The missionary movement of the nineteenth century

Dorothy Bulln

From Greenlands icy mountains, from Indias coral strand,

where Africs sunny fountains roll down their golden sand.
From many a palmy plain, they call us to deliver their land
from errors chain (Reginald Heber, Bishop of Calcutta
1823)
The nineteenth century was baptized by Kenneth Scott LaTourette
as the Great Century of Christian missions.1 For practical reasons in
this essay we are going to start in 1793, the date when William Carey
arrived in India, and continue until 1910 with the Edinburgh World
Missionary Conference. Stephen Neill in his History of Christian Mission
divides the century in two parts: The first half devoted to pioneer
missionary work and the latter part in building on these foundations a
strong Protestant missionary movement.
Our first task will be a description of the context of the nineteenth
century and how this contributed to the spreading of the gospel. In such
a short essay we will have to just skim the surface. Rather than describe
each missionary effort we briefly describe some main events in key
world areas, look at the effect of religious revivals on mission, illustrate
the different models that were developed, the general effect of missions
on society, and point out the things that can be learned from this
century of reaching out to the world with the message of the gospel.
First we need to look at some of the preceding protestant missionary
endeavors briefly.
2

I.

Mission after the Protestant Reformation

Christianity became the first religion to spread around the world

from 1500 till 1750. With the Catholic Counter Reformation, renewed
vigor saw missionaries many of whom were Jesuits, push the boundaries
of Christendom. The Protestant Reformation coincided with the Age of
Exploration led initially by Spain and Portugal. During the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries Europeans were traveling the seas to almost
every part of the globe. Where colonist went missionaries followed most
of whom were Catholic monks and priests.
In 1542, the Jesuit, Francis Xavier, became known as the Apostle
of the Indies. Over the next 10 years, he started many missions in India
and other parts of Asia. Another Jesuit, Matteo Ricci, started a mission in
China. One of the most successful Jesuit mission stations was in
1

Kenneth S. Latourette (1967) Historia del Cristianismo. Tomo II. Mxico DF.: Casa
Bautista de Publicaciones, p.449
2
Stephen Neill (1966) A History of Christian Missions United Kingdom: Penguin Books
(Chapters 9 & 10).

Paraguay on the Iguau falls where the priests helped the Guarani
indigenous people to live in communities which protected them from
slave traders. With the decline of the Spanish and Portuguese empires
and the shutting down of the Jesuit missions the zenith of Catholic
missions started to fade. Protestants accompanied their colonial
expeditions and often set up churches for the expatriates but did very
little to evangelize the peoples of the world. There were exception such
as John Eliot and David Brainerd who worked with Native Americans.
Why did the Protestant Reformation have to wait two hundred
years before embarking on a worldwide missionary movement? David
Bosch gives us some insights into some of the reasons. A lot of energy
was used in formulating protestant doctrine which involved on occasions
conflicts even with other protestant groups. The emphasis on the
sovereignty of God led many to believe that God would seek those he
had chosen for salvation. The Catholics had their monastic movements
which were organizations at the forefront of missions. The Protestants
had not been able to develop equivalents. The Catholic missionaries
worked hand in hand with their governments whereas the protestant
rulers didnt send out missionaries alongside their soldiers.
3

Pietism and Christian missions

By the end of the seventeenth century the German Lutheran
Church had lost a great deal of the dynamism of the first moments of the
Reformation. Much time was spent in intellectual theological discussions
which could be observed Sunday by Sunday in the long and often boring
discourses that were preached from the pulpits. It seems that the
ministers were more interested in ideas then in caring for their
members. The warm lively heart faith of Luther had been replaced by
cold intellectual pursuits. The priesthood of all believers had been
sabotaged by autocratic Lutheran pastors.
It was to this stage that two important actors played a pivotal role
in bringing renewed life to the church and in stimulating the beginning of
the protestant missionary movement. These two men were the founders
of the pietist movement. As a pastor in Frankfurt, Philipp Jakob Spener
(1635-1705), appealed for moral reform in the city. He introduced the
idea of members meeting in small groups called Collegia pietatis ("pious
assembly") on Wednesdays and Sundays to pray, to discuss the previous
week's sermon, and to apply passages from Scripture and devotional
writings to individual lives. These groups are the forerunners of John
Wesleys classes and bands. Spener was interested in promoting real
spiritual experience on a day to day basis through these small groups.
In 1675 Spener published his Pia desideria or Earnest Desires for a
Reform of the True Evangelical Church in which he made the following
3

David Bosch (1994) Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts on Theology of Mission.

New York: Orbis Books, pp. 248-252

six proposals. He wrote about: (1) the need for earnest and thorough
study of the Bible in small groups; (2) that the Christian priesthood is
universal and thus the laity should share in the spiritual government of
the Church; (3) Christians must practice their faith; (4) there must be
tolerance and kindness for people who might think differently; (5) more
prominence should be given to the devotional life in theological training
in universities, and (6) that preaching must be less rhetorical and put
more emphasis on the development of the practical Christian life and its
fruits. The tract was an immediate sensation.
Spener emphasized the need for individual conversion, for a
devotional walk with the Lord on a daily basis. The Bible became a book
to be obeyed in practical terms. What followed was a renewed focus on
holy living, spreading the gospel, and providing for the needy. According
to Herbert Kane, the pietists believed that there can be no missionary
vision without evangelistic zeal; there can be no evangelistic zeal
without personal piety; there can be no personal piety without a genuine
conversion experience. True religion for the pietists is a matter for the
heart, hence the emphasis in the cultivation of the spiritual life.
The second actor to come onto this German stage was August
Hermann Francke (1663-1677). The movement grew rapidly in 1694
when Francke made the new University of Halle a Pietist center where
classes were taught based on the conception that Christianity had to
take into account a change of heart and consequent holiness of life and
not just doctrinal correctness.
Francke's missionary influence was felt directly through
missionaries who went from Halle to foreign fields. King Frederick IV of
Denmark was instrumental in forming the first Protestant mission, known
as the Danish-Halle mission. The inspiration and the training took place
in Halle while Copenhagen was the administrative center. The first
trainees of Halle, Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg and Heinrich Plutschau
arrived in India on July 9, 1706, marking the beginning of the first
Protestant mission work. This work would go on to lead many in India to
the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Two British organizations, the
Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge (SPCK) and the
Society for the Propagation of Gospel (SPG), supported the mission.
Ziegenbalg showed great sensitivity to the language and culture of
South India. He translated the New Testament into Tamil, founded
schools where children could learn the Bible as well as science and other
subjects, and inspired missionary efforts in other parts of the world.
Another Halle missionary to India, Benjamin Schultze, translated
Scripture into Telugu.
The University of Halle established a center for Oriental languages
and also encouraged efforts at translating the Bible into new languages.
4

Philip Jacob Spener, (2002). Pia Desideria. Oregon, USA: Wipf & Stock Publishers
J. Herbert Kane (1972) A Global view of Christian Missions. Gran Rapids Michigan:
Baker Book House, p. 77.
5

Francke also founded the Oriental College of Theology in 1702 to train

students in both biblical and modern languages. The long term effect on
missions of the Halle University can be seen in that Gustav Warneck, the
founder of the discipline of Missiology, was invited to be the chair of
Missionary Science at the university in 1897.
Nicolas Von Zinzendorf (1700-1760), Speners godson, studied at
the Halle University and later organized the Moravian Church. This group
of 300 Moravian refugees who lived on Count Zinzendorfs lands in
Herrnhut, East Germany, was visited by God in a mighty revival in 1727
after which they decided to go to the neediest people of the world to tell
them about Jesus thus pioneering the great protestant missionary
enterprise. During the next 30 years hundreds of missionary volunteers
left Herrnhut to serve God in many different countries in the Caribbean,
North and South America, the Arctic, Africa, and the Far East. A group in
Herrnhut prayed continuously for missions 24 hours a day, for 100 years.
They were also first to send lay" people to serve as missionaries. A
group of Moravians made a deep impression on John Wesley. Pietism
exerted its influence through Wesley in England in the eighteenth
century.
Pietism was, and continues to be, a source of powerful renewal in
the church. It encouraged lay people in the work of Christian ministry
and stimulated concern for missions. The University of Halle speaks of
the opportunity that educational institutions have to influence the course
of the history of the church, and in this case to inspire the modern
protestant missionary movement. The University of Halle became an
international centre for the dissemination of pietist literature,
missionaries and beliefs, to Russia, Scandinavia, Britain and the New
World.
David Bosch in his careful study states that pietism had abiding
effects on world mission. No longer would it be necessary for mission to
be a duty of colonial governments. pietist missionaries were very often
laypeople rather than clergymen or monks. Pietism encouraged
ecumenism. During the eighteenth century Germany became the
leading country to send missionaries and finally the pietist missionaries
showed how to serve with dedication.
6

II.

The context of the nineteenth century

With the tumultuous years of 1789-1815, European culture was

transformed by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars. With the
victory over Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815, Britain became the new
imperial power, replacing France, Spain and Portugal. Between 1815 and
6

Stephen Bevans & Roger Schroeder (2004) Constants in Context: A Theology of

Mission for Today. New York: Orbis Books, p. 221
7
D.W. Brown [1988] Pietism in New Dictionary of Theology. Leicester, UK: IVP
8
Bosch, op.cit. , p.155

1914, around 10,000,000 square miles of territory and roughly 400

million people were added to the British Empire. At its peak, the British
Empire was the largest formal empire in history and, for over a century,
was the foremost global power. Britain with its steamships ruled the
waves. It was often said that "the sun never set on the British Empire
because its span across the globe ensured that the sun was always
shining on at least one of its numerous territories. In the middle of the
19th century Britain was the richest and most powerful nation in the
world. Queen Victoria reigned from 1837 until 1901. In 1876 she was
acclaimed Empress of India.
Just as Iberian colonial expansion had facilitated the spread of
Catholic Christianity in hands of the Conquistadores, the British colonial
expansion facilitated Protestant Christian mission. Though at first the
colonial powers were hostile to missionary activity because they feared
it would hinder trade. In this sense the missionaries went in spite of the
governors in the colonies.
On July 4th 1776 the United States of America was born. This new
Republic pushed its frontiers towards the West and became established
as an important player on the world scene during the nineteenth
century. Many missionaries that served during this century were
Americans.
During this century western nations including the new American
nation build on the idea of their manifest destiny. The West believed
that they were the chosen people and they were to rule over other
nations. This was especially seen in the last twenty years, the Heyday
of colonialism. The writer Rudyard Kipling summarized the perceived
responsibility to develop the underprivileged in these famous lines from
one of his poems: Take up the White Mans burden. Send forth the best
ye breed. Go bind your sons to exile to serve your captives need. 10
Although this was never their primary purpose, missionaries also
sometimes became agents of western imperialism.
9

Colonialism, commerce and Christianity

As William Carey discovered when he arrived in India, the East
India Company did not approve of missionaries. "The sending out of
missionaries into our Eastern possessions (is) the maddest, most
extravagant, most costly, most indefensible project which has ever been
suggested by a moon struck fanatic! Such a scheme is pernicious,
imprudent, useless, harmful, dangerous, profitless, and fantastic.
In
11

Niall Ferguson (2004) Empire, the rise and demise of the British world order and the
lessons for global power. New York: ed. Basic Books
10
The White Man's Burden" is a poem by the English poet Rudyard Kipling. It was
originally published in the popular magazine McClure's in 1899.
11
P. Hutchinson & W. E. Garrison (2004). 20 Centuries of Christianity. Harcourt ,USA:
Brace and Company, p. 279)

1813, after a resounding speech in the House of Commons in support of

missionary work in India by William Wilberforce (1759-1833), permission
was given.
Through the indefatigable lobbying of the Clapham fraternity,
traffic in slaves became illegal in 1807 and slavery was abolished in
British colonies in 1834. British ships began to patrol the Atlantic
intercepting slave ships from other countries. However it soon became
obvious that slavery was a long practiced custom within Africa. David
Livingstone (1813-1873) maintained that one of his primary aims was to
stamp out the slave trade and one way to do this was to introduce other
areas of trade so that commerce and Christianity could reinforce one
another. However, it is important to point out that most missionaries
risked disease and death to share the gospel with people that they loved
and enterprise and trade were not their first interest. While the colonial
governments traded, the missionaries evangelized and trained and
educated leaders for government service.
III.

The missionary work in different world areas

Mission in India, the jewel of the crown

During what is known as the British "Raj" India was under the rule
of the East India Company for almost forty years (1818-1857). The
British East India Company was still private, even though the British
government supported it. After the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857 Britain
removed the Company from control and declared India a British colony.
British officials poured into India to keep control of its valuable raw
materials, especially tea, cotton and poppies for opium which was
exported to China. They expanded production, built factories in India,
and built huge railroad, irrigation, and telegraph systems.
On 31 May 1792 in Kettering, Northampton, England, William
Carey (1761-1834) a Baptist pastor and a rural cobbler, preached one of
the most influential sermons in history. Along with his book, An Inquiry
into the Obligation of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the
Heathens, Careys sermon on Isaiah 54:2-3 and his challenge: Expect
great things from God, attempt great things for God literally launched
the modern missionary movement. Carey with the promise of support of
Baptist churches set out for India with his family in 1792.
When William Carey arrived in Calcutta India in 1793, it marked a
major milestone in the history of Christian missions and in the history of
India. He did not receive the backing of the East India Company or the
British colonial government at first. After passing some really hard times
in which one of his young sons died and his wife Dorothy Carey suffered
a mental collapse, Carey was successful in establishing the Baptist work
in Serampore, a small Danish colony in India. Carey had a real gift for
languages and translated the Bible into Bengali, Sanskrit, and many
6

other major languages and dialects. With the arrival of Joshua

Marshman, a teacher, and William Ward a printer, Carey was able to
achieve his vision of setting up schools as well as translating the
scriptures into the language of the people.
After thirty four years of singular work in India, William Carey left
his mark: he campaigned for improved treatment for people with
leprosy; he established the first Indian newspaper, The Statesman; he
began several schools and established the first Christian University in
Serampore; he successfully campaigned against the way that Indian
widows were burned in the funeral pyres with their husbands. Because of
his work, this practice was abolished. He was named by some leading
Indians the friend of India and someone who contributed to the
renaissance of their culture.
By founding the Baptist Missionary Society (BMS) he is the pioneer
of the modern denominational missionary society, with a base in the
home country which supports missionaries on the field. He set a pattern
of Bible Translation, education, medical work, church planting which
inspired a remarkable upsurge in missionary vision which resulted in the
commencement of new denominational missionary societies who began
to send hundreds of missionaries to the diverse places of the Globe.
From Scotland, Alexander Duff (18061878) played an important
part in the development of higher education in India. He was firmly
convinced that education was the key to responsible missionary work
and nation building and insisted that lessons in schools should be taught
in English. Also as a result of his work, a number of Protestant colleges
were founded in India.
Although not missionaries to India, a special mention needs to be
made of Adoniram Judson (1788 1850) and his wife Ann, who were the
first American missionaries to go overseas. They suffered from tropical
diseases and vicious opposition and imprisonment under the cruel king
of Burma. Ann died at the age of 36. The work in Burma under George
Dana Boardman (1801-1831) left a group of 100,000 baptized believers
of the Karen tribe. His mission and work led to the formation of the first
Baptist Association in America, inspired many Americans to become or
support missionaries, translated the Bible into Burmese, and established
a number of Baptist churches in Burma.
Mission and the emergence of modern China
It is important to understand the political situation in China as a
backdrop to missionary endeavors. The British Empire via private
companies, tried to control China through trade especially the opium
trade. Opium was grown in India and exported to China where the
people became more and more addicted to it. The Chinese government
tried to stop this trade and opposed foreign intervention. This gave rise
to two conflicts known as the anglo-chinese opium wars (1839-1842 and
7

1856-1860). In response, the British government sent expeditionary

forces from India which ravaged the Chinese coast and dictated the
terms of settlement in the Treaty of Nanking (1842). China was forced to
pay an indemnity to Britain, open four ports to Britain, and cede Hong
Kong to Queen Victoria.
In 1807, Robert Morrison (1782-1834) the first modern missionary
arrived in China. He dedicated time to translate the Bible into Chinese
and compiled a Chinese dictionary for the use of Westerners. European
and American missions responded immediately to the new freedom for
missionary enterprise following the Nanking treaty. By 1865 there were
already thirty different Protestant groups at work in China.
Hudson Taylor a young medical student from Yorkshire, England,
arrived in Shanghai, China in 1854 with a clear call to do missionary
work in the interior of that great nation. He preferred to adopt the
Chinese way of dress, learnt the local dialects, and distanced himself
from the more paternalistic style of mission carried out by established
missions in China along the coast. He decided to live without the
guarantee of material support trusting God for his resources and for over
fifty years God proved His faithfulness to him. He returned to England
with his wife Maria and daughter Gracie in 1860, to rest and to finish his
medical degree and to look for likeminded volunteers.
With the recruitment of the first group of volunteers, the first
faith Mission, the China Inland Mission was officially set up in 1865
under the direction of Rev. James Hudson Taylor and William Thomas
Berger. The missionaries could come from different denominational
backgrounds to work together for the church in China. Most faith
missionaries are not financially supported by denominations. By the time
of his death, Hudson Taylor had accomplished bringing over 800
missionaries to China.
One tragic incident which needs to be mentioned was the Boxer
rising at the end of the Nineteenth century (1899-1901). A peasant
group rose up against Christians taking them for imperial agents of the
West. It is estimated that 30,000 Chinese Roman Catholics, 2,000
Chinese Protestants, 93 protestant missionaries, 53 children and 47
Roman Catholic priests and nuns were killed.
In 1907 one hundred years after Morrisons arrival there were
around five thousand missionaries representing eighty-six societies at
work in China.
12

Mission in Africa, the dark continent or the white mans

grave

12

Gary Clayton (2000). Boxer Rebellion Death to the foreigner! . OMF International.
Accessed 19.11.12. in
http://www.omf.org/omf/singapore/about_omf/omf_history/boxer_rebellion

For the first part of the century Africa remained the unknown and
mysterious continent. Europeans had become familiar with the coast
lands but were afraid to go inland because of fear of contracting malaria.
It seemed that the Africans had been legally freed by the Emancipation
Act of 1833, but in the western mind they were still mentally, morally
and physically slaves. Africa was called the Dark Continent, which had
not been enlightened by the light of Western civilization. In the second
half of the century many inroads were made to the interior of this great
continent and towards the end of the century the colonial powers began
mapping out their colonies in Africa. This was known as the Scramble
for Africa (1880-1900). In the Berlin Conference of 1884-85, European
countries and Turkey, laid down ground rules for the further partitioning
of Africa. By 1900, only Liberia and Ethiopia were free of European
control.
Africa was the center of much missionary work. Established in
1795, the London Missionary Society (LMS) was very active in Africa. The
Clapham fraternity set up a colony in Sierra Leone for freed slaves. Dr.
David Livingstone, the most famous missionary of the Great Century,
joined the LMS in 1838. Livingstone's goal was to open up more of the
African continent to Christianity, trade and civilization. The discovery of
quinine (1820) to ease the symptoms of malaria heralded an age of
Western exploration in Africa. Livingstone combined medical work with
Bible teaching. He published his Missionary Travels and Researches in
South Africa in 1857 which stimulated a great renewal of interest in and
enthusiasm for missions in Africa; missionaries pushed rapidly into the
remaining forest coastal areas of West Africa and increasingly into
Central and East Africa.
Not all missionaries who traveled to Africa were European. Lott
Carey (1780-1828), was an African-American Baptist minister, who was
instrumental in the founding of the Colony of Liberia in Africa. Born into
slavery, he purchased his freedom. He was one of the first black
American missionaries as well as the first American Baptist missionary to
Africa. Similarly Samuel Ajayi Crowther (1809 1891), a freed slave
became first African Anglican bishop in Nigeria. By 1841, the Anglican
Church Missionary Society under Henry Venns leadership had 230
European missionaries, and 148 African and Asian missionaries
recognizing the importance of the role of nationals in the extension of
the gospel.
Women played an important role in missions. The strongly
evangelical London Missionary Society (LMS) and Church Missionary
Society (CMS) were the first societies explicitly to enlist the aid of
women. One of the best known single lady missionaries was the Scottish
Mary Slessor (1848 1915) who served God for nearly forty years in
13

14

13

Neill , op. cit., p.305

Andrew Walls (2000). The missionary movement in Christian History: Studies in the
Transmission of the Faith. New York: Maryknoll Orbis Books, p. 87.
14

Calabar, Nigeria. By 1900 women often outnumbered men who were

serving with faith missions to a ratio of three to one. 15
Mission in Latin America The forgotten continent
Roman Catholicism reached Latin America with the Spanish and
Portuguese conquistadores in the fifteenth century. During the second
and third decades of the nineteenth century Latin American countries
rebelled, obtaining independence from Spain. Brazil became a Republic
in 1891.
At first the liberal new governments were sympathetic to
Protestants allowing James Thompson of the Bible Society freedom to
sell Bibles. But the more orthodox Catholic clergy reacted and
restrictions were resumed. In many of the major cities Anglican churches
were set up only for the expatriate population.
There were attempts to work in South America. The South
American Missionary Society (SAMS) was founded at Brighton in 1844 as
the Patagonian Mission. Captain Allen Gardiner (1794-1850) was the first
secretary. The strategy they chose was to work with those peoples who
were not Catholics. While working with indigenous people in Tierra del
Fuego, the team died of hunger waiting for the provision ship to arrive.
Charles Darwin years later wrote to the South America Mission : The
success of the Tierra del Fuego Mission is most wonderful and charms
me I shall feel proud if your committee think fit to elect me and
honorary member of your society.
Moravian presence in Nicaragua dates back to 1847, when German
Moravian missionaries started work in Bluefields on the Atlantic Coast.
The Moravians worked among the Afro-Caribbeans, and Miskito, Sumu
and Rama Indians on the Caribbean coast. In 1899 the first Nicaraguan
pastor was ordained. This work continues to the present.
By the beginning of the twentieth century Protestant work had
been established in all of the Latin American countries but with very
small beginnings. Although discussion about Latin America was largely
ignored at the Edinburgh World Mission Conference of 1910, the next
century was to see exponential growth of the Evangelical church.
16

Mission in the Middle East and Muslim lands

Muslim lands have tended to be neglected in Christian Mission.
Missionaries were present in small numbers in many countries, the most
successful chapter being Lebanon where the Bible was translated into
Arabic in 1846, by Samuel Lee (17831852) who invited the Lebanese
scholar Ahmad Faris Shidyaq to participate in the translation. In 1866
15

D. Roberts (1996) American Women in Mission: The Modern Mission Era 1792-1992.
USA: Mercer University Press, p. 191, in Bevans and Schroeder, op.cit.
16
Neill, op. cit., p. 321

10

American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, started the

Syrian Protestant College (now American University of Beirut). Today
many Lebanese people consider themselves Christians.
IV.

Theology and praxis of nineteenth century Christian

mission

It
was
during
this
century
that
the
models
for
protestant/evangelical missionary work were established. The Moravians
had established the paradigm for volunteerism. They were mostly lay
people who went to different countries to earn their own living in the
trade that they had experience in. In this section we will consider some
of the theological frameworks for mission developed in this century.
God is a missionary God
First we must acknowledge that God is a missionary God and He
was primary at work rising up a people for himself from the tribes of the
world. Gods reviving power in the church was at the heart of the
nineteenth century missionary outreach. Men and women were touched
by God, empowered by His spirit and motivated to go to the ends of the
Earth to tell people about a God who is love. They knew that very
probably there would be difficulties and for many disease and death
would take them prematurely to Heaven, but they were constrained by
love and thousands of missionaries responded to the call.
Revivals stimulate mission
The first Great Evangelical Awakening of the eighteenth century
started in Herrnhut in 1727 which as we have seen gave birth to a truly
noble group of volunteer missionaries. In 1735 revival broke out in
Massachusetts under the ministry of Jonathan Edwards and in 1738 the
revival started in Great Britain under the influence of George Whitefield
and the Wesley brothers. These revivals brought new life to the
churches, thousands of people accepted Christ, and they opened the
way for lay people to get involved. Following the pietistic model the need
for personal conversion was taught, Bible study was encouraged, small
groups for discipleship set up, the laity were permitted to serve and use
their gifts. The revivals stimulated missionary work and also
humanitarian efforts of different kinds.
The Second Evangelical Awakening according to Edwin Orr, a
leading authority on the history of revivals, occurred between 1792 and
1820. This revival mainly affected the United States and Great Britain.
17

17

Davies Ron E (1992) I Will Pour Out my Spirit: a History and Theology of Revivals and
Evangelical Awakenings. Great Britain: Monarch Books, p. 9.

11

The Methodist church was greatly blessed. It was at this time that the
evangelical Anglicans whose most famous representatives are probably
the Clapham Sect began to influence the Anglican churches. There was a
revival in the University of Yale in 1802. Other colleges soon followed. In
Williams College Samuel John Mills formed their famous resolution in the
haystack prayer meeting to commit themselves to missionary work
abroad. In 1810 the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign
Missions was formed and in 1812 the first missionaries set sail for India.
Davies says that the modern Protestant missionary movement began as
a direct result of the second evangelical revival.
According to Orr the third Evangelical Awakening took place in the
middle of the century from 1857 to 1859.
The revival started in
America and spread to Great Britain. In the United States, Davies says
that within two years over a million people had been added to the
churches at the rate of 10,000 each week. A similar number were
converted in Britain during this period.
Davies notes that many new
ministries arose at this time such as the YMCA, the Salvation Army, the
Keswick Movement, the Christian Union University movements, and the
Sunday school movement. The missionary movement received an
injection of new candidates.
The fourth Great Evangelical Awakening started in Wales in 1904
and spread around the globe deeply affecting missionary endeavors and
birthing the Pentecostal church and other denominations in the holiness
tradition such as the Church of the Nazarene. In conclusion, we have to
say that, when God revives his church she is given a renewed vision to
reach the lost in the four corners of the globe.

18

19

20

21

22

23

Christianity is translatable globally

Whereas Catholic missionaries did not often translate the Bible,
the first task of many Protestants was to learn the language and put the
Scriptures into the language of the people they were serving. William
Carey, with his incredible gift for languages set the scene. Henry Martyn
(17811812) a linguist sent out to India by the Clapham Sect translated
the New Testament into Urdo, and revised the Persian New Testament
before his death still as a young man. British and Foreign Bible Society
was founded in 1804 at the urging of Thomas Charles and members of
the Clapham Sect. The society provided cheap editions of the Bible in
different languages as well as colporteurs some of whom were renowned
missionaries such as James Thompson (1788-1854) and Francisco
18

Ibid p.121
Ibid p. 133
20
Ibid p.150
21
Ibid p.154
22
Edwin Orr (1949) The Second Evangelical Awakening in Great Britain. London:
Marshall, Morgan & Scott,
23
Davies, op.cit., p.163
19

12

Penzotti (1851-1925), both missionaries in Latin America in the

nineteenth century. As Neill says:
No language has been found in which it was impossible to communicate
the gospel.
24

A new paradigm of organization: The society model

The monasteries had provided the Catholic Church with thousands
of missionary monks throughout the Middle Ages. It wasnt till William
Carey founded the Baptist Missionary Society (1793) that the Protestants
found their tool for doing mission borrowed from the company model
used in commerce with a board of directors in the home land who looked
for and processed new volunteers and received and administered the
funds needed by the missionaries on the field. Alongside the trained
clergy the missions accepted families, lay people and single women. The
Protestant missionaries were financed by voluntary donations and only
advanced by the power of prayer and persuasion. A series of missionary
societies were founded within a few years as the London Missionary
Society in 1795, the Scottish Missionary Society (SMS) in 1796, and the
Church Missionary Society (CMS) in 1799 (among lots of others).
Interdenominational faith missions
With the founding of the China Inland Mission (CIM) by Hudson
Taylor in 1865 a new paradigm was established - the faith missions. The
society that Taylor proposed was different to other missions. The mission
was to be interdenominational. Volunteers could come form different
churches as long as they were sincere Christians and could sign a simple
declaration of faith. CIM insisted on radical volunteerism going to the
mission field with no financial guarantee. People of all walks of life were
welcome, the highly educated as well as people with practical skills as
long as they had a sincere call. The direction of the mission would be in
China not in England. Missionaries would have to wear the national dress
of the Chinese in order to be a part of the Chinese community. The
primary aim of the mission was widespread evangelism in the interior
provinces of China. Less emphasis would be placed on institutions or
missionaries pastoring churches.
25

Indigenous church mission theory and the three self

formula
24
25

Neill, op. cit., p. 253

Neill, op.cit., pp. 333-334

13

Henry Venn (1796-1873), an Anglican priest and leader of the

home front of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) and Rufus Anderson
(1796-1880) a Congregationalist minister and leader of the American
Board of Commissioners of Foreign Mission Board, simultaneously
developed a strategy to respond to some of the paternalistic practices of
some western missionaries early in the 19th century. They both argued
for churches on the mission field that were able to govern themselves,
propagate themselves and support themselves. According to this
program the role of the missionary was always to train nationals and
work himself out of a job stimulating indigenous church growth and
leadership. Underlying this theory was a deep respect and trust of
indigenous peoples, an attitude that unfortunately was to diminish in
the more imperialistic stage of the nineteenth century.
John Livingstone Nevius (1829-1893) served as a Presbyterian
missionary to China in the late 1800s. After questioning the methods of
western missionaries of his time, he wrote a book published in 1886,
"The Planting and Development of Missionary Churches," which called
for discarding old-style missions and the adoption of his new plan to
foster an independent, self-supporting local church. Nevius visited Korea
and shared his ideas with the church there. Many of these principles
were applied in 1990 to the work in Korea. Nevius stipulated that each
Korean Christian should support himself with the trade he was
accustomed to; The Church should be developed in Korea only as far as
the nationals were able to be responsible for it; the national church
should call out leaders who they feel were suitable and the churches
were to be built in the native stile by the Koreans with their own
resources.
Roland Allen (1868-1947) also attempted to apply indigenous
church principles to the missions of his day. After serving as an Anglican
missionary in China from 1895 to 1903, he returned to England and
spent 40 years writing about missions principles. Allen taught that God
s Spirit was at work in the churches and that there should be a
spontaneous expansion of the church as in the case of St Paul during his
missionary journeys.
26

27

28

Postmillennial theology
The enlightenment had given birth to a dream of development and
progress which science and education was about to usher in. With more
missionaries serving in all the corners of the Globe the church began to
believe that the world would be converted and that this would usher in
the millennial reign of God in earth, through the church. The vast
26

Bevans & Schroeder, op.cit., p. 213.

Neill, op.cit. p.343
28
Roland Allen (1912). Missionary methods : St. Paul's or ours. A study of the church in
the four provinces, London : R. Scott.
27

14

number of people accepting Christianity seemed to be a sign that the

promise of Jesus the gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the
whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come
(Matthew 24:14 NIV) was possible and about to take place. This made
missionary work more urgent.
The birth of the science of missiology
In 1867 Alexander Duff on returning to Scotland was appointed as
chair of Evangelistic Theology in Edinburgh University where he
developed a systematic theory of mission. However the founding of the
discipline of missiology takes us back to the University of Halle where
Gustav Warneck (1834-1910) was appointed to the Chair of Missionary
Science. He is widely regarded as the founder of Protestant missionary
science. He produced a three volume work on Protestant mission theory
and he surveyed the history of Protestant missionary work. Warneck
emphasized the need for putting down roots, developing the national
church, for a more holistic mission and criticized superficial high speed
efforts which could be easily quantified but did not necessarily bring
lasting growth. These works were very important for the establishing of
missiology as a discipline in its own right.29
Missionary methods and styles
The nineteenth century missionaries carried out holistic mission:
preaching, teaching, healing and working in development projects.
Standing on the shoulders of the Protestant Reformation one of the
urgent first steps was translation of the Bible and getting it printed and
into the hands of the people. In order for them to read it some village
schools were set up which included lessons from western education.
Some of these schools progressed to become important centers of
learning like the College in Serampore and the American University in
Beirut.
Missionaries tended to live in compounds or mission stations. This
had the advantage of fellowship and mutual support although often
living in close quarters produced conflict. One disadvantage of this
system was that missionaries did not live among the nationals and this
hindered their total incarnation in society. Many medicals centers and
agricultural farm institutions served the people. Sometimes missionaries
fought for human rights. William Carey brought about the abolition of
Sati (widows dying in the funeral pyres of their husbands). Henry
Grattan Guinness (1835-1910), founder of the North Africa Mission
29

S. Moreau (ed.) (2000) Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions. Article Gustav

Warneck by Klaus Fiedler, p. 2006. See also J. Verkuyl (1978) Contemporary
Missiology. An Introduction. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William Eerdmans Publishing
House, pp.26-28.

15

protested the Congo atrocities, perpetrated by Leopold II of Belgium, in

which whole villages were depopulated to get more rubber30.
Missionaries in South Africa opposed the racial segregation of apartheid.
V.

An evaluation of achievements at the close of the

century: The Edinburgh World Missionary Conference
1910

This was the fourth conference of this kind (Liverpool 1860, London
1885 and New York 1900). More than 1,200 representatives of
missionary societies came together from all over the world. A Methodist,
John Raleigh Mott (1865-1955) was the chairman. In 1901 he published a
book promoting the evangelization of the world. 31 Arthur Tappan Pierson
(1837-1911) coined the phrase: the evangelization of the world in this
generation which became the motto of the Edinburgh Conference.
Gustav Warneck objected to the slogan and pointed out that the
missionary command bids us `go into the world, not fly and that
Jesus likened Gods kingdom to a farmers field not to a hothouse 32.
Stephen Neill explains the importance and meaning of this slogan. In
essence the implication is that each generation of Christians are
responsible for the non-Christians of their generation.33
They rejoiced in Edinburgh because twelve important advances
had been achieved in Christian mission:1. Although some countries like Afghanistan and Tibet were still
closed to Christianity missionaries had been able to enter the
entire known world
2. A lot of the pioneer work had been carried out. Languages had
been learned and reduced to writing and the most important
languages of the world had received the at least the New
Testament.
3. Due to the fact that medicine had resolved most of the tropical
diseases, the missionaries could stay longer in each country
4. People had been converted to Christianity from every major
religion of the world
5. Although some were more open than others no groups of people
had been found who could not understand the gospel
6. The missionary now was accompanied by national leaders
30

Africa: A Troubled Continent. The Role of Missions in Africa Paragraph 10 accessed

21.11.12 in http://www.reformedreflections.ca/africa-series/2-a-troubled-continent.html
31
John Raleigh Mott, (1901) The Evangelization of the World. New York: Student
Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions
32
Hutchinson William (1987). Errand to the World American Protestant Missionary
thought and Foreign Missions. Chicago: University of Chicago press, p.131, quoted in
Bosch, op cit.
33
Neill, op.cit p.394

16

7. The younger churches were beginning to produce leaders of great

intellectual and spiritual stature
8. The home churches were more engaged in supporting the
missionaries
9. Financial support had kept pace with the rapid expansion of
missionary endeavor
10.
The universities in the West were producing graduates with a
high potential for missionary work
11.
The influence of the gospel was wider than just the groups of
people who had accepted it
12.
Opposition to the gospel seemed to be on the wane in
countries like China and Japan. 34
Andrew Walls says of the conference:
The World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh, has passed into
Christian legend. It was a land mark in the history of mission; the
starting point of the modern theology of mission; the high point of
the Western missionary movement and the point from which it
declined; the Launchpad of the modern ecumenical movement; the
point at which Christians first began to glimpse something of what a
world church would be like. 35
The missionaries in Edinburgh saw themselves at the threshold of
something new. In fact however, Edinburgh marks the end of an epoch.
From Waterloo (1815) to the 1914 First World War the world had been at
peace. The First World War heralded difficult times for Christian Mission,
including a serious economic depression, a second major war and the
Marxist and Maoist regimes which shut their doors to Christianity.
However Gods call to men and women has been heard and the church
globally is being built up and strengthened from day to day.
Conclusions
The emphasis must be placed here on God and what He has been
doing. The pietist movement was crucial to this century of global
outreach for Christ. The emphasis on personal salvation, Bible reading
and obedience was reinforced by the mighty revivals with which God
blessed His church. Pietism and revivals are the keystones to what was
made possible in the nineteenth century.
There are some lessons that missions need to learn for today. We
need to take a good look at the holistic mission carried out in the
different parts of the globe 200 years ago and ask ourselves if Gustav
34

Ibid. pp.394-395
Andrew Walls (2001) From Christendom to world Christianity: Missions and the
demographic transformation of the church The Princeton Seminary Bulletin, Vol.22,
No.3: 306-330 (p. 310)
35

17

Warneck does not have a good point: quality comes before quantity. It is
not possible to move at the speed of Wallmart or Facebook.
Communicating the message of love of Jesus to a hurting world, building
churches, developing leaders takes time and success cannot be
measured in numbers but only by time.
Contemporary missionaries, often from Third World countries, need
to be aware of their own racial prejudices and ethnocentricities so that
they do not get in the way of the work. Even in the nineteenth century
missionary work among Muslims was hard. Tibet and Afghanistan
continue to be difficult mission fields although some advances have
been made.
Building on the theories of Rufus and Venn, David Bosch suggests
a fourth self in his section of Indigenization 36. Each world area/country
has the right to develop autochthonous theology. What would an Indian,
Latin American or African holiness movement look like? Is each area of
the world free in the Nazarene setting to express themselves
theologically?
There is a need for a new generation of God touched, fearless,
gifted men and women who are really willing to give up everything and
follow the Master to the ends of the Earth even if it means sacrificing
their lives for Him. Mission concludes Bosch, is the participation of
Christians in the liberating mission of JesusIt is the good news of Gods
love, incarnated in the witness of a community, for the sake of the
world.37

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