The Legacy of Claudius Buchanan
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
The Legacy of Claudius Buchanan Wilbert R. Shenk laudius Buchanan has been credited with playing the so as to allow missionaries to enter India. The antimissionary C decisive role in opening India to Christian missions in forces deflected this attempt, but the charter did require the the early years of the nineteenth century.' By the twentieth company to continue to provide chaplains to the expatriate century, however, he was largely forgotten.' Never commis Indian civil service and military. sioned a missionary himself, Buchanan worked to break down During his four years at CambridgeBuchanancorresponded the considerable barriers to missionary work that existed until regularly withJohn Newton. In 1792 he dined with Mr. and Mrs. 1813, and he contributed to the development of institutional Charles Grant in Cambridge and heard from Grant, a director of infrastructures that would sustain missions. Buchanan is a wor the East India Company, "various accounts of the apostolic spirit thy case study in evangelical activism. of some missionaries to the Indies.:" In 1794 Newton pressed on him the possibility of the India chaplaincy, still the only legal Family and Education basis for evangelical work in British India." Claudius Buchanan was born March 12, 1766, at Cambuslang, A Passion for Mission Scotland. His father, Alexander, was the local schoolmaster. His maternal grandfather, Claudius Somers, was an elder of the Upon graduation from Cambridge in 1795 Buchanan was or Cambuslang kirk when George Whitefield preached in the val daineddeaconandbecameNewton'scurate. In early1796Charles ley in 1742and thefamily cameundertheswayof the Evangelical Grant got Buchanan appointed a chaplain to the East India Revival. He was his grandfather's pride and joy, and the family Company. That summer the bishop of London, Dr. Porteus, early marked out Claudius for the ministry. In his teens, how ordained Buchanan priest for the chaplaincy. Following a brief ever, he turned away from the church. Between 1782 and 1787 he visit to his family in Scotland, he sailed for India in August, spent three terms at the University of Glasgow and then left arriving March 10, 1797, two days before his thirty-first birth Scotland. By the time he reached London, he was in dire straits day?At Calcutta the seniorchaplain, theReverend DavidBrown, and had to abandon further travel. Eventually, he got work as who had been in India since 1786, received him cordially. The clerk in an attorney's office. In 1790 his inner turmoil reached a two men worked together harmoniously for the next ten years. crisis. His mother wrote, advising that he seek outJohn Newton, Buchanan was posted to the Barrackpur military garrison, rector of St. Mary Woolnoth. Newton not only led Buchanan to sixteen miles upriver from Calcutta. His next two years were a satisfyingspiritual experiencebuttook a great personalinterest frustrating because the soldiers were totally indifferent to reli in him.' gion. He occupied himself with the study of the Persian and Two weeks later Claudius was arrested by the words from Hindustani languages. "Not knowing what may be the purpose Isaiah: "Howbeautiful are the feet of them that preach the Gospel of God concerning me," he wrote, "I have thought it my duty to of peace!" This awakened in him the long-suppressed call to the attend early to the languages of the country.:" Indeed, this gave ministry.' At age twenty-four he wasbeginning to find direction. impetus to much of his work during his years in India. Newton urged him to prepare for the ministry. As a member of In April 1799, he married eighteen-year-old Mary Whish, the evangelicalcircle of movers and shakers, Newtonintroduced who had come out to India with her older sister and aunt. She Buchanan to Henry Thornton, who immediately offered to sup bore two daughters but soon became ill with consumption. On port Buchanan while he pursued theological studies. It was decided that Buchanan should go to Cambridge to secure proper credentials for ministry in the Churchof England. The autumnof Buchanan came to India as 1791, at age twenty-five, he entered Queens' College, whose a chaplain, but his passion principal was Dr. Isaac Milner, a respected evangelical. At Cambridge he became one of the "Sims," attending the was rrussions. Sunday evening event Charles Simeon held weekly for earnest students. Simeonalso tutored him in public speaking. Because of his age and sense of obligation to HenryThornton, Buchanandid doctor's advice, accompanied by her two daughters, Mary little else than study. Later he would attribute his chronic poor Buchanan sailed for England in January 1805 to seek medical health to overwork while at Cambridge. treatment. She died en route in June. Already at Barrackpur the The 1790s were a period of ferment and innovation. The health of Buchanan himself was a constant concern. In addition, Baptists organized a missionary society in 1792, followed by a to the usual attacks of malaria and dysentery, signs of a heart string of new societies in Europe, Great Britain, and the United condition began to show. States. When the charterof the East India Companywas renewed Buchanan had come to India as a chaplain, but his passion in 1793, William Wilberforce tried to get Parliament to amend it was missions. Although the East India Company charter barred missionary work, Buchanan and his contemporaries refer freely in their writings to "missions" and "missionaries." His first Wilbert R. Shenk, a contributing editor,is Director of the Mission Training conversation with William Carey focused on the best missionary Center, Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary,Elkhart, Indiana. He served approach to the people of India. Carey cautioned against the as a missionary in Indonesia, 1955-1959, and was a mission administrator, view of an early wholesale conversion of Hindus to the Christian 1963-1990. He is editorof Mission Focus: Annual Review. faitho He said that he was "employed in laying the foundation of 78 INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH future usefulness ... translating the Bible into the Bengal tongue."? selves are prop erly the translators" (p.129), while the missionary In a phrase that was prophetic, Buchanan added: "This like supervised ." Of course, neither the missionary nor the native Wickliffe's first translati on, may prove 'the father of many ver speaker at that time had the tools of lingu istic science, and much sions.' »r o of the wo rk of that generation has not stood up well." At the same time he was sensible of the fact that a less direct Buchanan shared the Serampore enthusiasm for producing approach to evange lization , based on this sober estima te of the as ma ny translations in as many languages as possible.This tactic prospects, might make it more difficult to enlist suppo rt for was buttressed by his almos t boundless confidence in the power missions. Buchanan struggled to find a formulation that was of the Chris tian Scriptures to "w itness" to peo ple, if only they both realistic and compelling." As an heir of the Evange lical were given access (see p. 70). Revival, he put a premium on wholehea rted response to the call In 1806 the Court of Directors in Londo n ordered the college of Jesus Christ." curtailed, and the d epartment of Bible translation was closed . The Buchanan legacy consists of four interlocking roles: Brown and Buchanan had seen this coming and arrange d to have promoter of Bible translation and distribution, architect of an the various language projects taken over by missionary societies. ecclesiastical establishment for Ind ia, publicist and researcher, and ecumenical statesma n. Some of his linguistic Promoter of Bible Translation and Distribution insights were not fully In 1799 Lord Wellesley, the forceful governo r-general of the East appreciated until the Ind ia Company, appointed Buchanan a chaplain to the presi dency, which meant that he moved from his Barrackpur exile to twentieth century. Calcutta.Shortl y thereafter Wellesley enlisted Buchanan to draft plans for a college whose main purpose wo uld be to train young Britons for the Indian civil service .This assignment gavefull play Mean while the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS), founded to a Buchanan characteristic tha t wa s to show itself repeatedly: in 1804, began providing support to gro ups like the Serampore his flare for bold and visionary planning.The new college would mission . At this time Buchanan's erstwhile cordia l relations wi th offer a complete European curriculum plus the study of the the Baptists were breached when he took decisions wi thout Indian languages, history, customs and manners, Islam and consultation and prop osed a British "Pro paganda" that wo uld Hinduism, with their respective cod es of law. In addition, a have put them under the control of the established church." dep artment of Bible translation-a feature tha t must have ap Unsurprisingly, theSerampo re Mission rejected the prop osal out peared curious indeed to the Court of Directors in London-was of hand. to be established . In Buchanan 's words, the object of the college was "to enlighten the Ori ental wo rld, to give science, religion, Ecclesiastical Architect and pure morals to Asia, and to confir m in it the British power and d ominion."!' The College of Fort William opened in Au gu st In 1800 Churc h of England canon law had no provision for the 1800 with David Brown as provost and Claudius Buchanan as extension of the church to terr itories beyond British political vice-provost. Buchananwasalso professorof classicallan guages. jurisd iction. This wa s fully consistent with a Chris tendo m con By 1801 Brown and Buchanan had persuad ed the gove rnor cept, which defined the church territorially as coextensive with general to appoint the Baptist William Carey as instructor in the state rath er than missionally.