Reimagining Frontier Mission Cameron Townsend and the Radicalization of the Faith Mission Paradigm by Boone Aldridge

he global realities of our post-colonial 21st century are demanding changes in structure and identity. The institutional tensions, ambiguities, and contradictions can appear obscure, but sud- denlyT become vivid when grounded in the personality and entrepreneurial genius of a mission founder. The drama becomes relevant and can stimulate creativity with our mission institutions today. Such is the case with the 20th century mis- sion pioneer, William Cameron Townsend, the co-founder of the dual mis- sionary organization comprised of the Summer Institute of and the Wycliffe Translators (SIL-WBT).1 He looked to break down barriers in reaching the linguistically isolated indigenous peoples of the world. The radical institutional change he introduced broke with some aspects of a modern faith mission paradigm while carrying other features to their logical conclusion.

Editor’s Note: This paper was pre- An Emerging Vision sented at the International Society for Frontier Missiology in September Townsend began his career with the Central American Mission 2019 under the theme, “Reimagin- in Guatemala, but his initial tenure with the mission from 1918 to 1933 was ing Frontier Mission.” His careful historiography is developed more fully an uneasy one. Contrary to the mission’s policy of evangelizing in Spanish, in his recent book, For the Gospel’s Townsend insisted that Guatemala’s indigenous peoples should be reached Sake: The Rise of the Wycliffe Bible Translators and the Summer Institute with the gospel in their own languages. In part, his argument rested on the of Linguistics (Wm. B. Eerdmans firm belief that Guatemala’s indigenous inhabitants would never achieve Publishing: Grand Rapids, 2018). religious, social, and economic equality with the dominant Spanish-speaking Boone Aldridge Joined Wycliffe Bible Ladinos until they were instilled with some measure of respect for their own Translators and SIL International in 2 1996, and after linguistic studies was languages and cultures. Toward this end, and with little official mission assigned to the Togo-Benin Branch of support, Townsend initiated indigenous education projects and translated the SIL in 1999 as a language surveyor (dialect studies). In 2002 he was as- New Testament into Kaqchikel. When he completed the translation in 1932, signed to SIL Africa Area as a mission the leadership of the mission pressed him to settle down and consolidate the researcher, and from 2008 to 2012 pursued doctoral studies under David work he had begun among the Kaqchikels. With visions of Bible transla- Bebbington at the University of Stir- tion dancing in his head, Townsend instead resigned from Central American ling, Scotland. In 2013, he was assigned the position of SIL corporate historian. Mission in 1933.

International Journal of Frontier Missiology 36:4 Winter 2019•181 182 Cameron Townsend and the Radicalization of the Faith Mission Paradigm

Following his resignation, Townsend solution that worked around the prob- “red cohort” of leftist intellectuals in embarked on a two-fold mission. First, lem, and in doing so fundamentally re- .6 The two men struck up a he made an exploratory survey into worked the modern mission paradigm. friendship, and Tannenbaum provided Mexico, where he hoped to undertake his new acquaintance with a note of Bible translation and social uplift Into Revolutionary Mexico introduction to Mexico’s director of projects among that nation’s indig- When Cameron Townsend set his sights rural education, Rafael Ramírez, thus enous peoples. Second, in 1934, he on Mexico in 1933, the nation barred en- paving the way for Townsend to tour established Camp Wycliffe, a summer try to new . This posed little the country inspecting its educational course to train missionary-translators 7 obstacle to the enterprising and imagi- system for several months. in the relatively new science of struc- native Townsend; he simply dropped tural linguistics. In pursuing these Townsend eventually convinced key his missionary identity. In a letter of overlapping aims, Townsend rewrote Mexican authorities, such as Ramírez, introduction to Mexican authorities he the book on what it meant to be a that his overall intentions aligned with introduced L. L. Legters—a colleague faith missionary. at least some of their revolutionary and SIL’s co-founder—as a “lecturer, goals: undermining Roman Catholi- And what did it mean to be a modern explorer and humanitarian,” and himself cism, developing indigenous languages, era missionary anyway? The language as an “ethnologist and educator.” He did educating the nation’s indigenous of mission: missionary, missions, not deny his religious aims, and proposed peoples, and integrating these people missional, are terms that entered into what he referred to as the “Mexican into mainstream society. Eschewing common usage during the European Society of Indigenous Translations.” This the classical elements of the mis- expansion of Christianity, and are thus, sionary vocation, such as preaching, in our post-colonial age, freighted with baptizing converts, and founding legacies of the past: crusades, colonial- churches, Townsend set himself up in ism, occupation, and center-periphery, the village of Tetelcingo as a linguist to name but a few. Missiologist Townsend and community developer. He also be- Michael Stroope has recently offered gan learning the language in anticipa- a thorough analysis and critique of the presented his work in tion of translating the New Testament language of mission and its historical into a dialect of Aztec. baggage. He has argued that the time terms that aligned with has come to transcend the language of Cárdenas’ When Mexico’s President Lázaro mission altogether. Stroope contends Cárdenas paid Townsend an unex- that the language of “mission” has been revolutionary aims. pected visit in 1936, he was immedi- read into both the biblical and histori- ately impressed with the American’s cal contexts “in order to accommodate work, which reflected his own practical a variety of agendas and to support a concern for Mexico’s rural population. 3 particular version of church history.” society would establish a program, he With much in common, the two men We are, as it were, enveloped within a wrote, to “conserve for science a grammar became friends. Townsend convinced conceptual paradigm that fails to do and dictionary of each indigenous lan- his new benefactor that putting the justice to the globalized realities of guage” while also undertaking to “trans- Bible into the peasants’ hands and the twenty-first century. However, the late the New Testament in each language 5 teaching them to read it would tend language of mission retains a powerful and publish it in bilingual edition.” to eliminate vice and superstition, grip on the imagination. “For many By way of some fast talking and the while at the same time undercut- Christians,” Stroope points out, presentation of an old letter from ting Catholicism’s influence. To wit, mission language is emotionally Mexican educator and diplomat Townsend presented his work in terms charged and thus gives definition to Moisés Sáenz, Townsend and Legters that aligned with Cárdenas’ revolu- how they feel about their place in the tionary aims. Following their meeting, world . . . To critique the term raises were allowed into the country, but only uncomfortable questions about per- after promising not to preach. Legters, Townsend wrote the president that sonal identity and life purpose.4 an inveterate pulpiteer, chafed at the before having the pleasure of know- restriction and soon returned to the ing you, I loved and admired the Cameron Townsend, as we will see, ran US. Townsend stayed on and fell into revolutionary work of Mexico, now, headlong into this very problem. The the company of sociologist and social upon knowing its highest representa- language and conceptual notions of activist Frank Tannenbaum, who was tive personally I feel more intimately mission were impediments to his new suspected by the Federal Bureau of identified with her and more resolved 8 venture. He therefore crafted a partial Investigation of associating with a and determined in service.

International Journal of Frontier Missiology Boone Aldridge 183

Townsend proved his sentiment by stumping for Cárdenas in America ollowing Townsend’s precedent, his young Camp after the president nationalized the Wycliffe graduates did not preach, baptize assets of US oil companies operat- converts, or found churches under SIL’s control. ing in Mexico. A lasting friendship F was forged between these two men, and Eugene Nida, earned doctorates. religious belief or political persuasion. evidenced by Cárdenas serving as Both men would go on to make their Thus, for example, Roman Catholic Townsend’s best man at his second marks in linguistics and translation priests and nuns and liberal Protes- marriage in 1946, after the death of respectively. They also saw to it that tants were admitted to the Institute’s first wife. SIL became a world-class institute linguistic courses at the University Townsend’s relationship with Cárde- of structural linguistics. While North of Oklahoma from the late 1940s. In nas opened the way for him to channel American evangelicals viewed the 1958, Townsend said he hoped that his young Camp Wycliffe graduates organization primarily as a Bible SIL would one day have the oppor- into Mexico, where they engaged in translation mission, government tunity to serve Muslims, Buddhists, administrators and linguistic scholars Atheists, Jews and, as he put it, “every- linguistic research, carried out lan- 9 guage and community development around the world knew and under- one.” All of Townsend’s efforts in the projects, and produced vernacular New stood that SIL was much more, that it arena of universal service were, in one Testament translations. And, follow- was also a leading player in the science way or another, aimed specifically at ing Townsend’s precedent, they did of structural linguistics. gaining access to indigenous peoples not preach, baptize converts, or found in order to bring them vernacular churches under SIL’s control. Thus, Of Service to All translations of the New Testament, while at the same time improving their rather than entering Mexico as a clas- As Townsend expanded SIL’s opera- social standing within the nations in sical faith mission, Townsend instead tions into South America and beyond, which they resided. conformed his mission to Mexico’s the operating procedures established in socio-political context in order to gain Mexico became the guiding principles Clearly Townsend’s mission was not a access to the indigenous population. for the organization’s field develop- typical faith mission, and was thus at ment. SIL henceforth entered other odds with its home base, where SIL The Linguistic Approach countries under government con- relied upon the financial support of Back in North America, rural Arkan- tracts as a scientific organization that North American fundamentalists and sas to be exact, Townsend’s upstart engaged in language development and other conservative evangelicals. This summer linguistic school proved community service. Bible translation is where the Wycliffe Bible Transla- a roaring success. By 1942, Camp was of course on the menu, but it was tors side of the dual organization Wycliffe had achieved sufficient couched in minimalist terms. For ex- came into play. Formed in 1942, its academic standing to garner an invita- ample, SIL’s contract with Peru called purpose was to relate to the organiza- tion to partner with the University of for it to translate books of “high moral tion’s North American constituency in Oklahoma at Norman, where it oper- value,” which was a moniker for Bible ways familiar to churchgoers. In other ated until 1988 as an adjunct depart- translation. Peru’s government offi- words, Wycliffe looked and sounded ment on a full credit basis. With the cials, as well as other Latin American like a typical faith mission. Its public- move to Norman, the Camp Wycliffe government officials, were not unaware ity focused heavily on Bible translation name was dropped and the school was of SIL’s religious ambitions; however, and the more religious aspects of SIL’s absorbed into the Summer Institute it suited their purposes to have SIL’s work. Likewise it produced films that of Linguistics. But, as we shall see, the contracts on a scientific basis, rather highlighted the spiritual transforma- Wycliffe name reappeared that same than on religious grounds, since this tion of indigenous peoples after the year as the name for an entirely new would ostensibly deflect criticism that New Testament began to circulate in parallel organization to SIL. they were sponsoring a Protestant their communities. organization at the expense of Roman To bolster the scientific credibility The organization’s personnel also took Catholicism. of SIL, Townsend encouraged his advantage of the dual structure. When most outstanding students to expand If the SIL strategy aimed to lessen the in North America they presented their linguistic knowledge by purs- influence of Catholicism, Townsend themselves to the Christian public ing advanced degrees at places such nonetheless stipulated that SIL was as Wycliffe missionaries; and when as the University of Michigan, where non-sectarian and would therefore abroad, as linguists or members of two of his early recruits, Kenneth Pike serve everyone regardless of their the Summer Institute of Linguistics.

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The dual SIL-Wycliffe setup allowed practiced what historian Todd Hartch In the third place, SIL’s wide-ranging members to accent differing aspects of referred to as “submission theology,” linguistic, cultural and humanitarian the total program depending on whom a strategy “that emphasized submis- program widened its understanding they were addressing. sion to rulers as God’s agents.”12 SIL of the task beyond evangelization. Kenneth Pike summed this up when But, the duality could also be a source not only took the modern nation-state he wrote that the “whole man, we feel, of deep mental distress for some as an artifact of historical develop- must be affected by the Gospel—his missionaries, especially those driven ment, but deeply involved itself in the spirit, intellect, and culture.”14 to telling the truth at all costs. One development of the states in which it of these turned out to be none other found itself, and this regardless of the Put simply, then, the deeper SIL than Eugene Nida, one of SIL’s top political persuasion of the nation’s gov- moved into the “service of all” man- linguists and charter board member. ernment. Left or Right, SIL was there date, the greater the dichotomy Nida gave as his primary reason for to serve. Indeed, service could at times between the SIL work in foreign parts resigning from SIL and Wycliffe in be carried so far that it led to SIL and the recruiting and publicity efforts 1953 that he could no longer condone fusing with the state. For example, in of Wycliffe in North America. the “degree of misrepresentation” that Peru, SIL’s aviation program became was entailed in “the explanation of so deeply integrated into the state Repercussions the SIL-WBT program.” In the main, apparatus that it functioned as an arm In the mid-1950s, some evangelical he concluded that the organization of the Peruvian military, even to the seemed to operate “on the principle missionaries began to note that SIL that the ‘ends justify the means.’ ”10 workers were a rather different lot. Others, such as Kenneth Pike, ap- It was observed that they attended peared unbothered by the duality, and diplomatic functions where liquor he simply argued that Wycliffe and The organization was served. Then there were all those SIL were “for accountability to two monks, nuns, and priests riding around different audiences.”11 seemed to operate in SIL aircraft. Others remarked that SIL members sometimes seemed to In any case, the dual-organizational “on the principle downplay their true identity, referring structure provided Townsend just what that the ‘ends justify to themselves as linguists rather than he needed to pursue his radical vision explicitly as missionaries. In 1956, a of Bible translation as a scientific the means.’ ” student reported that Harold Cook, a endeavor under the rubric of non-sec- Moody professor of missions and au- tarian service. SIL in Latin America —Nida thor of the widely used textbook Mis- and beyond could legitimately func- sionary Life and Work, was criticizing tion as a scientific institute—albeit one the dual organization’s “chameleon-like 15 that engaged in both Bible translation point of conducting military transport misrepresentation” in the classroom. and language development. At home flights. SIL also had offices at the De- Africa Inland Mission’s Ralph T. Davis in North America, Wycliffe could partment of Education in Lima. The complained to Townsend in 1958 that publicize the work, raise funds, and line between SIL and the Peruvian I have never been able to be con- recruit candidates among fundamen- government all but vanished.13 vinced in my own heart that the pri- talists and evangelicals with the usual mary purpose of you and Wycliffe, faith missionary vocabulary familiar to Second, SIL also had to live up to the as such, was the spiritual purpose of churchgoers. In a word, all the trap- research and language development your work rather than the scientific. pings of a faith mission were main- expectations of the various states it tained for the most part at home, but “Are you fish or fowl?” Davis wanted served. Expansion of university con- 16 radically altered in practice on the field nections beyond Norman, Oklahoma, to know. By 1960, the hue and cry as needed. also propelled SIL in a scholarly within the conservative faith mission direction. Without these relation- complex became so loud that Wycliffe Effects of the Strategy ships, it would have been all too easy pulled out of the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association rather Having described the general outline to lapse into ignoring research and 17 than risk ejection. of SIL’s and Wycliffe’s early develop- scholarship and instead concentrat- ment, allow me to make some obser- ing only on Bible translation. But SIL The late 1960s brought new attacks vations. First, by collaborating with was contractually obligated to produce on SIL as anthropologists took up the governments, Townsend and SIL credible scholarship. cause of indigenous peoples. In 1973,

International Journal of Frontier Missiology Boone Aldridge 185 the American anthropologist Laurie Hart castigated SIL in an article hen a delegation of twenty-five indigenous entitled “Story of the Wycliffe Trans- leaders came to the Peruvian president with a lators: Pacifying the Last Frontiers.”18 Among a litany of other charges, T petition of 1500 signatories pleading SIL’s case. goes where the Peruvian Air Force Hart accused SIL of abetting internal Moreover, the Wycliffe brand carried doesn’t go, and has won a better colonialism. She argued that it was the weight. Wycliffe corporate publicity, reputation for safety.22 organization’s strategy to place indig- always on the cutting edge of innova- enous peoples into a “decultured” state tion, was very effective in presenting Across an entire range of services from so that they could be reconstituted the fieldwork of SIL (aspects of which aviation to language development to as citizens of the dominant culture. could go unmentioned when neces- education, SIL was providing badly The first book-length condemnation sary) to the evangelical public. needed and widely appreciated goods of SIL-WBT arrived on the scene in and services to the nations in which 1981 under the title Is God an Ameri- And there is the very real fact that the it worked. can? This was a collection of essays evangelical public was probably more by North American and European entertained by films and stories of Ama- Likewise, the indigenous communities anthropologists accusing SIL of every- zonian “savages” and “cannibals” than in which SIL worked often valued the thing from ethnocide to being a front they were concerned by interagency organization’s efforts to help them. In for the CIA. In 1982, David Stoll, politics and infighting. Indeed, Wycliffe the mid-1970s, leftists in Peru seemed who made something of a career out went so far as to bring a former head- to have finally effected the ejection of criticizing SIL, published a book- hunting chief from Peru, Chief Tariri of SIL from the country. But SIL length analysis of SIL-WBT entitled Nochomata, to tour America in the ear- had many powerful friends. Dozens Fishers of Men or Founders of Empire? ly 1960s. Nochomata was made famous of leading figures: politicians, law- Stoll was particularly exercised over by the Wycliffe pavilion at the New yers, businessmen, generals, admirals, the dual strategy, referring to it as “a York World’s Fair, where a giant mural academics, and writers—including the 19 versatile fiction.” violently and graphically portrayed his renowned Peruvian novelist Mario transition from “savage to citizen” under Vargas Llhosa—published a defense Weathering the Storm the organization’s tutelage.20 The mural of SIL in Lima’s two leading papers. was so gruesome that fair officials at Then came a delegation of twenty- Despite all the criticisms of Christian 21 fundamentalists, the unrelenting de- first questioned putting it on display. five indigenous leaders knocking on the Peruvian president’s door with a nunciations of secular anthropologists To sum up then: Wycliffe’s publicity petition in hand, one with no fewer and linguists—not to mention threats was probably far more interesting to than 1500 signatories pleading SIL’s of expulsion from various countries— churchgoers than any reported SIL case. With such resounding approval these controversies did little perma- irregularities trumpeted about by par- for the organization from both ends nent damage to SIL and Wycliffe in tisan fundamentalists. the long run. Why was this the case? of the social strata, SIL’s contract was 23 I suggest that it was, at least in part, What about SIL? How did it survive the renewed. A few years later these a function of the dual-organizational sustained criticisms of leftists at home events were reprised in Ecuador, only structure, and its practical outworking and abroad? In the first place, through its this time between 5000 and 6000 in varied contexts. strategy of “service to all,” SIL had made indigenous people made their way to itself all but essential in many underdevel- the Ecuadorian Congress in sup- First, a look at Wycliffe in North 24 oped nations. This had been Townsend’s port of SIL. America. As already noted, SIL mem- aim all along, and it worked. He told the bers were also Wycliffe missionaries. The SIL-Wycliffe dual-organization SIL board in 1953, speaking of Peru, that Thus, in North America, they faced was replete with paradoxes. What with he wanted to make SIL “seem indispens- their evangelical supporters as mis- Wycliffe and its classical missionary able . . . to the Government.” “I knew,” he sionaries and Bible translators. Their publicity—including talk of cannibals wrote, “that if people got to look upon us sponsoring churches and supporters and savages transformed by the gospel as indispensable it would be practically knew and trusted them as individuals on one side, and the deep appreciation impossible for anybody who opposed us and as Wycliffe missionaries. Therefore, and affirmation of indigenous cultures to cause us trouble.” And he then went on whatever reverberations there were signified by SIL’s language develop- about SIL’s field work could usually be to report that ment and social concern on the other, allayed by individual missionaries com- it is just a little embarrassing to Peru- it is no wonder that the organization municating with their constituencies. vians for us to have an air service that came under fire. But the fact that SIL

36:4 Winter 2019 186 Cameron Townsend and the Radicalization of the Faith Mission Paradigm was meeting real needs around the tarnished its own reputation with its Whatever the merits or flaws of the world made it difficult to dislodge or semantic prevarications. “Unfortu- dual-organizational structure, it was demolish. And it was producing trans- nately,” Stoll noted, the brainchild of Cameron Townsend. lated scriptures, thus making good on the SIL itself had contributed to the And, it was a key in the success of the main goal emphasized by Wycliffe confusion over its work. As a matter of his mission. It must not be thought, in its publicity. Depending on the pub- policy, the group had long obfuscated however, that it came about through lic, the message shifted, and there was the fact that aside from being a linguis- studied reflection on first principles. certainly some semantic ingenuity go- tic research organization it was also an Townsend was utterly pragmatic. He 26 ing on at times. However, on the whole, evangelical Protestant mission. saw a crying need to reach indigenous the goods promised were delivered. peoples with the gospel in their own Although Stoll was given to overstat- language, and he insisted that they For some evidence of this we can ing the degree to which the organiza- should have the same dignity and ben- turn to David Stoll, perhaps SIL- tion muddied the waters, there was efits enjoyed by their fellow citizens. It Wycliffe’s most vocal yet astute critic. at least some measure of truth to his was the Mexican context—and even Stoll eventually softened his criticism assertion. the ideals of the Revolution—that of the 1970s and 1980s after observ- also did much to shape his approach ing indigenous responses to SIL in Conclusion to mission. He simply cast aside what Latin America. By the mid-1990s, The central problem was that the lan- did not work and adapted, where and he had concluded that SIL’s strate- guage of mission and its connotations, when necessary to obtain his goals. gies—and even its practice of the so And SIL-WBT was simply following called “submission theology”—were Townsend’s path-breaking effort to probably appropriate given the context overcome the obstacles of established within which it worked. “To protect its tradition. “I yearn,” he once wrote, government contracts,” Stoll wrote, for other organizations to begin to the SIL adopted the policy of never Events could have break loose from the time-honored criticizing host governments, no taken an even worse shackles of churchianity and become matter how they were treating the all things to all men for the Gos- population under their control. Still, turn without the pel’s sake.27 it must be acknowledged that the docile attitude of SIL missionaries was missionary linguists. I suggest that the SIL-Wycliffe experi- not necessarily a bad thing. By keep- ment provides an excellent case study ing their mouths shut, they could —Stoll for examining the problem of modern sometimes give hard-pressed native missions and the language of mission people medicine and schools they that Mike Stroope has brought to would otherwise not have had, not to mention the Bible translations that light for us. Perhaps the SIL-Wycliffe some have appreciated. as understood by North American experiment also prefigures the many evangelicals, did not fit the SIL para- challenges that transcending mission He also noted that SIL’s deep involve- digm created by Cameron Townsend might entail. ment in indigenous communities could in Latin America. But it also suggests that the mod- save lives. “In other cases,” he wrote, ern era mission—at least in some The demands of Bible translation; events could have taken an even respects—can coexist with pilgrim worse turn without the missionary the demands of the scientific and witness. In many places where SIL linguists. Consider the Huaorani in government relations strategies; and members served on the ground, they Ecuador, whom the SIL pacified just the demands of service to all; taken were not really functioning as mission- ahead of advancing oil teams–and together, all this was simply too far aries in the typical sense. who otherwise could easily have been removed from American evangeli- 25 bombed by the national air force. cal experience for easy explanation. Translators spent many years simply Rather than undertake the probably learning the language and the culture The more mature David Stoll of the impossible task of educating American of the people, functioning mostly as 1990s was clearly seeing SIL from a churchgoers in all the ways of SIL, it faithful witnesses and giving testimony different angle of vision than he had in was far easier and more convenient to to the reality of Christ Jesus through the overheated 1970s. create Wycliffe and maintain all the love and service. Translating was also On the other hand, he lamented the vocabulary and machinery of the clas- done in community, not usually as fact that the organization seemingly sical faith mission. an outside imposition. There were no

International Journal of Frontier Missiology Boone Aldridge 187 pulpits or sermons, no crusades, and no extension of western ecclesiastical ne can argue the ethics of this transformation— structures. When Wycliffe missionar- when Wycliffe missionaries dropped their ies dropped their missionary identity missionary identity at the border. at the border to became SIL members O or translators, it was in large degree Endnotes 12 Todd Hartch, Missionaries of the 1 State: The Summer Institute of Linguistics, appropriate. One can argue the ethics The hyphenated “SIL-WBT” acro- State Formation, and Indigenous Mexico, of this transformation—and it was nym refers to the dual organization in a 1935–1985 (Tuscaloosa: University of historical sense. The two organizations are debated inside and outside the orga- Alabama Press, 2006), 47. nization for decades—but the shift today legally and structurally separate enti- 13 ties with their own respective leadership. Boone Aldridge, For the Gospel’s of language was more than semantic. Sake: The Rise of the Wycliffe Bible Transla- 2 The termLadino is derived from There were real fundamental shifts in tors and the Summer Institute of Linguistics ‘latino’ and usually refers to the mestizo (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans perspective and approach. or hispanicized population. The demonym Pub. Co., 2018), 121–125, 129–142. Nevertheless, in Michael Stroope’s Ladino came into use during the colonial 14 era and referred to the Spanish speaking Kenneth L. Pike, “IFMA Issue,” sense, the SIL-Wycliffe experiment population that did not belong to the colo- Work Paper VI.1, September 1959, SIL certainly had “mission” written all over Mexico Branch Archive, Catalina, Arizona. nial elite of Peninsulares or Criollos, nor to 15 it. Indeed, in some ways it represented the indigenous peoples. George Cowan to Cameron Townsend, the ultimate expression of “modern era 3 Michael W. Stroope, Transcending 14 December 1957, p. 2, TA 12660; quotation from John W. Newman to Robert William mission,” or what Andrew Walls called Mission: The Eclipse of a Modern Tradition (Downersgrove, IL: IVP Academic, 2017), 27. Wyatt, 10 December 1957, TA 13681. “Missions Incorporated.” Of course, 16 4 Stroope, Transcending Mission, 23. Ralph T. Davis to Cameron Townsend, the degree to which the specialized 3 November 1958, pp. 1–2, TA 15024. 5 Cameron Townsend to Al. C. Lic. craft of Bible translation calls for this 17 The organization’s membership in José M. Soto, official mayor, Secretaría the IFMA was formally with Wycliffe, the kind of programmatic structure can Gobernación, 6 October 1933, Townsend be debated, but the highly-specialized specifically religious side of the organization. Archives (TA), Waxhaw, North Carolina, 18 task of scriptural translation would TA 2077, translation by William Law- Laurie Hart, “Story of the Wycliffe rence Svelmoe, A New Vision for Missions: Translators: Pacifying the Last Frontiers,” be very difficult without the mission Latin America and Empire Report 7, no. 10 superstructure to support it. William Cameron Townsend, the Wycliffe Bible Translators, and the Culture of Early (December 1973): 16–31. 19 To sum up, then, the very fact that Evangelical Faith Missions, 1896–1945 David Stoll, Fishers of Men or Founders of Empire? The Wycliffe Bible SIL-Wycliffe transcended mission (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2008), 241–42. Translators in Latin America (Cambridge, in some areas, functioned as a clas- 6 Cameron Townsend to Elvira MA: Cultural Survival, 1982), 12. 20 sical modern mission in others, and Townsend, 10 December 1933, TA 1718; “From Savage to Citizen,” brochure sometimes went entirely outside any 13 December 1933, p. 2, TA 1716; 20 of Wycliffe Bible Translators Pavilion known paradigm, is what makes for December 1933, p. 3, TA 1717; quotation of 2000 Tribes, New York World’s Fair, from Charles A. Hale, “Frank Tannenbaum 1964–1965, copy in author’s possession. a fascinating case study. The SIL- 21 Wycliffe experiment to reach the least and the ,” Hispanic C. W. Bendigo, “Headhunting Today American Historical Review 75, no. 2 (May Depicted at NY Fair,” news release, c. 1964, of these with the gospel—and to give 1995): 238. p. 2, copy in author’s possession. 22 them both dignity and a leg up in this 7 Cameron Townsend to Elvira Cameron Townsend to Wycliffe and world—is a compelling story. Townsend, 20 December 1933, p. 2, TA 1716. SIL board of directors, 20 March 1953, p. 1, 8 Cameron Townsend to President TA 9027. And, no matter what one might con- 23 Lázaro Cárdenas, 29 January 1936, Archivo Aldridge, For the Gospel’s Sake, 215–217. clude about the overall program, this General de la Nación, Mexico City, Fondo 24 Kathryn T. Long, God in the Rain- unique approach did pave the way for Lázaro Cárdenas, quoted in Svelmoe, A forest: A Tale of Martyrdom & Redemption pilgrim witness in otherwise inacces- New Vision for Missions, 270. in Amazonian Ecuador (New York: Oxford sible communities, where indigenous 9 Cameron Townsend to R. J. Rein- University Press, 2019), 264–265. 25 peoples were brought into deep and millar, Vice President, Gospel Missionary David Stoll, “Missionaries as Foreign direct engagement with the scriptures Union, 6 July 1958, TA 14681. Agents,” American Anthropologist 98, no. 3 10 (September 1996): 637. in their own languages, after which Eugene Nida to Wycliffe Bible Translators board of directors, 9 September 26 Stoll, “Missionaires as Foreign they often came to know their cre- 1953, pp. 1–2, TA 9256. Agents,” 636. ator, and were transformed by Jesus 11 Kenneth L. Pike, explanation of the 27 Cameron Townsend to Philip E. Christ through the power of the Holy dual organization to an unidentified inquiry, Howard, Jr., et. al., “Discussion of the Wycliffe Spirit. IJFM n.d., TA 42517, emphasis in the original. Policy of Service,” March 1956, p. 1, TA 12104.

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