The First Globalization: The Internationalization of the Protestant Missionary Movement Between the World Wars Dana L. Robert

he global vision intrinsic to Christianity-one world, internationalism withthe kingdom of God. Particularlyin North Tone kingdom of God under Jesus Christ-has been the American mainline Protestant churches it became difficult to motive and purpose behind much missionary fervor. Driven by distinguish internationalism from the mission impulse itself. this idealistic vision, the mission of the church nevertheless has Although internationalism was central to mainline Protes­ beenconductedwithinhumanhistory. Modemmissionsemerged tant missions in the 1920s and 1930s, scholars have not used it as in the context of the Enlightenment, the industrial revolution, an interpretive framework for the missionary issues of the era. and the subsequent expansion of capitalism and modernization. Many have preferred to interpret the interwar period in light of With its internal logic of universalism, or catholicity,' Christian the Kraemer/Hocking debate or in relation to the tension be­ mission of necessity finds itself in dialogue with the secular tween evangelistic and social gospel approaches to missions. globalizing tendency of the historical moment-whether Euro­ This essay explores the relationship between internationalism pean expansionism, Western capitalism, or the World Wide and indigenization in the mission movementbetween the world Web. 2 wars, with primary reference to a North American conversation. The Anglo-American Protestant missionary movement of I hope to demonstrate that internationalism and indigenization the 1920s and 1930s functioned within the globalizing discourse were two sides of the same coin. of "internationalism"-amoral vision of oneworld thatemerged The globalizing vision of one world stood in tensionwith the after the horrors of World War I and stemmed from the idealism cultural particularities that emerged in relationship to the global ofWoodrowWilson'sFourteenPoints.Internationalismlaunched context itself. Internationalism demonstrated all the complexity a massive pacifist movement, brought into being the League of that bedevils globalization in the early twenty-first century-a Nations and the World Court, and established the idea of the shiftingset ofbothsecularandreligiousdefinitions, andassump­ right of self-determination for all peoples.' Important sectors of tions of universality both challenged and affirmed by nationalis­ the Protestant missionary movement embraced international­ tic or particular ethnic identities. In this study I place the mission ism-they helped shape it, participated in it, and defended and thought of the 1920s and 1930s in the larger context of interna­ critiqued it at a grassroots level. In their most optimistic phase tionalism, and then explore briefly the parallels with globaliza­ during the 1920s, mission advocates were accused of confusing tion today.'

Missions and the Developm.ent of Christian Internationalism.

he internationalist agenda emerged quickly among ments like the YMCA and the World's Student Christian Federa­ T youngadults, many of them university students, whose tion (WSCF) had already spread throughout the colleges of generational cohorts died by the millions in the trenches of Europe, Asia, South Africa, and the United States. From 1889 to Europefrom 1914to1918.OnJanuary8,1918,PresidentWoodrow 1892 Luther Wishard of the World Committee of the YMCA Wilson of the United States put forth the Fourteen Points as a toured Japan, China, India, and parts of Africa to organize basis for ending the war. Among the points was the idea of the student YMCAs, visiting 216 mission stations in twenty coun­ self-determination of minority peoples, the end of the Ottoman tries. Missionaries, who considered theYMCA a partnerin youth Empire, the return of European territory under the imperial work, were its strongest supporters in so-called mission lands. control of the Axis powers, and the founding of the League of The YMCA also sponsored the StudentVolunteer Movement for Nations as a forum for resolving international disputes. In May ForeignMissions (SVM),founded in 1888.In 1889thefirst YMCA 1919 the terms of the Treaty of Versailles became public, reveal­ foreign secretaries arrived in Japan and China. By the early 1940s ing that instead of reconciliation among nations, there would be nearly 600 Western men had been involved in planting orga­ economic punishmentof the Centralpowers so severethata new nized youth work in Christian colleges in mission lands across basis for continued conflict was created. Then the U.S. Senate the globe. With its focus on developing indigenous leadership, refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, which coupled with the the YMCA quickly developed a partnership model whereby decision of theUnited Statesnot to join the League of Nations, set foreign secretaries workedalongside and thenunderindigenous in motiona Widespreadinternationalistmovementamongyoung studentleaders. The WSCF, founded in 1895,piggybackedon the adults determined to achieve lasting peace based upon Wilson's YMCA and to some extent was an extension of it. Archbishop Fourteen Points. Nathan Soderblom of Sweden, leader in both the Life and Work Prior to World War I international Christian student move- and the Faith and Order ecumenical movements during the 1920s, reminisced that it was the YMCA, beginning with his Dana L.Robert, acontributing editor, is theTrumanCollins Professor ofWorld attendance at evangelist Dwight Moody's Northfield, Massa­ Mission, Boston University School of Theology, Boston, Massachusetts. This chusetts, conference for college students in 1890, that gave him essaywas prepared with the supportof the Currents in World Christianity his "world-wide vision of ecumenical Christianity.:" Project. It waspresented in July2001 at theconference "Interpreting Contem­Given the missionary focus and international connections of porary Christianity: Global Processes and Local Identities," held in the student Christian movements before World War I, it was a Hammanskraal, South Africa. logical though not uncontested step for the younger generation

50 INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH to merge the missionary agenda into the internationalism of the International Bulletin postwar period. Already Christian students had sustained a of Missionary Research Christian vision for world unity, and the WSCF maintained its formal unity across the battle lines during the war. As Christian Established 1950 by R. Pierce Beaver as Occasional Bulletin from the students and church leaders reestablished friendships across Missionary Research Library. Named Occasional Bulletin of Missionary national boundaries after the end of hostilities, the international­ Research 1977. Renamed INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH ist agenda of pacifism and international unity created a new 1981. Published quarterly in January, April, July, and October by rationale for missionary commitment that seemed progressive Overseas Ministries Study Center and modern. Internationalism provided a new discourse, a new 490 Prospect Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06511, U.S.A. way of talking about missions for well-educated mainline Prot­ Tel: (203) 624-6672 • Fax: (203) 865-2857 estants. E-mail: [email protected] • Web: http://www.OMSC.org The transformation of mission organizations into interna­ Editor: Contributing Editors: tionalist ones occurred across the board in mainline Protestant Jonathan J. Bonk Catalino G. Arevalo, S.J. C. Rene Padilla colleges and student movements in the United Kingdom and the David B.Barrett James M. Phillips United States during the 1920s. A few examples here will suffice. Associate Editor: Stephen B.Bevans,S.V.D. Dana L. Robert In his history of the British Student Christian Movement, Robert T. Coote Samuel Escobar Lamin Sanneh Tissington Tatlow, an Anglican student volunteer who became Paul G. Hiebert Wilbert R.Shenk the SCM general secretary, eloquently described the transforma­ Assistant Editor: Jan A. B.Jongeneel Brian Stanley tion of his own consciousness into internationalism. In 1925 the Daniel J. Nicholas Sebastian Karotemprel, S.D.B. Charles R. Taber ManchesterQuadrennialConferenceof the Britishstudentmove­ David A. Kerr Tite Tienou ment drew 1,600 participants from twenty-nine countries. In Senior Contributing Editor Graham Kings Ruth A. Tucker Gerald H. Anderson Anne-Marie Kool Desmond Tutu addition to fellowship, worship, and singing, there were inspir­ Gary B.McGee Andrew F. Walls' ing speakers, the most memorable of whom was T. Z. Koo, head Mary Motte, F.M.M. AnastasiosYannoulatos of student work for the YMCA in China. Speaking on the topic "The New China," Koo described the work of social reconstruc­ Books for review and correspondence regarding editorial matters should be tion being undertaken under the Nationalist government. Re­ addressed to the editors. Manuscripts unaccompanied by a self-addressed, maining in England for a few weeks after the conference, Koo stamped envelope (or international postal coupons) will not be returned. visited church leaders and addressed various gatherings of Subscriptions: $23 for one year, $41 for two years, and $57 for three years, students. Tatlow witnessed a meeting between Koo and the postpaid worldwide. Airmail delivery is $16 per year extra. Foreign sub­ archbishops of Canterbury and York and later recalled, "He scribers must pay in U.S. funds only. Use check drawn on a U.S. bank, stood, a slender figure in his Chinese dress of blue, with an Visa, MasterCard, or International Money Order in U.S. funds. Individual archbishop at each side of him.... And as each archbishop shook copies are $7.00; bulk rates upon request. Correspondence regarding sub­ hands to saygood-bye, each thanked himwarmlyand simplyfor scriptions and address changes should be sent to: INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, P.O. Box 3000, Denville, New Jersey 07834, U.S.A. what he had done during his visit to help English Christians. I was deeply moved by the scene. Behind the trio there rose for me Advertising: a vision of men of every kindred and tribe and race in one Ruth E. Taylor fellowship worshipping Cod."? 11 Graffam Road, South Portland, Maine 04106, U.S.A. In 1919the BritishSCM issued a declaration, "Call to Battle," Telephone: (207) 799-4387 that stressed the unity among Christian students of all races and Articles appearing in this journal are abstracted and indexed in: nations. It stated: "We are convinced that this unity is the only sure hope of peace and of the true development of nations.... Bibliografia Missionaria IBR (International Bibliography of Book ReviewIndex Book Reviews) There is a desire that is often passionate to find some new way of Christian Periodical Index IBZ (International Bibliography of international life, to see new principles applied and a real stand Guideto People in Periodical Literature Periodical Literature) made for a better world."? In 1920 the SCM held a meeting to Guideto Social Science and Religion in Missionalia mobilize students in support of the League of Nations. Tatlow Periodical Literature Religious andTheological Abstracts interpreted the move into internationalism as a logical progres­ Religion Index One: Periodicals sion of the student movement. All their prewar meetings had Index, abstracts, and full text of this journal are available on databases concerned missions, and more than 2,300 British students had provided by ATLAS, EBSCO, H. W. Wilson Company, The Gale Group, and become missionaries before the war. The postwar decision to University Microfilms. Back issues may be seen on the ATLAS website, focus on international relations and on building friendships http://purl.org/CERTR/ATLAS/Phase1.html. Also consult InfoTrac data­ across national and racial lines was for Tatlow an outgrowth of base at many academic and public libraries. For more information, contact the missionary focus. He spentthe 1920s networking to establish your online service. a student movement committed to peace and interracial unity. A Opinions expressed in the INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN are those of the authors representative from the Indian SCM joined the British staff as a and not necessarily of the Overseas Ministries Study Center. visible sign of unity across colonial boundaries. With the Dutch student movement providing a neutral meeting ground, Tatlow Copyright© 2002byOverseasMinistries StudyCenter. All rightsreserved. and his group met with the representatives of the German Second-class postage paid at New Haven, Connecticut. student movement to seek reconciliation. Other motivations POSTMASTER: Send address changes to INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF behind the internationalistfocus in the 1920s were the increasing MISSIONARY RESEARCH, P.O. Box 3000, Denville, New Jersey 07834, U.S.A. numbers of international students attending British universities after the war and the needs of stranded and destitute students ISSN 0272-6122 throughout Europe. In the United States, the agenda of internationalism swept

April 2002 51 through the YMCA, YWCA, SVM, and other student mission American Expeditionary Forces in the Philippines, and then groups," The failure of the United States to ratify the Treaty of bishop of Western New York. Appealing for the authentic con­ Versailles and join the League of Nations wasa gravedisappoint­ version of those in so-called Christian nations, Brent noted that ment for mission-minded college students. Then in 1924 came the shrinking distance between East and West meant that Chris­ the passage of theOrientalExclusion Act, giving dramatic imme­ tians would be made in the East only if Easterners saw Christian diacy to internationalist concerns. Missionaries widely opposed behavior in the West. To be truly of service to the world and to this law, which kept Chinese, Japanese, and other "Orientals" reach the East, Western civilization needed to become more out of the United States, for why would Asians want to become meditative and worshipful, "more empowered to use silence." Christians if a so-called Christian country was refusing them But the greatestopportunityfor WesternChristians,according to admittance? The postwar American mission focus on "world Brent, lay in the League of Nations, to be established by an friendship" represented a combination of pacifism, interracial international treaty binding on all nations. Both the League of reconciliation, and a vision of global unity that emerged from Nations and the proposed World Court were "Christian in their mission ideals. aim and in their possibilities.... The Christian Church has got to The history of the student missionary movement at Mount say in no uncertain voice whether it accepts war as an evil necessity and will support war when it arises, or whether it believes thatit is a barbarous atrocity, thatthere is a substitutefor The Oriental Exclusion Act it, and that we must discover and use that substitute." In a statement of his own passion, made more moving by his ill gave strong impetus to health, Brent declared, "I see but two things to live for: one of internationalist concerns. them is the unity of the church of God; the other is the good will among the nations that will forever banish war."!' A section of the Foreign Missions Convention of 1925 was HolyokeCollege, Massachusetts, the first women's college in the devoted to the relationship of the missionary movement to United States, is a concrete example of the evolutioninto interna­ "peaceand good will amongnations." Speaking oninternational tionalism. Mount Holyoke was the preeminent training school relations, one speaker indicated that a major problem of the day for Congregationalist missionary women in the mid 1800s, and was in harmonizing nationalism with the Christian ideal of in 1878 a group of its students founded the Mount Holyoke worldwide unity. Other speakers spoke of the need for prayer Missionary Association. A decade later, with the founding of the and humility and for Christian cooperation to counter the divi­ SVM and its cosponsorship by the YWCA, the Mount Holyoke siveness between peoples. Said John R. Mott, chairman of the Missionary Association became the Missionary Literature Com­ IMC, "Christian missions are indeed the great and the true mittee of the campus YWCA. At the beginning of the twentieth internationalism. Our 29,000 missionaries are ambassadors, in­ century the YWCA spearheaded missionary interest on campus, terpreters, and mediators in the most vital aspects of interna­ holding mission study classes and missionary meetings. In 1925 tionalandinter-racialrelationships/"! Speaking for the woman's the Missionary Department of the YWCA changed its name to missionary movement was Evelyn Nicholson, president of the the World Fellowship Department. Similar developments took Woman'sForeignMissionarySocietyof the MethodistEpiscopal place at Carleton College in Minnesota, another stronghold of Church, memberof the IMC, andauthorof thefirst bookon peace missionary Congregationalism. At these schools "the spirit of education to be published by the Methodists after the war. evangelical missions and of a more secular internationalism Stressing the importance of the church for creating world peace, fused and became almost indistinguishable."? Nicholson argued that the teachings of Christ commissioned the church to teachinterdependence, peace, and mutualrespect. The Advancing the Internationalist Agenda, 1925 church "is in itselfa League of Nations functioning now, through its representatives, in every land. It is a recognized educational After World War I not only the younger generation but also the agency, training not only the intellect but the will and spirit."!' middle-aged missionary movement hitched its wagon to the Through its schools, missions were teaching that people had vision of a peaceful, united world. Major church conferences in rights. According to Nicholson, the promotion of friendship the mid-1920s shared a focus on internationalism, with the most among people of different races and nationalities was a unique optimistic Americans merging it into their vision of the kingdom responsibility of mission agencies. of Cod." In their dissatisfaction at the decision of the Interna­ Another important church meeting that took place in 1925 tional Missionary Council (IMC) not to hold an international was the Stockholm Conference on Life and Work. While the meeting until 1928, the North American mission societies held mission convention in Washington demonstrated agreement their own Foreign Missions Convention in Washington, D.C., in among the British and American speakers that internationalism 1925.Eighty-five mission organizations,elevenmissionarytrain­ was an essential part of the missionary agenda, the international ing schools, and 3,419 delegates attended. President Calvin Stockholm conference revealed a chasm between the former Coolidge opened the meeting withan address urgingmissionar­ Allies and the German delegates over the issue. Although the ies to carry the best of Christianity to other cultures and to Anglo-Americans and French seemed to agree that the League of counteract the evils of Western civilization by bringing back to Nations should be supported as part of creating a new world America the best of other cultures. Internationalism suffused the order, the German delegation accused them of confusing a proceedings. A series of papers on the theme "the present world temporal program with the kingdom of God. Invoking Luther's situation" reviewed the situation of missions in different parts of "twokingdom" theory, the Germans insisted that their suffering the world. A number of distinguished missionary speakers ad­ underthe terms of the Versailles peace treaty made them waryof dressed aspects of internationalism. One of the most explicit was identifying a human program with the divine will. Protested Dr. Charles Brent, who had served as Episcopal bishop of the Philip­ Klingemann, superintendent of the Rhine Province, "Now re­ pines for sixteen years before becoming senior chaplain of the member that disarmed we live in an armed world. We wait for

52 INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH the promised general disarmament to be able to believe in sionaries, he experienced firsthand the split that was opening peace."14 withinthe missionarycommunitybetweenfundamentalism and The protest of the German delegates that the internationalist modernism. In 1922, after returning from China, Fosdick deliv­ agenda looked suspiciously like a hijacking of the kingdom of ered his sermon "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?" Controversy God by a particular political program was the same objection over that sermon was one of the major events in the fundamen­ raised byGermanstudentsto the optimismof TissingtonTatlow. talist-modernist contention in the 1920s. In response to the up­ Of what good was an idealistic movement for world peace when roar, Baptist and millionaire businessman John D. Rockefeller, economic disparities loomed between national winners and [r., called Fosdick as pastor of his church. On the upper east side losers? The German objections not only raised the theological of multicultural Manhattannext to Union TheologicalSeminary, question of confusing internationalism with the kingdom of Rockefellerconstructedthe nonsectarianRiversideChurch,which God, but they implied that the movement for world peace was a politicalployof the victorious Allies. In short, it wascharged that the internationalistagenda wasbeingpromotedbythose nations Fosdick was convinced that who held all the power in the postwar world." The 1925 Stockholm conference was not strictly speaking a humankind was becoming missionary gathering as was the North American conference in one world. Washington. But when we see it in relation with the Washington conference andthe ManchesterQuadrennialof theBritishSCM­ all three held the same year-it becomes clear just how widely under Fosdick's leadership embodied the internationalist move­ some form of the internationalist agenda had spread throughout ment. Fosdick's stated goal for Riverside Church was to help the the leadership of Western Protestantism. younger generation discover its divine vocation and say, "Here The adoption of Christian internationalismby a large group I am, send me." "If wherever soldiers of the common good are of missionaries and mission leaders was an important factor in fighting for a more decent international life and a juster industry, the growing rift with fundamentalist mission leaders, who, like they should feel behind them the support of this church which some Europeans, distrusted the idea that the internationalist ... has kept its conviction clear that a major part of Christianity agenda was somehow connected with an emerging kingdom of is the application of the principles of Jesus to the social life, and God. For more conservative missionaries, world unity would be that no industrial or international question is ever settled until it a result of the eschatological establishment of God's heavenly is settled Christianly, that would be wonderful."18 kingdom, not the outcome of its step-by-step development on Many missionaries on furlough and international students earth." attended Union Seminary while Fosdick taught there, and the On the part of self-identified liberal Protestants in the 1920s, Riverside Church became their home away from home. Fosdick the emergence of internationalism replaced a traditional, more noted some of the typical mission causes supported by the narrowly evangelistic view of missions: it dealt with the Chris­ congregation: a rural projectunderthe Kyodan (Japanese Protes­ tianizing of relationships between nations rather than conver­ tant Church), education of girls in an Arab refugee camp, Korean sion of individuals. While the internationalist liberals of the day refugees, an American Indian college in Oklahoma, the Interna­ usually retained a focus on individual commitment, they broad­ tional Christian University in Japan, Vellore Medical College in ened the missionary agenda to emphasize Christianizing the India, a schoolof socialworkin Delhi, the YMCA in Mozambique social realm. and Senegal, a settlementhouse in Tokyo, workamong migrants under the Home Missions Council, an agricultural missionary in Internationalism in the Fosdick Family China, Union Seminary in Tokyo, the radio ministry of the PhilippineChristianCouncil, the Agricultural Missions Founda­ An extremelyinterestingexampleof thisprocessoccurredwithin tion, ecumenicalworkin Santo Domingo, and various projects in the Fosdick family, Baptists from upstate NewYork. Members of New York City. While he never became a missionary in the strict the family played major roles in the development of internation­ sense, Harry Emerson Fosdick's internationalism was an out­ alismwithinliberalChristianity. HarryEmersonFosdickwas the growth of that earlier interest. Describing internationalism as an most famous preacher in America between the wars. He recalled "idea that has used me," he wrote, "The idea that mankind is in his autobiography, TheLivingofThese Days,that his childhood inevitably becoming 'one world,' so far as the conquest of dis­ decision to be baptized was because he wanted to become a tance and the intensifying of economic interdependence can missionary: "The wide, wide world was called to our attention make us one, has had a major influence on my thinking and mainly as a mission field. It grew vivid to us when missionaries preaching."19 pictured it in all its heathen need. When I graduated from high Harry Fosdick's involvement in internationalism is all the school in 1895 the Turks had just been massacring the Arme­ more noteworthy when one realizes that his younger brother, nians, and my 'oration' was an appeal for that decimated Raymond, was the first undersecretary of the League of Nations. people."17 As the result of his theological training at Colgate Havingstudied underWoodrowWilsonat Princetonfor bothhis Seminary and his fieldwork in the Bowery in New York City, bachelor and master's degrees, and then working in New York Fosdick adopted modernist theological views. He became pro­ Cityas ananticorruptionreformer,RaymondFosdickwastapped fessor of practical theology at Union Theological Seminary and as the first undersecretarybyPresidentWilsonbefore the League continued to sharpen his homiletical skills as preacher in many of Nations was voted on by the U.S. Senate. (Brother Harry churches. Through his many books on spirituality and preach­ preached a pacifist sermon in Geneva at the opening ceremony ing, especially TheManhood of the Master, Fosdick's ideas had a of the League in 1925.) After retiring from the League, Raymond wide readership among missionaries and indigenous Christian became a lawyer, with Rockefeller as his first client. Spending leaders. more and more time on the various organizations funded by the In 1921, traveling to China to hold conferences among mis- Rockefellerfamily, andas senioradvisorto Rockefeller, Raymond

April 2002 53 eventually became head of the Rockefeller Foundation." by peace, economic capitalism, and what is now called "human The Fosdickcommitmentto internationalismwasembodied rights," was essentially a product of the"civilizing" aspect of in Raymond Fosdick's twin sister, Edith, who spent her life Protestant missions. Wilson's Fourteen Points reflected a Chris­ abroad as a teacher in various mission-founded colleges. After tian vision, having been produced by one who was the son, graduating from Vassar and becoming a social worker at a grandson, and son-in-law of Presbyterian ministers and who settlement house in New York City, she spent World War I in was president of a Presbyterian-founded college before going Italy as a canteenworker under the YMCA. Edith Fosdick taught into politics. At some level conservative suspicions were correct English literature at Kobe College in Japan, Ginling College in whenthey detected a conflationof the League of Nationswiththe China, American College for Girls in Greece, and the American kingdomof God, inasmuch as the supportersof internationalism College for Girls in Turkey. Elinor Downs, the daughter of Harry represented the "mission" of Anglo-Americanism writ large. Emerson Fosdick, informs us that her aunt Edith never consid­ Still, it was a movement into the global arena prompted by the ered herself a missionary." These commitments of the Fosdick same kind of impulse that had inspired the Puritan settlers to be family show how the span of Christian internationalism ranged a "city on a hill," radiating light to the rest of the world. from the ministry-centered focus of Harry to the politicized It can be argued that the embrace of internationalism by Christiancivilizationmodelof Raymond andthe hands-oninter­ some missionaries within Protestant liberalism after World War national service of Edith. I set into motion a secularizing trend that ultimately rejected its Of course, not all internationalists were missionaries and missionaryorigins. But notall internationalistChristians repudi­ missionleaders. Nevertheless,from a religiousperspectiveChris­ ated the term "missionary." On the contrary. Affirming the tian missions were the generative impulse behind the interna­ Christian faith as the source of their internationalist vision, a tionalist movement. The literature of the interwar period shows substantialnumberof Anglo-Americanmissionariesconstituted that mission thought had an enormous impact on the religious a network of internationalists that had a profound impact on the dimensions of internationalism. The vision of one world, united shape of Christian internationalism.

Missionary Indigenization Within the Internationalist Paradigm.

n the remainder of this essay I focus on one aspect of from Western culture and to see him embodied in other cul­ I missionary internationalism thatwas particularly signifi­ tures." cant in the 1920s and 1930s, namely, the movement toward To illustrate the theological and missiological dynamics of cultural indigenization. I intend to demonstrate that a primary the separation of Christ from culture, let us examine a handful of missionary contribution to Christian internationalism was the groundbreaking works that appeared in the mid-1920s. By 1925 active promotion of indigenization in non-Western Christian­ the postwar shift in missionary thinking was clearly expressed ity-thevision of the church as a worldwide panoplyof different notonlyin the conferences alreadydiscussed butalso in mission­ cultures and heritages. Paradoxically, the mission leaders who ary publications that had a wide impact on both missionary and were the most visible internationalists were on the cutting edge popularthinking. AmongNorthAmericansE.StanleyJoneswas of promoting indigenous cultures within Christian expression. undoubtedly the most popular and visible figure among those To have a truly global church meant appreciating the individual missionaries self-consciously associated with internationalism cultures within it. The self-determination of peoples meant en­ and its twin, indigenization. He waswidely influentialin pacifist couraging their individual contributions to the world church; it circles, he was an early and prominent supporter of Indian meant the liberating of church life-including its history, art, independence, and he shaped the thinking of the 1920s genera­ architecture,literature,andworship-fromdominationbyWest­ tion of seminarians and young church leaders in the United ern traditions. States. Author of twenty-eight books, including the best-selling TheChristoftheIndian Road.": Jones's missiological and spiritual Separating Christ from Western Culture writings influenced both evangelical and liberal missionaries all over the world into the 1960s.25 Designated by TimeMagazine in At the theological center of missionary internationalism was the 1938 as the "world's greatest missionary," Jones first went to separation of Christ from Western culture. The horrors of World India as a Methodist missionary in 1907.Corning from a pietistic WarInotonlyprovokeda Widespreadsearchfor waysto prevent grounding in Holiness theology, Jones believed that religious war, but they caused a revulsion against the easy association of experiencethrougha personalreiationship withJesusChristwas Christianity with Western culture. For it was so-called Christian the foundation of Christian living. nations that had fought the most devastating war in human As Jones immersed himself in Indian culture in attempts to history. The shift in tone in American missionary literature was reach Hindus and Muslims, he realized that their association of immediate. For example, before the war the annual women's Christianity with Western culture left them unable to relate to study books by the Central Committee on the United Study of Jesus Christ, who seemed to them a metaphor for British imperi­ Foreign Missions often took a condescending view toward the alism. Jones began giving public lectures on Jesus Christ, fol­ ­ cultures of the world." But beginning with Caroline Atwater lowed by fatiguing question-and-answer sessions with the in­ Mason's World Missions andWorld Peace in 1916, the studybooks digenous intelligentsia. By firmly stripping away the trappings of the women's series, as well as the books produced by the of Western Christianity, Jones proved able to get thousands of Missionary Education Movement, took a positive view toward Hindus and Muslims to stand and acknowledge their allegiance non-Western cultures and criticized the non-Christian aspects of to JesusChrist-notto asystemof doctrinesbutto a person.Jones Western culture. The key shift from late nineteenth-century did not think of his work as an Indian interpretation of Christ, theology to that of the 1920s was the ability to separate Christ preferring to leave that task to Indians themselves. Rather, as in

54 INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH ummer sessions• Mission and Evangelism Institute

June 3-14 Anthropology and Sociology for Christian Witness Art McPhee, Ph.D., AMBS

June 17-28 Urban and Multi-ethnic Mission: Current Challenges John Powell, MPA, AMBS adjunct

July 15-26 Thinking Mission: An Introduction Walter Sawatsky, Ph.D., AMBS Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations Jon Hoover, Ph.D. candidate, and Jacqueline Hoover, M.A., guest instructors

July 19-26 Conflict, Conciliation and Communication Carolyn Schrock-Shenk, M.A., guest instructor, and Marcus Smucker, Ph.D., AMBS emeritus

August 2-9 Evangelism and Anabaptism Stuart Murray Williams, Ph.D.,guest speaker Additional courses

June 3-14 Worship: Ceremony, Symbol, Celebration Marlene Kropf D.Min., and JuneAlliman Yoder, D.Min, AMBS Anabaptist History and Theology Karl Koop, Ph.D., AMBS Epic Prophecy: Joshua-Kings Wilma Bailey, Ph.D.,guest instructor

June 17-28 Congregational Song: Practices Past and Present Rebecca Slough, Ph.D., AMBS Associated Spirituality, Pastoral Care and Healing • Mennonite Arthur Paul Boers, Ph.D., AMBS Biblical Seminary July 15-26 The Revelation to John Nelson Kraybill, Ph.D., and Loren Johns, Ph.D., AMBS 3003 Benham Avenue July 29-August 9 Elkhart, Indiana 46517 Ethics: Self and Other 1 + 800 964-2627 ChrisHuebner, Ph.D.,guest instructor www.ambs.edu [email protected] This is only a partial list of summer offerings. Seeuruno.ambs.edu for a complete list TheChrist of theIndian Road, Jones described the process of how and laid out a program for missions that was widely influential Christwas "becomingnaturalized" in lndia." By giving a straight­ among practicing missionaries. A former Presbyterian mission­ forward presentation of Jesus Christ, Jones refused to become ary to India, Fleming was professor of missions at Union Theo­ embroiled in defenses of Christianity as a religious or cultural logical Seminary from 1918 to 1944.31 As professor with Harry system. He argued that the absoluteness of Christ permitted a Emerson Fosdick at Union, he lived in the same building as generous view of non-Christian systems." A friend of Gandhi, Fosdick for decades, and their families were friends. Fleming Jones believed that the Hindu reformer pointed to Jesus, who attracted a wide range of international students, missionaries on was Life and Truth itself. In his optimism Jones felt that the furlough, and "missionary kids," including Timothy T. Lew, Y. spiritual atmosphere in India was permeated with Christ and T. Wu, Frank Laubach, and Charles Forman. Since many of that belief in him would soon burst from the heavy clouds as if a Fleming's twenty-three books were published by the interna­ rainstorm. tional student movement, they reached a wide audience of YMCA workers, missionaries, and indigenous Christian leaders around the world." In Whither Bound in Missions, Fleming distinguished be­ By separating Christ from tween Christ and Western Christianity and predicted that the Western culture, Jones "storm center of Christian controversy" would soon pass to the experienced a breakthrough "oriental seminaries" as they adjusted Christian thought to their ancient heritages. The context for the new mutuality in mission, with Hindus and Muslims. and interpretation from West to East and back again, was an "organic conception of a world society, where independence gives way to interdependence, and where competition is super­ Jones's basic mission theology was a form of fulfillment seded by cooperation. Fully to realize this co-relationship as theology. "Just as he [Jesus] gathered up in his own life and members one of another constitutes a great part of growth in person everything that was fine and beautiful in Jewish teaching spirituality." Like Jones, Fleming emphasized that Jesus was and past and gave it a new radiant expression, so he may do the handicapped by his association with the West. Given that the same same with India." Although Jesus' words "I came not to goal of missions was to communicate Christ, it was necessary for destroy but to fulfill" were "locally applied to the Law and the missions to separate Christ from a culture of racism and Western Prophets," they were "capable of a wider application to truth self-righteousness. Fleming dwelled on the need for friendship found anywhere." In the paper he gave in 1925 at the Foreign with those of other religions, on international issues that affected Missions Convention in Washington, "The Aim and Motive of the church, on indigenization in worship, and on devolving Foreign Missions," Jones described the development of his radi­ control of missions to the indigenous churches. He spent an cal methodology as a means of separating Christ from the view entire chapter, "ChristianWorld-Mindedness," on the universal that missionaries were creed-mongers, forerunners of imperial­ brotherhood of all people, the rights of smaller groups to pursue ism and capitalism, and supporters of domineering ecclesiasti­ their own ways of doing things, and the need for worldwide cism. By separating Christ from Western culture, Jones experi­ cooperation in common tasks, including the League of Nations enced a breakthrough with the Hindus and Muslims who op­ and the World Court. Mission education must emphasize "the posed him. At the heart of Jones's fulfillment theory was a universal brotherhood of children of God and purposeful, con­ theology of the cosmic Christ: "If we go deep enough into structive endeavor for world ends," which Fleming saw as part religion, we must stand face to face with Jesus, who is religion of what Jesus meant by the kingdom of God.33 Developing the itself in its final expression." In relation to the East, Jesus Christ "international mind," including "world consciousness, world wasthe way (karm marg,"wayof life"), the truth(gyanmarg,"way outlook, world background, world fellowship, and world objec­ of knowledge"}, and the life (bhakti n1arg, "way of devotion")." tives," should be the subject of mission education for students. To E. Stanley Jones, one of the wonders of the age was the Advised Fleming, the "Christian internationalist" will read for­ new revelation that Christianity was breaking out beyond the eign papers, study foreign languages and cultures, and be con­ borders of the church and into non-Western societies. The Christ cerned with international relations. of the Indian Road was the Christ of service, moving among the One of the missionaries Fleming influenced was Frank people in his flowing garments, touching and healing them, and Laubach, a Congregational missionary in the Philippines who announcing the kingdomof God.29 In accordance with his desire took his furlough at Union Theological Seminary between 1919 to "naturalize" Christin the Indian context, in 1930Jones opened and 1922. Deeply influenced by Fleming's vision that missions his first Christian ashram, the beginning of a series of live-in should be concerned with the total welfare of peoples, Laubach communities in which religious seekers ate and prayed together. realized through reading Fleming's Mark of the World Christian He initiated roundtable conferences among Hindus, Muslims, that two-thirds of the world were illiterate." After returning to and Christians, an early attempt at interreligious dialogue based the Philippines and working among the Muslim Moros, Laubach on sharing religious experiences. The term "roundtable" mirrored pioneered the "each one, teach one" method of literacy educa­ meetings in the political realmheld between the British and Indian tion, and the use of a basic set of words by which adults could nationalists, and consultations designed to help solve the world's learn to read in as short a time as a few hours." In addition to problems through negotiationand peacefulmeans. His Christ ofthe being "Mr. Literacy," Laubach became widely recognized as a RoundTable (1928)played a role in the acceptance of interreligious Christian internationalist, pacifist, and mystic. Author of forty­ dialogue as a feature of mainline Protestant missions. three books, he was a completely ecumenical figure who could Daniel Fleming's Whither Bound in Missions was a second not believe that one part of the church had a monopoly on truth. groundbreaking book." Although it did not reach the popular As he delved deeperinto mysticism,influencedby the faith of the stateside audiences in the way that The Christ of the Indian Road Muslim Moros, he came to think of himself as a member of all did, it putJones's anecdotal insights into a more systematic form denominations, and even of all faiths. Eager to soak up the riches

56 INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH

--~~------­ of diverse devotional traditions, he applied the same idea to the the world: "We are coming together into a spiritual federation of nations: "I have become an internationalist so much that patrio­ the Christian Women of the world for which we have longed and tism means the Lord's Prayer for the whole world, and especially prayed."40 The committee expressed optimism that Christian for those who are being forgotten or oppressed.T" women would be able to unite on a spiritual basisbefore govern­ In 1925 Laubach produced his most scholarly book, The ments would "agree on political plans" for world unity. People ofthePhilippines: TheirReligious Progress andPreparation for Platt drew attention to the child-centered aspects of interna­ Spiritual Leadership in the Far East. Daniel Fleming wrote the tionalism, includingthe beginning of theSavethe ChildrenFund foreword. In his comprehensive history of religion in the Philip­ in 1919 and the Geneva Declaration on the Rights of the Child pines, Laubach started with its pre-Christian and Muslim heri­ endorsed by the League of Nations in 1924, the aims of which she tage and then worked through the history of Christian missions. declared were biblical. Like Jones, Fleming, and Laubach, she The aim of his book was "to discover the footprints of God across believed that the future of mission lay in the hands of indigenous the history of the Philippines.r" Published under the influence Christians. "The evangelization of Africa lies with the African of of the Fourteen Points, at a time when the United States was the future." Speaking of Christian women around the world, debating whether to handle the "problem of the Philippines" by Platt stated, "What they have done and can do for their own granting it the right of self-determination, People ofthePhilippines people, is far beyond the possibilities of foreigners who come to advocated independence for the islands. Laubach argued that their shores, learn their language more or less imperfectly, and Americans had been given a distorted picture of Philippine try to think their thoughts and understand their racial feelings. cultureby the U.S. expeditionary forces and disgruntled Spanish Our Christian sisters of China, Japan, India and Africa are those priests. Rather than barbaric cannibals, the Filipinos were meek, on whomChristchieflydepends for leadingthe womenandlittle gentle, hospitable people. Their deep religious insights, drawn children of their own people into the Straight Way Toward from their rich heritage, meant that they were progressing to­ Tomorrow.... They will always need ourprayers, sympathyand ward the kingdom of God and were set to exert spiritual leader­ love; but theymust increase and wemust decrease in influence, in ship throughout Asia. In his history he focused less on Western leadership, in interpretation of the message of Christ to the missionaries than on Filipino leadership in the mission of the women of their own lands."!' church, including the founding of nineteen indigenous denomi­ In the final chapter of her book, Platt underscored women's nations from 1909 to 1921. basis for World Friendship: true love as the means to end war. To Laubach, the Philippines bore deep insights into both She drew attention to the giant women's peace rally held in Eastern and Western cultures and so were in a position to London in 1926, to the founding of the Institute of Pacific Rela­ reconcile Eastern and Western civilizations. In the words of a tions in 1925 as "an adventure in friendship," to the missionary Filipino educator, the Filipinos were internationalists, located in movement's attempt to end the unjust treaties imposed upon a strategicpositionto precipitate "newworldrelations." Laubach China and to revoke the Japanese Exclusion Act, and to the prophesied that the Filipinos would "reorientalize" Christianity World Conference of Education in 1926, which was inspired by and free it from the "slough of theological despond" into which the idea that in order to end war, children must be educated for rationalistic Western minds had led it. Filipinos were going to peace. Platt praised the international movement of Boy Scouts "work out for the Far East a simplified, beautified conception of and Girl Reserves, youth movements that were teaching youth to the spirit of Jesus Christ-they will help the kingdom of God to resolve conflicts by means other than war. In its final pages The throw off its European garb, and take upon itself once more the Straight Way Toward Tomorrow evoked the idea of a Cosmic Oriental dress in which it began its career." As beacons of Christ, who illumined the pathway to life in all cultures: "He is Christianity and of democracy and the only Asian Christian the same Christ yesterday, today, and on through the days to nation, the Philippines were poised to teach these things to the rest of Asia. If the Philippines failed in their task, Laubach feared that Asia might turn away from both democracy and Christian­ Pledging themselves ity. "She would then learn from the Occident only science, militarism, hatred, and vengeance."38 to JJWorfd Friendship," Another important missionary book was A Straight Way American women built Toward Tomorrow, by Mary Schauffler Platt. A member of a famous German-American,AmericanBoard missionarydynasty, personal bridges to women Mary Schauffler wrote several books that were widely distrib­ of other cultures. uted to hundreds of thousands of American women gathered in denominational mission study groups in American Protestant churches. Published in 1926, A Straight Way Toward Tomorrow come; the 'Christ of the Andes' who stands as the emblem of represented the application of Christian internationalism to the peace between two great countries; 'The Christ of the Indian distinctive concerns of missionary women-child welfare, the Road' whom eastern mystics can worship and crave as their Christian home, and religious education. It culminated in a call Companion; the Christ of the trackless desert to guide the wan­ for "worldwide friendship," which became the keynote of the dering Arab; the Christ of Order and the law of Love for nations interdenominational woman's missionary movement in the in­ that are struggling to find themselves in the seething world of terwar period. In "World Friendship" American women en­ today; the Christ of Unselfish Service for those who know him dorsed a Christian internationalism that stressed world peace, and would follow in his steps." The Christian women of every interracial harmony, and building personal bridges between race and country would thus walk in "happy fellowship" with womenof differentcultures." In its foreword to Mary Schauffler Christ and each other on the straight way "unto the perfect Platt's book, the Central Committee on the United Study of day."? Foreign Missions expressed its plan for breaking national barri­ In the works of Jones, Fleming, Laubach, and Platt, all ers throughunitedmissionstudyamongChristianwomenaround experienced missionaries, we see the full development of a

April 2002 57 missionary internationalism by 1926. Although they wrote in Western cultures. The resistance to indigenization could be just different genres of personal narrative, missiological treatise, as strongby "nativeChristians" as it wasby theologically conser­ history, and mission study book, each expressed deep confi­ vative missionaries, both of whom worried that indigenization dence in the ability of Jesus Christ to be fully represented in non­ would invite paganism into the church through the back door. Western cultures. Each looked forward to the development of Indigenizing internationalists frequently commented on the re­ indigenous theologies and to what we would today call the full sistance to their work by conservative native Christians." contextualization of Christianity. Their vision of a new world order, of Christian internationalism-including peace, democ­ Literature, Art, and Architecture racy, and the political and religious self-determination of peoples-provided the framework for the indigenization of The longest sustained attempt at missionary support for Christianity throughout the world. From a theological perspec­ inculturation was sponsored by the Committee on Christian tive, while they supported personal evangelism, they perceived Literature for Women and Children in Mission Fields Christ embodied in all cultures. In the case of Jones and Laubach, (CCLWCMF), founded in 1912as one of the three joint programs bothardentand activistic pacifists, although they maintained the of the women's mission boards in North America and lasting absoluteness of Jesus Christ, they saw the spirit of Christ operat­ until 1989.Duringthe1920sthe programreceived the collections ing within other religions as well." taken by women on the World Day of Prayer, supported by missionary women around the world. Its goal was to sponsor Missionary Indigenization Christianliteraturefor womenand childrenwho,afterbecoming Christian, needed to have reading material and artwork appro­ Having briefly explored the synergism between international­ priate to their own cultures. ism and indigenization in the mission thought of a few leading In its first fifty years, the CCLWCMF sponsored twenty­ missionaries in the mid-1920s, I now turn to specific attempts at seven magazines in different languages. Some of the magazines indigenization on the part of missionaries in the interwar period. were not labeled as Christian and so gained Widespread accep­ All of the leaders whose books I examined stated clearly that tance as children's literature in other religious contexts. The interpreting Jesus Christ according to each culture was a vital magazine The Treasure Chest, for example, in 1922 featured sto­ task for indigenous Christians. It was not something that West­ ries, plays, poems, and articles. It carried a regular departmenton ern missionaries could do on their behalf. While stopping short social service called "The Friendly League." Children enjoyed of claiming to develop truly indigenous theologies, missionary departments on the flora and fauna of India, biographies of internationalists in the 1920s and 1930s encouraged the famous people in Indian history, and travelogues, and they inculturation process in many different ways. wrote letters to the editor. In the late 1930sthe National Christian As the years passed, deliberate attempts at promoting indigenization increased, especially after the proceedings of the Jerusalem Conference of 1928 contained an extensive report on Native Christians accused the indigenization process. Recorded in the third volume of conference reports, on "Younger and Older Churches," the dis­ well-meaning Western cussion of indigenization involved testimonies from China, Ja­ missionaries of imposing pan, India, Burma, and the West. It was stated that the indig­ enous church could be identified "when its interpretation of indigenization upon them. Christ and its expression in worship and service, in customs and in art and architecture, incorporate the worthy characteristics of the people, while conserving at the same time the heritage of the Council of India endorsed TheTreasure Chest,which by 1938was Church in all lands and in all ages.":" being published in English, Urdu, Malayalam, Telegu, Hindi, As with the mission books examined above, the discussion Tamil, Marathi, Burmese, Gujerati, and Bengali editions." Most of indigenous churches by the IMC was set in an internationalist of the magazines supported by the project worked in vernacular framework of cooperation for world peace and the need to languages under indigenous editors and encouraged children to "Christianize" nationalism. Words from the Indian Methodist contribute stories. Clementina Butler, the American chair of Conference of 1926 exemplified the relationship between CCLWCMF, hoped the project would not only help sustain indigenization and Christian internationalism: "There will al­ "Christian homes" but would teach the ideals of peace. In 1939 ways be a need of some missionaries to come to India with the Butler quoted support of the program from missionary leaders best Christian culture from the West, just as there will always be who considered it helpful "in education for world understand­ a need of Indian Christian missionaries to take the best of ing,cooperationandpeace.":" Whenever possible, the CCLWCMF Christian culture from the East to the West. In this fusion of the cooperated with the newer Christian literature committees, such Christian culture of Occident and Orient will arise a new and as the International Committee on Christian Literature for Af­ international consciousness of Christ which will help to solve so rica, a subcommittee of the International Missionary Council many of the problems of nation and race and color, the great founded in 1929.Bythe early1940sthe CCLWCMF was planning unsolved problems of this age.":" to translate some of its magazines into romanized characters for Ironically,the promotionofindigenousculturein the younger use by Frank Laubach in his literacy work. churches could be seen as a top-down imposition by outsiders­ One of the most interesting aspects of the work of the a partof the liberal, NorthAtlantic agenda. Bythe1930smission­ CCLWCMF was its sponsorship of native Christian art, the first aries from mainline churches were working among people who mission organization to systematically sponsor indigenous art. in manycases hadbeenChristians for severalgenerations, whose Concerned that converts in India only had cheap pictures of traditions had been handed down by those who had seen West­ Hindu gods with which to decorate their homes, Clementina ern Christianity as part of a necessary critique of their own non- Butler, who had grown up in India in a missionary family, began

58 INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH commissioning Christian pictures in Indian styles in the 1930s. One of the difficulties in encouraging indigenous artwas the Sold at cost for 2Yt cents each, response to the first ten pictures resistance of Asians themselves, who assumed that indigenous was immediate. "The Good Shepherd" sold 27,000 copies in the art was pagan. The amountof locally producedChristianart was first year, and later E. Stanley Jones's ashram in Lucknow sent very smalL "Certain interested Western representatives, there­ 2,600 copies as Christmas presents to workers among the poor. fore, take the initiative in producing model experiments in The CCLWCMF held annual contests for the best indigenous adaptation in order to overcome the initial attachment to alien Christianartin India." In China, in addition to its magazines, the forms to which second and third generation Christians have CCLWCMF sponsored a Pictorial Life of Our Saviour in five volumes. The first volume sold 23,000 copies in the first eighteen months. A missionary made filmstrips of the series; it was In Asia, missionaries found watched by thousands, accompanied by rhymes sung by specta­ tors." At a time when most mission literature was still using that second and third pictures of blonde and blue-eyed Madonnas, the CCLWCMF generation Christians was commissioning native artfor the covers of its magazines and books. tended to view indigenous Some of the art commissioned by the CCLWCMF was intro­ art as pagan. duced to a Western audience by its inclusion in a series of three books edited by Daniel Fleming on non-Western Christian art and architecture: Heritage of Beauty (1937), Each with His Own become accustomed.T" Most of the buildings that Fleming pic­ Brush (1938), and Christian Symbols in a World Community(1940). tured in Heritage ofBeauty were produced in the 1920s and 1930s, They were published by Friendship Press, itself a product of demonstrating the recent nature of movements toward missionary internationalism, representing the merger of the indigenization in architecture. publishing arms of interdenominational North American mis­ In the second book of the series, Each with His Own Brush, sion education programs. Fleming noted that Christian art was in its infancy, partly be­ In the introduction to the first of the three books, Fleming cause the poverty of most Christians prevented them from explored the relationship between the Christian vision of a sponsoring high-quality work. He had received statements from "world community" and the indigenization process in the all over the world indicating that indigenous Christian art did younger churches. Referring to the world community, he stated, not yet exist. Yet he managed to put together a book of paintings, "Doubtless the greatest influence making for its fullest realiza­ much of it commissioned by missionaries and the CCLWCMF. tion, is the Christian world fellowship-a fellowship which is no He judged that Christian art was in its most advanced phase in political federation of the world, no mere brotherhood of man, China,where the Episcopal priestand laterbishop T. K.Shenhad transcending all differences of race and nationality, but a com­ begunsponsoringChristianartin 1926underthenameSt. Luke's munity which progressively embodies the Christian faith, re­ Studio. Catholics connected with the Catholic University of newed distinctively by worship of God through Jesus Christ." Peking had also begun to sponsor Christian art in the 1920s and The Christian world fellowship should become a "conscious had held several exhibitions." In his third book on Christian reality" in the Christian's life. Achievement of the world fellow­ symbols, Fleming quoted from missionaries who had tried to ship required becoming aware of "cultural embodiments of introduceindigenoussymbols in India, onlyto be opposedbythe Christianity other than our own." He continued, "We are not Indian people for fear of paganism entering the church. The satisfied to think of ourselves as belonging merely to an Ameri­ prophetic voice of indigenizers like Bishop Azariah aside, the can, a British, a Japanese or an Indian group of Christians; butare inculturation process was not an easy road." striving to attain a loyalty and an attitude of mind that con­ In early 1938 the committee that was preparing for the IMC sciously and unconsciously will reveal that we are citizens of a meeting in Madras, India, began receiving suggestions that it universal kingdom. We realize that, for Christians, the world sponsor an international exhibit of Christian literature to join a community should have a universal, a catholic, an ecumenical planned exhibition of Christian art. 56 A. L. Warnshuis, secretary connotation. Any objective approach, therefore, which helps us of the IMC, sent a letter to the secretaries of national Christian to gain a sense of the wide diffusion of the church and to acquire councils requesting that they send materials for exhibits on moreunderstandingof its trulymulti-national,multi-racialchar­ Christian literature, art, and architecture. Materials requested acter should be of help."?' included pictures, sculptures, tapestries or needlework, photo­ Oneof the significantaspects of Fleming's thought in the late graphs of church buildings, sketches, and models. The exhibits 1930s, as compared to his ideas in the early1920s, was the shifting were intended to "demonstrate the long history and universality of his international vision from the world to the church itself. of Christianity and the contributions which different ages and Fleming raised the knotty problems of indigenization-the rela­ different lands are making to the enrichment of Christian art and tionship of culture to religion, the question of how far forms architecture." The artwork itself would be a unifying factor in a should be adjusted to the cultural backgrounds of the people, conference set to accommodate the widest geographic range of and how to separate the essential features of Christianity from its delegates who had ever attended an ecumenical conference." • host cultures. Having lost some of his easy optimism of the early One of the advocates of including architecture in the exhibit 1920s, Fleming admitted that these issues were difficult and that was J. Prip-Moller, who had worked for five years in Manchuria it would take centuries to develop a common world culture. But in cooperation with the Danish Mission Society, the Scottish and in the 1930s, to recognize cultural differences was "to affirm the Irish Presbyterians, and the YMCA. An architect and author of catholic character of the Christian church." The main hope for Chinese Buddhist Monasteries, Prip-Mollerhaddesigned theYMCA missionswas "thatanindigenouschurchmaydevelop-achurch building in Moukden to follow the structure of the typical that smacks of the soil, that grows naturally, that feels itself to be Chinese family house. He also designed and built schools, hospi­ native and not exotic."? tals, and churches. But probably his most important work grew

April 2002 59 out of his eighteen-year friendship with Karl Reichelt, a Norwe­ meeting of the IMC in Madras, India, in 1938. The exhibits on gian missionary operating a unique mission to Buddhist monks indigenous Christian literature, art, and architecture were well in Hong Kong. Like E. Stanley Jones, Reichelt was a long-term received. Many different discussions occurred on various as­ missionary who, in line with fulfillment theory, believed that pects of indigenization in the "younger churches," including Mahayana Buddhism found its fulfillment in Jesus Christ. Under liturgy and worship, the Christian home, indigenous hymnody, the Norwegian Lutherans he opened a mission to Buddhists, poetry, Christian festivals, and religious art. Delegates con­ Brotherhood of Religious Friends, thatwas destroyed in the 1927 cluded that each nation should be encouraged to offer its own civil war in Nanking. Adopting the style of a Buddhist monk to cultural forms to Christ. In the section on worship, it was recom­ attract monks, Reichelt developed a liturgy based on Buddhism. mended that national Christian councils collect cultural adapta­ In 1931 he dedicated a complex of buildings in New Territories tions of liturgy and keep them in a library for future reference. (Hong Kong) called Tao Fong Shan, a Christian community The recent writings of Daniel Fleming on indigenous art, as well modeled on Buddhist monasteries. Prip-Moller was Reichelt's as the reflections of Prip-Moller on indigenizing architecture, architect at Tao Fong Shan." were mentioned." The official findings of the conference ex­ In Heritage ofBeautyDaniel Fleming discussed how Reichelt pressed the consensus on inculturation: adapted Buddhist symbols to Christianity in his Brotherhood of Religious Friends near Nanking. Reichelt used the emblem of a When churches grow up in the environment of non-Christian cross rising out of a lotus. The chapel contained an altar finished religions and cultures, it is necessary that they should become in red lacquer, candles in the form of white cranes, and ampleuse firmly rooted in the Christian heritage and fellowship of the Church Universal. They have their place in the great Christian of varied symbols like the fish, fire, sun, and so forth. Liturgical brotherhood of all ages and races. But they should also be rooted adaptations included the use of red candles and incense." In the in the soil of their own country. Therefore we strongly affirm that third book of the series on indigenous art, Christian Symbols in a the Gospel should be expressed and interpreted in indigenous World Community, Fleming included photographs of the church forms, and that in methods of worship, institutions, literature, and altar at the Tao Fong Shan Christian Institute. In an interest­ architecture, etc., the spiritual heritage of the nation and country should be taken into use. The Gospel is not necessarily bound up with forms and methods brought in from the older churches. The Dele~ates to the 1938 endeavor to give Christ His rightful place in the heart of people who have not previously known Him-so that He will neither be meeting in Madras, India, a foreigner, norbe distortedby pre-Christianpatternsof thought­ is a great and exacting spiritual task in the fulfilling of which a concluded that each nation young church can bring a rich contribution of her own to the should be encouraged to Church Universal." offer its own cultural forms At thesametime, the conferencekeptbefore the churchesthe to Christ. vision of Christian internationalism. While acknowledging that the missionary must "identify himself with the best aspirations and interests of the people he serves," the findings of the section ing domestic example of liberal Protestant internationalism, he on church and state cautioned that the missionary must at the also featured a photograph of the front door of Harry Fosdick's same time "be ever mindful of the worldwide fellowship he RiversideChurchin NewYork City, withits sculpturesof Moses, represents, and of the commoncitizenship of all Christians in the Confucius, Buddha, and Muhammed, along with missionaries Kingdom of God." Despite the concerns of the delegates over William Carey and David Livingstone. militant nationalism, the Sino-Japanese War, and the rise of Prip-Moller felt that architecture was usually neglected by Nazism, they still affirmed that "in the missionary enterprise the missions because of concerns about expense, even at the cost of Christian movement makes an indispensable contribution to the making Christianity seem like a foreign religion, as well as a international order.... Here international and interracial contact prejudice by Protestants against aesthetic concerns. He believed may reach its highest level. The true missionary comes as a missionaries were inconsistent in teaching people that their friend.... The wall and partition between nations and races is culturewasa gift of Godwhileexcludingtheirbuildingsas if God broken down in the ever-widening fellowship of the ecumenical gave architecture only to the West." In an article for the Chinese Church."64 Recorder, "Christian Architecture in New-Christian Communi­ The 1938IMC meetingshowedclearly howinternationalism ties," Prip-Moller argued for the Christianizing of local architec­ and indigenization had grown together since World War 1.65 ture by adapting it to the new Christian ideas, so that harmony Madras had the highest proportional representation from the was obtained "and the soul and spirit of the old architectural non-Western world of any mission gathering to date. With so forms retained." The spirit of Christian internationalism shone many indigenous Christians from diverse parts of the world, the through as Prip-Moller's rationale for indigenous architecture main topic of the conference was the "younger churches." The when he wrote, "In the world today we need more than ever a vision of Christianity as a worldwide community and a force for strong Christian church which in the spirit of Christ cannot unity, peace, and justice in the world was evident in the global merely balance but lift up to a higher plane the nationalism, fellowship gathered there. At the same time, the conference which in some places tends to draw man away from God." called for the deepening of the Christian life in each national Stating thatWestern-style churches were justas nationalistic and context through the adaptation of Christianity into different nonuniversal as non-Western styles, Prip-Moller urged that cultures. While faith in moving toward the kingdom of God on Christ's "supernationality" would become apparent only when earth had receded since the more optimistic 1920s, the interna­ his children could "sing His praise in their own tongue."?' tional vision had not died. Rather, in mission circles it had The gathering momentum in the missionary movement become more focused as the principle of indigenization within a toward indigenization in the 1920s and 1930s culminated in the global church. It was less likely to be linked to the former

60 INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH A S BUR Y

TH EOLOGICAL

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hristianity's World Mi ssion would be less intimidating and more manageable if everyone Cspoke the same language, followed the same customs and viewed life the same way. That idyllic world, however, is not the world Chri st calls us to engage. The real world features at least a dozen major cultural fami lies and more than 2,000 religions, 6,000 languages and 30,000 distinct societies and cultures. There are also an unknown .(and shifting) number of sub-cultures, counter-cultures and peoples with their own distinct name, history and identity. Furthermore, secularization has t ransformed Western nations into "mission fields" once again. Several fields of knowledge prepare the effective missionary to "exegete" the biblical text and people's cultural context. These literatures are as necessary, and as sophisticated, as the literatures that prepare physicians to ma ke sense of an epidem ic, or astronomers of a galaxy. Asbury's ESJ School will prepare you to understand the historica l, cultural and reli­ gious contexts of the field of mission to which Christ has called you, and to serve, communi­ cate and help grow the indigenous Church in that place. So if you are interested in ma king sense of a piece of the world, and in helping its peo­ ple make sense of the Christian qospel, call the admissions office today at 1-800-2-ASBURY or e-mail us at [email protected].

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Darrell Whiteman Ran Crandall George Hunter Eunice Irwin Terry Muck Howard Snyder Dean. Anthropology. Evangelism. Small Churches, Church Growth, Primal Religions, World Religion s. History of Mission, Indigenous Christianity Church Planting Communication, Leadership Contextual Theology Buddhism & Ch ristianity Theo logy of Mission

KE'TU CKY CA MPUS : 204 N. Lexington Avenue, Wilm ore, KY 40390·11 99 1" . 1\, ASBURY fLO RIOA CA MPUS: 8401 Valencia Colleqe Lane, Orlando, FL 32825 " A ',<;: THEa LOGICAL VIRTU AL CA MPUS: www.as buryseminary.edu/exl/exl.html " •• '< SEMI NARY confidence in the Christian nature of government policies like University, indicated that the Christian contribution to the rising the Fourteen Points, the League of Nations, the Geneva Protocols tide of nationalism was to supplement it "by the spirit of Chris­ against weapons of mass destruction, and so forth. In other tian Internationalism," the doctrine of human brotherhood that words, by the late 1930s the locus of Christian internationalism would make possible a warless world." had become recentered in the church itself rather than in the Another articleby TimothyTingfangLew, former studentof ability of the church to effect a new world order." Fosdick and Fleming at Union Seminary and dean of theology at Yenching University, discussed the mixture of science, democ­ Ambassadors from the Younger Churches racy, nationalism, and spiritual quest pursued by Chinese intel­ lectuals in the New Culture Movement. A noted hymn writer, The dual themes of separating Christ from Western culture and Lew received praise at the 1938 IMC meeting for having pro­ supporting cultural indigenization were both part of the mis­ duced an experimental series of indigenous liturgies and devo­ sionary contribution to Christian internationalism in the inter­ tional materials. In 1927 Lew became the first non-Western war period. Neither would have been effective, however, with­ professor of missions in the United States when he taught for a out the substantial participation of non-Western Christians in year at Boston University School of Theology. communicating a universal vision to the Western church. In the Amongnon-Western supporters of women's missions in the eyes of Westerners the most effectivewitness to worldfellowship United States, none had the stature of the Japanese educator in God's kingdom was an actual living, breathing, English­ Michi Kawai, a former student at Bryn Mawr College, Philadel­ speaking Christian from a so-called mission land. With "World phia, founder of a girls' Christian school in Japan, and cofounder Friendship" the mission slogan of the era, the 1920s and 1930s and head of the Japanese YWCA. Kawai was a devout interna­ marked the beginning of the widespread use of indigenous tionalist; she maintained a network of friends in the United Christians as ambassadors, or reverse missionaries, to the West. States, Great Britain, and China. Her first speaking trip to the Perusing missionary magazines of the period, one is struck by United States was for six months in 1910 on behalf of the YWCA. how the actual voices of non-Western Christians were being She returned in 1926 to get help in supporting her Christian heard in the 1930s.In earlieryears a story writtenabouta Chinese school and to create momentum against the exclusion of Japa­ or African Bible woman in a missionary magazine would be in nese from the United States. On one occasion, Mrs. John D. the Western missionary's voice. But by 1930 such stories were Rockefeller and the SidneyGulicks, who were former missionar­ told in the voice and from the perspective of the indigenous ies in Japan, took her to a church meeting where they spoke in Christian herself. Not only had years of missionary higher edu­ favor of repealing the Japanese exclusionacts. Kawai recorded in cation produced literatenon-Western leaders, butthe missionar­ her autobiography that her trip in 1926 affirmed her desire to ies realized that the voice of a so-called native Christian was far make "internationalstudy" a feature of herschool and to encour­ more effective in promoting an internationalist agenda than that age her pupils to "usher in a new world order, with peace and of a missionary. goodwill prevailing."70 Starting in the 1920s, Christian student movements and In 1934 Kawai coauthored the mission study book Japanese mission organizations began sponsoring the publication in En­ Women Speak, sponsoredbythe Central Committeeonthe United glish of writings by non-Western Christians, especially of those Study of Foreign Missions. This book explored the themes of who had been educated in the West and who shared the interna­ education, internationalism, pacifism, and world friendship be­ tionalist perspectives of their sponsors. Once again the interna­ ing promoted by Japanese Christian women against the rising tional Christian student movement provided leadership in this tide of militarism." Having brought two speakers from China area, and the indigenous officers of various YMCA, YWCA, and the year before, in 1934 the women's mission boards of North WSCF branches became popular speakers among Western uni­ America sponsored a speaking tour by Kawai. One of the Japa­ versity students and international friendship groups, as the nese delegates to the IMC meeting in 1938, Kawai summarized experiences of Tissington Tatlow testified.? the significance of the conference for Christian education: "It A cursory examination of this literature produced in the exhorts us to treasure each national or racial heritage and de­ West indicates a strong focus on Chinese and Japanese Christian mands that we put into it the rich Christian blood which revives perspectives in the 1920s. As missionaries sought to counteract and invigorates the old indigenous culture." She believed that thenegativepublicityof the anti-Christianmovementin Chinain evangelism was the foundation for "ushering in the Kingdom of 1922, to create support for renegotiating the unjust treaties from God on earth," and that teachers were coworkers with God.72 the mid-nineteenth century, and to build opposition to the Ori­ Not surprisingly, Kawai and other Japanese Christian women entalExclusion Act of 1924,theytried to humanizeandindividu­ suffered for their pacifism and international outlook during the alize the Chinese and Japanese in the minds of Westerners. China Second World War. American readers were able to sympathize To-Day through Chinese Eyes was a groundbreaking series of with herstrugglesbyreading hertwoautobiographies printedin essays, published in 1922 and 1926 by the SCM of Great Britain. English, My Lantern(1939) and Sliding Doors (1950).73 The list of authors reads like a Who's Who of Chinese Christian The impact of non-Western "reverse missionaries" on the intellectuals and YMCA leaders, including T. C. Chao, David Z. shape of an internationalist missionary agenda between the T. Yui, Timothy Tingfang Lew, and T. Z. Koo. While exploring world wars is a topic that deserves further research, but a few various aspects of the Christian movement in China, the authors more brief examples must suffice. In 1923 Helen Kim, a recent endorsedthe internationalistagenda,as didthe ChristianChurch graduate of Ewha Woman's College in Korea, was in the United in China in 1922,when it called for "international world brother­ States doing graduate work. Kim was founding president of the hood" and "international friendship" as Christian obligations. Korean YWCA and later became the long-term president of The newly founded Christian Church in China called for the Ewha. In 1923 she attended a meeting of the Executive Commit­ Christianization of "the rapidly developing national conscious­ tee of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist ness" thatwas growingin China." Writing on intellectual move­ Episcopal Church, the largest women's mission organization at ments in China, P. C. Hsu, professor of philosophy at Yenching that time. Kim gave a speech advocating the unification of

62 INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH women into a worldwide organization as an alternative to the After the conference, with the American delegation making her League of Nations, which she considered a male organization. arrangements, Soga and a few other international delegates The proposed organization would promote world peace and sailed to the United States to share their experiences of world fellowship, encourage the professionalization of women's work, fellowship at Madras with mission circles, youth meetings, and protect women and children, train women to be world citizens, church groups. Soga spoke in twenty-four American cities over and establish justice and righteousness everywhere. Kim's pro­ a six-month period. The racial segregation in the United States posal was then presented by a Japanese and a Chinese Christian meant that Soga's presence and her message about the situation woman to the entire Federation of Woman's Boards of Foreign in South Africa, as well as the vision of international Christian Missions. In 1929 the Methodist woman's missionary society fellowship, were very timely and inspiring to both black and considered changing its name to the "Women's International white Christians struggling to affirm racial reconciliation. Missionary Society" to reflect that the world church was a The most notable "reverse missionary" in the United States sisterhood of equals. Then in 1939 women from twenty-seven between the world wars was the Japanese evangelist, social countries formed the World Federation of Methodist Women. worker, socialist, and pacifistToyohiko Kagawa. Althoughsome With its symbol the tree of life-suggested by Lucy Wang, had been aware of his work earlier, the biography of Kagawa president of Hwa Nan College in China-the federation sup­ published in 1932 by William Axling, a long-term missionary to ported the following "fruits" in each country: evangelism, edu­ Japan, bought Kagawa to the attention of Western churches." cation, medical work, literature, youth, childhood, world peace, With another missionary, Helen Topping of the Kobe YWCA temperance, rural education, home life, interracial relationships, acting as his editorial assistant, Kagawa produced a number of and economic justice. The leaves of the tree symbolized the books in English, including poetry, spiritual reflections, and an healing of the nations as Methodist womenof different nationali­ autobiography. Kagawa was one of the chief representatives of ties together sought to build a "Christian world order."?' Christian internationalism, and he was sought after by mission The IMC meeting in Madras in 1938 was noteworthy for groups, Japanese-American groups, and pacifist organizations. having seventy women in attendance, which happened partly He shared the spirit of Japanese Christianity with Americans in through sustained pressure by Western women's mission orga­ a time of hostility and distrust between the two nations. nizations that pushed the various national Christian councils to We close this cursory glance at ambassadors of Christian appoint womento theirdelegations. The Chinese delegation was internationalism with a brief mention of the effect of Hindu even headed by a Chinese woman, Wu Yi-fang, the first woman reformer Mohandas Gandhi on Christian internationalists. Al­ to head any delegation at an international conference. A gradu­ though the effect of Gandhi is much too complicated to consider ate of mission schools, Wu held a Ph.D. in biology from the fully in this essay, it should be noted that he had a number of University of Michigan. In 1927 she became the first Chinese missionary partners who introduced his nonviolent campaigns president of Ginling College, the only interdenominational to Western audiences, including E. Stanley Jones and C. F. woman's college in China." Andrews. One early and extremely thoughtful biography that One of the international women at the IMC was a delegate introduced Gandhi to the West was published in 1932 (the same from South Africa, Mina Soga, a teacher and social worker, the year as Axling's Kagawa biography) with the odd title That first African woman delegate to an international missionary Strange Little Brown Man Gandhi. It was written by Frederick conference. She attended the conference because longtime mis­ Fisher, supporter of Indian independence and former Methodist sionary Clara Bridgman, the only woman on the nominating missionary bishop of India, who had retired from the bishopric committee of the newly founded National Christian Council of to make wayfor the first Indian Methodist bishop. Fisher's study South Africa, insisted that a woman be chosen as part of the of Gandhi was a scathing indictment of white racism, Western twelve-person African delegation. Soga made a big impression imperialism, and capitalism. Fisher called for the self-determina­ on the gathering with her singing and with her plea that Chris­ tion of all peoples and for Christianmethods as the only adequate tianity be put into African form, in the culture of Africans. means to fulfill the Christian ideals of human brotherhood." Recalled Ruth Seabury, who later wrote Soga's biography, "As The development of an international Christian conscious­ we listened to her words some of us began for the first time to see ness between the world wars was a deliberate partnership be­ the possibilities of the Christian message expressed in African tween Western missionaries and English-speaking, well-edu­ terms." The conference made a big impression on Soga too, who cated non-WesternChristianleaders. Returned missionaries like experienced true interracial fellowship for the first time. She felt FredFisherand "native"Christianslike ToyohikoKagawashared a solidarity with other delegates from the developing nations, as an international vision, even if their backgrounds and motives she recalled, "My journey out of Africa turned me from a South differed. African into an African. Madras made me a world Christian."?"

Conclusion

n this essay I have introduced the internationalist dis­ envisioninga Christianinternationalismin whichindigenization I course within the missionary movement in the 1920s and of Christianity in each culture was a central feature. 1930s. That discourse reveals that the global vision of a coopera­ As the 1920s gave way to the 1930s, optimism about the tive, worldwide, peaceful community of different races and achievement of secular internationalism faded in the wake of cultures required deliberate attention to deepen the meaning of Italian, German, and Japanese fascism, Soviet communism, and Christianityin each culture.While internationalismwasa broader nationalist movements among colonized peoples. But a church­ movement than the missionary movement in the period under centered internationalism thrived as the growing world church review, missionaries made a distinctive contribution to it by deepened its emphasis on indigenization. It was not a coinci-

April 2002 63 dence that the most prominent missionary spokespersons for global agenda of our own era is driven by educated elites around internationalism of the period were the same people who were the world in partnership with each other, which was very much the most committed to indigenization and devolution in mission the case with the internationalist agenda of the interwar period. practice. As mission practitioners, they were open to the spirit of While internationalism was a program for political unity, global­ Christ taking form in diverse cultures, and sometimes even in ization has pursued a capitalistic, technological vision of world diverse religions and secular movements like the nationalist unity. struggle in India. A second similarity between internationalization and glo­ Three steps were taken by the missionary movement to balization is the tension between top-down visions of world encourageChristianinternationalismandits twin,indigenization. unity and opposing forces of nationalism or ethnic resurgence First, mission leaders were determined to separate Christ from that draw strength from the global context. Militant nationalism Western culture and to see him incarnated in varied ethnic and marks both periods of history, and in both situations the Chris­ national contexts. While they did not develop full-fledged indig­ tian missionary has taken on a role as symbolic villain for anti­ enous theologies, these missionaries sawsuchdevelopment to be Western forces. As much as Christian mission organizations in an unfolding major task for the so-called younger churches. the West like to think of themselves as apolitical, they are caught Second, mission groups entered into specific experiments in inevitably in the web of human history that paints them as indigenization, including the sponsoring of indigenous Chris­ representatives of Western political and economic power. tianliterature, art, architecture, liturgy, and the like. Still couched In terms of Christian mission, the major similarity between in the liberal internationalist discourse, it is no surprise that such internationalism and globalization is the strong emphasis on the experiments were accused of syncretism by bothWestern funda­ indigenization of Christianity. The excitement today about local mentalists and indigenous conservativeChristians. Karl Reichelt, forms of Christianity within a world church parallels that of the for example, whose Ritual Book of theChristian Church Among the 1930s.80 While missionary leaders of the interwar period la­ Friends of the Tao was praised at the 1938 IMC meeting for its mented the lack of non-Western art and theology, by the late adaptation to Chinese culture, was criticized for his Cosmic twentieth century non-Western theology was a thriving enter­ Christ theology by Hendrik Kraemer." If indigenizers went prise

Notes 1. Robert J. Schreiter suggests that catholicity is "the theological Britain and Ireland (London: Student Christian Movement Press, equivalent of globalization." See Richard Bliese, "Globalization," in 1933), p. 673. Dictionary ofMission: Theology, History,Perspectives, ed. Karl Muller, 7. Ibid., p. 685. Theo Sundermeier, Stephen B. Bevans, and Richard H. Bliese 8. See, for example, John Matt's promotion of a new social order and (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1998), p. 176. "Christianizing international relations" through the work of the 2. While mission scholars would not equate Christian missions with WSCF. John R. Mott, TheWorld'sStudent Christian Federation: Origin, globalization itself, there is a theoretical and practical problem of Achievements, Forecast (N.p.: WSCF, 1920), pp. 76-87. See also Milton how to relate to secular globalization, how to influence it, and how T. Stauffer, ed., Christian Students and World Problems: Reportof the to avoid being so closely identified with it that when globalization's Ninth International Convention of the Student VolunteerMovement for time has passed, the missionof the churchdoes not get washed away Foreign Missions,Indianapolis, Indiana, December 28,1923, toJanuary 1, with the ebbing tide of popular support. 1924 (NewYork: StudentVolunteerMovementfor ForeignMissions, 3. For a discussion of the internationalist movement in the United 1924). The agenda of internationalism was apparent especiallyin the States and its opposition to isolationism, see William Kuehl and exhibits, pp. 445-50. Michael Parker, The Kingdom of Character: The Lynne K. Dunn, Keeping the Covenant: AmericanInternationalists and StudentVolunteer MovementforForeign Missions(1886-1926) (Lanham, the League ofNations,1920-1939(Kent, Ohio: Kent State Univ. Press, Md.: ASM and University Press of America, 1998), pp. 155-63; 1997).Onthe pacifistaspectofinternationalism,see CharlesChatfield, Nathan D. Showalter, The End of Crusade: The Student Volunteer For Peace andJustice: Pacifism in America, 1914-1941 (Knoxville: Univ. Movement for Foreign Missions and the Great War (Lanham, Md.: of Tennessee Press, 1971). Scarecrow Press, 1998). 4. This article is a foray into a larger research project investigating the 9. Quoted in Dana L. Robert, American Women in Mission: A Social relationship between so-called older and younger churches after HistoryofTheirThoughtandPractice (Macon, Ga.: Mercer Univ. Press, World War I. Suggestions are therefore most welcome. 1997), pp. 273-74. 5. Sherwood Eddy, A Centurywith Youth:A HistoryoftheY.M.C.A. from 10. As late as 1944, missionarystatesmanandpacifistsocialistSherwood 1844 to 1944 (New York: Association Press, 1944), pp. 88-91, 106. Eddy indicated the ecumenical movement's hope for a "Christian 6. TissingtonTatlow, TheStoryoftheStudentChristian MovementofGreat world order" and the "coming of the Kingdom of God on earth."

64 INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH Eddy, A Centurywith Youth, p. 109.For a biographyof Eddy, see Rick Culture of Protestant Pacifism, 1918-1963" (Ph.D. diss., Boston L. Nutt, The Whole Gospel for the Whole World: Sherwood Eddy and University, 2001). AmericanProtestant Mission (Macon, Ga.: Mercer Univ. Press, 1997). 26. E. Stanley Jones, TheChristof theIndian Road (New York: Abingdon 11. Charles H. Brent, "The Situation at Home," in The Foreign Missions Press, 1925), pp. 1,49. Convention at TNashington, 1925, ed. Fennell P. Turner and Frank 27. Ibid., p. 170. Knight Sanders (New York: Foreign Missions Conference of North 28. E. Stanley Jones, "The Aim and Motive of Foreign Missions," in America, Fleming H. Revell, 1925), pp. 30,33,35. Foreign Missions Convention, p. 54. 12. John R. Mott, "New Forces Released by Cooperation," in Foreign 29. Ibid., p. 56. Missions Convention, p. 209. For a biography of Mott that traces his 30. Daniel]. Fleming, WhitherBoundinMissions(NewYork: Association work in building the global Christian movement, see C. Howard Press, 1925). Hopkins, John R. Mott, 1865-1955 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979). 31. Although I greatly admire William Hutchison's pioneering history 13. Mrs. Thomas Nicholson, "Educating for Peace and Goodwill," in of American mission theory, I think that he misinterprets the inter­ Foreign Missions Convention, p. 177. On Nicholson's role in the war period by treating Fleming as an isolated, prophetic figure missionary movement, see Robert, American Women in Mission, pp. whose ideas were not widely distributed until reaching their 277-87. fulfillment in Hocking's Laymen's Missionary Inquiry in 1932. 14. G. K. A. Bell, The Stockholm Conference, 1925 (London: Oxford Univ. (William R. Hutchison, Errand to the World: American Protestant Press, 1926), pp. 451,452. ThoughtandForeign Missions[Chicago: Univ. of ChicagoPress, 1987], 15. Such arguments are similar to those of antiglobalization, antifree pp. 150-56.) Despite Fleming's heavy reliance on Jones in Whither trade protestors today, to whom economic globalization looks like Bound in Missions, Hutchison makes no reference to Jones in his the agenda of the rich countries. book. Fleming did not stand alone but was part of a network of 16. On the missionary aspects of the fundamentalist-modernist progressive mission thinkers and internationalists. controversy, see Bradley J. Longfield, The Presbyterian Controversy: 32. The used copy that I own of WhitherBoundin Missions,for example, Fundamentalists, Modernists,andModerates (New York: Oxford Univ. was owned in 1926 by M. Searle Bates, a sinologist and missionary Press, 1991); Kevin Xiyi Yao, The Fundamentalist Movement Among who taught for thirty years at the University of Nanking, China, Protestant Missionaries in China, 1920-1937 (University Press of before filling Fleming's old post at Union Seminary in 1950. America, forthcoming). 33. Fleming, WhitherBound,pp. 45, 199. 17. Harry Emerson Fosdick, The Living of These Days: An Autobiography 34. David E. Mason, FrankC. Laubach, Teacher ofMillions (Minneapolis: (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956), p. 24. T. S. Denison, 1967), p. 59. 18. Ibid., p. 194. 35. While Laubach's later work as the apostle of literacy training was 19. Ibid., pp. 198,304. very important, its major accomplishments lie beyond the scope of 20. See Raymond B. Fosdick's autobiography, Chronicles ofa Generation this paper. For a shortsummaryof Laubach'slife and work, see Peter (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958). On John D. Rockefeller, Jr.'s G. Gowing, "Frank Charles Laubach, 1884-1970: Apostle to the internationalism, relationship to Fosdick, and support for many Silent Billion," in Mission Legacies, pp. 500-507. liberal nondenominational projects, see John Ensor Harr and PeterJ. 36. Mason, Laubach, p. 130. Johnson, TheRockefeller Century (New York: CharlesScribner'sSons, 37. Frank Laubach, The People of the Philippines: TheirReligious Progress 1988), pp. 153-80. andPreparation forSpiritualLeadership in theFarEast,with a foreword 21. Telephone interview with Elinor Downs, May 7, 2001, Newton, by Daniel Johnson Fleming (New York: George H. Doran, 1925), p. Massachusetts. Downs herself worked in Geneva for the World vii. Health Organization and then became dean of public health at 38. Ibid., pp. 456,461, 462, 464. Columbia University. Her sister Dorothy became a foreign policy 39. Onthe missiology of World Friendship, see Robert, AmericanWomen expert who helped craft the United Nations Charter, the Marshall in Mission, chap. 6. Plan, and NATO in the 1940s. 40. Foreword to Mary Schauffler Platt, A StraightWay Toward Tomorrow 22. Robert, American Women in Mission, pp. 260-85. (Cambridge, Mass.: Central Committee on the United Study of 23. The attempt to separate Christianity from Western culture had been Foreign Missions, 1926), p. v. a goal of nineteenth-century"threeself" missiontheory,butWestern 41. Ibid., pp. 124, 129. cultural assumptions were not widely criticized until after the First 42. Ibid., p. 222. World War. For an overview of Western mission thought, see 43. The idea of the Cosmic Christ was a common theme adopted by TimothyYates, Christian Missionin theTwentiethCentury(NewYork: twentieth-century missionaries who experienced good in other Cambridge Univ. Press, 1994.) cultures, and even in other religions. More research is needed on the 24. The copyof the bookthatIown, printedin November1926,indicates missionary use of this idea. The idea of the Cosmic Christ was a that after its first issuance in September 1925, it had been reprinted correlative of "fulfillment theory." On the prominence of fulfillment monthly since. I don't know how many times it was reprinted, but theory earlyin the twentieth century, see Kenneth Cracknell, Justice, TheChristof theIndian Roadmust have sold hundreds of thousands Courtesy, and Love: Theologians and Missionaries Encountering World of copies. Religions, 1846-1914 (London: Epworth Press, 1995). 25. For a brief biography of Jones, see Richard W. Taylor, "E. Stanley 44. The Jerusalem Meeting of the International Missionary Council, March Jones, 1884-1973: Following the Christ of the Indian Road," in 24-April8, 1928, vol. 3, TheRelation Between theYoungerandtheOlder MissionLegacies: Biographical StudiesofLeaders oftheModern Missionary Churches (NewYork: InternationalMissionaryCouncil, 1928),p.166. Movement, eds. G. Anderson, R. Coote, N. Horner, J. Phillips 45. Ibid., p. 53. See Timothy Yates's excellent summary of the (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1994), pp. 339-47. Jones's name appears internationalist themes at Jerusalem 1928 (Christian Theology in the widelyin meetings,publications,and causesassociatedwithChristian Twentieth Century, pp. 65-70). internationalism. His influence was greater than that of any other 46. I was discussing the thesis of this article with my former mission missionary. For example, his ideas deeply impressed Methodist professor, Charles Forman, who was born in India; he was trained at Walter Muelder, a seminarian in the 1920s who went on to become UnionSeminary, returned to India as a missionary, and thenbecame the leading social ethicist, ecumenist, and seminary dean of mid­ professor of missions at Yale University Divinity School for thirty­ centuryMethodism. (TelephoneinterviewwithMuelder, December four years. He was also chairman of the Foundation for Theological 2000, Newton, Massachusetts.) I have found references to Jones Educationin SouthEast Asia from 1970to 1989.As partof the liberal, jotted in the papers of South African, American, and British internationalist movement in missions, he and his friends became missionaries. On Jones' importance in Protestant pacifist circles, see missionaries in order to help the world. When in India, he tried to Patricia Appelbaum, "The Legions of Good Will: The Religious promote indigenous music, liturgy, and so on in the churches. One

Apri12002 65 day an older Christian leader told him that although the Indian advocatesinterestedin indigeneityduringthe1930s. Internationalist church had no choice but to accept the Western culture brought by discourse emanated from the "liberal" wing of the missionary the first missionaries, it was not about to let young missionaries tell movement. Conservative missiologists, like Hendrik Kraemer and thechurchwhatwasindigenousor not. In short,eventhemissionary Bruno Gutmann, were also interested in indigeneity, but they did movement toward indigenization could be seen as an aspect of not share the theological framework or rhetoric of internationalism. missionary paternalism. Interview with Charles Forman, December Continental missiologists tended toward a "bottom up" method of 6, 2000, New Haven, Connecticut. Also see Gerald H. Anderson, promoting indigeneity rather than the "top down" approach of the "Forman,CharlesW.," in Biographical DictionaryofChristian Missions, internationalists. On Continental criticisms of the "crusading" ed. Anderson (New York: Macmillan, 1998), p. 218, and Charles W. idealism of North American mission advocates, see Jan A. B. Forman, "My Pilgrimage in Mission," International Bulletin of Jongeneel, "European-Continental Perceptions and Critiques of Missionary Research 18, no. 1 (January 1994): 26-28. BritishandAmericanProtestantMissions," Exchange 30 (April2001): 47. See pamphlets in the Archives of the Committee on Christian 117-18. Literature for Women and Children, Record Group 90, Special 66. Church-centricmissionwaswhattheGermanand otherContinental Collections, Yale Divinity School, New Haven, Connecticut. Ruth missionaryadvocateshadbeensupportingall along.OntheGerman Robinson, "The TreasureChest" (n.d.):ClementinaButler, "A Quarter insistence on church-centric mission between the wars, see Yates, Century of Service to the Christian Home" (CCLWCMF, 1939), RG ChristianMissionin theTwentiethCentury,andJongeneel, "European­ 90, Box 7, File 124. Fromthe 1950s through the 1970s, the CCLWCMF Continental Perceptions." conducted writing workshops for indigenous women around the 67. While the indigenous Christians I discuss here had their own world, but these activities are outside the chronological framework perspectives that need to be explored, for the purposes of this study of this paper. I am considering them in the context of facilitating the Western 48. Quotedby ClementinaButler, "Reportof the Committeeon Christian missionary agenda. Clearly, however, their participation in the Literature for Women and Children in Mission Fields, Inc." internationalization of Western missions served purposes of their (November 1939), p. 9, CCLWCMF Archives, RG 90, Box 4, File 65. own, some of which overlapped with those of their sponsors. 49. Butler, "A Quarter Century of Service," pp. 8-10. 68. Cited in Platt, A Straight Way, p. 206. 50. Butler, "Report," p. 4. The filmstrip of the life of Christ used to 69. P. C. Hsu, "IntellectualMovements," in ChinaTo-dayThrough Chinese evangelize the Chinese was a forerunner of the phenomenally Eyes, 2d ser., 3d ed. (London: Student Christian Movement, 1927), successful "Jesus Film," seen in 712 languages by more than 4.6 pp.29-30. billion people as of January I, 2002. The progression from 70. Michi Kawai, My Lantern (privately printed in Japan, 1939), p. 170. indigenization to the globalization of Christianity during the 71. Michi Kawai and Ochimi Kubushiro, Japanese WomenSpeak (Boston: twentieth century is evident in the history of multimedia as well. Central Committee on the United Study of Foreign Missions, 1934). 51. Daniel Johnson Fleming, Heritage of Beauty (New York: Friendship Other books published by the Central Committee also promoted Press, 1937), pp. 9, 10. "World Friendship" by making heard the voices of non-Western 52. Ibid., pp. II, 12. Christianwomenleaders. Of particularinterestwas a volume edited 53. Ibid., p. 15. by Madame Chiang Kai-shek et aI., containing articles by leading 54. Daniel Johnson Fleming, Each with His Own Brush (New York: Christian women from around the world entitled Women and the Friendship Press, 1938), pp. 2, 11-12. Way:ChristandtheWorld'sWomanhood (NewYork: Friendship Press, 55. On the efforts of Bishop Azariah, the first Indian bishop of the 1938). Anglican Church, to indigenize the worship and architecture of his 72. Kawai, My Lantern,pp. 227-28. churches, see Susan Billington Harper, In theShadow oftheMahatma: 73. Michi Kawai, Sliding Doors (Tokyo: Keisen-Jo-Gaku-En, 1950). Bishop V. S. Azariah and the Travails of Christianity in British India 74. Rosemary Keller, gen. ed., Methodist Women, a World Sisterhood. A (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), pp. 261-62. History of the WorldFederation of Methodist Women, 1923-1986 (N.p.: 56. "Notesof Discussionon InternationalExhibitofChristianLiterature," World Federation of Methodist Women, n.d.), pp. 3-12. March I, 1938, International Missionary Council Archives, 1910­ 75. On Wu, see Sherwood Eddy, Pathfinders of the World Missionary 1961, World Council of Churches, Geneva (IDC, 1987), Fiche 262005, Crusade (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1945), pp. 220-27. #4, Madras 1938, "Exhibits." 76. Ruth IsabelSeabury, DaughterofAfrica(Boston: Pilgrim Press, 1945), 57. A. L. Warnshuis to Secretaries of National Christian Councils and pp. 79, 77. Conferences, June I, 1938, IMC Archives, Fiche 262005, #2, Madras 77. William Axling, Kagawa (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1932). 1938, "Exhibits." 78. FrederickB.Fisher, That StrangeLittleBrownMan Gandhi(NewYork: 58. See P. Prip-Moller to David Paton, February 12, 1938, IMC Archives, Ray Long& Richard R.Smith,1932), pp. 231-33. AfterFisher'sdeath, Fiche 262005, #1, Madras 1938, "Exhibits." On the life and work of his widow, Welthy Honsinger Fisher, a former missionary in China Karl Reichelt, see Notto R. TheIle, "KarlLudvig Reichelt, 1877-1952: and leading speaker on internationalism, opened Literacy House in ChristianPilgrim of Tao Fong Shan," in Mission Legacies, pp. 216-24. Allahabad at the request of Gandhi. 59. Daniel Johnson Fleming, Christian Symbols in a World Community 79. See Reichelt's speechonthe Logos spermatikos, the CosmicChristidea (New York: Friendship Press, 1940), pp. 92-93. thatunderlaypoints of contactbetweenChristianityand Buddhism. 60. Prip-M611er to Paton, p. 3. ("The Johannine Approach," in The Authority of the Faith, IMC, pp. 61. J. Prip-Moller, "Christian Architecture in New-Christian 90-101.) As a result of his missionary experience, Reichelt saw Communities," Chinese Recorder, July 1939 reprint edition, pp. 3-4,6. continuity between religions. IMC Archives, Fiche 262005, #2. 80. Ironically, a focus on indigenization, or multiculturalism in the 62. IMC, The Lifeof the Church, Madras Series, vol. 4 (New York: IMC, church, is a critiqueof Westernhegemonysponsored by segmentsof 1939), pp. 5-6. the Western church itself. In both the 1930s and the 1990s, American 63. IMC, TheAuthority oftheFaith, MadrasSeries, vol. 1 (NewYork: IMC, foundations established by rich tycoons funded research into 1939), pp. 201-02. Christianity as a global religion. It would be interesting to compare 64. IMC, TheChurchand theState,Madras Series, vol. 6 (NewYork: IMC, the research funded by the Rockefeller Foundation in the 1920s and 1939), p. 256, 255. 1930s with that of the Pew Charitable Trusts in the 1990s. 65. It should be noted that "internationalists" were not the only mission

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