The Unfolding Drama

of the Christian Movement

by Ralph D. Winter

William Carey Library Pasadena, California The Unfolding Drama of the Christian Movement

by Ralph D. Winter

William Carey Library Pasadena, California These are transcriptions of lectures given by Ralph D. Winter, Ph.D., at Fuller Theological Seminary, School of World Mission, 1979. The Unfolding Drama of the Christian Movement

Ralph D. Winter Contents Chapter 1: The MEANS of World Evangelization Chapter 2: The Unfinished Task of World Evangelization Chapter 3: Penetrating the Last Frontiers Chapter 4: The Importance of a Strategy of Closure Chapter 5: The First Four Hundred Years

Chapter 6: The Second Four Hundred Years (AD 400-800)

Chapter 7: The Third Four Hundred Years (800—1200 AD)

Chapter 8: The Fourth Four Hundred Years (1200-1600 AD) Chapter 9: The Breakdown of the Uniformitarian Hypothesis Chapter 10: The Fifth Expansion Chapter 11: The Evangelical Awakening Chapter 12: The Emergence of Protestant Orders, 1795-1865 Chapter 13: The Rise of the American Protestant Mission Movement Chapter 14: Student Movements in Missions Chapter 15: The Retreat of the West Chapter 16: The Legacy of Edinburgh, 1910 Chapter 17: Missions and Church Councils Chapter 18: The Story of Global Civilization as of 1945 Winter Chapter 1

The MEANS of World Evangelization

Our first topic to chew into is called, “The sionary. He was not the first Protestant mis- Means of World Evangelization.” The word sionary; he was merely the first Protestant mis- means intrudes itself upon the pages of human sionary who wrote a book on the theory of missions, history at a certain “locus classicus” in the case and who specifically proposed that mission of William Carey’s famous little book, the brief societies were a legitimate means for the ful- title of which is “An Enquiry into the Obliga- fillment of the Great Commission. tions of Christians to Use Means for the Con- Today most of us take mission societies for version of the Heathens.” The longer title I granted. We are so completely unaware of the don’t recall. The key word in this title is the issue of their existence—that is, whether or not word means. they should exist—that in our field work Carey’s little 97-page book covers three overseas and around the world, almost things: without exception it has never even occurred 1) It talks about previous efforts in to us that we have needed to start mission societies history. within the national churches. The very idea just 2) It talks about the remaining task. In the doesn’t even come up. I’ll bet that for half of second part it presents quantitatively a you what I’m saying is unintelligible; you series of tables and tabular materials probably did not even catch what I said which incorporate Carey’s own best esti- mates of what was left to be done. because you have never even thought that Now by estimates, I really mean estimates! there should be a mission society composed of Take the island of Borneo—all he knew the national church people themselves. was the rough area in square miles. This But lately such mission societies are more is back in 1790, and he had no idea how and more talked about, and they are some- many people lived there, so he estimated. times referred to as “Third World Missions.” He said, “Well, there are probably so Not missions to the Third World, but missions many people per square mile and from the Third World. Not missions from the therefore the population of Borneo is so Third World to the U.S., although that is cer- large.” And probably these people are tainly legitimate, but simply mission structures mainly non-Christians. Perhaps there are a few papists (as he called the Catholics) that are composed of, and directed by, Africans and a few Mohammedans” (as he called or Koreans or Christians from the Third World. the Muslims).” His guesswork, however, Unfortunately, this hiatus in mission provides the basis of all the tables which history is so serious that there are almost no constitute the second part of that book. effective Third World mission societies as yet 3) Thirdly, Carey refers to the word (in 1979). At this point there are at least 200 in means. In this case he introduces the idea existence. If you go around and count every- of a mission society, and finally we thing that moves, every shadow, every understand what he means by the glimmer, you can get even more on the list. But “means” of world evangelization! many of these societies are perhaps inner city Now, lest you think that all this is some missions in the city of Seoul, Korea, or some little obscure reference, off to one side in the kind of boat mission down in Korea’s Inchon backwater of history, let me say that in my Harbor. Very rarely do they work outside the opinion, beyond the Bible itself, the impact of cultural traditions of their own people. They Carey’s small book on history is greater than are often not “cross-cultural.” Not what we call any other document in regard to the fulfillment “foreign” mission societies. of the Great Commission. William Carey is I am not going to stand up here and deny often thought of as the first Protestant mis- the word missions to such structures. This word

© 1996 R. Winter. No copy may be made without the author’s permission. 1 – 1 1 – 2 The MEANS of World Evangelization is free for people to use any way they wish. I Carey referred was very specifically a mech- have no lock and key on the word missions. But anism—a social mechanism, an organizational I would suggest that for the most part the structure, if you wish—which was designed word is used more specifically in the foreign for bridging church growth. Although the ter- mission tradition and usually refers to going minology here may seem a bit clumsy, the where there is not yet a church, not merely activity to which I refer is the specific the attempt going out from where there is already a church. to go from one culture where there is a church to Let me try to draw a picture of what I another culture where there is no culturally rel- mean. As you all know by now, in McGavran’s evant church movement. terms, the phrase the mosaic of human society There might be what could be called an consists of different human subcultures not dif- enclave church. Suppose, for example, in Iran ferent countries. In India, instead of being one or more of the various subcultures may strewn out separately, they pile up like a stack already have an “enclave” church of its own. of pancakes since they are very often sand- But this church, we note, in no significant way wiched with each other in layers in a given relates to culture in which it is immersed. In town or city. Although there may be fifty the same way, to say that there is no church in layers in the same town, each layer is never- Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is to speak imprecisely. theless a different culture—missiologically. There is a church, perhaps several, in Riyadh, If there are well-established churches in one Saudi Arabia, but there is no indigenous church or two of these different layers, then working within that overall cultural tradition. I think within those particular cultures to found other you understand what I mean. To go from a churches is certainly mission of a sort. subcultural enclave out to the main culture of To cope with such details I have actually Saudi Arabia would therefore be missions, not tried, somewhat unsuccessfully, to get people evangelism. to think in terms of various kinds of church However, note that this kind of missions growth. Expansion growth is what happens from an enclave is probably the least successful when the existing churches grow bigger. to succeed—because over the years (or perhaps Extension growth refers to the multiplication of centuries) very high prejudice barriers have been existing churches within the same culture. But built up between the majority culture and the bridging growth is perhaps the least recognized Christianized sub-culture or enclave. because a bridge is built when the churches That is why it is actually easier for someone within one culture go over to some other from a distant culture to do missions in that sit- culture where there is not yet a culturally rel- uation than for the local Christians within the evant church movement. As far as I personally enclave church to break out their situation and am concerned, I would prefer to use (or even try to witness to the culture that may have long reserve) the word mission for the bridging type resented them for other reasons than just their of church growth, and I would call these other witness of Christ. This problem represents one types of growth simply evangelism. I prefer this of the most serious misunderstandings in not because one type of church growth is better mission strategy today. We can call it “the or more important than the others but because problem of the proximate culture.” mission, as I am defining it here (using the term But, so much for definitions of the word bridging), requires many more specialized skills means. Let me go back for a moment to the and training. And, by definition, it can’t be done astounding hiatus in mission strategy which without involving an outsider, since there is no has allowed mission activity to go on and on in Christian movement within that culture as yet. the Protestant tradition for nearly 200 years And, obviously, it is the kind of thing you without any clear-eyed, intentional strategy of cannot pay someone within the culture to do. founding mission societies in the foreign soil. Since not very many others differentiate the When I say things like this in discussion types of church growth in this way, I myself with others, I find that they are often groping probably won’t be very consistent in how I use for some explanation for this astounding the two words mission and evangelism. Since I hiatus. Why haven’t missionaries helped the speak ordinary English most of the time, I will national church leaders set up indigenous probably use these two words like everybody mission societies? I sense that those with else does for all kinds of purposes! whom I talk feel uneasy about this whole In any case, the means to which William question. They feel that there must be some Ralph D. Winter 1 – 3 logical reason for this hiatus, and, of course, it was a mission. It was, if you wish, a trav- some of the reasons which they suggest in our elling synagogue. It had all the authority of a discussion are, “Well, you have to start a travelling church. It appointed elders, just like church first before you can start a mission a non-travelling church does. society.” In the same way, we can consider the Well, for the sake of argument, let me refer “means” of William Carey, the mission of Alex- you to Alexander Rhodes. A century or so ago ander Rhodes, the team of the apostle Paul (in he was a missionary to Vietnam, but was each case) a “travelling church.” Of course, I kicked out sixteen times. Reg Reimer, a mis- don’t really like to do that. But I insist that it sionary with the Christian and Missionary had the authority and some of the functions of Alliance in Vietnam, has done research on a travelling church, and was as legitimate as a Alexander Rhodes. He says that the largest travelling church would be. But it was not a body of Christians in Vietnam today is the church in the normal sense of that word result of what Rhodes did, even though he was because an individual could be baptized by often removed from the scene. Actually his that group but not be baptized into that group. total length of time in Vietnam was not very An individual could be baptized into a syna- lengthy, but it was effective. gogue—a Gentile or maybe a Jewish syna- What is interesting to note is that he didn’t gogue—and from there be selected by, or vol- plant churches. I realize that it’s heresy in any unteer to a mission team. But it would take a kind of a church growth group to say that combination of volunteering and selecting in Rhodes succeeded fabulously even though he order for anyone to get on that specialized didn’t plant churches, but it is true. team. Nobody could get on it automatically the The thing that McGavran is most concerned moment he became a Christian. It always took about, however, is that we not be content with a second step, a voluntary additional step beyond simply winning individuals to Christ. And in church membership, for him to become part of order to counteract that inadequate approach, this special ministry. McGavran stresses the necessity of incorpo- It was well understood, I believe, in the rating those new believers into a permanent period of the New Testament church that the fellowship. Isn’t that right? It should not be too team within which Paul worked had the same hard to understand then that to incorporate structure as the Pharisaic missionary bands that believers into a mission society is simply another “traversed land and sea to make a single pros- form of incorporation. So although McGavran elyte.” In other words, the structure of missions doesn’t state his objective this way, I don’t which Paul employed was basically the same think he would object if someone said, “It’s true as the structure that for 150 years had already that we’re not planting churches, but we are been in use by the Pharisees. The Pharisaic mis- planting mission societies to plant churches.” sionary band was already utilizing that kind of I wonder just how many of you have ever a structure, and Paul merely borrowed it, just read an article on how to plant a “younger as he borrowed the synagogue. He didn’t invent mission?” We talk all the time about younger a new kind of a thing called church. Anyone churches. But have you ever read a paper on who reads the New Testament and thinks that the planting of “younger missions?” There is a God let down from heaven a new blueprint for chapter on this subject in a book entitled what is called a church and thinks that it is dif- Crucial Dimensions in World Evangelization. ferent from a synagogue simply doesn’t under- [Relate to something more recent.] You really stand the situation. Paul made no attempt to should read that. create a new kind of synagogue. There was a Back to Alexander Rhodes. Each time he new message within that synagogue, but the was kicked out, he left behind a little cadre of structure was the same. Paul went around younger men who were pledged to the splitting synagogues; he was a church splitter, planting of churches. They worked as a team, a synagogue splitter. He was not so much a just like Paul and his co-laborers worked as a church planter as a synagogue splitter. He team. Paul, you know, was basically operating didn’t intend to split synagogues. But he went within a church planting team. He was in the there with the gospel of Jesus Christ, the gospel business of planting churches, wasn’t he? of redemption, the gospel of grace, the gospel However, the organization within which he of circumcision of the heart, which we read worked was neither a church nor a synagogue; about in Deuteronomy and Jeremiah. 1 – 4 The MEANS of World Evangelization

Paul got the pattern he used from Alex- any missionary to Ethiopia that has tried to do andria, where the synagogues were already this, but at least in terms of missionary bypassing the requirement of circumcision for strategy, it would be worth thinking about. Gentiles coming into their midst. Paul pressed Now, to go back to the two structures we this pattern hard, so hard that he alienated have just discussed, I’d like to refer you to an many of the Jews in the front rows. In Acts 13 article entitled “The Two Structures of God’s they finally popped up and cursed at him and Redemptive Mission.” That article surveys the blasphemed, it says in the text. Obviously he last 2000 years, and points out different types didn’t stick around after that second Sabbath of examples for each of these structures. Let me there, but walked out, taking with him many of just point out here that there are two ways to the Gentile believers in the back rows. With go at new ideas. You can either use old words these and a few Jews he started a new syna- and continue to explain to people that you are gogue, which is more often called by the Greek not really saying what they think you are name ecclesia, which refers to any kind of a saying, or you can use a new word they’ve meeting. There is nothing holy about the word never heard of, and try to put it over, defined ecclesia. And because the structure he used was from scratch. I’m choosing the second of these already well established, Paul didn’t have to two paths, when I speak of a modality. give a whole lot of new rules. The New Tes- The word sodality, however, is a word from tament contains a few references which, you the Roman Catholic tradition which Latourette, may recall, reminds the people how to set up a the well-known church historian, picked up church. But basically, Paul is not carving out and used in some of his writings. Anthropolo- and establishing a brand new structure. Rather, gists also have used this word to refer to a vol- he’s making sure that these people understand untary structure within a society. It’s a the old structure, the synagogue, which had structure that isn’t complete by itself because it been invented in Babylon during the Diaspora. does not have old and young and male and The synagogue was a very valuable kind of female in its midst. Thus, it cannot reproduce non-temple fellowship which involved itself biologically. accountability and worship and teaching, and A church, a modality, is a complete com- it really hasn’t been improved upon to this munity characterized by the fact that it has day. Instead, it’s been ruined; it’s been children born into it who become members degraded. Any church that’s over 200 members almost automatically. Now, if you are a is already going down hill in terms of internal Baptist, you will say, “No, sir, they don’t accountability, and thus does not correspond become members automatically.” And I will to the average synagogue. Nevertheless, the reply, “Yes, sir, in most Baptist churches they church as we know it in the New Testament is do.” The truth is that you will not find much basically a synagogue. It was borrowed from difference between a Lutheran church which the Jewish tradition just like the missionary confirms people at puberty and at the Baptist band concept was borrowed. church which baptizes people at puberty. Now what does this mean? It does not mean Functionally, those two ceremonies are the that God is canonizing for all eternity those same. Neither of them usually has a very two structures that you find in the New Tes- severe selection process. And the normal tament. What He is doing is showing us mis- church, whether it’s Lutheran or Baptist, is a sionaries how to borrow structures to work structure which gives the benefit of the doubt with, and to work within. Paul never had to to the children born into it. Thus, normally, it is teach anyone how to do it because he was bor- biologically self-perpetuating. rowing structures that already existed. Thus, rather than using a word already in Wherever we can in our missionary work, we use for a certain type of structure, as I have need to do the same. done with the word sodality, I have been a bit Let’s take Ethiopia, for example. Throughout more daring and have chosen the word modality Ethiopia there is what is called a mahaber. A for the church kind of structure. “mahaber” is a men’s group, sort of like a What all this means is that a mission society Masonic lodge, that is a structure already is a sodality. You don’t get born into a mission there. I have thought that that structure could society. There is only one mission society that I become a Christian structure if it were invaded know of where a very high percentage of the and utilized in the right way. I don’t know of members were born into it, with perhaps half Ralph D. Winter 1 – 5 of the members being children of previous “Well, what’s wrong back in the United States? members. I don’t believe this is true of SIM We’re growing; why aren’t they?” So gradually International. I don’t think that there is any people in the United States began to say, “Well, Mennonite mission society where half their what are we doing? Why is it we don’t take members were children of previous members. people we win to Christ into our fellowship. A good example, however, is the Salvation Why don’t we do that? Everybody else does. Army. Until recently the Salvation Army was a Why don’t we?” Well, the answer is that just mission society with perhaps more than half of like any other mission society, you don’t take its members born within the society. But when your converts into the mission society. If you it got to the point where more than half of its did, it would no longer be a mission society. members were children of previous members, There has to be a much stricter method of it began to lose the character of a mission selection, which is true for a church fellowship. society. That is why the Salvation Army has to Anyway, for better or for worse—and in some extent given up mission society charac- this case I think it is for worse—more and more teristics and become more like a church they allowed their converts to join them. This denomination. was very nice of them, but in so deciding they Let me refresh your mind on this subject, made the colossal shift from a mission because it is very germane to this whole thing. structure to a church structure. And today they The Salvation Army was a home mission are the fastest growing church structure in the society for many years. You didn’t just join it. United States. You had to know what you were doing to That’s fine. But there goes a very stalwart become a member because it wasn’t just a cozy mission society that for many, many decades little Bible study fellowship, like the average had a very specialized, valuable work to church. To be a member of the Salvation Army, perform. I’ll give them twenty years before you had to get out there actively as a mis- they will be mainly out of that work. sionary in the slums of London or New York. Now, there is nothing wrong with starting In those days it was very much a mission a church, but you have to know what it is society structure. Its members won people to you’re trying to do for the given situation. That Christ, but most of those they won to Christ is why there really needs to be two kinds of joined existing churches. structures. Rather than call them missions and The Salvation Army, thus, was not a church churches, I would prefer to call them sodalities in the sense that I am using the word. Not and modalities, since these latter terms have then! But it got along very nicely and began wider meanings, which enables parallels to sending missionaries to India and to Korea and secular society—towns are modalities, private to various other places in the world. Today enterprises are sodalities, as are the military there are more Salvation Army people in India structures. Both structures are necessary, just than in the United States. And in the last few as both a checking account and a savings years the Salvation Army membership in the account are necessary. One is an active United States began to say to themselves, structure and the other a relatively passive “How is it that we’re growing faster in India structure. We like to think that churches are an than in the U. S.?” active structure, and in America they are. In Well, the reason was that in India they were fact, many a denomination that is born in a church, while in the United States they were a America with, say, a new congregation here or mission society. How did that happen? In India, there, has all the characteristics of a sodality for when they won people to Christ, there were no the first generation. But you show me any local churches to which they could send the new church in the United States today that has been converts. So they incorporated all these people going for five generations and I will show you into the structure they had planted; and they a church that is not actively evangelistic. Such ended up immediately with a whole string of churches are maybe pledged to evangelism— churches, just like a denomination. The they believe in evangelism— but they’re not ultimate result was a Salvation Army church in really actively evangelistic unless, perhaps, India and a Salvation Army mission society in they’ve recently been taken over by a new America. pastor and all the old members have left and a The same thing happened in Korea. The new group of people have come in. But that’s work got very strong over there, and they said, not what I’m talking about. 1 – 6 The MEANS of World Evangelization

What I am saying is that within only gogues fuelled and provided members for the twenty years you might have an entirely dif- sodalities. But the missionary bands did more ferent type of situation simply because of the than just that. They not only produced a repro- biological factor. When your children replace ducible structure, but in so doing, they pro- your generation, the result is a new generation; duced an immensely influential movement. and when their children replace them, that’s a The church people (the modalities) were new generation. That process has a non- witnessing to others, as we certainly hope they selective basis. You see, when the structure are doing today. But notice this, even if the itself is non-selective and is perpetuated bio- church people are witnessing, it doesn’t mean logically, you no longer have that selection they are sending missionaries—and I mean which allows the high focus in the specific, sending them to places untouched by the penetrating purposes of a sodality. While gospel in any sense. In order to do that, they sodalities are not everything that God wants, have to do something that is a little more orga- they are a different kind of a structure from nized than just sending an individual out. Paul that of a church or denomination; and as such, and Barnabas did not go out as just indi- they are very, very useful. viduals. They had a well-recognized and long- In some people’s minds, I am classified as established structure behind them to help them the proponent of sodalities. Well, I hate to be know just what to do in any given situation. thought of as one-sided. But whether I believe Today, especially in the Third World, many it or not, or whether you believe that I believe churches are sending people all over the world it or not, I want to say that I think we need to serve as missionaries. But in Hong Kong and both structures. Both are very, very important Korea, for example, they are often sending and have different capacities. them out as individuals without a mission I will now compromise what I have just society backing; and as a result, they are said by adding that if you had to choose getting no place. between the two structures, it would be better Another example would be the Mormons. to choose the sodality. I say this because I have They also send individuals out (usually two the evidence, as we shall see later on, that for college students together), and they also have about 200 years there were no really effective no mission society structure on the field to guide modalities in Western Europe; there were only them. And because they don’t have veteran sodalities, like Intervarsity-type groups. These missionaries on the field to tell them what to were the durable carrier vehicles of the do, in most cases they accomplish very little. Christian movement during that entire period. What a tragedy it would be for standard mission When talking about terminology, I would agencies if the the Mormons were ever to read replace the word church with the words William Carey’s Enquiry and find out about “Christian movement” and in that case the mission societies, because then we would really Christian movement consists of both sodalities have a formidable opponent in the Mormon and modalities. You see both of them right in church! Their lack of a mission society doesn’t the New Testament. And by the way, you also mean that the Mormons aren’t expanding. see them in every human society. They are not They are, but doing so by the witnessing necessarily spiritual structures. For example, process within the cultures where their churches the city of Pasadena is a modality, and a local are already to be found. But breaking into a dry cleaning company is a sodality. new place where there is no church is some- The movement that resulted when the thing which usually does not result from the Antioch church set apart Paul and his band for work of individuals witnessing, gossiping the work all over the Roman Empire did not even- Gospel, and so forth. Yes, the Mormons have tuate in Antioch but rather at Pentecost. That more missionaries than any other group, but movement contained two kinds of fish far less to show for it per missionary. What swimming around, one serving the other, but they have is basically only a short-term program. they very much needed to work together. One I would say that the church in the New Tes- was a modality and the other was a sodality. tament is basically a movement, rather than a There were synagogues (modalities) and there structure. And in that movement, the people of were missionary bands (sodalities), and both God are rightly conceived of as the church. But structures were important. The missionary that movement contains these two different bands produced synagogues, and the syna- structures. Ralph D. Winter 1 – 7

Now, I’m not really saying anything so Christ and Intervarsity Christian Fellowship very spectacular when I say that in anthro- don’t see it that way. My little pamphlet, “The pology, every tribe you study is a modality, Two Structures,” is being purchased by the and that within every tribe known to man on hundreds of copies by both those organiza- the face of the earth there are also sodalities. tions. What I have written and what I am That’s why anthropologists have borrowed the saying here today seems to make legitimate the term sodality. So for me to say that God’s Intervarsity, Campus Crusade and Navigator people are found in both kinds of organiza- type of structure. Although I didn’t start out tional relationships is not to say anything very believing this—even ten years ago—I believe provocative or spectacular. today with all my heart that such structures are But there is a problem: all too often church every bit as legitimate as any church sitting on people call this second structure a para-church a corner. They are just as biblical, just as structure—be it a mission agency, a women’s authoritative, just as legitimate and just as society, Intervarsity, Campus Crusade for essential to the health and vitality of the Christ, or whatever. I do not like that term Christian movement as is the congregational because it implies that somehow these struc- form of the church of Jesus Christ. They are not tures are secondary and subservient to the emergency “band-aids” that are necessary only churchly structures. I would just as soon call because the church has failed. Paul, in his mis- the churches para-missions. I feel that the very sionary work, was not working the way he did word parachurch downgrades this kind of because the Antioch church had failed. Not at structure. I recognize the term; we all know all. The New Testament does not conceive of what it means. I’m willing to use it, but I’m not Paul’s activities as a stop gap because the very happy about it. In my understanding of churches were failing. It was their normal the Biblical situation in Acts, with Paul’s mis- mechanism—let’s use the word “means”—it sionary band, what so often today is called a was their normal means of outreach, espe- “parachurch structure,” has all the authority of cially, cross-culturally. a “travelling church,” if you wish. It doesn’t Now, what I’ve done is present a fairly pro- lack any of the authority of a church; it just vocative point of view. I have said in effect that doesn’t take any of its children, as children, parachurch structures are the chief means of into its membership. Therefore, it’s more world evangelism. You now need to study for durable. yourself and see the extent to which the sodal- I say once more, and you can test this out to ities of history have been the cutting edge of see if it’s true: I don’t know of any local church the growth of the Christian movement. That or denomination that’s been going for five gen- doesn’t mean that the men in those sodalities erations that still carries the specific, sharp are more holy than the leaders of the churches; focus and concern with which it was founded. you just might have to be a lot more holy to be But I do know of many, many sodalities that a pastor than to be a missionary. It just means have lasted for hundreds of years, that still that we can see these two structures working have a very narrow, sharp focus. You take for together down through history; and when the example, the IFMA missions or the Sudan Christian movement breaks down, it’s usually Interior Mission (now SIM International). because one or the other of these two struc- Here’s a mission that for over a hundred years tures is not functioning correctly, or because has carried the gospel overseas without any the two of them cannot understand each other compromise whatsoever. You show me a well enough. denomination that’s done that. In modern Protestantism I feel that these Some may argue that the reason churches two structures are not acknowledging each sometimes look down on para-church struc- other’s validity, and are not working together tures (not my word) is because the churches the way they ought to. That’s the crisis in the feel that they are illegitimately performing the present period with regard to the very means of functions of a church. Campus Crusade for world evangelism.

Winter Chapter 2

The Unfinished Task of World Evangelization

Before we get into our subject—the overall across the routines and conventionalities of story of God’s redemptive work on earth—I’d ordinary societies. Thus, I think it would be a like to make two comments on the wording: grave mistake to accept the phrase, “the unfin- first, the concept of an “unfinished task.” ished task,” without noting the absence of an The very phrase, “unfinished task,” is prob- emergency element built into it. ably an inadequate phrase. It isn’t as though Secondly, as we look at it, the phrase redemption in the biblical narrative or in sub- involves a non-optional dimension. It isn’t pos- sequent history is just a job to be done, like sible for us to say, “This isn’t for me;” or “This naming the animals or naming the plants, and is for someone else;” or as I—and no doubt that the job is not finished. It is not merely an you—have heard it said, “The need is not the unfinished task. The only reason to use that call.” But I would ask, “If the need is not the phrase is because it is so traditional, it seems to call, then what under the sun is the basis of the communicate better than others. call?” What we mean by “a call” is not a mere Yes, the task we are talking about is much invitation. The fact is, we are not the arbiters of more urgently to be performed than the word whether or not there is an emergency. God is “unfinished” would imply. Compare, for exam- the one who has judged man a fallen creature, ple, the two words “creation” and “redemp- and His analysis of the problem is not up to us tion.” Creation is an activity on God’s part but to Him. Therefore, our human evaluation which is taking place over a long period of of our response is not the source of our deci- time and does not inherently involve any spe- sion making; God is! He is the One who, in cial hurry. Nothing is necessarily going wrong contrast to His creative endeavors, is pointing in a creativity process. It is like an artist in a out to us a redemptive task which devolves studio working on a painting. If he has no no upon us no matter what we might wish. Obvi- deadline and nothing goes wrong, it does not ously, this way of thinking calls for an adjust- matter very much if it takes him an extra hour ment in the way we usually look at things. or an extra day to create his painting. That is The necessary adjustment that a young why I don’t really like the term, “unfinished.” couple have to make when they get married is The task is not a job that is simply unfinished; similar. Beforehand, they are free to follow their it is a task that is inherently a crisis. It is an own desires and instincts, but now their indi- emergency kind of a task. It corresponds, not vidual freedom is to be radically and perma- to creation, but to redemption. The word nently abridged by another person. Decision redemption by its very nature implies a crisis. making is no longer the option of either one When an ox falls in a ditch you don’t say, “Well, alone; they are now bound by an unavoidable one of these days in the next few months, we’re new dimension of responsibility. This is espe- going to have to pull the ox out of the ditch; it’s cially clear when the first child is born. It is not one of our unfinished tasks.” When a car goes possible in the middle of the night when the off a cliff, or when someone is at the point of baby starts crying to say in desperation, “Well, drowning in a swimming pool, you don’t say, now, one of these days we’re going to have to “Well, now, one of these days we’ll have to do something about that.” Rather, it is a ques- see to this situation.” No! You can’t do that, tion of who’s going to get up, you or I? And, of because it’s an emergency! The emergency course, that gets into culture-distinctions of itself contradicts the usual priorities. It cuts role, which are too profound to be discussed

© 1996 R. Winter. No copy may be made without the author’s permission. 2 – 1 2 – 2 The Unfinished Task of World Evangelization here. But that’s the nature of the task. A young to be beautiful. I believe that is legitimate. But, married couple with a tiny baby goes through notice, you can’t walk into a Christian book- a bruising process of readjustment to the exter- store today and find a book with a title like nal demands of real life. It’s a real trauma to “How to Bleed, Suffer and Die for Jesus Christ.” some people, and some really can’t take it. In The book wouldn’t sell. Nobody is prepared fact, this is the reason that 300, 000 babies are for an emergency, once peace has been around severely beaten every year in this country—six for a period of time. times the death rate that we see on the high- And though I hate to say this, one value of ways—and often by the mother. That happens war in the history of our nation is that it disa- because the new situation with an infant is a buses the populace of the assumption that the process requiring a major adjustment. mood of “peace where there is no peace” is not Thus, parallel to the nature of the task being to be questioned. When there are no major not creative but redemptive; it is also an obliga- problems, it is easy to assume that God wants tion, not an option. There is no possibility of a us to enjoy richly and abundantly all the good church saying, “Well, that’s for the other food and cable television and all the luxuries churches to be concerned with.” And there is that American life today affords us. We have no possibility of any individual Christian say- this zany process at work whereby if we can ing, “That’s for someone else to worry about.” save ourselves enough physical labor, we can No matter what you call it, “foreign mission actually allow our veins to plug up faster! work, overseas mission work” (if you live on In fact, the most extensive menace to an island), the only possibility of a person turn- human life in the United States is physical inac- ing down this kind of a call is if he has some tivity; and we have gained this achievement, other call which is equally decisive and equally this menace, by hard work and by keen “Chris- urgent and equally of God. In other words, you tian insight.” As the result of our “dedicated have to be called to stay home. In my mind and disciplined” endeavors to put ourselves there is no possibility of any other way of look- out of work physically, we are actually caught ing at the so-called problem of guidance. up in a whole set of diseases that have never We recognize in the Bible a similar kind of been known before. situation. The elder brother didn’t understand In very few countries in the world is alco- why the return of his younger brother—the holism a problem, although it almost always is “prodigal son”—introduced an emergency ele- in relatively wealthy societies. In very few ment into the situation. The elder brother countries in the world are the luxuries of didn’t sense the gravity and his own responsi- divorce a problem; in only a few is it possible, bility for that which was lost. Prior to the story for economic reasons, to get divorced. in Luke 15 Jesus was essentially asked “Why You have to be a wealthy country to do we have to be bothered by this redemptive develop all of the degenerative diseases that task? Why can’t we just go on living crea- plague the American people. It is another, dif- tively?” Is this attitude familiar? ferent list of diseases that plagues the people in In the average Christian bookstore today the so-called non-Western world. A recent arti- you actually find great support for that atti- cle by a medical doctor simply gave two lists of tude. In fact, it seems as if the only verse in the diseases; and not being a medical expert, I Bible that some Christians today think about is, can’t remember these in detail even though I “I have come to give you life affluently and copied them down at the time. He said some- even more affluently.” Many, many books in thing like this: that you’ve got tuberculosis, the bookstores appeal to people’s hunger to dysentery, malaria, and many other diseases develop a more sparkling personality, or more that are epidemic in the less affluent world, but this or more that—“Be all that you’re meant to in the wealthy countries you have a different be!” or whatever. That theme is very creative list of diseases that are just as damaging to the when cast theologically. To be what God civil body politic as those in the first list. It created you to be is perfectly legitimate. I’m seems that the great achievement of our afflu- not casting any aspersions on the legitimacy of ence is simply that we have exchanged one list our getting a good meal, of being physically of diseases for another. healthy, being disciplined, being beautiful peo- But, of course, the Bible isn’t talking about ple. Ann Ortland in her book, The Disciplines of a peaceful, unruffled situation. When there is a a Beautiful Woman, says that God wants women sheep that is lost, the pastor goes after the one Ralph D. Winter 2 – 3 lost sheep, leaving the ninety nine behind. nearly that of a mayor. Anyhow, Jesus steps That’s his normal, conventional routine; his on shore; and here comes this synagogue obvious, stated responsibility. The pastor leader in terrible torment of soul because his doesn’t send a hireling or somebody else to little daughter is on the verge of death. “Can search for the lost sheep; he is the one who you help?” he pleads. So Jesus heads in the leaves. In Antioch in the book of Acts, the two direction of his home. Instantly, His disciples most respected and mature pastoral leaders exchange knowing looks because if Jesus can were the ones sent off or released by the church heal this little girl, the daughter of such an for a missionary role. There is no biblical exam- eminent man, He will really “have it made.” ple for what we do in America today when we And a tremendous crowd follows along to see recruit our young people as missionaries. what will happen. I was in a conference recently in the Philip- Then, suddenly, something slows down the pines composed of Chinese Christian leaders, procession, and He stops and looks around including a number of wonderful evangelical and asks, “Who touched me?” Even the disci- pastors. I remember trying to make this same ples are shocked by His question. “What do point, namely, that God could ask pastors to you mean,” they ask uneasily, “in a crowd like leave their flocks behind and go and try to win this, who hasn’t touched you?”And they are a the lost cultures into his kingdom; they really bit irritated when they spot, right close to Him, didn’t need to worry about the flock they were a woman that everyone in town knows is ritu- leaving behind (you can’t imagine how fast ally unclean because she has been hemor- potential pastors mature in the absence of the rhaging for years. And they all shudder, won- pastor who was there). Churches have enor- dering if perhaps by accident they might have mous leadership resources, which will never bumped into her and become ritually unclean be used if the pastors are not constantly being themselves. sent off to the mission field; but that is not the It is very distressing for the synagogue way we do it, even though it is, I think, a bibli- leader to wait while all this is going on. His cal pattern. daughter is dying! The disciples also are rest- In the New Testament, curiously, it is peo- less. They are thinking, “Doesn’t He realize ple that are not normally considered important that He may be blowing the best chance He who are the object of God’s primary favor and will ever have to be accepted by those who attention. During the last few months I’ve been really count?” You can almost imagine them reading through the entire Bible in the Living leaning close and hissing through their teeth, translation. I got up to the New Testament and “The daughter, Jesus, the daughter…” They into the gospels and half way through the book may have thought, “There he goes again—off of Mark before something began to dawn on on a tangent again! How are we ever going me—something I’d known before but hadn’t make him a success?” really felt. You know, there’s a difference Jesus ignores all this, even when messen- between knowing and feeling. Well, I began to gers from the ruler’s house come running with realize that in the book of Mark, the sensitivi- the news that the daughter has died. He ties of Jesus were almost always startling, sur- glances at the agonized face of her father, then prising to everyone, even to the disciples. They reaches out and touches the defiled woman, seemingly couldn’t anticipate what Jesus who has fallen at his feet in tears. “My daugh- would be interested in. (Are we like that?) He ter, “He says, “go in peace; your faith has was not interested in seeking out the affluent, made you whole.” the up-and-outs, the righteous, the beautiful Well, that behind Him, He finally turns to people. If He came to Pasadena, apparently He the father, goes with him amidst the jeers of the wouldn’t be seeking out the chief evangelical bystanders, and—now that it is too late— leaders and pastors, and sitting down with enters the house with only the parents and them and having a wonderful time sharing in Peter, James and John. And He doesn’t just the Word together. He would be looking for heal the man’s daughter; He raises her from the sick and the despised people. the dead—a much more impressive feat. Do you remember when He returned to What is moving to me about this episode Capernaum and got off the ship He was met by is the fact that Jesus would call this unclean a leader of the synagogue? The function of the woman His daughter. The big point here is— leader of the synagogue in that context is very often true with Him—there is a clear and sur- 2 – 4 The Unfinished Task of World Evangelization prising difference between His sensitivities What a divergence between their concerns and those of His disciples, and between His and His! A few days later they pooh-poohed and those of all the people in the town, and even the idea that he would be killed. In fact, between His and ours. the first time that Jesus brings up that He is Further on in Mark, a blind man beside going to be killed, Peter censors Him, “Hey, the road starts shouting, “Jesus, Son of David, you shouldn’t talk like that. You’re going to have mercy on me!” All the people following run down the morale of the team.” They’re crit- along behind Him say, “Shut up!” (That’s ical; it doesn’t even dawn on them that what what the Living Bible says, “Shut up!”) The impli- He’s saying is true. And then in the upper cation is, “Jesus doesn’t have time for you.” room when He tells them that one of them is But He does! going to betray Him and that the rest will Or when little children come, and the dis- desert Him, they scoff. They all vow that this ciples blurt out “Get away, get away; this is just isn’t going to happen. Yet it does happen Jesus!” But conversely, Jesus says, “I want to in just a few hours. In the Garden of Gethse- talk to those little children.” All too often there mane He asked them three different times to is a great discrepancy between our understand- pray with Him. And they failed each time. In ing of what God is concerned about and the addition, Peter, who vowed to protect Him no very reality of Christ in our midst. The star- matter what it took, just a little later in the high tling, surprising nature of His concern really priest’s courtyard, turned around and denied has to be taken into account. We must not be him with curses, saying that he never even complacent in our understanding of what, the knew Him. emergency—what, the redemptive task God The disciples simply did not understand, has given us—really is. neither the scope, the grimness and the reality The most horrifying thing of all is the fact of the redemptive task, nor their unprepared- that, after being with Jesus day after day for so ness for it. This ignorance continues to be true very long, the disciples still do not catch on. even after the cross and the resurrection. When Jesus explains to them again and again Once again they are together, and sure what’s up, their own agenda is written with enough (Acts 1:6) they say, “Now, Jesus, these such large letters that they cannot understand have been great events that have happened. how His agenda could be different from theirs. We’re checking our schedules. Just how soon is For example, on three occasions He the big day going to come. You know, we’re explains to them that He is going to be assassi- just curious—nothing special—but how soon nated. And for one reason or another, in each are you going to set up Your kingdom?” (They of those three situations, they miss that point said nothing at all about power or positions. because they obviously have something else on They had apparently learned that such con- their minds. They’re convinced that with His cerns upset Him.) His answer, as always, is wonder-working power, He’s going to run the unexpected. He says, “Listen, that is none of show pretty soon. In the third instance, He your business. You’re in sales. I’m in manage- spells it out in much more gory detail than on ment.” (That quote’s not original with me, but either of the two earlier occasions, detailing to it’s even worse than that. He’s not even in them that He is going to be tortured, betrayed management.) He says, “We have nothing to and killed, then rise again on the third day. do with these things. For you and me there is (Unlike us, they knew what torture means.) another agenda.” It’s as if he’d said, “Okay, But instead of reacting in horror and really okay, if it’s power you want (and instantly hearing what He is saying, they, James and they said to themselves, “Didn’t we try to steer John in particular, are so eager to pop the clear of that word?”) you will finally get the question about the kind of authority they seek power you want—once you get going to the to wield in His new kingdom, that they aren’t ends of the earth.” And once again He reminds even listening. “Are you through with your them of a vast, unfinished, urgent redemptive paragraph, Jesus?” they say, in effect. “Listen, task involving the ends of the earth. Appar- it’s not a big thing; but would you sign this ently it takes something far more than all their little sheet we have prepared? All this is, is daily experience with Christ for them to appre- merely to put one of us on the left hand and hend the truth, the reality and the urgency of the other on the right. You can do that, cer- that redemptive task. tainly?” Now, this is why I feel it is necessary, in Ralph D. Winter 2 – 5 our churches and in our preaching and speak- and pain could ever apply to them—or to Him, ing around as we deal with Christians, to for that matter. assume that the challenge of the Great Com- I think this problem of perspective is true of mission involves a second decision beyond that most Christians today. Logically and theologi- of accepting Christ. We can say to people, “You cally, when a person accepts Christ as his Sav- have accepted Christ. Have you accepted His ior, he is accepting a person who is much more commission?” And in most cases they would than Savior, but who is Lord of the Great Com- say, “What do you mean?” They might answer, mission as well. That’s logical and it’s theologi- “No”or “Yes,” but more likely they wouldn’t cal, but it is not psychological. The average even know what you are talking about. When Christian today is no more consciously com- James and John asked for the positions on His mitted to the Great Commission than were the right and left in His kingdom, He answered, disciples—up through Acts chapter one. “You’re asking for something which is not So, for the most part, the challenge of the mine to give. But one thing I will assure you of, unfinished task of world evangelization is is that you’re going to have to drink of the not in the heart of the average believer today, same cup that I am going to have to drink. Are any more than it was for the disciples before you ready for that?” And their childish answer Pentecost. I don’t care whether you’re speak- was, “Sure.” They didn’t even hesitate. They ing of Christians in the United States or in just wanted to get back to that signature they Nigeria or Singapore or Hong Kong. This thought they needed. So here it is again: James looming fact is why the task is still both urgent and John couldn’t quite accept that the torture and unfinished.

Winter Chapter 3

Penetrating the Last Frontiers

We are going to discuss various distinctions In a third try I made a four-fold distinction in this particular lesson, distinctions that could within each of these groups. For example, have been taken up in another class—in an- when I drew a picture of the Chinese, I drew a thropology, theology or Bible. What we will be large circle representing all the (Han) Chinese talking about is not uniquely history. As a mat- and within it I put a smaller, dotted circle ter of fact, there’s nothing that is uniquely his- showing the Chinese that were culturally in tory, and there is nothing that is not at least reach of the Christian gospel, then a smaller partially history. That’s the very nature of the circle representing the total number of Chris- word history. The reason, however, that we are tians of any sort, and finally inside that circle I plowing into these various distinctions is sim- put a much smaller circle representing those ply to be able to define more carefully just Chinese that were actively Christian. what we understand to be the “unfinished On the pie chart we have a slightly differ- task.” ent approach to those same four categories. In- Speaking of the word history, I must re- stead of drawing a line down between all these mind you that there has been an evolution of circles with the non-Christians on the right and my own understanding and thus in the materi- the Christians on the left, this time I put the als I have written and that none of my charts or whole world population in a single large circle diagrams has dropped out of heaven full with a piece of pie, so to speak, for the Ameri- blown. So, in getting started, I want to quickly cans and the Canadians, and other pieces for gesture at some of the developments that the rest of the non-Western world: for the Chi- brought me to the present. nese, for the Hindus, for the Asian Muslims The article “Seeing the Task Graphically” and the African Muslims. was written in 1973. In it I divided the world There are two other groups that remain. into four parts—Chinese, Muslims Hindus, These are what I could be called “residue” cate- and others—and estimated the number of mis- gories. In the African section, you have the Af- sionaries working with each group. The “oth- rican Muslims but also the other Africans er”group is smaller than the rest, numbering which are not Muslims. Likewise, in the Asian less than 500 million. But, I pointed out, a large band, you have the Asian Muslims but also the proportion of missionaries are dealing with other Asians, mainly Hindus and Chinese this “other” group, compared with a very which are found mainly in Asia. So the next small portion working with any one of the category in our diagram are the Other Asians. three major groups. Altogether, now, that gives you eight pieces of I admit this was an early and rather sim- pie. This is my most recent attempt to describe plistic analysis. One thing wrong with it was the nature of the world’s population from a that there are actually in these other groups missionary point of view. some Christians. So unless you put all of the Now, within each of these four major pieces Christians in the “other” category, you run into of pie I have made other distinctions—that is, problems. So I was delighted when at Lau- how many of them are Christians, and of those, sanne I was given another opportunity to de- how large a group are active Christians and scribe the situation in the world more effective- how many are basically nominal Christians. ly. For that occasion I produced a fancier chart You also have an additional distinction be- where the Christians and non-Christians are tween reachable non-Christians or beyond-the- more carefully distinguished. I forget now how reach (or culturally-distant) non-Christians. it all worked out exactly. But that was my sec- This is an evolutionary set of diagrams. ond try. None of these is final; all of them grapple with

© 1996 R. Winter. No copy may be made without the author’s permission. 3 – 1 3 – 2 Penetrating the Last Frontiers basically the same distinctions. I must confess, there was not as large a national church in his however, that I think that another more recent day except in Catholic areas. approach is better still. What I want you to un- The point is that classically a “missionary” derstand is that the distinctions are the same, is one who is going out where no evangelism the mathematics are the same even though the has ever been done. That is, and has always graphics demonstrating them may be different. been, the basic motif of missions. However, by You are probably thinking, “Wait a min- the time J. Hudson Taylor founded the China ute. Not even the mathematics are the same.” Inland Mission in 1865 a rather different pic- But look carefully at the statistical table in this ture had developed. By this time the missionar- chart, which is the same as in the back of the ies that had gone out earlier could, at least, be Once More Around Jericho book (William Car- said to have stuck with it—give them credit. ey Library, Pasadena, 1977), and you will find They didn’t just go and almost immediately re- that both of them are newer than the one in turn like a rolling stone; they stuck. They dug this “Grounds for a New Thrust in World Ev- in and established a beachhead. They stayed. angelization, ” (a printed booklet containing a They were not here today and gone tomorrow. talk I gave to the EFMA in 1975.) But there comes a time when it’s time to That’s true. The chart in the Jericho book is move on. Eventually, in order for a church to based upon figures for July, 1977, but the table gain full maturity it has to be untrammeled by that goes along with this last chart shows that foreign experts and advisors and counselors its figures are from July ‘78. And if you don’t and comforters and aids and helps—even for- think the world is changing, then stop and eign money. We see the same thing in the think again! young people’s societies in our churches here There is one other distinction which I’d like at home. They will never get up on their feet if to quickly make. (I’m trying as much as possi- there are always a lot of adults present. (This is ble to give you the historical background to the the disaster of the Christian Endeavor move- various things which I am discussing.) At the ment being replaced by hired youth pastors.) Conference on World Evangelization in Lau- And people who go out from countries where sanne, Switzerland in 1974 the organizers of there is a long development of church tradition the conference introduced, or should I say rein- always tend to tyrannize the people who grow troduced, the word “evangelization.” One hun- up and establish their own, different tradition. dred years earlier that same word had been The classic case is in Sumatra where the Ba- used in a slogan that became very famous. It tak church got started. The first missionaries was the slogan of the Student Volunteer Move- there were from both the Reformed tradition ment for Foreign Missions (SVMFM) which (Calvinist) and the Lutheran tradition. As it spoke of the “The evangelization of the world turned out, it was the Lutheran missionaries in this [their] generation.” To my knowledge, who stayed there longer, and thus the resulting no one I have ever read has made a distinction church was always assumed to be a Lutheran in print between the words evangelism and ev- church. But as time went on this Batak Luther- angelization. Harold Lindsell told me that he an church (as it has often been called) grew was the person who pressured Billy Graham to bigger and bigger. When the Lutheran World use the phrase “world evangelization” instead Federation came into being the question arose of “world evangelism.” A little earlier David as to whether the Batak Lutheran Church Howard had written a book (avoiding the should become a member of the Lutheran term), Student Power and World Evangelism, a World Federation. very good book telling about the growth of the Now, that seems like a relatively minor is- Student Volunteer Movement, the Haystack sue, but it isn’t, because the Bataks said, “Well, Prayer Meeting, etc., which we will be discuss- are we Lutherans? Why are we Lutherans? ing later. But Harold Lindsell said, “Hey, don’t Why aren’t we just Bataks?” And there was a say evangelism, say evangelization!” He main- nervous silence. tains that it makes a great difference which of “But back home we’ve always called you these two words you use. the Batak Lutheran Church, ” the people from I’m not sure but that he would say the same Geneva answered. Of course, in any case the thing about my insistence that, Biblically de- English phrase is not the Batak’s phrase, but fined, a missionary is one who goes where they essentially said, “All you have to do is to there is no church. After all, around the world sign your adherence to the “Non-altered Augs- Ralph D. Winter 3 – 3 burg Confession” and you’re in. It’s no big wouldn’t sign the non-altered Confession! deal; just sign this document here.” In other words, if they had signed the origi- “Well, ” the Bataks answered, “Just what nal Confession, they could not have been does the fine print say?” Actually, the fine called Lutheran—because Luther was precisely print on the document consisted of what is the man who refused to sign someone else’s called the “Non-altered”Augsburg Confession. confession. Isn’t that true? The basic logic of Lutheranism is faith within cultural self- So they took out their pens and were ready determination. And the Bataks passed that test to sign. But as they stopped for a moment, they by the very act of becoming believers whether began to think, “Just what are we really doing? or not they signed the Augsburg (German) Are we submitting ourselves to some foreign Confession. cultural influence at this moment?” So they put Since the Augsburg Confession is tremen- their pens back in their pockets and said, “Let dously important to most Lutherans, you us think this over for a while.” might wonder if the LCA mission board people So they took a copy of the document, and in were troubled by my perspective. Well, they succeeding months translated it into their own are a rather sophisticated group of people; I language, and paragraph by paragraph don’t think any of them were offended. In fact worked it over. By the next visit of the officials I’m not sure it worried them too much either. from afar they had their own shortened ver- Actually, I’d have been happier if it had wor- sion, and said, “Well, we’re all ready to sign, ried them because then I could have been sure but we have our own version of this.” they had come to the place where they really The Lutheran World Federation officials understood what I was trying to say. were aghast. “Your own version! And a shorter The point is that when national churches one at that? How can we let you sign that?” get along that far in their development, they So there was a big crisis, and to make a don’t really need foreigners telling them what long story short, later the men back in Geneva to do. As I see it, a second stage of missions en- were very wise and decided that they would sues once a national church has this kind of make an exception in the case of the Batak proper autonomy. As you know by now, I’m church. You’ll notice that I didn’t call it the Ba- having to lean over backward to even label this tak Lutheran Church any more, because their second stage missions and I only do so because official name is now the Batak Christian Protes- most people think of all stages—so long as the tant Church or something like that. Whatever. church is overseas—as missions. So, though Anyhow, they successfully avoided being la- I’m willing to call it missions, I would just like belled by a European division of Christendom. to make a distinction between first stage mis- But the question lingers in the minds of many sions and second stage missions. Pioneer mis- Lutherans today: “Are the Batak believers real- sions, the first stage of missions, means going ly a Lutheran church?” where there is not an established church indig- A few years ago I had occasion to talk al- enous to the culture, standing on its own two most solidly for two days to the members of feet. But every time a missionary activity suc- the mission board of the Lutheran Church in ceeds, we get to the second stage of missions America (LCA), which is one of the three major sooner or later. And the sooner the better. So Lutheran traditions in this country that the famous statement about working your- The LCA and the American Lutheran self out of a job is a perfectly legitimate thing. Church (ALC) later merged in the Evangelical The fact is, though, that most missionaries Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). The Lu- today are falling into a novel situation where theran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) is still new jobs are invented for missionaries that are separate. not pioneering work at all. The average person When I told them this story I suggested that back home who is still thinking in pioneer as a matter of fact I heartily agreed that the terms mainly misunderstands the nature of the question of whether the Bataks were truly Lu- mission movement today. theran or not was a very important question, But, here’s the point. Every board of mis- but that I felt they probably were truly Luther- sions I know of has tried for the last 25 years to an. And, I said that the only substantial reason make it clear to the people back home that mis- for believing that they were truly Lutheran was sionaries no longer do the same things they not because they signed, but because they used to do. Boards today often try to educate 3 – 4 Penetrating the Last Frontiers them not to ask all the time about things that equally creditable in our day. missionaries formerly did. Don’t be surprised The main problem now is that the national to hear that missionaries are running tractors church has grown up like high grass which our and building buildings and doing all kinds of missionaries can’t see beyond. When you go things that they didn’t do in the early days. overseas to see mission work, you fall right And scripturally there is nothing wrong with into the middle of a bunch of Christians nowa- all this. days. Recently I took a camera with me when I But wait a minute: strategically there is went to Brazil because I said, “If I get down something drastically wrong with this. It’s all there and I’m met by a bunch of Christians, I’m very well and good to be honest about what is going to take their picture so that when I go happening, but it is tragic not to go on and ask back home I can say, ‘See! this is what happens if this is what ought to be happening. Or, better when a missionary goes overseas today.” So I still, Is this new role enough? I don’t want you got to the final airport in Brazil, which seemed to believe that I am criticizing what is happen- to me like it was thousands and thousands of ing, because, really, I am not. Rather, I am ask- miles inland. I got off the plane and looked ing whether we ought not be sure to maintain around and saw quite a mass of people. Finally our original pioneering instincts and be sure a couple of men stepped out and came towards that we are still concerned to penetrate the me, and I thought, “Well, this isn’t a big frontiers that still remain. enough of a welcoming committee for a pic- However, for many different reasons, prin- ture, ” so I stuck my camera back in my pocket. cipally out of preoccupation with many things They shook my hand, and then turned around, or a sense of loyalty to what’s already been and whoosh! There were 15 pastors that came done or maybe even principally due to an exu- out to welcome me off that plane. I jerked the berance that results from success, there is noth- little camera out again, shoved it in the hands ing that Western Christians can be more proud of a young man standing there—and got my of than the outstanding national Christian lead- picture! ers around the world. I don’t know whether I was down there to be at the tenth annual Christian leaders around the world realize the meeting of the Association of Theological Ex- extent to which people in the Western coun- tension Institutions in Brazil. I had been there tries are really and truly and honestly proud when this association had been organized, and about the results of their mission work. Unfor- they were asking me back so I could see how it tunately, the national leaders are so often bat- had grown after ten years. Well, they took me tering against the tyranny and imperialism of to a very large room full of tables that were just foreigners that they may not stop to think very covered with theological textbooks at every often of how legitimately proud people in the level and on every subject, all of them pro- Western countries are of the fact that the na- duced in Portuguese within the last ten years— tional churches are growing up. and especially designed for individual off- But it isn’t good enough simply to crow campus study. Understandably they were very about successes. Paul said, “forgetting those proud of what they had accomplished, and things which are behind...” There in the third wanted me to come down for this tenth anni- chapter of Philippians he was not talking about versary meeting. Because of all the things they our mistakes of the past, which probably we had done, there were all these pastors to meet shouldn’t forget, but he’s talking about suc- me. cesses in the past. He’s talking about things That is symbolic of missionary work over- like being of the tribe of Benjamin, etc., things seas today. You can’t blame the missionaries of which he could have been legitimately for going overseas to work with a lot of nation- proud. He’stalking about all the laurels and al Christians; it’s so much nicer to go where the great achievements. I’m sure it makes sense for people welcome you. But you have to remem- us to say things like, “Wasn’t Robert Morrison ber that someone else had gone there before. great? Wasn’t Judson great? Wasn’t Carey Unlike going into a pioneer area, you’re not great? Wasn’t Hudson Taylor great?” But it walking into the lion’s den, or into an unchart- doesn’t do us any good to be proud about the ed wilderness. There is a big difference, as I’m work of previous missionaries. We must forget sure many of you know, between going where those things which are past in the sense of tak- you are welcomed by many, many Christians ing credit for them, and make sure that we are and going where no one wants you to come Ralph D. Winter 3 – 5 and there is no welcoming party at all. That is need?” the other extreme. My answer, I’m afraid, would have to in- Let’s go back to the 1850s when Hudson clude the concept of “the greatest need.” Sup- Taylor first went to China. He was glad to find pose, for example, we were to take as our max- a number of Protestant missionaries there al- im Oswald Chamber’s challenge that we ready, but after a few years he became very ill would do “Our utmost for His highest.” And and went back to England to recuperate, and in the case of the parable of the lost sheep, the started writing a series of articles for a little fact that it was lost, in itself, made that need Baptist magazine as he was convalescing. He the call. The helpless lostness constituted the drew a map of China on which he marked with call. Or take the parable of the good Samaritan. little pins all the places Protestant missionaries The Jewish man was robbed and beaten and were working. China seemed enormous and he wounded, and his need constituted a call to was pleased that there were now about 70 mis- anyone who knew about that and could help. sionaries there that he knew about. This call rearranged the good Samaritan’s pri- But lying in bed and looking at the wall orities. Let’s say, for fun, that he was already and his map, he suddenly realized that most of on his mission field trip to some other field, them were right there on the coast of China. He and here was a call that outranked what he also knew that there were Jesuits a thousand was already doing. Now, the adjustment of our miles inland—Jesuits who dressed like the Chi- priorities throughout our lives must, it seems nese. His official biography doesn’t even hint to me, deal in terms of the needs such as we de- that he was influenced by the Jesuits, but in a fine by these statistics and by these charts and more recent book called Hudson Taylor and by these maps Maria you can find a much more revealing re- In any case, Hudson Taylor’s decision to port. This book (which I earnestly recommend start a new mission organization was one of to you) is the story of his courtship and mar- those major decisions in the history of mis- riage as well as the inside story of the founding sions, because that decision set off an earth- of the China Inland Mission, now OMF, Inter- quake tremor that rippled across the entire national. world of evangelical Christendom. In the pro- As Hudson Taylor wrote this series of arti- cess he also set off a new process of support cles and looked at the map on his wall, he was embodied in what is called “The Faith Mission so stunned that later he wrote in his journal of Movement.” Actually, what is called “Faith the “accusing map.” Missions” should really have been called the There is a point where academic scholar- “Frontier Missions, ” as I think I have already ship meets the road. And I wonder if this dia- said. Whatever the movement is called, Taylor gram, this pie chart with the eight sectors, can- began a new era of missions. In William Car- not also be referred to as “those accusing ey’s day every place was a frontier—and mis- statistics.” It seems like that to me because as sionaries splattered on the coastlands of the you look at the chart, the blue areas down be- non-Western world’s continents. But by J. Hud- low are what you might call the “spiritual son Taylor’s day the frontiers were the interior have-nots” while the “spiritual haves” are lo- of China and Africa, and so the China Inland cated up above. But there is so much blue area Mission came into being. It was no longer good that it becomes an accusing phenomenon, be- enough just to go to the coastlands. cause if we’re not responsible—and I mean all Now, I submit to you that there is nothing of us here—then who is? wrong about going to the the coastlands. There Someone involved in missions said to me a may have still been frontier areas on many of while back that he wished I would comment the coastlands. But, obviously, in rough, geo- on the statement which insists that “the need is graphical terms most of the Chinese that had the call.” He said he wasn’t sure that was true. no witness were in the interior. And as the re- It seems to me that some things are either self- sult of Taylor’s insight and initiative, a number evident or they aren’t. I don’t know how to ex- of new missions sprang into being: the China plain that. It seems to me that for Jesus “the Inland Mission, the Sudan Interior Mission, the need was the call.” He came because He was African Inland Mission, the Heart of Africa needed. Mission, the Unevangelized Fields Mission, the Of course, there are a lot of “needs, ” and Regions Beyond Mission and the like—almost someone may ask, “How do I decide which all of these new missions booming into exis- 3 – 6 Penetrating the Last Frontiers tence carried a name indicating pioneering be- the Overseas Ministries Study Center called the cause they were dealing with frontiers. That is Ventnor Study Group. This was a group of why I think the so-called “Faith Mission Move- mission executives: Peter Stam of the African ment” should have been named the “Frontier Inland Mission, Frank Robins of Wycliffe Bible Mission Movement.” Note, seen from the home Translators, Warren Webster of the Conserva- base, it is likely that the so-called “faith” mech- tive Baptist Foreign Mission Society, etc. There anism of support was more visible than the all- were also a number of executives from a large, important field emphasis on frontiers. different type of missions. For example, Leigh- Thus, within just a few years forty new mis- ton Ford of the Lausanne Committee was sions came into existence. Some eventually be- there, and so forth. The topic announced in ad- came major missions. For example, the largest vance was the matter of the Unreached Peoples mission on the continent of Europe, the Ger- and what to do about them. man Liebensell Mission in Bad Liebensell (not Anyhow, I was told, “Ralph, you have been a bad place—bad implies hot springs in Ger- talking all this time about the unreached peo- man), came into existence because when Hud- ples, now why don’t you propose what can be son Taylor went through those parts, he didn’t done?” So I came up with four different strate- just preach a missionary sermon, he talked in gies which I felt should be pursued. There’s no structural terms like William Carey had some use writing them down here because they are 75 years before. the strategies defined in a booklet entitled William Carey, remember, wrote a book “Penetrating the Last Frontiers.” Right now I’m that not only talked about the need for mission- just giving you the historical context in which aries but the need for the structural means to this booklet came into being. Also present was meet that need. And Hudson Taylor didn’t just a man by the name of Paul Hopkins, and his say to those Germans when he was there, “I thesis was that we don’t have any frontiers, want you all to be praying about the un- that we don’t have any unfinished task, at least reached fields of the world and the possibility nothing that North Americans need to be too that God wants you to be a missionary.” He worried about. To him this is probably a rather said, “Why don’t you start a mission society. unacceptable summary of his position. But he I’ll tell you how to do it.” is a very sincere and sensitive soul and would The difference is somewhat parallel to the say that the American church is not qualified difference between evangelizing individuals to evangelize the rest of the world. Now, that is and starting churches. McGavran is the great an interesting observation and I suppose that if exponent of not merely evangelizing but also we wait until we are fully qualified we’ll wait starting churches. I am, in a parallel sense, (he until the end of history. But, anyway, he was also) a proponent of not merely talking about so perturbed by the lack of commitment of the the frontiers of the world but promoting the American church that he didn’t feel that we idea of setting up the structures and the mecha- had anything to offer to anybody else in the nisms that can do the job. That’s why the world. I’m sure that he is right in some ways: phrase “penetrating the last frontiers” involves many American Christians do not have any- various strategies. Two new agencies that have thing to offer. They themselves need renewal. responded to the widening concern for fron- Let’s not kid ourselves; we have an amazing tiers are “Frontiers” and “Pioneers.” amount of re-evangelizing to do right here in I’ve talked about the Faith Mission Move- the United States. There’s no question about it. ment and I’ve talked about the fact that we’re Hopkins also believes, it seems—and this in a similar situation today. We need to break goes along with his comments about the U.S.— through again. We no longer need to go to the that there are Christians out there in every geographical frontiers but rather to the cultural place around the world already. Because of his frontiers. Isn’t that right? This is our parallel to- conviction and his presence at the conference, I day. And like Carey and Taylor, we are going felt that in my talk I should review some of the to do this by means of charts and statistics that statistics about who is yet to be won, and I sort will accuse us if we will open our hearts to of redefined once more these four categories— their reason and to their existence. the different kinds of people needing to be Since 1974 I have been trying to define the reached as of the middle of 1977. (This was in need. And toward the end of ‘77, a little over a December of ‘77.) year ago, there was a meeting in New Jersey at But I also outlined four strategies: 1) to re- Ralph D. Winter 3 – 7 build pioneer mission perspective, 2) to redis- of a certain stratum and they decide to go to a cover the Unreached or Hidden Peoples, 3) to new housing complex filled with professional re-evaluate all previous approaches, and 4) to people of a different stripe socially, economi- reconsecrate ourselves to a wartime, not a cally, or technologically, their attempt to pene- peace time, lifestyle. Those are the four strate- trate that new unchurched cultural tradition is gies that are in that booklet. And for each strat- an E-2 type of outreach. By contrast, this same egy there is at the end of the book a section on outreach for the foreign missionary would be tactics. Maybe you don’t feel so happy about an E-3 outreach because for him it is not only the difference between strategy and tactics, but first stage missionary work but is to a culture anyway the booklet runs over the four strate- that is totally different from his own. If the Jap- gies a second time in terms of more minute anese Christians, however, find in this new things that can be performed. I’ve mentioned housing complex people that will fit into their these things because I wanted you to have a own church, or would be comfortable in a feel for where that booklet came from. church like their own, then that would be E-1 The Unreached Peoples poster—what we type of outreach. (To make this more clear, re- call the Circle Chart—is more recent and the member that the E-1, E-2, etc. categories have statistics on its lower right hand side are from to do with cultural distances from the Christian mid 1978 rather than mid 1977. Also, we have evangelist, while first or second stage activity added in some extra columns. Every year or relates to the evangelism attempts and success two I get some extra minutes to do a little re- among that people—that is, the stages of mis- search and so I add a few more columns. Any- sion success.) how, I decided that I would figure out roughly Therefore, for you to help these Japanese (and I want to emphasize that like William Car- Christians, even though you are learning a for- ey’s these are rough estimates) how many mis- eign language, doesn’t make you into a mis- sionaries are reaching out to the 500, 000, 000 sionary, it makes you into a church worker— people that are within range of the Gospel and even though you are working at an E-3 dis- the 2, 500, 000, 000 that are beyond its range. tance, to be sure. Let me add that I was very, very conservative I hope you understand what I am trying to in my estimates. McGavran and I went over say. Just to be sure, let me give you one more every single row, and we would say, “Well, example. I was asked to talk to the Women’s now, what do we think?” Missionary Union of the Southern Baptist Con- I talked to David Fraser, one of the key re- vention. Now the Women’s Missionary Union searchers at World Vision. I said, “I grant that is a powerful, magnificent organization of these are just estimates, but if they’re wrong, women. Their regional heads came together in correct them. Let’s improve the data.” Birmingham, Alabama in March of 1977. I was We all agreed that the upshot of the whole the only non-Southern Baptist there, and I was thing is that today there are very few mission- asked to give them some kind of a pep talk on aries that are doing first stage missionary missions. So I started out bravely saying that to work, and yet according to our estimates, there my knowledge there is only one mission agen- are millions and millions of people who need cy of a general sort in the United States that is that kind of work. doing a really effective job, and unfortunately, A missionary to Japan has asked me if I it is not working outside the United States. consider that country unreached. (Now, re- Note that the Southern Baptist Convention member, we’re not talking in terms of coun- has two boards of missions: the Foreign Board tries but in terms of people groups.) It is true and the Home Board. Everyone was sitting that there are many Christian congregations in there suitably mystified at my former state- Japan. What determines the answer to this mis- ment, so I went on to say that the mission agen- sionary’s question is whether or not new con- cy I felt was so very effective in missionary gregation here or there is an extension within work was the Division of Missions of the the culture of that same church or not. Now I Home board even though it did not work over- don’t know all that much about Japan, but I am seas. I continued by suggesting that the For- told that within Japan 70% of the people live in eign Board was not doing any missionary work one or other of the cultural strata within which but merely doing the home-church kind of there is no church of any kind. work overseas. Now if you have a church that is built out When we came to the question period, a 3 – 8 Penetrating the Last Frontiers lady representing the Foreign Board’s work in could tell that there was a good deal of conster- Brazil stood up and commented, “I don’t un- nation about this subject. And I was totally sur- derstand what you are saying. While we our- prised when one of the executives of the For- selves might not be doing missionary work, eign board whispered to me that the lady’s we’re training the nationals to do missionary brother was not a Southern Baptist! So essen- work.” tially she fudged since we were talking about “Oh, oh, ” I thought. There goes my theory. what Southern Baptist missionaries were or But I’ve got myself in this far, so I may as well were not doing. go a little further!” So I answered, “Yes, but, [It is wonderfully true, of course, that the what precisely are you training the people to Southern Baptist Foregn Board/International do? Are you training them to do mission work Mission Board has in the intervening years or merely how to evangelize their own people? made decisive astounding strides toward very To my knowledge, and I would be delighted to great emphasis on frontiers.] be contradicted, ” (I put that in to be safe) “I But this is the situation. Missionaries in don’t know of a single Southern Baptist mis- general are not any longer in the business of sionary around the world who is teaching a na- penetrating the last frontiers; we’re simply stir- tional how to do mission work.” ring around in old frontier areas which are no So immediately she popped up again and longer mission frontiers. It is as if we have re- said, very proudly, “My brother in Brazil is written the Great Commission so that it now teaching a class to Brazilians who are going out says “Go ye into all the world and meddle in as missionaries in the Amazon basin to reach the national churches.” We’re doing what the Indian tribal people there.” George Peters [for many years the one mission “Okay!” I answered. “I’m so glad to be con- professor at Dallas Theological Seminary] calls tradicted. That’s one out of your 2, 700 mission- homesteading missions, getting our roots in aries that is doing this. Are there any other can- deep, producing homesteads around the world didates for this classification?” Dead silence. where we already have been at work for years. Well, later after the meeting was over, I Winter Chapter 4

The Importance of a Strategy of Closure

I will begin by commenting on the docu- sionaries working under those 100 agencies. ments you will be reading. They provide a ba- Then there is the EFMA. The EFMA is the sis for thinking in closure terms. Evangelical Foreign Missions (now, note, with First, I want you to know the context within an “s”) Association. [Later renamed The Evan- which this yellow booklet came into being. In gelical Fellowship of Mission Agencies]. I our last class I commented on the document stress the presence or absence of the “s” be- called “Penetrating the Last Frontiers.” That cause, again, it makes a loaded word—it can was my answer to people who said to me, mean different things to different people. Do “Okay, you’ve made your point about the you remember that in the Old Testament cer- overlooked peoples. Now what do we do tain people were cast out on the basis of how about them?” But getting to that point in- they pronounced certain words? They em- volved some still earlier thinking. In the appen- ployed the shiboleth, a single consonant that dix of Crucial Dimensions in World Evangeli- could not easily be pronounced by foreigners. zation (the precursor to the Perspectives The same sort of thing happened in the Sec- Reader) is this article entitled “The Grounds ond World War; the soldiers would ask a cap- for a New Thrust in World Missions” which tured person whether he could pronounce the you now have in your hands as a yellow book- word “click” or “camera” to see if the person let. was American born or of Japanese extraction. This material is what I presented as the So it is in the mission world. If you refer to opening address at the IFMA-EFMA meeting the “Interdenominational Foreign Mission As- in 1976, a joint meeting of these two organiza- sociation” and add an “s”to the word Mission, tions which occurs every three years. Since that’s a shiboleth; those checking to see if you some of you may not be acquainted with these know what you claim to know will be aware two groups, let me give just a bit of the back- instantly that you an outsider, and that you ground of each of these major associations be- don't know what you're talking about! fore we discuss the kind of address which I The same is true with the EFMA. In this prepared for them—because a strategy of clo- case if you don’t add the letter “s” to the word sure, if it is not owned by these associations Missions, you just expose the fact that you are will practically be born dead. ignorant of the actual situation. I point these IFMA stands for the Interdenominational details out because at the Fuller School of Foreign Mission Association. Note first of all World Mission (note, no “s”) you’re supposed that this oldest association of mission agencies to find out the details. is not the Independent Foreign Missions Asso- Same for the U. S. Center for World Mis- ciation nor is it the Interdenominational For- sion—no “s”—and the International Review of eign Missions Association. Note especially that Mission (which once was the International Re- the “M” in the IFMA acronym stands for Mis- view of Missions). I mention this apparent sion, not Missions. trivia because we will later see it linked with The first five missions that got together to one of the most monumental and ominous form that association met in 1917 in the First transitions in mission perspective in the 20th Presbyterian Church of Princeton, NJ. Of those century. five the Sudan Interior Mission may be the The important differences, however, be- most easily named among them. And to this tween those two organizations are structural. day the IFMA members missions have grown The EFMA is a division of the National Associ- until there are about 100 different agencies that ation of Evangelicals, and as such its member- are members and about 6, 000 or 7, 000 mis- ship consists of both denominational mission

© 1996 R. Winter. No copy may be made without the author’s permission. 4 – 1 4 – 2 The Importance of a Strategy of Closure agencies as well as interdenominational mis- me it was a very great honor and privilege to sion agencies. It would be neater if all interde- be asked to speak to this august assembly of nominational agencies joined the IFMA and all mission executives. I mainly recapitulated the evangelical denominational agencies joined what I had said in Lausanne two years previ- the EFMA, but the reality is not quite so neat. ously. The EFMA has type D- related as well as type Thus, this “Grounds” document with these C-, B- and A-related agencies, whereas the different kinds of circles (check its circle chart IFMA has merely type D-related agencies. If characterizing that stage of graphics) was pre- you don’t recall what I’m talking about when I sented to this group. However, lest you miss it, say type-D, look again at “Seeing the Task there is a section in the back which I call the Graphically” and you’ll find there this fourfold “dirty laundry section”— which is a little over breakdown of different types of mission agen- half of the whole talk—in which I spoke of the cies. obstacles to world evangelization in terms of These two associations together have about very concrete and specific maladies that afflict 15, 000 or 16, 000 missionaries. The reason why existing mission agencies: sicknesses, weak- some of the interdenominational agencies in nesses and problems which must be overcome the EFMA had never joined the IFMA (prior to before the job can be done. EFMA’s founding in 1945) is because the IFMA Today we are talking about the essential wouldn’t accept them as members for either of components of world evangelization. This 12- two reasons: 1) they might be considered either fold list is at least a related subject, so don’t too young and too dumb, or 2) they were Char- miss it. ismatic or Pentecostal. I’ll mention only one of the twelve obsta- Even though there are these two separate cles here, namely, the Self-Managing Mission- associations of Evangelical mission agencies, ary. In my opinion half of all missionaries are they get along very well working together. working at 50 percent efficiency because they And as we discussed earlier, the fact that they are not capable of managing themselves. I am are separate means that they don’t have to merely saying they are incapable of self- fight each other as they might if they were dis- management, not guilty of laziness; in fact, parate elements in a single association of mis- they practically kill themselves in overwork. sion agencies. There’s no big hair-pulling con- But that’s because of bad management. I fall test going on between them; indeed they work into that category myself. I don’t think I’m a together very closely, even having a number of good self-manager. And having adjusted my joint committees. They jointly publish the Ev- sights to that reality, I’ve decided that probably angelical Mission Quarterly, for example, and a lot of other people aren’t either, in fact most jointly sponsor CAMEO (the “Committee to people. Assist Missionary Education Overseas”) and I believe the cure is not to put greater pres- about five or six other committees. IFMA and sures on the poor people who can’t effectively EFMA even meet jointly every three years. manage themselves but rather to offer a super- Now, back to the subject. The document visory structure without which they will prob- under discussion today, “The Grounds for a ably never accomplish their best. In any case, New Thrust in World Missions, ”as I say, can I’m just pointing to those twelve obstacles at be found in the appendix of Crucial Dimen- the end of that article. I would be happy if you sions in World Evangelization. This document would at least do some reflection on those was actually created for delivery as the open- points22222. ing address of the 1976 joint IFMA/EFMA Mis- The next thing to mention is another docu- sion Executives’ Retreat. Ordinarily the joint re- ment. A year ago, December 14, 1977, there treat would not have been held until the was a meeting in Atlanta called “The Consulta- following year, but for some reason they sched- tion on Evangelical Futures, ” or something of uled this one just two years after the preceding that sort, which brought together a very emi- one, perhaps because of the mounting interest nent group of people. I felt very honestly that I in unreached peoples. was the least of all the people in that group Ordinarily, about 400 mission executives and that I didn’t really qualify for membership. from the member agencies attend these joint meetings, making it the largest meeting of mis- Present were such leaders as Pat Robertson, sion executives that repeatedly occurs. So to Hudson Armerding, Leighton Ford, college Ralph D. Winter 4 – 3 presidents of all kinds, presidents of major cor- year (1979) and lo and behold one of the six porations, the president of the CBMC (Chris- major plenary addresses this time was pre- tian Business Mens Committe) and Francis cisely to focus on the future of the church and Shaeffer types—those types of people. Well, world evangelization. And guess what? I was Francis Shaeffer himself. It so happened that asked to give that talk. the man who managed the conference hap- Again, let me repeat, I do not fit into that pened to be an old friend of mine, and was elite group of people. But at least as an out- very pained because it was so difficult to get sider coming in to give a talk, I at least fit in on anything on the subject of missions into the that subject anyway. It certainly is something conference. about which I do most of my thinking. So I Just imagine, here were 150 Evangelical went to that meeting and presented my talk. leaders in America, perhaps the most influen- That’s what I’m passing out at the end of the tial (I won’t say most holy, but at least the most class today—“The Six Essential Components of influential) assembly of Evangelical leaders World Evangelization.” that had ever gathered in American history. What I did was to assume that these people They were meeting together for five days with knew utterly and absolutely nothing about nothing in particular on the agenda except to missions, which was not a rash assumption. discuss among themselves the future of the Ev- You cannot believe how illiterate Evangelical angelical movement in the whole world. leaders are today on the subject of missions. They had invited to meet with them all Most Evangelical leaders slide easily between kinds of experts from all over—secular people evangelism and missions. They don't stop to and everything else—to suggest what these think about the necessary, crucial difference, or outside pundits would predict about the fu- the structure of mission. The task to them is ture. But no one, absolutely no one except for winning people to Christ. They think that eve- Leighton Ford in a brief comment in his rybody is a missionary. Everybody should be speech, made any reference at all to world ev- winning people to Christ. Everybody is either a angelization. missionary or a mission field. You’ve heard I could see in the advance materials that that, but if you talk this way it simply fuzzes this was likely to happen. So I told Don Hoke, up the reality. It prevents you from seeing the who was working under the auspices of the priorities and the distinctions in the task. Not Billy Graham Center to organize this meeting that it isn't true that everybody needs to wit- (although it was to meet in Atlanta), that I just ness for Christ and that we all need to be busy couldn’t see myself even attending such a con- winning people to Christ. This is true, of ference. I said, “I have too many other things to course. But there’s something wrong with this do. Anyhow, my exclusive focus is not just logic if certain of these tasks can be done with missions but frontier missions, so why would I no more special preparation than an evangel- want to go to a meeting like that?” ism seminar but others require linguistics, an- Hoke, a good friend, answered, “But, thropology and advanced training at a school Ralph, that's why we need you there.” To make like this. And if you don’t make that distinction a long story short, it turned out that I had an- and press it home and draw the necessary con- other trip that took me right to Atlanta exactly clusions from it, then you see we’re going to be two days prior to that meeting, which meant it mishandling the task that is given to us. wouldn’t cost me anything extra. So I actually Therefore, I felt that I should start from went to the conference. And I’m glad I did. scratch in my talk. In order to do this I used While I didn’t make a public nuisance of what I call a check list now found in the paper myself, I did at least chirp up meekly now and which I presented. I’ve used this checklist for then. And just being there in that situation and several years, as have Peter Wagner and sev- witnessing the travesty of it all! Well, the pro- eral others. In graphics, it’s often represented ceedings of the entire conference are printed in as a six-spoke wheel, implying that if any one a book entitled Evangelicals Face the Future. spoke is missing, the wheel will be out of bal- That’s a William Carey Library book, and in it ance and will tear itself to pieces before long. you will not find any more than six lines of Every single one of these spokes is necessary. print that make any reference, even in passing, That is why I have called them essential com- to the task of world evangelization. ponents of world evangelization. Some are However, they had another meeting this more urgent than others, but all involve certain 4 – 4 The Importance of a Strategy of Closure emergency and critical, or perhaps even crisis gas if there is no fuel pump, pray tell? The in- activities. ter-relatedness of the components of a cause At this point I would like to introduce two cry out for a strategy that is flexible enough to concepts which may often be foreign to our reach to those places that are hurting. If there is thinking. I want you to read about them in this something that is wrong here, and you’re all paper. (I really don’t intend to tell you what is sewed up downtrack, you can’t just go on in that paper—since reading is a more efficient working, saying somehow the Lord will just process than listening.) take care of it. Just in general, I personally believe that we Let me reach into zoology for an illustration have to be more flexible and be willing to read- of this syndrome: the trapdoor spider. In the just our strategy at any point where some insect world it is not cultural learning but emergency, opportunity, or special crisis comes rather instincts that make most of the deci- into view. This perspective is perfectly indi- sions. There is not very much learned behavior cated by the case of the good Samaritan. in that low order of life. The point is that where I am always amazed when I meet people action is based only on instinct, there’s less who plan two years in advance and say very flexibility in decision making. A trapdoor spi- proudly, “Well, I’m booked up for the next two der digs a hole down in the earth and goes years; you’ll have to talk to me about the third down in that hole, taking out the earth to year down track.” It’s as if they are assuming create it. It’s a nice round hole maybe an inch that all the priorities in missions have already across and running down maybe 12 to 15 been established for the next two years. A per- inches into the ground. When the spider gets son of this temperament would allow his the hole dug, she goes down to the bottom and schedule to get so full that it would be impossi- starts building a web which becomes a conical ble to make any changes. And that’s a great tube going up to the surface. And when she tragedy, if you ask me. It’s a kind of poison gets up to the surface, she goes out and finds a that enters into our veins and produces what is little leaf or something else that can function as commonly known as rigor mortis. And it is not an unnoticeable doorway, puts a hinge on it an achievement whatsoever! and attaches it at the opening of her tunnel. I remember when somebody, whose name I Then she goes out and kills her prey and drops shall not mention, told me that he was booked it down to the bottom of the tube, feeds on the up for two years and couldn’t come to speak at prey and bears the new generation, which then a certain conference only seven months away. I is protected by this beautifully designed co- said, “Well, I’m sure glad Leighton Ford isn’t coon-type situation. booked up that far ahead because he’s chosen However, when the trapdoor spider has to help us on a single month’s notice.” dug the hole and built the tube half way up if The fact is, if in the cause of missions there you then take a stick and jab it into the lower is any wheel that is squeaking, or any gear part, destroying the bottom of the tube, what missing, or any breakdown in that overall do you think the trapdoor spider does? Does cause—since it is a single cause—then, that is she adjust to the new situation, go back down where our attention and our energy should there, re-excavate and replace the bottom part gravitate. We ourselves may not feel it is effi- of the tube? No. She just keeps right on going, cient to move out of our jobs and drop every- right up to the top, goes out and gets the door- thing, dragging family and children, and go to way, puts the hinge on it, finds her prey, comes work on that problem. But at least we can raise back and falls down to the bottom and dies! our voices and say something about it. We can She does not readjust to the new situation. stir up the consciousness of the Evangelical Many human societies are just like that in mission world so that at least somebody gets at their old age as they amass their legal struc- that particular task. ture. You can look out the window here and The analogy would be that of an automo- see that big courthouse where they are con- bile where with great care every single part of stantly piling paper upon paper and redefining that entire automobile has been put together and sharpening and improving the legal struc- and is in working order except for one little ture of our society to the point where there will thing like a fuel pump, one of the simplest of be a day when the legal codes of the city of Los all the components of the entire automobile. Angeles will be a stack of pages as high as the What is the value of even filling the tank with Empire State Building. At that point the inflexi- Ralph D. Winter 4 – 5 bility will be so complete that we will abso- Christian families of the world take up in their lutely be prey to any other nation because daily prayers and their family circle the burden there will be no ability to respond in a crisis. of world evangelization. All of this is to say that an element of flexi- In fact, I do not believe that any local con- bility on a checklist is very important. You may gregation in this country, or any Christian fam- only be working in one of those six component ily either here or abroad is ever going to to be areas, but I want to assure you (at least I will able to become a strong entity, solve its inter- say it is my own personal belief) that all of us nal problems, unless there is a strong hold on must be more flexible than the trapdoor spider. an external challenge. I think it is a law of psy- All of us must be aware of the necessity of be- chology that a person who wants to find ing watchdogs, able and willing to keep track wholeness first and serve society second will of all of the components and be willing to never find wholeness. Jesus put it differently, move in the direction of that which is missing. “He who seeks to save his life shall lose it ....” In this particular document, “The Six Essen- And the family which wishes to arrive at a cer- tial Components of World Evangelization, ” I tain pinnacle of perfection before it acknowl- was dealing with a particular audience which edges the needs of people outside of itself will had very little knowledge of missions. So I never arrive. I think that is a spiritual principle. didn’t bother them with all the various details and complexities of nationalized churches and Now here is another emphasis that you’ll things like that. What I did do is that in the sec- find very extensively treated, probably more tion where I’m talking about mission agencies I than you’re even interested in, and that is what gave them five examples of alternative mission I call the precandidate crisis in this country. I’ll structures or mission activities. I pointed out take just a moment to highlight it so that you those which I consider basic and made the dis- won’t miss it when you read the “Six Essential tinction between basic missions and non-basic Components” article. missions. In speaking of automobiles, we often refer For example, I described the situation of a to the power train. That is the thing that is famous pastor who is so caught up in the re- guaranteed to be dependable over a certain newal of church life in this country that he gets number of years so that if anything goes wrong to the point where he really doesn’t believe with the power train they’ll fix it. I think it’s that this is the time to send missionaries over- supposed to last at least three years. That, you seas. Why, he thinks, if other churches just had might say, is the basic guts or backbone of the the body life or whatever kind of discipleship car. If now you look at the power train of the patterns that he’s developing in his own con- mission cause, it too has a U joint, an element gregation—Evangelism Explosion techniques within that sequence of phenomena which I be- or some other special program that has been a lieve could with a different metaphor be called blessing in the States—then when missionaries an Achilles heel. It is the weakest of all the go out to the corners of the earth they would weak spots of the entire mission cause, and carry with them that new insight into congre- therefore, as you can well imagine inasmuch as gational life and structure, and would, thus, be I am trying to live up to the very ideals I’m better missionaries. suggesting, these days I give a great deal of This I do not question. What I am question- time to this issue. ing is, should we wait until all 386, 000 Ameri- The pre-candidate crisis could be defined as can churches are imbued with that marvelous what happens when a thousand college stu- Coral Ridge spirit and insight before we con- dents write to Wycliffe Bible Translators but tinue to send missionaries? Once when I talked most of them —630 or so out of a thousand— to Bill Gothard personally he expressed to me never respond to Wycliffe’s answer. That is, his eagerness to give to Christian families all 63% are never heard from again. Ten thousand over the world the help that he feels they need of the 18, 000 students at Intervarsity’s Urbana so that they become “Gothardized, ” so to conference signed cards stating that they were speak. I don’t speak of that lightly for I’m sure willing for God to lead them overseas, but it would be a great blessing to Christian fami- very, very few ever went. lies everywhere to be exposed to his teaching. In other words, there is a huge gap between But we can’t wait for every Christian family of those moments of high inspiration at mission- the world to be blessed in that way before ary conferences, which continue to occur in 4 – 6 The Importance of a Strategy of Closure many ways, shapes and forms across America shaky about what they decide, as they ought to today, and that final moment when the person be. Furthermore, the complexity of the situa- actually becomes a candidate in a mission tion and the limitation of their own knowledge agency. There’s a great gap there. It is as if the is such that you almost have to conclude that if pipeline is ruptured at that point. they were to decide to be a missionary, there In my estimation, the gap results from the must be something wrong with them! Are they fact that young people a hundred years ago running away from something—a broken didn’t have so much to learn to become aware home or a broken engagement or a bad school of what was going on in missions. They also experience? did not feel, as they may sense today, that so A vast number of people—perhaps, all much has already been done that perhaps they things considered, the highest quality group in are not needed. That plus a hundred other con- America today—do not decide to become mis- fusing things may dampen their enthusiasm sionaries but nevertheless would probably be for going. willing to do so if they knew more about the Today young people at such a stage are situation. older than they used to be. The average college What are we going to do about that? Well, student today is five years older than he was a one way to grapple with that problem is to buy hundred years ago. In 1865 you could matricu- a college campus and set up a program to be late at the State University of Iowa at the age of followed as a model elsewhere and to try to 14, with no previous schooling. It is only re- draw out of the state universities and secular cently in American history that you have had colleges of America about 20, 000 students per to have 12 years of previous schooling in order year. to go to the university. Do you know how many Evangelical stu- So, compared to what they were for most of dents are in secular colleges right now, year af- American history, college students today are, ter year? Close to a million and a half. Now, as it were, in middle age before they can get that excludes two-thirds of the Evangelical free from schooling. The average age of gradu- background students who may not even be ation from college for the first 200 years of our truly committed. The committed Evangelical country was 17, 16, and 15. When you hear that students number well over a million. To get 20, Thomas Jefferson was so bright he graduated 000 of them per year off the secular campus for from college at the age of 17, you need to real- a semester and then send them back with a ize he was a bit retarded. solid biblical, historical and international per- I was at Williamsburg not so long ago. In spective wouldn’t be such a bad idea. You say, the chapel of Jefferson’s college located there, “Well, is it necessary?” That’s the whole ques- one of the guides gave us a lecture on famous tion. You’ll have to decide for yourself if it is things about William and Mary College. In the necessary. But it is if it is essential to the cause. question period I said to him, “Well, you say This month we are hoping to see come to- that Thomas Jefferson was only 17 when he gether a consortium of leading mission agen- graduated, thereby implying that he was an in- cies in this country to promote training of this tellectual prodigy. Pray tell what was the aver- sort for students not yet candidates. Our as- age age of matriculation at this college in his sumption is that those who are candidates are day?” I knew the answer. I had made a rather a very tiny percentage of those who would be- extensive study of just this issue. But this lec- come candidates if there were better knowl- turer obviously did not know. He fumbled and edge and understanding of the overall situa- stammered, and then the time for questions tion. was over so we went to the next room. Everything we have said so far leads to a In any case, our college students are much concept I hope to bring up again and again. It’s more cautious today than ever before. They a new perspective for me, as are most of the need proportionately more knowledge before things I am telling you. It’s a phrase: “The they can make a sane decision. The implication Strategy of Closure.” I’m not even sure it’s of that statement is that many who decide for used in this paper, but it will be before the final missions are making insane, trigger-happy, im- draft for the book this year. A strategy of clo- pulsive, spookly decisions, which are not very sure is one which works in light of the overall sound, and they are using all kinds of pseudo- task and in view of its intended completion. A spiritual decision-making methods. They’re strategy of closure is any strategy, no matter Ralph D. Winter 4 – 7 how specific, minute and partial it may be, never huddled together; they never planned, which is being performed in light of the overall “Well, you go there and I’ll go here, and when task and the conclusion of that task. Now let they think we’re going there, I’ll go around me tell you what is not a strategy of closure. there....” In other words, there was no overall Most good missionary work is not being strategy to finish the game and to make those done as a strategy of closure. In other words, touchdowns. Obviously, they wouldn’t win the sad to say, most of what the average mission- game. ary and the average mission agency accom- Or what if a bunch of construction workers plish is merely doing good things. No one can were to go out to build a great, huge building, say these good things are bad even if the desire each with his own set of blueprints—complete is to make them as effective as possible. But, blueprints, mind you (call it their personal in- frankly, if you stopped and shook all these terpretation of the Bible, if you wish)—all good people by the shoulders and said, “Wake ready to follow his own blueprint by himself, up! Look at the whole picture! ” they wouldn’t not one of them comparing his blueprint with know for sure how their work fits into the any others? Do you think that building would whole picture. And if they were to stand ever get built? back—like they were looking back from the Or, what if a number of Christians were to moon—and look at the earth and see the entire go out into all the world to preach the Gospel world evangelization process passing before and never comparing notes with each other, them, they would not be able, honestly and sin- never working together consciously within an cerely and on the basis of careful research, to overall strategy of closure, would they evangel- say that what they are doing is the most strate- ize the world? I don’t think so. gic thing that they could possibly do in order You can name on the fingers of one hand to terminate and conclude the mandate of our those key people, such as McGavran and a few Lord which is called “the Great Commission.” others as well as a few mission societies, who I believe that not everyone has the right, the really are thinking determinedly and enligh- privilege, the potential, the opportunity, and tenedly in terms of a strategy of closure. I don’t the availability—even if they wish—to be full think we are going to get this job done if all we time in this, but I think ever serious believer do is to fall into our beds at night exhausted, must at least partake of a strategy of closure. knowing that we have worked just as hard as We’ve got to work in terms of the overall pic- we could possibly work. ture. That’s good old American logic, maybe—to For example, what would happen if a do your utmost in your work—but it is not bunch of football players ran out on the field, good enough. God calls us to do our utmost for all of them in great shape physically and ready His highest, and I have to believe that involves to go, and with their goals in mind and every- being a conscious part of a “strategy of clo- thing else, but they simply ran with the ball sure.” wherever they got it in their hands? They

Winter Chapter 5

The First Four Hundred Years

The average person in the pew is not just talk about concepts that relate to this first 400- uninformed but also misinformed about mis- year period. sions. The average person would not know, for First of all—and almost preliminary to any example, that 85 percent of all the schools in discussion of what happened so far back in his- Africa are there because missions founded tory—is the question that could be called histo- them. Or that the largest technical university in riographic. I’m sorry to disturb you with so Latin America is there because a mission long a word. It’s a question of how do you founded it. Or that the largest agricultural know what you know. We say that the Romans experiment station in Asia is a mission center. did this and the Romans did that. In speaking He would not know that the largest experimen- of his invasion of Gaul, Julius Caesar wrote tal hospital in Asia is a mission center and that back from Gaul, “Gallia est divisa in partes there are 600 mission hospitals in India. The tres.” How do we know at all that there was a average person cannot pull all this information man named Julius Caesar, or that he said that? together into one place. There is no way for One of the most eminent professors in the him to get the faintest idea of what the mission world today in the field of history is Lynn dollar does. White, Jr., whose article you’ll be reading a lit- Even though Liberation theologians may tle later on. He made the statement that if it choose to disagree, the dollar that goes into were not for the Carolingian Renaissance we missions goes further and does more good would know no more about the ancient Roman work than almost anything you could possibly Empire than we know about the ancient Maya, conceive of. The amount of money Americans which is not very much. Now, what we do put into missions, $700, 000, 000 per year, is a know about the Carolingian Renaissance we very small proportion of the amount of money will be taking up in the second 400-year that nowadays is raised by the national period, which we’ll be talking about it in the churches in the mission lands. I don't know of next lesson. But it is amazing that, as Lynn any country, practically speaking, where a mis- White, Jr. tells us, there are only four docu- sion agency is pouring more money in than the ments available at this time in history that national church itself is raising. come directly to us from the era of the Roman So it is a regenerating process that produces Empire. Four physical chunks of paper or new giving. That new money given in the mis- parchment as the case may be. Everything else sion lands does not, of course, come back to the we know results from the literary output of U.S.—sorry about that—but is given to a cause converted savages in the forests of Europe and which itself is a very benevolent one. But if the Bible study centers they established all over these broad realities are not clear, what do you the place. In each center they treated the Bible suppose is the knowledge of the average saint with great care. Notice, these are the first Bible today about anything 2, 000 years ago? schools you ever heard of where they not only Let’s take a peek. As you know by now, we studied the Bible but other literature—secular have for convenience divided the whole of his- literature—as well. They copied and recopied tory into 400-year periods rather than to try to especially the Bible, but also a lot of the ancient get you to remember what happened in every Roman literature. Except for those four manu- century. In any event I’m not very interested in scripts, whatever ancient Greek or Roman liter- getting people to remember unrelated details. I ature we have today we got because of that think the ability to remember something is intervening, “Bible school” activity after the almost useless unless what you remember is fall of the Roman Empire. And this rescue of tied into some concept. So I would like now to the literature came just in time before the

© 1996 R. Winter. No copy may be made without the author’s permission. 5 – 1 5 – 2 The First Four Hundred Years Vikings swept in and burned most of it back ing to find out what those prejudices are, and down to ashes again. then by allowing for them, figuring out what In other words, we’re looking back over actually must have been true. many centuries and catastrophes—many Let me give you just one example of what I mountain ranges, leaving valleys of darkness mean. There was a guy named Pelagius. I’m in order to get clear back to Latin Rome. It is sure that all of you who have heard of him really amazing that we know anything at all immediately think of him as a heretic. Augus- about anything that far back. It’s as though we tine was the so-called “good guy” during this have to physically go through multiple knot- period of time (better known as Augustine of holes just to reach back to that time. Hippo—that’s in North Africa; the other There is a second dimension of difficulty, church leader named Augustine came decades however, that isn’t just a physical problem. It later and was known as Augustine of Canter- has to do with blankets of prejudice. Every- bury, a missionary). Augustine of Hippo was thing we do has that complication. For the orthodox theologian who argued with Pela- instance, The Decline and Fall of the Roman gius, telling him and everybody that Pelagius’ Empire by Edward Gibbon is a very detailed theology was lousy. To this day church histori- and lengthy set of volumes which scrounges its ans usually consider his theology to be a nota- information from many other documents, most ble heresy. They base their comments to a great of which are still available. But it is a highly extent on Augustine’s judgment. Well, you get selective, biased and colored account. His a man like Latourette looking into the whole whole purpose is to prove that the Christian affair once more, and he comes out with the faith wrecked the Roman Empire. And the fact statement that Pelagius probably didn’t believe that he has a hard time proving this is at least exactly what his antagonists said he believed. one positive thing, but the record he gives is a That’s almost always true in an argument if distortion due to his prejudice. And, as you all you have available are the documents writ- paddle back through history, you don’t ten by one side only. Maybe what the other uncover a single document that is unpreju- people are saying is not really what their oppo- diced. The only really unprejudiced book nents said that they said. So Latourette comes you’ll ever find would seem to be the Bible up with the rather astounding statement that itself, which attacks its own people over and Pelagius probably was not Pelagian! He was at over again. That’s one reason people trust the the most maybe a “Semi-Pelagian.” Bible. The question that an anthropologist might It is a fact, however, that for some reason raise over this whole situation is why were there is less prejudice in the modern era than these two fellows arguing in the first place? ever before. Many of the more recent versions Because we have in existence today hardly of American history written in the last 20 years anything that Pelagius himself wrote, we can’t are less prejudiced (although there are still simply read the text of his argument and some that are quite prejudiced as well). decide for ourselves; all we have are what his For example, there is the fact that the accusers said about him. Why was there an Roman Catholic tradition with determination argument? That is the most important prelimi- and thoroughness has in effect tended to revise nary question. and twist the entire story of Christian history Aha—it’s not very hard to find out that in order to make its own church lineage look Pelagius came from the wrong side of the like one single beautiful, continuous phenome- tracks. He wasn't even a citizen of Rome. He non. This means that you have to go easy with came from the Cornwall area—the lower south a Roman Catholic document when it is talking end of Britain in the Celtic belt where the about the Celtic church. And you also can’t Roman legions were still in charge. Apparently trust an English document when it talks about some of the people there were highly educated the Celtic church because the English church but were not first-class Romans. When Pela- was even more irritated about the Celtic gius went down to Rome, he already knew Church than were the Romans down in Rome. Greek and Hebrew and Latin whereas Augus- And so everywhere you go you’re con- tine, a first-class Roman citizen, knew only stantly running into huge prejudices, and the Latin and couldn't read either Greek or art of the interpretation of history is to a great Hebrew. So here Augustine is, upstaged by a extent catching on to the prejudices. We’re try- guy from the sticks! I’m telling you that to Ralph D. Winter 5 – 3 come from Cornwall is to have come from the date, the “tonsure” (or haircut that monks “wild and wooly west, ” so to speak. wore), and other equally “important” things. Picture Pelagius walking into Rome, much However, leaking into the narrative, either about him betraying his background from the subconsciously or very likely consciously, is a sticks—he may even have had the wrong color steady campaign. According to my wife, if you of hair, blonde instead of Mediterranean read the whole book and stop to think about black—but nevertheless with such sophisti- what is really being said you get a different cated academic credentials (better than Augus- point of view. You can’t just look at the overt tine’s). You can well imagine that this would message on the page. And what you see com- provoke an argument, no matter what Pelagius ing through is that this man Bede is really quite believed. And we have two denominations, so pro-Celtic. Before the Synod of Whitby, most of to speak, one Celtic Christian and the other the Celts in Britain were followers of Pelagius; Roman Catholic. indeed many continued to revere him for four Okay, after visiting Rome and (Roman) hundred more years. In his book, Bede North Africa, Pelagius went on his way to the presents these Celtic Christian leaders as hum- Middle East. We next hear about him when he ble, godly people. In his detailed story of the got into Jerome’s sphere, and Jerome called exchange at the Synod of Whitby, the Roman him a “Celtic pig, ” not a very scholarly evalua- church leaders come across as insufferable tion, I suppose. He not only called him a pig, snobs, even though by a sort of fluke they are but actually said, “that stupid pig like all the the ones who happen to have the correct theol- other Celts, ” a comment which gives us ogy. In other words, Bede bows to the political insight into the “broad research” Jerome had necessity of following Rome, but you can tell done. where his sympathies really lie if you read the Then Pelagius disappears from the pages of entire book carefully, being aware of the racial history except for other occasional references to tensions of the time. him in these documents from the period of the So here you have a piece of literature that is Carolingian Renaissance which were faithfully superficially prejudiced in order to get pub- and mechanically copied. These are still availa- lished, but is maybe more accurate and sympa- ble to us, and when we read about Pelagius, thetic in its between-the-lines message. These we tend to say, “Oh, what a terrible heretic this are just examples of how historiography must guy was.” All I’m saying is that when you go discover and grapple with prejudice. back and try to find out what happened, you One more point under historiography: bump not only into mechanical problems in what is it then that we actually do know? Most just getting the data, but you run into cultural of what we know in terms of the phenomenon factors—enormous prejudices, which may of Christianity in the first 400 years after Christ actually cause even more misunderstanding. comes from only one or two documents. It One other example which my wife knows either comes from the New Testament itself, more about than I—maybe at a later date she which is a blazing beacon of truth and light in can fill in the details for you. The Venerable the early part of this 400-year period, or it Bede, as he is called, was one of the very few comes from one other set of documents, the historians during the first millennium, and one work of Eusebius, the official chronicler of the of the most trustworthy. He wrote a very Roman Empire. detailed account of the English-speaking Once again, most historians are embar- church. Even he had to deal with political cor- rassed to admit that they have to trust Euse- rectness. Bede lived in a post-Celtic era after bius. When Christianity became officially toler- the Synod of Whitby when the English church ated, he was asked by the government to pull had supposedly adopted the Roman (Catholic) together a lot of the documents that had sur- tradition. Although an Anglo-Saxon, he was vived from the catacombs and the earlier educated in a Celtic area but was politically period. So, he put together a massive multi- unable to write anything that was pro-Celtic. tomed set of stuff. He quoted from hundreds of Thus, all the way through his rather thick and documents which are no longer available to us. very interesting book, An Ecclesiastical History So when you hear someone say, “Well, Tertu- of the English Speaking People, you find Bede lian said, ” this may not be Tertulian speaking constantly taking pains to point out that Celtic but Eusebius, supposedly quoting Tertulian. scholars were dead wrong about the Easter Now you have to ask yourself, “Did Tertulian 5 – 4 The First Four Hundred Years really say exactly this?” Probably, in most cases imagine. Historians are not allowed this lib- he did. The problem with Eusebius is probably erty. In fact, there is a whole school of histori- not that he is misquoting those people, because ography that will not allow anybody to make when we do have the original documents from any conjectures whatsoever. That to me is which he quoted, the quotations are fairly obscurantism. accurate. It’s the stuff that he did quote versus Let me give you three examples. First of the stuff that he didn’t quote. And he quoted all, we know that at the beginning of this what he wanted to quote and didn’t quote period the gospel was in a stable; at the end of what he didn’t want to quote. Thus, inevitably the period it was ensconced in the Lateran Pal- hundreds and hundreds of documents are ace of Rome, comparable to our White House. completely lost sight of except for quotations That is, the very palace of the emperors was that come from Eusebius. taken over by the Christian church when Con- This is also true of the editorial work that stantine, due to his wife’s deriving from the was done on what we call the Septuagint—the eastern part of the empire, finally yielded to Greek Old Testament. It is a selection from her wishes (women are often more powerful hundreds of other documents, and while every than men) and moved the headquarters of the document in the Greek Old Testament is empire from Rome to what was thereafter to be quoted in the Qumran scrolls, they quote at called Constantinople. (Can you imagine the least 400 other documents as well. influence of a wife?) Anyway, that move left Thus, almost always when you’re reading behind this palace which was then turned over the Early Church Fathers—Clement of Alexan- to the most reliable people in town, which by dria, Tertulian, and all these greats—you’re that time, even in Rome, happened to be Chris- reading what Eusebius pulled together. Now tians. I say “even in Rome” because when the that is a rather hair-raising fact, but it is just seat of government moved east from Rome, it one last point on the subject of historiography. ran into a hotbed of Christianity as compared We are very, very scarce in terms of direct to what was true at that time on the Italian knowledge of this period. And it is just abso- peninsula. lutely amazing when you open a modern book In contrast to the West, Christianity had a on Rome, the Roman Empire, or on the Early sizable slice of the population in the eastern Church, how much we actually do know. It is part of the empire. Perhaps as much as 30 per- precious little, but it is amazingly much when cent of Greece was now Christian, for example. you take into account the problems of histori- By then it was simply impossible to ignore this ography and the heroic work of the monaster- movement. It is utterly ridiculous to assume ies in all this. Now, let’s move on. that, just because by a fluke Constantine We do know the beginning of the period became a Christian, that gave the Christians an and we do know the end. We know the begin- unfair advantage. The professor at UCLA ning because it is in the New Testament, and (Lynn White, Jr.) to whom I referred earlier has we know the end because a lot of things got said that whether or not Constantine was con- written down when Constantine and others verted, Rome would have had to tolerate allowed Christianity to flourish in the last hun- Christianity anyway because by AD 300 there dred years of the 400-year period—from AD were so many Christians throughout the 300 to 400. At that point a huge number of empire. Christian bookstores—Zondervan Presses, so The second example of being able to con- to speak—rolled into action, and a vast bulk of jecture because we know about the beginning literature poured out in that fourth century. and the ending is that we know the gospel Thus, we really do know a great deal about the went from Galilee of the Gentiles to the Goths church in the fourth century. But we do not during this period. The arguments that took know anything, except indirectly, about the place in the fourth century were so virulent period between the New Testament and the and the heretics driven out so systematically fourth century. that those heretics became reluctant missionar- However, let me point out that if you know ies up in the Gothic areas. As a result, most of the beginning of a story and you know the end, the Gothic peoples became at least nominally that’s a great deal to know. It doesn’t take too Christian by the end of the 400 years. That is an much imagination to figure out what hap- end product that we know about. The mecha- pened in between. At least you are welcome to nism whereby they were converted is not very Ralph D. Winter 5 – 5 clear, but we know that they were Christians of I have been talking about the historiogra- a sort by the end of the period. In some cases, phy of a particular situation and how if we at the Goths accepted Arians exiled as heretics least know the end and the beginning we can because they welcomed the heretics as enemies do a certain amount of guess work into what of Rome! Of course, there weren’t just “Goths” happened between the two periods. I have in middle Europe. We’re speaking in general of already mentioned that Constantine’s conver- a whole menagerie of tribes. It seems to me sion was not the main reason why the Roman something like saying that “Africans” are Empire became tolerant to Christianity. You becoming Christian. should realize that Constantine did not pro- Thirdly, we know that the gospel went claim Christianity as the official religion of from Galatia to the Celtic (pronounced keltic) Rome. That did not happen until over a half peoples. We don’t know that it went literally century later. from Galatia to Galicia (in northeast Spain), but It is interesting that even after it became we can at least dream. (This is probably the official, there was a case of a short reversal, most far-out conjecture that you’ll hear from something like what happened in Chad when me.) There was probably a connection, I’ll sug- Christianity had pretty much dominated the gest, by family, by traders stretching from situation there along with Islam. Do you Galatia of Asia Minor all the way to Ireland— remember how in Chad in the 1970s there was across the northern part of Greece up through a reversion to tribal religion when a new presi- what is Yugoslavia today, up to the Celtic peo- dent came into office and forced all the govern- ples in what is still called the “Celtic belt” ment officials to go back through their tribal which stretched across Southern Europe. There puberty rites and revert to the earlier animistic was likely some kind of fairly constant commu- religious traditions? nication between the Celtic tribes, either by In the Roman situation in the fourth cen- ship from Asia Minor going west through the tury the emperor Julian tried to get the people Mediterranean and out through Gibraltar, then of the empire to go back to their pagan tradi- up into northern Spain, up into what is called tion. That is why he is still known as “Julian Galicia (another Celtic name) in the Northwest the Apostate.” He grew up a Christian, but tip of Spain, up into Brittany (another Celtic apparently didn’t like the politicization of the name) in France, up into South Wales and Christian religion—not surprising. Also, he Cornwall or Wales and Ireland. All of this was had a sort of deep inherent concern for the connected. past, and perhaps Christianity was still not suf- For Paul the Apostle to have gone to the ficiently indigenized. Galatians, who were Celtic peoples, or at least So he tried to reinstate the pagan tradition. to have visited among them and to have He ordered the priests in the pagan temples to implanted the gospel into that Celtic belt gives try to keep up with the Christian preachers. us the possibility of imagining that that is the The Christian tradition emphasized helping means whereby the gospel got so early into Ire- the widows and the orphans and being kind to land. Otherwise we have no explanation. the slaves, often even liberating them. He Note, I’m not saying that the Galatians of ordered the pagan priests to do the same and the New Testament were Celts. They could to preach to their followers that they should do have been. They lived in the Celtic belt, in an similar good works. But it was really pretty area named after the Celts, who landed there embarrassing for them. Julian’s intended 284 BC. Remember that the Greek word for pagan reform just didn’t work. It lasted just Galatians, galatoi, is phonetically parallel to the about three years, and then collapsed when word celt, the three consonants—g/k, l, t—are Julian lost his life in a military battle and the the evidence. next emperor was a Christian. We also know that the gospel that landed The interesting thing about Christianity in in Ireland was not Western but Eastern. It was this period, however, is that as it began to not Roman in the Latin tradition of Christian- move out of its Palestinian background it ity; it bears strong evidence of Greek and Egyp- didn’t carry a Palestinian trait or culture with tian Christian background. This, of course, is it. In Paul’s hands it was no longer simply a another tell-tale evidence as to why Celtic Jewish tradition. To this day across the world Christianity must have come from the eastern Christianity has no homeland; there is no holy end of the empire. place like Mecca to which we turn nor any par- 5 – 6 The First Four Hundred Years ticular Christian culture, if we are careful not synagogue in Asia, a small eastern section of to canonize a particular tradition. It is the most Turkey, because that was his approach. These nearly non-cultural religion in the world. synagogues were where he focused because he Islam, wherever it goes, has people facing was trying to find the God-fearers, those Gen- toward Mecca. They believe that their Koran tiles who had been drawn to the Jewish faith can’t be adequately translated, or at least they but had not become Jewish proselytes. He was don’t like it to be translated. Christianity is also trying to win godly Jews over to an evan- characterized as a world religion. In some gelical faith in Christ. respects it is the only world religion—the only Only at Lystra and at Athens do we find multicultural religion—by the fact that it is not him really bumping into pagan Greeks, and he held down by a particular ethnic origin. This is did not do so well in those cases because his why it was able to conquer the Roman Empire specialty was working with people who had and in doing so became a potentially unifying already become friendly to the Jewish tradi- faith among a wide diversity of peoples. It did tion. Of course, he knew about all the various not represent a particular language or cultural kinds of people: the Jews, the Greeks, the Bar- background. barians and the Scythians. And he was willing Of course, there were many other reasons to become a Jew to the Jews, a Greek to the why the Christian religion was able to race Greeks, and, I suppose, a Scythian to the Scyth- around the empire. Very crucial was the com- ians, although we don’t know of any work he munication system made possible by the hun- did among the Scythians. He just sort of named dreds of thousands of miles of roads paved them as part of his anthropological list. with stones, which enabled messages to go Although Paul, a Jew who had grown up from the far reaches of the empire to Rome in a Gentile setting, was not really evangelizing itself in the matter of a few days. Secondly, the cross-culturally, he was nevertheless doing Pax Romana, produced a (forced) military missionary work because he was planting a peace which stretched across a huge section of church where there was no church in those the world. Because of this peace and the com- particular cultural traditions—that is, there parative ease of travel, Christianity could even was no indigenous type of Christianity there. cross the English Channel to Britain, thereby Later on, Cappadocian prisoners who had introducing another phrase, the Pax Britannica, come to Christ within the empire witnessed to or the Peace of Britain. Centuries later it was the Goths to the north, as did the exiled Arian possible for the British to rule the seas of the bishops kicked out by the more orthodox lead- world without fear of pirates because they fol- ers. To the east of the empire the so-called lowed the example of Julius Caesar who had “Nestorian” bishops were also forced to leave effectively destroyed the ability of pirates to and carried the gospel further east beyond the harass ships on the Mediterranean Sea. Except boundaries of the empire. Barbarians to the for storms, travel by sea became as safe as on north and the west invaded the empire and the roads of the empire, making it possible for captured Christian girls who spoke of their the faith which had no ethnic origin to expand faith and sometimes won their pagan hus- with linguistic and geographical freedom. bands. Another characteristic of this early period is For centuries, however, there had been col- the fact that there was no organized missionary onies of Jews spread all over the Roman world. work. When Paul was headed for Spain, he In a certain sense they made up what might be was part of a missionary team. But inevitably called a “missionary compound.” Let’s take, he went to the synagogues. When he wrote for example, a synagogue in northern England, that “all Asia has heard the gospel, ” he did not say, up toward Hadrian’s Wall. That syna- mean that he had preached to all the people in gogue was not a missionary outpost in the Asia Minor, as we now call it, much less what usual sense; it wasn’t a mission compound like we call Asia today. In those days Asia merely we think of today. But those who came to that meant a small “county” at the western end of synagogue revered their Bible, which was what we now call Asia Minor. Nobody in the mostly the same as the one we have in the Old Roman era would have referred to Asia Minor, Testament today. And they learned in this much less to China, as part of Asia. By saying Bible that God wanted all the nations to hear that all Asia had heard the gospel Paul the gospel. Although that synagogue didn’t undoubtedly meant that he had been to every have missionary purposes like we would Ralph D. Winter 5 – 7 expect from a mission compound, neverthe- Christian culture today. Today, then, the Bibli- less, it did have a missionary function because cal faith is also to be found “everywhere, ” but the Godfearers (Gentile believers) were drawn mainly in the garments of a particular (West- into that synagogue and hundreds of others ern) cultural tradition. Only to the extent that it like it scattered all over the Roman Empire. For can put on other clothes will it ever become a all we know, way up in Britain, it was the syna- truly universal faith. gogues that preceded the witness to Christ and In the era of the Roman Empire the Biblical in that sense actually had a very valuable func- faith was found “everywhere” within that tion. empire in the enculturated form of the Jewish As a matter of fact, it is very likely, preju- diaspora, and to a much less significant extent dices being what they are, that Christians all beyond its boundaries. We hear of Jewish Syn- down through history looking back at their ori- agogues in India and Korea, for example. gins have failed to realize the mighty contribu- Today, however, the Biblical faith is to be tion of these thousands of Jewish synagogues found “everywhere” this time, while found in which for centuries radiated the light of God many forms, it is nevertheless to a great extent and paved the way for a faith that would elimi- in an enculturated form called Christianity. nate almost entirely the Jewish cultural vehicle And, like the Jewish diaspora it is unevenly which they unconsciously embodied. There leavened by true faith. There are masses of may have been one million of these Godfearers purely wooden “followers” of this faith crowd- associated with the ten million Jews in the ing the ranks of Christians just as there were empire. And ten million Jews is about 10% of the equivalent within the Jewish diaspora, the Roman citizenry. which Paul at times downgraded harshly as a It should be difficult to ignore the mission- legalistic deadness. In other cases he insisted ary significance of this fact. In all of subsequent that faith was still to be found in that dias- history Jews have been upright, industrious, pora—that “not all Israel is Israel” (Rom 9:6). family-loving, God-fearing people. That they We would have to say the same about the could have consciously or unconsciously modern expansion of Christianity around the attracted a million Gentiles to their Bible (and globe. It is a mixed movement, not just a pure maybe 100, 000 Gentiles to convert completely faith. Millions of “Christians” East and West over to their culture—called proselytes) is are mere nominal followers. The true faith is likely something Christian historians have found only partially but nevertheless vitally. tended to overlook. We may have tended to Thus, the question is not whether Judaism write off the vast Jewish diaspora as a purely or Christianity are, in part, faith communities legalistic and non-functional faith, meanwhile but whether either of them are candidates for a thinking, superficially, that the Gentile version universal faith. Both of them are enculturated of that faith—later to be called Christianity— vehicles of true faith—fairly specific cultural was pure and not itself also a mixed multitude. vehicles. The mission task is apparently then But we don’t really know about everything not to extend either of these vehicles but to that far back in history. This first 400-year extend the Biblical faith, preaching Christ, not period is very, very dark and much of it very Christianity, preaching the Bible, not all the discouraging in some ways. Yet we do know twists and turns of our enormous theological that those years ended up with a blaze of glory tradition. And we return to our earlier conclu- by the year 400 (what I have named The Classi- sion: only to the extent that our faith can put cal Renaissance) simply because the world’s on other clothes can it ever become a truly uni- most powerful empire up to that point in his- versal faith. tory had been taken over by the faith of our [But this is happening before our eyes. Afri- Lord. cans have taken the ball and run with it—in the But before Paul ever set to work, the Jewish enormous AIC movement. The same thing has diaspora was in place. Peter said that “in every happened in the phenomenal Chinese house city Moses is preached” (Acts 15:21). What this church movement, and in the “Churchless means is that the husky presence of believing Christianity” movement to faith in Jesus Christ Jews throughout the Roman Empire was a de in millions of Hindu homes. Added 20 years facto missionary movement to which we see an later.] amazing parallel in the diaspora of Western

Winter Chapter 6

The Second Four Hundred Years (AD 400–800)

Now we come to the “Barbarian invasions.” dle of the 14th century. The plague, which Shortly after the year 400 we find a great deal might be called a bacteriological invasion, was of chaos—the beginning of the first of the two far more destructive than either of the two ear- Dark Ages. Looking at the chart of the Five lier invasions. Renaissances, we see the year 400 and the year Now, with this rough canvas before us, let’s 800. Where are the two Dark Ages? You can go back and pick up some of the traces of the shade in the hundred or so years after each of Celtic tradition. Although I’ve already told you those two dates. Those are the two Dark Ages. a great deal about this in different ways, the The first was just after 400, when the so-called Celtic tradition is usually passed over in our Barbarians—the Germanic tribes—swept into history books. Why? It is partly because this Rome and Southern England. The second Dark period of the Celtic tradition does not have any Ages occurred just after 800 when a new and modern advocates. We’re dealing once more different type of barbarians, the Vikings, with the phenomenon of prejudice. In fact, not swooped down from Scandinavia upon the by- for at least a thousand years do you have any now Christianized earlier kind of Barbarians. group of people who were eager to tell about Between those two Dark Ages, however, you and to preserve a recollection of the Celtic have the marvelous Carolingian Renaissance, church. And there hangs a very, very unique named for Charlemagne. (Carol refers to series of events. Charles or Carl—it’s all the same word—and As I implied in the first lesson, in 410 and Charlemagne is simply another version of the after, everything was cut to ribbons by the Ger- same word with the magne suffix, which manic tribal peoples, who took over Rome it- means great.) Once again, now at the end of self. The result was such chaos that the people the 400-800-year period, there was a blaze of in Rome began to lose the ability to speak glory far, far brighter in many ways than the Latin. During the fifth century the only outpost parallel blaze of glory at the end of the first 400 of peace and quiet was in Ireland. Even Eng- years. Thus, although there were two Dark land was under tremendous stress because Ages, there were also two Light Ages. There with the fall of Rome and the withdrawal of was an age of Light between 300 and 400, and the Roman legions from Britain, other Barbari- another Light Age, renaissance, between 700 ans—the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes— and 800, beginning actually a little before 700). had invaded England from across the channel. At least one historian has noted that what Simultaneously, the Celts (by and large still was “dark” for the Roman world was actually semi-pagan) of Ireland and Scotland also in- the dawning of a great light for the Barbarian vaded from the west and north. But St. Patrick world. No matter how you look at it, the time and other Christians who had been captured in between 700 and 800 was a period of consolida- Britain brought the Gospel to them early in this tion and scholarship, and Bible transmission period. And they responded almost en masse. and Bible study, etc. Eventually it was from Ireland that the Gos- It is possible to observe that in the four pel came en force. Scholarship came, the Bible hundred-year period between 1200 and 1600 a came, documents came. At this point there was third Dark Age occurred. This was not due to a no Celtic church as such, just monastic centers, military invasion so much as to the widespread which were both scholarly and missionary out- devastation of the Bubonic plague in the mid- posts. To them, the transmission of the Bible

© 1996 R. Winter. No copy may be made without the author’s permission. 6 – 1 6 – 2 The Second Four Hundred Years (AD 400–800) and the transmission of the faith were one and the story. I can’t demand that you all get it; you the same. These Celtic monks knew not only can look it up in the library. Latin but Greek and Hebrew. Thus, the people I wish I could say that Latourette does a of the city of Rome, now dominated by Gothic good job in this area—and he goes a long invaders, asked for teachers from Ireland to way—but at the time he wrote, he simply come to teach them how to speak Latin again. didn't have the data available to him. What an amazing twist! It is as if the Chi- But, until almost the eighth century the Cel- nese were to invade the United States, and af- tic Christians in general were well beyond the ter a hundred years everyone was speaking Mediterranean sphere of things, like Pelagius, half Chinese and half English and didn’t know whom Augustine of Hippo and others in the which was which; so U.S. government officials early fourth century considered a heretic out- had to go to Nairobi to bring some Oxford- sider. Thus, some might ask if the theology of accented Africans to come and teach us English these Celtic Christians was orthodox. Well, in the United States. That’s exactly parallel to they were somewhat orthodox in the technical the situation in Rome. Because of the chaos of sense of the word, if you mean Greek or East- the invasions, the aqueducts no longer brought ern Orthodox, since from the East is where fresh water to the city. Indeed, the whole city their faith originally came. They were certainly was practically a malarial swamp. They forgot more nearly Orthodox than Catholic. skills they had known, and for a long, long But were they sound, you might wonder? time things really ran down hill. This is the Sure, they were sound. After all, the basic book “fall of Rome”—the city of Rome, not the seat for them was the Bible, revered above all oth- of the Roman empire, which long before had ers, and that’s a pretty sound book. They were been shifted to Constantinople. a bit bizarre; all of us in our cultural traditions But the Irish “church” (that is, the Celtic are a bit bizarre. Some people, you know, regu- Christian movement which was more like a larly eat worms; “one man’s meat is the other network of Youth with a Mission bases) was a man’s poison, ” as they say. And if you stop different kind of a structure. Nevertheless it and think of it, if you look at us from the van- was a “church” of a sort which retained and ex- tage point of some other culture, we also in our tended the faith wherever it went. The Celtic culture do absolutely ridiculous things. Thus, Peregrini, or “wandering monks” of which La- okay, the things that some of these Celtic tourette writes, went all over England and Eu- monks did probably seem a little screwy to us. rope, spreading the Gospel. Nevertheless, here’s this monk by the name However, as you read the usual church his- of Cuthbert up in Northumbria in Northern tory texts, you really have to look hard for England. He’s standing out there on the sea- even hints about Celtic Christianity. Until re- shore surrounded by the mist and the fog in cently the only decent book on the subject was his early morning time of meditation. As the a University of Chicago book called The Celtic waves go back and forth, back and forth, he’s Churches by John T. McNeill. The subtitle of meditating on the grace of God. Only a few that book is the most electrifying thing about years before, this person’s forebears were the whole book. I was truly amazed when I head-hunting savages, and you wonder what first saw it when the book came out in the mid transforming power has come into his life. You ’70s. The entire title read The Celtic Churches, just cannot avoid the conclusion that it is the a History 200-1200. I was staggered and de- Gospel of Christ. lighted that a man of McNeill’s stature as a But like every other tradition, when the scholar would press home the point that the people in their first blush accept the Gospel, Irish Christian tradition actually began as early they still have all kinds of strange things float- as 200 and was not snuffed out significantly ing around in their world which gradually get until 1200. In light of most of earlier scholar- sluffed off. Irish were drinking out of skulls as ship, McNeill’s audacity is an act of academic late as the 16th century. courage because only in the last 20 or 30 years When my daughter was doing some re- has research on the Celtic church begun to be search last year for her senior thesis at Caltech, significant. It’s a big reversal of the study of she uncovered the fact that in the Celtic area, in Western civilization to uncover the vitality and the 1850s (a long time after the Revolutionary the power of this Celtic movement. And more War and shortly before the Civil War). a num- than any other single book McNeill’s book tells ber of industries went broke because of the re- Ralph D. Winter 6 – 3 vivals that were taking place. One industry Yes! Balanced? No! that blinked out was the one that produced As I have already said, the early evidences glass eyes. Before the revival period they were of Celtic Christianity are so hazy that it is an producing thousands and thousands of glass audacious thing for McNeill to start his book eyes. Why? Because it was a very common out with the year 200. But there are evidences thing in brawls in bars for people to punch out of the early existence of Christianity in south- the eyes of other people. Everyone knew that ern Britain when Constantine became the em- you must not gouge out both eyes; after all, we peror of Rome and turned the lights on, mak- were real Christians about it, weren’t we? But ing it legal to be a Christian. That’s what to gouge out just one eye was a respectable happened in 312 in the edict of Milan when way to leave your mark on the other man, and Constantine declared that there would be no the practice of doing this was so common that more persecution of Christians. Christianity making glass eyes was a major industry. was already deeply entrenched, though still Now, that tradition—eye gouging—did not greatly persecuted in the east. But Western come out of the Bible, nor was it the result of scholars have not in general realized just how the Gospel nor did the Gospel instantly elimi- many Christians there already were in Britain nate it. Rather, it was a feature that still re- by the year 200. mained of the social culture that was there be- When Constantine took over and sensed fore the Bible came, before the revival and the just how widespread Christianity was, he con- preaching of the Gospel really pressed home to vened a council in 314 in a little place in south- those people. But where did they get this sa- ern France called Arles. Three bishops—Celtic tanic wicked evil? You can’t explain such Christians—are recorded to have come to this things apart from a “god of this world” whose council from southern England. Evidently ends are destruction. And to root that kind of Christianity was already flourishing in Britain evil out of a society takes a long time. because the Celtic church there already had at When you look at the Celtic churches and least three bishops! monastic centers way back in the 400-to-800- Later in that same century Pelagius showed year period you must, as good missionaries, up in Rome. Remember? He was a highly edu- take into account the background of these peo- cated and sophisticated Celt even though he ple and try to understand how far they had came from the wrong side of the tracks. But come from where they were before the Gospel culturally, he was quite different from the got to them. Christians in Rome and North Africa. Even Harold Cook in his excellent book, Historic more difficult for them was the fact that his Patterns of Church Growth, has an excellent theological stance was not considered proper, chapter on the Celtic church. I read it before he being much closer to that of the eastern end of sent it to press and suggested that he take into the empire than it was to that of Augustine of account McNeill’s book which he had not yet Hippo and the church in Rome in the West. seen, and so he did refer to it. Although I can’t Whatever is true about his theology, we know remember all the details, I feel that he did a that the followers of Augustine of Hippo had very good job on the Celtic Church. I wasn’t monumental arguments with Pelagius. In fact the one who suggested that he include the all we know about him is what some of his op- Celts in his book; he already knew quite a bit ponents said of his thinking. about them when he sat down to develop a se- Now, I’m not trying to boost Pelagius or his ries of lectures to present at the School of theology at this point. I’ve already done that. World Mission. Those lectures then became his I’m only stressing the fact that here was a book. On his own he decided to include the highly sophisticated scholar coming out of Celtic church. I felt it was a surprising and southern England, way out in the western wonderful thing that a professor from Moody sticks in Cornwall, the point that juts out into Bible Institute would choose the Celtic church the Irish Sea. His scholarship and Biblical as an example of early missionary passion even knowledge show that even in the fourth cen- though many theologians would consider their tury there was a relatively advanced kind of Christianity not “balanced” nor truly sound. Christianity in England in a situation which to- But don’t ever let me say that any form of day might be called a mission field. Christianity is balanced, because no form of After the fall of Rome to the Ostrogoths in Christianity truly is. Sound? Yes! Authentic? 410 and the resulting invasion of somewhat- 6 – 4 The Second Four Hundred Years (AD 400–800) Christian England by Barbarians from the con- course, Arthur came into existence in a literary tinent a few decades later, things were entirely sense centuries later. different. So we’re looking back through history all I want to mention some things that you the time, and it’s very hard to find out the truth just won’t believe. In 432 Patrick went to Ire- about the Celtic Christian situation. But one land. His autobiography is a fascinating story thing we can perceive comes from the effect that fortunately has come down to us today they had on the pagans they evangelized. We from that time. do know that the Celtic Christian monks cer- Frankly, it is perfectly possible, and many tainly had a lot of Christian vitality. of the books admit this, that Patrick was not Around the year 500, Columba, the second the first missionary to Ireland. Some historians son of an Irish chieftain and a member of a Cel- believe that there was a lot of Christianity in tic order, started the first missionary training Ireland before Patrick ever went there. Not all center in history. At that time Scotland was to- scholars are even sure that there was a man tally pagan, so Columba discretely set up his named Patrick. But there are some documents community on the island of Iona, just a few attributed to him that are breathtakingly beau- miles off the coast of Scotland. Later on, a simi- tiful, high-minded and spiritual. Obviously lar missionary training center was established someone wrote them. on the other side of Scotland just below the The only catch is, in terms of Patrick, when point where it joins England. Once again it was you go on down through 500, 600 and 700 and on an island, at least when the tide was up, but get down to 730, there you find Bede. Now the otherwise a peninsula of sorts. This second out- Venerable Bede was the Eusebius of the second post was called Lindisfarne. Both of these train- Era of Light. Remember that in my approach, ing centers began sending missionaries not you have periods of Light—one toward the only into Scotland but down into England, end of the first 400 year cycle (300 to 400) and which was now mainly occupied by the pagan another toward the end of the next 400 year cy- Angles, Saxons and Jutes. They also began cle (700 to 800). In the first period of Light, or sending missionaries across the English chan- renaissance, Eusebius was the historian. The nel. Columban, not as well known as Columba, Venerable Bede was the historian in the second went to the continent in the late 500s. He trav- period of Light. eled all over the place, ricocheting and rever- Although most readings give the impres- berating as far down as northern Italy. Down sion that Bede was very critical of the Celtic there the various other kinds of Christians— Christian movement, you will recall that both mainly those who had followed Augustine of my wife and I feel that when Bede wrote the Hippo and called their theology catholic—were Ecclesiastical History of the English Speaking as mad at him as the Jews were at John the People he was in fact pro-Celtic, as you can see Baptist. To try to bring some resolution to the if you read between the lines. Interestingly, argument, Columban ended up writing schol- however, for our point here, he doesn’t say arly epistles to the pope, telling him that he anything at all about Patrick. Here is the most had the Easter date wrong, and so forth. complete narrative of the story of Christianity There were many Celtic missionaries, and in the British Isles, and there is no reference they established monastic missionary centers whatsoever to Patrick, not even negative. That in so many places both in the British Isles and is a very, very confusing and mysterious situa- on the continent that finally the pope (of what tion. is now called the Roman Catholic church) de- Bede must have used all the documents cided that his “catholic” brand of Christianity available to him at that time. And, of course, he ought to get into the act. So in 596 he sent up to was writing much later than both Patrick and England Augustine of Canterbury (not to be the time represented by the Arthurian legend, confused with Augustine of Hippo, whose dis- which probably occurred shortly after the Ro- ciples 200 years before had argued theology man legions withdrew from Britain to protect with Pelagius). Rome from the Gothic invasions. King Arthur, This later Augustine timidly settled in Can- who may have lived in the period of the An- terbury, a small peninsula jutting out into the glo-Saxon invasions in England—a type of Bar- English channel in the south of England and as barian invasions shortly after 410—was appar- close to the continent as it was possible to be ently pushed over into western Britain. Of and still be in England. There he converted the Ralph D. Winter 6 – 5 king and queen of the area and established the missionary calling as was true of the Celtic Roman Christian tradition. missionaries who wandered all over England To this day there are two archbishops in the and the continent. Augustine had not been English church—the Archbishop of York who trained as a missionary. He really didn’t want represents the Celtic tradition and the Arch- to go to England and try to evangelize the pa- bishop of Canterbury representing the Roman gan Angles and Saxons. He was afraid of them. tradition. The fact that the Archbishop of Can- He went only out of obedience to Gregory. terbury is considered in a popular sense the It is interesting to read some of the letters top leader of the Anglican church shows that written by Gregory to Augustine which Bede eventually the scales tipped very slightly in fa- 150 years later preserved in his writings. It vor of the Roman tradition. But, the fact that, seems that when Augustine and his fellow technically, the Archbishop of York is equal to monks got as far as the coast of France across the Archbishop of Canterbury (the latter is from England, he wrote back to Gregory, es- “first among equals”) shows you that in actual- sentially asking, “Are you sure we should ity the Celtic tradition held very strong. cross the English Channel? Isn’t there a better York is in northern England, where the Cel- way?” But Gregory said, “No! I want you to tic tradition held on the longest, and Canter- cross! To evangelize those people, you need to bury is in southern England where Augustine be there.” That became the beginning of West- first landed. To this day in the English church ern or Roman Christianity in England, long af- the Archbishop of York by his vestments repre- ter—note—Celtic Christianity had been well sents the Eastern form of Christianity and the established. Archbishop of Canterbury, with vestments de- One might ask, why did the Angles and rived from the Latin Roman secular magis- Saxons respond to the Roman missionaries trates, represents the Western form of Chris- more than to the Celtic ones from the north? tianity. Is it any wonder that Eastern Well, they responded to both. They responded Orthodoxy and Western Catholicism eventu- best when a missionary lived among them. It is ally split? also true that when they had invaded England The Celtic tradition, as we have seen, origi- after the withdrawal of the Roman legions, the nally derived mainly from the eastern part of people they fought with to take over the land the Roman Empire, revealing this fact by their were all Celts, whom they pushed over into the slightly different theology, their tonsure (hair western seaboard of present day Cornwall and cut of the monks) and their method of calculat- Wales. Taking over the religion of a conquered ing the date on which Easter was celebrated. people, remember, isn’t a shoo-in. Also, Celtic (The Celts celebrated it the first day of spring Christianity stressed humility and a simple life- according to the solstice, whether or not that style. Again, by contrast, Roman Christianity was on a Sunday. In this custom they again fol- loved ceremonies and had behind it the love lowed what had been the pattern of the church for pomp and ceremony. It also had the status in the east.) of the immensely prestigious, although now Thus, in 597 Augustine of Canterbury was quite defunct, Roman Empire in the West (still sent as a missionary to England by Pope Greg- alive in the East). ory, the first pope of any significance and one So, at this time the picture of Christianity in of the most revered of all popes since. Since the England was mainly Celtic except in the south- very title pope was invented later, Gregory east near Canterbury in Kent. Celtic missionar- was simply known in his era as the bishop of ies from the West and North had already pene- Rome. But he was a very dynamic and godly trated deep into middle England, setting up man, a product of the Benedictine monastic tra- and reestablishing monastic houses wherever dition. Even as many of our presidents have they went. But coming mainly from the two come out of military experience—for example, missionary training centers, both in the north, Eisenhower and Kennedy—most of the best they had not yet really established themselves early popes came from the monastic tradition. strongly in the south. Augustine landed at the This has continued to be true for most of Ro- right place. man Catholic history. Thus it was that the clash begun two hun- This second Augustine, the missionary, was dred years earlier with Augustine of Hippo not in any sense as capable as Gregory the and Pelagius came to a head with Augustine of Great. And he didn’t have the same sense of Canterbury and Aidan and other Celtic abbots 6 – 6 The Second Four Hundred Years (AD 400–800) from Lindisfarne, Iona and the many monaster- partially persuaded by the matter of “the keys ies they had founded. Augustine’s assignment of the kingdom, ” though he had great respect was not just winning Angles and Saxons, but and love for the Celtic missionaries from Lin- turning heretical Christians (Celts, followers of disfarne. Pelagius) into Catholic Christians. He was suc- Today, if in a book on church history you cessful to a certain extent, especially in win- come to a section that talks about the conver- ning the king and queen in the area of Kent to sion of the English and Augustine of Canter- Roman Christianity. bury is praised, you know that you are reading Also, when the king of Northumbria, King a Roman Catholic perspective, even if it is a Oswy, was converted by Celtic missionaries to Protestant textbook. Such a book has a distinct their brand of the faith, he looked around for a Roman Catholic bias obvious from the fact that suitable Christian bride and chose the daugh- the great missionary work of Celtic Christian- ter of the king down in Kent. It wasn’t long be- ity is rarely mentioned, if at all. And yet, except fore the couple recognized how awkward it for the very minor work done by Augustine in was for him to be Celtic and for her to be Ro- Kent, missions in England at this period did man in her faith, especially as it related to not come from the south but from the north, when to fast or feast for Lent and Easter. So in not from Rome but from Iona and Lindisfarne. 664 King Oswy called a council to be held at Latourette makes this clear once and for all in the Celtic monastery of Whitby, more or less in his seven volume History of the Expansion of the north-central part of England. Whitby, inci- Christianity. dentally, was a double monastery with both It is also true that even the Synod of Whitby men and women sections, but headed by a is overblown by the Roman tradition. This may woman. not the place to go into that, but Theodore of Bede gives a detailed account of what went Tarsus—from the East—was the man who ar- on there—the arguments to and fro, and the rived from Rome shortly after that Synod and outcome of it all. From a very young age, Bede essentially rescued it from oblivion. We’ll come had lived in a monastery founded by Celtic back to this in a minute. missionaries. But the decision at Whitby Although Ireland and Wales did not have changed it into a Benedictine (Roman) house, such well-known missionary training centers so he now wrote with the Roman Catholic like Iona and Lindisfarne, Celtic Christians viewpoint even though one who reads his ac- from there also reached out to the admittedly count carefully, as mentioned earlier, can’t pagan Anglo-Saxons in central and even south- help but notice the respect and appreciation he ern England. Indeed, the Celtic peregrini has for the genuine humility and faith of the (which means wanderers and refers exclu- Celtic monks who came to the Synod of sively to the Celtic missionaries) evangelized Whitby. and set up monastic houses not only on the This Synod is considered by Roman Catho- continent and in eastern Europe, but clear lic historians, and to some extent by Protes- down into Italy, up into Iceland, and on the tants as well, to be the great watershed of the Faro and other islands to the northwest of Ire- conflict between the Roman and (as both Prot- land. There are even some possibly questiona- estants and Catholics might say) “true Chris- ble evidences that Irish missionaries may have tianity.” arrived in Greenland or in some of the north- As we have already pointed out, the Celtic ern areas of the United States. All told, Celtic church at this time was probably truer to the Christianity and its missionary movement in faith of the early apostles than was the Roman particular was very virile. Ireland can be said church. The final outcome of the Synod of to be the only nation in the first thousand years Whitby supposedly hinged on which brand of of Christian history that was a truly “mission- Christianity was more true. Rome’s followers ary” nation. claimed as their founder the Apostle Peter I want to comment just a bit more about the who, they said, was given the “keys of the possibility of Irish missionaries coming to the kingdom” by Christ himself. The Celts fol- U.S. hundreds of years before Columbus “dis- lowed the Apostle John, probably because of covered” America. Twenty years ago people their long-standing connection with the Chris- laughed at the idea that not only Celtic voyag- tianity of the Middle East where John resided ers but also Canaanites had visited our shores for so many years. King Oswy, it seems, was way back in history. But archeologists have Ralph D. Winter 6 – 7 found Canaanite and Phoenician inscriptions tians without saying that they were now be- in Massachusetts. And there are early but very coming Celts. rare signs of Celtic influence as well. Such evi- Today for the same reason some of the dence really disrupts all of our previous ideas, Brahmins and middle caste peoples of India but the fact is that this Celtic church went far need to become Christians without having to and wide. Although in Latourette you’ll find a imply that by so doing they’ve become un- very significant Celtic Christian movement dis- touchables. To me this parallel is very close to cussed, much more data has come to light since what happened so long ago in England. he wrote his books. Today, scholars studying Also there is another parallel. In contrast to the situation tend to be from France, Scandina- the general lack of missionary passion in the via and Germany with a few from England Roman tradition back then, where did Celtic (mainly women) and recently a few from the Christianity get theirs? Every Celtic monastery U.S.. Among the Anglo-Saxon English there is had a scriptorium where they copied the Bible still, as you know, a real bias against the Irish day in and day out. I can only conclude that as and anything pertaining to them historically. they copied and lovingly illustrated these What are the missionary lessons we can scriptures, they also read them and understood learn from the invasion of the pagan Anglo- the Bible, even the Great Commission. There is Saxons into England in this second 400-year cy- no other reason on earth that I can figure out cle after Christ? We know that the Anglo- why the Celtic Christians were so avidly mis- Saxons who invaded and conquered Britain (a sionary. This is why the Roman church feared Celtic name) were completely pagan, whereas that without a Roman missionary presence in those they conquered, the Celtic peoples, were England the Celtic tradition would win over to some extent Christian. Here’s a case where the Anglo-Saxons and thus expand the non- pagans conquered Christians. It’s usually very Roman Celtic base that was already there. I hard for the conquerors to take the faith of the have to assume that that was a major part of people they have conquered. It is easier the Gregory’s concern. other way around. Therefore, despite my seem- Legend says that Gregory had seen some ing anti-Rome upbringing, I have to admit that blonde-haired boys being sold as slaves in the it was a good thing that the Romans arrived— slave market in Rome, and had asked, “Where they were culturally more acceptable to the An- do these people come from?” When told they glo-Saxons. were Angles from then-called England, he was Likewise, it’s a good thing today for an- very interested and said, “ Maybe we should other denomination to arrive if the Christians send some missionaries over there, Angels to who are already in a given place represent a reach the Angles.” Whether this story is true or different ethnic or cultural tradition from the not, at least that’s the tradition. But believing people you are trying to win. Let me give you a as they did that Celtic Christianity was heret- modern example. It would be much easier for, ical, inevitably, he also must have reflected that say, Southern Baptists to win the Turkana peo- if the church of Rome didn’t send their Roman ple of Kenya than for Presbyterians to try to brand of faith up there, those Anglo-Saxons win them. Why? Because the Presbyterians of would become Celticized. Kenya are mainly Kikuyus, who, for many gen- You can see the parallel here, say, to some erations have been enemies and have despised Presbyterians worrying that a more recent out- the Turkana. Therefore, in evangelizing the fit like, say, the Assemblies of God might move Turkana, it is better for some other denomina- into a vacant portion of an area which had long tion to take on that task than for the Turkana been considered Presbyterian mission territory. not to become Christians at all. Unfortunately, In the 20th century it has sometimes been a the Southern Baptists don’t happen to be in- case of a mission trying to move in with what it volved in reaching the Turkana. considered to be a superior theology rather Well, I’m just giving you a modern illustra- than missionaries simply going where there tion of what happened in England in the 500s was no faith at all. and 600s. Thus, for the Romans to arrive with a Perhaps I should also comment a bit more different form of Christianity, which was not on my statement about how difficult it is for all that good but also not all that bad, was mis- conquerors to accept the religion of the people siologically a good thing. It was useful because they have conquered. There are a few cases of then the Anglo-Saxons could become Chris- this. The Romans conquered the Greeks, but 6 – 8 The Second Four Hundred Years (AD 400–800) eventually took over a great deal of the Greek ing to Cypress to get Barnabus due to his culture. It was certainly true that the Vikings, Greek/Hebrew background. which we will talk about in the next lesson, I imagine he said, “Ummmm, yeah!” So took over the Christianity of the people they they sent him first to Rome and then up to Eng- conquered. land. Yet throughout history he is called Theo- But where this has occurred historically, the dore of Tarsus. It was a very strategic move to conquerors were usually crude savages coming send him into that situation because he came out of the forest into a more sophisticated situ- from the East, which the Celts trusted. But they ation. And it isn’t too hard to imagine that they had him stay in Rome long enough for his hair were eventually overawed by what Christian- to grow out so that it could be combed like the ity had produced rather than by the kind of Roman tonsure. faith that the Christians possessed. Coming from his background, he could Let me point out another little missiological now tell the Christian Celts, “Look, I used to technique here. The Romans were not so cut my hair just like you do. I used to celebrate dumb. Remember the surface differences be- Easter according to the soltice of the sun, just tween the Celtic Christians and the Roman like you.” But now, here he is, a respected sen- Christians at Whitby? (By the way almost al- ior, coming from the right place but wearing ways the differences between cultural tradi- Roman garments. The Roman strategists tions come out in the form of tug-of-wars over rightly calculated that Theodore was the kind trivialities.) What were they arguing about? of a guy who would be acceptable to those Cel- The Easter date and the way they cut their hair tic people, mollify them and perhaps even win and the type of monastic order they had. You them to the Roman faith. And he did, to a con- say, “Well, why if they were brothers in Christ siderable extent. This was in the 7th century would they argue about things like that?” just after the Synod of Whitby in 667. When he Well, they were aware of about 150 other little got to England he could talk sympathetically cultural details that were different. Culturally with both traditions and amazingly was able to antagonists, they irritated each other (today we accommodate Roman ideas of ecclesiastical call it culture shock) and latched onto those structure to the dispersed independence of the surface issues, saying, “Ah, these are impor- Celtic monastic centers. In this structural pro- tant.” Practically all the theological arguments cess, the young Wilfred, the proud and often down through history resolve down to triviali- heralded Roman hero of Whitby, had his im- ties which hide much more significant and mense diocese whittled down into pieces by deep-seated prejudices as well as ethnic differ- the elderly Theodore. Sparks flew, and Wilfred ences. had to yield. Now in the situation that they then faced, A possible reason for Roman scholars not what did Pope Gregory the Great do? Here’s a often recognizing Theodore’s strategic contri- major missiological insight. It was an act of un- bution is his suspect Eastern background. In believable wisdom for the Romans to eat hum- fact, after he had been invested with authority ble pie, go over into the eastern part of the em- by Rome, Rome apparently felt it had to send pire to nowhere else but to Tarsus. Tarsus, you another man named Hadrian along with him know, had to be very significant, not only for to England just to make sure he didn’t stray anyone who reads the Bible (after all, that’s from the Roman tradition. where Paul came from), but for those Celtic But let’s not fail to apply the missiological Christians whose Christianity harked from the lesson here. In your mission field you are try- eastern end of the Mediterranean. ing to win people who like everyone every- So they latched onto a monk there who was where have certain predispositions and preju- kind of on the skids, already 66. But Theodore dices. Use a little bit of wisdom as to whom was a good man, a solid customer, loyal to you use to be a missionary to any one group. Rome. note that they deliberately chose a man Suppose you’re working in South India from that end of the Mediterranean whose with a certain kind of a group (and I shouldn't haircut, being Eastern, was the same as the Cel- even name anything specific because I want tic tradition, and asked him, “Will you be the this to be a principle and not a specific illustra- Roman church representative to the Celts in tion). And suppose you are able to discover England?” And they made a deal with him. that there may well be someone from some This was sort of like the Jerusalem council go- place other than America who would be a bet- Ralph D. Winter 6 – 9 ter missionary for that certain kind of a group. like Ghana, don’t get people from France to Wouldn’t it be better in that case to go to witness there. But if you’re in Niger or Gabone, that other country and get the man or woman, well, you better not get all your missionaries pull him in and train him and send him out from the Anglo-Saxon background. You’d bet- there and use him? This was the strategy of the ter poke around in France and get somebody Romans in getting Theodore. And all down who can represent the French tradition because through the history of the church anybody in Francophone Africa they don’t particularly who has any common sense has been willing to like the British or the Americans. We have to try and figure out which cultural terms would use the simple wisdom of the ages when we go make the most sense, be the most acceptable in to win people to Christ. Their predispositions that situation. must be taken into account. Frankly, if you’re in a former British colony

Winter Chapter 7

The Third Four Hundred Years (AD 800–1200)

Each time as we push on to the next 400 Spain from France. Charles Martel had become year period we see more and more happening. a Christian of sorts—rather rough and ready— In this third period, just like in the second pe- but now his grandson was a literate, scholarly riod, you start out with a massive Dark Ages of statesman and an outstanding humble Chris- intrusion of invaders from outside—the “Sec- tian. ond Dark Ages.” This time it is not pagan An- One thing he is notorious for is his treat- glo Saxons but pagan Vikings pillaging newly ment of the Saxons. He was convinced that the Christian Anglo Saxons. Toward the end of only way to protect his territory was to make this period as in the previous period you have the Saxons (still living and constantly raiding again a period of peace and quiet, productive to the north of France where he ruled) into real outreach, scholarship and Bible study on the believers. There was still pressure from the part of the Christian movement in the West, a Muslims in Spain and increasing pressure com- flourishing of faith, in a word, a “renaissance.” ing down from the north with the Vikings. All However, this period of peace toward the the more, Charlemagne—Charles the Great— end of the second period started a little earlier had to keep his eye on unpredictable dangers than the last 400 year period, starting consider- from the Saxons, who were still pagans in Eu- ably before 1100. If you were to diagram those rope and right on the very border of his terri- two Dark Ages followed by the two Light Ages, tory. or renaissances as they are called, you would He sent over to England and Ireland and find a striking parallelism. We have already re- imported thousands of Celtic monks (by now ferred to the Second Dark Ages being the result perhaps quite a few were Benedictines) to of the Scandinavian invasion. As in the First come and set up schools all over his domain, Dark Age, you find a great deal of persecution which included the Saxon territory. He urged of Christians in the early years, followed then the monks not only to teach about Christ but to by this period of peace and quiet called by his- teach the people to read the Bible. torians, the Carolingian Renaissance. But politically the Saxons hated the Franks Although it is almost impossible for me to and refused. They killed some of the missionar- say this because I respect Latourette so very ies, and eventually Charlemagne threatened much, in my estimation, the biggest single mis- them with extermination if they did not get take that he ever made in his writings is that he baptized—at least so the story goes. And he down-plays this Carolingian Renaissance more very nearly did, although thousands were than he should have. Because of that he doesn’t forceably transplanted to the area today called talk in terms of two Dark Ages, as many of the Saxony, in Eastern Germany. more recent scholars do. It has been thought that Charlemagne was But, before we move on into this third pe- illiterate. But some recent research merely indi- riod, let’s speak about Charlemagne a bit. cates that he couldn’t read Latin, Greek and Two generations before his reign, the Mus- Hebrew, or perhaps not the Germanic script. lims had started moving up from North Africa He typically moved around the countryside in into Spain, and Charlemagne’s grandfather, monk’s robes, followed by his (I believe) ten Charles Martel (the “hammer”) had stopped daughters. In his private correspondence, he them at the Battle of Tours, just north of the Py- signed his name David after King David in the renees Mountains which separate present-day Bible and tried to emulate his piety and life,

© 1996 R. Winter. No copy may be made without the author’s permission. 7 – 1 7 – 2 The Third Four Hundred Years (AD 800–1200) even to the point of having more than one ings is impossible apart from the grace and the wife. power of the gospel. In any case Churchill’s is Some historians claim that during a thou- an exciting chapter. sand year period, he stood head and shoulders There is another equally exciting chapter on (both literally and politically) above every the Vikings in a book by Christopher Dawson other ruler on earth. Truly a great man. He called Religion and the Rise of Western Culture. wanted to rebuild the Roman Empire with all Unfortunately, the book is out of print and ap- its benefits but without its vices, thus request- parently hard to find on reserve in the library ing the pope to crown him emperor of the Holy as someone is always borrowing it. But it is a Roman Empire, which was done in the year very outstanding little paperback if you ever 800, the symbolic year when the Vikings began get your hands on it. I hope that Doubleday to invade from the north. But the renaissance will reprint it some day. It has a whole chapter which he brought about in learning, Biblical on the Second Dark Ages; Dawson is one of the studies, manuscript reproduction—all because historians who uses that phrase. The picture of of his importation of learned Celtic and Bene- the Vikings as he tells it is a very ugly and dictine monks from England and Ireland— gruesome picture. And he points out that the worked to preserve to a great extent what difference between the Vikings and the barbar- peace there had been until the Vikings came, ians who invaded 400 years before was in part and he set a significant pattern to follow. because the Vikings were not Christians at all. Starting, then, around the year 800, we’re in They slaughtered the people in the churches this third period with the Second Dark Ages with an almost special gusto. They tore the opening with the increasing invasions of the churches down with a venom that really stems Vikings. Pictures of the Vikings have a certain right back to Satan himself. They burned the lurid reality about them and tend to bring Bible; they did almost everything you could memories to mind. Whether you have any Vi- think of to eliminate the Christian faith. king blood or not, Churchill’s series of books But the Christian tradition they were elimi- called A History of the English Speaking Peoples nating was by then a Christian faith that was contain a chapter on the Vikings which you sitting back on its haunches and taking it easy. will find very exciting. Churchill himself was And in a certain sense—let’s face it—the Vi- an Anglo-Saxon, so he doesn’t have any senti- kings were not the only bad guys. As far as mental attachment to the Vikings, but he does Biblical perspective is concerned, if the Bible have a powerful gift of description. In his chap- had been extended by the inspiration of God to ter entitled “The Vikings” he talks about the ef- cover this period, I would conjecture that fulgence of the gospel ultimately dazzling and God’s true judgment would not fall upon the holding captive these marauding tribals. Vikings but upon those Christians who failed He uses a very arresting phrase in the very to reach out to the Vikings, who didn’t send first page of that chapter. He describes the Vi- any missionaries to them. And because of this, king ships in their sleek beauty and balance in their ease and religious splendor, they even- and gaudy color and ends up the sentence by tually had to suffer the invasions of these ex- saying, “but there was a scent of murder about ceedingly rude, crude and vicious savages. those ships.” He talks about the Vikings as “the In this period a lot of interesting things cruelest pirates that ever roamed the seas.” He happen. must have forgotten about the Carobs, those One of the most significant missiological Indians that terrorized the Caribbean Sea, cap- developments was that in the confusion the tured people and actually fed them in cages lines of communication were cut—what today like animals until their legs and arms were would be all telephone lines and the transatlan- ready to be cut off one at a time to be eaten. I tic cables as well as the satellite communication don’t think the Vikings were quite that de- centers. Thus, it was not possible for Rome to praved but they were pretty close to it. maintain its hold even tenuously upon the Let’s face it gentlemen and ladies, our gen- churches of England. But once again God tleness is not native to our fallen nature. What- brought to the fore a man to salvage the situa- ever gentleness we have is purely the grace of tion—Alfred the Great, the second son of the God. To unsnarl the unbelievable complexities Anglo-Saxon king down in southwestern Eng- of Satan’s power over mankind and the dark- land. Alfred had intended to go into a monas- ness and the distortion of his purposes and be- tery and spend his life in devotion and scholar- Ralph D. Winter 7 – 3 ship. But his brother, after becoming king, was only acceptable language, and Roman Catholi- killed in a Viking invasion and Alfred had to cism the most respectable form. But due to the take over. simple isolation of England from Rome the ver- The most famous story, of course, is that nacular language began to break through in once after he had just lost a major battle against worship. the Vikings, he took refuge in a swamp and Today, Wycliffe Bible Translators would, of from there crawled into a little village where course, be overjoyed. They could have named he asked a woman for some food. Not know- their organization the Alfred the Great Bible ing who he was—since kings in those days Translators instead of the Wycliffe Bible Trans- were just chieftains—she said, “Well, look, if lators. I know at one point they were thinking you’ll watch these cakes so they don’t burn, l’ll of creating a new group called the Tyndale give you one.” I suppose these “cakes” were ei- Bible Translators. ther like pancakes or tortillas—something sim- Now, by the way, they have started five dif- ple no doubt. But even so she should have ferent Bible translator organizations represent- been a little more polite and she surely would ing different Christian traditions that couldn’t have had she known with whom she was deal- all be in the same organization. There’s the ing. Anyhow, the legend says that Alfred sat Evangel Bible Translators, which is charis- there musing on having lost the battle. And matic, and the Logos Bible Translators, which when she returned to the fire, she found that is Roman Catholic, and a couple more whose all the cakes had burned, and she scolded him names I don’t remember, representing Chris- something terrible. tian traditions that couldn’t easily be merged Is that story true or not? We don’t really into the same organization. know. But we do know that Alfred eventually Anyway, the Alfred the Great Bible Trans- defeated the Vikings. They conquered every lators never arose, but King Alfred and his other place in England, but they never really crew did begin translation work. This is in curi- conquered Wessex, King Alfred’s area, the ous contrast to the work of Cyril and Metho- most southwestern part of England. dius up in eastern Europe. As a matter of fact, In the first of the two Dark Ages, the An- it was already perfectly normal for Cyril and glo-Saxon forebears of Alfred had come in Methodius to use the Slavonic language. They from the south, but in this period the invaders, are the ones who produced what today is the Vikings, came in from the north. Not only known as the Cyrillic Script, named after Cyril. that but many centers well fortified against We find here this curious contrast between the land invasion were totally exposed to sea inva- patterns of western Europe—what I have sion. And the Vikings came by sea! These are called “uniformitarian”—and eastern Europe the Scandinavians—the Danish, the Swedish with its permitted diversity—what has been and the Norwegians. The Danes were evi- called “autocephalic, ” which allowed each cul- dently the most visible at first because tural tradition to have its own patriarch and its wherever they extended their domain it was own equally legitimate form of Christianity. called the “Danegeld, ” meaning that’s where The autocephalic type resulted in a large diver- the Danish invaders demanded tribute in terms sity of different kinds of Christianity in the of gold (“geld”) just to go away and leave the East, while in the West you had a single tradi- Christian people in peace. tion (the Roman Catholic). Later we’ll observe But Alfred was able to push them back. that this is one reason that there had to be a Consequently they never quite triumphed over Reformation in the West and there didn’t have the southern part of England. So much for the to be one in the East. Let’s leave the emergence politics and military. of the vernacular in Alfred’s situation. The fascinating thing is Alfred himself. He Back now to the Vikings. For over 250 years was a studious sort of a guy, in some ways al- you never knew when the Vikings were going most like Charlemagne in his religious, schol- to show up. They arrived unexpectedly. There arly and military characteristics. He decided— were no citizen’s band transmitters available in and this was very rash at the time—that he those days to warn the next village down. But would start translating the Latin scriptures and possibly due to the very terror of the circum- the various ecclesiastical documents into An- stances there was another fascinating develop- glo-Saxon. I say “rash” because at this time in ment in this period. Western (Roman) Christianity Latin was the It was the appearance of the Cluny renewal 7 – 4 The Third Four Hundred Years (AD 800–1200) in the monastic tradition. Cluny is now the and to seize their wealth as a political maneu- name of a Scotch whiskey, an angry fact which ver. This as much as any other reason was clashes with the wonder and the beauty and what made Henry VIII into a Protestant. the worship that developed in the original But it certainly was the wealth that became Cluny movement in France—with no connec- the downfall of the monasteries. Roland Bain- tion to Scotland. What is there about the Cluny ton said that “the whole history of the monas- movement which was so influential? tic tradition is the story of their unsuccessful at- First of all, it was the beginning of the flour- tempt to stay poor.” ishing, the renaissance that welled up toward This is why I, no longer a field missionary, the end of the period. It was the beginning of a am still living on a missionary salary and even reformation within the monastic tradition it- promoting in America an organization which self. Things had gone from bad to worse, will welcome any serious believer into its mainly due to creeping affluence. Just as it is membership and allow him the privilege of liv- true today in many of the Korean churches, af- ing on a missionary’s salary. It is called The Or- fluence overtook these outposts of Bible study. der for World Evangelization. This order simply Amazingly, if you give a group of people who enables a person to choose a mission society are godly, hardworking, abstemious, peaceful and to adopt the salaried level of a furloughed and productive time and space, and you let missionary as his own lifestyle level. All the them go on recruiting other people for a hun- rest of his money then is made available, by his dred or two hundred years, pretty soon they own decision, to the work of the Lord. This are fabulously wealthy. Then as a result of seems to me a perfectly logical way to fight af- their wealth they become targets for vandalism fluence. and robbery. You can easily imagine why this I’ll admit that we haven’t had a massive is so. That is why Francis of Assisi many years number of people charging in to become mem- later wandered around with nothing to his bers. I have often thought that while many mis- name. He wasn’t afraid of robbers because he sionaries, to their credit, simply suffer along had nothing to rob. with their missionary salary level, if for any By contrast, the monastic centers soon be- valid reason they could get out of the harness came the place where wealth accumulated. As they wouldn’t feel bound by that type of life- a result the secular chieftains roundabout be- style level. If, however, you would like a little gan to cast greedy eyes upon them. And very encouragement to stay with this kind of life- often these chieftains would simply get up a style, then join the Order for World Evangeli- bunch of horsemen and soldiers and just ride zation. We are trying to combat the difficulty into one of those places and take it over. of staying poor by this approach. It is a con- Maybe one of the these chieftains would put scious reference back to this situation. his son in as the abbot—a curious clash with The Cluny Reform also occurred just at the the tradition that was already there. As a re- point when so many monasteries were being sult, these monastic centers often went down taken over by civil powers that this movement hill faster than they had gone up hill. In other raised the issue of what later came to be called words, the wealthier they became, the more the investiture controversy. While that may be a likely they were to be subjugated. very distastefully opaque term, it has to do Probably the most far-reaching example of with who’s going to put on the garment? Who that very syndrome of wealth leading to down- is going to “invest” monastic leaders with au- fall was what is called the “dissolution of the thority, and thus put on the vestments of au- monasteries” in later history. I’m only referring thority in a monastery? It is eminently clear to it here by way of parallel. When King Henry that they did not think the members of the mo- VIII decided to divorce Catherine, his main nastic community ought to elect their leaders. reason was not because he wanted to become a Would it then be a local bishop who would ap- Protestant or even to divorce his wife and point an Abbot, a bishop who might well be marry again, but simply because he needed subject to the string-pulling of the local chief- money. And the money was in the hands of the tain? Or should it be the chieftain himself? Just monasteries. According to Luther, who lived who is it going to be? Will the Abbot himself about the same time, the monasteries were not choose the new abbot at some point when his valid. So King Henry VIII found it very desira- powers began to wane, as had always been the ble to dissolve all the monasteries in England case? Or would somebody else have power Ralph D. Winter 7 – 5 over that monastic center? power of a local bishop. This eliminated any Now this portrays a wholesale clash be- claim to power there might have been of a tween the diocesan (parish) tradition and the bishop over the leadership of a monastic cen- monastic tradition in Christendom. What re- ter. Secondly, it established for the first time a solved the clash is, in a way, the single largest connectional development within the monastic power play in the history of the Christian tradition. movement. It clearly established a new pattern, Now, what do I mean by connectional? I which is not what it seems to be. For example, just mean what the word implies—that there the Duke of Aquitaine (the area of the first was a connection between Cluny, which was Cluny house) simply said, “Look, I’m going to the mother house, and the various daughter establish a monastery at Cluny and this monas- houses, although each of them had a certain tery is not going to be subject to me or to any amount of their own authority. The daughter civil power or to any local bishop. Instead it houses submitted themselves to the mother will be subject to—well, who? Well, let’s see— house. just like they said they were submitting the pope? Yes, the pope!” themselves to the pope in Rome. But in many I have playfully put it that way because cases they didn’t know or care who the pope in frankly, in what resulted, the pope had no real Rome was. As a matter of fact, the pope at this power whatsoever over the monasteries. It was particular moment was one of the least quali- a sanctified subterfuge. It was a power play. It fied in the entire history of the papacy, an abso- resolved the age-old tension over the question lute scoundrel, a violent, murderous man. of who appoints a new abbot essentially restor- One point we must not overlook is the fact ing to the monastic center self rule. of the connectional development. I don’t want Aquitaine is in southwestern France, in to overemphasize this, but as a result of this those days that was a long, long way from Cluny reform, you now had a connectional tra- Rome. And even at our late date in history to- dition developing within the monastic move- day there is no real possibility of the pope hav- ment itself. And to this day virtually every ing any great influence over the monasteries. monastery in the world in the Roman Catholic But notice, by saying that the pope was in tradition is part of a connectional group. charge, they were saying that the bishop was Such clusters of monasteries today are not in charge, the local chieftain was not in called—in the Roman Catholic vocabulary— charge. See what I mean? This new appeal to “congregations.” This sounds strange to Prot- the pope was a declaration of independence, so estant ears. It seems like every key word the to speak. However, it wasn’t so independent Catholics use, the Protestants also use but in a that it made that monastery a unique isolated different sense! A congregation in the Catholic island. world is usually a reference to a subdivision of The Cluny Movement had tremendous one of the major orders. In other words, maybe spiritual power. It began to find other monastic ten or 15 monasteries in a certain region will be centers asking (so to speak), “Hey, come on called a congregation. over and tell us how you do it there at Coral Then in Rome you have the Superiors Gen- Ridge, Florida, or at the Peninsula Bible eral. The superior of an order who is general or Church. Tell us how you do it, Pastor Getts of leader over the whole thing, over all the vari- Dallas. ...” ous congregations, may have his office in This type of movement caught on every- Rome. Then, because there are so many differ- where pretty fast. Pretty soon two, then five, ent Catholic orders, there is a whole group of then ten, then twenty, then thirty, then eighty Superiors General who live in Rome. Inciden- and then eight hundred other monastic settle- tally they have a committee on missions. I ments pledged their loyalty to Rome alone know a Columban father, an Irishman al- (which meant they pledged their loyalty to no- though an American, who is a member of the body local) and adopted the lifestyle of the modern order of the Columban fathers. He is Cluny movement. This was called the Cluny now in Rome doing his doctorate and he told Reform. me that he hobnobs with the members of this Notice there are two or three things hap- mission committee of the Superiors General pening here. First of all, Cluny established once group in the Vatican. and for all down through history the fact that Well, so much for the Cluny Movement. It the investiture of an abbot is not subject to the is just something to keep your eyes on. Latour- 7 – 6 The Third Four Hundred Years (AD 800–1200) ette describes the Cluny Movement with some before the year 1000 really—you began to see care, and it is worth looking at. In my own more Christian scholars. Anselm is one of the opinion the Clunys went overboard on the idea first scholastics and Abelard perhaps the sec- of worship, which I feel they stressed too ond. Overlapping him was Maimonidies, who much. I know that it’s hard to imagine anyone was not a Christian scholar but Jewish and stressing worship too much, but it does seem who did a fantastic job of fusing the Jewish Se- to me that when they gave up working with mitic cultural tradition with the knowledge their hands and decided just to pray, they were and the philosophical tradition of the Greeks. now parting ways with Benedict himself. I That fusion then gave rise quite possibly to don’t think they did this intentionally because Thomas Aquinas’ work; he’s the most famous in their own minds they were still Benedic- of all the scholastics and lived right around the tines, of course. But Benedict was very bal- year 1200. His work cast a long shadow into anced, and I feel the Clunys lost some of that the future reconciling Christian thought with balance. The Benedictines had a saying that “to Aristotelian thought, just like Maimonides had labor is to pray.” done for the Jewish tradition. The Cluny Movement was established in This scholastic movement wasn’t really the 910. But after a relatively short time that move- Bible-studying movement of the earlier monas- ment itself became so opulent with beautiful tic scholars by any means. These were now buildings and chapels and paintings, and more nearly philosophers than simply Bible everything else, that another renewal move- scholars. But we need to mention them as well ment arose called the “Cistercians.” I have a as the development of the universities of Eu- much higher regard for the Cistercians than I rope during this period. The Crusades also be- do for the Clunys. gan during this period, to which we have al- Latourette says that the Cistercians had five ready referred. chief characteristics, all of which I think are In the final flourishing of this period, “The really attractive. (You can read them beginning Twelfth Century Renaissance, ” cathedral on page 423 of Latourette’s History of Christian- building becomes a fad. Almost all of the major ity.) For one thing, the Cistercians went back cathedrals of Europe were begun during a fad- out into the swamps and started all over from dish fifty-year period—many taking centuries scratch. They were determined not to get rich. to complete. The universities also appear as a They built their monastic houses either in the significant phenomena. But far and away the swamplands or on the steep hillsides. About most significant development missiologically is the only thing they could possibly do to make perhaps the most important—the appearance a living would be to graze sheep on the hill- of the friars. Most of their work is in the next sides and to drain the swamps. They often did 400-year period, which we will pick up on in such things and in the process created vast, the next lesson. huge areas of new and high quality pasture Finally, you should know that towards the land. And what do you know? Here we go end of this third period the Vikings, once they again: after a hundred years the Cistercians became Christians, themselves literally became had unintentionally cornered the wool market crusaders. All of the major crusades were led of Europe. That is the story of the Roman Cath- by former Vikings, the so-called Northmen. olic monastic movement again and again and They had a great perception of distance and again. the ability to navigate and to travel. They also Cluny started at Cluny, whereas Citeaux is still had that lust for war. Even though they the place where the Cistercians got started. The were now Christians, they still retained this Cistercians were a magnificent bunch of peo- rather unfortunate warring bent. As crusaders, ple. And if you want to jot down some page they destroyed many Christian communities in numbers to read about the Cistercian canons their rampaging as well as Jewish. regular, you’ll see them on pages 426-427. The We need to keep track of these major devel- five characteristics developed by the Cister- opments toward the end of this third period cians are really very significant developments. because things are really getting exciting now. One other phenomenon in the flourishing We are heading into the period when we know of this period that I can only refer to in passing far more than we ever knew about things hap- is the development of the scholastics. I men- pening before. And it’s not just that we know tioned previously that long before 1200—even more about things, but because more things Ralph D. Winter 7 – 7 were happening. The population in Europe by is also one of the indirect effects of Christianity. then was four, six, or ten times what it had So much for today. been. And we will see that population growth

Winter Chapter 8

The Fourth Four Hundred Years (AD 1200–1600)

As we plunge into this next period—1200- templative monasteries in the world should 1600—it gets even more exciting. The period open their doors and require every single starts out with the pinnacle of Papal power in member of those communities to minister one the “high middle ages, ” about 1200, and ends day a week out in a nearby town. And I re- with the permanent breakup of that Spiritual member that of the some 400 such houses empire in the Reformation. Barbara Tuchman around the world, very, very many of them wrote a book on just the 14th century which simply ignored the pope’s command. That was my wife and I were reading through recently. my first tiny keyhole glimpse into the differ- She feels that today is another 14th century. ence between what the Protestants think is true The 14th century was the time of the Black and what is the actual authority structure in Plague, a rather ominous time, but as she stud- the Catholic church. ied the 14th century Barbara Tuchman felt that In any case, this period is noted for the the way Europe fell to pieces as a result of the apex of papal power, the tremendous power of impact of the plague was very similar to the the Crusades, the movement to build cathe- falling to pieces of the Western world as a re- drals (all the major cathedrals in Europe were sult of the impact of the two world wars and started within a 50 year period), the university the threat of a third—the rivalry, the cold war, tradition, but above all the emergence of the the fantastic expense on duplicate armaments friars. and so forth, enough to drive every Western In 1210 at the Lateran Council, the papacy nation into bankruptcy, she implied. She finally approved Francis of Assisi and his thought there were a lot of parallels, and I work. In 1205 they had allowed him provision- think there are. She started to study only about ally to operate. Now they granted him full rati- the plague, but then she realized that the fication. They did this for more than any other whole 14th century was just a mirror of our reason because they rued the day a few years time, perhaps. The title of her book is A Distant earlier when they turned Peter Waldo down. Mirror, the Calamitous Fourteenth Century. Too late they realized that that decision had Between 1200 and 1600 there is a type of been a great mistake. Waldo was a much suspension bridge. The year 1200 itself was a tougher, more stable, competent, businessman year of a pinnacle of ecclesiastical power. That John Wesley-type of leader and even though was the year that Innocent the III put all of they turned him down, they just couldn’t get France into an interdict, which means that the rid of him. Francis of Assisi, by comparison, pope obviously had the power to prevent was not the kind of a guy that would, humanly every Frenchman in France from taking com- speaking, ever do anything great. He was the munion. Today that would be no problem at kind of man whose thoughts were in the all. Far fewer would pay any attention. But it clouds all the time. But that made him less of a was a real problem then, showing an amazing threat and control of primary, apparently. contrast in the temper of the times. It also Also, his home base was much closer to Rome shows the kind of papal power that Protestants than Waldo’s. Assisi is a little bit north of have always assumed to have existed, but has Rome, and somehow the powers in the papacy very rarely existed. thought perhaps they could keep him under When I was a fairly young kid, I remember control, so gave him tentative approval. that Pope Pius Xll commanded that all the con- Meanwhile, also in 1210, Dominic came

© 1996 R. Winter. No copy may be made without the author’s permission. 8 – 1 8 – 2 The Fourth Four Hundred Years (AD 1200–1600) down from France, and he saw Francis there in Anyway, these two movements started out the Vatican with only a rope around his waist, very differently. One was anti-intellectual and not a fancy leather belt. So Dominic pulled off wouldn’t go near the universities; the other his nice black belt and cast it aside, and from was highly intellectual and lived within the then on the Dominicans and the Franciscans university world. However, in the long haul, wore the same kind of rope for a belt. How- by looking at each other across the decades, ever, Dominic was a very different kind of per- they eventually began to try to keep up with son from Francis, a tough minded, theological each other. And by now they are very similar. I scholar who was determined to stamp out the think that Campus Crusade, now with its own Albigenses (Cathari) in southern France by the- seminary and its own publishing company, ological argument. He made sure that in every will be moving more and more into an aca- one of the Dominican houses, the communities demic emphasis. They have even planned to of friars had a resident theologian. They also have a graduate university. were the forerunners of the Inquisition. They The point is that the way a movement starts were determined to purify the church by has little to do with where it ends. If you look power and occasionally violence. Their ex- back twenty years, it’s kind of breathtaking to cesses are much overblown by Protestants, think where Campus Crusade might be twenty whose own excesses in controlling the newly years from now. I know Bill Bright well; he and freed slaves in the USA by thousands of lynch- I used to go jogging together at Princeton Semi- ings is a whole lot worse. nary forty years ago. I’m sure that neither of us Francis, on the other hand, was very differ- then had any conception that Campus Crusade ent from Dominic. He was not inclined to read would become the largest Protestant sodality books—like Dawson Trotman, founder of the in the world at this point. It is a very amazing Navigators, was furious if any of his followers organization. I think that some groups have were attracted to the universities—but was sort of looked down their noses at Campus very much of a mystical person whose follow- Crusade because of the simplicity of the ideas ers had no written rules to follow until he was it is promoting, and because of its hierarchical on his deathbed and then it was too late. As a structure. But I urge you not to underestimate result there were many, many different splin- the potential of that movement. Intervarsity is ters in the Franciscan movement even before also flexing its muscles, moving in different di- he died. Today there are about 35 Franciscan rections. There’s a new breath of fresh air in In- groups, most believing they are closer to Fran- tervarsity and today Intervarsity is almost as cis than the others although some basically dis- strong on the campuses as Campus Crusade. agree with him. The only difference is that Campus Crusade is But the Dominicans have not splintered; doing seventy others things as well, and Inter- they are a disciplined, carefully organized varsity is still primarily a campus movement. group—egg heads, would be the term we Navigators could be mentioned as a paral- might use. I often think that there was a certain lel to the friars. Some of them have preferred to similarity between the Intervarsity movement think of themselves as the Jesuits of the present and the Dominicans. The Intervarsity Move- time. That probably is a little bit strange to say ment, with its Intervarsity Press and piling up considering that the Navigators until recently huge, thick theological tomes on all subjects, is have had very little academic emphasis—as al- very much of an egghead movement by com- ready mentioned, the founder, Trotman, like parison to Campus Crusade, which until re- Francis, had no use for academia—but it is a cently did not even have a publishing arm and very fine organization. I was very much in- was more of a Franciscan type of operation. volved in the Navigators in the early days of its By 1250, forty years from the time Francis development. I helped to find the verses for the was given official full recognition, the pope third memory set back in 1941-42. It was very very wisely required Francis to have a written exciting to see that movement grow. In the rule or regula which his followers patched to- house where I’m living right now in South Pa- gether rather hurriedly but was not complete sadena, we met together every week for two enough or soon enough to forestall splintering. and a half years with Lorne Sanny, now the This requirement shows the very practical wis- president of the Navigators. And Dawson Trot- dom of church authorities who actually tried to man was in our house many times as well as help the Franciscans at that point. other leaders in the Navigator movement. Ralph D. Winter 8 – 3

So I have been, by accident so to speak, tually accrued significantly to the organiza- pretty close to the origins of both Crusade and tional pattern, language, etc., of the monaster- Navigators. I have watched these movements ies. over the years and am very impressed and yet In fact, almost every major city of Europe is not uncritical of them. The little pamphlet that a great oak grown from the acorn of an original I wrote called “The Two Structures of God’s monastic center. Rather than vice-versa, this Redemptive Mission, ” which is a chapter in phenomenon is an interesting twist on what Crucial Dimensions, has been bought in large you might call a pure Alan Tippett or Charles quantities by Campus Crusade, Navigators, In- Kraftian approach in which the missionary will tervarsity and Young Life. Thousands and mix completely into the culture without a trace thousands of copies have been devoured by of his own cultural background except for the those people, trying to understand themselves pure gospel invested therein. In contrast, the in history. monasteries totally ignored the outside culture. Back to the historical friars. They were al- And after a suitable length of time, like a thou- ways a part of the church. There never was a sand years, the outside culture came to follow question that they were not part of the church. the pattern of the monasteries instead of vice In this period, 1200-1600, you see for the first versa. time, as I put it the other day, “monks on skate- They were better than just mission com- boards.” These friars were mobile evangelists pounds. Mission compounds are not meant to who went all over creation, all the way to Pe- be self-sustaining, and they’re not intended to king and all around the world. The friars were acquire members from the local situation. If the major mechanisms of Roman Catholic out- you would go to any mission compound reach. around the world and tell the missionaries, Now, the friars are a little different from the “Look, you’ve got to work and be self- clerks regular. This where the Jesuits come into sustaining. You’ve got to provide services the the picture, much later, about the time of the people will pay for, and you’ve got to add peo- Protestant Reformation. By now you should ple to your membership from the locality, ” recognize immediately this word regular, then you would find yourself describing a mo- which simply means to be “subject to a written nastic structure as a mission outpost. And it discipline.” I am not sure whether clerks came would be far superior to the often sterile mis- from clerics, but clerks regular is the official sion compound in more modern history. phrase for an organization like the Jesuits. By contrast, in recent history a mission Every organization since the Jesuits has fol- compound is propped up from abroad by sub- lowed a pattern similar to the Jesuits rather sidies. Therefore, it is inherently incapable of than that of the friars, although every organiza- growing or duplicating itself. It cannot even tion founded soon after the friars followed absorb its own children. Columban went to their organization until the Order of the Jesuits eastern Switzerland and established forty other appeared. outposts working out from present day St. Gal- Once again, there are subtle differences be- len because his mechanism was reproduceable. tween these various traditions—the Celtic Yet it was not contextualized. There was very monks, the early Benedictines, the Cluny tradi- little contextualization of theology especially, tion, the Cistercians, and the Canons Regular, or even of church life. The monastery carried the friars—there is a kind of progression in its own social structure which was exceedingly terms of intentional intervention in the outside durable and not easily corrupted, so to speak, world. But whatever you do, don’t succumb to by the outside world. Rather, the language and the facile, simplistic stereotype that the monas- culture of that monastic tradition eventually teries were simply where people fled to get took over the outside world. away from the world. Even in the very earliest Both OM and YWAM have forged a net- days—by the year 700—those 800 monasteries work in which in all fields local people can join sprinkled up through France and Germany in. This is quite different from traditional mis- were missionary outposts as well as sources of sions which expects to plant a church move- engineering, architectural and technological ment which will be separate as well as main- talent. They weren’t fleeing the world; they tain an unjoinable foreign mission presence were penetrating the world. This is demon- which is not transferable. strated by the simple fact that the world even- I say all this just to balance out the extreme 8 – 4 The Fourth Four Hundred Years (AD 1200–1600) emphasis (which I nevertheless deem healthy off as many people as the plague did. The mi- here at Fuller) on going out and contextualiz- crobes were more powerful than the Vikings. ing everything, becoming part of the situation, They still are. going along with the culture. and allowing that The Black Plague was able to transmit itself indigenization process to grow into full bloom. by three mechanisms: by air, by direct contact, I fully agree with that. I am just pointing out and by fleas that would hop from one infected that that is not really the way it happened in rat or person to another person. It’s hard to be- Europe. lieve how you could ever stop a thing like that. However, let’s step back from our euphoria The amazing thing is that there is no medical about the friars. All this wonderful evangelistic reason why there could not be another out- power moving forward into this 1200-1600- break of this plague. There is nothing we know year period was stricken with a mighty blast of today that would have any ability to keep when the Black Plague appeared out of the the plague from spreading out throughout the blue. I confess, I cannot understand what God world today—other than the caste system in was up to. I don’t see how the plague was a India. blessing any more than sin is a blessing. Obvi- You probably wonder if the plague still ex- ously God did not send sin in order to bless us. ists. Sure! You can find it right here in Califor- The Black Plague came apparently—who nia. Some little kids were playing with a dead knows from where—but burrowed into south- squirrel in a vacation park in northern Califor- ern France, into Italy and advanced by deadly nia. When animals die, the fleas jump off, and waves and eventually killing off one-third to as the kids played with this dead squirrel, they one-half of the entire population of Western picked up the bubonic plague. I picked up a Europe. paperbound book in New York the other day But it killed off nine out ten of the Christian which is an account of a fictional outbreak of leaders, friars in particular, because they at- the Bubonic Plague in 1984. tended the sick and anybody who attended the It seems to me, looking back, however, that sick was bound to die. It’s a wonder that any- God chastened Christianity in the 14th century. one survived who went near anyone who was It almost seems as though the best elements sick. The pope survived. While no one under- were eliminated. I’ve often wondered why. stood the function of fleas as a plague vector, Just maybe God felt that the people didn’t de- the Pope lived for several years between two serve the friars. huge bonfires. Unlike the friars he didn’t go On the other hand, the resulting drastic near the sick, so he survived. There were some scarcity of peasants had the effect of making wealthy aristocrats who fled to their mountain them more scarce and thus increasing their resorts and were able to cut off all contact with wages. Furthermore, not only because of the the outside world for a year or so and sur- plague but because of the impact of the Bible vived. But the people who were in the stream there began to be a restlessness among the of commerce, the ships that went up into serfs. Somehow the sensed that their grinding southern England, etc., carried the plague into poverty was not really according to God’s England, and it fanned out. You can see pic- will. tures in books of the waves of impact of that The result was violence—in part prompted plague month after month—six months now, by the Bible! In England, it started in Kent in six months again later, etc. It swept over Eng- the Canterbury area and swept over thousands land and killed off enormous percentages of of acres. Hundreds of thousands of people people. Social structure itself broke down in gathered in a mob that moved toward London many cases. Some of the monastic settlements in what is called the Wat Tyler rebellion. They were so stricken that the members actually demanded better treatment, actually only rea- went insane and ran naked in the streets. There sonable treatment and very much based on the were all kinds of breakdowns. The demoraliza- Bible. A local priest had a lot to do with it. He tion of society in general was just amazing. coined the ditty, “When Adam delved (dug) This was far worse than any Viking inva- and Eve span (spun cloth), who was then the sion because the Vikings never killed off a gentleman?” third of all the people. In any one place they Because of rebellions like this, long before may have killed off 100 percent of the people, the Reformation the Bible began to be seen as a but they just weren’t powerful enough to kill very dangerous book. The complete Bible was Ralph D. Winter 8 – 5 translated into German fourteen times before tried to go by land but really couldn’t get very Luther’s superb translation. (Even though our far since land travel to Asia was quite difficult. Protestant stereotype is that Luther was the But they finally got there by ship. first person to translate the Bible into a German By 1535 the university of Mexico City had vernacular.) already been established by friars—two hun- Luther grew up in a peasant family. In his dred years before Harvard in Massachusetts. A youth one of the major rebellions, known as new contender within the Catholic sodality the Bundschu Movement, was vigorously system for missions soon after was the Society crushed by land owners. We’ll be taking this of Jesus (the Jesuits). And by 1600 Matteo Ricci, up later when we talk about the Reformation. a Jesuit, was climbing the steps of the palace in The fertility of this period, the confusion, the Peking. This phenomenal world outreach breakdown of society ushered in more strongly through the Catholic mechanisms of the friars than ever the secular Renaissance, a harsh, stri- and the clerks regular had no parallel or coun- dent stream which is glorified by secular schol- terpart in Protestant tradition for another ars but which was a tragic development in couple hundred of years. Just imagine, Do- some respects. There were good things about minic back in 1212 was reading the Great Com- it, but those good things came from the Chris- mission to his little band of followers, the Do- tianity which underlay it. But there were also minicans, soon to become a mighty worldwide horrifying immoral extremes in the Renais- movement. He told them: sance, a harshness and worldliness which may You are still a little flock, but already I be thought of highly by secular people today, have formed in my heart the project of dis- but sensitive Christian insight would certainly persing you abroad. You will no longer abide not give the Renaissance the same grades that in the sanctuary of Prouille. The world hence- secular scholars do. All of this prepared in forth is your home, and the work God has western Europe the grounds not only for the created for you is teaching and preaching. Go political revolt of the serfs who complained you, therefore, into the whole world and about their conditions, but also for religious re- teach all nations. Preach to them the glad tid- volt. And when you put the two together, ings of their redemption. Have confidence in you’ve got the Protestant revolt which was 50 God, for the field of you labors will one day percent a political and cultural backlash widen to the uttermost ends of the earth. against the Latin civilization and 50 percent Note well that this was 600 years before the part and parcel of the religious reform move- Protestants seriously entered the fray! Yes, here ment that was sweeping all of western Europe is Dominic quoting the Great Commission 600 (not just Germany). years before William Carey was on his way to However, the most amazing thing in this India. Now, granted that 600-year advantage period is how the friars tried to go overland to was considerably blunted due to the difficulty Peking as missionaries. By 1492 toward the end of land travel during the first half of it, but in of the period, Columbus discovered America, the second half by sea travel the Catholics en- as every child in American schools is told. That compassed the world. And though they per- was also the year, roughly, when Savonarola haps had a somewhat defective gospel, never- was burned at the stake in Florence, when a theless, they got there and took their form of young law student named Martin Luther was Christianity with them. struck down by lightening and decided to go Then, in just the last few “minutes” of his- into a monastery. It was also the year when a tory, the Protestants with a leap and a bound saintly clergyman named Ximenes, who was caught up to the Catholics, partly because Prot- also a great Bible scholar, became the chaplain estants had something superior. But God of Queen Isabela of Spain—a tremendously im- doesn’t forever guarantee superiority to those portant event. But equally important was the who boast of it. fact that in 1492 the last of the Muslims, who In the 1200-1600-year period, exciting and had been in control in parts or all of Spain for amazing things happened. Probably the most 700 years, were now finally expelled. So don’t disastrous single thing, however, was the vio- forget 1492! lent attempt to convert the Saracens, another In fact, that year also had to do with navi- word for Muslims. This began a century earlier gation, which contributed to missions. Now than the four-hundred-year marker of the year the friars could go all over the world. They 1200. By contrast, in all our previous 400-year 8 – 6 The Fourth Four Hundred Years (AD 1200–1600) periods the major people groups were con- College football team named “the Fighting verted—the Romans, the Barbarians and the Crusaders, ” it might have been better not to Vikings. In this period, although the Muslims have chosen the word to use anywhere in the were a major focus, we got nowhere with world.) them. They were too tough. All the Crusaders In any case, by 1600 Catholic missionaries did was bloody their noses. The missionary had at least superficially baptized millions of methodology of the Crusades was obviously people in the Western hemisphere and in Asia, not the best method to use. and as in previous periods, the final century It is still true today that any organization was one of an incredible flourishing of the which uses the word crusade in its title displays faith. But while the major players were Ortho- appalling ignorance of the most obvious facts dox, Catholic and Protestant, only the latter of history, and in the Middle East today this is was uninvolved as yet in global mission. a terrible, terrible error. (Campus Crusade, for This should give you something to think example, does not translate its name for use in about as you plunge into this period. I hope it the Middle East. As in the case of the Wheaton will be exciting to you. Winter Chapter 9

The Breakdown of the Uniformitarian Hypothesis

The Reformation is at the late end of the same all pentecostals are evangelicals, but not evan- period we’ve been talking about, the fourth gelicals are pentecostals. All evangelicals are expansion. It’s a specialized topic. For us it’s Protestants, but not all Protestants are evangel- germane, because most of us are in some way icals. And all Protestants are Roman Catholics— indebted to this movement. But we want to put you may wonder at that—but not all Roman it into perspective, and we want to make sure Catholics are Protestants. And so it goes. that we get a good clear-eyed view of where it The fact is that compared to the Greek is we have all come from. I suppose there must Orthodox tradition, we Protestants must seem be someone in the room who does not derive like Roman Catholics in terms of our calendar from a Reformation church or a church greatly and our theology and everything else. We are benefited by the Reformation. The Greek Ortho- Roman Catholics in a hundred ways. We Prot- dox have not very greatly benefited from it, estants are Roman Catholics; that is where we unfortunately. But in your own immediate back- come from. ground there may have been some. How did But there was in the Reformation a breakdown you ever get here? We often have somebody of unity, a breakdown of what I would call the from the Thomas Church in India, and they feel “uniformitarian” principle or expectation. I’ve the Reformation is a very recent movement already pointed out earlier that in the eastern compared to their origins, although actually part of the Mediterranean, the Greek, or Eastern, the Mar Thoma Church itself is the result of the form of Christianity, as it reached out, didn’t impact of the evangelical movement on the older seem to feel it quite so necessary (or feasible) to Syrian tradition of India. clobber everybody with the same language and But I should make one other distinction. theological tradition. They allowed for great Whatever you do, don’t confuse the Reforma- diversity from the beginning. Even in Rome tion with the Evangelical Awakening. The there was originally a patriarch, but somehow Evangelical Awakening occurred less than half they had, say, four patriarchs: one in Antioch, the distance between ourselves and the Refor- one in Alexandria, one in Rome, and so forth. mation—it is closer to us, in fact, than it is to The Roman patriarch eventually became a pope, the Reformation. Most of the modern vitality of in the sense that he said he was “the Supreme the Reformation tradition can more accurately be Patriarch.” The other patriarchs never suggested attributed to the Evangelical Awakening than it that they were better than each other; they were can to the Reformation. But I must hasten to all equal. This autocephalic system allowed move back away from that statement by adding for a cultural decentralization of the Christian that, of course, if the Reformation had not movement. Another phrase is cultural self- occurred, then the Evangelical Awakening determination, and this is, of course, akin to probably could not have occurred. indigenization and contextualization. But then having said that, you would have But in the West there was a hard-nosed to say that maybe even the Reformation could uniformitarian policy. That policy survived not have occurred had it not been for the Roman partly because the Roman Empire itself had Catholic tradition. So it’s really an unending had the same policy. The Roman Empire was thing. determined that everyone would speak Latin. I’ve often said to myself, you talk about the It was the language of the empire. When the Pentecostal movement in modern times, that Roman Empire collapsed and Christianity

© 1996 R. Winter. No copy may be made without the author’s permission. 9 – 1 9 – 2 The Breakdown of the Uniformitarian Hypothesis began to function in its very place, do you real- ful in Italy and in Spain and in France, that got ize that Gregory I, Gregory the Great as he is into Germany. called, actually ran the postal system of the But in Germany, due to other factors, it Roman Empire? He functioned as a magistrate. became a political issue. And so there was the When the political center of the Roman Empire confluence of two streams of force: the political went east, and the western part was shattered desire to be separate from Rome, on the one by the migrations (that’s a euphemism), the hand, and the religious desire to reform the invasions of the Germanic tribes, somehow the Church of Rome, on the other hand. These two Church survived. It floated like a surfboard streams really didn’t necessarily have anything above the turmoil, and it was not in competition to do with each other; they were independent with the various tribal chieftains. They could movements. go about their business, but Christianity had The Reformation in the larger sense of the become established as a non-threatening auxil- term, for instance, allows some historians to iary government. speak of the Catholic Reformation (the phrase Christianity began to some extent to function Counter-Reformation will not do). The Roman in lieu of the Roman Empire. They gave out Catholic Reformation was not merely a backlash grain to the poor; they ran almost everything. against the Protestant Reformation; it started The Christian church in Rome and in Western long before. The Protestant Reformation, in a Europe was a very vital municipal factor in the certain sense, is merely one aspect of a larger orderliness of the situation, in a time of tremen- reformation that was going on for a long time, dous chaos and confusion. It was the bulwark both before and after Luther. The Reformation, of order. But finally even the church blinked spoken of as a Europe-wide phenomenon, or out, and the monastic movement was the most at least Western European-wide phenomenon, durable of the various structures, allowing the is not just the Protestant Reformation; but the survival of the Christian movement. Roman Catholic and Protestant Reformation Somehow this uniformitarianism had to have spirit was a movement that ran all across Europe. an end. There had to come a time when this It was a movement within the church tradition, would not work. The classical breakdown— just as much in Italy as in Germany. there was breakdown both before and after The Reformation with a capital R, referring the Reformation—but the locus classicus of the to the Protestant Reformation—quite often, breakdown of this uniformitarian principle and much more correctly, referred to as the was the Reformation, so-called. Now it is mis- Protestant Revolt, becomes not a reformation named and misunderstood. Apart from that, from within a large stratum running all across everything is okay. The Reformation: as far as Europe, but a geographical separation, rather the average understanding of the term is con- than a stratification problem, within the whole cerned, when somebody talks about the Refor- Western European civilization. As a result, mation, they are talking about the Reformation when political issues began to get in there, and of the Roman Catholic Church. Right? They are separation from Rome reared its ugly head, not talking about the reformulation of the gospel and the breakdown of Christian Europe began along Germanic cultural lines. They are talking to appear, people were horrified, and they laid about the correction of evils in the Roman Church. the blame on the reforming spirit, which was There is where the word Reformation becomes as much present in Italy as it was in Germany. a misnomer. They blamed the people reading the Bible, and In the first place, the so-called “sons of the they said the Bible must have something to do Reformation,” the Reformers so-called, were with this. And so they said, “Goodness! If we’re not the only reformers. It is absolute folly to going to dismember the whole Christian empire, think of Calvin and Luther and Zwingli and the Holy Roman Empire, why we’re going to Henry VIII as the only reformers. Erasmus was have to get rid of the Bible!” a reformer, the man who jerked Luther out of The famous stereotype says that the Reforma- the doldrums by introducing him to the Pauline tion was the result of Luther reacting against doctrine of justification by faith. Johann Staupitz, the limitations on the Bible. You could put it the Catholic leader who helped Luther see justi- that way. It’s not true, but this is the way that fication by faith in the Pauline letters, was a some people put it, wrongly: because the Roman reformer. There were hundreds of reformers! Catholic Church wouldn’t let the people read It was this reforming spirit, that was so power- the Bible, Luther broke away and translated the Ralph D. Winter 9 – 3

Bible into the vernacular and allowed people and conscientious, and perhaps a little over- for the first time to read the Bible, and therefore sensitive about his own guilt. It was a monu- the Reformation broke away. Nothing could be mental step to get him over the hump into the further from the truth! They were reading the assurance of God’s love and pardon. It was a Bible all over creation! It wasn’t until political great achievement. They helped and helped entanglements got involved that they blamed and tussled and pushed to get him over that the Bible and started to suppress the Bible, not hump. When he finally got over it, that gave only in Catholic Europe, but in Protestant Europe. him a sweeping insight into the possibilities of The Bible was feared just as much in England reform of the church. He didn’t feel any more as in Italy. You can see those customs men German about that than anything else; this was plunging these long iron bars down through a spiritual concern of his. the barrels of flour to see if there are any Bibles Luther was a profoundly spiritual man, no coming into England, because they wanted to question about it. I’m not trying to make him keep the Bible out of England. Who’s paying the into a politician. On the other hand, when he custom collectors? Protestant rulers! Protestants went down to Rome, as he did because of an burned Bibles by the thousands! They even assignment by his order, the Augustinian Order, burned the Bible translators. Tyndale died before there is no question but that he was turned off they could catch up with him, but they dug up by the Romans. He smarted when they snick- his bones and burned them. That’s the treatment ered at the way he spoke Latin. They instantly the Protestants gave to the people who translated detected his Germanic accent and flashed out the Bible. The Bible was a feared book on both the term tedesco, that is, “hick” from the German sides of this tension between North and South. sticks. Tedesco was a word like our “Wop” or The fundamental tension was cultural, “Jap” or something like that. It’s an epithet. between the Germanic tradition and the Medi- Luther somehow lost his loyalty for that Head- terranean tradition. I’m just trying to sum up quarters of Christendom, and in the process of in harsh, contrasting terms, another view of the going up those steps on his knees and seeing Reformation, which is probably not exact in all the various tourist traps of Rome—the eccle- detail, but which is greatly different from the siastical booby traps to get the money away traditional view of the Reformation. I want to from the unsuspecting hicks from the sticks— stir up your minds a little to think of this in something clicked inside. He was too much of terms of missions. a biblical scholar by this time to be able to gag Let’s go back to Luther. There’s a greater it down, and he stood up and said, “This is not complexity involved, because of the layers of the way to salvation. This is a fraud!” society in Germany. Luther was born into a Rome itself now became just a smelly city; peasant family. In that peasant family, his sym- you could smell it for ten miles before you got pathies inevitably were with the Bundschuh there! Luther was glad to get out of there. All movement. That was very, very viciously sup- the way back to Germany, you could imagine pressed when he was in his teens. At that time him getting more German all the way. Now a he could easily understand what happened, new dimension entered: it was not just a reform and he saw this peasant movement brutally of the church, but it was a German versus Roman suppressed. He, obviously, being from a peasant attitude. It was mixed in his mind. It wasn’t family, sympathized with the peasants. One 50-50 or 70-30, or whatever. But we know both of the things that boiled and smoldered in his things were boiling in his mind. blood was the oppression of the peasants by A long succession of sparing took place in the aristocrats. his writings with John Tetzel. Tetzel had a big Many years later, when he got into the Bible, chest where you put money in and supposedly he discovered the true spiritual response of the got your soul out of purgatory, or the soul of heart to the living God through faith, instead of your grandmother or something. The German through rituals and so forth. This was an enlight- phrase that rhymed was: “When the coin clinked, enment that came to him, not only because of out of purgatory the soul sprinked!” Luther the Bible, but because of a man named Johann saw that at a distance, and having just come Staupitz and others, godly Roman Catholic Bible from Rome, he had had enough of these guys! expositors who lead him and helped him along. He didn’t want to see all that money going Luther, of course, was a rather special person. down to Rome, anyway. And he was not the I wouldn’t say unstable, but highly sensitive only German who felt that way. So there’re two 9 – 4 The Breakdown of the Uniformitarian Hypothesis factors right there: a theological factor and an Charles up in France—he didn’t want him to economic, nationalistic factor. be the emperor. The man that the pope wanted So Luther announced that in the next weekly to be emperor happened to be an East German, discussion, he was going to take up some of as we would say today, to tell you where it was these things. The so-called hammering of a nail in Germany: a man named Frederick of Saxony. into the door of a cathedral and all that drama— Where is Saxony? It is not where the Saxons this was the normal way of posting the subject came from; it’s where Charlemagne sent them. of discussion. There was nothing particularly Saxony is now in Eastern Germany. The Saxons radical about that. It was just like writing on started out on the North Sea, but when Charle- the bulletin board, or on the democracy wall in magne tried to keep them from marauding and Beijing; it was the normal thing, to put up there causing trouble, he finally just went in and the topic you were going to talk about. The thing grabbed them and scattered them all over, and that was not normal was the thoroughness and a lot of them landed in East Germany. That is the comprehensiveness and radicalness of the where Saxony is today, and that is where the 95 theses that he advanced. Most of them were elector, Frederick, was. unexceptionable; none of them were unique to An elector is like a senator, but not exactly. Luther. He is a political power, qualified to become an But there was an incendiary situation at this emperor. The pope wanted Frederick to be time in history. In other words, while many emperor because Frederick was an honest man, sparks had been cast off the anvil, this spark he was a good man, he was a Christian man, landed in a tinder box. The Germans were and he was a man the pope had less trouble under pressure to put more money into Rome. with than anyone else. So he wanted him to be There was an uneasiness all over the empire. the new emperor. I studied the Reformation They were looking for a new emperor of the for many years before I found this out, so you Holy Roman Empire. This is a very significant should greatly value that little tidbit, that the factor. pope favored Frederick to be the new emperor. The papacy was controlled by the Spanish, Do you know why that is significant? It meant the French, and the Germans. Any two of those that the pope was not about to take up arms powers could control the papacy. The French against Luther! How long do you think Luther had carried the papacy off for safe-keeping had? How much of a lease on life do you think over into France for a number of years just he had because of this accidental political rela- before this, and that was a great shame and tionship with the pope? He had 25 years within scandal. The papacy was now back in Rome. which to work, because of political factors that The popes survived by juggling these powers kept the pope from pushing the buttons for the and playing them off against each other. It is KGB or the SS or whoever to go up there and very easy to say that those popes weren’t very get Luther. The pope held them off. spiritual men. You didn’t even have time to It wasn’t that the pope couldn’t do anything. read the Bible, if you were going to try to retain He chose not to do anything, even after the your existence as an autonomous Vatican state. inexorable forces of the Diet of Worms that At first, the Spanish would come in and burn condemned Luther, and everything else. They Rome down and take everything over. Then sent up one of their brilliant theologians, John the French would come in and take everything Eck, who turned Luther’s arguments against over. Then the Germans would chase the French him skillfully. But even after that, the pope out. There were these three balls in the air that didn’t do anything. They did not enforce what the pope was juggling: the Spanish, the French, they had decided. Why? Because the pope was and the Germans. Every time a new emperor hoping that Frederick would be on his side and was chosen for this loose, unwieldy, somewhat become the new emperor. Even after Charles V disunified empire, it was always a great crisis— became the emperor, the pope still counted all far more than simply electing a new president the more now on Frederick being the counter- after an assassination. balancing friend. The Germans were needed At this very moment when Luther was begin- now, to balance the French, who might come ning to cause trouble, as we say, they were and lug the pope off again to some French loca- looking for a new emperor. Of all the possibilities, tion. the pope could see that he could not get ahead Another factor: as time went on, even though by getting a Spanish emperor. And that guy the Bundschuh movement had been cruelly and Ralph D. Winter 9 – 5 violently suppressed in his youth, it became league with the Bundschuh!” This made it very, clear to Luther that he was not going to get any very dangerous for Luther, if he was suspected place as a peasant. He needed Frederick’s back- of being a “commie.” That’s where it lay. ing. As a matter of fact, he probably would have For that reason and others, Frederick sent lost his life if Frederick had not hijacked him his men to hijack Luther on the road back from on the way back from the Diet of Worms and Worms. He’d been given safe conduct to go placed him in protective custody. there and to come back, but it wasn’t going to For Luther, it became more and more clear be very safe, apparently, especially with the that the great issues of reformation and of Bundschuh attempting to affiliate themselves nationalism, both swimming around in his with his cause, an Anti-Roman, anti-establishment head at the same time, could not be cured by attitude. So Frederick took Luther in by force, simply retaining his theological concern and so to speak, and brought him into the aristo- retaining his family background in the fore- cratic world for over a year. ground. Now he was in the limelight. He was During this period, Luther translated the now a famous person, he was on a first name Bible, while he himself was translated into a basis with aristocrats, and more and more he new social world. It’s another misconception became at home among those people. Some- that Luther was the first one to translate the where along the line, though he started out as Bible into German. The whole Bible was trans- a peasant, he ended up as an aristocrat, as a lated 13 times into German before Luther! man who for practical purposes inevitably— His translation was the fourteenth. In fact, the not giving up his Christian faith, but simply Bundschuh movement wouldn’t have been in realizing the lay of the land—ended up on the business at all, if it hadn’t been for a vernacular side of the aristocrats. Bible. This is why the Bible is so dangerous! There was another reason for him to move Of course, those peasants down through the in that direction. Not only were the aristocrats decades had become emboldened by their scar- a people that the pope depended on, but they city. Their scarcity was the result of the Black were the ones to whom the pope was generous Death. Imagine a Europe hardly a tenth as large and kindly, so long as they were generous and as it is now, or maybe an eighth or a seventh, kindly to the pope. But remember the Bundschuh. and 33,000,000 people being killed in the Plague! Call them the communists, if you wish, the Can you imagine 33 million people dying? rabble-rousers who were going to get the people So peasants became scarcer and more powerful. to rebel against the leaders. The Bundschuh They were reading the Bible. The Bible is the was not dead. The aristocrats had killed off as prime mover in all of this. In the Bible they did many of the Bundschuh as they could. But the not see all this wealth and all the rich people’s ideas were still there. You can not kill an idea. superiority. In one case, they brought together a One of the other little tidbits that I bumped upon, document with ten petitions to the landholders, long after studying the Reformation in seminary, to the aristocracy, all very respectfully written: was the fact that the very night when the Diet not a snarl, not a swipe, not an untoward phrase of Worms brought in its verdict against Luther, in it. The final paragraph of this petition said, all over the city of Worms there appeared on the “If there’s anything in this petition that is con- most important doorways of homes and civic trary to the Word of God, we herewith and buildings, the sign of the peasants: the sandal straightway withdraw it.” You see, the Bible of the peasants. Bundschuh: bund meaning pact, was central. covenant, conspiracy; schuh meaning shoe. The What do you think was in that petition? pact of the peasants, the conspiracy of the peas- They were pleading with the rulers to go easier ants, the communists of their time, if you wish! on their taxes, to go easier on them. Sometimes They put their mark on the door, like the hammer in their winter game hunts, aristocrats would and sickle, only theirs was the symbol of a sandal. take a bunch of peasants along with them on What was the significance of that? They were the hunting expeditions. In the bitter winter rising up in wrath and anger that the man that some of these aristocrats would get cold feet. they were counting on was condemned. Their feet would get so terribly cold—how do This was a threat! You can imagine, not only you warm up your feet in the middle of winter? the papal forces, but the people of Frederick of You don’t take out your Coleman stove or any- Saxony were afraid. l imagine that some people thing like that. You cut open a peasant and put even said, “Ah ha! This means that Luther is in your feet inside the body! It will keep your feet 9 – 6 The Breakdown of the Uniformitarian Hypothesis warm enough, without getting them too warm, produced the Reformation. As far as suppres- and frostbite can be avoided. It’s really an ideal sion of the Bible is concerned, the Reformation technique! produced the suppression of the Bible more than But the peasants, who were reading the it resulted from the suppression of the Bible. Bible, felt that there should be a limitation on The Reformation didn’t happen because the the number of peasants per expedition who Bible was suppressed; the Bible was suppressed could be so used. Their pleas to the aristocracy because of the Reformation happening in such were not unreasonable pleas. Talk about the a way as to produce a political breakdown and colonial atrocities of our time: there is nothing war and dismemberment of Europe, and so forth. approaching the brutality and the horror of So it is obvious that the mistreatment of the serfdom back in those days! Bible was not the cause of all the Reformation. The Bible permeated and penetrated that That is one way to put it. I would rather say lump like a leaven, and inevitably produced a that the Bible was the one unrelenting force to Peasants’ Revolt. By the time the second revolt change and to humanize and to correct and to occurred in Luther’s century in Germany, he improve the situation. But, looking back, it’s was on the side of the aristocrats. Being the very hard to disentangle all these things. most powerful person in Germany, in terms of The result, of course, was the Lutheran his theological and spiritual dictums, he wrote Church; also the so-called Reformed Church. in his pamphlets right straight out of Romans Luther was not part of the Reformed Church. 13: “The powers that be are ordained of God.” Idiotic though these names are—I think I clari- And these peasants are to be suppressed in fied this once before—the Reformed tradition every way, shape or form, beaten and stabbed, was that derived from Geneva. The Lutheran and kicked like mad dogs. tradition was different and not the same as the By the time the typewriters got all this typed Reformed tradition. But both of them have been up and in camera-ready copy, and the instant called the Protestant Reformation. printers ran off the copies and got them all dis- The evangelici were opposed to the pontifici. tributed, it took a little longer than it does today. The pontifici were the party of people who fol- By this time, the aristocrats, without Luther’s lowed the pontiff, the pope. The evangelici were assistance, had already killed off 30,000-40,000 the people who became Protestants: they pro- people: garrotted them, crucified them, drowned tested against any kind of sweeping unification them, in the utterly most merciless ways! By of any portion of Europe. They proposed (pro- the time Luther’s pamphlet hit the streets, he tested) that people should be allowed to chose was pouring fire on fire. This did not sit well to be evangelici or pontifici, and should not be with the populace. It hardened the polarization forced. Thus, those who protested the imposi- between Luther and his own background and tion of the pontiff’s tradition were called the the people. Luther was now irretrievably a part Protestants. of the aristocracy. And more and more a German, Strictly speaking, you can’t say that King rather than a Roman. Henry VIII was a Protestant. More and more This gives you some of the complexity of the today, Episcopalians say, “We’re not Protestants.” situation. I am not trying to say anything that is Seventh Day Adventists say, “We’re not Prot- intended as a criticism of Luther as a Christian estants.” In a certain sense, however, the word disciple. He was not only a godly, sensitive, Protestant has gained a larger meaning. conscientious believer, but he was an exceed- As we look back, what is the significance of ingly brilliant and eloquent person, a monumental all this for us in terms of missionary theory? leader, a tremendous person. But, under the It means, I believe, that where you do not allow circumstances what would you have done? the vernacular and cultural self-determination Where would you have gone? With whom in a situation, you will have to expect a split in would you have affiliated? Would you have the church. And that could very accurately be gone with Frederick? Or would you not have called a reformation: a reformulation along gone with Frederick? indigenous lines. Picture yourself and all those tensions and In Africa, more spectacularly than in any forces, and you see that the Reformation is not other place, you have thousands of splits off a simple picture. It has a great deal to do with mission-founded churches, the mission-founded the Bible, but it is not as though the Bible was churches being more Western and European not studied before the Reformation. The Bible than they should be perhaps. Eventually, when Ralph D. Winter 9 – 7 the Bible gets translated—this is one of David the order structure. Reformation will occur in Barrett’s theses, which makes the Bible Society somewhat similar form wherever there is not people very unhappy—it is the translation of an ‘autocephalic’ approach, namely, allowing the Bible that liberates the people from the the people themselves to develop their own bondage of missionary culture, and allows and theological tradition, to read the Bible for encourages the splits of the African independent themselves and to be themselves. churches. The AlC’s of Africa, according to that Now, I’m sure in all the classes here in the theory and many other factors, are the result of School of World Mission, this same subject is the translation of the Bible. being discussed, so I don’t need to add to it. One thing is certainly true: out of some 5-6,000 The fact is the Reformation is that one locus African independent churches, many, if not most, classicus, that massive breaking away of a cul- would welcome missionaries who would come, tural tradition, that allowed for a breakdown not in the name of another church or mission of the uniformitarian hypothesis. society, but to help them read the Bible in We should view it as such. It is not just a Greek and Hebrew. They’d be very happy for curious thing that happened. It foretells the you to go over there and teach them Greek, future. It could have been predicted. It is at peace because then they could read the Bible for them- with many other movements in the modern selves, they could translate it for themselves. world today. We need to study it, because we They would become their own people. can see our hand in front of our face in parallel Isn’t this reminiscent of the Reformation? It situations in foreign settings. took the Lutherans 50 years to finally establish some kind of formal structure for their move- In response to questions: I think that the Refor- ment and then settle upon it. When they did, mation would have taken place without the they merely borrowed back again the Roman printing press. I’ll grant you that the printing Catholic diocesan structure. They never did press helped, but the printing press existed long put the Orders back into the picture, and so the before the Reformation. I’m trying to revise my Protestant tradition lost the arms and legs, the personal opinion about these mechanical features vehicles, for renewal and outreach and mission. of communication. Here’s an interesting thing: To this day, we still don’t know what to do scholars tell us that the average man on the with the mission societies, because the Refor- streets of London knew more about the New mation essentially threw out everything, and Testament prior to the invention of printing merely replaced the diocesan structure, minus than they do today! So think about that.

Winter Chapter 10

The Fifth Expansion

We’re supposed to push on now into the next better to keep track. This is a grid we’re laying period according to our schedule: The Fifth down on top of history. For just vague parallelism Expansion. But we are only going to take one to the two Dark Ages you now have, beginning aspect of this 1600-2000 year period. in the middle of the fourth epoch, the outbreak I must just make this off-hand comment, that of the Plague, which ran for half a century in there is so much of rich interest in all these actuality and then for more than that in its periods that it does seem almost as if a teacher tapering effects. It produced the unrest for the takes a group of students to a museum, but the peasants uprisings that leaned into the period museum is very large. There really isn’t a lot of of the Reformation, so-called. time, the little kids are flitting around and can’t This reminds me of a similar situation later. quite fully understand what’s going on. But they The Second World War was a struggle essentially get absorbed here and there, and they no sooner between Western powers. It wasn’t a world war begin to figure out what is happening, than the exactly, except that the whole world was watch- teacher drags them on to the next section of the ing it on television, so to speak. But while the museum. And they fiinally get out sort of daz- Western powers were locked in struggle the zled and confused by the rich detail of the whole non-Western countries, the colonial countries, situation. struggled loose and got free from the Western You understand that my purpose is not to powers. That is, during that war the French, the stand here and read for you all the little things Spanish, the English, the Americans all began that you can see through those museum windows to lose their direct political control over the rest yourself, but just to get you excited about the of the world. Now, the same thing is true here, museum itself—so interested that you will want to some extent: because of all this turmoil of the to go back and visit by yourself and linger as Plague and everything, the Roman church ended long as you like at any particular exhibit, and up losing control over the outlying provinces. continue to do so for the rest of your lives. To some extent that was the political breakdown Thus, what we need to do at this point is to get of Europe ending in the Reformation—the outer our perspective again in terms of our time grid. provinces began to struggle loose during the We’ve seen our first two epochs, where we dealt confusion and the difficulties of the Plague. with the Romans in the first 400 years, and then Meanwhile, however, the most tragic impact the barbarian tribes flooded into Central Europe, of the Plague, as I see it, is its impact on the blossoming as Christians by 800. Then came friars, the Roman Catholic missionary orders, the Viking period, and toward the end of that which were able to go out across the world. It third period, by 1200, we found a much more was a tremendous set back! I can’t remember extensive period of flourishing. We talked about the precise number, but on an historical chart the Crusades, the friars, the cathedrals, the uni- that my wife prepared, “2000 Years of Christian versities, and the tremendous burst of power. Expansion,” there’s a little note off to the left, It’s amazing how prolific the human being is, indicating that something like 120,000 Francis- when he doesn’t keep killing himself off all the cans died in the Plague in Germany alone! time! But, of course, that flourishing took place Dominicans died, Augustinians died, all kinds after the Viking invasions subsided and the of people died in the Catholic orders. They were Vikings themselves had become Christians (of the ones who tried to help the afflicted. So it was a sort) by 1050. a fantastic set back! I’m not presenting these epochs as being Nevertheless, I’ll read you a quotation from something on God’s timetable. It’s just that Dominic in 1210—at precisely the time of the we’re trying to use 400-year chunks in order Lateran Council, which formally approved the

© 1996 R. Winter. No copy may be made without the author’s permission. 10 – 1 10 – 2 The Fifth Expansion

Franciscans and the Dominicans (the Franciscans Marco Polo story coming into the picture. In had a five-year lead with a provisional approval 1262, Marco Polo, one of several travelers of a before that, but at the Lateran Council they were family of merchants, brings back word from fully approved)—it was that same year that Cambaluc, today’s Beijing, the headquarters of Dominic came out with this statement to his the Mongol Empire, and the emperor there asked followers: “You are a little flock, but God has for a 100 missionaries to come and teach them for you the purpose of reaching the ends of the science and religion! Notice the combination: earth, because He has said that we must go and science and religion. It’s very, very interesting. preach the gospel in all the lands.” It’s an obvi- The gospel has always, always, always carried, ous quotation of the Great Commission. in its very nature, elements other than purely This was in 1210. See, we need to wait from spiritual elements. Don’t ever suppose that the 1210 to 1810 before there really is any Protestant gospel of Jesus Christ is just purely spiritual! quoting that same verse. In other words, 600 Why? Because God’s concern for us is not just years of time goes by between 1210 and 1810. spiritual. William Carey, of course, got out there a few One reason the church persecuted certain years earlier, but 1810 is as good a date as any people in those days was because they were other to date the beginning of real energy in dualistic, Manichaean. Some of them believed Protestant missions. that the Bible was evil. The Inquisitors didn’t Six hundred years go by, in which the Roman have a theology that was all that superior, but Catholic tradition is the only really extensive it was superior. And, much as I hate to see the missionary effort. The first part of this 600-year violence of the destruction of whole towns, and period, running up until 1492—call it 1500— the hunting down of the heretics in Southern was mission effort characterized as travel by France, you have to admit that their theology land. The stories of attempts by the friars to cross wasn’t so hot. It was tinctured heavily with a the steppes of Asia and to go to Beijing, as we dualism and an ancient paganism, which was call it today—the legendary city of Cambaluc of not Christian. the Mongols—all of this is just fabulous reading! Christian insight has always involved salva- You would never, ever turn on the television if tion on a holistic scale, but Christians have not you had access to the reality of that era. Take always understood that. It was Santa Theresa, the question of the four spiritual laws that were one of the most godly women of history, who, written on the sides of the canvas of the travel- it is said, had a little worm that screwed its way ling trailer these friars used! They were all very into her forehead and tormented her. But she mobile, just like the Mongols were a very mobile said, Paul had a problem that he couldn’t cure, nomadic people. The friars would raise this tent and so do I. And this made her more spiritual, trailer up, and there would be the four canvas she said. One day she leaned over to pick some- sides with the four spiritual laws of their devis- thing up, so the story goes, and the worm fell ing on it, preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ out. She put it back in again! Now, that is the in their particular way. What I would give to ultimate of pagan interpretation of God’s attitude see what was on those four sides, what their towards the body. precise gospel message was! So there has always been, or should have This is something you could write a paper on: been, in the preaching of the gospel and the What gospel did the friars preach? What were acceptance of the gospel, elements other than they trying to say? What was their emphasis? strictly spiritual elements. For they exist in God’s We have already pointed out that throughout own appraisal of his own creation, fallen to be Europe there was a great deal of emphasis on a redeemed, not only spiritually but physically. John the Baptist sort of repentance and forgive- See page 656 in Latourette, where he talks ness of sins through faith in Jesus Christ. It’s about the study of the Bible in Spain and the role got to be some how basically pretty Scriptural. of Cardinal Ximénes (Cisneros is just another You cannot account for the vitality, the durability, name for him). He’s the same man who put the patience, the many other virtues of these together the Complutensian Polyglot Bible. The movements, apart from the true influence of real study of the Bible is there during that time. the Bible. Remember the movie on Francis of Assisi, The friars could not go by any other method, “Brother Sun, Sister Moon.” The film ends so they had to go by land. Way back there in where it should have begun, but as far as it goes, 1262—notice how far back that is—you get the it is an excellent movie of the times and the Ralph D. Winter 10 – 3 situation in which the Catholic Franciscan order absolutely fantastic breakthroughs in terms of was born. The thing that irritates me is the fact describing in mathematical terms the planetary that all through the movie they’re quoting the motion that was confused for centuries in people’s Bible, but never in the movie do you see the minds—reducing it to really amazing laws! He Bible. The Bible is totally absent. The whole showed that the time periods of the planets are idea is that somehow God just works like this, proportional to the squares of the distances of and yet the Bible is being quoted—obviously, their axes, and all kinds of amazing things like somebody was reading the Bible. At this same that were explained. Why? Because Kepler, as a time, Peter Waldo was taking the Bible in the Christian, had a Christian cosmology. He believed vernacular all around the place. The Bible is the devoutly that God’s creation would be orderly. preeminent force in all this period! Latourette talks about the fact that the pagan Morris Watkins, who did his doctoral disserta- tribal peoples, with their capricious pantheon tion here recently and whose book has just been of competing deities fighting and scrambling printed by the William Carey Library, shows with each other, just like the Greek gods were, the prominence of the Bible. Remember the found that Christianity replaced all that with a prominence of the Bible in the Irish church: that cosmology of one God of order, and actually bejeweled book which they were constantly laid the groundwork for belief in natural law. carrying and copying and writing commentaries These former tribal peoples wouldn’t be looking about. I think that while the Bible was part of for laws that could be described in mathematical the political banner of the Reformation, it con- terms, if they hadn’t become Christians. There tinued to be a living force both in the north and is no other human historical tradition that con- in the south. ceives of nature as orderly, except that which Someone might want to do a paper on the role stems from the Judeo-Christian tradition. Science of the Bible in the Catholic so-called Counter- is impossible without that kind of cosmology, Reformation. You’d better put “so-called,” which is uniquely Judaic. because I really think that’s the only fair way to Even the so-called Greek science, as some put it. It’s true that the Protestants boast about authors have tried to put it, that preceded the Bible. The role of the Bible in the Catholic Christianity, was a vast confusion, compared movement is more subdued; it’s less officious, to what happened when Christian cosmology but it is obviously there. replaced those deities whose sudden impulses The point I’m trying to make right now is could change nature, and allowed people to that when 100 missionaries were asked for by believe that God was consistent and predictable. that Mongol emperor, Kublai Khan, he asked So, one of the things that attracted the rulers in for missionaries who would bring them science Cambaluc was this other insight into the nature and religion, or faith. I’m not sure of the exact of nature, which came along as a by-product of wording of what they asked for, but they did the Christian faith. They wanted it. There it is, want Europeans to come and bring them science. in 1262. Missionaries have taken science all over the Now you go running down through history world. The largest technical university in Latin to the year 1600, and here is a man walking up America, in Brazil, is there because of mission- the steps of the palace in Beijing, as it is now aries. The largest agricultural experimental called. Who is he? Where did he come from? station in Asia is there because of missionaries. What has he got? What is he delivering? His The vast majority of universities outside of the name is Matteo Ricci. Matteo is simply the word West, as well as in the West, are there because for Matthew—there’s the impact of the Bible. of Christians, and even the emphasis on science Right there in the year 1600. in the Western tradition has its roots in the Back in Italy some years before, maybe 15 Christian movement. Of the five greatest men years earlier, the intelligence of the Jesuit order of science in English history—Sir Humphrey had brought back the information that the rulers Davie, James Clerk Maxwell, William Thompson of China were very fascinated and attracted by (Lord Kelvin), Isaac Newton and Michael Fara- two things: maps and clocks. These were two day—four of these five were devout Christians! things they did not have control over, which Kepler’s three laws of motion were the first the Christians did have control over. Latourette example in human history of the reduction of points out that clocks were invented in the natural law to mathematical description. His monasteries in order to sound out the hours three laws themselves are actually stunning, and then to reduce the regulas into practically 10 – 4 The Fifth Expansion implementable orderly schemes. The clocks had have said, ‘These places are all closed to the a practical goal in mind in those days. gospel. You’re talking about Chinese, Hindus, And the maps, too, were the result of world- Moslems. You can’t get at any of these people, wide interest, based on the Great Commission. so why keep talking about them?’” My answer Prince Henry the Navigator was one of the great to such questions is, “If China should open and scholars of the seas and promoters of navigation, all of a sudden they should want 50,000 Ameri- although he never navigated except from land. can teachers of English, would we be ready?” He was a proponent, a massive, steely, disci- Now, what is it they would want English for? plined proponent of reaching out, who had Clocks and maps! That is, technology from the profoundly Christian purposes in sending ships West! A technology born and bred and developed, out and refining their navigation methods and as only it could have been—among people who so forth. Their interest in the world, the maps believe God made the world and made it beauti- that were being put together also were the ful and orderly. result of Christian concern and Christian faith. You look at the 34 subatomic particles charted You take those two things, the clocks in the out by the nuclear physicists, and you are dazzled monasteries and the maps that would enable by the symmetry and the astonishing wonder the Great Commission to the be fulfilled, and of that. You’re getting to the outer limits of those two things are the key that finally gets human perception when you get into the sub- the Jesuits to Cambaluc, to Beijing. In a Jesuit atomic particles and try to see what God made monastic center in Italy, the command comes to in that area. But this kind of knowledge is what Matteo Ricci’s superior: “Prepare a man in maps those same Chinese want today. and clocks, cartography …” So this young man Well, my answer was wrong. I mislead Pat spent 11 years mastering clock-making and Boone. China didn’t ask for 50,000 American maps and cartography, and then he graduated teachers of English. They have just now announced from the “School of World Mission” and was that they want 500,000! I made a big mistake. sent off to the East! But, of course, we’re not ready for that either. Even so Ricci couldn’t get into China and so If we’re not ready for 50,000, we’re not ready for landed in Macão, which was Portuguese. He 500,000. The 500,000 isn’t all English teachers, stayed there and sort of informally allowed out I’ll grant you. They want them to teach English, the information that he knew all about clocks. French, Spanish and German, in a big mass They had clocks there, which travelers going campaign; but English is the language they are later to Beijing looked at. And they had maps, really emphasizing. More than half of those which they wouldn’t allow out of the room, teachers are to be English teachers. Are we ready but they showed them. So the word finally got to go to China with what it is they want, as well to the emperor, and after a number of years the as the gospel? word comes from Beijing that Matteo Ricci is Again and again after Marco Polo Europeans wanted in that capital city. made massive attempts to go to China by land, It is a very interesting repetition, you see, but the land approach was not very successful. four hundred years later than Marco Polo. In But then 1492 rolled around. Remember that date: his time, of course, they did send a handful of that’s the date when the Moors were pushed out missionaries back to China. They sent four: two of Spain. The next period of Catholic missions got scared before they ever got to the eastern end was to be by sea, and this was unimaginably of the Mediterranean; the other two quit later on. more successful in reaching China! Here’s again Marco Polo’s group did finally get there, but a technological achievement: navigation instru- without the missionaries. Twenty-five years ments, prepared by a godly man named Prince later, John of Montecorvino did finally get to Henry the Navigator, an achievement that Beijing. But by now the Khan who had asked allowed these same people, these same organi- for the missionaries had died. One of history’s zations, to get to the ends of the earth. Without greatest failures to respond! such instruments, they couldn’t have done so. The only thing comparable that I know of Don’t tell me that there isn’t an interplay occurring in modern times involves that same between technology and missions! Here’s a country, China. In a film that we made at the perfect example. But it’s a long and fabulous U.S. Center for World Mission about nine months story, hardly known to Protestants. Protestants ago, we had Pat Boone asking me a question don’t have the faintest idea what it is all about. about China, and I made the statement, “People To illustrate, I brought along a book today Ralph D. Winter 10 – 5 called Observations in Lower California., published Christian doctrine. For example, there are no by the University of California at Berkeley. words to express whatever is not material and What I have told you is the English translation not perceptible by the senses and can neither of the title. It was written in German in 1772 by be seen nor touched, nor are there words to express virtues nor vices nor qualities of Baegert, a Jesuit. He spent almost 20 years in feelings. For example, there are no nouns of Baja California, just south of us here. While that type and only three or four adjectives you’re in California, you ought to look around which could be read in the face in terms of a little . You’ll find a great deal of evidence of emotions: merry, sad, tired and angry. There Roman Catholic missions in our area. Just a few are no terms which relate to social, human miles away from here is the San Gabriel Mission. or rational and civil life, and no words for a These mission outposts were one day’s journey multitude of other objects. It would be futile away from each other, all the way up from to look in the [local Indian language] for the Mexico, like a spinal column running up through following words. Don’t look for these words; they are not there: life, death, weather, time, California. cold, heat, world, rain, reason, memory, These were not examples of the monks flee- knowledge, honor, decency, consolation, ing the world. These people were on the outer peace, quarrel, member, joy, grace, feeling, edges of the face of the earth here in California! friend, friendship, truth, shame, enmity, There was no place farther away from Europe. faith, love, hope, wish, desire, hate, anger, Even China was much closer than California, gratitude, patience, meekness, envy, industry, in the sense of how to get there safely. These virtue, vice, beauty, form, sickness, danger, outposts were not just little private preserves fear, occasion, thing, diversity, punishment, where they were looking out for their own sal- doubt, servant, master, virgin, judgment, suspicion, happiness, happy, reasonable, vation. They were reaching out to the Indians bashful, honorable, intelligent, moderate, pious, and trying to convert them. They were very obedient, rich, poor, young, old, agreeable, obviously in that kind of a business, and this lovely, friendly, half, quick, profound, round, whole book is about that. contented, to greet, to thank, to punish, to be One of the most astounding things in this silent, to walk, to complain, to worship, to book is the culture shock of this Jesuit as he doubt, to buy, to flatter, to persecute, to dwell, looks at these Californians—which is what he to breathe, to imagine, to idle, to insult, to calls the Indians. Probably the most humorous comfort, to live, and thousands of words like thing is his ethnocentrism with regard to lan- these, in general all German words ending in heit, keit, nis, ung, and facht. guages. This is 1772; he should have known better. Long before this, 200 years before this, Obviously, he was not a very good linguist! the Catholic missionary movement had many Obviously, he had not really learned that par- missionaries who were highly skilled linguists. ticular language. What he is saying is just so In Mexico City they were teaching a number of much nonsense! But it reveals to us the culture different languages to the friars who were going shock, the problems, the inabilities. It’s the usual out to the various tribes. Down in Guatemala, sort of clash that took place when people from where my own family lived for ten years, you Europe moved out across the globe and landed can go and see a great set of ruins, broken down here in the so-called New World in the 1500s by earthquakes, the remains of the buildings of and penetrated clear across Mexico, clear over a group called the Redemptionist Fathers. They into California, ran into these strange people emphasized the indigenous languages, using and just could not understand them. the vernacular. We need to avoid the common stereotypes But here in 1772 comes a guy who somehow of our time, even though there are elements of missed out on all that linguistic insight, and his truth in them. If these Native Americans did not whole book is just a diatribe about the stupid have ways of expressing the concepts listed by Californians. He doesn’t say it quite that way, this missionary, how could they reason? The but he really doesn’t think these people are Europeans looked back on their own savage very bright. In chapter 10, he comes to the their past and they realized that there was a time language and he speaks of: when they themselves really didn’t have cities, a surprising and pitiful lack of a great number they didn’t have industry; they didn’t have a of words, without which I believe it is hardly civilization growing up apart from the coming possible for reasoning creatures to converse, of the Christian faith—remember Churchill’s still less to preach to them or teach them the summary. Thus, when they went out to the rest 10 – 6 The Fifth Expansion of the world, they not only went out to the their hands. Now the Protestants are obvi- world with the spiritual gospel, but also with ously not the true Church, because the true civilization, with science, because that is what Church is characterized by its zeal to convert they assumed the people would want. That, they people. The true Church of the New Testament does felt, was part of God’s concern. They assumed not say: “Do not set your feet into idolatrous that if they were to take the gospel, they would provinces and lands.” But on the contrary, also civilize the people. And if they civilized the the New Testament says “Go into the world people, then the people would be more useful. and preach the word of God unto all men!” They could do more things, they could trade This comes from the Latin, to the German, to with them. They could get them to do useful the English, and it still sounds pretty much like things, instead of chasing each other around the Great Commission. Let’s go on. and killing each other, which is more or less the chief pastime of all mankind everywhere, and, The Bible frequently and emphatically demands as it turned out, that was what the people in the of Christian preachers to seek converts. This work of conversion must be carried on in New World were doing before the conquistadors order to conform with the many prophecies. ever arrived. Had they not been at odds with The neglected missionary work on the part one another the conquistadors could not have of Protestants must be due either to preju- conquered them. dice on the part of all non-Catholic sects, or But we can’t say that the Europeans went just it must prove that they are invalid and the for commercial purposes. We have to say it was Roman Catholic religion is the truth. The a double motivation, even if some say it was Protestants, for example … mainly for commercial interest. It is quite impos- Here he goes into another whole section sible, I believe, to make a case for one of these saying, essentially, “You know, if the Protestants two interests as being more prominent than the really wanted to be missionaries, they would other. It’s very easy to say that religion was just really have a very easy time, because they have a technique. But you just cannot explain what complete sea power in both the West Indies happened that way. and the East Indies. They have an excellent Look at this man’s motivation. Here he is, opportunity of carrying out the work of con- frustrated after 20 years, writing up this whole verting nonbelievers in both the West and the book: imagine the stupidity of this man, but also East Indies, for there, as everyone knows, their consider the fact that he stuck it out for 20 years, trade and power is very great. And [now here’s and that he went out there in the first place. a theological barb!] it would be much easier for The only reason he is back in Germany now is them, and they would be much more successful that the entire Jesuit Order was dissolved, and than the Catholics, because as a matter of fact so he has time to write this book. all they have to preach to the pagans is their There is another section of this book we have doctrine of faith. They in fact could permit the to contend with. It is an interesting chapter in natives in the spirit of Luther to practice their the Appendix in the back. When I showed this wickedness thousands of times a day. In that to Donald McGavran years ago, he lifted out the spirit they could allow them to kill and yet throw whole chapter, threw out every bit of the text the gates of heaven wide open for them, thanks of the Church Growth Bulletin planned for that to faith alone.” month, and just plunked this whole section in And then, lest anyone not believe what he its place! Maybe he had temporary insanity or has just said, he now quotes Luther verbatim— something, but judge for yourself. I won’t, of here’s Luther, who said almost everything at course, have time to read the whole thing, but least once—and you can try to reconstruct the you can look it up in the Church Growth Bulletin. context, but here it is: This chapter is entitled “Some Questions Directed Be a sinner, sin bravely, but let your faith be to Protestants and Particularly to Protestant stronger for it, and rejoice in Christ who Ministers.” He says: vanquished sin in the world. We have to sin Although I am writing a report and not a as long as we are in this world. It is enough controversy [his book is primarily to Catholics], that we through God’s wealth and grace have I may be permitted to interrupt my narrative seen the Lamb who bears the sins of the world. and address myself in this chapter to the No sin will separate us from Him, although gentlemen of the Protestant faith, since it a thousand and another thousand times a day may happen that this volume will get into we whore and murder. Ralph D. Winter 10 – 7

That’s Luther making a point! mention of the Jesuits, more recent research I won’t have time to go further into this, but gives quite a bit of additional information about in this chapter directed to Protestants Baegert his contact with the Jesuits. You can see this in a quotes every verse you’ve ever heard at a mis- lighter and very fascinating book called Hudson sionary conference, quotes them in favor of the and Maria, which is ostensibly about the romance Great Commission! He asks: of Hudson Taylor and his marriage. But it men- Where are the great volumes of martyrs in tions his contact with the Jesuits and the fact the history of Protestant missions, like we’ve that, of all the Protestant missionaries in China, got in the Jesuit Order? The results of the Taylor was the only one who proposed wearing so-called Reformation in the 16th century, Chinese dress, wearing a pigtail and everything and from 1517 until now, have been nothing else, and that he got this from the Jesuits! but dissension and devastation in the sheep- Back to 1600. Ricci and company became fold of Christ. The English and the Dutch, Chinese if any missionaries ever did! Of course, particularly the latter, trade in all things in they didn’t ever go on furloughs, or anything all corners of the globe and they will do like that. But there came a day when the Fran- anything for a profit, but they do not carry the Gospel of Christ. ciscans arrived. And the Franciscans, even by the year 1600, were characteristically less intel- He is right. For example, when the Japanese lectual, less academic. They were going to get got so fed up with Christianity that they closed things done quickly, by a process of immediate their ports to all European traders, they didn’t witnessing and so forth. I hesitate to make throw the Dutch out. Why? Because the Protes- comparisons, but there would be some trace of tant Dutch never, ever, brought missionaries. comparison, say, between Campus Crusade In fact, the Dutch even helped the Japanese kick and the Franciscans. out the Spanish and the Portuguese, and even So the Jesuit sees a Franciscan coming, and assisted in the gruesome martyrdom in Japan of let’s assume they were both Italians, so the hundreds of Catholic missionaries and thousands Jesuit conjures up a bit of his remaining Italian of Christians! This went on for quite a while. and blurts it out to this guy coming up the steps, Anyway, the fact is that here is a man quoting and the guy jumps back absolutely astonished the Bible, obeying the Bible, going across the that a Chinese would speak in Italian! Freaked world with the Bible, along with other Catholic out completely! The immediate conclusion was missionaries, during a period of 600 years prior to that these Jesuits have syncretized Christianity: any stirring within the Protestant tradition along they have gone over to the Chinese. Instead of the same lines. winning the Chinese to Christ, the Chinese have We left Matteo Ricci on the steps of the Peking won the Jesuits to themselves. And they even Palace. We have not yet talked about the Chinese allow the Chinese to worship their ancestors— Rites Controversy. Let me just give you a little that is the heart of the Chinese Rites Controversy. peek into what was involved there. The Jesuits So there began a seesaw of power across the got to China first. Matteo Ricci sailed for the years: letters going back to the pope; the pope East long before the year 1600. He was in Macão writing back to China. It took about two solid for some years before getting this fantastic open- years for a letter to go and a reply to come; it ing to get into China. These men apparently was not a very good method of communication. had a School of World Mission behind them Exaggerations were made and all kinds of dis- that produced in each of them a very similar, tortions, as you could imagine, with the two highly contextualizing strategy, whether it was parties trying to persuade the pope of their Nobili in India or Ricci in China or Valignano version of what was happening. And, of course, in Japan—they were all contemporaries—all pope after pope after pope went by, and each apparently getting their strategy from the same new pope had to be reeducated; and the Vatican mood and perspective back in Europe. One of politicians, of course, had other things to do. the things Ricci did was to absolutely master the This little thing finally had to be settled, and Chinese classics. His people knew the literature they finally settled it wrong. Even the emperor as well as any Chinese. They dressed like the of China got into the act and said, “Listen, we Chinese. trust the Jesuits. They understand us. If you deny Centuries later, Hudson Taylor was to run their approach, we will throw all missionaries into the Jesuits. While the official two-volume out of China.” The pope, of course, couldn’t report on Hudson Taylor makes practically no believe that anybody would have more authority 10 – 8 The Fifth Expansion than he did, and so he simply wrote back to the Now I say that because many of our young emperor and said, “Go jump in the lake!” Or people today are displeased with existing something to that effect. organizations. They want to start new ones, or And, sure enough, the emperor of China, they don’t want to have anything to do with very begrudgingly, expelled every missionary organizations. They’re just mad at all institutions! from China. What a major setback! There were Anti-institutional is the phrase. Anything that maybe a quarter of a million Christians by this already exists, any rules that are already laid time in China, and the whole thing collapsed, down, have got to be wrong! The hippies in due to the sudden, very bizarre, elimination of their day tried to start out afresh. There were any contact with the outside world and with 20,000 communes in this country at one point: Christianity elsewhere in particular. Then, of almost all of them went kaput, and almost always course, not for this reason, the entire Jesuit order over the problem of establishing a regula, a way was closed down for about a quarter of a century, of life, a social system. They just couldn’t do it! most of them actually killed off. Finally only a For example—just to give you a little insight handful of white-haired men were left, but that into the enormity of the problem—has anybody is all it took to rebuild the order into enormous here ever attempted to start a new language muscular strength again in a few years. from scratch, without borrowing from any other Someone has asked me, “Isn’t it amazing that language? It is almost impossible to believe that the Jesuits would bounce back so rapidly? Where any human being would have the intelligence would they get all their new missionaries?” I to come up with a new language comparable to promised to say just a word about this. any real language that already exists, if he had It is amazing, but the hardest thing about to invent it out of whole cloth. As a person with starting a mission society is to design the social a Ph.D. in Linguistics, I know how amazing and structure of that organization. This is why it has strange the different grammatical mechanisms been so slow in Korea to get a mission society are from language to language. It is hard to started that really is a tough-minded, effective, believe that there is any common origin what- experienced organization. The structure—that soever. Forty utterly different language systems is what’s precious—is so important, and is so in the world today! By a language system, I mean difficult to hammer out and to define! Once it is a system that groups languages as different as hammered out, well-oiled, and clearly under- Finnish and Korean in the same family; they stood, then it is a hundred times easier for a apparently have the same origin. The Korean group like the Jesuits to bounce back, having who travels in Finland may not realize that fact, already developed the mold, than to start a new nor vice-versa, but linguistically speaking, it so organization that has to make things up as it much easier for a Finn to learn Korean or vice- goes along. versa, than it would be for someone who speaks I know, I’m involved in such an endeavor. I English or Swahili or Chinese. On the other hand, have ninety people now who have joined me at there is no connection whatsoever between the U.S. Center for World Mission. We’re ham- Korean and Japanese. Well, now, for a Korean mering out, as it were, a regula, a way of life, a to invent Japanese, for example, or vice-versa, lifestyle as well as a theology and a strategy. is just unthinkable! The people that we absorb, in a naturalization Okay, social structure is just as complicated process, the definition of standards, and all the as language structure. While the Jesuits don’t hundreds of little nitpicking things that the represent a completely different social structure, conventional way of life has already resolved, they certainly represent an additional set of have to be either borrowed or created, and it social norms which produce a community, in takes time! addition to what the general European back- It’s easy to build buildings; it is not easy to ground provided, and their structure is really a build social structures. We have to take very great accomplishment. It is what enabled them seriously and very respectfully the developmental to bounce back and recruit new missionaries accomplishment of any existing organization. again so readily.