Editor’s Note: This is the second installment in a series on Congregational Missions. From the beginning the postmillennial vision of Ameican Congregationalists lead them to promote the Good News of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth at great cost. May their efforts inspire us to undertake the work of Christ’s kingdom despite the cost of that call.
(c) 2007 by Dr. Phil Corr
In my previous article, I gave something of an overview of the main Congregational mission organization–the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. In this article, I share with you the copyrighted conclusion to my dissertation, “ ‘The Field is the World’: Proclaiming, Translating and Serving by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 1810-40.”
Between 1810 and 1940, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions sought first and foremost to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ. At home and abroad, the Board and its supporters undertook every effort to exhort the evangelical
community, to train a cadre of agents, and to send forth laborers into the mission field. As a leader in the United Front and early federal American voluntary associations, the Board influenced the nineteenth-century mission movement.
Orthodox and evangelical in their theology, speakers to the annual meetings of the Board challenged their audiences to give of their time, talent and treasure in moving forward the global project of spreading Christianity. At first reflective of late colonial occasional sermons, the annual meeting addresses gradually took on the quality of anniversary sermons. The optimism and cooperation of post-millennialism held a major place in the scheme of the Board sermons.
Listening to such sermons and being influenced back at their schools, college and seminary students prepared to proclaim the Gospel in foreign cultures. Their short dissertations and pre-departure sermons reflected both the outlook of annual Board sermons and sensitivity to host cultures. Once the missionaries entered into the field, optimism remained yet was tempered by the realities of pioneering mission work in a different milieu. Many of the Board agents sought–through elenctic dialogue* and opportunities as they presented themselves, as well as through stated and itinerant preaching–to bring the culture they met, observed, and lived in to bear upon the message they shared. The missionaries found the audiences to be similar to Americans in their responses to the Gospel message. Some rejected it outright, others accepted it, and a few became Christian proclaimers themselves.
Indigenous preachers associated in some way with the Board proclaimed an orthodox message, but they further modified the presentation beyond how the missionaries had developed subtle differences with the home leaders. Drawing upon the positive and negative aspects of their own cultures, the native evangelists steeped their messages in biblical texts and themes. At times, the indigenous workers experienced spectacular or unexpected results. On many occasions, little fruit resulted from their labors. Whatever the response, the native preachers worked on–even in the midst of persecution–until martyrdom or natural death took them.
Native preachers and other indigenous people assisted Board missionaries in Bible translation efforts. The very act of translating the Scriptures into a mother tongue reflected a sensitivity to culture and a desire to work within the host society. Second only to the verbal proclamation of the Gospel, Bible translation took place in all sorts of settings: among ancient Christian churches, such as the Armenians; languages with a written language and a written religious heritage, such as Marathi; and unwritten languages among animistic people, such as in Hawaii.
Printing and literacy played crucial roles in the process and efficacy of Bible translation. Similarly, the press runs and literacy presentations contributed significantly to the social involvement exhibited by the Board. To a greater or lesser extent, education, medicine, and social concern supplemented the preaching efforts by missionaries. Schools provided ready-made audiences for preachers. Free, or Lancasterian, schools provided a large number of students, while boarders in missionary homes saw the Christian life proclaimed, however imperfectly, in the intimacy of family life. Education empowered indigenous people and enabled them to develop–mostly later than 1840–their own church leaders and take a greater role in their communities. Board missionaries established some form of education at every station. Physicians were rarer, yet contributed to the proclamation of the Gospel. A number of Board missionaries received a little medical training before leaving for the field. Some, like Scudder, weretrained as physicians but ordained as missionaries and concentrated on the task of preaching. Others, such as Peter Parker, sought to hold in tension the callings of missionary and medical practitioner. Board missionaries neglected neither the educationalnor medical needs of the people among whom they served. Similarly, missionaries inveighed against what their training and background led them to perceive as injustices. None of these actions were viewed as contradicting the primacy of proclaiming the Gospel, but rather as a natural outgrowth of presenting the whole message.
In public addresses and annual meeting sermons, the American Board and its leaders held forth the primacy of preaching the Gospel. Missionaries traveled to other lands to plant the seed of the Gospel in the field of different cultures. Some of the seed took root and resulted in the emergence of indigenous leaders and preachers. With the adjuncts of Bible translation and social involvement, the ABCFM showed that, indeed, the field is the world.
*Discussions aimed at refuting error and promoting the truth.
Phil Corr’s work on the web can be seen at: haystack06.org and fccofcc.com
