Vol. 12, No.2 nternatlona• April 1988 etln• Apostolic, Catholic, and Evangelical

hose engaged in the Christian world mission want their contributed to the catholicity of the people of God on a very direct T contributions to be judged on the basis of what is and immediate level. "apostolic, catholic, and evangelical." This given runs through All these elements must come together-apostolic faithful­ our current issue like a bright thread. ness, catholic vision, and evangelical commitment-if we are to In the lead article-which originated with the inauguration of realize our calling and destiny in Jesus Christ. As Newbigin as­ the Overseas Ministries Study Center's new facilities in New Ha­ serts, "In the end we shall know who Jesus is as he really is, ven, Connecticut-Bishop Lesslie Newbigin warns the churches when every tongue shall confess him in all the accents of human of the western world that the call to mission cannot be forgotten culture. That is why ... the study of the issues raised in cross­ or marginalized without "forfeit[ing] the right to the titles cultural ministry is important for us all." catholic and apostolic." "The truth is," Newbigin continues, "that the gospel escapes domestication, retains the proper strangeness, its power to question us, only when we are faithful to its universal, supra-national, supra-cultural nature.... In this sense the foreign missionary is an enduring necessity in the life On Page of the universal church." Paul Garrett brings a new light and challenge to the percep­ 50 The Enduring Validity of Cross-Cultural tion that the Orthodox churches are not "missionary." In his Mission view, the missional intention of the Orthodox churches in North Lesslie Newbigin America was repeatedly thwarted by the accidents of history and the hostility of WASP culture. The recent union of the Evangelical 53 Orthodoxy in America: A Missiological Survey Orthodox Church-rooted in an evangelical para-church move­ Paul D. Garrett ment-withthe AntiochanOrthodoxChristianArchdiocese ofNorth America, is viewed as evidence of the undying power of an 58 The Azusa Street Revival and Twentieth­ apostolic tradition. Century Missions At the other end of the North American spectrum stands the Gary B. McGee Pentecostal community. Gary McGee demonstrates the wider im­ pact of the Azusa Street Revival of 1906-1909: not signs and won­ 62 My Pilgrimage in Mission ders, not just another American denomination, but a worldwide Eugene A. Nida missionary movement that outstrips all others in the twentieth century. That movement, which accounts for one out of every 65 The Legacy of Nathan Soderblom four Protestants in the world today, sees as its special contribution Eric J. Sharpe a return to apostolic power and evangelical fervency. Equally interesting reading is found in our "Legacy" se­ 67 Personalia ries. Eric Sharpe sketches the "evangelical catholicity" of Na­ than Soderblom, Our gift to the world, Soderblom wrote, "is 72 Book Reviews not our dogmatics or our church organization. . . . but the gift is Christ." , 94 Dissertation Notices In "My Pilgrimage in Mission" we hear from Eugene Nida, whose lifetime of service in linguistics and Bible translation has 96 Book Notes of Isslonary• • search The Enduring Validity of Cross-Cultural Mission

Lesslie Newbigin

After sixty-five years in Ventnor, New Jersey, the Overseas Ministries 5, 1987. Bishop Newbigin, a contributing editor, wasfor many years a Study Center-publisherof thisjournal-relocated to New Haven, Con­ missionary and bishop of the Church of South India in Madras. He is necticut, in September 1987. Bishop Lesslie Newbigin gave this address now retired in Birmingham, England, where he taught for several years at theservice ofdedication andinauguration ofthenewCenter on October on the faculty of Selly Oak Colleges.

t is a great honor to be invited to share in this event, an importance of such studies, and therefore of this Center, for the I event that is significant for all of us, from whatever part life of the church. Whatever mayor may not have been the sins of the world we come, who are committed to the Christian world of our missionary predecessors (and of course it is much more mission. My first duty is to recognize the dedicated and imagi­ relaxing to repent of one's parents' sins that of one's own), the native leadership that has made the Overseas Ministries Study commission to disciple all the nations stands at the center of the Center a source of strength for that mission in all its many forms church's mandate, and a church that forgets this, or marginalizes of outreach, and which has now prompted this very significant it, forfeits the right to the titles "catholic" and "apostolic." move to New Haven and the launching of the Center on a new If there was a danger of arrogance in the call for the evangelization stage of its life. of the world in that generation, there is a greater danger of timid­ Perhaps my only real qualification for being invited to address ity and compromise when we lower our sights and allow the you is that I happen to come from overseas. I do not mean by gospel to be domesticated within our culture, and the churches that to endorse what was once described as the missionary my­ to become merely the domestic chaplains to the nation. I am not thology of salt water, the idea that crossing a stretch of salt water impressed by those who thank God that we are not like the was the necessary condition for being a missionary. When I am missionaries of the nineteenth century-which the beloved Yale asked to state my employment I usually answer "missionary" historian Kenneth Scott Latourette called "the Great Cen­ and can do that without endorsing the salt-water myth, but it is tury"-the century that made it possible for us to talk today of the not unimportant that the first word in the title of this Center is world church. Of course it is true that there were elements of the word "Overseas." arrogance in the missionaries of that century, but that was just When the family of William Howard Doane founded the because in the preceding centuries Christianity had become so Center in 1922, it was for those who were then called-without much domesticated within Western culture that when we carried embarrassment- "foreign missionaries" and who needed a the gospel overseas it sometimes looked like part of our colonial baggage. The truth is that the gospel escapes domestication, retains "The Truth is that the its proper strangeness, its power to question us, only when we are faithful to its universal, supranational, supracultural nature­ gospel escapes faithful not just in words but in action, not just in theological domestication, retains its statement but in missionary practice in taking the gospel across the cultural frontiers. The affirmation that Jesus is Lumen Gentium, proper strangeness, its the light of the nations, is in danger of being mere words unless power to question us, only its value is being tested in actual encounters of the gospel with all the nations, so that the gospel comes back to us in the idiom when we are faithful to its of other cultures with power to question our understanding of universal, supranational, it. In this sense the foreign missionary is an enduring necessity in the life of the universal church, but, of course, the missionary supracultural nature." journeys have to be multidirectional and not-as in the former period-only from west to east and from north to south. I speak with some feeling because it is my privilege to work in Birming­ period of rest from their labors in foreign parts. The Center has ham alongside a missionary sent to us by the Church of North followed a general trend in replacing the words "foreign mis­ India and I know that England needs the witness of a Christian sions" with "overseas ministries." I do not quarrel with that, from India at least as much as India needs missionaries from the though I do sometimes reflect upon the significance of the change. West. It was made, I suppose, because the old term was felt to have A Center like this, where the issues of cross-cultural mission about it a hint of arrogance. It suggested images of the old pith are being explored, has an importance greater than what have helmet and the white man's burden. We are very eager to be traditionally been called "foreign missions." Its presence here­ disinfected of that old but clinging aroma. A missionary in train­ alongside the great centers of learning and teaching that are now ing told me the other day that what he was getting was "hair­ its neighbors-will be a reminder of the unversality of the gospel, shirt missiology," so eager were his mentors to repent of the sins of the enduring validity of the call to make disciples of all nations. of our missionary predecessors. And that reminder is needed, for there are many voices in our We speak now of "overseas ministries" or-more compre­ culture that question that universality and the validity of that hensively-ofcross-cultural mission and ministry. It is to the study call. The contemporary embarrassment about the missionary of the issues involved in these cross-cultural ministries that this movement of the previous century is not, as we like to think, Center is dedicated. I want to affirm my conviction of the great evidence that we have become more humble. It is, I fear, much

50 International Bulletin of Missionary Research more clearly evidence of a shift in belief. It is evidence that we International Bulletin are less ready to affirm the uniqueness, the centrality, the deci­ of Missionary Research siveness of Jesus Christ as universal Lord and Savior, the Way by following whom the world is to find its true goal, the Truth Established 1950 by R. Pierce Beaver as Occasional Bulletin from the by which every other claim to truth is to be tested, the Life in Missionary Research Library. Named Occasional Bulletin of Missionary whom alone life in its fullness is to be found. Research 1977. Renamed International Bulletin of Missionary Research Since the publication of the lecture by C. P. Snow with the 1981. title "The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution," the phrase that he coined has become very common, at least in my Published quarterly in January, April, July, and October by the own country. We speak of the two cultures, and the phrase cor­ Overseas Ministries Study Center responds to a familiar reality. Our university campuses are di­ 490 Prospect Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06511, U.S.A. vided into the faculties of science, on the one hand, and arts and Telephone: (203) 624-6672 humanities, on the other. Theology, of course, belongs to the latter category. Theology is not about objective facts: for that you Editor: Associate Editor: Assistant Editor: enroll as a student of science. Theology, like the rest of the matters Gerald H. Anderson James M. Phillips Robert T. Coote studied in the other half of the university, is not about facts: it is about things in which our subjectivity is involved-about values Contributing Editors: where personal choice is of the essence of the matter. The phy­ Catalino G. Arevalo, S.J. C. Rene Padilla sicist-priest W. G. Pollard, in commenting on this, says that these David B. Barrett Dana L. Robert Samuel Escobar Thomas F. Stransky, C.S.P. two cultures are not really comparable entities. The scientific cul­ Barbara Hendricks, M.M. Charles R. Taber ture is in the prime of its power-vigorous, coherent, convinced Norman A. Homer Ruth A. Tucker that it is dealing with reality and gaining a more and more full Mary Motte, F.M.M. Desmond Tutu understanding of it. In the world of science there are, of course, Lesslie Newbigin Anastasios Yannoulatos differences of opinion, disputes, controversies, and rival schools of thought. But all these are understood to be about what is really Books for review and correspondence regarding editorial matters should the case, so that one expects to convince one's opponent of his be addressed to the editors. Manuscripts unaccompanied by a self­ error. One works on the assumption that eventually agreement addressed, stamped envelope (or international postal coupons) will not will be reached. One does not accept pluralism (the coexistence be returned. of mutually contradictory accounts of what is the case) as a good Subscriptions: $14.00 for one year, $26 for two years, and $37 for three thing. It is something to be overcome. years, postpaid worldwide. Foreign subscribers should send payment by By contrast, says Pollard, the other culture is not a coherent check in local currency equivalent to U.S. dollar amount. Individual copies culture at all. What goes on in the faculties of arts and humanities are $5.00; bulk rates upon request. Correspondence regarding subscrip­ is the fragmented remains of what was once a coherent culture, tions and address changes should be sent to: International Bulletin of but is so no more. Here one abandons the hope of finding truth Missionary Research, Circulation Department, P.O. Box 1308-E,Fort Lee, on which all will agree. Here pluralism is accepted as normal. New Jersey 0702~9958, U.S.A. What remains is not a culture comparable with the scientific cul­ ture. It is, in Pollard's words, "an ever-changing variety of New subscriptions and renewals for persons in the United Kingdom should remnants of what was once a universal culture in the western be sent with payment to: Paternoster Press Ltd., Paternoster House, 3 world." And of course it is to this that theology belongs. State­ Mount Radford Crescent, Exeter, U.K. EX2 4JW. Subscription rates in U.K. are: £11.00 for one year, £19 for two years, and £26 for three years. ments about the universal scope of Christ's saving work are not taken to be statements of objective fact, of what is actually the Advertising: case. They are statements in story form of certain kinds of reli­ Ruth E. Taylor gious experience. They may be properly included in a syllabus 11 Graffam Road, South Portland, Maine 04106, U.S.A. for the comparative study of religions. Or they may be contributed Telephone: (207) 799-4387 to a dialogue in which different types of religious experience are shared. But they are not to be announced as factual truth, truth Articles appearing in this journal are abstracted and indexed in: absolutely and for all. It was not always so. Pollard speaks of the remnants of what Bibliografia Missionaria was once a universal culture, though it was geographically limited Christian Periodical Index to the Western world. Theological statements about Christ and Guide to Social Science and Religion in Periodical Literature Missionalia his nature and work were part of a coherent understanding of Religion and Theological Abstracts reality, of how things really are. This was itself the result of Religion Index One: Periodicals sustained intellectual effort of a rigor comparable to what we now see in the scientific culture. Dr. Frances Young, in her recent Opinions expressed in the International Bulletin are those of the authors inaugural lecture as professor of theology in the University of and not necessarily of the Overseas Ministries Study Center. Birmingham, reminded her academic audience of the immense Copyright e 1988 by Overseas Ministries Study Center. All rights re­ intellectual energies that went into the effort of the early church served. fathers to formulate the truth of the gospel in the thought world of the age in which they lived. That age was, like ours, one of Second-class postage paid at New Haven, Connecticut. relativism and syncretism in matters religious. Its intellectual at­ POSTMASTER: Send address changes to International Bulletinof Missionary Research, P.O. Box 1308-E, Fort Lee, New Jersey 07024. mosphere is tartly described in a famous phrase of Gibbon when he said that in that age all religions were for the people equally ISSN 0272-6122 true, for the philosophers equally false, and for the government equally useful. Professor Young contrasts the intellectual vigor

April 1988 51 with which the great theologians of the early centuries resisted it to all people to share it. If this is denied, if it is said that every this easygoing and seductive relativism with the contemporary people must have its own story, then human unity is an illusion drift toward utilitarianism and relativism. The latter she describes and we can forget it. as "the modem version of the fall of Sophia, a breakdown of I do not believe it is an illusion. I believe the word of Jesus confidence in human powers of knowing, a failure of nerve easily when he said that being lifted up on the cross he would draw all compounded by disillusionment with the exploitative hybris of people to himself. I believe it because the cross is the place where modem science and technology." the sin that divides us from one another is dealt with and put Alan Bloom, in his much discussed book The Closing of the away. But I believe that the truth is credible only when the witness American Mind, has traced the origins of this breakdown. At least born to it is marked not by the peculiarities of one culture, but for me it was both illuminating and alarming to see the shadowy by the rich variety of all human cultures. We learn to understand figure of Nietzsche behind what seemed to be our innocent and what it means to say that Jesus is the King and Head of the whole even laudable preference for talking about "values," "com­ human race only as we learn to hear that confession from the mitments," and "lifestyles," rather than for talking about right many races that make up the human family. In the end we shall and wrong, truth and error. Nietzsche, says Bloom, was the first know who Jesus is as he really is, when every tongue shall confess to recognize that, on the basis of modem critical thought, it is him in all the accents of human culture. That is why this Center strictly impossible to speak of truth and error, of right and wrong, for the study of the issues raised in cross-cultural ministry is and to draw the conclusion that the only thing left is the will to important for us all. power. This nihilism has, says Bloom, been domesticated in our We have already, in the ecumenical fellowship of churches, culture in the soft-sounding language of "values." We ask of a first foretaste of that many tongued witness. We owe the ex­ a statement not "Is it true?" but "Are you sincere?" We istence of this worldwide family to the missionary faithfulness of speak not of right behavior but of authenticity. But nihilism will our forebears. Today and henceforth all missionary witness must not permanently accept his comfortable domestication. Moral chaos be, and must be seen to be, part of the witness of this worldwide, must be the end of this road. And it will not be checked by appeals many cultured fellowship. Every culturally conditioned expres­ to tradition, to natural law, or to older "values." Only the sion of the Christian witness must be under the critique of this revelation of God in Jesus Christ, only the living word of the ecumenical witness. The one Christ is known as he is confessed Creator can bring light out of darkness, order out of chaos. in many cultures. But we must reject the relativism that is some­ Western culture was once a coherent whole with the Chris­ times wrongly called "the larger ecumenism." I am not refer­ tian vision at its center. It has disintegrated. If we seek now, as ring to the fact, for which I thank God, that we are now much we must, a coherent vision for the human race as a whole, it more open to people of other faiths , willing to learn from them, to share with them, to learn to live together in our one planet. I am referring to the fact that it is sometimes suggested that as the "Relativism in the churches have come together to form one fellowship across their doctrinal differences, so-by a natural extension-the great world sphere of religion . is religions must move toward a fellowship of world faiths and that not a recipe for human this latter movement would be a natural extension of the former. In fact, such a move would not be an enlargement but a unity but exactly the reversal of the ecumenical movement. .That movement was not opposite." born out of a lazy relativism. It was born through the missionary experience of the nineteenth century, when Christians, divided by centuries of European history, found themselves a tiny mi­ cannot be on the basis of a tried relativism that gives up the nority in the midst of the great ancient religious systems of Asia. struggle for truth. Nor can it be by pretending that the scientific In this new situation perspectives changed. The issue "Christ half of our Western culture can provide coherence for the life of or no-Christ" loomed so large that the issues dividing Christians the world. We are at present busy exporting our science and from one another seemed small. They did not disappear. The technology to every comer of the world in the name of "de­ long theological wrestlings of Faith and Order are witness to the velopment" and "modernization." But we also know that if seriousness with which they were treated. But-real though they all the six billion of the world's people succeeded in achieving were-they were relativized by a new realization of the absolute the kind of "development" we have achieved, the planet would supremacy of Jesus Christ. The separated Christian confessions become uninhabitable. There is an absurd irony in the fact that would never have accepted membership in the World Council of we are busy exporting our scientific culture to every comer of the Churches without its firm Christological basis-Jesus Christ, God world without any compunction about arrogance, but we think and Savior-a phrase later putinto its proper trinitarian and biblical that humility requires us to refrain from offering to the rest of frame . It was only because the absoluteness of Jesus ' Lordship the world the vision of its true goal, which is given in the gospel was acknowledged that the confessional positions could be rel­ of Jesus Christ. Relativism in the sphere of religion-the belief that ativized. religious experience is a matter in which objective truth is not What is proposed in the so-called larger ecumenism is the involved but one in which (in contrast to the world of science) reversal of this . It is a proposal to relativize the name of Jesus in "everyone should have a faith of one's own"-is not a recipe favor of some other absolute. We have to ask: What is that ab­ for human unity but exactly the opposite. To be human is to be solute in relation to which the name of Jesus is relativized? Is it a part of a story, and to be fully human as God intends is to be "religion in general"? Then where-in the medley of beliefs part of the true story and to understand its beginning and its and practices that flourish under the name of religion-is the cri­ ending. The true story is one of which the central clues are given terion of truth? Let it be brought out for scrutiny. Or is it, perhaps, in the Bible, and the hinge of the story on which all its meaning "human unity"? But if so, unity on whose terms? Andre Du­ turns is the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. mas has correctly pointed out that all proposals for human unity . That is the message with which we are entrusted, and we owe that do not explicitly state the center around which unity is con­

52 International Bulletin of Missionary Research ceived to happen have as their hidden center the interests of the But we rightly bear witness to the universal scope of that proposer. We have a familiar word for this. "Imperialism" is particular history, the history that is the theme of our Scriptures, the word we normally use to designate programs for human unity as we listen to the response of every human culture in every originated by others than ourselves. The center that God has tongue and idiom to the self-revelation of God in Jesus Christ. provided for the unity of the human race is the place where all The promise that the Holy Spirit will lead the church into the human imperialisms are humbled, where God is made nothing fullness of the truth is set in the context of the missionary com­ in order that we might be made one. It is an illusion to suppose mission. So the insights given in the exercise of cross-cultural that we can find something more absolute than what God has mission are essential to the fulfillment of that promise. That is done in Jesus Christ. It is an illusion to suppose that. we can find why the work of this Center is of importance not only to those something larger, greater, more inclusive than Jesus Christ. It is who will be its students and its residents, but for all of us, for a disastrous error to set universalism against the concrete partic­ our growth into the fullness of the truth, for our learning with ularity of what God has done for the whole creation in Jesus all the saints the length and breadth and depth and height of the Christ. It is only through the specificity of a particular historic love of God, and to the One who by the power at work in us is revelation that we can be bound together in common history, for able to do far more abundantly than all we can ask or think, to particularity is the stuff of history, and we shall not find meaning that One be glory in the work of this Center, in the church, and for our life by trying to escape from history. in Christ Jesus forever.

Orthodoxy in America: A Missiological Sunrey

Paul D. Garrett

astern Orthodoxy has existed in North America for nearly extent. At all times there existed in Alaska laity of goodwill who, E two centuries, but cannot be said to have at any time out of care for the souls of Native Americans, did their best to exerted a presence there. The reasons for this are clear enough: share their faith. When Gregory Shelikhov (1747-95), who founded taken in toto Orthodoxy is numerically insignificant, and when the town of Kodiak in 1784, petitioned to have an official eccle­ practically divided into over a dozen "jurisdictions," each ab­ siastical mission mounted to America, his rhetoric may have been sorbed over most of this century in cultural self-preservation and excessive, but it rang with a genuine zeal, and the arrival of ten often at odds politically with at least one other group, it naturally monks in 1794 marked more the sealing of a decades-old grassroots appears as a smorgasbord of Old World esoterica and exotica-a movement than a radically new beginning. typecast it might decry but does very little to shed. This populist substratum soon proved vital to the survival of At the risk of a certain haziness and of skewing the weight nascent Christianity in the region, for after nominally baptizing of events a bit, I propose to focus on demonstrating how the 6,740 souls during its first years on the job, the Kodiak Mission unkind destiny suffered by most of the traditional "Orthodox succumbed to local jealousies and intrigues, lost its leading fig­ world" in the twentieth century represents a diversion of the ures, and within three years existed on paper alone. Its only American church from its original, missionary destiny. We must, lasting fruits were the personal legacy of the humble monk Her­ therefore, look first to the beginnings. man, its "least brother," who in -1970 would be exalted as Orthodox Christians bucked the general tide of migration and America's first Orthodox saint. mission in America by wading ashore in the Pacific Northwest, Establishing a church on Kodiak Island helped gain for She­ then spending well over a century in establishing themselves in likhov's Russian-American Company a lucrative charter to hunt the urban centers of population along the Eastern seaboard and the Aleutian waters; under his less pious successors, all attempts the industrial Midwest with which they are now identified. More at restoring the faltering mission were obstructed until that charter surprisingly, their first contacts were exclusively missionary in lapsed in 1819, and the company again felt obliged to court the nature, even though they were borne on the wings of Russian church's favor. The price the church demanded for cooperation colonial expansion. The Russians-in the early period discussed was the outfitting of three mission stations: at Sitka, the colonial here-were in fact the only Orthodox who were motivated to mis­ capital; in Kodiak, still the chief factory town; and in Unalaska, sionary activity in North America. the forsaken, backwater settlement that formed the hub of the Russia's eighteenth-century interests in Alaska were primar­ fur-hunting enterprises. The individual recruited for this pasto­ ily capitalistic, partially geopolitical, and only marginally con­ rate was destined to transfigure the American Mission and place cerned with migration or permanent settlement. The jump across an indelible stamp on Orthodox missionary work everywhere. the Pacific occurred in 1728, over a century after the press into In the ten years that Father John Veniaminov (1797-1879) Siberia had begun, and the experience of that grand march east­ spent in the central Aleutian chain, he embodied-with immense ward predisposed the authorities toward using the Christian gos­ energy and patience-what James J. Stamoolis has called the pel as a means of pacifying the Native inhabitants. This continued "incarnational approach" to mission. Compelled by love for in the .New World, but only for a while and to a very partial his flock (and an incurable natural curiosity), he observed, appre­ ciated, and absorbed the Native American culture and language. Then, utilizing the talents of tribal leaders (most notably Ivan Paul D. Garrett is Director of Information Services at the Heritage and Learning Pan'kov and the Creole priest Iakov Netsvetov), he translated the Center, Antiochian Village, Ligonier, Pennsylvania. He was formerly librarian gospel and catechism into the local dialect, then dared pen the of St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, Crestwood, New York. first original composition in Fox Aleut, TheIndication ofthePathway

April 1988 53 into the Kingdom of Heaven. When the physical demands of a sub­ and Methodist churches, and to clothe their pastors in the added Arctic, maritime pastorate overwhelmed him, Veniaminov retired power and prestige of local office as sheriffs, judges, and school­ to the relative comfort of Sitka to polish his literary works, min­ teachers. Forty years of horror stories document this dark period, ister to the Tlingit Indians (a population infinitely less receptive whose sole bright lights were the practical lessons in American than the Aleuts), and reflect on the full spectrum of his experience civics it gave the church prior to moving southward, and a limited in order to formulate principles for missionary work. In 1838 he impetus toward upgrading its educational programs in answer to departed for Russia to present his findings to the HolySynod: A the challenge. Despite uneven odds, and largely due to the pat­ Review of the Orthodox Church in the Russian Settlements in America, terns of ethnic lay leadership established at first contact and fos­ together with My Opinions as to How Their Condition Might be Im­ tered by St. Innocent and his co-workers, most of the peoples of proved. coastal Alaska managed to preserve intact their Orthodox faith. In 1840 Providence again smiled on the fledgling American Matters were made worse by the Russian church's inability church-though at the price of its greatest worker's tears. When down through the 1880s to provide stable episcopal leadership his young wife died, Father Veniaminov became eligible to serve for its struggling American branch. Finally, on the verge of aban­ as a bishop, since by Orthodox canon law bishops must be un­ doning the mission entirely, St. Petersburg dispatched Bishop married. As the first incumbent of the new diocese created to Vladimir Sokolovskii (1852-1933) to San Francisco. There he de­ serve the entire North Pacific region, Bishop Innocent (as he was manded that the clergy preach in English, commissioned the first renamed following monastic tonsure) could ensure in practice that translations of liturgical books into English (utilizing the talents all he had recommended would be put into practice in every of Nicholas Orloff of the Russian Embassy in London-a move mission station founded: workers would strive to master the local that helped determine the direction of "liturgical English" to tongues, teach the people systematically, thoroughly, and self­ the present day), and ordained the first American-born Orthodox lessly, never stooping to an appeal to ulterior motives in an effort priest (albeit the son of Serbian immigrants). From Father Sebas­ to gain converts. Gone were the days of massive, formal baptisms tian Dabovich's pen-and a handful of others'-a smattering of without follow-up that had characterized (and trivialized) the work English-language tracts began to appear as, in the face of per­ of the Kodiak Mission '(and much of the Siberian work before it). sistent Russophobia, the mission sought to present Orthodoxy Though funding and staffing would never prove sufficient to the around the San Francisco Bay Area. Meanwhile, in the heart of task, though some individual workers would prove deficient, the Midwest, a truly decisive process was beginning that would though the physical demands of Alaska would remain daunting radically alter the face of Orthodoxy on the North American con­ at best-under St. Innocent's direction and later, and wholly in­ tinent-and again roll over the tender flower of missionary spirii spired by his lofty spirit and example, the church in Alaska took In 1891 a community of "Uniate" Rusyn' immigrants in root in the good soil of the gospel. Minneapolis, Minnesota, petitioned to join the Russian church. This rooting was soon to endure sore testing. By the mid­ As a matter of background, Uniates are Christians mainly from nineteenth century events showed clearly that America, not Rus­ the Carpathian Mountains separating Catholic Hungary and Po­ sia, would be master of Alaska. From deep in Siberia where his land from Orthodox Russia and the Ukraine; following the coun­ missionary toils had drawn him, Innocent viewed the politically cils of Brest-Litovsk (1595) and Uzhhorod (1649), they accepted unpopular sale of the territory as "one of the ways of Provi­ union with the pope in exchange for guarantees that they could dence whereby Orthodoxy will penetrate the United States (where retain the fullness of their Eastern Rite. Like other immigrants to even now people have begun to pay serious attention to it)." He America, these people sought the solace of religion as they had recommended moving the see south to San Francisco, appointing practiced it in the Old Country, but were denied it by the local a bishop and clergy fluent in English, training and ordaining con­ Latin-Rite hierarchy. Again, a few words of background are re­ verts to the priesthood, translating the service books, and cele­ quired. The Catholic bishops were at that moment caught up in brating the services in English. When the treaty was signed in defending the principle of church unity against German immi­ 1867, however, the new order that entered Alaska put this grand grants' demands for cultural and linguistic autonomy-the so-called vision at least temporarily "on ice." Americanist Controversy. To Archbishop John Ireland, the con­ The early decades of Yankee rule will forever remain a blot servatives' leader, the married Greek-Catholic priest who ap­ on the history both of the Republic and of Christian missionary peared from Prevsov with his credentials embodied an expansion efforts. Federal apathy conspired with local opportunism to de­ of the threat. Forbidden to exercise his ministry, an irate Father stroy civil order; the Native Americans were stripped of their Alexis G. Toth (185~1909) turned to Bishop Vladimir as the rep­ rights and xenophobia grew so virulent that most of the remaining resentative of the ancestral faith from which, he came increasingly Russians fled home rather than accept the dubious privilege of to believe, his people has been dishonestly and tragically tom. American citizenship mandated for anyone who remained two For the Russian church in America (still in the 1890s the only years. Most of the clergy joined the exodus, and hard on their organized Orthodox body in North America) "mission" nar­ heels came an energetic Presbyterian missionary fresh from In­ rowed in focus over the next few decades to reclaiming the Un­ dian Territory. iates, a crusade that would ultimately net some 400,000 souls. The Russians realized that selling Alaska would leave their Bishop Vladimir was recalled in 1891, and his successor, Nicholas church as one among many in a thoroughly pluralistic society. Ziorov (1851-98), carefully recruited an entourage of talented cler­ They were prepared to accept the challenge of working on equal ics to address the needs of writing, debating, and bearing fearless terms with the newcomers. The Rev. Sheldon jackson's tactic, witness in the face of calumny, litigation, and frequent physical however, was not to open new mission fields inland where the violence. To their credit, they rarely returned evil for evil, but Orthodox had never penetrated, but precisely to concentrate on conducted themselves uprightly, adhering to the spiritual and suppressing Native American culture with its veneer of Orthodox theological issues at hand. Under Nicholas's successor, Tikhon Christianity in the established villages. Moreover, invested with Bellavin (1865-1923, reigned in America 1898-1907), the see was a "secular" appointment as United States Commissioner of transferred to New York in order to be nearer the center of the Education for the region, Jackson was in a position virtually to work, and the basic institutions of permanency-seminary, mon­ partition the former Russian Alaska among Presbyterian, Baptist, astery, and newspaper-were established.

54 International Bulletin of Missionary Research Because the objects of "mission" had fled a situation in communities-Syrian, Greek, and Slavic alike-and a translator of Hungary where their language and culture were demeaned (when Liturgical books into Arabic. (His whole life's work, in fact, closely not banned outright), the Russian Mission was unable (if still parallels that of St. Innocent.) Serbs, Greeks, and Romanians were willing) to insist on the use of an English vernacular. Had further the first slated to receive episcopal leadership under the plan, adverse events not intervened, however, it is doubtful that the and the Serbian candidate, Mardarije Uskokovic, found himself Uniate preoccupation would long have diverted the Orthodox stranded in Europe en route to consecration when the guns of from their broader missionary goals. The Rusyns, no less than August opened fire in 1914. As Russian leadership disintegrated peoples of other faiths, would have fallen into the familiar pat­ under withering Bolshevik pressure, each ethnic group re­ terns of the second generation rebelling against the foreign tongue trenched, becoming engrossed in the struggle to organize its own and ways of the first, anglicizing their church, and passing on to communities. Though the particulars and timings differed for the third generation their spiritual treasures in a form that could each group, the paths they took look today remarkably alike. be spread-whether from a spirit of pure nostalgia (a "return Crises were overcome and very real successes in many cases to roots") or out of higher purpose. enjoyed, but Orthodoxy emerged as isolated strands rather than In this regard, it is noteworthy that Tikhon's era produced a mighty, plaited rope. the most famous document of English-speaking Orthodoxy, One last event in this transitional period bears mention before Isabel F. Hapgood's Service Book (1906), and several notable we cross the watershed in the history of Orthodoxy in America. "WASP" converts (most notably Father Irvine). Under In 1928, Bishop Raphael's successor in the Syrian Diocese, Afti- Tikhon's successor, Platon Rozhdestvenskii (1866-1934, first administration in America, 1907-14), Orthodox outreach to Amer­ ican culture peaked, marked by the popular performances of the New York City Cathedral Choir sponsored by Charles Crane, Announcing numerous contributions to Silas Bee's irenic Constructive Quarterly, and what would later come to be termed "ecumenical" en­ The next meeting of the International Association for Mis­ terprises. The editorial in the first issue of the Russian American sion Studies will be in Rome, June 29-July 5, 1988, on the Orthodox Messenger makes clear the lofty concerns of the official theme: "Christian Mission Towards a Third Millen­ church. "In a heterodox sea [we] are a small drop-but this nium: A Gospel of Hope." This will be followed imme­ drop is a bearer of Truth," Father Hotovitzky declared, compelled diately (July 6-8, 1988) by an lAMS consultation on "just because of the conditions of life" to try "to give birth Documentation, Archives, and Bibliography for Mission to close relations" with all. "Guarding this precious and sacred Studies at the same location. thing [Orthodoxy] inviolable, but making our neighbors' partic­ The general secretary of the lAMS is Dr. Joachim ipants of it-this is the goal which must inspire ourprinted word." Wietzke, Protestant Association for World Mission (EMW), The journal was to "give everyone the possibility, through Mittelweg 14, 0-2000 Hamburg 13, West Germany. The ed­ long inner work of mind and heart, to enter into a full and true itor of the lAMS journal, Mission Studies, is Dr. Thomas philosophy of the orthodox Christian. . . . Then Orthodoxy will Kramm at the Institute of Missiology in Aachen, West Ger­ doubtlessly inspire in them that vital power and depth of Chris­ many. The Rev. Paul Rowntree Clifford in England con­ tian temperament which has always been inherent in the true tinues as treasurer, and Sister Joan Chatfield, M.M., is Church!" president. Lamentably this was not to be. The first of several "wars to end all wars" in Europe left in its wake the Balkan peoples increasingly fragmented, the Russian church resplendent in new­ mios Ofiesh, at the Russian metropolitan Platon's urging, penned martyrs' blood but organizationally prostrate beneath the Bol­ a Constitution of theHoly Eastern Catholic and Apostolic Church. This sheviks' boots, and restrictive immigration quotas clamped in .remarkable document worked out the "nuts and bolts" of place in the United States, guaranteeing that Orthodoxy's native establishing Tikhon's vision and gave special concern to the constituency in America would remain forever marginal. In 1914 "large and rapidly growing body of Orthodox Catholics Eng­ this situation could not have been foreseen. Immigrants were lish-speaking only or primarily, and estranged from the Church arriving in ever growing numbers from across Eastern Europe by the fact that they do not understand its foreign language." and the Levant, swelling beyond the point where the expediency Education, translation, and publication are stressed-and would of Orthodox Christians of all backgrounds banding together (and even have been funded; parishes were forbidden to discriminate naturally using English as their common language) could with­ on the basis of "age, sex, race, citizenship, ancestry, language, stand the centrifugal force of ethnicism. Nationally distinct com­ or any other considerations or circumstances external to religious munities came to dot the continent everywhere except the South, faith and obedience." While mission work is not explicitly dis­ where Platon's successor, Archbishop Evdokim Meshcherskii (1869­ cussed, it is clear that had these approaches been taken, work in 1935) in 1917 saw the possibility of establishing a pan-Orthodox the population at large would have been facilitated. The project missionary diocese. died aborning, however, in part because of its radical nature, Although the parallel history of denominations like the in part because of the dubious conditions under which it was Lutherans would seem to indicate that something in the American promulgated, but chiefly because of the centrifugal spirit of the condition predisposes ecclesiastical bodies to ethnic divisiveness, day. there was no absolute necessity for parochial nationalism to lead With the Russians in tragic disarray, such pan-Orthodox lead­ to today's profoundly fractured Orthodoxy. As early as 1905 Arch­ ership as still existed fell to the most numerous and prosperous bishop Tikhon proposed formation of an "Orthodox Church group, the Greeks. Their first surge to leadership also floundered. in America," hierarchically one while ethnically diverse. He pre­ In 1921 the charismatic Meletios Metaxakes (1871-1923) found sided at the highly symbolic consecration of the first Orthodox himself enduring a bitter political exile from Greece when in New bishop on American soil, a Syrian Arab, Raphael Hawaweeny York he learned of his unexpected election to the Ecumenical (1860-1915), himself an energetic circuit rider between Orthodox Patriarchate. His enthronement speech in Constantinople on Feb­

April 1988 55 ruary 8, 1922, reflects the Innocent/Tikhon view: and canonical right through priority in planting Orthodoxy in the New World, Moscow granted autocephaly (the right to complete I saw firsthand [there] the greater and most important part of the self-government) to the Orthodox church in America. The uni­ Church in the diaspora, and understood how much the name of lateral nature of the move, however, only intensified Greek-Rus­ Orthodoxy would be exalted, especially in the United States of sian rivalries and crushed cooperation. Time seems to be healing America, if the more than two million Orthodox inhabitants would some wounds, but we are still too close to the events to view be organized into a single church administration as an American them with objectivity. Orthodox Church. We must dare, nonetheless, to move even closer to our own To Meletios's mind, this organization presupposed leader­ day, and consider a topic that clearly belongs not to the sphere ship of the Ecumenical throne-a contention instantly challenged of history but of "current events." Over the years an ever by the Russians despite their disarray. Meletios invoked Canon increasing trickle of seekers has discovered Eastern Orthodoxy. 28of the Council of Chalcedon, which in the fifth century assigned While this has most often been a matter of individual commitment to Constantinople jurisdiction over the "barbarians" (a re­ (and not particularly the result of any outreach by the Orthodox markably unmissionary expression!). The point proved moot, themselves), a few communities have embraced the faith cor­ however, for no national group at that point was prepared to porately (the New Skete Monastery; St. Theodore of Tarsus Parish accept anyone's hegemony, and over the years exceptions to this in Kansas City, Missouri), only to find institutional Orthodoxy rule have been limited and few. unable to "digest" them properly-or, more crucially, to benefit In the immediate post-World War II years, divisiveness re­ from their experiences. mained-and indeed intensified as the spread of communism across The fall of 1986 witnessed another such conversion, by far Eastern Europe splintered new immigrant groups along political the largest to date and potentially the most important. Metro­ lines in the tragic pattern of the Russians decades before, politan Philip Saliba of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Arch­ forcing many an Orthodox community to squander precious diocese of North America has accepted the petition of the resourcesandinordinateamountsof time andpassionin persuading Evangelical Orthodox Church, 2,500 strong, led by Bishop Peter erring compatriots out of "jurisdictions" deemed canonically Gillquist. Ending decades of intense, meticulous, and often pain­ illegitimate. (The most blatant example is seen in the Romanian ful searching for the roots of historical Christianity, which they Patriarchate, which legally incorporated its loyal faction as the found lacking in the "para-church" evangelical background "Missionary Diocese"). But the Orthodox had learned by bitter from which they emerged, they stand poised to enter canonical experience during World War II that disunity is disability. By 1960 Orthodoxy. By their background; by the course of their studies the corporate leadership, led by Archbishop Iakovos and Anthony which so precisely fulfilled Father Hotovitzky's prediction of some Bashir, saw the wisdom of forming a Standing Conference of eighty years earlier that a "long inner work of mind and heart, Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas (SCOBA) as a pos­ to enter into a full and true philosophy of the Orthodox Christian" sible precursor to a territorial synod. Though itself never a re­ would doubtlessly "inspire in them that vital power and depth sounding success, SCOBA's specific service arms, the Orthodox of Christian temperament which has always been inherent in the Christian Education Commission (OCEC) and the Campus Com­ true Church"; and by the zeal for the Lord, which alone sustained mission, have made valuable and lasting contributions. St. Vla­ them in their long journey, they can speak to mainline America, dimir's Seminary grew increasingly pan-Orthodox, English­ from within, of the unique Truth that they have been called to speaking, and "mission-motivated" as converts came to form "come and see." Wisely used, they may prove to be the a greater percentage of the student body (and later the faculty). "small bell," which St. Innocent predicted even earlier that With appeals to pan-Orthodox assemblies falling on deaf ears, God's Providence could use to turn the hearts of many. American and with the "Russian problem" in America particularly acute, Orthodoxy as a whole may yet realize the missionary destiny that the Moscow Patriarchate in 1970 took what it saw as the first for 200 years has lain beyond its grasp," logical step toward solving the total problem. Claiming both moral

Notes------­

1. Often referred to as "Ruthenians" in Roman Catholic literature. accepted into the Orthodox Church through the sacrament of chris­ 2. Since this article was written, the Evangelical Orthodox Church has mation. Their saga is told in an article by Fathers Peter Gillquist and been incorporated into the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese Gordon Walker, "Arrowhead Springs to Antioch: Odyssey to Or­ of North America as the Antiochian Evangelical Orthodox Mission thodoxy," TheWord31 no. 8 (October 1987):5-11; and in a videocassette (AEOM), its self-proclaimed and ordained bishops and other clergy presentation, "Welcome Home": A Journey to Antioch. ordained to the priesthood, and some 2,000 members of the faithful

Select Bibliography Garrett, Paul D. "Eastern Christianity," Encyclopedia of the American raphy that can be considered definitive on the subject. Religious Experience. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1987. Orthodox America, 1794-1976: Development oftheOrthodox Church in America. --. St. Innocent, Apostle to America. Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir's Syosset, N.Y.: Dept. of History and Archives, Orthodox Church in Seminary Press, 1979. America, 1975. The DCA's bicentennial project, a pictorial essay of Oleksa, Michael, ed. Alaskan Missionary Spirituality. Sources of American uneven quality, but still an essential tool. Spirituality Series. New York: Paulist Press, 1987. Father Oleksa's Pierce, Richard, ed. TheRussianOrthodox Religious Missionin America, 1794­ volume includes a most welcome critical study of the history of the 1837. Kingston, Ontario: Limestone Press, 1978. Russian church in Alaska, translations of virtually all the primary Smith, Barbara. Orthodoxy andNativeAmericans: TheAlaskan Mission. Syos­ documents required to grasp the situation, and a selected bibliog­ set, N.Y.: Historical Society, Orthodox Church in America, 1980.

56 International Bulletin of Missionary Research Fuller offers you a schedule of two-week intensives

~~ Gradual' Schools 01 ...... THEOLOGY PSYCHOLOGY during this year's WORLD MISSION •• School of World Mission g. Summer School...

SESSION 1: JUNE 20-JULY 1 MB500/MB520 Anthropology (CORE) Charles H. Kraft ML560 Implementing Change in Christian Organizations J. Robert Clinton SESSION 2: JULY 11-22 MR520 Phenomenology and Institution of Folk Religions (ELECTIVE CORE) Charles H. Kraft MB530 Language/Culture Learning and Mission Elizabeth S.Brewster (July 9-22) MT521 Pauline Theology and the Mission Church Dean S.Gilliland MR550 Introduction to Islam J. Dudley Woodberry SESSION 3: JULY 25-AUGUST 5 MT500/MT520 Biblical Theology of Mission (CORE) Arthur F. Glasser MB576 Incarnation and Mission Among the World's Urban Poor Elizabeth S. Brewster MR551 Muslim Evangelism J. Dudley Woodberry SESSION 4: AUGUST 8-19 MC500/MC520 Foundations of Church Growth (CORE) C. PeterWagner MH520 Historical Development of the Christian Movement (ELECTIVE CORE) Paul E.Pierson MC533 Applied Church Growth EddieGibbs MR554 Church Planting in Muslim Contexts ADMISSION: WarrenG. Chastain Pleasecontact the SESSION 5: AUGUST 22-SEPTEMBER 2 Office of Admissions ML500/ML520 Foundations of Leadership (ELECTIVE CORE) FULLER THEOLOGICAL EdgarJ. Elliston SEMINARY, PASADENA, MODULE OF ISLAMIC STUDIES: JULY 11-AUGUST 19 CALIFORNIA91182 MR550 Introduction to Islam J. Dudley Woodberry Phone:(818)584-5400 MR551 Muslim Evangelism (800) 235-2222 J. Dudley Woodberry MR554 Church Planting in Muslim Contexts WarrenG. Chastain NOTE:You may register on June 20, 1988,or on the first day of any course. The School of World Mission FULLER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY The Azusa Street Revival and Twentieth-Century Missions

Gary B. McGee

piritual awakenings and missionary zeal have long been Parham (a white man) in Houston, carried the new message to S associated on the American religious scene. Whether one Los Angeles and became one of the key leaders in the Pentecostal refers to the Haystack Prayer Meeting, which led to the formation revival, which occurred in a former African Methodist Episcopal of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions Church on Azusa Street." The revival proceeded non-stop for (1810), or to the Mount Hermon Conference and the later estab­ three years. Blacks and whites worshiped together. Reports cir­ lishment of the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Mis­ culating from the revival noted that men, women, and children sions (1888), spiritual renewals have triggered fresh attempts to received the Pentecostal baptism and spoke in other tongues. fulfill the Great Commission. Singing, shouting, speaking in tongues, healings, deliverances, To these awakenings should be added the Azusa Street Re­ and expectancy of Christ's imminent return characterized the ser­ vival of 1906-9, in Los Angeles, California. Sparking one of the vices. News of the revival traveled across the United States as greatest spiritual awakenings of the twentieth century, its long­ the leaders of the revival published thousands of copies of the range impact has resulted in millions at home and overseas en­ Apostolic Faith (a newspaper distributed occasionally between Sep­ tering the ranks of the Christian church. Oddly enough, it has tember 1906 and May 1908). From coast to coast, expectant be­ been largely overlooked by most historians of the expansion of lievers avidly read the testimonies and teachings in the pages of Christianity. Notwithstanding, J. Herbert Kane, a prominent this and similar periodicals. evangelical missions scholar, has appropriately described this Since others have chronicled the events at Azusa Street, our movement as "the most vital force in world Christianity. Both purpose is to examine the revival's impact on world missions.i here in North America and throughout the world the Pentecostal Three important points need to be considered in this regard. churches are outstripping all others as far as numerical growth First, the participants at Azusa Street (Seymour, Florence is concemed.i" In view of the spectacular number of Pentecostal Crawford, A. G. Garr, et al.) considered their new-found tongues Christians overseas, now numbering in the tens of millions." an to be the languages of the world. Hence one writer in the Apostolic assessment of the impact of the Azusa Street Revival, sometimes Faith reported that "God has solved the missionary problem, referred to as "the American Jerusalem," on world missions sending out new-tongued missionaries.?" Previously, Parham had is appropriate in order to understand its distinctives and contri­ interpreted tongues in the same manner and this view gained butions. currency among many early Pentecostals. W. F. Carothers, the Doctrinal considerations weighed heavily in the events that field representative for the Apostolic Faith Movement from Zion led to the revival. Concern for world evangelism in "the last City, Illinois, wrote cautiously circa 1906: days" before the premillennial coming of the Lord spurred many evangelical Christians to pray ardently for an outpouring of the Just what part the gift of tongues is to fill in the evangelization of Holy Spirit to empower believers for proclaiming the gospel.4 heathen countries is matter [sic] for faith as yet. It scarcely seems Holiness-oriented Christians, maintaining that another definite from the evidence at hand to have had much to do with foreign work of grace in the believer's life followed salvation (and for mission work in New Testament times, and yet, in view of the some, after an additional experience of sanctification), looked for apparent utility of the gift in that sphere and of the wonderful a mighty "baptism in the Holy Spirit" to provide revolutionary missionary spirit that comes with Pentecost, we are expecting the gift to be copiously used in the foreign field. We shall soon know." apostolic power for Christian witnessing. Many viewed the Welsh Revival of 1904--5 and others that Before 1908, however, it had become apparent to most that speak­ followed as the beginning of this outpouring of the Spirit." For ing in tongues did not equip people to preach in other languages. some, the essential sign of the baptism in the Holy Spirit had Instead they interpreted the phenomenon as being intercession become evident in January 1901 during a revival at the Bethel and voicing the praises of God in other languages. In spite of Bible School in Topeka, Kansas. The leader, Charles F. Parham, differences about the meaning of the Pentecostal baptism in these identified speaking in tongues as the initial evidence for this bap­ early years, all agreed that it brought the empowering of the Holy tism. To Parham and his students, the prophecy of Joel (2:28--29) Spirit for Christian witness. had been realized in their midst just as the disciples had expe­ Second, those who attended the revival services believed that rienced the power of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. This the apostolic "signs and wonders" that had characterized the event, though covered by several newspapers in the region, went advance of the early Christians in the book of Acts had been largely unnoticed by the larger segment of the American popu­ restored in the last days. The gifts of the Spirit, including tongues, lation. Parham and his followers took their message to other cities interpretations, prophecies, and divine healings were given to in Kansas and Missouri. By 1905 he began to find more success aid in the advancement of the gospel. This pneumatological em­ and acceptance in Houston, Texas. phasis, while rejected by many, constituted a unique posture toward the Christian world mission;" Reliance was to be upon The American Jerusalem the Spirit, not the mechanical formulations of mission strategists. Such a wholesale return to the apostolic pattern of first-century William J. Seymour, a black Holiness preacher and a student of Christianity was without parallel on the missionary landscape in the early decades of this century. Third, the enthusiasm for world evangelization spawned a Gary B. McGee is Associate Professor and Chairman, Bible and Theology De­ diaspora of new missionaries even though the leaders of the re­ partment, Assemblies of God Theological Seminary, Springfield, Missouri. vival did not organize a missionary society. The urgency of the

58 International Bulletin of Missionary Research hour, reluctance to rely on the support of a human agency, na­ Ohio, under the direction of Levi R. Lupton, a Holiness Quaker rvete about conditions overseas, and the desire to be completely who experienced the Pentecostal baptism in December 1906. While directed by the Spirit may have been the causes that discouraged those in attendance had no interest in establishing another ec­ the establishment of a mission agency. clesiastical organization, they asserted that "such an affiliation Many individuals, recently equipped with the power of the of Pentecostal Missions is desirable as will preserve and increase Holy Spirit and a new language, left Los Angeles and traveled the tender sweet bond of love and fellowship now existing and overseas on "faith" (without pledged support). Significantly, guard against abuse of legitimate liberty.,,25In the following year anyone-men and women, clerry and laity, blacks and whites­ (1909), the Pentecostal Missionary Union in the United States of 1 could be called for this service. Those who went often returned America was formed, with headquarters in Alliance. This effort, disillusioned from their attempted missionary work. Some, how­ however, collapsed a year later." Nevertheless, whether through ever, such as the A. G. Garrs, who traveled first to India and their own initiative or with the encouragement of this agency, then to China, remained abroad, learning the language and cul­ over 185 Pentecostals had traveled overseas to engage in mis­ ture of the people whom they wished to evangelize.V Neverthe­ sionary evangelism by 1910. less, the initial dispersion of missionaries from Azusa Street is Later successful denominational ventures resulted from the significant for demonstrating the concern for world evangelism founding and foreign-missions enterprises of the Pentecostal As­ and the leveling effect of the revival. semblies of Canada (1919),27 Pentecostal Church of God (1919), The real impact of the Azusa Street Revival on missions came International Church of the Foursquare Gospel (1923),Open Bible through others whom it influenced. Although he never visited the Standard Churches (1935),28 and Elim Fellowship (1947).29 The revival, Thomas B. Barratt learned of the happenings there through largest and most successful endeavor in Pentecostal foreign mis­ correspondence and received his Pentecostal baptism in New York sions has been that of the General Council of the Assemblies of City. Henceforth, Barratt returned home to Norway with the new God, organized at Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1914.30 In addition, message. He then carried it to England, Sweden, and other Eu­ independent and para-church ministries (among others, Christ ropean countries. Pentecostal missionaries from these countries for the Nations;" Youth with a Mission,32 Last Days Ministries, soon traveled overseas.13 and Jimmy Swaggart Ministries) have also figured prominently Other personalities touched by the revival included Cecil through the years. Polhill, founder of the Pentecostal Missionary Union in Great Britain (1909);14 Minnie T. Draper, Allan A. Swift, and Christian Pentecostal Missions Mature J. Lucas, founders of the South and Central African Pentecostal Mission (1910);15 William F. P. Burton and James Salter, founders In the years following the Azusa Street Revival and the growth of the Congo Evangelistic Mission (1915), now the Zaire Evan­ of Pentecostal denominations and independent mission agencies, gelistic Mission;" Willis C. Hoover, father of the Methodist Pen­ the efforts to fulfill the Great Commission before the imminent tecostal Church in Chile (1910);17 Daniel Berg, Gunnar Vingren, return of Christ have steadily Increased;" Indeed, this future Luigi Francescon, Nels Nelson, and Samuel Nystrom, mission­ expectation has continued to spur zeal for overseas evangelism. aries to Brazil (1910 and after);" G. R. Polman, organizer of the Reasons for success have included, but are not limited to, Pentecostal Mission Alliance in the Netherlands (1920);19 Charles the following factors. The first and foremost pattern of Pentecostal Hamilton Pridgeon, director of the Evangelization Society of the missions has been the belief that New Testament Christianity can Pittsburgh Bible Institute (1920);20 and Paul B. Peterson, founder be restored and that the same signs and wonders that followed of the Russian and Eastern European Mission (1927).21 While his­ the apostolic proclamation of the gospel can be expected today.. torian Vinson Synan proposes that "directly or indirectly, prac­ In this vein, Pentecostal periodicals have reported thousands of tically all the Pentecostal groups in existence can trace their lineage miraculous happenings (healings, deliverances, exorcisms) as­ to the Azusa Mission," contemporary indigenous revivals did sociated with missionary evangelism. Undoubtedly the emphasis occur overseas without its tutelage. 22 on the supernatural has proved to be one of the key elements. 34 The revival sparked Pentecostal awakenings among other. It is particularly in this arena that Pentecostal missions must be believers across the country concerned about fulfilling the Great viewed as a distinctive thrust in the Christian world mission of Commission in the last days. Among other places, significant the twentieth century. revivals occurred in Indianapolis, Indiana; Alliance, Ohio; Roches­ It is also important to realize that while Pentecostals have ter and Nyack, New York; Dunn, North Carolina; Portland, Or­ sought for signs and wonders in evangelism, they have left some egon; and Toronto, Canada. related theological issues unresolved. For example, questions about The Azusa Street Revival, though never directly resulting in the sovereignty of God and the role of signs and wonders in the founding of an organization or mission society, had long-term evangelism and local congregations await further study and ar­ effects on existing organizations and new ones that developed ticulatiori." Even the modern-day manifestations of the gifts of later. Holiness bodies from the southeast such as the Pentecostal the Spirit, particularly the interpretation of tongues and the use Holiness Church (1898),23 the Church of God (Cleveland, Tenn.; of the word of knowledge, produces disagreement among ad­ 1886),24 and the Church of God in Christ (1897) adopted the new vocates." Pentecostal theology after their leaders were influenced by the Spiritual manifestations not specifically referred to in the New events in Los Angeles. Testament or mentioned as gifts of the Spirit have also stirred Many independent Pentecostals across the nation, touched discussion. Such experiences include "slain in the Spirit" (fall­ by the Los Angeles revival (either through personal participation, ing under the power of the Spirit)37 and certain perspectives on hearing of it from someone who had attended, or by the printed exorcism." The available literature on these subjects has often page), eventually organized to achieve their goals more effi­ been largely based on personal experience and lacking in exe­ ciently, including the goal of world evangelism. getical precision. More research needs to be done on these phe­ The first "missionary manifesto" among independent nomena and their theological foundations. Pentecostals calling for the establishment of a missionary society The second factor in growth is the gradual emergence over surfaced in 1908 at the Pentecostal Camp Meeting in Alliance, the past eighty years of the articulation of a Pentecostal missiology

April 1988 59 to guide the missionary enterprise. Though early Pentecostal mis­ that a Pentecostal organization, the Assemblies of God, has led sionaries often adopted paternalistic approaches, the trend has all other mission agencies in sponsoring overseas theological in­ been toward fostering indigenous churches. In 1921, for example, stitutions designed to train national workers. Creative approaches the Assemblies of God formally committed itself to planting self­ to training have also included the Brazilian Extension School of governing, self-propagating, and self-supporting churches abroad; Theology, the International Correspondence Institute headquar­ this view of foreign missions had been present since the earliest tered in Brussels, Belgium, and the Christian Training Network years of the organization.39 based in Miami, Florida. The orientation to the indigenous-church strategy probably In addition, Pentecostals have not apologized for the fact that stemmed in part from the experience of independent Pentecostals their faith, emphasis on the manifestation of the gifts of the Spirit, who had often been expelled from their former denominations and enthusiastic worship have often appealed to the poor rather and hence viewed ecclesiastical structure with mistrust. Other than to the middle and upper classes, particularly in the third influences included the writings of Roland Allen (as well as other world. advocates of indigenous principles) and their observation of largely Missionary education, the fourth reason for growth, has pro­ independent congregations in the book of Acts evangelizing their gressed from a lack of missiological training, based on an un­ own vicinities. Generally, Pentecostal mission agencies have fol­ healthy suspicion held by some that education might dampen the lowed the indigenous pattern.t" This strategy later preserved the power of the Spirit in one's ministry, to the development of pro­ fruits of their overseas evangelism in the postcolonial period. grams in Bible institutes and colleges providing instruction to Pentecostals have excelled as missionary practitioners over prospective missionaries. Finally it has advanced to the level of the years, but have produced few theorists to weld their theology graduate missiological training provided at such institutions as to missiology. The most notable Pentecostal authority on foreign the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary (1973), California missions has been Melvin L. Hodges (1909-88), former missionary Theological Seminary (1983), CBN University (1977), Church of to Central America and field director for Latin America and the God School of Theology (1975), and Oral Roberts University (1965). West Indies for the Assemblies of God. His best-known book, For continuing education, the Assemblies of God has sponsored The Indigenous Church, advocated the application of indigenous an annual School of Missions since 1959 for veteran missionaries principles while at the same time emphasizing that the New Tes­ and a Pre-Field Orientation for new recruits. These developments tament church could be established only with the dynamic power in training reflect the growing sophistication of Pentecostal mission agencies. The fifth factor in growth is that the successful pursuit of their objective to evangelize the world has required Pentecostals "The minimizing of the to take a pragmatic attitude toward organizational development. clergy/laity barrier grew As their overseas efforts grew, administrative personnel and pol­ from the belief that the icies increased. The introduction of strategic planning (overseas theological training, evangelistic crusades, coordinated activities Pentecostal baptism equips with national church organizations) demonstrated the need for every believer for teamwork over individual initiatives. Despite these changes, Pentecostals have insisted that the Christian witness.II key to success in overseas evangelism and in building the indig­ enous church has been dependence on the "leading" and dy­ namic power of the Holy Spirit. This perspective represents the of the Holy Spirit. Hodges reveals a clear dependence on the heart of Pentecostal expansion, although maintaining the balance writings of Allen. His fullest exposition of a Pentecostal missiol­ between human planning and individual direction by the Spirit ogy came with the publication of A Theology of the Church and Its has sometimes been difficult and generated tensions between Mission (Springfield, Mo.: Gospel Publishing House, 1977). agency boards and personnel.43 Paul A. Pomerville's The Third Force in Missions (1985), rep­ resents another significant milestone in the Pentecostal under­ A Distinctive Movement standing of Christian mission. In his opinion, the role of the Holy Spirit in evangelical missions has been victimized by the ration­ Although having considerable theological affinity with other con­ alistic orientation of Protestant scholasticism, which "repre­ servative Christians, Pentecostalism has proclaimed a distinctive sents the theological roots of the silence of the Spirit in western pneumatology. With the close of the "Great Century" in Chris­ missions. The neglect and hemming in of the Spirit is part and tian missions in 1914, the concomitant emergence of the Pente­ parcel of that theological tradition.,,41 This bold critique asserts costal missionary expansion resulting from the Azusa Street Revival that Pentecostalism represents a biblical corrective to the teaching has represented a fresh and distinctive thrust in mission activities of the kingdom of God held by many. of worldwide significance, which must not be relegated to the The third factor prompting growth during the past eighty periphery of evangelical mission efforts." Its pneumatological years has been the leveling influence of Pentecostalism. The min­ emphasis, coupled with the successful application of indigenous­ imizing of the clergy/laity barrier grew from the belief that the church principles, has challenged other Christians to reassess Pentecostal baptism equips every believer for Christian witness. their own missiological perspectives. Maynard L. Ketcham, a missionary to Bengal, India, taught in a The history of Pentecostalism cannot be properly understood primitive Bible institute and wrote in 1945: "We are not seeking apart from its vision for overseas evangelism. While not without to make polished preachers who will work for a salary. But we mistakes and failures in the past eighty years, Pentecostal mission are seeking to properly indoctrinate converts who have a call to efforts have nevertheless raced to catch up with the strategy of minister to their fellow men. We want the lay members of all our the Spirit: "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes churches to be in a position to effectually witness-so that each on you; and you will be my witnesses . . . to the ends of the church will be a growing church.,,42 Therefore, it is not by accident earth" (Acts 1:8, N.I.V.).

60 International Bulletin of Missionary Research Notes

1. J. Herbert Kane, TheChristian World Mission: Today andTomorroui (Grand the Ill-Fated Pentecostal Missionary Union in America," paper pre­ Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1981), p. 261. sented at the sixteenth meeting of the Society of Pentecostal Studies, 2. David B. Barrett, ed., World Christian Encyclopedia (New York: Oxford Costa Mesa, California, Nov. 14, 1986. Univ. Press, 1982), p. 838. 27. Ripening Harvest (Toronto: Overseas Missions Department of the Pen­ 3. Vinson Synan, The Holiness-Pentecostal Movement in the United States tecostal Assemblies of Canada, 1974). (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1971), 28. Robert Bryant Mitchell, Heritage andHorizons: TheHistory of Open Bible p.95. Standard Churches (Des Moines, Iowa: Open Bible Publishers, 1982). 4. Robert Mapes Anderson, Vision of the Disinherited: TheMaking ofMod­29. Marion Meloon, Ivan Spencer: Willow in the Wind (Plainfield, N.J.: ern Pentecostalism (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1979), pp. 79--84. Logos International, 1974). 5. J. Edwin Orr. The Flaming Tongue: Evangelical Awakenings (Chicago: 30. Gary B. McGee, This Gospel Shall Be Preached: A History and Theology Moody Press, 1973), pp. 65--68. of Assemblies of God Foreign Missions to 1959 (Springfield, Mo.: Gospel 6. Douglas J. Nelson, "For Such a Time as This: The Story of Bishop Publishing House, 1986). William J. Seymour and the Azusa Street Revival." Ph. D. dissertation, 31. Gordon Lindsay, God's 20th Century Barnabas (Dallas, Tex.: Christ for Univ. of Birmingham, England, 1981. the Nations, reprint ed., 1982). 7. Synan, TheHoliness-Pentecostal, pp. 95-116; Anderson, Vision, pp. 62­ 32. Loren Cunningham, Is That Really You, God? (Grand Rapids, Mich.: 78. Chosen Books, 1984). 8. Apostolic Faith, November 1906, p. 2. 33. For an analysis of premillennialism in twentieth-century America that 9. W. F. Carothers, The Baptism with the Holy Ghost and the Speaking in includes the perspectives of Pentecostals, see Dwight Wilson, Ar­ Tongues (Zion City, Ill.: By the author, 1906-7), p. 21. mageddon Now!ThePremillenarian Response toRussia andIsrael since 1917 10. See Donald Gee, "Spiritual Gifts and World Evangelization," in (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1977). Azusa Street and Beyond, ed. L. Grant McClung, Jr. (South Hamilton, 34. C. Peter Wagner has accurately portrayed the linkage between Pen­ N.J.: Bridge Publishing, 1986). tecostal church growth in Latin America and the expectancy of signs 11. Unfortunately, the racial harmony at the Azusa Street Revival dimin­ and wonders, in Look Out! The Pentecostals Are Coming (Carol Stream, ished in the years that followed. See Synan, The Holiness-Pentecostal, Ill.: Creation House, 1973). pp. 165-84. 35. A discussion of the issue can be found in Donald Gee, Trophimus I 12. Betty Gann, comp., The Trailblazer: The History of Dr. A. G. Garr and Left Sick (London: Elim Publishing Co., 1952), pp. 9-10. the Garr Auditorium (Charlotte, N.C.: Garr Memorial Church, 1985). 36. Jimmy Swaggart, "Brother Swaggart, Here's My Question," The 13. Donald Gee, The Pentecostal Movement: Including the Story of the War Evangelist, September 1986, pp. 13-15. Years (1940-1947) (rev. ed.; London: Elim Publishing Co., 1949), pp. 37. Marvin Gorman, "Slain in the Spirit," in Conference on the Holy 11-59, 94-110. Spirit Digest, ed. Gwen Jones (Springfield, Mo.: Gospel Publishing 14. Cecil Polhill, "P.M.U.," Confidence, November 1909, pp. 253-54. House, 1983), vol. 2, pp. 300-305; Ezra Coppin, Slain in the Spirit 15. Gary B. McGee, "Three Notable Women in Pentecostal Ministry," (Harrison, Ark.: New Leaf Press, 1976); Tom Waggoner, Falling Under Assemblies of God Heritage, Spring 1986, pp. 3--5. God's Power (Springfield, Mo.: Restoration, 1978). 16. William F. P. Burton, God Working with Them: Being Eighteen Years of 38. Frank and Ida Mae Hammond, Pigs in the Parlor: A Practical Guide to Congo Evangelistic Mission History (London: Victory Press, 1933). Deliverance (Kirkwood, Mo.: Impact Books, 1973); cf., Can Born-Again 17. Telephone interview with Mario G. Hoover, June 10, 1986. Believers Be Demon-Possessed? (Springfield, Mo.: Gospel Publishing 18. John Thomas Nichol, ThePentecostals (rev. ed.; Plainfield, N.J.: Logos House, 1972). For the controversy over the word of knowledge and International, 1971), pp. 51-53. demon possession in the contemporary Signs and Wonders move­ 19. Cornelius van der Laan, "The Pentecostal Movement in Holland: ment, see Tim Stafford, "Testing the Wine from John Wimber's Its Origin and Its International Position," Pneuma 5 (December 1983): Vineyard," Christianity Today, Aug. 8, 1986, pp. 21-22. 3~35. 39. General Council Minutes (Combined Minutes), 1914-17, pp. 9-10; 20. Grace D. Clementson, Charles Hamilton Pridgeon (Gibsonia, Pa.: Evan­ 1921, pp. 61-64. gelization Society of the Pittsburgh Bible Institute, 1963). 40. The World Missions Department of the Church of God (Cleveland, 21. The Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Missions: The Agencies, s. v. Tenn.), however, continues to retain considerable control over its "Eastern European Mission," by Paul B. Peterson. daughter churches abroad. See The World Missions Policy Manual 22. Synan, The Holiness-Pentecostal, p. 114; cf. Paul A. Pomerville, The (Cleveland, Tenn.: Pathway Press, 1984), pp. 9-18, 21-29. Third Force in Missions (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 1985), 41. Pomerville, The Third Force, p. 69. pp. 47-52; Demos Shakarian, with John and Elizabeth Sherrill, The 42. Maynard L. Ketcham, Pentecost in the Ganges Delta: Being an Account Happiest People of Earth (Old Tappan, N.J.: Chosen Books, 1975), pp. of the Birth and Development of the Assemblies of God Mission Work in 13-30. Unfortunately, Pomerville relies heavily on secondary sources Bengal, India (published by the author, 1945), p. 52. to prove his point; this has also been true of some other Pentecostal 43. Paul N. van der Laan, "Dynamics in Pentecostal Mission: A Dutch historians in their attempt to make this claim. Much more research Persective," International Review of Mission 297 (january 1986): 49; for needs to be done in this area. the suggestions of a former Assemblies of God field director on re­ 23. Joseph E. Campbell, ThePentecostal Holiness Church: 1898-1948 (Frank­ lationships between missionaries and younger churches overseas, see lin Springs, Ga.: Publishing House of the Pentecostal Holiness Church, Morris O. Williams, Partnership in Mission (rev. ed.; Springfield, Mo.: 1951), pp. 344-59. by the author, 1986). 24. Charles W. Conn, Where the Saints Have Trod: A History of Church of 44. For Pentecostalism's contributions to twentieth-century Christianity, God Missions (Cleveland, Tenn.: Pathway Press, 1959). see Vinson Synan, "Pentecostalism: Varieties and Contributions," 25. "Important Pentecostal Manifesto," Confidence, Aug. 15, 1908, Pneuma 9 (Spring 1987); Peter Hocken, "The Significance and Po­ p.9. tential of Pentecostalism," in New Heaven? New Earth? (Springfield, 26. For more information, see Gary B. McGee, "Levi R. Lupton and Ill.: Templegate Publishers, 1977), pp. 15--67.

April 1988 61 My Pilgrimage in Mission

Eugene A. Nida

fter graduating from the University of California, Los theological orientations provided a sense of freedom and liberty A Angeles, in 1936 with a major in Greek and special em­ that was not only liberating, but challenging. To discover that phasis on foreign languages and science, I really had no idea people who had been portrayed to me as rank heretics, never­ what I should do, though ever since I had become a member of theless truly loved and served Jesus Christ as Lord and Master, the Methodist church in Oklahoma City at the age of four, I had proved to be one of the most meaningful experiences of my life. planned to be a missionary. With the idea that I might go to Another important privilege was to realize that the message Africa, I thought I would need to learn some foreign languages, of the Holy Scriptures is certainly the most important and mean­ hence my interest in languages and linguistics. ingful message for the modern day. To see how an intelligible, I had interviewed various mission leaders, but I was some­ clear translation of the Scriptures could have a transforming effect what disappointed for I did not really think I would fit into their upon a psychologically distraught hippie, upon a self-satisfied programs, and I was also aware of not having enough preparation and smug intellectual, and upon a depressed and oppressed In­ to make a significant contribution. Just at the time when I did dian community in the Andes made me realize that there is no not know what to do, I had an invitation to participate in a session real substitute for this good news. of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, held at that time near In addition to all of this, Althea and I have found our work Siloam Spring, Arkansas. I went to Mexico that winter for some throughout the world to be not only intellectually stimulating, but spiritually inspiring. Translating is one of the most complex intellectual activities in which people can engage, and the analysis "How refreshing it has of the theory and practice involved in translating can be equally challenging. But constantly dealing with the Scriptures has meant been to discover that what an ever increasing appreciation for the true values of life and the unites us as Christians meaning of selfless service. Perhaps one of the most positive discoveries has been the throughout the world is so fact that great souls exist in all kinds of churches, including an much greater than what Anglican canon in East Africa, a Pentecostal Quechua Indian in the high Andes, a Roman Catholic archbishop in Italy, and the separates us!" leader of a separatist church in Zaire. Having been cursed and threatened by Roman Catholic fanatics in Latin America, we found work among the Tarahumara Indians in the northern part of it quite a revelation to be involved with interconfessional com­ Mexico, but in the high altitude I suffered from a health problem mittees in which Roman Catholic participants provided some of and had to return to California. the most meaningful and inspiring devotional messages. Having I continued to help in summer programs of the Summer witnessed some of the bizarre rites of sacrifices and dancing among Institute of Linguistics (Wycliffe Bible Translators), and did some some of the sects in Africa, we felt a shock to meet with a brilliant teaching, completed a Master's degree, and finally finished my New Testament scholar from one of these indigenous churches Ph.D. work at the University of Michigan in linguistics and an­ and to discover in him not only profound intellectual compre­ thropology in 1943. In the same year, I was ordained an American hension of Christian faith, but an active and devout personal Baptist minister, married Althea Sprague (who had set up a com­ expression of his commitment to Jesus Christ. Anglican prelates mercial department at Bacone College under the auspices of the had generally been portrayed as stuffy intellectuals, but among American Baptist Home Missions Society), and joined the Amer­ them we have met some of the most godly, humble, and open­ ican Bible Society as a consultant for translation work. hearted Christians. During the following forty-two years, Althea and I have had It is quite true that in almost all churches there are numerous the privilege of working in a number of countries (somewhat over extrabiblical elements. We Baptists include people who call them­ eighty-five), primarily aiding missionaries and nationals in Bible selves "running-water Baptists," and others "forty-gallon translating. This has included helping to set up alphabets, analyze Baptists" (meaning that one cannot be immersed in less than forty complex grammatical structures, work on dictionaries, organize gallons of water), and some Baptists even insist that no one can committees, provide help in understanding the meaning of Greek enter heaven without having gone under the water. One denom­ and Hebrew texts, and lecture in training institutes and univer­ ination decided that it would attempt to eliminate from its manual sities. In addition, a good deal of time has been spent writing of faith and practice everything that was extra-biblical. As a result, books and articles on linguistics, communication, anthropology, that denomination actually got rid of more than 40 percent of its language learning, and missions. tradition. Althea and I have looked upon this work as a tremendous Perhaps our failure to recognize some of these problems is privilege. In the first place, we have had the opportunity to meet because we never seem to be able to distinguish between central all kinds of Christians in all parts of the world. Having come out and peripheral areas of faith; and when church squabbles arise, of a rather narrow, ultra-conservative church background, the they are almost always related to peripheral features. How re­ opportunity of meeting devout Christians from so many different freshing it has been to discover that what unites us as Christians throughout the world is so much greater than what separates us! For clearly it is not the much publicized "spirit of unity" that Eugene A. Nida is Translations Consultant of the American Bible Society. is important for the church, but the unity created by the Spirit.

62 International Bulletin of Missionary Research Moody Graduate School FALL COURSE SCHEDULE:

OCTOBER 10 - 14, 1988 * ~GE, POWER AND CONFLICT MANAGEMENT Dr. Richard Patterson, Dr. Gilbert Peterson

I THE REPRODUCTION OF DISCIPLES Dr. Waylon Moore, Mr. Gary Kuhne

OCTOBER 17 - 21, 1988 * ILEADERSHIP AND MOTIVATION OF PEOPLE Dr. Kenneth Hanna, Dr. Thomas Stevenin Prerequisite SK1501 or SK1502

[A BIBLICAL THEOLOGY AND PRACTICE OF MINISTRY Dr. B. Wayne Hopkins, Dr. Harold Westing

* Courses will be offered in St. Petersburg, FL. For personal enrichment the courses may be taken for non-credit. Please see the catalog for financial information.

Dr. Kenneth Hanna Dr. Richard Patterson Dr. B. Wayne Hopkins Dr. Gilbert Peterson Mr. Gary Kuhne Dr. Thomas Stevenin It's quite a lineup! Dr. Waylon Moore Dr. HaroldWesting

------, D YES, I want to know more about the Moody Graduate School. Please send me further information. NAME _

I ADDRESS ------­ CITY STATE ZIP _

PHONE # () CURRENT MINISTRY _ mOODY GRADUATE SCHOOL ~ A MINISTRY OF MOODY BIBLE INSTITUTE (I)~ 820 N. LA SALLE DR. CHICAGO. IL 60610 1-800-621-7105 8-97 Another important discovery has been the fact that outstand­ indigenous movement that has built far more impressive cathe­ ing ministries are always accomplished and carried out by out­ drals and churches than even the Roman Catholic Church. A standing people. I must confess that I have been both shocked number of aspects of this movement can be criticized, but it cer­ and disappointed a number of times when well-intentioned church tainly is a prime example of what local people can do in terms of leaders have come to me and asked if we could find a place for organization and material accomplishment. a young man or a young woman who was regarded as not being Perhaps our failures have been largely in the area of pater­ adequate for work in the United States, but who might possibly nalism, our narrow views of the mission enterprise, and an in­ do a good piece of work in the foreign field. Working within one's adequate understanding of our own motivations. Our tendency own language and culture is so much easier than working mean­ to paternalize has perhaps been our greatest sin, for we almost ingfully in another culture. If someone is inadequate for an ef­ instinctively carry with us all of our own cultural trappings. One fective ministry at home, he or she will certainly not have much missionary in Zaire, for example, insisted on translating Robert's of a chance abroad. Rulesof Order even before he had translated any of the Scriptures It is not strange that a translator in India has done a re­ into the language of a formerly unevangelized tribe of people. markable piece of work on the Bengali Scriptures, for he himself He firmly believed that there could not be an indigenous church has been a first-rate journalist and an accomplished writer. A unless people understood parliamentary procedures. A mission­ missionary builder in the Camerouns has done outstanding work, ary in South America thought he could best draw crowds to but this is not strange, for he himself was for many years a highly evangelistic services by hiring bands to play rock music. This qualified builder in the United States. Some years ago in the worked well in Chicago, but it was a complete failure in South Sudan, we met a remarkable translator of the Dinka Scriptures, America. Similarly the use of cowboy bands from Texas as special who very much impressed us with his intellectual acumen, his attractions for revival meetings in Japan proved a disaster, for understanding of people, and his capacity for communication; they alienated far more than they ever attracted to the gospel. only later did we learn that he had already had a distinguished Perhaps we can best recognize our mistakes by realizing that career as an eye surgeon. some of the most vital churches at the present time are those in In the area of Ixmiquilpan in Mexico, I met Venancio Her­ which there is little or no missionary participation, as, for ex­ nandez, an Otomi Indian, who has given outstanding leadership ample, in the Pentecostal Methodist churches in Chile, in the to the development of more than thirty churches, has transformed Portales Church in Mexico City, and in many of the separatist the economic and social structure of the Christian communities, churches in Africa, where the most significant growth in the and has inspired an entirely new way of life for thousands of Christian community in this century has occurred. people. On any scale of importance, certainly Venancio rates high. Perhaps even our own study of theory and practice in mis­ Perhaps we have made administrative mistakes creating jobs sions has been too one-sided. The various factors that enter into and then looking for people to fill them. Most outstanding creative any significant growth of the church abroad are extremely com­ work has been done by outstanding persons who have discovered plex, and there are simply no easy formulas for success. Even the opportunities and filled the needs. When the Bible Society of the emphasis upon cultural anthropology has too often resulted in Netherlands appointed Hendrik Kraemer to Indonesia, they con- people thinking of anthropology as being an instrument by which one can manipulate people by getting them to do what they would normally not want to do. On the contrary, the principal value of UWe do not engage in anthropology is to change ourselves-not to remake others. People can be different from us and still be Christians. An agriculture, medicine, and Enga in New Guinea can have feathers in his nose and still love education to win people to Jesus; Presbyterians in the Camerouns can dance in church to the glory of God; and a Mennonite bishop in Alaska can cross himself Christ; we do this because before reading the Scriptures in a Russian Orthodox church. Christ has won us to But is it possible that our most crucial failure in the study of himself." missions is the tendency to overlook the spiritual dimension? Too often we concentrate on organization, tactics, structures, and pro­ grams; and too seldom do we speak of personal devotion, selfless fessed that they did not know how best to provide a job descrip­ living, spiritual openness, and holy behavior. tion for him, and therefore they simply "turned him loose" I remember so well a conversation with an outstanding Prot­ to do whatever he thought he could do best. And he certainly estant church leader in Cuba, who for many years had been a made a most impressive contribution to the life of the church in professor of theology in a Roman Catholic seminary in Spain. I Indonesia and to our understanding of missions. once asked him how it was possible for him to change from being Another discovery in this personal pilgrimage of missions a Roman Catholic theologian to being such a warmhearted evan­ . has been the realization that it is not what we do for people, but gelist. He then explained how for some years in Spain he had what we do together with people, that really counts. Frequently had a humble Protestant pastor as a close friend. They often had our best-intentioned paternalism robs people of the feeling of long conversations about Christianity, and in the end, my friend accomplishment. Too often we are tempted to build churches, said, "I beat him in theology, but he won me by his holiness." and then try to fill them. Our sympathies sometimes lead us to It has been so easy to misunderstand our own motivations spoon-feed people; and because we wish to feel needed, we refuse in missions. Too many people have assumed that by agricultural to wean our spiritual children. There is always a time in life when programs, the building of hospitals, and the establishing of schools, young people need to leave home. And in the case of mission­ people could be won to the cause of Christ. In reality, however, aries, perhaps there is also a time when the spiritual parent needs these projects can prove to be only a subtle form of bribery. We to leave the country. do not engage in agriculture, medicine, and education to win Local people can always do far more than what we outsiders people to Christ; we do this because Christ has won us to himself, ! tend to think. In the Philippines, the Iglesia ni Cristo is a strictly and out of compassion for those for whom Christ also died, we

64 International Bulletin of Missionary Research share with others. flicts, and demonstrating the meaning of a new life made possible During recent experiences in China, Althea and I have been by the power of God. The proclamation of the good news by very much impressed with the attitudes of Chinese Christians word and by life has made a difference, in fact, a tremendous and non-Christians toward the missionary movement, in which difference in the lives of millions of people. Not only in concrete prior to 1949 tremendous investments were made in medical help,. results but also in Widespread goodwill, missions have contrib­ education, and social services. What seems to have impressed uted far more than all the government programs put together. the Chinese people has not been primarily these humanitarian Political initiatives come and go, but missionaries have stayed on, services, but the godly, sacrificial lives of individual Christian often to pick up the pieces of well-intentioned government proj­ missionaries. Both Christians and non-Christians have gone out ects that have collapsed from administrative indecision or cal­ of their way to mention how deeply impressed they have been culated neglect. Even when people have rejected the claims of with the personal qualities of certain missionaries. the gospel, they have usually been deeply impressed by the sin­ Our most significant discovery has been the recognition that cere witness of the Lord's dedicated servants. The world has not in general the missionary enterprise has accomplished a magnif­ been won to Christ, but the lives of millions of people have been icent task. No other humanitarian undertaking even comes close enriched and transformed through the extraordinary dedication to equal what the missionaries have done in relieving physical of the selfless thousands of missionaries, beginning with the apos­ suffering, educating deprived persons, mediating in social con­ tles themselves. Never has the world been so blessed by so few.

The Legacy of Nathan Soderblom

Eric /. Sharpe

mong the 370 students present at Dwight L. Moody's missionary in the commonly accepted sense of the word. How­ A Northfield Summer School in June-July 1890 were two ever, the missionary component may be seen as throwing a bridge who later would be acknowledged as world Christian leaders. between comparative religion and ecumenical theology in his own Slightly the older of the two was John R. Mott, then in his second work. There is therefore ample reason to recall his heritage as a year as assistant secretary of the YMCA College Department. The missionary theologian. younger was one of a handful of overseas visitors to the Summer Lars Olof Jonathan (Nathan) Soderblom was born on January School, a slightly built, fair-haired student from Sweden, twenty­ 15, 1866, in the Swedish country parish of Trone, the eldest son four years old and in the midst of his first intoxicating venture of the Rev. Jonas Soderblom (1823-1901) and his Danish wife, outside his own country. His name was Nathan Soderblom, Both Sophie (nee Blume). Jonas Soderblom came from a long line of became recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize, Soderblom in 1930 independent farmers, his wife from a family of Copenhagen and Mott in 1946. But they were by no means identical or even burghers (her father was a medical doctor). From his father, Na­ similar personalities. Coming as they did from different countries, thaninheriteda high-indeedat timesalmosta superhuman-level speaking different languages (Soderblom several, Mott only one), of discipline and a capacity for sustained hard work. From his educated differently, moving in different spheres and nurtured mother came an expansiveness, a love of company, a highly de­ in different theological traditions, it would be a mistake to judge veloped sense of humor and considerable musical talents. In the either in terms of the other. Soderblom was a Lutheran and not 1840s the province of Halsingland had been swept by a wave of a Methodist, Swedish and not American or British. Most of all; Pietist revivalism, and Jonas Soderblom had been deeply affected perhaps, he wasa scholar-notin parentheses, butfundamentally. by its message, emerging from a severe crisis of faith with a Unlike Mott, he was never really a world traveler; apart from two profound sense of the one thing needful in life, the proclamation visits to the United States and one to Turkey, he never left Europe. of the Christian message in the strictest and most uncompromis­ Almost a century on from Northfield 1890, Soderblom remains ing terms. Jonas was in no sense a liberal, and in later years was relatively little known, other than in silhouette, outside his own profoundly disturbed that his eldest son might be on the way to country. No complete biography of Soderblom has ever been becoming a "freethinker." written, even in Swedish, let alone in any world language.' He The facts of Nathan Soderblom's career may be rapidly sum­ does, however, have two entirely separate reputations: one as a marized. After secondary education in the coastal town of Hu­ scholar, chiefly in what is variously called comparative religion, diksvall, he entered the University of Uppsala in 1883, graduating the history of religions, or Religionswissenschaft: the other as an in Arts in 1886and in Theology in 1892. Ordained into the ministry ecumenical pioneer. His missionary thought, on the other hand, of the Church of Sweden in 1893, he served for a year as a hospital has attracted relatively little attention." Soderblom was never a chaplain in Uppsala before being appointed in 1894 as pastor to the Swedish Legation in Paris, with subsidiary duties as pastor to seamen in the ports of Calais and Dunkirk. Also in 1894 he married Anna Forsell (187~1955).3 Between 1896 and 1914 they Eric J. Sharpe, Professor of Religious Studiesat the University of Sydney, Aus­ had twelve children, four daughters (one of whom died in in­ tralia, studied comparative religion in Manchester, England, under S. G. F. Brandon and missiology in Uppsala under Bengt Sundkler. He is presently pre­ fancy) and eight sons. All three daughters, incidentally, married paring a book on "Nathan Soderblom and the Study of Religion." His earlier future bishops in the Church of Sweden: only one of the sons articles published in this series were"The Legacy ofJ. N. Farquhar" (April1979), entered the ministry, and then only in later life. "The Legacy of A. G. Hogg" (April 1982), and "The Legacy of C. F. Andrews" While in Paris, Soderblom studied under Auguste Sabatier (July 1985). in the Protestant Faculty of the Sorbonne, obtaining his doctorate

April 1988 65 in 1901 with a dissertation in the field of comparative eschatol­ is determined by an act of free will in obedience to that which is ogy." As a student in Uppsala in the 1890s he had become a divinely revealed. sincere, though not an uncritical disciple of Albrecht Ritschl, at Over the next few years, though his faith remained soldily a time when, in the eyes of the orthodox, "Ritschlian" and evangelical (indeed, surprisingly orthodox), Soderblom's intel­ "heretic" were practically synonymous terms. In later years lectual position moved more and more in a liberal direction. He he was to leave Ritschl behind, but the reputation he had acquired and his closest friends were devouring the writings of Wellhau­ was to plague him for the remainder of his career, as a professor sen, Harnack, Ritschl, and other "liberal Protestants" of the in Uppsala from 1901 to 1914 (from 1912 to 1914he worked chiefly period, and entering more and more into conflict with the powerful in Leipzig, while retaining his Uppsala chair), and as archbishop conservative element in the Swedish theological and ecclesiastical of Uppsala from 1914 to his death at the relatively early age of establishment. Of his contemporaries, Samuel Fries-a brilliant sixty-five on July 12, 1931. Old Testament scholar-suffered more than Soderblom from the Soderblom attended many conferences, chiefly in connection odium theologicum that resulted."? But Soderblom was not unaf­ with the "scientific" study of religion (Stockholm 1897, Paris fected. Although Soderblom won a position that Fries was never 1900, Basel 1904, Oxford 1908), the international student move­ to achieve, there was always an element in Scandinavia that was never able fully to trust him. At no point in his career would Soderblom seem ever to have contemplated becoming an overseas missionary; of the members "Soderblom's of the Student Missionary Association in the Uppsala of the 1880s, contention was that only two served overseas: Erik Folke in China and Ernst Heuman in India." His contribution was to be that of the scholar and without a knowledge of, pastor. The techniques of historical investigation he learned from and a feeling for history, Harnack, and from the no less erudite but less well known Harald Hjarne in Uppsala, and it was to a historical problem-that of the the theologian is reduced influence of Iranon the thought-worldof theBible-thathe initially to bare and unsupported devoted himself. But comparative religion is a limitless field, and assertion." in the 1890s, at first in Uppsala and later in Paris, he became drawn into first one, and then another, of its interconnected man­ sions. ment (Northfield 1890, Amsterdam 1891, Constantinople 1911), What had this to do with his view of the Christian mission? and the emergent ecumenical enterprise (Stockholm 1925, Lau­ On the face of it, little enough. But in a period in which the claims sanne 1927). Only once was he on the point of attending an inter­ of Christianity to uniqueness in the world of religion were being national missionary conference-Jerusalem 1928-but poor health challenged in an altogether new way, and in which "history" prevented his traveling, though he submitted a paper, printed in was being called to the witness stand both for and against the the report." In 1910 he was formally outside the missionary circle, Christian claims, a vast exercise in ground-clearing was necessary, and therefore could not attend the Edinburgh conference. an exercise that few were qualified to undertake. Partly it was a Returning now to Soderblom's early years, his Pietist home historical question: Had the Judeo-Christian tradition always been had received many missionaries "on deputation," and over­ unique as a revelation of God? Partly it was contemporary: What seas missions was a matter of great concern in the circles in which had Christianity to offer to Asia and Africa that Asia and Africa his father moved. In his first year as a student he was enthused did not already possess? Were religions in bondage to cultures, by a public lecture given in Uppsala by the Norwegian missionary or were they not? Was the answer to be found in a boundless Lars Skrefsrud, on the subject of "Heathenism and Christi­ relativism, or in a dogmatic exclusivism? That we are still strug­ anity"-asubject that in lateryears was never far from Soderblom's gling with these questions today is at the very least a sign of their concerns." A few months later, in February 1884,there was founded importance. But to Soderblom's generation they were very largely in Uppsala the Student Missionary Association (Studentmissions­ new questions: On the answers given to them depended much [oreningen), of which he very soon became a member, and which more than scholarly reputation and academic preferment. did a great deal to determine the course of his later career. The Soderblom's contention was that without a knowledge of, association brought together two complementary impulses: evan­ and a feeling for history, the theologian is reduced to bare and gelistic enthusiasm in the style of the Student Volunteer Move­ unsupported assertion. The science of religion does not so much ment, and assiduous study of world religions and cultures on the provide new answers to old questions, as recognizable answers pattern of German Missionswissenscha[t, with the latter, perhaps, underpinned by altogether new bodies of evidence. In the person holding the upper hand. It was in the pages of the association's of Jesus Christ, and in his message of the kingdom of God, there journal that Soderblom first appeared in print. 7 From 1888 to 1892 is something altogether new and unique in the world of religion, he served as its editor. and that "something" could be demonstrated through the In the summer of 1890 Soderblom received an invitation to findings of "scientific" history, without recourse to dogmatic represent Sweden at the Northfield Student Conference of which special pleading. we have previously spoken, and was thrown headlong into the The missionary implications of this were, he believed, ob­ expansive world of the international student missionary move­ vious. His own task he saw as being primarily that of the historian. ment.8 At this time he began to sense that mission and Chris­ However, he was enough of a Hegelian to see world history as tian unity were to be the great concerns of his life, writing in his one history, one progressive record, in which earlier and later diary: "Lord, give me humility and wisdom to serve the great phases were organically connected. In the manner of his time, cause of the free unity of Thy Church.':" The word "free" was he drew a distinction between "general" and "special" rev­ important: neither then nor later did Soderblom have any feeling elation (the former brought to completion in the latter), and for any manner of unity among Christians other than that which between "natural" and "prophetic" types of religion. 12

66 International Bulletin of Missionary Research Throughout his career, he was notably disinclined to superimpose or Indian or African Christianity will look like: "We can scarcely theory upon fact. A key word in all his writing is verklighet, discern even the most general outlines of these edifices.":" But "reality," not in a metaphysical but in a phenomenological we must not force non-European Christians into European-style sense. The scholar's calling and duty is first of all to investigate churches: to do so would be to render them homeless." what is actually there, observably there in the world of religion, Soderblom was too honest not to acknowledge a certain over­ past and present; only then can interpretations be attempted and lap and community of interest between Protestant missions and conclusions drawn. colonial politics. However, he thought Sweden fortunately free Soderblom never wrote, nor did he ever contemplate writing, of such entanglements, for which reason Swedish missions were a large work on the theology or the praxis of the Christian mission. in a position to concentrate on the essential issues, that of helping He did, on the other hand, publish a number of essays and lec­ ,to bring about "a free acceptance of Christ in the lives of tures on missionary subjects in a sequence extending over a pe­ individuals and communities, inward re-creation, independent riod of more than forty years. The first of these, dating back to 1889, was on the life and work of Ansgar, the first known mis­ sionary to Sweden, and the second on the missionary revival among American students; during his student years Soderblom Personalia also contributed surveys of modern missionary literature to the Student Missionary Association's Communications." In the 1890s One of the mostinfluential missionary statesmenin the post­ and early 1900s he was for the most part engaged with historical 1945era, Charles Wesley Ranson, died on January 23, 1988, and social issues, and published little in the overseas missionary in Lakeville, Connecticut. He was 84 years old. area. But after his return to Uppsala from Paris in 1901he became A missionary of the Methodist Church in Ireland, Ran­ a regular contributor to the Swedish missionary debate. son went to Madras, India in 1928. He was secretary of the On February 28, 1904, for instance, Soderblom delivered the National Christian Council of India, Burma and Ceylon, closing address to the twentieth-anniversary gathering of the Stu­ 1942-45; research secretary of the International Missionary dent Missionary Association." pointing out that, the world over, Council, 1946-47; general secretary of the IMC, 1948--58; peoples and cultures were on the move and that a struggle for then director of the Theological Education Fund of the World spiritual supremacy was developing between a "Christian" Council of Churches, 1958--64. During 1964-68 Ranson was and a "Buddhist" set of principles (Marxist influence had not dean and professor at Drew University Theological School, yet made its presence felt). New qualities were called for. and taught at Hartford Seminary, 1968--71. When he retired in 1975, he was pastor of the Congregational Church in One condition of mastering the situation is a deep, genuine insight. Salisbury, Connecticut. His book The Christian Minister in Whoever would help people must possess as the most important India (1946) was considered a classic study. His autobiog­ condition, alongside profound and sincere love for them, true in­ raphy A Missionary Pilgrimage was published by Eerdmans sight. As far as is humanly possible, we must understand them. . . . a few weeks after his death. We need people who know Eastern culture in depth. 15 The pioneering missiologist of the Assemblies of God, Melvin L. Hodges, died February 25, 1988, in Springfield, The point seems a fairly obvious one. But in 1904 it was not Missouri. He was 74 years old. After missionary service in obvious at all-at least not among pious but superficially informed Central America, Hodges served as field director for Latin "friends of missions." Zeal is one thing. Zeal without under­ America and the West Indies for twenty years until his standing is dangerous. Soderblom was in effect pleading for an retirement in 1973. He then taught missions at the Assem­ alliance and a sharing of expertise between mission and com­ blies of God Theological Seminary in Springfield until 1985. parative religion, or rather (for a sharing of expertise there had He expounded indigenous-church principles and a Pente­ always been), for a more conscious and deliberate pooling of costal perspective on missions in his books The Indigenous resources between the two. Two years later, in an address on , Church (1953) and A Theology of the Church and Its Mission "Mission and the History of Civilization," he was making the (1977). same point;" and again in a 1915 article, in which he wrote that James A. Cogswell, associate general secretary for "the future will show a closer connexion between missions overseas ministries of the National Council of Churches in and the now more generally recognized science of religion.r " the U.S.A. since 1984, has announced that he will retire by Probably the science of religion would be able to stand on its own November 1988. Cogswell, 65, served in Japan for thirteen feet, but mission would have "an increasingly imperative need" years, then six years as area secretary for Asia and six years of the expertise that only comparative religion could provide. 18 as director of World Service and World Hunger for the Soderblom's 1906 lecture was very much a programmatical Presbyterian Church in the United States. statement, containing most of the points on which his mature missionary theology was based;" Missions do not exist merely in order to transmit the habits and values of a certain type of culture, nor merely to secure numerical accessions to Christianity. There have been heroic missionaries, but it is wrong to concen­ character-formation, church formation and Christian forma­ trate only on missionary heroism. Mission involves a certain tion. ,,23 And finally: "Mission cannot, if it is Christian, stop measure of compassion, but while not altogether bad, the com­ short at the point of preaching; it must awaken a new social passion motive may lead to the painting of the non-Christian conscience and liberate new social forces.,,24 world as altogether corrupt, which it certainly is not. What, then, Before 1914 Soderblom was himself basically a "friend of has the Christian world to give? "The gift is not our dogmatics missions," albeit one whose connections and academic training or our church organization-they can make those up for them­ had placed him in the position of an analyst and a diagnostician. selves-but the gift is Christ.,,20 On becoming archbishop of Uppsala in 1914, he became at the At present, we simply do not know what a Japanese or Chinese same time ex-officio chairman of the Church of Sweden Mission

April 1988 67 Board, and thus responsible for many missionary practicalities. 25 Moving briefly from India to China, during the 1920s Soder­ Symbolically, his first officialdutyas archbishop-lateron the very blom was deeply concerned to establish a modern Lutheran pres­ day of his consecration-was to commission a missionary. His ence in the Middle Kingdom. In 1920 he was approached by the appointment had coincided with the outbreak of World War I, Norwegian missionary Karl Ludvig Reichelt, who was seeking and while it lasted, he saw his chief international concern as being support for a mission to the Chinese Buddhist monastic com­ to mediate between the Christians of the belligerent nations--a munity. On Soderblom's invitation, Reichelt visited Uppsala in virtually impossible task, theologians and church leaders being the spring of 1921 and lectured on his proposed mission, and on among their respective countries' most energetic propagandists.26 Mahayana Buddhism. Thereafter Soderblom was one of his It would be useless to deny that Soderblom's own natural sym­ strongest advocates, ensuring continued support for "Rei­ pathies lay very much on the German side in the conflict. But much chelt's mission" from the Swedish board;" as he admired Germany, he detested war even more passionately. Another Chinese initiative in which Soderblom was very much Soderblom's peace initiatives were to culminate in the Stock­ involved concerned the setting up in 1923 of a Lutheran college holm Life and Work Conference of 1925-theend of hostilities had at Tao Hwa Lun (Hunan), with Soderblom's former international by no means brought to an end the mutual suspicions that had secretary, Knut B. Westman, as its first principal.34 Both ventures, poisoned international Christian relations in the war years. In however, were to suffer greatly from the ravages of civil war later 1917, on the heels of the Russian Revolution, President Woodrow in the 1920s. Reichelt soldiered on, finally settling in Hong Kong. Wilson had sent a commission to Russia to establish a relationship Westman returned to Sweden, to become in 1929 Uppsala's first with the new government, and one of the members of that com­ professor of missionary and church history. mission had been John R. Mott. Previously regarded as a model Soderblom's definitive breakthrough as an international of Christian internationalism, Mott was abruptly disowned by the Christian leader came in 1925, with his Stockholm Life and Work Germans, who withdrew formally from the Edinburgh Contin­ Conference. Shortly thereafter, Soderblom addressed the Scan­ uation Committee;" The future of the ecumenical movement re­ dinavian Missionary Conference, also meeting in Stockholm, on quired that a new leader be found; and in the event it was the subject of "Mission as a Herald of Peace. ,,35 Soderblom, trusted by the Germans while still having cordial "What is the task of missionaries," Soderblom asked, "if relations with the British, the Americans, and the French, who not to be messengers of joy, proclaiming peace and making more and more assumed the role of mediator. That, however, is peace?":" Before the war, he pointed out, it had been common the side of his work that is best known, and we have no need to to lay emphasis on the usefulness of mission to the great colonial discuss it further here. powers. Scandinavians, however, had never been seriously tempted On the outbreak of war, most German missionaries at work to use missions in this way, for which reason they now found in British territories were either expelled or interned, creating an themselves occupying a position unique among Protestants. The acute crisis on many mission fields, nowhere more so than in Life and Work Conference had been a unique manifestation of South India, in an area shared between the Leipzig Mission and what might be achieved by a nation uninvolved in power con­ the Church of Sweden. Emergency measures were undertaken stellations, and carrying out mission, not as an adjunct of politics, by the board chaired by Soderblom." The Swedes had to assume but solely for the sake of the gospel. "Mission," he concluded, responsibility for the whole of the field, despite the lack of money "is proof that the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom and personnel (added to which, the British were even suspicious of men.,,37 The Stockholm conference would not have been nec­ of those Swedish missionaries who had been trained in Leipzig). essary had not the nations to whom the mission had been chiefly The outcome was the creation, in January 1919, of the indepen­ entrusted in the past proceeded with such obviously and disas­ dent Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church, with a Swede, Ernst trously mixed motives. Missionaries are not to be colonial agents Heuman, as its first bishop.29 in disguise; they are to be "nothing more and nothing less Soderblom had always had a profound interest in India, and than insigificant heralds"-heralds of peace and reconciliation, not a no less deep concern with the question of the nature of religious envy and divison." . experience on the individual level, culminating in "mysti­ Three years later Soderblom returned to the missionary theme cism." So it was that in the immediate postwar years, alongside in a paper prepared for the Jerusalem International Missionary his efforts to repair the damage done by the war, he became Conference of 1928.39 There is much in this paper, "The His­ fascinated by the witness and personality of Sadhu Sundar Singh toric Christian Fellowship," that has a prophetic ring. Soderblom (1889-1929?). In 1921 he lectured on the Sadhu, and in the fol­ set his face against that "ecclesiastical imperialism" that would lowing year published his lecture, both in Swedish and in Eng­ treat the churches of what today we call the "third world" as lish. 30 In 1922 the Sadhu visited Sweden in the course of his "insignificant colonies of the confessions and institutions of second world tour, and spent some time with Soderblom. Sod­ western Christendom.T" Looking into the future, he foresaw a erblom's book Sundar Singhs budskap (The Message of Sundar Singh, time when "the Christian faith and the whole historic Christian 1923), as well as translating some Sundar Singh material into fellowship will have centres in India and the Far East just as Swedish and giving an account of his visit to Uppsala, concluded important for the Lord's Church, its life and its future, as the old with an interesting comparison between "modem India's three centres.":" On the issue of Christian unity, he was happy to allow great men," Gandhi, Tagore, and Sundar Singh." At this stage that the unity of the future would include "very marked dif­ Soderblom was, as were so many others, disposed to see the ferences of Life and Work, Faith and Order.,,42 What holds Chris­ Sadhu as precisely the spiritual leader, Indian and Christian in tians of different backgrounds and temperaments together is not equal measure, the circumstances demanded. Later in the 1920s, their interpretation, but the reality, of what God has done in when the Sadhu's credentials were called in question, Soderblom history and human experience. The Christian church as it actually was one of those who sprang to his defense. That for various exists is plagued and rendered powerless by its egocentricity, its reasons the Sadhu's promise remained unfulfilled is not the ques­ timidity, its disunity, and its "ridiculously and scandalously tion: rather, that in him Soderblom saw (for a time at least) a inefficient life.,,43 In the West, Christians had learned to acquiesce living illustration of what the integration of East and West might in all this. But where mission is concerned, "the curse of dis­ mean for the future of the church in India." ruption" had often rendered the church powerless." Union was

68 International Bulletin of Missionary Research needed-but not union at any price, not a careless sinking of dif­ God).49 Shortly after his return to Uppsala he had to undergo ferences brought about as much by theological sloth as by com­ emergency surgery for an intestinal obstruction. He survived the mitment to a larger vision. Soderblom frequently used the term surgery, but his heart proved too weak to withstand the strain, "evangelical Catholicity" to describe that vision-of a concen­ and he died on July 12, 1931, at the age of sixty-five. By royal tration on a common source of revelation, strength, and inspi­ permission he was buried in Uppsala Cathedral. The text on his ration, and not a tacit agreement to eliminate everything in the grave was one he had often quoted: tradition that might give offense: "It would be ungodly to sacrifice anything essential in our faith and our divine heritage So likewise ye, when ye shall have done well those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have for the cause of unity.,,45 And what better way to distinguish done [in Swedish, only done] that which was our duty to do [Luke essentials from nonessentials than through the missionary out­ 17:10, K.J.V.]. look? To Nathan Soderblom, as to many of the pioneers of the In the course of the 1906 address from which we have pre­ ecumenical movement, the cause of unity and the cause of mis­ viously quoted, Soderblom said: "Mission means that the sion were not two causes, but one. His intellectual liberalism struggle between the great types of human civilization, between notwithstanding, in all theological essentials he was solidly Lu­ the great powers of spiritual culture, must be as deep, as con­ theran and could be deeply suspicious of ecumenical experiments cerned with [matters of] principle, as many-sided as possible.r''" (for instance, those of his contemporary Rudolf Otto) that passed In his own case, he brought together precisely that combination beyond the revelation of God in Christ into the regions of a vague of qualities needed to analyze that "struggle" as it presented and comfortable theism." Although never himself a missionary itself in his day. One may have profound commitment without in the conventional sense of the word, mission was always one analytical expertise, and of course vice versa-and that is in large of his deepest concerns, and from his own "home base" he measure the situation in which we find ourselves today. One inspired and encouraged many individuals and communities in fears that the legacy of Soderblom and his generation, and his many parts of the world. Some of those he influenced were schol­ capacity to hold together the study of religion on the highest level ars, others active missionaries, others again no more than quiet of professional competence and the deepest sense of having been and unobtrusive witnesses and workers for unity. He was not laid hold on by the living God, is one that today is, while not without his opponents, however. Especially in his own Sweden, unknown, at least uncommon. But that surely is ample reason there were some who always saw him as a dangerous liberal; why it should be recalled. Much has happened since 1931 to alter others mistrusted his somewhat flamboyant style in public; others the terms of the struggle: the "great powers" of our day are again were no doubt envious of his capacities and achievements.47 by no means what they were in his. But that we are in increasing But although saddened by all this, which hurt him more than he need of his type of mission-analytical and devoted-would seem was able to admit, he was not deflected by it. to go without saying. In 1930Soderblom was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, chiefly The final word, however, I give to Soderblom's disciple and for the work of which his 1925 Stockholm conference had been only recent biographer, Bengt Sundkler: the great symbol-reconciliation among the nations. Alone among Nobel prizewinners, he had actually known the enigmatic Alfred Nathan Soderblom points the way. He was an archbishop-and thus 48 a representative, responsible church leader. At the same time he Nobel-indeed he had conducted Nobel's funeral in 1897. was a free spirit and therefore creative. In this regard there is a In the spring of 1931, though in a precarious state of health, striking resemblance between him and [Pope] John XXIII. The ex­ he went to deliver the first of what should have been two courses ample of both points to a fundamental problem for the Church and of Gifford Lectures in Scotland. For a few happy days he was ecumenism: to combine free creativity with responsibility for in­ able once more to "play professor," lecturing on "Basal stitutions. But of course this is not only a problem for church Forms of Personal Religion" (afterward published as The Living leaders. It is a responsibility for all of us. 51

Notes ------.011!"-­ References are to works by Soderblom, unless otherwise stated.

1. Incomparably the best account in English is Bengt Sundkler, Nathan 7. "Om Sveriges forste kristne larare" (1889), reprinted in Tal och Soderolom: His Lifeand Work (London: Lutterworth, 1968). skrifterMalmo: Varldslitteraturens Forlag, 1930), vol. 5, pp. 9-37. 2. See, however, Gunnar Dahlquist, "Arkebiskop Soderblom och 8. For Soderblom's personal account, see Anna Soderblom, ed., Som­ missionen," in Nils Karlstrom, ed., Nathan Soderblom in Memoriam marminnen (Stockholm: SKOB, 1941), pp. 10-103. (Stockholm:Svenska Kyrkans Diakonistyrelses Bokforlag [SKOB], 1931), 9. Quoted in Sundkler, Nathan Soderblom (1968), p. 38. pp. 235-72; Carl F. Hallencreutz, "Nathan Soderblom, Mission and 10. Fries never obtained a permanent academic post, and died early, in the History of Religions," in Eric J. Sharpe and Anders Hultgard, 1914, the vicar of a Stockholm city church. eds., Nathan Soderblom and His Contribution to the Study of Religion 11. Mimmi Folke, Erik Folke (Stockholm: Svenska Missionens i Kina For­ (Uppsala: Soderblom Society, and Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1984), pp. 52­ lag, 1941); Gunnar Brundin, Ernst Heuman: Biskop av Tranquebar (Stock­ 67. holm: SKOB, 1926). 3. On Anna Forsell-Soderblom, see Sundkler, Nathan Soderblom och hans 12. Stated most clearly in Uppenbarelsreligion (Uppsala: Schultz, 1903, and moten (Stockholm: Gummesson, 1975), pp. 80-95. later editions). 4. La Vie future d'apres le Mazdeisme (Paris: Leroux, 1901). 13. "Ofversikt av viktigare missionslitteratur," in SMF Meddelanden 2 5. See below, notes 38-43. (1889/90): 136-52, 226-28. 6. On Skrefsrud, see Olav Hodne, L. O. Skrefsrud: Missionary and Social 14. Tal och skrifter 3 (Malmo, 1931): 75-81. Reformer among the Santalsof Santal Parganas (Oslo: Egede Instituttet, 15. Ibid., p. 79. 1966). 16. "Missionen och odlingens historia," in Soderblom and others,

April 1988 69 Nutida missionsuppgifter (Uppsala: Schultz, 1906), p. 20. visionary and ecstatic experience. 17. International Reviewof Missions 4 (1915): 529. 33. See Sharpe, Karl LudvigReichelt: Missionary, Scholar and Pilgrim (Hong 18. Ibid. Kong: Tao Fong Shan, 1984), pp. 68ff. 19. In Nutida missionsuppgifter, pp. 1-32. 34. On Westman, see Sundkler, Nathan Soderblom och hans moien (1975), 20. Ibid., p. 5. pp.110-34. 21. Ibid., p. Sf. 35. Gemensam giirning: foredrag vid nordiska missionskonferensen i Stockholm 22. Ibid., p. 6. (Stockholm: SKOB, 1925), pp. 58--66. 23. Ibid., p. 16. 36. Ibid., p. 58. 24. Ibid., p. 26. 37. Ibid., p. 64. 25. See the essay by Dahlquist, cited in note 2, above. 38. Ibid., p. 58. 26. The Soderblom library in Uppsala contains a large uncatalogued col­ 39. "The Historic Christian Fellowship," in The Relations between the lection of this wartime literature. From the German side, most would Younger andtheOlder Churches, Jerusalem IMC Report, vol. 3 (London: seem to have been supplied by Soderblom's close friend Adolf Oeiss­ Oxford Univ. Press, 1928), pp. 13~3. mann of Berlin, publisher of Evangelischer Wochenbrief (in English, 40. Ibid., p. 136. Protestant Weekly Letter). The English edition was discontinued on 41. Ibid. America's entry into the war in April 1917. 42. Ibid., p. 139. 27. See C. Howard Hopkins, John R. Mott 1865-1955: A Biography (Geneva: 43. Ibid., p. 150. World Council of Churches, and Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerd­ 44. Ibid., p. 151. mans, 1979). Mott's address to a "Cossack Congress" on June 27, 45. Ibid., p. 153. 1917, in which he was reputed to have insulted Germany (a charge 4:6. See Sundkler, Nathan Soderblom (1968), pp. 422f. he always denied), "temporarily cooled the affection of some Swedes, 47. This aspect has seldom been recorded in print. But see Sundkler, including his intimate friend Nathan Soderblom" (ibid., p. 501). "Nathan Soderblom-s-A Complex Personality," in Sharpe and Hult­ 28. Of the various accounts in Swedish, the best is by Sigfrid Estborn, gard, eds., Nathan Soderblom (1984), p. 10. Frdn Taberg till Tranquebar: Biskop David Bexell (Stockholm: SKOB,1940), 48. Soderblom's oration at Nobel's funeral is reprinted in Taloch skrifter, pp. ioorr. vol. 4, pp. 217-22. 29. Heuman had been a fellow member with Soderblom of the Student 49. The LivingGod: Basal Forms of Personal Religion (London: Oxford Univ. Missionary Association in Uppsala. See note II, above. Press, 1933; reprinted 1939). A later paper back reprint (Boston: Bea­ 30. Tre livsformer (Stockholm: Hugo Gebers Forlag, 1922), pp. 11-52; con Press, 1962) on the front cover replaces "Basal" with "Basic," "Christian Mysticism in an Indian Soul," International Review of and adds the absurd words: "Ten faces of religion-from witchcraft Missions 11 (1922): 22&-38. to revelation." However, the remainder of the book actually is a re­ 31. Sundar Singhs budskap, pp. 244ff. print. The planned second series of lectures was of course never 32. See Sharpe, "Nathan Soderblom, Sadhu Sundar Singh and Eman­ delivered, though part exists in note form. uel Swedenborg," in Sharpe and Hultgard, eds., Nathan Soderblom SO. "Missionen och odlingens historia" (see notes 19-24, above), p. andHisContribution to theStudy ofReligion (1984),pp. 68-95. The whole 26. Sundar Singh episode is greatly in need of fresh investigation in the 51. Sundkler, Nathan Soderblom och hans miiten (1975), p. 173. light of what has been learned since the 1920s about the nature of

Bibliography

Works by Soderblom in English Having Reference to Mission

Soderblom wrote relatively little in English. There is a full, though still incomplete, bibliography of his vast output in Nils Karlstrom, ed., Nathan Soderblom in Memoriam (Stockholm: SKOB, 1931), pp. 391-451. 1919a "Christian Missions and National Politics," International Review 1928 "The Historic Christian Fellowship," Jerusalem Report 3; pp. of Missions 8; pp. 491-99. 13~3. 1919b "The Church and International Goodwill," Contemporary Re­1933a The Living God: Basal Forms of Personal Religion London: Oxford view 116; pp. 309-15. Univ. Press. 1922 "Christian Mysticism in an Indian Soul: Sadhu Sundar Singh," 1933b TheNatureof Revelation (trans. Frederic E. Pamp). London: Oxford International Reviewof Missions 11; pp. 226-38. Univ. Press.

Works about Soderblom in English

Curtis, Charles J. Nathan Soderblom: Theologian of Revelation. Chicago: Cov­ 4, (1969): 259-74. enant Press, 1966. --and Anders Hultgard, eds. Nathan Soderblom andHis Contribution to Neill, Stephen. Men of Unity. London: SCM Press, 1960; pp. 26-38. the Study of Religion (Horae Soederblomianae VII). Uppsala: Sod­ Sharpe, Eric J. "Christian Mysticism in Theory and Practice: Nathan erblom Society, and Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1984. Soderblom and Sadhu Singh," Religious Traditions 4, no. 1 (1981): Sundkler, Bengt. Nathan Soderblom: His LifeandWork. London: Lutterworth 19-37. Press, 1968. --. "Nathan Soderblom and the Study of Religion," Religious Studies

70 International Bulletin of Missionary Research Studywith the ones whdve been there...

... like David]. Hesselgrave, Professor of Mission in the School of World Mission and Evangelism, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

• Missionary to Japan for 12 years • Past president of the Association of Evangelical Professors of Mission and the Japan Evangelical Missionary Association ... and these • Author or editor of eight books on missions, including Cross­other fine Cultural Counseling (Baker) and the forthcoming Today s Choices for Tomorrow s Mission (Zondervan) faculty: • Pioneer of missiological thinking and cross-cultural strategies for 21 years at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School-which has one of the Robert E. Coleman, Ph .D . world's largest seminary missions programs J. Herbert Kane, Professor Emeritus Trinity Evangelical Divinity School offers the following degree John W. Nyquist, M.A., M.Div. programs in missions: Edward Rommen, D.Miss., Th.D . M.A.R. M.A. M.Div . Th.M. D.Miss. * William D. Taylor, Ph .D . Also the one-year Certificate Adjunct Professor Plus independent study courses and other continuing education Ruth A. Tucker, Ph .D . opportunities. 1ed w. Ward , Ed .D . Timothy M . Warner, Ed.D . *All doctoral work may be done in one-week seminars. Prerequisites: M.Div . (or equivalent) and 3 years ministry experience. for more information, return this coupon today; or call TRINITY EVANGELICAL our Admissions Office TOLL-FREE at 1-800-345-TEDS. m~~Y~F~~!X.~S!1~£~, Ia IL 60015

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Liberation Theology: The Essential Facts about the Revolutionary Movement in Latin America and Beyond. ByPhillip Berryman. OakIJark, Ill.:Meyer Stone Books, 1987. Pp. 231. Paperback $6.95.

This book may be the best introduction versant with the different streams of by the poor, the basic ecclesial com­ to Latin American theology of libera­ theologies of liberation in the United munities, the pastoral approach and the tion available today. We have some States, as reflected in his many reviews theological method, human rights, the monographic interpretations, such as and articles in Commonweal, America, moving context of liberation theology, Robert McAfee Brown's books on the and National Catholic Reporter, and he and the relationships among faith, pol­ subject, and the initial critical intro­ has published two important contem­ itics, and ideology. He deals with ob­ duction by the Protestant theologian porary books on Central America: The jections in a critical way and discusses from Latin America, Jose Miguez Bon­ Religious Roots of Rebellion and Inside points of contact with theologies of lib­ ino, thirteen years ago, entitled Doing Central America. eration (black, feminist, Chicano) in the Theology in a Revolutionary Situation Berryman wants to go "beyond United States. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975). the cliches" and to make intelligible the Berryman raises questions about There are also some IIevangelical" movement to a general public, draw­ the future of this type of theology, but responses, and some others that are ing on twenty years of his own expe­ in his own evaluation the issues of lib­ more polemical, apologetic, and even rience. He describes liberation theology eration theologies will not go away, and ideological reactions. The introduction as (1)an interpretation of Christian faith they may well represent a shift "as by Leonardo and Clovis Boff is good out of the suffering, struggle, and hope significant as the Protestant Reforma­ in terms of describing method and con­ of the poor; (2) a critique of society and tion, which began as a revolt against tent of theology of liberation, but noth­ the ideologies sustaining it; (3) a cri­ corrupt practices in the Roman Church, ing as informative and illustrative as tique of the activity of the church and and quickly became a new Bible-based Berryman's book. of Christians from the angle of the poor. theology and a new model of church" The author, a former priest, now It is also a biblical theology, out of ex­ (p.6). married, living with his wife and three perience with the Bible as a "mir­ One limitation of this work is that daughters in Philadelphia, spent eight ror" of life: "They understand the it deals only with Roman Catholic the­ years in a barrio in Panama (1965-73) Bible in terms of their experience and ology of liberation. Even though Prot­ and has served as Central American reinterpret that experience in terms of estant contributions may be only like representative of the American Friends biblical symbols" (p. 60). IIa footnote," still there needs to be Service Committee. Berryman is con- Berryman does it very well, pro­ written a book on Protestant theolog­ viding the historical background, ex­ izing during the past two decades in emplifying the points, identifying the Latin America. Another important Mortimer Arias,former bishop of theMethodist trends and their representatives, ana­ omission in Berryman's work is the Church in Bolivia, is President of the Latin lyzing the grounds of critics of libera­ roots of liberation theology in spiritu­ American Biblical Seminary in San Jose, Costa tion theology (including the famous ality, as is eloquently shown in Gus­ Rica. He is also the E. Stanley Jones Professor "instruction" written by Cardinal tavo Gutierrez's recent works We Drink of Mission and Evangelization at the School of Ratzinger from the Vatican on Leon­ from Our Own Wells, and On Job: God­ Theology, Claremont, California. He is the au­ ardo Boff's work) while dealing with talkand the Suffering of the Innocent. thorofThe Cry of My People and Announc­ the social and ecclesial matrix of this -Mortimer Arias ing the Reign of God. theologizing, the reading of the Bible

Strategies for Church Growth: tation of that task. He draws analogies Tools for Effective Mission and and support from the Bible, uses data Evangelism. from church growth around the world, and emphasizes the role of the Holy Spirit, but his perspective is task­ By C. Peter Wagner. Ventura, Calif.: Re­ oriented Western pragmatism. galBooks, 1987. Pp.213. Paperback $8.95. As such, the book is well done. It C. Peter Wagner is professor of church ison Avenue, and common sense. As­ is clear, direct, thoughtful, program- growth at the School of World Mission, suming and defending the position that Fuller Theological Seminary. The pres­ it is the responsibility of the church to William A. Smalley is an anthropological lin­ ent book is at least his tenth on church reproduce itself wherever research guist, formerly translation coordinator for the growth over the past ten years. shows that the "soil" is ready, United Bible Societies in theAsia-Pacific region, Strategies is a blend of evangelical Wagner lays out steps to the systematic and now working independently as a researcher theology, applied social science, Mad- and efficient planning and implemen­ and writer.

72 International Bulletin of Missionary Research matico It neatly delineates opposing At the same time, the book is not advertising copy. Which is not to imply positions and briefly supports the ones only very Western, but also geared to that any kind of person should be ex­ Wagner holds. Issues are presented in a cognitive style, which likes ideas and cluded from developing a strategy of broad principle, including the mean­ processes to be confined to neat com­ church growth, but simply that signif­ ing and significance of strategy, how partments and logical steps. This is not icant strategy at the highest level also to layout a strategy, how to get the a book for dreamers but for their as­ requires intellectual and spiritual syn­ kind of information you need to devise sistants, not for innovators but for im­ thesis. Of how to achieve such syn­ strategy and carry it out. Points are il­ plementers, not for prophets but for thesis, Strategies gives little hint. lustrated from studies of church growth. scribes; not for poets but for writers of -William A. Smalley

The Politics of Compassion. ical perspective. I found especially effective the author's contrasting lists ByJack Nelson-Pallmeyer. Maryknoll, N. Y.: of biblical values and contemporary Orbis Books, 1986. Pp. viii, 132. Paper­ policies. He is clear and concise, while back $8.95. not succumbing to a fundamentalist reading that would strain the credibil­ Newspaper headlines and evening tel­ velops what he calls "the logic of ity of his arguments. evision news can dull our compassion. the majorities," a biblical logic of suf­ Nelson-Pallmeyer, currently liv­ Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer's book can chal­ ficiency for the poor by which "the ing in Managua, Nicaragua, and work­ lenge us with fresh perspectives. In a integrity of economic systems and ing with a Lutheran educational project, style both disturbing and consoling, The priorities can be measured by assess­ acknowledges in the introduction that Politics of Compassion presents a pro­ ing our relationship to the poor and his book "was written for the non­ found analysis of the meaning of their well-being" (p. 35). The unfold­ poor by a non-poor person" (p. 4). Christian compassion in concrete ap­ ing of this logic provides a foundation, Much of his social analysis and theo­ plication to the problems of world hun­ for example, for the recent U.S. Cath­ logical reflection is not new. But it is ger, Central America, and the arms race. olic Bishops' Pastoral Letter on Eco­ extremely well organized and passion­ This book is particularly helpful in nomics. Nelson-Pallmeyer goes further ately presented. For this reason it can offering a consistent biblical perspec­ than the U.S. Catholic bishops, how­ serve very effectively to make the tive on social issues. The author de- ever, suggesting that the biblical per­ meaning of compassion-as old as the spective directly challenges the capitalist parable of the Good Samaritan-come system as hostile to biblical values and alive in the contemporary context. His Peter Henriot, a Jesuit political scientist, directs thus fatally flawed. concluding remarks on "hope and the Center of Concern, a Washington-based re­ About Central America and the compassionate action" are enough in search and educational center that focuses on arms race, The Politics of Compassion is themselves to recommend the book global justice and peace. He lived in Colombia similarly straightforward in confront­ highly. during 1976-77. ing United States policies from a bibl­ -Peter J. Henriot, S. J.

God the Evangelist: How the professor of evangelism at Columbia Holy Spirit Works to Bring Men Theological Seminary in Decatur, and Women to Faith. Georgia, is writing a handbook for pas­ tors and lay leaders of mainline churches. By David F. Wells. Grand Rapids, Mich., and Exeter, England: Eerdmans Publish­ Still, within these limitations the books are comparable. Johnson is ad­ ing Co., and Paternoster Press, 1987. Pp. dressing churches facing a declining xvi, 128. Paperback $6.95. membership and a confusion about the nature and urgency of evangelism; Rethinking Evangelism: A Wells is addressing a worldwide fel­ Theological Approach. lowship of churches active in evange­ lism, but confused about the role of the By Ben Campbell Johnson. Philadelphia, Holy Spirit in the spread of the gospel. Pa.: Westminster Press, 1987. Pp. 141. The one must address ambivalent feel­ Paperback $9.95. ings about the task of evangelism (twentieth-century clergy received a Reading these books together is at once theologians, even to note their consid­ "postcritical, non-imperialistic, neo­ gratifying and thought-provoking. It is erable agreement, yet sobering to con­ orthodox theology [that] contradicts the encouraging to see evangelism being template the differences that remain. traditional methodology they have ex­ addressed with this level of serious­ In a way it is unfair to compare perienced," p. 19, Wells); the other has ness by both evangelicals and mainline these books. David Wells, who is a to deal with imbalance in understand­ professor of theology at Gordon-Con­ ing the Spirit's work ("Confusion well, is partially reporting on a con­ about the Holy Spirit has produced ference on the work of the Holy Spirit confusion about Christian faith," p. 2, William A. Dyrness, Professor ofTheology, New in Evangelism held in Oslo, Norway, Johnson). College, Berkeley (California), previously a mis­ in 1985by the Lausanne Committee for Wells, then, is less concerned to sionary to the Philippines, is the authorof Let World Evangelization and the World define evangelism than to develop its the Earth Rejoice: A Biblical Theology of Evangelical Fellowship. Ben Johnson, biblical and historical basis, especially Holistic Mission.

April 1988 73 with reference to the role of the Holy is a part of the larger mission of the ological emphasis. Wells, for example, Spirit. After placing the discussion in church, "the total expression of wants to tie evangelism more strongly a world-mission perspective, he un­ Christ's concern for the world" (p. 78), to the historical work of Christ; John­ derlines the role of the Spirit in making which includes the total life and work son tempers this emphasis with an ap­ the gospel effective both in the early of the church. preciation of the more general work of church and in subsequent church his­ In both studies there is a welcome God in the world today. But still more tory, and in delivering people today emphasis on the context of evange­ striking is the difference in style of the from spiritual and cultural "pow­ lism: in Wells it is a worldwide context two. Wells's book is laced with calls to ers." (though he has helpful things to say recommitment and praise (and the ap­ Johnson makes more effort to pro­ about modern technological culture); pendices add practical notes of the role vide a theology of evangelism, with an in Johnson it is an American middle­ of Bible studies and worship in evan­ acknowledged influence of Tillich and class setting (his starting point is the gelism); Johnson must address more neo-orthodox theology. The role of the estrangement people feel in modern deep-seated issues and rebuild theo­ church is to re-present Christ to the urban life). Both want a more compre­ logical motivation for evangelism. Both world. Evangelism begins in this hensive witness: Wells notes that are valuable and important studies, and "community where Christ has cho­ "we cannot choose to have per­ illustrate the dual challenge the church sen to live" (p. 76), and is the work of sonal piety apart from social piety" faces today: to awaken churches to the whole body, a dimension of all its (p. 87); Johnson develops a helpful evangelism as well as to encourage activities aohnson and Wells alike stress model that allows for both nurtured churches already active. the centrality of the church in evan­ and dramatic conversion (see p. 102). -William A. Dyrness gelism). But evangelism, Johnson avers, There is clearly a difference of the­

Conflict and Context: Hermeneutics in the Americas. shocked to see how different are the Edited byMark Lau Branson and C. Rene views and emphases of professors Padilla. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans from "sound" institutions, as ex­ Publishing Co. 1986. Pp. xii, 323. Paper­ pounded in this volume (the profes­ back $13.95. sors may not be typical of their institutions). This controversial book is the product minster, Trinity, and Gordon-Conwell Perhaps the major theological in­ (almost transcript) of the significant seminaries, and so forth. sight in the book is contained in the conference in Tlayacapan, Mexico For many, undoubtedly, the sur­ first word of the title-"conflict"-be­ (1983), sponsored by the Inter-Varsity­ prise will be the extent to which the cause conflict is predominant in the his­ related Theological Students Fellow­ historic conservative evangelical the­ torical context of most biblical books. ship (TSF) and its sister organization, ological package is being radically This makes it difficult for middle-class the Latin America Theological Frater­ restructured (even in some strict iner­ readers to get a handle on the real nity. Editor Mark Lau Branson was then rantist circles)under the impact of third­ teaching, which is commonly spiri­ general secretary of the TSF (now dean world and liberation theologies, which tualized in Platonic fashion in order to of the Fellowship Bible Institute in San stress class conflict, the pervasive char­ make it seem more comfortably rele­ Francisco), and C. Rene Padilla is gen­ acter of oppression in human society, vant to the concerns in affluent eral secretary of the Fraternity and pas­ God's option for the poor and other suburbia. Jose Miguez Bonino once tor of La Lucilla Baptist Church in oppressed groups (women, blacks, im­ commented that the major heresy of Buenos Aires. Viewpoints represented migrants, indigenous peoples, aban­ first-world theology is not believing in in the work are those of evangelical doned children, etc.). Obviously, class conflict. professors from a wide variety of in­ significant differences of viewpoint are Both the general papers and the stitutions: dispensationalist, Southern expressed-in eloquent and at times study groups on biblical texts, as re­ as well as Conservative Baptist, West- heated debate-but overall the replace­ ported in this work, provide many in­ ment of the "five fundamentals" sights. However, in a technological with liberationist perspectives is rather society dominated by specialists, one Thomas D. Hanks serves with theLatinAmerica overwhelming. Those members of the fears that the interdisciplinary chal­ mission in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is the evangelical public that draw their lenge of such a book may be over­ author of God So Loved the Third World: worldview from establishment carica­ looked. The Biblical Vocabulary of Oppression. tures of third-world theologies may be -Thomas D. Hanks

Emissaries: The Overseas Work sionaries, they were termed "sec­ of the American YWCA, 1895­ retaries" and sought to distinguish 1970. themselves from missionaries. Evan­ gelism was not their primary mission, By Nancy Boyd. New York: The Woman's and as such they concentrated more Press. 1986. Pp. xv, 337. $18.95. openly on initiating social change. Yet the testimony of Ada Grabill spoke for Emissaries is an around-the-world and secretaries who worked alongside many, when she declared that her seventy-five-year chronological tour of women missionaries but with a slightly "sole motive in China is to show the YWCA (Young Women's Christian different purpose and focus. Though Christ" (p. 3). Unlike their missionary Association). It is the story of YWCA funded and commissioned like mis­ sisters, who were often under the au-

74 International Bulletin of Missionary. Research thority and watchful eye of male mis­ sion leaders, the women of the YWCA could aspire themselves to one day hold Go ye into all leadership positions. The women themselves are the most fascinating aspect of the book. the condominiums They served sacrificially but, like their missionary counterparts, were not im­ mune to controversy and scandal. Agnes Hill, the first YWCA secretary and preach the gospel. to go abroad, created a stir in India when, in 1910, it was reported that she had "gone off into the tongues movement." According to a witness, she was "prostrate on the floor, groaning and writhing . .. and speak­ ing in a delirium of exaltation" (p. 50). She was part of the worldwide Pen­ tecostal revival, and YWCA officials cautiously examined other foreign sec­ retaries, fearing the "enthusiasm" might spread. Other women stand out for their faith and courage. Grace Coppock left her home in Nebraska to sail alone to China-the lone woman and the only passenger on a freighter headed for Shanghai. Ruth Paxon conducted evangelistic meetings in various cities throughout China, with the coopera­ Vancouver, Chicago, Bangkok or Bogota. They're all tion of more than 700secondary schools. crowded with buildings, large and small, where people The inquirers were so numerous, she live. could not deal with them all. Caroline Smith was involved in feminists meet­ People who are lost, unloved and lonely. People with a ings, socialists groups, and labor rallies desperate need for Christ. in Mexico City. Nancy Boyd writes a highly read­ How can you reach them? What's the best way? able and well-documented book that Come, train with us. When it comes to courses in should be in the libraries of all church historians and students of the foreign Missions and Evangelism, we've been leading the way missionary movement. Boyd has also ever since we began! We'll show you how to reach out written Three Victorian Women Who biblically to people in a cross-cultural setting in a way Changed TheirWorldand is on the board you feel good about. of the International Division of the YWCA. Jesus has called us to share His love with others. To -Ruth A. Tucker find out all the ways we'll help you do this as you study for your Master of Divinity, Master of Religious Education, Master of Arts in Missiology or Master of Ruth A. Tucker, a contributing editor, is Vis­ Arts in Religion* (including our low fees and low iting Professor, Trinity Evangelical Divinity price for accommodation!) write or call for our free School. She is the authorof From Jerusalem to viewbook. Irian Jaya: A Biographical History of Chris­ tian Missions. * A Doctor of Ministry degree is also offered.

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April 1988 75 The Lost Empire: The Story of Unfortunately the folly and arrog­ the Jesuits in Ethiopia, 1555­ ance of Paez's successor, Alfonso 1634. Mendes, nearly eradicated Paez's suc­ cess. Mendes did not show apprecia­ By Philip Caraman. Notre Dame, Ind.: tion for the good qualities of Ethiopian Univ. ofNotreDame Press, 1985. Pp. viii, Orthodoxy. He wanted the emperor to 176. $16.95. declare publicly his conversion to Catholicism and to force Catholicism This is an interesting account of nearly churches, impact of Judaism on church on all the provinces. He increased the one hundred years of Jesuit mission in buildings, Sabbath observance, cir­ Jesuit presence. He reordained priests, Ethiopia. The principal actor in the cumcision, Jewish influence on rules for reconsecrated churches, installed Ro­ drama is a young Spanish Jesuit, Pedro cleanness or uncleanness and food reg­ man altars, rebaptized the faithful, Paez, whose missionary achievement ulations. He was critical of loose mor­ rearranged fasts and festivals, and for­ rivals that of Matteo Ricci in China. als on the part of the clergy and of bade circumcision. When opposition Paez sailed from northern India to ways in which primal religious cus­ increased he recommended conces­ Massawa. Disguised as an Armenian toms impacted daily life. Yet Paez sions, but it was too late. By 1633 the merchant, he made his way to the Ethi­ looked for what he could commend persecution of Catholics and the exclu­ opian emperor's court. His mission and had genuine admiration for cer­ sion of foreigners sealed off Ethiopia concentrated on the court, nobles, and tain traditions. Rather than proselyt­ from the West for the next century and persons of influence. ize, he used his diplomatic skills. a half. Paez mastered the language, de­ Instead of direct confrontation he en­ The Jesuit experience provides veloped appreciation for the culture, gaged people in discussion with the many lessons for contemporary mis­ and was sensitive to the customs and hope that the respective merits of Ethi­ siology-the need to respect cultures, beliefs of Ethiopian Orthodox Chris­ opian and Roman Christianity would the shape of communication, the im­ tians loyal to the Alexandrian faith. He become apparent. Paez understood the portance of learning as well as teach­ was very aware of unique Ethiopian pride of the Ethiopian church, which ing, the role of patience and traditions and ways in which they dif­ had preserved itself for eleven diplomacy, the encumbrance of polit­ fered from Roman Catholicism-mono­ hundred years against threats from ical alliances, the strength of indige­ physite doctrine, length and celebra­ hostile primal groupings and Muslims, nous religious nationalism, and the tion of Lent, feasts and fasts, the Eu­ and how the church had become iden­ vulnerability of foreigners. These are charist, baptismal customs, circular tified with Ethiopian nationality. Paez the dynamics that provide fascinating was admired by emperors for his in­ reading even for one not well ac­ tegrity and lack of interference in the quainted with the specifics of Ethio­ Calvin E. Shenk is Professor of Church Studies lives of people. When two of the em­ pian history. Philip Caraman, a Jesuit at Eastern Mennonite College in Harrisonburg, perors indicated their intention to be­ presently located in Rome and contrib­ Virginia. Previously heserved fourteen years as come Roman Catholic, Paez impressed uting to an encyclopedia of Jesuit his­ a missionary in Ethiopia and did his doctoral upon them the need for caution in their tory, has done an excellent job. dissertation on the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. public statements. -Calvin E. Shenk

The Third Force in Missions: A equals the proclamation of the gospel" (p. 150): "Pentecostals do not have Pentecostal Contribution to a concern for social issues" (p. 151). Contemporary Mission While Pomerville does an excel­ Theology. lent job of identifying issues, his con­ clusions betray a faulty understanding By Paul A. Pomerville. Peabody, Mass.: of Pentecostalism. Since the Assem­ Hendrickson Publishers, 1985. Pp. xii, blies of God is "the largest of the 208. Paperback $9.95. American Pentecostal bodies," he con­ siders it "as a microcosm of the Pen­ Pentecostalism has become an impor­ tals moved from this excessive word­ tecostal Movement as a whole" (p. tant factor in the contextualization of and concept-centered approach by 168). Mission work becomes those ac­ Christianity in the third world and in adding the experimental in a dynamic tivities carried out by a mission board, overcoming the colonialism associated incarnation of the Word communi­ and evaluations can be based there. with missions. Its theology contributes cated nonverbally through deeds. Mis­ Pentecostalism is a renewal movement to freedom from Western domination. sion changes from just telling by within evangelicalism, "differing lit­ Pomerville has made a masterful at­ including doing, and theology incor­ tle from therestofevangelicalismin mat­ tempt to identify factors supporting porates the practical in a move away ters of basic Christian belief" (p. 4). this transformation. from the scholastic science of Protes­ For him the Charismatic movement is Pomerville goes to the heart of the tantism (p. 67). Mission moves from "Neo-Pentecostalism." issue by identifying the rationalistic just the obedience of a command to This narrow perspective manifests base of evangelicalism's "Western include an inner motivation of the itself in Pomerville's bibliography. scholastic theology" coming out of a Holy Spirit (p. 70). Missing are studies by social scientists Western worldview (p. 24). Pentecos­ Pomerville makes the kingdom of such as Lalive d'Epinay's Haven of the God central. He sees in it a tension Masses, Willems's Followers of the New between a Great-Commission mandate Faith, and Gerlack and Hines's People, W.Winston Elliott is Associate Professor ofMis­ and the cultural mandate of conciliar Power, Change: Movements of Social siology andDirector ofResearch, California The­ theologies. He concludes that "Pen­ Transformation, which reject his asser­ ological Seminary, Fresno, California. tecost confirms that the Kingdom tion that Pentecostals are unconcerned

76 International Bulletin of Missionary Research about social issues (p. 151). dissertation. Wimber and his Power ology or mission needs greater Pomerville identifies "power en­ Evangelism must be considered in a breadth. counter" but ignores the "signs and Pentecostal mission theology. -W. Winston Elliott wonders" issue currently important at Pomerville identifies the critical is­ Fuller Seminary where he wrote this sues, but an adequate Pentecostal the-

Black and African Theologies: Siblings or Distant Cousins?

ByJosiah U. Young. Maryknoll, N.Y. :Or­ It is somewhat disappointing, but bis Books, 1986. Pp. xiii, 146. Paperback understandable, that the final chapter $12.95. evades the critical question of the method and substance of the Pan­ During the 1970s a potentially explo­ After examining the arguments and African theology envisioned. But Young sive dialogue, largely unnoticed by the hopes and fears on both sides, Young makes clear his commitment to future white religious press, developed be­ guardedly concludes that the two the­ collaboration between black American tween Afro-American and African ologies are indeed siblings when their and African theologies on the basis of Christians over the relevance of liber­ kinship produces grounds upon which a common concern for the poor and ation theology for their respective sit­ they can stand together, but until then oppressed, whether in the slums of La­ uations. Josiah U. Young, who teaches they must be considered "distant gos and Nairobi or Mississippi and the religion at Colgate University, has cousins" who almost reached the kiss­ South Bronx. written the first detailed analysis of that ing stage and drew back. Obviously Most readers will be enlightened conversation in this second volume of the genealogical metaphors are too in­ by this first effort of a brilliant young the Orbis series: the Bishop Henry flexible to carry the complex realities he black theologian and will agree with McNeal Turner Studies in North wants to probe. It soon becomes evi­ him that the theological and ecclesial American Black Religion. It deserves dent that he has on his hands the awk­ enterprise he proposes, for all its dif­ wide reading both here and abroad be­ ward argument that under certain ficulties, would be well worth the ef­ cause Young has exposed the little­ conditions cousins can really become fort. understood problems of and possibil­ sibs. -Gayraud Wilmore ities for an enduring alliance between religious scholars in the North Amer­ ican diaspora and their counterparts in black Africa-with crucial implications for the future of third-world ecumen­ ism. CHALLENGES FOR THE CHURCH The author's revisitation of the more than 200-year-relationship be­ __THE _ tween black churches in Africa and the New World, and the antecedents of black theological thought on opposite sides of the Atlantic, provides a nec­ essary backdrop for auditing the dia­ TEEPLE'S logue as it climaxed in the late 1970s between scholars like John Mbiti, Des­ mond Tutu, E. W. Fashole-Luke, Harry Sawyerr, Burgess Carr, and Allan Boe­ SHADOW sak in Africa, and James Cone, Major On the Myths and Realities Jones, J. D. Roberts, Cecil Cone, Jac­ ofSecularization How the Holy Spirit Works to Bring Men and Women queline Grant, and Charles Long in the to Faith United States. Young sees the basic problem as the difference between conflicting goals of an African theology DAVID LYON DavidF We/b- that seeks the indigenization of Chris­ In a society that emphasizes Combining insights from theologians forecasting, planning, and and pastors working in the First, tianity in cultures still impregnated by management, is there still room for African traditional religions, and those Second, and Third Worlds , this book prayer, reliance on God, and good is a testimony to the power of God's of black theology in the United States stewardship? In this book Lyon Word to unite people of different and South Africa, which would dem­ argues that by developing a clear languages and cultures. It will appeal onstrate that the gospel is commen­ picture of the social world, Christians to clergy and serious readers surate with black liberation. can understand both its challenges interested in seeing the gospel and its opportunities,and can preached authentically in the determine for themselves what the modem world. place of religion should be in today's Paper, $6.95 world. Gayraud Wilmore is Dean and Professor ofAfro­ Paper, $9.95 American Religious Studies at New York The­ ological Seminary, New York City. He is the your boobtore., orwritc. author of Black Religion and Black Radical­ 720 I~WM.B. EERDMANS PuBLISIllNG CO. ism: An Interpretation of the Religious His­ _ :lss JEFFERSON AVE. S.E. / GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN 49S03 tory of Afro-American People.

April 1988 77 Christian Reconstruction: The American Missionary in its limited attempts to establish vi­ Association and Southern Blacks, able congregations. This failure may 1861-1890. have resulted from several factors. Ed­ ucation did not exist for blacks prior to By Joe M. Richardson. Athens, Ga.: Univ. the 1860s, but the black church did ex­ ofGeorgia Press, 1986. Pp. ix, 348. $30.00. ist. There was also a reluctance of AMA leaders to depart from their primary "Black Education in the South" goals about equality of the American focus, which was education. A more would have been a more descriptive Missionary Association (AMA) and its basic reason may have been that title of this book, since it deals pri­ opposition to racial prejudice, the AMA "The church represented for blacks marily with black education and not was guilty of considerable paternalism not only their religion, but also their with Christianity. Nevertheless, the toward blacks. Although the AMA's independence. Only in the church did book is an important contribution about contributions to black education were they have autonomy. Only in [the black] a period of American history not yet unparalleled, its missionaries suffered church did they meet with no white fully understood. from the failure of "correlating the interference" (p. 158). The author has documented the right to be free with the right to be Some persons may ignore this book fact that in spite of the lofty ideals and different" (p. 14). because of its title; however, it is es­ In spite of the shortcomings of sential reading for anyone desirous of some AMA missionaries, AMA's com­ understanding the origins of black ed­ mitment to black education was un­ ucation in the south. The book is also J. Oscar McCloud is Executive Director, theFund questionable. This was evidenced when important for persons interested in for Theological Education, New York City. He Congregational Church leaders sought world mission and who want better to is a nativeof Georgia and received his primary, AMA's involvement in establishing understand the American attitude out secondary, and college education in the south. churches along with schools. While of which the "foreign" missionary For fourteen years he was the general director, AMA was successful in establishing enterprise of the 1860s developed. theProgram Agency, Presbyterian Church (USA). numerous schools for blacks, it failed -J. Oscar McCloud

The Gospel Is Not Western: Christianity and politics Melanesian Black Theologies from the style. Southwest Pacific. John Kadiba suggests that "The task of searching for a systematic Mel­ Edited byG. W. Trompf. Maryknoll, N. Y.: anesian theology has not even begun Orbis Books, 1987. Pp. ix, 213. Paperback in Melanesia." But, he adds with en­ $17.95. couragement, "We have started to think theologically, at least in a limited Orbis Books is to be commended for tions to the field of black theology. We way" (p. 139). And this is precisely the its first publication featuring the voices are then given a smorgasbord of per­ value of these essays, for we see un­ of Melanesians and Australian Aborig­ spectives, organized into the following folding before us theology in the mak­ ines as they struggle to understand and five "courses" with the "meat" ing. Some readers will be profoundly act on the meaning of Christian faith coming in the fourth part: (I) Intro­ moved by the depth of spiritual insight in the dynamic arena of the Southwest duction, (II) Christianity versus Tra­ found here, but others will be angered Pacific. Gary Trompf, head of the De­ dition? (III) The Impact of Indigenous with the laxity in which some "he­ partment of Religious Studies at the Tradition on Emergent Black Theolo­ retical" ideas or practices are baptized University of Sydney and frequent lec­ gies, (IV) Theological Horizons and as "Christian." In place of system­ turer at the University of Papua New Adjustments, (V) Politics, Tradition, atic rigor we find spontaneity and Guinea, has done a splendid job in and Christianity. freshness of approach, but I believe in bringing theological, cultural, and geo­ The issues addressed in these es­ every case that we see an authentic graphic balance to this collection of es­ says include the fulfillment of tradi­ struggle to take seriously both the con­ says, the ma.jority of which emanated tional culture in Christianity, crete situation and the claims of Christ from a conference in Brisbane in 1981. confronting a lingering colonial influ­ as these Christian sisters and brothers Trompf opens with an introduc­ ence and neo-colonial ideologies, ap­ grapple with important issues. tion mapping the terrain geographi­ plying Christian faith to felt needs, the This book is a winner, and so it is cally and historically and gives us an meaning of contemporary religious with a hearty endorsement that I rec­ intellectual framework into which can movements, the role of ancestors and ommend it to all students of missiology be put the twenty authors' contribu- other spirits, sacredness of land and and especially to those with interests community, healing and spiritual in the South Pacific. power, indigenous forms of worship, -Darrell Whiteman Darrell Whiteman teaches missiological anthro­ women in ministry, the "foreign­ pology in the E. Stanley Jones School of World ness" of Christianity, problems of Mission and Evangelism at Asbury Theological nominal faith and practice, facing the Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. He has had impact of modernization on Pacific research and mission experience in Central Af­ communities, concretizing the king­ rica and in Melanesia where he served on the dom of God in Melanesian contexts, staff of the ecumenical Melanesian Institute re­ struggles for independence in Irian Jaya searching issues of Christianity and culture. and New Caledonia, and the mixing of

78 International Bulletin of Missionary Research All for Jesus: God at Work in the versity speak eloquently of what men Christian and Missionary and women are able to achieve when Alliance over One Hundred energized by biblical faith and impor­ Years. tunate in their prayer for the empow­ ering of God in their lives. Indeed, the By Robert L. Niklaus, John S. Sawin, and Alliance has been and continues to be Samuel J. Stoesz, Camp Hill, Pa. : Chris­ one of the most significant evangelical tian Publications, 1986. Pp. xiii, 322. No contributions to the evangelization of price indicated. the world. Today its missionaries serve in more than 50 countries, use more The pseudo-sophisticated may pick up the atonement. His evangelistic min­ than 230 languages, broadcast more this book, note its title, All for Jesus, istry became increasingly more wide­ than 400 weekly radio programs, cur­ and then put it down, feeling that here ranging and interdenominational, then rently are training more than 15,000 for is just another bit of mission hagiog­ mission-oriented, and finally resulted Christian service, and publish an­ raphy clothed in the evangelical piety in the formation of a worldwide send­ nually more than 66 million pages of of a generation ago. But when one re­ ing agency. When this mission struc­ Christian literature-all with the back­ flectson the sheerstatistical significance ture began to spin off lateral ing of a steadily growing worldwide of the Christian and Missionary Alli­ organizations, particularly a mission­ community of more than 2,200,000 ance (C&MA) celebrating this year ary training institution, there was no people. (1987) its centennial, as well as the reversing its two-pronged momen­ This "missionary" denomination Widespread impression that it is a very tum-at home and abroad. What is known for its sacrificial giving and mature and well-led operation, one eventuated was a new Protestant de­ its capacity for launching forward should conclude that this book must nomination: the Christian and Mis­ movements despite contrary "signs be a serious study. Which indeed it is! sionary Alliance. of the times" (e.g., the refusal to re­ Actually, this is of the order of an of­ It is a fascinating story. One is im­ trench in the darkest period of the Great ficial history. Three able men with long pressed by the quality of men and Depression). Its evangelical commit­ years of varied experience in the C&MA women who were drawn to Simpson ment to Scripture has cost dearly. When were authorized jointly to produce a and who devoted their lives to fulfill­ leaders agreed that the apostles neither popular study that would be candid in ing his dreams. Administrators, reviv­ encouraged nor forbade speaking in its evaluations and restrained in its en­ alists, "Victorious Life" teachers, tongues, Pentecostal friends and thusiasms. And they have admirably educators, field missionaries, and mis­ churches withdrew en masse. When succeeded. sionarystrategists-their qualityand di­ Simpson's views on healing led to un- Since I am personally indebted to the Alliance for shaping the missionary concern of my wife, Alice, I am partic­ ularly grateful for the opportunity to produce this review. I hold this move­ Understanding the Atonement for the Mission ment in highest esteem. One of the strengths of the book ofthe Church is the pattern of commencing each of What difference does a radical evangelical approach to the the successive periods within Alliance atonement make in the way the church sees its mission? history with a brief backdrop of the larger North American evangelical ex­ John Driverrejects the classical viewsof atonement as not perience-the ups and downs-that adequately reflecting the rich and varied imagery that the challenged and shaped Albert B. Simp­ Bible offers. son, the founder of the C&MA, his fol­ Paper, $19 .95, in Canada $27.95 lowers, and their expanding vision. These reminders of the larger, chang­ ing scene provide a sense of the dy­ Jesus Christ Our Lord: Christology from a namic. They not only help sustain one's interest in the carefully documented Disciple's Perspective JES US CUB IST record of a movement in search of its C. Norman Kraus, writing in the Japanese context , n UB l.0 1l1) self-identity, but also stimulate reflec­ challenges some of the unwarranted claims of orthodoxy tion on its vicissitudes and gathering from a consistent and rigorous biblicalposition . One of his momentum. most significant contributions is the development of the idea All for Jesus begins with the story that shame and alienation, rather than guilt, control our of A. B. Simpson, a young Canadian interpretation of God 's vicarious action on our behalf. Kraus Presbyterian, dominated by a desire to provides a more comprehensive biblicalvision of salvation serve Jesus Christ and a concern for than is typical of traditional Western theologies and the renewal of Presbyterians. His per­ delineates a discipleship which is authentic without being legalistic. sonal pursuit of God led to a concern Paper, $19.95, in Canada $27.95 for holiness reinforced by the convic­ tion that physical health is included in Herald Press books are available through your local bookstore or write to Herald Press (include 10% for shipping) .

Arthur F. Glasser is Dean Emeritus and Senior Herald Press Herald Press Dept.IBMR Dept.lBMR Professor of Theology and East Asian Studies, 616 Walnut Avenue 117 KingStre et West School of World Mission, Fuller Theological Scottdale, PA 15683-1999 Kitchener , ON N2G 4M5 Seminary, Pasadena, California .

April 1988 79 fortunate excesses by certain Alliance doctrinaire dispensationalists. Hancehas been somewhat criticized for missionaries and involved him in con­ As I read this eminently readable not significantly exposing itself to the siderable controversy, he showed him­ history, my faith was strengthened. But wider concerns of many churches out­ self capable of true dialogue. He did on one point I became wistful. Simp­ side the Alliance-particularly the not withdraw from publicly affirming son was concerned that this movement struggle for social justice that inheres that "God heals His sick and suf­ would be "a catalyst that would in the gospel. It is true that the struggle fering children when they can fully trust work primarily within existing for social justice-whether against Him." But he went on to state that churches." However, under the brief apartheid in Africa or the caste system "no one should act precipitately or leadership of Paul Rader shortly after in India or oligarchic exploitation in presumptuously in this matter, or World War I, it stood aloof from lib­ Latin America or racism and consum­ abandon natural remedies unless they eralism's assault on the Bible and to erism in the United States-i-has not come have an intelligent, scriptural, and un­ some gave the appearance of a within the circle of the Alliance's self­ questioning trust in Him alone and "come out movement." Whereas understanding and mission obedience. really know Him well enough to touch some of its leaders tended to succumb Even so, the Alliance has no small sense Him in living contact as their Healer." to the heresy that Christians should of social responsibility. It has poured As a result, Alliance missionaries are separate from Christians with whom personnel and funds into serving the "wholly free to use or not to use they seriously disagree, the Alliance destitute in refugee camps in Thailand medical aid as they are led of the Lord largely assumed the posture of North and Lebanon through medical, detox­ and can individually trust Him." Be­ American evangelical denominations ification, language acquisition, and cause of the high priority assigned to by becoming active in the EFMA and other programs. Its famine relief in Mali evangelism, however, the Alliance at the NAE, and remained outside the and Burkina Faso has been notable. In first was slow to initiate formal medical circleof both the National and the World their own self-effacing way, churches ministries. Its leaders observed that Council of Churches' activity. The Al­ identified with the Alliance are truly when missions became overly encum­ liance has not deliberately involved it­ salt in the earth as well as lights in the bered with institutional medical ser­ self in working for the expressed unity world. And because of the present vice, they tended to cut back evangelistic of all the people of God. In the 1960s C&MA concentration on 49 theological outreach. This sense of evangelistic the WCC was stereotyped as unwor­ schools and 299 Theological Education priority has been vigorously main­ thy of serious involvement, and this by Extension centers, this movement tained. Furthermore, because the Al­ stance has remained to the present, de­ has a bright future in the ongoing mis­ liance has not deviated in the slightest spite the upsurge in evangelical con­ sionary purpose of God. from Simpson's conviction that world cern within the WCC since the -Arthur F. Glasser evangelization is the prerequisite to replacement of Philip Potter by Emilio Christ's return, this has alienated many Castro at its helm. As a result, the AI-

God's New Envoys: A Bold lay people enrolled in the ranks of clergy StratelY for Penetrating but under cover of secular employ­ "Closed Countries." ment. The new requirement of tent­ makers needs a biblical exposition of By Tetsunao Yamamori. Portland, Ore.: lay ministry as important in its own Multnomah Press, 1987. Pp. 190. Paper­ right, to empower all lay persons in the back $7.95. body of Christ for mission. How would evangelicals react to a The director of Food for the Hungry, with the highest percentage of Chris­ book that unashamedly promoted the Tetsunao Yamamori, sees a vital role tians and on the work of a Western importation of Islamic fundamentalist for "tentmaker, non-professional development worker. No considera­ clergy into the United States or Eu­ ministries" in "closed or restricted tion is given to the work and witness rope, under the guise of "guest access countries" replacing profes­ of well-founded and effective Chris­ workers" in industry, for the purpose sional missionaries who are not ac­ tian churches and organizations in the of converting the indigenous popula­ corded visas. He focuses on people area, or their own outstanding leaders. tion? To avoid offense in the target involved in relief, refugee, and devel­ The planned 1989 Lausanne Con­ group, such a book would have to opment ministries. He offers his own ference will focus partly on such tent­ demonstrate that such people shared particular definition of the relation of maker ministries. In addressing the the best aspirations of the indigenous such social ministries to evangelism: relationship between their social min­ population. This book fails to present they are symbiotic-functionally sepa­ istries and evangelism, no account has that case. Thus I worry as to the re­ rated and yet related. been taken of the CRESRstatement on action it might promote among gov­ This book still remains within the Evangelism and Social Responsibility ernments and leaders in such orbit of the Western missionary culture and the Wheaton 1983 statement on "restricted-access" countries against in two-thirds-world countries. The place Transformation. With a doctorate in the Christian churches there if they be­ of professional missionaries as mis­ sociology, the author yet does not dis­ lieve that the government's expressed sionary heroes has been taken by cuss the social or cultural dimensions desires are to be flouted in deviousways Western development workers. One of poverty, or the addressing of the with no obvious benefit to their own case study focuses on the area of India gospel to groups and cultures who people. produce oppression that produces ref­ -Chris Sugden ugees. This book signals that some Chris Sugden, Registrar, Oxford Centre for evangelicals seem determined to rein­ Mission Studies, Oxford, England, served in vent the wheel on evangelism and so­ India asassistant toVinaySamuel in Bangalore, cial action. 1977-1983. Yamamori's tentmakers are really

80 International Bulletin of Missionary Research Toward a Jewish Theology of Pastoral Counseling across Liberation. Cultures.

By Marc H. Ellis. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis By David W. Augsburger. Philadelphia, Books, 1987. Pp. xii, 147. Paperback $9.95. Pa.: Westminster Press, 1986. Pp. 405. $21.95. Marc Ellis is a Jewish faculty member at Maryknoll directing the Institute for David Augsburger has competently and nocentric character of much, if not all, Justice and Peace. He joins the grow­ courageously tackled pastoral coun­ parish and professional pastoral coun­ ing number of writers influenced by the seling's central problem in Pastoral seling as taught and practiced in the Holocaust and its implications for the­ Counseling across Cultures. In addition West. And, beyond this helpful cri­ ology. He has been considering the to engaging the complex problems of tique of Western modes of pastoral Christian theology of liberation during counseling across cultural frames, counseling, Augsburger provides a his time at a Catholic seminary and his Augsburger explicitly exposes the eth- theoretical framework that generates assessments of the various liberation theologies and Jewish responses is in­ teresting. FOUNDATION To begin, Ellisreviews what is now well-troddenground-thetraumaticef­ fect of the Holocaust on Jewish think­ ing. He quotes extensively from Jewish writers who have written on this sub­ ject. His chapter on Jewish Renewal Movements is typical of liberal Amer­ CHRIST OUTSIDE THE GATE ican Judaism, which would not nec­ Mission Beyond Christendom essarily appeal to segments of the Orlando E. Costas Jewish community worldwide. On lib­ "The most succinct, yet comprehensive analysis of the missiological issues facing eration theology Ellis explores its roots the church and the churches that has ap­ in the exodus story and its dependence peared in many years."-ALAN NEELY, on the biblical account of God's deal­ Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary ings with the Jewish people. The actual FOR MISSION Paper 114.95 personal experiences of those who suf­ fer under hard-line tyrannies today THE BIBLICAL FOUNDATIONS ONE FAITH, MANY CULTURES match those suffered by Jews in Eu­ Inculturation, Indigenization and FOR MISSION that in Donald Senior, CP and rope. He points out, however, Contextualization Carroll Stuhlmueller, CP spite of this debt to the Jewish origins Boston Theological Institute, Ruy Costa, editor "They combine high standards of bibli­ of liberation concepts, this theology cal scholarship with a deep pastoral con­ In this first co-publication of Orbis-BTI, cern for the church's mission. No course gives little place to the Jews as a peo­ sixteen Protestant and Catholic theolo­ ple, who still have a covenant with God on New Testament theology, Ecclesiol­ gians illuminate the role played by social, ogy, or Missiology can do without this and a continuing witness to make to political, and cultural circumstances in volume." shaping responses to the gospel. Paper S16.95 the world. Paper S10.95 Cloth S23.95 Jews, accustomed to historic pow­ erlessness, now find a powerful State CONFUCIUS, THE BUDDHA, Thomas P. Fenton and of Israel using methods that would AND CHRIST Mary J. Heffron, eds. previously have been condemned by A History of the Gospel in Chinese AFRICA most Jews. The realization that Jews Ralph R. Covell A Directory of Resources "This long-awaited book ... is the most when given power can misuse it as perceptive study to date of Christianity's ASIA AND PACIFIC Gentiles so often have, has come as long evolution from foreign religion to A Directory of Resources something of a shock to many. Ellis Chinese faith."-P. RICHARD BOHR, FOOD, HUNGER, Midwest China Center AGRIBUSINESS tries to come to terms with this and Paper S16.95 appeals for "an emerging Jewish A Directory of Resources theology of liberation which will mean EASTERN ORTHODOX MISSION LATIN AMERICA AND a revival of the prophetic and the pur­ THEOLOGY TODAY CARIBBEAN James J. Stamoolis A Directory of Resources suit of liberation." This would mean a Foreword by John Meyendorff change of attitude in Israel. WOMEN IN THE THIRD WORLD "A valuable survey of the principles and A Directory of Resources -Walter Barker insights which penetrate the missionary efforts and thoughts of the Orthodox 160 pages, Paper '9.95 each Church ... "-BISHOP ANASTASIOS YANNOULATOS, WCC Paper S18.95 WalterBarker is an ordained Anglicanminister and served as a missionary in Egypt. For fifteen THE MISSIONARY AND years he was director of The Church's Ministry THE DIVINER At bookstores I Write for catalog amongthe Jews, and is now Minister-at-Large. Michael C. Kirwen ORBISBOOKS A delightfully different book on interreli­ • gious dialogue, this volume is an actual Maryknoll, NY 10545 record of dialogue between two fellow 1-800-258-5838 searchers (an African diviner and a West­ In NY: 914-941-7590 X 477 ern missionary) genuinely struggling with universal life issues. Orbis Books is represented to the trade Paper $9.95 Cloth $19.95 by Abingdon Press

April 1988 81

------~- suggestions concerning possible solu­ who counsels, in whatever context in problem. And, as Clinebell aptly notes tions to the cultural encapsulation of whatever culture. in the Foreword, "Such a perspec­ pastoral counseling in the West. Hence The central problemthatafflicts and tive . . . can expand our cultural ho­ the value of this book far exceeds the contaminates both parish and profes­ rizons and enable us [pastoral topic that the title suggests, and it sional pastoral counseling in Western counselors] to take another step to­ should be read by any and every pastor cultures, and the compelling reason ward fuller liberation from the uncon­ why such counseling is not easily or scious ethnocentrism that makes us effectively usable across cultural frames, captive to our culture-bound sociali­ is the cultural encapsulation of pastoral zation and values"(p. 7). John E. Hinkle, [r., Professor of Pastoral Psy­ counseling as it is taught and learned Augsburger states the problem chology and Counseling at Garrett-Evangelical in seminaries and training institutes in with characteristic candor on p. 18. He Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois, was the West. Augsburger brings a global writes, "One who knows but one a United Methodist missionary in Mindanao, transcultural perspective to bear on the culture knows no culture." He sees very Philippines from 1960 to 1964. clearly that culture is an environment of the self, and that the self is originally developed as a self-in-culture. In the language of systems theory he contin­ ues, "... the culturally encapsu­ Research Works for Mission lated counselor is fused to the culture of origin, with no distinct boundary Let the International Bulletin of Missionary Research between self and society." But, "The work for you. culturally effective counselor has dif­ ferentiated a self from the culture of "It's tbe journal I read first. " origin with sufficient perceiving, "Tbose who -Paul E. Pierson, Dean thinking, feeling, and reflecting free­ believe in the School of World Mission dom to recognize when values, views, Fuller Theological Seminary Christian assumptions, and preferences rise from an alternate life experience" (p. 23). mission have "Tbe most distinguished journal Although Augsburger is clear about many tasks, in its field. " the pervasive and insidious nature of but their first -George Hunter, Dean the problem of ethnocentrism for pas­ task is to School of World Mission toral counselors, he readily acknowl­ ~l·~~,l\cSCtlrcb and Evangelism of ~ 1881'"-- ~ think!". edges the difficulties involved in Asbury Theological Seminary - Elton Trueblood resolving it, and notes that "the most we [pastoral counselors] can achieve is Join thousands of subscribers worldwide "Tbe best source for research on mission issues." a deepened awareness of our ethno­ who keep up-to-date on the latest centrism and some appreciable degree -Joan Chatfield, M.M. developments in world mission through of liberation from our unconscious and Institute for Religion and quarterly reports in the International conscious programming toward cul­ Social Change Bulletin. Here's a sampling of what you'll tural superiority" (p. 24). find: "Tbe most comprehensive The theological dimensions of the • Annual statistical survey by publication to keep abreast of volume are both helpful and essential David Barrett mission in and to six to Augsburger's treatment of the topic. • Reports from significant mission continents. " Theological reflections provide both conferences -Thomas F. Stransky substance and frame for each chapter • Update on mission issues in all six Paulists theme. Chapter themes include dis­ continents cussions of cultural variability in terms • Profiles of missionary leaders HOne of my truly indispensable of feelings (anxiety, shame, and guilt), values and worldviews, comparisons • Book reviews and current book notes resources. " -Ronald Taylor, Exec. Dir. of the unique and universal, moral de­ • Checklists of mission periodicals American Baptist velopment and the sense of control, • Dissertation notices International Ministries individualistic and communal themes, • Bibliographies alternative ways of understanding and trea ting demonic possession, cultural Discover how vital the International Bulletin is to your mission. Stay informed. determinants and variations in defin­ Subscribe today! ing what is mentally healthy and what rIM~~heCkP~bl~nd~ilro~---D~~~~~~~~ed-1 is pathological, and the presentation of ten universal metaphors for counsel­ INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN about world mission. Begin my ing and therapy from a cross-cultural I OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH subscription to IBMR for the perspective. I Circulation Department term indicated. Reading the book was for this re­ I PO. Box 1308-E D One year, 4 issues $14 viewer an intense and instructive ex­ I Fort Lee, New jerse 07024-1308 U.S.A. D Two years, 8 issues $26 Y D Three years, 12 issues $37 perience. The pages are packed with I PLEASE PRINT an interesting mix of story, theory, and Please allow 4 to 6 weeks for delivery I Name of first issue. case vignettes. Each chapter begins with a story from a different cultural con­ I Address FREE POSTAGE WORLDWIDE text. The stories are a constant re­ I City 0 New subscription 0 Renewal minder to the reader of the multicultural I State/Zip 0 Payment enclosed world in which we live and provide L~~~ DBill~~~~nl~ ~ examples of some of the ways others

82 International Bulletin of Missionary Research have of looking at things that make burger keeps the reader reminded of not, who reads this book with care will sense to them, but are strikingly dif­ the context in which the book is set. benefit. Guaranteed! ferent from our own. In this way Augs- Any pastoral counselor, missionary or -John E. Hinkle, Jr.

John Philip (1775--1851): white settlers, and with British offi­ Missions, Race and Politics in cials. His representation to British par­ South Africa. liamentarians that led to the 1828 Ordinance giving to the Hottentots By Andrew Ross. Aberdeen, Scotland: Ab­ equality with other peoples in the Cape erdeen Univ. Press, 1986. Pp. ix, 249. No was short-lived . But he persisted in price indicated. fighting for a free press, opposing much of the native policies, and fight­ John Philip of nineteenth-century Dutch-Afrikaners into the interior ing for the right of black peoples to South Africa is representative of evan­ away from British rule (1838 onward). have their own land tenure. gelicals to whom the gospel has bear­ The author, Andrew Ross, who min­ John Philip died a tired and sad ing on all of life and society, and who istered in Malawi for eight years before man, and the question is still asked are committed to achieving racial and returning to Scotland, corrects a view why his efforts were not more suc­ social justice for all peoples. Not only that it was the Afrikaner who was the cessful. Though John Philip is dead his was John Philip a controversial figure root of the injustices in South Africa at faith still speaks, and whenever the in his time, he continues to be a the time. He shows that John Philip's character and spirit of this "Elijah "bogey man" to white apartheid controversies were largely due to the of South Africa" confronts contempo­ leadership, when threatened by British settlers, who were propagating rary political leadership in that coun­ prophetic voices in South Africa that a new philosophy of progress and civ­ try, one hears the retort, "Don't do contend for equal rights and common ilization as belonging only to the white a Philip on us!" Evangelical faith recognition for all peoples in repre­ races, with the blacks and browns the should take heart from this book of re­ sentative government in that land. dependencies of this so-called law of flective propheticism for our time, and John Philip arrived in the Cape on nature. address the socioethical issues affect­ the eve of the arrival of the British set­ John Philip opposed a form of im­ ing all peoples in any given society. tlers (1820) and the Great Trek of the perial expansionism that started a long -John N. Jonsson history of 150 years of progressive de­ velopmentalism, perpetuating black dependency on white leadership, and resisting black participation in legisla­ John N. Jonsson is Professor of Missions and tive and judicial decision-making in WorldReligions at Southern Baptist Theological South Africa. In this John Philip Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky. clashed with fellow missionaries, with

Confucius, the Buddha, and Christ: A History of the Gospel in Chinese.

By Ralph R. Covell. Maryknoll, N. Y.: Orbis Books, 1986. Pp. xv, 285. Paperback $14.95.

Christianity has been known by China and Taiwan (1955-66), probes the long for nearly 1,400 years . Yet, until quite years of history for answers to these recently, it has always been known as questions in this authoritative and fas­ a "foreign religion ." Why? In spite cinating book on the relationships be­ of massive, heroic, and sacrificial at­ tween Christ and culture in China. tempts by missionaries of many per­ The purpose of the book is to ana­ suasions, the number of adherents has lyze the different attempts to bring the been quite small. Why? Ralph Covell, Christian faith and Chinese culture to­ academic dean and professor of world gether in order to help the Christian missions at Denver Conservative Bap­ church understand the Chinese mind tist Seminary, editor of Missiology, and and Chinese society. In successive aller. energy former missionary in China (1946-51) chapters the efforts of the Nestorians, basic building the Jesuits, the early Protestant mis­ sionaries, Taiping "Christians," and G. Thompson Brown is China Liaison for the Chinese theologians are evaluated. At­ Divisionof International Mission, Presbuterian tempts to relate Christianity to the Church (U.S.A.), and Associate Professor of mystical Dao of Buddhism, the ethics WorldChristianity, Columbia TheologicalSem­ of the Confucian elite, the ancestral rites Rt.#l Box D·14 inary, Decatur, Georgia. He was a missionary of the populace, and the revolution of Lineville , AL36266 to Koreafrom 1952 to 1967. Mao Zedong are appraised. (205) 396-2017

April 1988 83 Covell's conclusion is that, with masses to meet their deepest needs. Kontextuelle the possible exception of the present, Herein lies the significance of the Three- . Fundamentaltheologie. all efforts failed . But is this too negative Self Movement in China today. Under an assessment of the pre-1949 mission­ the providence of God, present cir­ By HansWaldenfels . Paderborn: Ferdinand ary effort? Certainly Covell's main point cumstances have made it possible for Schiiningh , 1985. Pp. 552. DM 48. must stand: the identification of Chris­ a message and a community, free from tianity with the "Gospel of Power" the stigma of foreignness, to come into Studies in fundamental theology today following the Opium wars, and the in­ being. This is the reason for the un­ do not aim to defend the Christian ability of the foreigners to contextual­ precedented receptivity given to the faith and the church against the attacks ize the gospel meant that the biblical gospel in China today. of adversaries, as earlier theologia apol­ message seldom was perceived by the -G. Thompson Brown ogetica used to do. Instead they seek to show the meaning of Christian faith in the context of present situations. Fundamental theology prepares the ground on which more specialized di­ visions of theology can build. There­ fore fundamental theology is the starting point in theological studies. At least three important works in funda­ mental theology have been published recently by Catholic theologians in German. Two of them are by Heinrich Fries and Max Seckler. The book by Hans Waldenfels is noteworthy from a missiological perspective because the world religions and their positions are part of the context he considers. The author is well prepared for his task. As a Jesuit he studied theology in Japan, and he has written a book on the "absolute nothingness" of the Kyoto School. As a professor of fundamental theology at the Univer­ sity of Bonn, Waldenfels now also teaches regarding the non-Christian religions. This book is obviously the result of a series of lectures and is written for students of theology. The style is clear, not too speculative, and the material is presented in a didactic way. While it is written for students of Catholic the­ ology (the results of Vatican Council II are frequently mentioned and the spe­ cific problems of Catholic theology are treated), a basic Christian viewpoint­ common to all the churches--is fos­ tered. The difficult themes of fundamen­ Rene Padllla Lamln Sanneh December 1988 - March 1989 January - May 1989 tal theology are treated in five sections: (1) theology and its context; (2) the foundation: "God Speaks"; (3) the Announeing 1988-1989 way: "Through Jesus Christ, Our Lord "; (4) the place: "In the Com­ Senior Mission Seholars in Residenee munity of the Church"; (5) under­ standing: "In the Light of the The Overseas Ministries Study Center welcomes into residence this Gospel." Questions presented by the year Dr. C. Rene Padilla, Dr. Adrian Hastings, and Dr. Lamin Sanneh world religions and by modem think­ as Senior Mission Scholars. In addition to sharing in the leadership of ing are prevalent in the book, but some OMSC's regular Study Program seminars, these highly respected pages deal explicitly with the relations colleagues will offer to our missionary and overseas residents between Christianity and other reli- personal consultation and tutorial assistance. Write for complete Study Program information and Appli­ cation for Residence: FritzKollbrtmner, a priest oftheBethlehem Mis­ Overseas Ministries Study Center sion Society, is Lecturer in Missiology on the 490 Prospect Street Theological Faculty at Lucerne, Switzerland, New Haven, Connecticut 06511 and co-editor of the Neue Zeitschrift fur Mis­ sionswissenschaft.

84 International Bulletin of Missionary Research gions. Part I, pages 33-38 are dedicated Smith (the central figure in the mission the United States (especially the Amer­ to it, and on pages 57-61 the plurality endeavor), the use of the Bethel Flag ican Seamen's Friend Society) and the of cultures is discussed. Part II focuses as the symbol of the interdenomina­ many individuals involved in these, and on "God in the World Religions" tional outreach, the British Seamen's the transatlantic ties among the var­ (pp. 114-18). Part III rethinks the Friend Society and the Bethel Union as ious endeavors. In the last four chap­ Christian "Absolutheitsanspruch" (pp. well as numerous other organizations, ters Kvemdal formulates some useful 193-99) and deals with "Jesus in the the spread of the work throughout the generalizations about maritime mis­ World Religions" (pp . 217-28). Part IV British Isles and the empire, the man­ siology. reflects on the relations between the ifold tensions and divisions within the There are really three or four books church and the religions (pp . 392-98), movement, the multifaceted social in one in this monumental labor of love, with special attention to Judaism. ministries to seamen, the entrance of and Kvemdal has filled an important Waldenfels does not aim to for­ the Church of England into maritime gap in our understanding of the Chris­ mulate revolutionary views. The rev­ missions, the creation of ministries in tian world mission. In a short review olutionary aspect of the book consists in the openness to the basic problems of our age and the latest developments in contemporary theology. -Fritz Kollbrunner, S.M.B.

Seamen's Missions: Their Origin and Early Growth. A Contribution to the History of the Church Maritime.

By Roald Kverndal. Pasadena, Calif.: Wil­ liamCarey Library, 1986. Pp. xxoiii, 903. $19.95; paperback $15.95.

This study of seamen's missions is a formidable volume, but one can profit much from it. The narrative flows rea­ sonably well, even though some of the detail could have been pruned without harm to its essential message. It is rooted in a vast array of sources, some of which have been exploited for the first time, and it places seamen's min­ istry in the larger context of marine so­ cialhistory and missioiogical theory and practice. Since the author is both an experienced seafarer and personally involved in missionary work among mariners, he brings to the study the insights of a participant observer. After providing background infor­ mation on early ministries to seamen and the evangelical advance of the late­ eighteenth early-nineteenth centuries, he moves to the heart of the story, be­ ginning with the Naval and Military Bible Society in 1779 and conduding with the creation of the Norwegian Seamen's Mission in 1864. His book is -and find renewal for a definitive analysis of the "form­ ative," or Anglo-American, phase of world mission the movement, not a history of the to­ tality of the missionary outreach to Fully furnished apartments and sailors. Among the topics dealt with are the spiritual stirrings in the British Continuing Education program of weekly seminars and American fleets, the work of C. G. Write for Study Program and Application for Residence Overseas Ministries Study Center Richard V. Pierard is Professor of History at 490 Prospect Street Indiana StateUniversity in Terre Haute. Hehas New Haven, Connecticut 06511 taught in Gennany, mostrecently asa Fulbright Professor at the University of Frankfurt.

April 1988 85 one cannot do justice to the many sto­ the insights for the outreach of the scholars who wish to follow up on some ries of victories and defeats, the human church. Unfortunately, the clumsy an­ of his tantalizing leads will quickly be­ frailties of the workers themselves, and notation system is so frustrating that come discouraged. -Richard V. Pierard

Understanding Sectarian Groups in America. personal and social relationships as im­ By George W. Braswell, Jr. Nashville, portant factors leading to loss of faith Tenn.: Broadman Press, 1986. Pp. 382. or religious conversion. Paperback $10.95. Helpful to understanding "yogic" religions are the authors' emphases on the centrality of evolu­ Understanding Cults and New tionary myth (p. 39), going beyond the Religions. mind, and magic (p. 45). These appeal to adherents who often (1) have a poor By IrvingHexham and Karla Poetoe. Grand start in life and (2) describe themselves Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans Publishing Co., as alienated or in a state of mental crisis 1986. Pp. xi, 170. Paperback $8.95. (p. 49). They may be in revolt against a life ordered by specialists and dom­ Significantly the Consultation on World Braswell writes as a professor of inated by the intellect (p. 57). Evangelism in Thailand (1980) in­ missions "to sensitize traditional Enamored of the relativities of an­ cluded strategy sessions on reaching church communities to the teachings thropological, sociological, and psy­ the unreached-peoples groups of the and practices of many of their neigh­ chological factors, these authors reflect mystics and cultists. But Christians do bors who belong to these alternate re­ a kind of love-hate relationship with not seem to be reaching these un­ ligions" (p. 15). After a brief history of claims to truth in religion and their un­ reached peoples as effectively as the some twenty-five groups, Braswell ob­ derstanding of "traditional apolo­ cults are reaching other Americans. jectively expounds their major beliefs getics" (pp. 2-3). To consider the new Polls now show that more than one in and practices. Then he points up issues mythology we must suspend our skep­ four Americans believe in reincarna­ as the group faces life in American cul­ ticism about their truth value (p. 25) tion. ture and gives a brief Christian view and not discuss their truth claims (p. Both of these books should help of their weaknesses. The book is read­ 27), for the historical truth or falsity has North American evangelicals under­ able and a useful introduction for lay no bearing on their ability to function stand the urgency for professional mis­ people. I wonder about Christians who as myths (p. 26). Yet they complain sionaries to be adequately trained and publish primarily what non-Christians when Lyall Watson's Supernature in­ supported to minister to cultists un­ believe without doing more in the way vokes "an epistemological relativ­ reached by the gospel of grace. Both of challenging their worldviews and ism that allows anything to seem to be contribute significantly to understand­ belief systems where they contradict true." That reminds them of the adage ing challenges to the Christian faith; divine revelation. For understanding, "When reason sleeps, monsters are neither provides grounds on which to can we not read the primary sources? born" (p. 31). justify their assumption that the Chris­ Irving Hexham is an assistant pro­ Having helped us to understand tian faith is true and more viable. fessor of religious studies at the Uni­ the antirational, anti-empirical thrusts versity of Calgary and Karla Poewe is of new religions, the authors provide professor of anthropology at the Uni­ inadequate justification of their brief Gordon Lewis, a professor at Denver Seminary versity of Lethbridge, Alberta, Can­ attempts to combine the nonrational for thirty years, after a 1980 sabbatical at the ada. These authors major on New Age and the rational. It is not enough to Overseas Ministries Study Center and partici­ ("yogic") trends and are concerned say in contrast to magic that "The pation in theConsultation on World Evangelism to understand why specific individuals essence of Christianity is trust" (p. 165). at Pattaya, founded Evangelical Ministries to find the movement attractive. They To meet the challenge of the Hindu­ New Religions, Inc. Its "Statementon the New want to understand cult members and Buddhist missionaries to the West, the Age Movement" developed at a Conference on befriend them (p. 4), insisting that un­ object of Christian trust needs clarifi­ NewAgeIssues isavailable from him. At Denver derstanding precedes criticism and that cation and a plea for this faith, rather Seminary he heads a program for a master-of­ friendship is the basis of communica­ than that another faith needs some jus­ arts degree in philosophy of religion to prepare tion (p. 6). They plan to avoid mere tification. people for ministry to new religions and cults. intellectual reasoning and emphasize -Gordon R. Lewis

Reformed Church in America Missionaries in South India, logically conservative, evangelistically 1839-1938: An Analytical Study. oriented, ecumenically minded, male Americans serving as missionaries in By Immanuel David. Bangalore: Asian India. The Reformed Church mission­ Trading Corp., 1986. Pp. x, 184. Paper­ aries began their work in India under back. No price indicated. the direction of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions This carefully researched study by a logical College in Bangalore comes to and after 1852 under the Board of For­ faculty member of the United Theo­ focus on the dilemmas faced by theo­ eign Missions of their denomination.

86 International Bulletin of Missionary Research Therefore, this study is valuable for all Women in World Religions. who desire to know more about Amer­ ican missionary work in India in the Edited by Arvind Sharma; Introduction by nineteenth and early twentieth cen­ Katherine K. Young. Albany, N.Y.: State turies. This is the best and fullest treat­ Univ. of New York Press, 1987. Pp. 302. ment to date of the thought and cultural $34.50; paperback $10.95. attitudes of Reformed Church mission­ aries in India in the century 1839-1938. Studying Women in World Religions, the day. Since the advent of the Interna­ Reformed Church missionaries reader gets the idea that in 'general the tional Year of the Woman culminating were confident that, as people in India concept of stridharma (the ideal behav­ in the International Decade of the heard the "pure preaching of the ior of the Hindu woman), as described Woman, a wealth of literature has been gospel," the Holy Spirit would convict in the ancient Vedas, is in some degree available for research, study, and ac­ them of their sin and need for salvation prevalent in all the world religions. Ac­ tion. Women in World Religions is not and bring them to conversion and into cording to stridharma the true virtues just another book on this topic; it is an the church. They resisted other means of a woman were physical beauty, sex­ outstanding contribution to it. It is a of mission outreach. They were reluc­ ual chastity, modesty, obedience, self­ book by female Western scholars in the tant to accept into their schools any sacrifice, and self-renunciation. The field of religious study, edited by Ar­ children other than Christians. Even "virtuous woman" in Proverbs comes vind Sharma, an Indian scholar and though there were a number of med­ close to it. Thus, though the women researcher on the position of women ically trained persons in the Scudder remained the focal point in religion and in Indian religions. It thus requires missionary family in India, medical society for their female sensuality and concerted effort on the part of the reader work was held to be subservient to its associated attributes, ironically, for to be a student and not just a reader. preaching. these very reasons, women became -Doris Franklin Rugh Immanuel David shows that even­ marginal and even excluded. There tually Reformed Church missionaries, have been a few exceptions. in their concern for the poor and op­ In Confucianism, humanlifeis seen pressed among the pariah population, in relationship to the cosmic order-one along with their desire for converts giving way to the other and not ruling among the Brahmins, could not omit over the other. Harmony, rather than developing medical, educational, and conflict, is the cosmic order and in that agricultural work. He shows how mis­ order. Female force is identified with sionaries became advocates for pariahs earth, with all things lowly, inferior, before government officials and ena­ yielding, receptive, devoted, passive, bled many to escape virtual slavery. and still like the earth. Man, on the Thus, in spite of all their prejudices, other hand, represents heaven: high, Protestant Missionaries male American middle-class values, and active, strong, the initiator. Both were in the Philippines, favorable attitude toward British rule, to complement each other, like heaven 1898-1919 the missionaries became catalysts for and earth, but women were to remain socialchange and defenders of the poor. at home learning good manners and An Inquiry into the The book would have been skills like sewing and weaving as prep­ American Colonial Mentality strengthened by more attention to the aration for being good wives and Kenton J. Clymer missionaries' goal of planting the mothers. church, which led to very early for­ Jesus' mission was for those who From tum-of-the-century American mation of a Reformed Church classis, were left out of the system of privilege: expansionism through the Marcos and in turn to the vexed problem of the poor, the ritually unclean, the so­ and Aquino regimes, Philippine­ the relation of church to mission. Per­ cially outcast. Women were among the American relations have occupied sons who consult the valuable list of outcast, as represented by the widow, a significant place in the American missionaries at the end of the book the Samaritan woman, and the woman national consciousness. Clymer should check the dates of service for with the flow of blood. While Christ here provides the first detailed minor errors. brought "good news" of "sal­ study of an essential historical -Eugene Heideman vation for all," the church concen­ aspect of those relations. 66A most trated on the creation story in Genesis. distinguished piece of scholar­ Pauline Christianity gave rise to the in­ ship.... Far and away the best Eugene Heideman, former Reformed Church stitutionalized ministry of bishops, book ever done on the missionary missionary in south India, is now Secretary for presbyters, and deacons-who as­ component of America's colonial Program, Reformed Church in America. sumed male authority over women in experiment:' - Richard E. Welch, the church. Jr., author of Response to Imperial­ This book is a study in depth of ism. "Will likely be the definitive the major religions interplaying with study on the subject." - Gerald H. each other and with cultures, tradi­ Anderson, editor, International tions, social norms and orders of their Bulletin ojMissionary Research. Illustrated. $28.95.

Order from your local bookstore, or from Doris Franklin Rugh is an Indian national cur­ University of Illinois Press rently residing in Seoieroille, Tennessee. She c/o CUP Services served theMethodistChurch in India as teacher, P. O. Box 6525, Ithaca, NY 14851 rural social worker, writer, and editor of the Order toll free 800/666-2211 church's official newspaper, Indian Witness.

April 1988 87 Continuity and Change among Canadian Mennonite Brethren. ploy the complex vocabulary and ty­ By Peter M. Hamm. Waterloo, Ontario: pologies associated with the discipline. Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press, 1987. Pp. xoi, In arguing that a small sect can suc­ 278. Paperback $29.95. cessfully survive significant social change, Hamm is forced to respond to Hamrn's definition of sectarianism is the one hand, and the "Seculari­ popular sectarian typologies generated crucial to the thesis he develops in the zation Process," on the other. In lay­ by Europeans like Max Weber and study: ".. . a movement of reli­ man's terms: What holds a sect together Ernst Troeltsch or North Americans gious protest against the social order, and what brings about decline and like S. D. Clark and H. Richard Nie­ be it state, institution or society, or es­ change? In the context of the Canadian buhr. His response is laudatory. While tablished religious organization, which Mennonite Brethren, Hamm insists, sectarian models are useful and can be results in voluntary separation from these forces are not competitive or op­ of help, the case study itself must de­ such environment to demonstrate the posing but complementary. Cohesive termine the outcome. Hamm's conclu­ dissonance between what the group elements like family solidarity, fre­ sion, backed by solid scholarship, says perceives as normative in matters of quent participation in worship, a sense in effect: some models help, others are faith and practice and what it experi­ of ethnicity, concern with lifestyle, not applicable. Sectarianism as typified ences as dominant in the social order" church structures, and church service by the Canadian Mennonite Brethren (p. 11). This definition, however pon­ are actually kept vibrant and viable by can survive and even prosper in times derous, sees sectarianism as a vital, on­ what appear to be disruptive proc­ of religious flux. The key element in the going process capable of evolving, esses . Urbanization, higher education, continued viability of this group relates changing and, most important, surviv­ upward economic mobility, occupa­ to ideological values, religious in na­ ing. After providing the reader with a tionalflux-factors thatshould ensure the ture, which cut across the growing eth­ clarification of terminology and a brief demise of an immigrant sectarian com­ nic complexity of the group and provide historical sketch of the Mennonite munity, now become corrective and a common focus. Brethren, the author devotes five chap­ balancing forces. Hamm speaks of a Like a scholar in any field, Hamm ters each to the questions of "con­ "complex dialectic" in which the felt obligated to use the technical jar­ tinuity" and "change." forces of continuity and cohesiveness gon of his profession. Some readers In sociological terms he speaks of restrict the sect's absorption into the may have difficulty with the terminol­ the "Sacralization of Identity," on host society, while the forces of change, ogy. On the other hand, Hamm's open­ potentially disruptive, actually prevent minded approach, convincing data, the solidification of reactionary and careful argumentation, and independ­ conservative tendencies. ence of thought make the book a pleas­ John B. Toews teaches in the Department ofHis­ This is a sociological study and the ure to read. tory, University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada . author naturally feels obligated to de­ -John B. Toews

The Encounter between Theology and Ideology: An M.M .'s special gift has been to Exploration into the theologize at the crucial points where Communicative Theology of Christian faith and the world's ideo­ M. M. Thomas. logies intersect. Always aware of the relativities of cultures and ideologies, By T. M. Philip. Madras , India: Newday and of our understandings of the rev­ Publications of India and theChristian Lit­ elation of God in Christ, M.M. has erature Society, 1986. Pp. xv, 160. Pa­ developed a Christ-centered "hu­ perback Rs. 32.00. manization" theology that makes most "liberation theologies" look super­ This brief book is extremely welcome. That "someone" is T. M. Philip of ficial by comparison. One knows that it is only one of the the Mar Thoma Theological Seminary T. M. Philip has much to say that first of many that will be written about in Kerala, India. The book is a is helpful, but he wisely lets M.M. speak the thought and life of M. M. Thomas. "slightly altered" version of the for himself in many pithy quotations. But, as Charles West of Princeton Sem­ doctoral dissertation Philip did for the The most useful parts of this study are inary writes in an excellent, succinct Lutheran School of Theology in Chi­ the many quotations translated from Foreword, "It is time someone held cago. M.M.'s Malayalam writings. One re­ a mirror up to M. M. Thomas, not as For many years the director of In­ alizes anew how deeply this ecumen­ the last act in his career, but as an oc­ dia's pioneering Christian Institute for ical theologian is rooted in his native casion for new dialogue between him, the Study of Religion and Society Kerala and its old and rich language. the gospel, and the rest of us" (p. xiii). (CISRS) and a former chairman of the Passages from his Malayalam Autobiog­ Central Committee of the World Coun­ raphy are especially moving, none more cilof Churches, M. M. Thomas is known so than the "conversion experience" to many. Now seventy-one years narrated on pages 2 and 3 of Philip's Charles A. Ryerson is Associate Professorof the young, M.M. stays busy with his writ­ enlightening book. History of Religions at Princeton Theological ing and social involvement in India and -Charles A. Ryerson Seminary andhasbeen formanyyears a research with teaching at leading seminaries in associate of India's Christian Institute for the the United States . Study of Religion and Society.

88 International Bulletin of Missionary Research Priests in Working-Class Blue: The History of the Worker­ Priests (1943-1954). AForemost ByOscar L. Antal. NewYork:PaulistPress, 1986. Pp. viii, 239. Paperback $11.95. Theologian'sViewof Dr. Arnal, assistant professor of church history at WilfridLaurier University and Waterloo Lutheran Seminary, Water­ ChristianWholeness loo, Ontario, has written a superb book on the French and Belgian Worker­ Priests. Not only has he used printed sources for this study (which are listed Spirituality and Liberation in a very complete bibliography and Overcoming the Great Fallacy enriched by many more suggestions in Robert MCAfee Brown the footnotes), but also information gathered through interviews with half of the hundred priests as well as with In the dynamic style for which many other people connected with the he is well known, Robert McAfee movement. The attempt on the part of the Brown breaks down the walls Worker-Priests to break down the wall between the spiritual and the between the church and the working temporal, between prayer and class generated strong feelings both of social involvement. "His clear argu­ support and of opposition. The author ments and wonderful illustrations get to gives a very balanced treatment to the priests and their supporters, even de­ the root ofthe matter by showing that liberation tailing the spirituality that nourished and spirituality are united in the rhythm of God's work the Worker-Priests, as well as to those for new creation."- Letty M. Russell. who were opposed on the grounds that "...clearly establishes the unity which must exist between our priests did not belong in factories, con­ politics and our prayers."- Thomas H. Groome. sorting and at times collaborating with Paper $9.95 communist union leaders. A particular Other Outstanding Books strength of the book is that the story is placed in the context of French re­ byRobertMcAfee Brown ligious and political life and the move­ ment is presented as a forerunner of liberation theology. This radical movement stemmed from the realization that working-class people were no longer Christian and that new structures would be needed to evangelize these people. The author communicates in a most moving way how these priests, secular and reli­ gious, were incarnated into the work­ ing world, an incarnation that led them from "being with" the people to be­ coming "engaged" to improve their lot. He also points out that this very Unexpected News SayingYes and Saying No engagement in union politics led to the Reading the Bible with On Rendering to God and Caesar prohibition against Workers-Priests in Third World Eyes Paper $7.95 1954. However, at Vatican II this style Paper $7.95 of priesthood was approved and today there are more than 900 Worker-Priests in France alone . -Lawrence Nemer, S.V.D.

Availableat your local bookstores or direct from the publishet: (Please include no<> per book for postage and handling.) Lawrence Nemer, S.V.D., isProfessorofChurch Historyand Directorof the World Mission Pro­ gram at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. He has also taught in seminaries in the Philip­ IE pines and Australia. TIlE WESTMINSTER PRESS 925 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA19107

April 1988 89 Pastoral Counseling in Intercultural Perspective. chologist and theologian, he is also a By Emmanuel Yartekwei lArtey. Frankfurt practicing pastor. This pastoral atti­ amMainandNew York: Verlag Peter Lang, tude and ability emerges in his com­ 1987. Pp. 230. Paperback $31.90. parative case studies of a Ghanaian indigenous church and the contrast with Emmanuel Lartey, professor of pas­ perspectives. with Anglo-American a British urban counseling ministry. toral theology at Trinity College, Uni­ values and the dialogue between their This is a book with promise. In versity of Ghana, has written one of points of convergence is fascinating conclusion, Lartey points toward a the first books on intercultural pastoral reading for anyone who thinks both therapy that may be authentically Af­ counseling from an African perspec­ globally and locally about Christian rican, an approach that harmonizes the tive. This study of Ghanaian and An­ mission and ministry. traditional healing experience of Africa glo-American views of human existence The selection of Gestalt therapy and with Christian theology, Western and counseling is an excellent pub­ family therapy as the two Western medicine, and intercultural counseling lished form of Lartey's doctoral dis­ schools of therapy for correlation with theory. In my personal conversations sertation at the University of African thought provides a workable with Lartey, I find him extending his Birmingham, England. bridge between the two different work in developing both theology and The great strength of this book lies worlds. The participative African cul­ therapy of pastoral care that is more in its insistence on grounding all ther­ ture (Iparticipate, therefore I am), with deeply grounded in his particular Af­ apy in the culture, values, and views its collective sociocentric personality rican culture and at the same time is of the people served, and in its clear formation, approaches therapy from a open to rich intercultural dialogue with presentation of Ghanaian views of hu­ familial-tribal process (a la family ther­ neighboring cultures and the global man life, worldviews, relationships, apy) and from an awareness-respon­ conversation on pastoral theo-therapy. understandings of the person, and no­ sibility present focus, as in Gestalt He offers the first steps of fulfilling this tions of theology. The contrast of these therapy. Both of these approaches the­ promise of leadership in his first book. oretically minimize the individualism We shall eagerly await the next devel­ (I think, therefore I am) of Western opments in his work and thought. David Augsburger is Professor ofPastoral Coun­ psychotherapies, but their practice in -David Augsburger seling at theAssociated Mennonite Biblical Sem­ the West is dominated by cultural in­ inaries, Elkhart, Indiana , andauthor ofPastoral dividualism. Counseling across Cultures. Lartey is not only a careful psy­

Not without Struggle: The Story of William E. Hoy and the arrived (or were to arrive) in Japan, Beginnings of Tohoku Gakuin. from the Pennsylvania area : Rev. Wil­ liam E. Hoy (1858--1927), his wife, Mary ByC. WilliamMensendiek. Sendai, Japan: Ault Hoy (1863-1937), and Miss liz­ Tohoku Gakuin, 1986. Pp. 235. No price zie R. Poorbaugh (1854-1927). Hoy indicated. started the Theological Training School of Sendai for boys in June 1886, and Poorbaugh began the Girls' School in A Dream Incarnate: The September 1886; these two schools were Beginnings of Miyagi Gakuin the beginnings of the large educational for Women. institutions that recently celebrated their centennials. By C. William Mensendiek. Sendai, Japan : The two books give vivid pictures Miyagi Gakuin, 1986. Pp. 135. No price of the early days of both schools and indicated. Both books may be ordered from their founders, drawn mostly from United Church Board for World Minis­ English-language accounts in mission tries , 16thfloor, 475 Riverside Drive, New archives in America , since many of the York, N.Y. 10115. documents in Japan were destroyed in World War II. The efforts for cooper­ As part of the centennial of the found­ accounts overlap a great deal , for they ation between Japanese and Ameri­ ing of Tohoku Gakuin, initially for men, cover many of the same incidents and cans were frequently beset by tensions and Miyagi Gakuin for Women, both persons. and misunderstandings on both sides, in Sendai, Japan, c. William Mensen­ Both schools were begun through but the schools pulled through none­ diek has written these two books that cooperation between Christians in Ja­ theless. Lizzie Poorbaugh stayed on in tell the stories of the beginnings of these pan and the United States. Masayoshi Japan for only seven years, but that two schools. Although each book has Oshikawa (ca. 1850-1928), a disinher­ was long enough to see Miyagi Girls' been written to stand on its own, the ited samurai and one of the first twelve School launched in its own building Japanese Protestant Christians, had a and with its first graduating class. The dream for the establishment in his city Hoys stayed a little longer, but in 1899 James M. Phillips, Associate Director of the of Sendai of a school for boys and a relocated to central China because of Overseas Ministries Study Center, served as a school for girls. He enlisted the efforts his asthma, and there they pioneered Presbyterianmissionary in Korea (1949-52) and of missionaries of the German Re­ in the founding of yet another group in Japan (1959- 75). formed Church, who had only recently of Christian institutions.

90 International Bulletin of Missionary Research The author of these books, C. Wil­ psychological treatments of the first or­ (p. 25). This is expounded in detail liam Mensendiek, is a professor of der. They are valuable additions to the through the developmental theories of Christian Studies at Tohoku Gakuin and literature of missional and evangelistic Erikson, Piaget, Kohlberg, Fowler, and a missionary of the United Church of studies. Kegan. But the key issue is the con­ Christ (U.S.A.), and is personally con­ The volume by Conn is the more version, which is distinctively Chris­ nected with the tradition of the Ger­ psychologically technical. His thesis is tian-the response of a person to God 's man Reformed Church, which sent out that conversion must be understood in love in Jesus Christ. Citing Bernard Lo­ the American founders of these schools. relationship to conscience. Defined as nergan, this is an "other-worldly Having written an earlier book about ethical development, and distin­ falling in love," the "fulfillment, joy, Tohoku Gakuin's history, he has pur­ guished alike from self-fulfillment and peace and bliss [which are] the fruits sued the research for these books as a self-sacrifice, conscience is "the dy­ of being in love with a mysterious, un­ labor of love, even traveling to central namic core of conscious subjectivity comprehended God " (p. 224) . Thomas China to visit the area where the Hoys which constitutes the very being of the Merton's spiritu al pilgrimage is pre­ last worked. person, driving him or her toward sented as a paradigm of this transfor­ Tohoku Gakuin today has a thriv­ the authenticity of self-transcendence" mation (incidentally providing an ing campus in the middle of Sendai, while Miyagi Gakuin has a new cam­ pus in a lovely wooded area outside the city. Both schools have sought to maintain the high educational stand­ ards and the Christian principles en­ visioned by their founders. -James M. Phillips

Christian Conversion: A Developmental Interpretation of Here is more gold for every theological library Autonomy and Surrender. and exploring scholar of mission studies - this volume with all 16 issues of the International By Walter Conn. New York: PaulistPress, BulletinofMissionary Research. 1981-1984, 1986. Pp. iii, 347. Paperback $12.95. boundin red buckram, with vellum finish and embossed in gold lettering. It matches the earlierbound volume of the Occasional Conversion and Discipleship: A BulletinofMissionary Research. 1977-1980 Christian Foundation for Ethics (sony, completely sold out). 60 and Doctrine. Limited edition: Only.JeCJ"bound volumes available. Each volume is individually numbered and signed personally by the editor By Stephen Happel and James J. Walter. and associate editor. Philadelphia, Pa.: Fortress Press, 1986. pp. Includes: vii, 229. Paperback $14.95. • 350 contributors (a virtual "Who's Who" of contemporary missiology) • 300 book reviews Those of us engaged in personal evan­ • 1100 doctoral dissertation notices gelism find ourselves both helped and • cumulative index unnerved by the wealth of materials now available in the area of faith de­ Special Price: $56.95 velopment, and especially in the un­ Orders outside the U.S.A. add $4.00 for postage and handling. derstanding of conversion. While this Payment must accompany all orders. should never be regarded as an ex­ To order, use coupon below. clusively personal phenomenon, as brilliantly argued by John Walsh in Mail to: Evangelization and Justice (Orbis Books, Publications Office Overseas Ministries Study Center 1982), it is nonetheless in personal con­ 490 Prospect Street version that most evangelistic work has New Haven , CT 06511, U.S.A . been done, and where most misun­ derstandings have occurred. The field Send me __bound volume(s) of the International Bulletin ofMissionary Research. 1981-1984. is thus ripe for a new generation of Name _ resources. John R. Hendrick gave us a pioneering work in Openingthe Door of Address _ Faith (Iohn Knox, 1977), and in these two volumes we have theological and

Enclosed is my check in the amount of $ made out to David Lowes Watson is Executive Director for "International Bulletinof Missionary Research." Orders outside U.S.A. add Covenant Discipleship, General Board of Dis­ $4.00 for postageand handling. Paymentmust accompanyall orders. Allow cipleship, the United Methodist Church , Nash­ 5 weeks for delivery within U.S.A. ville, Tennessee .

April 1988 91 excellent introduction to Merton him­ discipleship-the response to Jesus volume, especially in the sections on self), with the clear implication that if Christ, which converts to holy living Merton. But in the Happel and Walter developmental theory ultimately fails in the world. "The witness disciples book it is explicit: the praxis of Car­ to explain religious conversion, the give is centered on the person of Christ; denal and Solentiname from the com­ corollary is equally true: that Christian it simultaneously identifies with him pass-bearing of Merton, so to speak. conversion must also be moral, cog­ and actively wills to live his way in the The two books are thus admirably nitive, and affective, if it is to have au­ ordinary world. . . . Our discipleship complementary, and hIghly recom­ thenticity in Christian life and witness. must mirror his way" (p. 13). The im­ mended for the equally complemen­ Much of the same territory is cov­ plications of Christian conversion are tary tasks of informing personal ered by Happel and Walter, though those of moral and doctrinal praxis evangelism (primarily in the Western with a significant difference in per­ (p. 212), an "incarnational imagi­ context) and fertilizing the technics of spective. Drawing for the most part on nation," which changes persons, not faith development with the call to Kohlberg and Fowler for their theories merely to belief in Jesus Christ, but to Christian discipleship. of faith development, it is the concern a radical obedience of his ethical im­ -David Lowes Watson of Happel and Walter to ground con­ peratives. version in the tradition of Christian Much of this is implicit in the Conn

A Chicano Theology. such seriousness makes high de­ By Andres G. Guerrero. Maryknoll, N. Y.: mands. Those have not been ade­ Orbis Books, 1987. Pp. 186. Paperback quately met. This is not quite so much $11.95. a theology as a collection of materials in search of theological interpretation. The author is a Roman Catholic layman ence, ranging from issues of machismo The book reads more like the summary with impressive credentials to write a and economics to race and religion. report of a conference than a fresh and "Chicano theology." Born in Texas Guerrero serves as enabler, synthe­ critical reconstruction of the Christian to immigrant Mexican parents, he grew sizer, and commentator, all along tradition in the light of a people's ex­ up in barrio poverty, subject to endless searching for materials of liberating im­ perience. indignities by dominant Anglos. In time port and theological relevance. Except for a passing reference to he obtained a Ph.D. degree in religion For those not familiar with Chi­ Virgilio Elizondo, the ablest Chicano at Harvard Divinity School under the cano reality, this family dialogue be­ theologian, his work is ignored, as is supervision of Harvey Cox. comes an illuminating introduction, also, except for allusions, the work of Guerrero builds his case in dia­ and, for those within, a useful clarifi­ Latin American liberation theologians. logue with nine Chicano leaders, two cation of history and prospects. Guer­ Originality does not mean reinventing of whom are Protestant and the rest rero and the leaders focus much of their wheels, especially in liberation theol­ Roman Catholic, including two women. attention on the liberating contribution ogy. Only one is a church official and none to Chicanos of the Virgin of Guadalupe The book's creative methodology a technical theologian. Together they and the vision of la raza c6smica. The of dialogue should expand to include reflect on twelve "shared themes" of focus is one of "cosmic oppression" the absent poles of dialogue with com­ key significance to Chicano experi- and mestizaje (the offspring of Euro­ munities of believers and of dialogue pean and Indian parentage). with their technical theologians. Guer­ Any book that deals with such rero has accomplished much in the first Jorge Lara-Braud is Professor of Theology and powerful symbols is likely to make a round. The second should be more sat­ Culture, San Francisco Theological Seminary valuable contribution. Such is the case isfying. (California) . here. On the other hand, material of -Jorge Lara-Braud

Christians and Muslims to examine the relationships between Together: An Exploration by Muslims and Christians in several Presbyterians. countries (Nigeria, Indonesia, Egypt, USA), and to explore together the na­ Edited by Byron L. Haines and Frank L. ture and direction of future associa­ Cooley. Philadelphia, Pa.: Geneva Press, tions in the pluralistic world." 1987. Pp. 130. Paperback $7.95. Beginning with a concise over­ view of the faith and practices of Islam Author-editor Byron Haines is the co­ of the General Assembly of that de­ (chap. 1) and a historical survey of director of the Office of Christian-Mus­ nomination. They draw on their years Christian-Muslim Relations (chap. 2), lim Relations of the National Council of service among Muslims and the re­ chapter 3, "The Contemporary of Churches, and Frank Cooley is a Staff sources of other Presbyterian research­ Muslim World," provides excellent Associate for Asia and the IslamicWorld ers between 198~87. coverage of demographic, ethnocul­ with the Presbyterian Church (USA). Many reasons compel Christians tural, and socioeconomic-political data. Both came to this book at the request to examine their relations with the This volume is worth its cost for these Muslim community, their largest reli­ keen insights into dynamic Islamic de­ gious neighbor. This slender volume velopments taking place today in many Lyle Vander Werff is Professor of Religion, aims "to provide reliable informa­ lands. It is must reading for those who Northwestern College, Orange City, Iowa. tion about Islam and the Muslim world, would improve Christian-Muslim re-

92 International Bulletin of Missionary Research lations, acknowledge Islam's critique in the dialogue. of Western secularism, and consider In the closing chapter, Haines seeks how the gospel might best be shared. the things that make for "faithful­ Wi{[iam-m Readers will find more debatable ness to God, reconciliation and peace." CaYe~ "G chapter 5, "Issues of Theology and His is a call for cooperation and yet Librar~ Practice," which asks how one's the­ witness, leaving the results with God. ology affects relations. Haines advo­ Those looking for directions concern­ cates personal knowledge of Muslims, ing the evangelization of Muslims must an empathetic, dialogic approach, look elsewhere, but those aspiring to which honestly faces the questions of be hospitable neighbors to Muslims will truth, revelation, mission, and ecu­ find much that is helpful in this vol­ menism. He can offer sharp criticism ume whether they are Presbyterian or WISE AS SERPENTS; of Christianity and its missionaries, but other. HARMLESS AS DOVES: seldom does the same for its partner -Lyle Vander Werff Chinese Christians Tell Their Story Richard Van Houten, Editor, 304 pages, paperback African Religion Meets Islam: "Portents of what God will do in the days ahead Religious Change in Northern in China ...." Nigeria. From peasants to professors, from the pre­ Cultural Revolution era to the present day, Chinese Christians have truly learned to act By Dean S. Gilliland. Lanham, Md.: Univ. "wise as serpents, harmless as doves." In their Press ofAmerica, 1986. Pp.vii,242. $24.50; own voices, Christians speak of the difficulty of walking the delicate line between compliance paperback $12.75. with the authorities and obedience to our Lord. The Chinese have exercised great wisdom and Dean Gilliland spent some twenty years diplomacy-some quietly, some publicly-in makeup of north Nigeria. I found his discerning the genuineness of the authorites' in north Nigeria as an American mis­ personal observations to be full of in­ overtures. In their efforts to remain untainted by sionary, from 1956 to 1976, and cur­ terest, and regretted his having to ap­ attempts to undermine the churches, Chinese Christians have performed quite a balancing rently teaches at Fuller Theological peal to some outdated anthropological feat. Seminary. The book is largely the rec­ literature to explain the significance of As an aid to the historically-minded, the inter­ ord of his missionary years, supple­ things. In several crucial places the book views are divided into time periods, such as the Cultural Revolution; a period of freedom (1979­ mented with additional information on screams for a second chance, and the 1980); and a time of clamping down. (1981­ developments since his departure. The pivotal concept of religious change 1984). first five chapters examine how Islam would have gained immeasurably from Dr. Ted Engstrom, who is avidly interested in interacts with African traditional reli­ more detailed attention to the record China, says: "This potpourri of remarkable stories, interviews, reports and testimonies from gious practices in an attempt to come of a twenty-year missionary residence, indescribably difficult situations in the People's to grips with the issue of religious augmented with the excellent schol­ Republic of China from Chinese Christians are magnificent evidences of God's powerful moving change. The last two chapters form a arly work done on reform Islam in the in this nation of one billion people.... Most kind of addendum treating the course Sokoto Caliphate. Reform Islam shows challenging reading indeed!" of developments between 1965 and that Muslims have an advantage in Alan Gates, missionary to Taiwan, notes that about 1986. questions of religious change, and that "Wise as Serpents, Harmless as Doves chal­ lenges our western ideas of the Church and It is easy for a book of this type to is highly relevant to current debate throws much light on the role of suffering and become nothing more than a historical about the nature of conversion in Af­ the way of the cross as necessary paths for the catechism, bulging with moral lessons emerging Church under totalitarian rule." rica. In spite of these reservations, I felt WCL213-3 Retail $7.95 about events as dogmatic signs, but I myself carried by the force of the au­ think Dean Gilliland has striven hard thor's personal reminiscences and often to provide an insight into the religious unique observations. He raises many MY PERSIAN PILGRIM­ important questions, showing how AGE: An Autobiography Christian interest in religious ques­ William McElwee Miller, 416 Lamin Sanneh is Associate Professor, History of tions may illuminate and deepen pages, paperback

Religion, Center for the Study of World Reli­ scholarly inquiry. In 1919 the ship Black Arrow sailed from New gions, Harvard University. -Lamin Sanneh York harbor. Onboard was a young man called of God to serve'as a missionary in Persia. It was the beginning of a 40-year pilgrimage filled with danger. victory, hardships, disappointments, triumphs, and little but precious fruit. During Introducing Liberation Theology. that pilgrimage the land of Persia became the modern nation of Iran with all the birth pangs that accompany such a change. William McElwee By Leonardo BoffandClodovis Boff. Trans­ Miller tells his story with no holding back and provides us with much to learn from and a lated from the Portuguese by Paul Burns. greater vision of who God is as the companion Maryknoll, N. Y.: Orbis Books, 1987. Pp. on our pilgrimage. xi, 99. $16.95; paperback $7.95. WCL214-X Retail $10.95

As a self-conscious theological move­ now classic A Theology of Liberation ment, Latin American liberation the­ (English trans., 1973) is heavy going ology is almost twenty years old. Yet for people unfamiliar With the histor­ For more information write: until now one would be hard-pressed ical and pastoral background to the is­ WILLIAM CAREY LIBRARY to find a short, nontechnical introduc­ sues he discusses. In the present book, P.O. Box 40129 tion to liberation theology by a Latin Leonardo Boff and his less notorious Pasadena, California 91104 American. Even Gustavo Gutierrez's but equally intelligent brother, Clo­

April 1988 93 dovis, have produced such a non­ They also devote attention to the idea technical introduction. Actually, the of "mediations," which Clodovis Portuguese title reads "How to Do Boff has developed in a recently trans­ Liberation Theology." lated work on theological methodol­ This Publication Although this is an introduction, ogy. That is, theology makes use of the Boffs treat substantive issues. For three kinds of "mediation": so­ isavailable in example, they distinguish between cioanalytical, hermeneutical, and prac­ various levels of theology (profes­ tical. Throughout the book the authors Microform. sional, pastoral, and popular), outlin­ strive to sort out different aspects of ing their various characteristics, while this theological movement. In addition at the same time insisting on the con­ they survey key biblical and theologi­ tinuum running from one to another. cal themes, do a historical sketch of how liberation theology has devel­ oped, show connections with other Phillip Berryman is a translator and writerwho kinds of theology, and make projec­ has worked in Panama (1965-73) and Central tions--all in under a hundred pages. America (1976-80). His mostrecent book is Lib­ -Phillip Berryman eration Theology (1987). Dissertation Notices From the United States

Burleson, Blake W. Pamudji, Petrus. "John Mbiti: The Dialogue of an "Little Flock Trilogy: A Critique African Theologian with African of Watchman Nee's Principal Traditional Religions." Thought on Christ, Man and the Ph.D. Waco, Texas: Baylor Univ., 1986. Church." Ph.D. Madison, N./.: Drew Univ., Candelaria, Michael Richard. 1985. "Popular Religion and Liberation: An Examination of the Discussion in Rurner, Richard Brent. Latin American Liberation "Islam in the United States in the Theology." 1920s: The Quest for a New Vision Th.D. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard in Afro-American Religion." Univ., 1987. Ph.D. Princeton, N.J. Princeton Univ., 1986. Kao, Chin-Tien. "The Particularity and Ryu, Kee-Chong. Universality of W. Norman Pittenger "Nagarjuna's Emptiness and Paul and John B. Cobb, Jr." Tillich's God: A Comparative Study Ph.D. Madison, N./.: Drew Univ., for the Dialogue between University Microfilms 1984. Christianity and Buddhism." International Ph.D. Madison, N.J.: Drew Univ., Kihara, Nehemy N. 1984. "Religion and Politics in the Please send additional information Economic Development of Kenya Stroope, Michael W. for _ and Tanzania." "Eschatological Mission Reality Name _ Ph.D. Atlanta, Georgia: Emory Univ., and Possibility in the Theology of 1983. Karl Barth and Its Influence on Institution _ Modem Mission Thought." Street, _ Kimball, Charles Anthony. Ph.D. Fort Worth, Texas: Southwestern City _ "Striving Together in the Way of Baptist Theological Seminary, 1986. God: Muslim Participation in the State Zip _ Christian-Muslim Dialogue." Trench, William C. Th.D. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard "The Social Gospel and the City: 300 North Zeeb Road Univ., 1987. Implication for Theological Dept. P.R. Reconstruction." Ann Arbor, Mi. 48106 Ng, Andrew Wai Man. Ph.D. Boston, Mass.: Boston Univ., "Watchman Nee and the 1986. Priesthood of All Believers." Th.D. St. Louis, Missouri: Concordia Seminary, 1986.

94 International Bulletin of Missionary Research Asbury••• for Strategic Power and Effectiveness in Mission

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Dr.Sun-DoKim Dr.George Hunter III Dr. DarrellWhiteman Dr. Catherine Dr.PhilipSpottswood Dr. Mathias Zahniser PasfCIT, Ktt'QnRUrn (Burnm,ll: D,an, ESJ SchlX ,i, Asbury Assflfiare pHljessllf flf Stonehouse Cll"ns,onR psych%R'S! ",Pmfessllf uf U'fJTId reuK!'fl ns Bush ) Ch"rch, U'IWIJ Seminary. Professmof cultural anthTfJpc I/fJI0' Ass/lciaLe pmfess/JT Ilf M"h"d"m's IarRel ., f"'leS! l.'hu TCh ,l?Tou'lh Chrislian eJucQ (icJn RTou'inRt'fJn,i?Tt'Rtllll/n

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Association of Christian Schools International. Issues Overseas Schools Profiles. Whittier, Calif.: Association of Christian Schools International (P.O. Box 4097), 1987. The Use of Computers in Mission Pp. iv, 113. Paperback $15.00. Research Norman E. Thomas and Kenneth Bedell David, S. Immanuel, ed. Christianity and the Encounter with other Religions: A Select Bibliography. A Survey of Twentieth-Century Bangalore, India: United Theological College, 1988. Pp. 107. Paperback $5.00. Pentecostal/Charismatic Renewal in the Holy Spirit Fenton, Thomas P. and Mary J. Heffron, eds. David B. Barrett Africa: A Directory of Resources. Maryknoll, N. Y.: Orbis Books, 1987. Pp. xiv, 144. Paperback $9.95. The Threat of Terrorism to Missionaries: Accepting the Hamilton, Don. Challenge Tentmakers Speak: Practical Advice from Over 400 Missionary Tentmakers. Chester L. Quarles Duarte, Calif.: TMQ Research, 1987. Pp. x, 99. Paperback. No price indicated. American Protestants in Pursuit of Lindsell, Harold. Mission: 1886-1986 The New Paganism. Gerald H. Anderson San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987. Pp. xv, 279, $16.95. The Historiography of Mission Okullu, Henry. Eric J. Sharpe Church and State in Nation Building and Human Development. Cincinnati: Forward Movement Publications, 1987. Pp. xvii, 141. Paperback $4.95. The Origins and Evolution of the Three-Selfs Rijks, Piet. Wilbert R. Shenk A Guide to Catholic Bible Translations: Vol. 1, The Pacific. Stuttgart: WorldCatholic Federation for the Biblical Apostolate, n.d. Pp. 147. Paperback. Three Models for Christian Mission No price indicated. James M. Phillips

Scott, William Henry. My Pilgrimage in Mission-A Series, Aglipay Before Aglipayanism. with articles by New Manila, Quezon City: National Priest Organization, Aglipayan Resource Center C. G. Baeta (P.O. Box 10259 Broadway Centrum), 1987. Pp. 44. Paperback. No price indicated. Arthur F. Glasser M. M. Thomas Semands, John T. Harold W. Turner Harvest of Humanity. and others Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books, Scripture Press, 1988. Pp. 213. Paperback $7.9,5. In our Series on the Legacy of Sookhdeo, Patrick, ed. Outstanding Missionary Figures of New Frontiers in Mission. the Nineteenth and Twentieth Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House; Exeter, U.K.: Paternoster Press, 1987. Pp. Centuries, articles about 190. Paperback. No price indicated. Roland Allen Charles H. Brent Talis, Sara Joan, ed. Amy Carmichael Oral Histories of Three Secondary School Students in Tanzania. Daniel J. Fleming Lewiston, N. Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1987. Pp. xi, 248. $49.95. Francis X. Ford Thomas Valpy French Verkuyl, J. and J. M. Snoek. Norman Goodall Intern beraad in verband met de relatie tussen Kerk en Israel. Maurice Leenardt Kampen: J. H. Kok, 1988. Pp. 134. Paperback. No price indicated. John Alexander Mackay Helen Barrett Montgomery Constance E. Padwick J. Waskom Pickett Timothy Richard A. B. Simpson