidly taking over responsibilities for the support, nurture, government, and extension of churches that originally were established under the blessing of God by Christians from overseas.

This change is as it should be.

What Are The Criteria?

Is an indigenous church, however, necessarily one which admits only nationals as members and deliberately excludes missionaries from other lands? Is not the racial criterion for membership too superficial and therefore an unworthy one? Surely the Lord’s standard is more than skin deep!

In considering the transition from mission enterprise to indigenous church one must remember there are different systems of church government. Each presumably is based on Scripture, and each in any adjustment of program faces certain problems. Is it desirable or right, for example, that churches relinquish an established governmental structure for a congregational system? Often this latter method has greater appeal to overseas Christians; to govern one church autonomously and independently may be simpler than submitting to the authority and corporate control of some conference, presbytery, or synod. It is true, also, that current indigenous ideas are usually tailored more closely to the independent pattern of church government than any other.

Through many generations of missionary activity around the world, missionaries have not only admitted and deplored, but have also sincerely tried to correct, various evils and shortcomings in their ministry. Improvements have indeed come. But however conscientious and earnest these men and women of God may be, they are nonetheless still human and fallible.

A word of caution is timely at this point. In our eagerness to lay aside some particular evil we must be sure we do not invite or make room for a more dangerous and subtle form of the very condition we decry. In trying to eliminate paternalism on the local level, for example, it is quite possible to continue this attitude from a distance in a far less obvious but much more insidious way.

Furthermore, in the scramble to use appealing shibboleths and to follow popular trends in today’s religious thought, people may unwittingly succumb to statements and policies which sound wise enough but which, unless qualified, may really be quite the opposite.

Some Basic Principles

To avoid mistakes and heartache in developing and nurturing the indigenous church, two basic principles of Scripture must constantly be observed.

1. The New Testament clearly teaches that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek.

How often as a child on the streets in China I remember hearing the words “foreign devil!” In this epithet, as in similar expressions in almost every land, brooded the ugly prejudice of racial nationalism. In the church, however, I heard a quite different and significant designation: “Brother” expressed the beautiful and truly Christian ideal of family relationship.

National distinctions persist in the secular world and continue to divide society. In the body of Christ, the Church, however, they are done away. While these diversities still obtain outwardly and physically, the unity and spiritual fellowship in Christ transcend these differences by including and uniting all mankind. Is this why the Apostle Paul appointed young Timothy, who to some may have seemed an outsider, to pastor the church at Ephesus? This church, after all, for years had had its own indigenous elders and leaders. Similarly, Paul appointed Titus to serve the church in Crete and gave him specific instructions concerning church affairs in that place. Did not the Cretan church very likely have its own local leaders? If we are to follow Paul’s pattern of missions, dare we ignore this phase?

His Corinthian and Thessalonian epistles reveal still another pertinent fact. Apparently he, a Jew from Asia, never relinquished his responsibilities and authority over the Gentile missionary churches he had established in Europe. This was the case not only because Paul believed Jew and Gentile are one in Christ; he was sure of his divine commission as well.

The second basic principle in a missionary’s relationship to the indigenous church often is overlooked or, if it is not believed, may he ignored.

2. A missionary is first and foremost under divine appointment.

Either he is God-sent or he is not a missionary in the Christian sense of the word. Few if any evangelicals today would deny the definite call and divine appointment of missionaries even in regard to specific fields and ministries. Should not missionaries, then, be received and acknowledged as part of the churches they serve, and be just as eligible as any other member to participate in their counsels? It seems almost absurd to affirm (as do some evangelical missionary organizations who unwittingly may be following the earlier lead of liberals) that missionaries do not belong to indigenous churches. They may serve only as outsiders, as roving evangelists, as peripatetic teachers of the Word. They may be doctors with mobile units who treat the sick and move on. Even in congregational-type, independent churches this situation should not prevail. And in churches established by a parent church in another land, the idea of severance is all the more open to question. To consider missionaries outsiders seems to be a tacit concession to the spirit of nationalism. Neither is such an attitude of any help to a church, nor can it be sustained by Scripture.

God appoints missionaries to other important ministries in the indigenous church besides those mentioned above. The church, of course, must cooperate willingly. Obviously a new missionary just graduated from Bible college or seminary, or even one with a Ph.D. degree, who has far more than an unfamiliar language to learn in his appointed field, should no more expect immediately to direct affairs in churches overseas than he would in a church at home. While the Lord of the harvest appoints his laborers where and as he wills, he never does so indiscriminately, nor without requiring the maturing disciplines of extremely practical Christian service. Such training takes time both at home and abroad. God’s servants are thoroughly proved before he entrusts them with sacred responsibilities. Nonetheless, even the best equipped must always manifest humility. But the fact that a missionary is from another country should not of itself be a disqualifying factor for real membership and, in time, even for service of high responsibility in any overseas church to which the Lord may send him.

When God appoints someone to serve his Church in another land, whatever the skin color may be, he sends his servant as an insider, not an outsider, as an essential member of the living church organism. Except where the unscriptural idea of excluding missionaries from the indigenous church has been fostered, a vast majority of national believers gladly welcome and acknowledge the foreign missionary as an integral part of the church brotherhood.

Since all race distinctions are removed in Christ, any true church organism anywhere may include black, white or yellow. God is not limited to matching people of the same race and skin in his appointments of workers to churches either at home or abroad. Because God raises up and appoints local church leaders, it does not necessarily follow that missionaries therefore cannot expect to, nor should not, belong to the indigenous church brotherhood.

That emphasis on nationalism which would exclude missionaries from any essential relationship to the overseas church, an attitude strangely prevalent if not dominant in current missionary thought, is certainly not a spiritual let alone a scriptural emphasis. Definitely non-Christian and divisive, this kind of nationalism in no way nurtures the Spirit of Christ. Actually, it brings into the churches that very disunity which Christ’s death abolished. Whenever some policy develops a spirit other than that of the Lord Jesus, any so-called advantages of such a policy, as spontaneous numerical increase even, mean absolutely nothing.

In those foreign lands where the alchemy of grace does indeed make outsiders truly indigenous members of the church and its fellowship, the Lord entrusts missionaries with responsible ministries even though they serve people of different nationalities.

Even the Scot who yearned to serve God in China but was led to the United States instead illustrates our thesis. No one who heard him either as a prominent Presbyterian minister or as chaplain of the United States Senate would deny that Peter Marshall was a missionary. Every bit of this six-foot-two Anglo-Saxon was sent by God from Europe to America. Born in Scotland, he nonetheless became a vital member of the indigenous church in our country. Peter Marshall both came and was received as a true and respected missionary of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Are the churches going out of the missionary business?

The Future Of The Missionary

The cause of world missions—the basic mission of the Church—is under terrific pressure today.

Atheistic Communism would destroy the Christian witness. Militant nationalism often opposes or subverts Christianity to her own ends. World uncertainties reduce the number of workers willing to venture into the arena of a global witness.

Within the missionary enterprise itself, moreover, tensions, frustrations and doubts arise as national churches emerge. The problem of the relationship of missions and missionaries induces much heart-searching and actuates new policy decisions. How, in these changing times, can the unchanging Gospel be trumpeted world-wide without unnecessary impediment by wrong attitudes and decisions? This is the issue these Christian leaders address.

This question is prompted by the increasing emphasis many boards are giving to interchurch aid as a substitute for direct and pioneer missionary outreach. While the pattern varies, its main features seem fairly well established. In any given field where an indigenous church body exists, the formal organization known as the “Mission” is to be dissolved. Missionaries are to be incorporated into the national church structure and made subject to its ecclesiastical direction; new missionaries are to come only on invitation of the indigenous church. All funds for the work are to be placed in the hands of the national church and administered through its own appropriate boards and committees. The personal support and expenses of the missionaries are to continue to come from abroad; sponsoring boards are to function primarily as subsidizing agencies that provide needed personnel and funds.

The underlying idea seems to be that such a plan eliminates the ambiguities of the present church-mission dichotomy, and demonstrates “partnership in obedience.” Through direct involvement it is expected that the national churches develop a stronger sense of missionary responsibility and of personal dignity. We personally find it difficult to see how the policy in question will serve these ends.

1. Actually, no dichotomy of church and mission exists if the nature and function of these bodies are properly understood. The mission is not a church and it exercises no ecclesiastical powers. These belong exclusively to the national church itself, whose autonomy in this area is absolute and unquestioned. In its relation to the indigenous church, the mission is simply a “task force,” an organized body of friends who stand ready to help wherever requested.

2. The plan does not really offer a true “partnership.” Rather, it calls for the complete dissolution of one of the participating parties. Real partnership implies an arrangement whereby each body respects the entity and autonomy of the other. Both work in a spirit of mutual esteem as coordinates.

3. As far as encouraging a missionary mind within the indigenous churches is concerned, the plan of “integration” seems more likely to produce just the opposite effect. Under such a system churches can hardly be expected to develop any sense of their own missionary responsibility. To accept substantial annual subsidies from outside sources would tend to confirm their status of “receiving churches” instead of challenging them to make their distinctive contribution, however small, to the mission of the church in the world. Any genuine missionary interest of the church must express itself in the outpouring of its own life and means rather than in depending upon resources from abroad.

4. The idea that dignity can be given per se to the national churches by giving them administration and control of all missionary funds seems also to miss the mark. Whatever “indignity” may exist comes from within, from the subjective shadow of the posture of dependence in which the churches find themselves. “The only cure for such a problem lies in a true autonomy. This is not something that can be conferred or withheld. It is a status and quality that must be achieved. No church can attain dignity in its own eyes when its rightful responsibilities are being carried by others, and the more generous the help the deeper the sensitivity is likely to be. The national church needs to develop its own self-respect by hard work, stewardship, and sacrifice, and by an honest acceptance of its own responsibilities and burdens. Only then can it hold up its head without shame, can it accept thankfully the comradeship and help of those who labor to assist it.

To fulfill its highest usefulness the missionary movement must be so organized and construed as to encourage newly emerging churches to develop to the full their own individual capacities. The missionary enterprise must not be allowed to degenerate into a sort of collectivism that undermines local initiative and responsibility. This precaution is critical. There is evidence that the idea of the world Christian community, and of corporate responsibility of the whole for every part, has been used by certain “younger churches” to justify their continued dependence upon subsidies and grants-in-aid. As a result, development in stewardship and self-support has been retarded. In extreme cases such help is all but demanded as a right. Even the capacity to be grateful seems almost to have been lost.

The seriousness of this situation lies not in the fact that it may cost us money. At stake, rather, is the character of the churches themselves. To discourage their growth in maturity and self-reliance brings serious injury to their well-being and integrity.

One of the chief weaknesses of the “integration” idea is that it prolongs the “colonial” pattern. In this day of intense nationalism, how can the national churches escape the stigma of religious “colonialism” as long as fraternal workers from abroad sit prominently in their councils, and budgets are replenished year by year with liberal infusions of aid from foreign sources? What would happen to such churches, geared to a policy of subsidization, if political changes required the sudden and complete withdrawal of all outside help? This is something that the national churches themselves need to consider seriously. If the missions are enjoined to abandon the role of colonials, then by the same token let the national churches abandon the role of the colonized. The full independence and autonomy of the national churches must be safeguarded. Let them stand on their own feet, and allow the missions to continue with their chief business, namely preaching of the Gospel to the unevangelized.

The Primary Objective

One other observation seems necessary to set this whole matter in proper perspective. Let it be said quite frankly that assistance to the indigenous churches is not the missionary’s first concern. While such assistance is important, it is a secondary function for him. His primary concern must be for those “other sheep” whose spiritual lostness and need called him in the first place from his home and his native land. In few countries where missionaries are at work today have as many as five per cent of the people been won to the evangelical faith. Any philosophy of missions which diverts attention from this unfinished task and interprets our continuing role principally in terms of interchurch aid must be classified as a major retreat in missionary strategy. Established work should be turned over as rapidly as possible to the indigenous church while the mission moves on to the “regions beyond.” It is inconceivable and illogical that the existence or formation of a relatively small body of believers in any country should deflect the initiative of those whom God has called to preach the Gospel to every creature. We cannot in good conscience relinquish to any national church organization either the right or the obligation to determine for us where our missionary responsibility begins or ends. Our mandate comes from Christ, not from any indigenous church. We were “sent” before we were “invited.”

It is tragic indeed that some churches seem almost to have abandoned the idea of direct missionary endeavor. The so-called independent or “faith” missions are partially filling the vacuum, but no more urgent need confronts the churches today than that of fresh evangelistic fervor, of pioneering zeal and of outreach. We are in danger of becoming “church-bound,” of substituting a sort of ecclesiastical foreign-aid program for the real thing, and consequently of losing the biblical missionary vision which historically has fired the hearts of our people.

We must guard against any situation which would limit our missionary efforts simply to helping existing national churches. Instead of following a circumscribed “church-limited” policy, we should concern ourselves with the unbelieving people of the whole world. We must throw off a kind of bondage to established churches. For it is quite obvious that our work of outreach and extension will soon reach the saturation point if each national church remains permanently dependent on our resources.

Let us start anew. Let us devote ourselves to a pioneering ministry. Let us stop coddling the national churches into dependence.

A previous article (“What Ministers Think of Mergers,” Nov. 24, 1961, issue) discussed the proposed merger between the United Presbyterian Church, the Protestant Episcopal Church, The Methodist Church, and the United Church of Christ. There we analyzed the reaction of some clergymen to the so-called Blake-Pike proposal and drew several tentative conclusions. This second article enlarges on the success or failure of mergers already consummated, and proposes several guidelines on the subject of organic union of churches.

Recent developments furnish ample evidence that union (or reunion) will be a topic for serious conversation for some time to come. In December of 1960 the archbishop of Canterbury visited the pope of Rome. The pope granted an audience also to the presiding bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the American branch of the Anglican fellowship. This latter visit by the Right Reverend Arthur Lichtenberger to the Vatican en route to the New Delhi meetings of the World Council of Churches created considerable press interest in America. The fact that this audience occurred before rather than after the World Council meetings, and that it followed the earlier meeting of the English primate, could be no accident. Such timing lends to the visit the appearance of a movement of Protestantism toward Rome.

To illustrate the urge for such union we need only go back to Bishop Oxnam’s episcopal address of 1948. He pleaded for organic union that allows but two churches—one Protestant and one Roman Catholic—and expressed the further desire that these two might someday constitute one holy, catholic church. The recent merger of the Congregational Christian Churches with the Evangelical and Reformed Church, the union of the United Presbyterian Church with the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., the Blake-Pike proposal, and the integration of the International Missionary Council into the World Council of Churches, attest the fact that powerful merger forces are moving swiftly toward church union. How rapidly this movement will surge ahead, and how soon its objectives will be substantially attained cannot be predicted. These already functioning operations, however, constitute the unmistakably growing ecumenical thrust of our day.

Merger And Missionary Thrust

While it is openly acknowledged, the fact yet needs repeating that the genius of the present ecumenical movement owes its beginnings to the foreign missionary impulse. In essence, the recurring argument in favor of church union is simply that the Church’s mission has been thwarted by the many divisions within the body of Christ. Bishop Lesslie Newbigin propounds this argument constantly:

The health of the ecumenical movement depends upon the vigor and freshness of the missionary passion from which it sprang.… But the missionary passion, the longing that “the world may know” must remain central to the “ecumenical” movement.… Of that true understanding of the word “ecumenical” the forthcoming Assembly of the World Council of Churches and the International Missionary Council at New Delhi will surely be a potent symbol. Its theme, “Jesus Christ the Light of the World,” is a reminder to all who have any part in it that our concern is with a Gospel for all men.… And the fact that it will be the occasion of the uniting of these two world bodies in one, so that from henceforth the World Council of Churches will itself carry the direct responsibility for missionary counsel and cooperation which the IMC has carried for half a century, will surely mean in the end that all the churches will have to take this missionary responsibility much more deeply to heart …, will have to learn that to be a Christian congregation anywhere is to be a part of a mission which reaches out to the ends of the earth.

Dr. Eugene Carson Blake of the United Presbyterian Church, LISA, has expressed the same ideas. Speaking at the North American Ecumenical Youth Assembly in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on August 19, 1961, he said the divided state of Christ’s Church retards accomplishment of its mission. “The Church is not a club but a mission, to make known the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world. We are beginning to see that the divided state of the Christian Church is blocking its mission.” Dr. Blake and Bishop Newbigin, among others, have underscored taking the Gospel to the ends of the earth as the church’s primary mission. They have concluded further that the divided condition of the churches is one, if not the, principal hindrance to realizing this objective. This mission of the Church, therefore, is the main reason for establishing a church which Dr. Blake calls “truly catholic, truly reformed, and truly evangelical.”

Consolidation of the International Missionary Council into the framework of the World Council of Churches was justified mainly by this rationale. Indeed, the whole ecumenical movement is indebted to foreign missions for its very existence. It is fairly safe to say that without the nineteenth century forward movement in missions there might well have been no present-day ecumenical movement and no World Council. It is important, therefore, not only to understand the ecumenical thrust of the missionary movement half a century ago, but also to recognize what changes have occurred. Such analysis will supply the necessary historical background for evaluating the present movement.

Clouding A Great Vision

In 1902 the fourth international conference of the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions convened in Toronto, Canada. Orthodox in theological orientation and ecumenical in membership and purpose, this movement had sprung from the evangelistic work of Dwight L. Moody and the famous Northfield Conferences. Eight years later in 1910 the World Missionary Conference convened in Edinburgh. Its transactions were printed in North America by the Fleming Revell Company. Revell was Moody’s brother-in-law, a fact that may explain the close connection between the missionary conferences and the Moody-Revell interests. At this 1910 conference the theological thrust was still well within the orthodox context, and the spirit of the meetings was distinctly ecumenical in the best and broadest sense. The major denominations of the world were represented. So were the leading faith mission boards such as the China Island Mission, Ceylon and India General Mission, Egypt General Mission, New Hebrides Mission, North Africa Mission, Regions Beyond Missionary Union, South Africa General Mission, and Sudan United Mission. The meetings were both interdenominational and nondenominational. They truly represented the whole Church of Jesus Christ at work in its mission.

After 1910 a distinct change took place. Theological considerations bifurcated the ecumenical spirit of the earlier missionary conclaves. Faith missionary agencies increasingly separated from the ecumenical missionary stream as denominations seriously compromised their orthodoxy. After 1910 the Faith and Order group emerged, and also the Life and Work group, and the International Missionary Council. In 1928 the Jerusalem Conference met under IMC auspices. Theological differences were consciously recognized for what they implied. The IMC adopted a resolution on “Missionary Cooperation in View of Doctrinal Differences.” The original ecumenical missionary spirit was dissipated because of the leavening inroads of theological liberalism. What had begun as a genuinely ecumenical and theologically orthodox movement now became fragmented, its witness based on theological inclusivism on the one hand, and on theological exclusivism on the other.

How significant this change has been may be seen from any missionary survey today. The North American picture is perhaps the most obvious index. Once the vast majority of North American missionary personnel came from the old line denominations. This is no longer the case. In 1956, 43.5 per cent of North American foreign missionaries were related to the Division of Foreign Missions of the National Council of Churches; in 1958, the percentage dropped to 41.2 percent; and in 1960 to 38 per cent (10,324). In other words, 62 per cent of the North American foreign missionaries are not affiliated with the Division of Foreign Missions. Contrasted with the situation in 1911, 1928, and 1936, it becomes quite clear that the gap between missionary personnel and the ecumenical complex has widened steadily. More and more missionary work is being done outside rather than within the ecumenical framework. Even today if only one group—like the Seventh-day Adventists with their 1,385 missionaries—were to withdraw from the Division of Foreign Missions, the Division’s total missionary force would drop perceptibly (from 10,324 to 8,939). Furthermore, their withdrawal would leave under the direction of the Division of Foreign Missions less than one third of the total number of North American missionaries. If any observation is to be made from this summary it is that the foreign missionary impulse of the ecumenical movement in North America today is far weaker percentagewise in overseas personnel than it was 50 years ago.

Ecumenism originally flowed from the missionary impetus; it represented churches sharing and thriving under the spiritual urgency to spread the Gospel. We may ask, then, if the recent church mergers have strengthened the Church’s witness and furthered its missionary outreach as men like Visser’t Hooft, Blake, and Newbigin envisioned. If mergers have not accomplished this objective and if church unions have fostered no appreciable gains along the lines announced when such mergers were projected, then any further encouragement to merger must find some other rationale than that of overcoming the obstacle of fragmentation to church mission. What is the effect of church union in North America on missionary vitality?

The Fruits Of Inclusive Merger

On this continent the most famous of all church union movements is the United Church of Canada. Completed in 1925, this merger of Methodist, Presbyterian, and Congregational churches united people of unrelated denominational backgrounds. But it was divisive too, in that it separated brother from brother and created wounds as yet unhealed. Particularly affected by the merger movement were the Maritime Provinces of Canada; many observers consider the breaches caused by the movement far too costly for the benefits derived. Today the United Church calls itself a uniting church; it has held conversations with the Canadian Disciples, the Evangelical United Brethren, and the Anglican Church of Canada. Its ecumenical passion remains. But since union has been justified in terms of furthering the witness of the Church the question must be asked: “How well has the United Church of Canada met this standard?” The reply leaves much to be desired.

At its annual session in 1961 the United Church of Canada was addressed by its retiring moderator. As weaknesses of this group he mentioned the need for renewed missionary zeal and for a quickening of spiritual life. Following the 1925 merger there had been a surplus of ministers. Now the moderator says a shortage exists which has reached emergency proportions; moreover, he says that membership growth for the United Church of Canada is lagging far behind the nation’s population increase. The last annual report showed a drop in new members by profession of faith in every conference. In finances, 80 per cent of all monies gathered from the congregations remained in the congregational coffers.

What is more, the very reason usually given for union, namely, the fulfillment of mission, gets little confirmation. Year by year the United Church’s foreign missionary force has decreased. From 452 missionaries in 1936, the number had declined to 245 by 1960. By contrast, the whole North American foreign missionary force of 11,289 in 1936 increased to 27,219 by 1960. While this total force increased almost 250 per cent, that of the United Church of Canada shrank to almost one half. (It is true that following the 1925 merger there was a continuing Presbyterian Church in Canada reporting 60 missionaries in 1936 and 83 in 1960.) If this example fairly reflects what normally happens in merger situations, how can ecumenists contend that church union helps missions?

An analysis of other mergers will test the larger validity of observations about United Church of Canada.

A prime example of sizable merger in the United States is that between the Congregational and the Christian Churches, formalized in 1931 in Seattle. Over against the previously mentioned North American increase of almost 250 per cent in missionary personnel between 1936 and 1960, the figures for the Congregational Christian Churches are instructive. In 1936 there were 495 missionaries operating under the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. By 1960 the number had shrunk to 364, a decline of slightly more than 25 per cent as contrasted with the almost 250 per cent increase in the general average.

The merged Congregational Christian Churches have negotiated further merger with the Evangelical and Reformed Church (which represents still another church union). In 1934, Evangelical Synod of North America united with the Reformed Church in the United States in Cleveland. Here, too, subsequent missionary outreach significantly lags behind the forward surge in missions generally. Missionary personnel of the Evangelical and Reformed Church increased from 116 in 1936 to 153 in 1960, a growth of slightly over 30 per cent as against almost 250 per cent increase generally. Inclusive merger did not yield the kind of outreach that ecumenists envision.

In 1946 the Evangelical Church and the United Brethren Church became the Evangelical United Brethren Church. In 1936 these two separate denominations supported a missionary force of 101 people. In 1960 the total was 143, an increase of slightly over 40 per cent as against the 250 per cent increase generally. Missionary strength fell far short of the average.

In 1939 the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Methodist Episcopal Church South, and the Methodist Protestant Church united to form The Methodist Church. Since then their combined missionary force has increased less than 20 per cent. Again the missions story is much like that of other merged denominations.

Some Contrasting Gains

We must not, of course, simply cite the above figures without some overview of the missionary scene. Thus, while the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., had fewer missionaries in 1960 than in 1936, the number of the Southern Presbyterian Church rose from 402 to 492 missionaries in the same period. While the Protestant Episcopal Church missionaries declined from 427 to 414, the Reformed Church in America increased its foreign staff from 140 to 173. Many denominations even advanced remarkably well during this period. The Southern Baptist missionary staff soared from 405 to 1377; that of the Free Methodists from 81 to 161; of the Christian and Missionary Alliance from 447 to 824; of the Church of the Nazarene from 88 to 400; and of the Evangelical Mission Covenant Church from 38 to 153. Missionaries under the American Baptist Convention dropped from 587 to 383. This denomination, however, had undergone several divisions. Some churches joined the General Association of Regular Baptists, others organized the Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society. Thus while the American Baptist Convention figure for 1960 was 383 missionaries, if we add the 378 of the Conservative Baptists and the 473 of Mid Missions and the 228 of the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism (both GARBC agencies), the total missions personnel far exceeds the 587 enjoyed by the ABC in 1936.

The Baptist General Conference of America normally operated its missions program through the American Baptist Convention, but in the 40s the two went their separate ways. This fact accounts partly for the decline of the ABC, inasmuch as the Baptist General Conference alone now has more than 100 missionaries.

Faith mission agencies scored the most substantial increase of all in missionary personnel. Generally they represented small, isolated constituencies in Bible churches and fundamentalist groups. The roll call is impressive: Evangelical Alliance Mission missionaries increased from 95 to 807; Unevangelized Tribes from 48 to 211; Oriental Missionary Society from 36 to 198; Wycliffe Bible Translators from nothing to over 1,000.

Some Significant Conclusions

With respect to missions and the fulfillment of the Great Commission, two generalizations seem to emerge. 1. Church mergers have as yet produced nothing that resembles a significant increase in foreign missionary witness so far as the number of missionaries is concerned. Actually, there seems to have been a general decline among those groups which have merged. 2. The increase of missionary passion and concern seems to have been stirred largely by faith boards and by the smaller and generally more theologically conservative groups. Therefore if church mergers are encouraged on the ground that ‘the divided state of the Christian Church is blocking its mission,” there is little evidence to show that mergers do substantially improve the realization of the mission of the church. So far mergers just have not produced such results.

One significant church union scheme outside the American scene has attracted much attention. This is the Church of South India which united adherents from different Protestant denominations into one fellowship. Here, too, the main motive was to overcome the fragmentation of witness that was proclaimed a scandal to the world of heathenism and a hindrance to more rapid evangelization of the lost. It was supposed that a united fellowship would do what a divided fellowship was unable to accomplish. Donald McGavran, whose book How Churches Grow was highly commended by Hendrik Kraemer, investigated and assessed the growth of the churches. He concluded that the Church of South India has not lived up to expectations; union has made little or no difference in its rate of growth. Indeed, there is no reason to suppose that the individual churches would not have grown just as well apart from the union as they have with the union. While there may be compelling reasons for urging churches to merge, no primary weight can be attached to the motion that merger leads to more compelling witness that fulfills the Great Commission. Nor dare anyone plead for maintaining present divisions in order to speed the missionary task, for neither has a divided Christendom completed the task of world evangelization.

Evidence Not Reassuring

In the final analysis, the main achievement of the ecumenical movement is to coalesce into one family those already within the Christian community. This in itself may be sufficient reason to justify church union; if so, then the cause for merger should be stated in those terms. But the outcome does not confirm an expected missionary upsurge as the justifying reason for organic union. This is particularly true in North America, where the vast majority of missionary work is being accomplished outside the ecumenical stream, and where, indeed, the proportion of the work being done within the ecumenical orbit has been decreasing steadily in the past 50 years.

For churches to merge so that they become a larger force within the context of the Christian community is one thing. For such largeness to produce missionary impetus and virility apparently is quite another. It the mission of the Church is as significant as both proponents and opponents of church union profess, it is imperative to stress the fact. Unity in itself, in terms of organic union, may not be the main consideration. One can argue with some degree of dogmatic assurance that a single world church which forfeits its missionary responsibility is a meaningless anomaly, whereas proliferating churches which fulfill our Lord’s command to take the Gospel to every creature is far preferable. This is not to say that these are the only alternatives, nor would we argue that one church must necessarily be a sterile and impotent force in foreign missions. But the evidence so far gives the earnest seeker no good reason to suppose that church union will increase missionary passion. Indeed, the facts point to an opposite estimate.

Time will tell whether the integration of the International Missionary Council into the World Council of Churches will motivate a new surge of missionary outreach. In the light of what has taken place so far I personally am skeptical about such an eventuality. In the name of a lost and dying world I hope my doubts prove unwarranted. But unless there is a dynamic move forward, the evidence would indicate that God may bypass channels once mightily used and may replace them with other agencies that do not permit the desire for structure and organization to interfere with the risen Christ’s command to evangelize all nations. God bypassed the Roman Church in the Reformation. Today he seems to be bypassing some denominations in North America by allowing the rapid increase of faith missions. May he not also bypass merged denominations that lose the vision of the Church’s task to evangelize the world?

Some Proposals For Action

The fact remains, of course, that there is division in the body of Christ in our day. This ought not to be. If the merged and unmerged groups are not fulfilling the call to world evangelization; if the faith groups as well have not finished the task, what word shall we say, what hope can we offer those still without Christ? However well founded, negative criticism is not enough. Some positive course of action, some guidelines for future strategy, must be stated. What are they?

1. Let sincere effort be made for conversation with those churches and groups still functioning as separate units. Obviously there are always those who refuse any ventures toward fruitful interchange with others. But there are many men and women of good will who are not divisive and dissident.

2. Let ecumenicity begin where it should—on the field. Let it proceed from the bottom up, not from the top down. Let it be spiritual and practical rather than institutional and ecclesiastical. Instead of division such as that which has resulted in various field councils because of the IMC-WCC integration, let councils all over the world fellowship through the mutual burden of reaching men for Christ. If organization divides, it may mean that for a time, at least, further changes should be suspended. The work of Jesus Christ is bigger than organization.

3. Let an honest effort be made to define an adequate theology based only upon the Word of God. While this theology obviously cannot include details, it should at least embrace the great affirmations of the Christian faith. It should be a positive proclamation, not a negative apologetic.

4. Let us not perpetuate local peculiarities overseas. If we have differences based upon subjective conviction let us be sure the nationals recognize these differences as peripheral—as of matters not of the essence of the faith.

5. Let us yield ourselves in penitence and contribution to the person of the Holy Spirit and ask what he would have us be and do.

6. Let us be patient and understanding. Let us withhold judgment until all the facts are ascertained, remembering that God is the judge of conscience, that he alone knows the full number of his sheep, the full range of his kingdom.

New Delhi Doesn’T Excite Me

Ecumenical organization means ecumenical machinery, and churchmen are human, too, human to the extent that keeping an organization going and thus multiplying jobs and perquisites can become as important as proselytizing. Reading between the lines of reports from New Delhi, I was particularly impressed by the control that the professionals had over the procedures, even to the rationale for the control, namely, that fixed orders of business were necessary in order to expedite progress and save time. Give me the power over procedures, i.e., agendas, and the control of information, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred I’ll control the organization.

For those who think about modern developments, there is something frightening in the mere size of the World Council. Now, I know there are those who think size results in efficiency and more witness, but I am not one of them. I don’t even see it as a way to build a counterweight to Catholicism or Communism.…

I know the argument for machinery. How else can the Gospel train he kept on the track? Aren’t order and uniformity proper virtues?… Believe me, there is a great difference in church or military between volunteers and conscripts. A cause is always more relevant if it is one’s own.

So, New Delhi doesn’t excite me. As we blend into the whole we inevitably subject ourselves to liturgy and form. Why? Because the liturgical and formal in worship are predictable and consequently controllable. No hallelujahs are apt to upset the decorum.…

I’m convinced that the problem of our time is the problem of delegation. In the National Council—and, I’m convinced, equally so in the World Council—the Christian witness tends to become the testimony not of life but of resolutions. Problems of our time are considered by experts in the bureaucracy or individuals friendly to it; recommendations are made and then pressures are exerted on state and national legislature. The natural consequence is often that the church becomes a lobby. The state (anti-Christ) becomes the implement of our Christian resolution. This is the paradox of our time. Charity, for example, the care of widows, orphans, the aged, and all those who were once the responsibility of the fraternity (the church), has now become the responsibility of the state; and more often than not men and women become clients, rather than brethren in the church.—Dr. KERMIT EBY, Professor of Social Science, The University of Chicago.

This year will be celebrated in the Anglican world as the 300th anniversary of the Book of Common Prayer. The significance of this famous manual of Christian worship is not to be found by going back just 300 years, however, for the book of 1662 was in all essentials the same as the book of 1552, of which Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, was the main architect. The English Prayer Book is, in short, a document of the Reformation of the sixteenth century, and it must be understood against this background. There is an abundance of evidence to demonstrate that for a long time prior to the sixteenth century the church had been in desperate need of reform. The Gospel had been virtually lost to sight under a mass of unscriptural traditions and ceremonies. Church services were riddled with superstition. The clergy were in general dissolute and irresponsible. Preaching was at a premium. Moreover, the services were conducted in Latin, which the laity did not understand; and the Bible was not available to them in English, so that they were unable to study God’s Word for themselves.

It must be remembered that the Reformation, though complex in its associations, was in its essence a spiritual movement. It was, therefore, in essence a movement from within, not from without. It was a reformation first of human hearts and lives, and then, through these, of the Church. In every case the Reformers, through their rediscovery of the Bible as the dynamic Word of God, experienced an evangelical conversion. Then, as new creatures in Christ Jesus, they applied themselves to the colossal task of reforming the Church. God raised up William Tyndale to give the English people the Bible in their own tongue, Thomas Cranmer to give them worship which was agreeable to Holy Scripture and also in English, and many others to proclaim the Gospel and lead them back to the old paths from which for so long the Church had strayed.

The principles still valid for us today by which Cranmer and his fellow-Reformer were guided as they constructed the Book of Common Prayer for the worship of the English people may be summed up under seven heads.

1. Scripturalness. This was the supreme and controlling criterion. The Reformers studied the Scriptures with unflagging diligence. Their conviction is expressed in the twentieth of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, which states that “it is not lawful for the Church to ordain anything that is contrary to God’s Word written.” It was their intention to return to the practice of the early Church whereby the people by attending daily worship would hear the whole Bible read through in the course of a year. The services of the Prayer Book are impregnated with Holy Scripture—in Morning and Evening Prayer, for example, not only is there the reading of lessons from the Old and New Testaments but also the singing of psalms and canticles taken from Scripture and the hearing of prayers and exhortations based upon Scripture. For the Reformers, indeed, Scripture is the touchstone of all doctrine and worship: to be genuinely Christian, prayer and. praise must be genuinely scriptural.

2. Catholicity. The Reformers, however, were not innovators. They did not act as though the. Church had not existed before their day. On the contrary, they were very conscious of continuity with the past, and sought to retain in their worship all that was best from the centuries that preceded them. They made it a special study to know what was taught in the writings of the early fathers of the Church. Indeed, Cranmer’s learning in patristic and liturgical literature was without parallel. They not only maintained, but also proved from the ancient writings, that it was not the Reformation but the Roman Church which was guilty of innovation, and of importing many rites and teachings which were unknown in the early Church. The Reformers, therefore, saw their work as one of renewal and restoration, not innovation, and the Book of Common Prayer is in the truest sense a treasury of catholic worship.

3. Purity. At the same time, what was erroneous, superstitious, and incompatible with the teaching of Scripture was rejected, and what was originally good in itself but had become corrupted was purged.

4. Simplicity. The excessive number of rites, regulations, and traditions, which had obscured the Gospel and placed an insupportable burden upon the people, was drastically reduced to the minimum that was considered needful for disciplined worship: for true worship is essentially a simple act.

5. Intelligibility. As the Apostle Paul teaches, it is essential to worship God with the understanding as well as with the spirit. To worship uncomprehendingly is not to worship the God who has revealed himself in His Son and in Scripture, but to fall away into superstition. Worship, therefore, must be conducted in the language which the people understand; and this made it imperative to discard Latin and to give the people a Prayer Book in English. Thus Article 24 declares that “it is a thing plainly repugnant to the Word of God and the custom of the primitive Church to have public prayer in the church, or to minister the sacraments, in a tongue not understanded of the people.”

6. Community. For too long the people had been little better than spectators in church worship, unable and unrequired to take part. But the Reformers saw from the New Testament that worship is the prerogative of clergy and people together, and therefore congregational. Hence their great service in giving England a Book of Common Prayer, setting forth scriptural worship in which all could join with full understanding.

7. Orderliness. Having learnt, also, that God is a God of order, not disorder, and that the proper end of all worship is the glory of God, the Reformers gave the English people a form of worship that has never ceased to be admired for its well-ordered seemliness.