Vol. 17,No.4 nternatlona• October 1993 etln• WODlen: An Unheralded Mission Legacy ince 1977 some seventy articles have appeared in this quranic law as understood by its adherents, which demands on Sjournal'saward-winning "MissionLegacies" series. Only the part of Christians a penetrating witness to our common six women have been featured. human need of saving grace. Lamin Sanneh sees in Islam's Why have the contributions of women in the modern mis­ insistence on shaping social and political morality a call for the sionary movement been so little heralded? Finnish scholar Ruth Christiancommunityto reverseits retreatfrom the publicsquare. Franzen, who presents in this issue the legacy of ecumenist and And David Kerr, analyzing Egyptianand Iranian "fundamental­ student evangelist Ruth Rouse, recalls a secular scholar who ists," cautions against allowing such movements to shape our wondered whether women are noteworthy "only when their understanding of the Islamic world. achievements fall into categories set up for men!" Our colleague in mission Sr. Joan Chatfield, former director of the Maryknoll Mission Institute, wrote at length on the subject On Page in 1979(Gospel in Context2, no. 2).She suggested that the roots of the neglect lie in the traditional social pattern of discrediting the 146 The Legacy of Lottie Moon words-and achievements-of women. Recalling the Gospel Catherine B.Allen account of male reaction to the women's report of the empty 154 The Legacy of Ruth Rouse tomb-"Their words seemed to [the disciples] as idle tales, and Ruth Franzen they believed them not" (Luke 24:11)-ehatfield, tongue in cheek, imagines the possible response had the male gardener 160 The Riddle of Man and the Silence of God: been the messenger: A Christian Perception of Muslim Response "Really? We'll be right over ...." Kenneth Cragg Arthur Glasser once speculated that women may outnum­ ber men in the modern missionary movement by as much as five 164 Can a House Divided Stand? Reflections on to one (Missiology, October 1978). As R. Pierce Beaver docu­ Christian-Muslim Encounter in the West mented in his American Protestant Women in World Mission, there LaminSanneh were at one time almost as many mission agencies led, staffed, 167 Noteworthy and supported solely by women as there were agencies con­ trolled by men. 169 The Challenge of Islamic Fundamentalism In any event, the contribution of women to the world Chris­ for Christians tian mission has beenas impressive as it has been underreported. DavidA. Kerr "All Loves Excelling" (the title of the first edition of Beaver's 174 Book Reviews American Protestant Women) is particularly apt for the subject of our lead article in this issue, Lottie Moon, Southern Baptist 187 Dissertation Notices missionary to China. 188 Index, 1993 This issue also gives special attention to the challenge of Islam. Bishop Kenneth Cragg targets the self-sufficiency of 192 Book Notes of issionaryResearch The Legacy of Lottie Moon Catherine B. Allen ike many other missionaries, Lottie Moon left a legacy had organized a woman's college that was to be equivalent in L that paved the way for succeeding generations. But quality to the males-only University of Virginia. Lottie enrolled unlike any othermissionary, Miss Moon left a legacy that largely in this new school in Charlottesville, known as Albermarle paidthe way for the growth of the largest missionary force of any Female Institute, in 1857. Her professors included Crawford evangelical or Protestant denomination. Howell Toy, who later became the fifth faculty member of When she died in 1912 after nearly forty years in China, she Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He would be branded a left an estate of approximately $250 and a battered trunk of heretic and banished to distinction as Harvard University's personal effects. She also left a shining name, a spotless record, professor of Semitic languages. Toy and Moon maintained a and a sterling idea for fund-raising. The Woman's Missionary Union (WMU) of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC)shaped these legacies into the most magnetic collection plate in mission history. With more than $80 million The Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for Foreign Missions is raised in 1992, the annual the largest source of funding for the SBC's overseas missions, involving almost four thousand missionaries. By 1992the cumu­ Lottie Moon Offering for lative total of the offering was nearly$1.3billion. With more than Foreign Missions is the $80 million raised in the 1992 collection, the Lottie Moon Christ­ masOfferingis thoughtto be thelargestannualofferingcollected largest of its kind. by Christians.' After a century of intensive scrutiny by researchers, four­ foot three-inch Lottie Moon continues to stand tall in estimation. friendship, and they may have come to the point of an engage­ She hasbecomea culturaliconwithwidenamerecognitionin the ment by 1881, but the specifics of their private lives cannot now southern United States. Southern Baptists have taken her name be documented. Under Toy's tutelage, Lottie studied Greek, around the world, with Baptists in many countries contributing Hebrew, and Latin. She became fluent in Spanish and French. In to the offering bearing Lottie's name. 1861, just as the guns of Civil War were beginning to sound, Lottie and four other young womenwere awarded master of arts Best Educated Woman of the South degrees. These were thought to be the first masters degrees awarded women of the South or in the South. Lottie took away from school a new life and vision as a The LottieMoon storyalwaysbegins witha touchof nostalgia for Christian. During a student revival in 1858, she went to a prayer oldVirginia.'CharlotteDiggesMoonwasbornin December1840 meeting to scoff but left to pray all night. John A. Broadus, who near Scottsville, Albermarle County, Virginia. She grew up on soonbecame oneof the founders of Southern BaptistTheological the "Road of the Presidents" at a family estate called Viewmont. Seminary, was then pastor of the Charlottesville Baptist Church. Her maternal uncle, Dr. James Barclay, bought the nearby He baptized Lottie and years later claimed that she was the best Monticello mansion after Thomas Jefferson died. Then as one of educated and most cultured woman in the South. the early followers of Alexander Campbell, in 1850 he went to Apparently a sense of calling to foreign missions came early Jerusalem as the first missionary of the Disciples of Christ. in Lottie's life as a Christian. John Broadus was noted for his As a child, "Lottie" (as she was known) earned a reputation compelling appeals for college ministerial students to serve on for mischief and intelligence. She was initially hostile to the foreign fields. Several of Lottie's Charlottesvillefriends agreed to religion of her devout Baptist parents, pillars of the Scottsville go. Broadus would not have thought to direct the invitation to Baptist Church. She may have been influenced more by a highly missions toward Lottie. Southern Baptists at the time had ap­ independent older sister, Orianna. Orianna Moon went away to pointed only one unmarried woman as a missionary and had study at Troy Female Seminary in New York, caught the early vowednever to do it again. To fulfill anysuchcallingin the 1860s, winds of the feminist movement, and was one of the first two she would have had to marry a missionary. But when Crawford southern women to earn medical degrees. Orianna graduated Toy was ordained to go to Japan in 1860, he did not choose a wife from Female Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1857. to go with him. Lottie's girlhood seemedsimilarlymarkedwithhigherintel­ Whatever Lottie's (or Toy's) dreams might have been, the lect and greater potential than society would allow her to exer­ Civil War interrupted. She rode out the war at Viewmont, cise. After studying with tutors on the plantation, she was sent teaching a beloved baby sister named Edmonia and occasionally for formal schooling at the Baptist-related girls institute, which assisting Dr. Orianna Moon as she tended wounded soldiers in became Hollins College, near Roanoke, Virginia. Charlottesville. Lottie's wartime exploits were not as infamous By the time she graduated from Hollins, Virginia Baptists as those of two glamorous cousins,Virginia and Charlotte Moon, who served as flirtatious Confederate spies in Ohio. Catherine B.Allenis President oftheWomen's Department oftheBaptist World The Moon family's fortunes were forever lost, and the chil­ Alliance, a voluntary post for the years 1990-95. She served on the staff of dren scattered to earn their own living. For Lottie this situation Woman's Missionary Union, Southern Baptist Convention, 1964-89 and on perhaps afforded more opportunity than she would have en­ thestaffof Samford University1989-92. joyed before the war. By September 1866 she was on the faculty 146 INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH of a school in Danville, Kentucky, which was a predecessor to International Bulletin Centre College. There she made the closest friend of her life, Anna of Missionary Research Cunningham ("A.C.") Safford, daughter of a Presbyterian mis­ Established 1950 by R. Pierce Beaver as Occasional Bulletin from the sionary to the South. The two women were pious and attuned to Missionary Research Library. Named Occasional Bulletin of Missionary missions. Each tolerated the other's denominational loyalty. Research 1977. Renamed INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH They were eager to improve their earnings, for Lottie had to 1981. support her family at Viewmont, until her mother died in 1870. Also, Lottie wanted more money to give to missions. Together Published quarterly in January, April, July, and October by with hersister Edmonia, she had becomeone of the mostnotable, Overseas Ministries Study Center though anonymous, donors to SBC foreign missions. 490 Prospect Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06511, U.S.A. Telephone: (203) 624-6672 Responding to a Higher Calling Fax: (203)865-2857 Althoughhighlyregardedas a teacher andchurchworker,Lottie was struggling to answer a higher calling.