PRESENT DAY MISSIONARY PROBLEMS.
Every age has its own problems to solve; and so has every department of
life. The problems which belong to missionary life, method and work are
many. The permanence and future success of the missionary effort of the
Church of God depends upon the wise solution of these problems. Nowhere is
this more manifest than in India. In that land Christian effort for the
conversion of the people has been made for many centuries by numerous
nationalities and Christian communities with varying success or want of
success. Unwillingness or an inability to thoroughly confront and master
the deep problems of the field, the work and the people, with a view to
adapting Christianity to them has largely been the cause of the slow
progress of our faith in that land. Successive efforts by the Greek, the
Syrian, the Romish and the Protestant Churches have not been prolific in
marked and permanent results, simply because they have not adequately
studied the novel and strange conditions of the land and the best methods
of presenting Christ and His truth.
We need in India, today, highest wisdom in order to establish worthy
missions, and to conduct them in the right and best way so as to attain
results commensurate with the resources of the kingdom and of the great
King whose we are and whom we preach.
The missionary problems of today are many.
1. The initial and preliminary question as to the right of the Christian
Church to send forth its missionaries, and to establish its missions in
heathen lands.
This question is now raised by many. They ask it because they believe in
the integrity of the doctrine of evolution. “Why do you not,” they say,
“leave those non-Christian peoples to work out their own salvation through
a natural evolution of their own faiths? Let those old crude religions
pass into something higher through the natural process of evolution rather
than resort to the cataclysmic method of over-throwing the old and
introducing a faith that is entirely foreign. Why not let the process of
growth work out its own results even though it takes a long time for it?”
This objection to our work is modern and thoroughgoing. Of course it is
equally pronounced against supernaturalism in all its forms and
ramifications. It would be futile to reply to this by appealing to the
command of our Lord to go and disciple all nations. It is enough to remind
this objector that the doctrine of evolution admits that the highest
altruism is a part of the evolution process. And if that is so, then the
highest Christian altruism must find its noblest exercise in the work of
bringing, by Christians to non-Christians, those ideas and that life which
they deem the best and of which those outside of Christ stand in urgent
need. The highest evolution of our race has been, and ever must be,
through that Christian altruism which will not rest until the noblest
truth and the fullest life are brought to all the benighted souls of our
race. Is not this the last message of evolution to us at this present? And
is it not identical with the last commission of our Lord to His
followers—to go and disciple the nations? And while it is the function of
Christianity to maintain the evolution principle of the survival of the
fittest, it does this by indirection—by seizing upon the most unfit and
unworthy and making them fit to stand before God and worthy to enjoy the
life eternal in all its glory.
Moving a step forward we come to,—
Another problem kindred to the one mentioned—one which concerns the aims
and the results which should animate missionary endeavour.
2. What shall a man or a mission entertain as a motive or as an aim to be
attained and as results worthy of achievement in missionary work?
This question also is based upon and will cover very largely the character
of the work accomplished.
There are two distinct and separate motives and aims impelling Christians,
at the present time, to missionary effort. They are, in the main, an
emphasis given, respectively, to each of Christ’s two final commands to
his disciples upon earth.
In the first instance his last commission to his followers to go and make
disciples of the nations is taken as the watch-word; and this has always
meant thorough, patient, all-inclusive effort for the redemption and
elevation of all the races of the earth.
The other class has taken as its watch-word our Lord’s last utterance upon
earth—“Ye shall be My witnesses.” “Witness-bearing” has become to them the
expression of the Church’s great duty to the world.
There is a great difference between these two classes of aims and motives,
and they are associated with two classes of theological thinking.
According to the former theory the Kingdom of our Lord, under the
dispensation of the Holy Spirit, is to spread in regenerating power and
triumphant efficacy until all the nations of the earth shall come under
its sway. This is a great and arduous undertaking. The planting of this
Kingdom in heathen lands and the discipling of those people until the
Church of God shall have become a living and a self-propagating church in
all the regions of the earth is a work of ages, worthy of the combined
effort of heaven and earth. And this consummation will surely take place.
God has promised it; Christ’s work involves it; the Holy Spirit came into
the world for its realization. They who entertain this belief are
Christian optimists. No reverses can daunt them; no opposition can
discourage them. They lay broad and deep the foundations of their work and
labour patiently but hopefully for the great and final consummation.
Those, on the other hand, who are pessimistic as to the triumph of the
Kingdom of Christ under the dispensation of the Spirit, maintain, with
exclusive emphasis, the Christian duty of witness-bearing. They claim, in
Dr. Pierson’s words, that our mission to the heathen world should be one
of diffusion and not of concentration; that we should bear witness
concerning Christ to the people who know Him not and then pass on to
others, rather than remain to expand, to convert, to train and to
establish living churches. They maintain that our duty is preëminently to
bear witness to Christ, that we have no responsibility for the conversion
of the people and for the building up of strong churches.
This claim that it is the duty of the Church to herald the good news of
redemption to all men as speedily as possible apart from the expectation
that they will accept it: does not commend itself to me either upon
Scriptural grounds or upon grounds of reason.
The idea of preaching the gospel to the heathen “for a witness,” in the
ordinary acceptance of that term, does not constitute a worthy Christian
motive. Dr. W. N. Clark well analyzes this thought in the following words,
(page 53, in “Study of Christian Missions”),—“At the outset, there is one
motive, often, though not necessarily, associated with the theory of
heralding, that must be rejected as no Christian motive. It is often held
that in this rapid work the gospel is not to be preached mainly in order
that it may be believed unto salvation, but rather ‘for a witness,’—which
is taken to mean ‘for a witness against,’ the hearers when they meet the
judgment of God. The hearing of the gospel marks a turning-point, both in
experience and destiny. When once men have heard the gospel, they will be
saved if they believe, and justly condemned if they do not. Only a few
will be saved by the missionary preaching; the elect will be gathered out
of the mass, and the many will remain indifferent. But the blame of their
ruin will be upon themselves, not upon God or the Christian people; and it
is to insure this result that the gospel is preached to them for a
witness. But this is no _Christian truth_. Such teaching cannot truly
represent the motive of God the Saviour. We must maintain that God acts in
good faith in the offers of His grace, or Christianity becomes a delusion.
We must preserve our own good faith also in conveying the offer of grace,
or our hearers will rise in the judgment to condemn us. No allowance
should be made for any such unchristian motive in our plans for Christian
missions, and we must hold no theory of missions that implies it.”
Moreover the view is thoroughly pessimistic, so far as this dispensation
is concerned, and fails to realize the power and the glory of Christian
truth and of the kingdom of Christ as inspired by the Holy Spirit. A
theory of missions which is pessimistic at the core can hardly be a safe
or an inspiring one.
It should be remembered also that missions are not an end in themselves.
They should aim at making themselves unnecessary by the establishing of
vigorous churches which shall become self-extending and indigenous in all
the lands of the earth. The hope of missions, and the hope of the world
through missions, lies not, ultimately, in the missions, but in the
churches which they establish. Therefore they should be well established
and patiently developed. The Church of God must take up its missionary
work with a full appreciation of its supreme greatness and difficulty. Let
it not be supposed that it is called simply to “bear witness.” This
heralding of the gospel of Christ, is only a part, and indeed a small
part, of the great duty of the Church to the world. It is also
specifically, and with greater urgency, called upon to _disciple_ the
nations—to bring them into full possession of saving truth and into joyful
acceptance of, and life in, Christ.
Let us not delude ourselves with the idea that this work is easy, that we
can pass over it lightly or that we have no responsibility for the
conversion of the world. As I have preached for the first time to a
heathen village I have felt that my obligation to its inhabitants for
their salvation was thereby increased rather than fulfilled. There is no
doubt that Christian missionaries realize today as never before the
greatness of the task set before God’s people to _disciple_ the nations.
The obstacles to it and the conflict which it involves seem greater than
ever. The romance of missions has largely given way to sober work and the
rush of battle has been succeeded by a great siege. This is preëminently
the condition in India today. Let us not forget this in our missionary
enterprise lest we lose courage by the way. But let us also remember that
it is _God’s_ work. He is pledged to bring it to its ultimate triumph, and
He will do it. He will fulfill His promise and give to His Son the heathen
for His inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for His
possession.
_This_ theory of missionary work is the only one that has produced, and
can maintain, all the present organized activity of the missionary Church.
The aim of the manifold activities and various departments of missionary
effort, as witnessed in India today, can be nothing less than the ultimate
conquest of that land for Christ through the establishment of a living, an
ever-growing and self-extending Indian Church there.
Let us now consider some of the problems which specially exist in India.
3. THE CASTE PROBLEM.
The caste problem has been, and continues to be, the most troublesome and
obtrusive among all the questions which confront missions in that land. It
is a more serious problem—more pervasive and intense—in Southern than in
Northern India.
This is radically different from social problems in all other lands, in
that it traces its source to, and gathers its authority from, religion. It
enforces all that it sanctions by the most compact and relentless
religious system the world has known. It maintains that men have been
created into a great number of castes or classes from none of which can
they, by any possibility, pass into another. In whatever social stratum a
man is born there must he live and die. It is impious for him to attempt
to evade or to violate this heavenly classification. His interests and all
his rights are confined to that one caste of his birth. It is sin for him
to marry out of it or, in any way, to transgress his natal compact with
it. Neither added wealth, growing culture, a new ambition, nor anything
else can enable him to change his caste. All the forces of religion are
directed, like a mighty engine of tyranny, to bind him to it.
This sentiment of caste, after millenniums of teaching, of rigid
observance and custom, has become even more than second nature to the
Hindu,—it has grown into a sweet necessity of his life, from whose claims
and demands he neither expects nor desires relief. To the ordinary Hindu a
change of caste would be as unexpected, yea as impossible, as his sudden
change into the lower brute, or into the higher angelic, kingdom.
When Christianity was first established in India the problem of the
adoption or the rejection of caste by the Christian church had to be
faced. It was rejected by the earliest Christian community in India; for
we find no traces of it in the Syrian church on the coast of Malabar
today. Even caste titles, that dearest remnant of that system to all other
native Christians in India, have entirely disappeared from that community.
It is a great pity that the history of that victory over caste has not
been preserved as a lesson and a heritage to later Christians.
The Romish Church, which next invaded India, unfortunately despised the
Syrian community, sought no instruction from its history, made a friend of
the caste system and adopted it in all its hideousness. It did not wait to
consider the terrible fact, so patent to all at present, that Hinduism and
caste are convertible terms—that one cannot cease to be a Hindu who
maintains the caste system in its integrity. Its intention was, no doubt,
good in its way. It was an effort to make an easy way out of Hinduism into
Christianity and thus to swell the tide of incoming converts. But,
unfortunately, the path was made _too_ easy; the narrow gate was
sufficiently enlarged for the Hindu to enter with his burden of heathen
prejudices and superstitions, and it soon became the highway of
insincerity and hypocrisy. Moreover, the Romish Church has found, to its
cost, that an easy way from Hinduism to Christianity is an equally easy
path to return. A man who carried much of his Hinduism with him into the
Christian Church was easily drawn back by the remaining old ties and
affections. The consequence is that, while Romanism has made large inroads
upon Hinduism in some places, it has only been for a time; and the
back-sliders have been as numerous as the new converts; so that Roman
Catholicism has made little net progress in India for many years.
This alliance which Christianity made, four centuries ago, with caste was,
thus, a fatal one. It gave also a clue to the earliest Protestant
missionaries—a clue which they, in a weak moment, decided to follow. For,
the first Danish missionaries also made a sad compromise with this monster
evil. I presume that this may be regarded as a continental failing of that
day, when in Europe class differences were great and almost
insurmountable. Human rights and individual liberty were not held so
sacred, or so scrupulously defended, in Europe in those days as they are
in Anglo-Saxon countries today. Otherwise any alliance by the Church with
the caste system would have been an impossibility in India. Even today
some Protestant missionaries from the European continent are found in
India who defend the adoption of the caste system by the Christian Church.
How different would have been the attitude of the Protestant Church
towards this heathenish institution had men of the Anglo-Saxon type of
today rather than Continentals of two centuries ago started its work in
South India! In any case, the attitude of compromise assumed towards the
caste system in those early days has led to interminable evil and to
constant trouble in the Christian Church in that land.
After caste had first found admission as a friend and then was discovered
to be an uncompromising enemy to Christian life and principles, much
effort was made to expel it. Nearly all Protestant missions now denounce
it, root and branch, and preach against it, and in various ways try to
check and to cast it out. But with no great success thus far. The false
step taken at the beginning has cost the Church terribly. Today in South
India more than nine-tenths of all Protestant native Christians, while
they seek an alliance only among Christians, nevertheless marry not on
lines of Christian affinity so much as on Hindu caste lines. It is not
often that we find a man among common Christians who has courage and sense
enough to seek a match for son or daughter outside of the limits of that
caste to which he and his people belonged in Hinduism. This custom is
found not only extremely inconvenient and troublesome to them; worst of
all, it perpetuates, in the Christian fold, the old heathen lines of
cleavage. And thus life in the Christian community is still running
somewhat in the old channels of Hinduism and largely preserves those
social distinctions of the past which should have been buried with them at
baptism and forever abandoned.
Under these circumstances what should missions do? What should be their
attitude towards caste spirit and customs? Through former misapprehension
and neglect the evil is in the Christian Church and exercises a potent
influence. How shall it be overcome or expelled? Some believe in the
_laissez faire_ method. They maintain that, if left to itself for a time,
it will die out, or the general spirit of Christianity will naturally
drive it out. The spirit of caste is not exorcised in that way. So long as
it is perpetuated by marriage affinity, the source of the whole evil, and
by habits of eating together on caste lines, it will not diminish very
much or cease to torment the Church. A century of such waiting, in some
missions that I have known, finds the evil not much diminished. It is only
in those missions where it is attacked and constantly denounced and its
terrible evils exposed, that progress is evident.
That which can do speedy and sure work, in the destruction of this evil in
Christian missions is inter-caste marriage. And through this I am glad to
see that increasing good is wrought. Missions should in every way
encourage and put a premium upon marriages among their members from
different castes. They should teach frequently and emphatically that
membership in different castes does not constitute a prohibited marriage
relationship; but rather does it furnish the best ground for marriage. In
this way, and in this way only, will this wretched caste feeling speedily
die a natural death and Christians come to marry, eat, sympathize, love
and live on Christian, rather than on Hindu, lines. A mission which does
not improve every opportunity to show its hatred of the caste system and
to antagonize it positively and persistently can find no peace; nor will
it find any permanent prosperity. Missions are feeling this increasingly
and are acting accordingly.
4. SELF-SUPPORT OF MISSIONS.
Every mission seeks, as its ever-present ambition, to attain unto
independence from all outside financial aid and a thorough self-support of
its own institutions. We await the day, and believe in its no distant
coming, when a large number of mission churches will entirely support
their own institutions. Indeed there are now many churches, on mission
ground, that have grown into self-dependence and that maintain, at their
own expense, all those normal forms of work that are connected with
Christian activity.
The question is frequently asked,—how far shall missions place before
them, as the supreme and immediate aim, the self-support of their separate
churches? Among missions and missionaries there are two tendencies in this
matter. One class, represented by the Church Missionary Society Mission in
Tinnevelly, place all moneys received from their mission churches into one
fund, and from this fund they pay the salaries of the pastors and
catechists, so far as possible. Bishop Sargent told me that he did not
think any church should be allowed to directly support its own pastor lest
they consider that thereby they had a right to exercise authority over
him! That mission, therefore, and for other reasons also, has relegated
the direct question of the self-support of each church into the limbo of
the undesirable. In the American Madura Mission, on the other hand, the
responsibility is urged upon every individual church to support its own
spiritual instructor; and all rules and methods are directed towards
emphasizing and enforcing this. Self-support thus becomes, in that
mission, its ever-present cry and the growing ambition of its every church
and congregation. And the progress of the Church and of the mission is
largely measured by this standard.
The self-support of a mission, as such, is a question which is not looked
upon with the same urgency, or with the same idea of importance by all
missions, or by all missionaries. One party, for instance, would make
self-support the supreme end; everything else must be subordinated to it.
Nothing should be undertaken, they say, which is not within the means and
the desire of the people to support. For instance, they maintain that the
salary of all mission agents and the support of mission institutions must
be pecuniarily within the means of the Orient and within the limits of its
ambitions. I ought to say that no mission, to my knowledge, carries out
this principle in its integrity, although there are some missionaries who
urge it and proclaim it at all times.
The other party believes that the principal duty and highest privilege of
a mission, as such, is not immediately to seek self-support or to pare
everything down to the capacity of the people to give; but to push forward
the work energetically; with economy indeed, but regardless of expense,
knowing that vigour and enterprise and a strenuous Western energy today
will be both amply rewarded in results and will also set a pace for the
native Church in coming years. They therefore seek the best trained agents
regardless of the immediate ability of the people to pay their salary. And
they establish schools and hospitals and various other institutions which
are altogether beyond the present ability of the Indian Church either to
found or to maintain.
We must not forget that self-support, _entire_ self-support, is possible
in any mission from the very first day of its organization, if the mission
only makes this paramount and has the boldness of its convictions to shape
its work according to the offerings of the people. And there are some
advantages to that method. Many of the best missionaries have often felt
that they would like to try that system in India. Bishop Thoburn, while
maintaining that it would be impossible to radically change the method of
an old mission, expressed the conviction that it might be well to
establish in India a new mission on the basis of complete self-support
from the beginning. This, doubtless, was the Pauline method; and it
operated well under the then existing circumstances in those lands. And
had our missions in the East been established and conducted by the Orient
instead of the Occident they would have had adequate patience to pursue
the method of self-support _ab initio_. But as we are of the West,
Western, our missions must partake of the characteristics of our nature;
and be imbued with that energy, push, impatience for results which
distinguish us in everything. I am sure that neither the churches at home
nor their missionaries abroad are prepared to limit their efforts by the
poverty, slowness and apathy of the East, and thus perhaps delay for
years, or generations, the results which, through the expenditure of more
money, they possibly might reap today. The method which missions have
adopted is the western method, characteristic of our haste and strenuous
spirit, and partaking of the evils incident to that spirit and method. It
is, on the whole, perhaps the best method that can be used and fully
realized by us.
5. MISSION EDUCATIONAL WORK.
In connection with the increasingly important department of mission
educational work in India not a few perplexing questions arise. We have
seen that this department has conquered for itself general recognition as
a legitimate part of missionary effort.
But there is a serious conflict ahead, in the not distant future. And this
is in part owing to the attitude of the Government Educational Department
and of the local governing bodies towards mission institutions. There is
no concealing the fact that most of the English officials of the
Educational Department in India deem mission schools the most serious
rivals to, and regard missionary educators as quasi enemies of, their
departmental schools. These men have recently assumed, and are
increasingly assuming, an attitude of jealousy, if not of hostility, to
mission institutions, chiefly because of their strength and excellence as
rival schools, and partly because of the Bible training which is imparted
to all the students of these schools—a training with which those officials
have no sympathy and which they are wont to regard as an educational
impertinence.
Missions must expect that the jealousy and the antagonism of that
department will increase. It is true that the great State Educational
Despatch of 1854 and later enunciated government policy, declare that it
is not the purpose of the government to establish schools of its own,
except where private bodies fail to do so; and that it is its purpose to
encourage, so far as possible, private institutions. But the general
declaration of the Imperial and Provincial governments is one thing and
the purpose and ambition of its Educational Department a very different
thing. Departmentalists find it to their interest to strengthen and
increase government schools at all points; and as the funds appropriated
for educational purposes are inadequate for all schools they seek the
lion’s share for their own, and grudgingly give an ever decreasing quota
to mission institutions. It will be an ill day for missions when the
Educational Department and its schools will become sufficiently strong to
affect the policy of the general government as against private, and in
favour of government schools.
Another fact, of equal significance, is the attitude of District Boards
and Municipal Commissioners towards the schools of Mission Bodies. Nearly
all the members of Local Boards are native gentlemen. They see the large
influence of mission schools, scattered as they are through their
districts and towns, and they regard them as Christian propaganda and as
evangelizing agencies; and it is but natural that, under the impulse of
their new nationalism and of their interest in a Neo-Hinduism, they should
be jealous of mission schools which are the rivals of their own indigenous
and growing institutions. And as they have the power of the purse and make
and withhold grants to different schools at their pleasure; and as all the
subordinate officers of the Educational Department are natives and are not
in full sympathy with mission schools; it can be easily seen how our
schools are doomed to suffer through an ever decreasing government aid
towards their support.
Thus, there are two problems, in this connection, which will confront us.
One is the question whether it be worth while for missions to conduct
their schools entirely at their own expense, _i.e._—without any government
aid. This problem must be faced ere long; and it means either the
curtailing of this department of work or the expending of a very much
increased sum of money upon it.
The question may also be urged upon us, more speedily than we anticipate
(indeed it has been raised already), whether any schools aided by
government shall be allowed to be used as religious propaganda. In other
words, whether mission schools shall enjoy the privilege of teaching the
Bible to all non-Christian students in attendance, even against their
will. This question is exercising the mind of not a few natives and others
today; and it is claimed that the present practice is contrary to the
Royal Proclamation of Religious Neutrality in the land. There is some
reason for this contention; and, under increasing religious rivalry and
jealousy, it may, at an early date, lead to a crisis in mission schools.
And the problem may confront us as to whether we are prepared to continue
all our schools for non-Christians under conditions which make it
impossible for us to give Bible, or even any religious, training in them.
Another serious problem, in this same connection, is whether missions
should conduct, to any extent, educational work apart from other indirect
aims and purposes. In other words, how far, if at all, should a mission
give itself to the work of education, _per se_, and not as a Christian
training or as an evangelizing agency.
Many at present maintain that education—_general_ education—is in itself a
good and a blessing which it is the business of a mission to impart,
independent of any direct religious instruction or spiritual training
which might be given through it. They maintain that mission funds should
thus be used for the intellectual advancement of the people apart from
their Christianization. The majority, however, would claim that a
mission’s educational work should be conducted only so far as it can be
the medium of communicating religious truth, or only in so far as it can
be made a direct auxiliary to the Christianizing of the land. This class
would claim that no work should be undertaken by a mission which does not
contribute to the Christianizing of the people as a result distinct from
their progress in civilization. And it is here that these two classes of
missionaries take issue with each other. It is an important difference in
the conception of the Church’s work in heathen lands. As I shall consider
this later I only call attention to it here.
Another matter, of no little consequence in this connection, is that of
the amount of educational privilege which a mission should furnish to its
people. President Stanley Hall has recently maintained that, even in this
country, many are educated who should not be. They should, he says, be
left to the hoe and shovel. He claims that not a few are, through
education, spoiled for usefulness in the lowest sphere of manual labour
for which they were by nature designed; while they are also disqualified
for the highest sphere of service and life. If this be true in America it
is doubly true in India. Many young men and women in that land have had
lavished upon them the blessings of education to an extent that was
unprofitable both to them and to the cause. They have received an
education and training which not only carried them away far outside the
social realm for which they were intended by nature; it also left them
incapable of doing the higher thing for which they were intended by the
mission.
There is adequate excuse for this in the early stages of mission progress.
The greatest need of a mission is a good, strong, native agency. And in
its desire to furnish this agency the mission, as well as the individual
missionary, eagerly seizes upon every boy and girl who shows any signs of
promise as an applicant to be trained for missionary service. This same
ambition to develop, in intellectual power and in civilizing progress, the
young of an infant Christian community so that they may adorn our faith
and give an honourable status to the community leads many a mission to
expend upon the education of its boys and girls more than it will in its
later and more mature stage of growth.
6. THE INDUSTRIAL AND ECONOMIC PROBLEM.
During the last two decades there has been a marked and strong tendency in
Indian missions, as in the home churches which support them, to still
broaden the scope of missionary effort by adding to its directly
spiritual, and to its educational and medical, work, schemes for the
industrial, economic and social advancement of the people. This broadening
of the conception of the work of the Church in missionary lands is a most
interesting study. Less than a century ago nothing that was not directly
and intensely spiritual in its character was regarded as, in any sense, a
part of missionary effort. To preach the Gospel to the heathen, to
establish and to train Christian churches and to develop and direct a
suitable native agency—this embraced the whole work of the mission.
Anything beyond this was considered illegitimate. Subsequently the medical
department was introduced,—chiefly because of the example of Christ
Himself as the Great Healer. Soon the educational work was begun, as a
necessity in its elementary stages, and it gradually grew until it has
reached its present manifold character and large proportions. Then a few
missions began to touch the industrial problem and to establish schools
for the training of boys and girls in manual labour. Today that work is
finding much increased emphasis, and missions are beginning to take up, in
all seriousness, Peasant Settlements as a means of lifting the people
economically, and of training them to habits of industry, and to found
villages as separate Christian communities. Schools for the blind and for
deaf mutes also have been established. In fact all forms of philanthropic
effort have now practically been adopted by the missions of India as
legitimate forms of their activities. Indeed, it is extensively
proclaimed, what has long been strenuously denied, that missions are not
founded simply to Christianize but to civilize and to elevate in all
matters pertaining to soul, mind and body, the people among whom they are
established.
This is a broad question and an issue of fundamental importance. It
belongs to the very concept of missions and is largely a question of aim
and purpose. The trend of the times is doubtless in favour of the broader,
humanitarian, philanthropic, civilizing purpose of missions as against the
deeper and more exclusive, spiritual and Christianizing end.
It seems to me to be a question whether missions are ready for this
change.
It is also a very serious problem whether, in the mission field, this
modern tendency to extend and broaden out is of the spirit of Christ and
is a passion to do good unto men in every department and sphere of their
life; or whether it is a degeneracy—a drifting away from the lofty and
exclusive purpose of soul-winning and soul-saving down towards the lower
plane of earthly blessing and general philanthropy. There is certainly a
sense in which this widening of missionary endeavour is a part of the
broadening of the Christian life of today and is in harmony with the
multiplication of the agencies of the Church at home for the general
betterment of the people and for preparing them for the highest blessings
of our faith; and as such it is both commendable and encouraging.
On the other hand I know of no temptation that is pregnant with greater
evil to missions, at the present time, than that connected with this
multiplication of what may be called the lower activities of missions. The
spiritual work of a mission must ever remain its principal work if it is
to succeed in the highest sense. It is also the most difficult work. It
bears with it, often, serious discouragement to the worker. And in times
of discouragement it is a very easy thing for a missionary, and for a
mission, to relax effort at this point and, as a compensation, to seek
larger results on the lower planes of social and industrial activities and
humanitarian and philanthropic effort. These lower forms of activity are
exceedingly absorbing and distracting; and when a mission enters
extensively into them it usually means, and, I would almost say,
_necessarily_ means, a withdrawal of time and energy and of interest from
its highest spiritual work. A man or a mission has only a certain amount
of strength and money to devote to his work; and if this is increasingly
and extensively expended upon the lower forms of philanthropic effort, the
higher, spiritual purposes and endeavors must suffer.
The Basle Lutheran Mission of South India has done more industrial work
than any other mission of that land. But the industrial department grew so
rapidly and became so absorbing that it was found necessary to make a
separate “mission” of it. It has flourished as a commercial enterprise and
is self-supporting. But the leader of that mission informs me that its
blessings are questionable, in that it tends to demoralize the people and
renders little or no aid to their spiritual work.
While I believe that a certain amount of endeavour, by a mission, for the
temporal good and social betterment of its people is legitimate and
desirable, extreme care should be taken, in the present early stage of
progress, lest this form of activity become prominent or dominant; and,
above all, lest it, in any way, interfere with the conviction concerning
the supreme importance and prime urgency of the spiritual training and
growth of the people. This class of work can very easily, by changing the
people’s ideas of a mission’s aim and purpose, demoralize them. It can
also, with equally fatal facility, transfer the interest of the missionary
from the higher to the lower realm of work, and thus become a curse,
rather than a blessing, to him. If the work of missions is to be broadened
the greatest care must be exercised lest this breadth be secured at the
expense of depth of spiritual purpose and power, and height of spiritual
life and experience. I must confess that this new movement, in the present
stage of the progress of missions, brings to me as much fear as it does
hope. For, while I see reason for taking up such work, I know also the
demoralizing influences that so naturally and easily follow it. A mission
that allows itself to be secularized, by giving too much emphasis to these
social and civilizing agencies, becomes inevitably paralyzed as a
spiritual force in its field; and woe be to any mission that gains
anything at the expense of its spiritual paralysis.
7. MISSION ADMINISTRATION.
The question of administration is an exceedingly important one to every
mission. How wisely are our missions organized for large economy of money
and effort and for highest efficiency? Could not missions unite, for
mutual counsel and wisdom, as many officers of our societies at home now
do; could not missions learn more from one another in this most important
respect? The annual expenditure of more than one million dollars on
mission work in South India alone is in itself a large trust which
requires great care and breadth of wisdom. Hitherto not much has been done
by the many missions of India to learn from one another the wisest methods
of administration. There is remarkable diversity and even contrast among
those missions in the methods of conducting their work and in the
administration of their affairs. This is, in no small part, due to the
different peculiarities of the several nationalities which conduct the
missions; it is also in part due to their denominational affinities. But,
by growing familiarity with one another’s methods and by more appreciative
study of the same, much could be learned by these missions which would
tend to increasing uniformity of administrative method, efficiency of work
and abundance of results.
Another question of perennial interest, in this connection, is that of the
extent to which native Christians should be allowed to participate in the
administration of the affairs of a mission. The training of some of the
highest members of the native Christian community in the responsibility of
missionary administration is a serious duty of every mission. The day must
come when the whole administration of the Christian work carried on by
missions will be in the hands of the native community itself—when
missions, as such, shall have accomplished their work and shall be
disbanded. What is being done by our missions today to make that
consummation possible and desirable at the earliest moment? Most missions
maintain that Indians should have nothing to do with the administration of
_foreign_ funds. Is this a wise position to take? Is it consonant with the
best training of the highest native Christians for future control? In
other words, what administrative preparation is being made by the mission
for the incoming of an indigenous, self-governing Church?
It is true that Indian Christians will not, for a long time, be able to
render much assistance to the missions in this line. But if they are to
be, at any future time, capable of undertaking the responsibility of the
work they must be trained for it; and this training must be conducted with
patience by the mission. If they are now wanting in independence and poise
of character and breadth of horizon, these can come to them only through
an extended training. And it is the duty of missions to give this training
to them.
There is danger that missions cling too tenaciously to their right to
rule. Power is sweet to the missionary no less than to other men.
I am glad to say that progress is made by missions in this matter. Slowly
but surely the native Christian is entering into their counsels and is
finding increasing opportunity and responsibility there.
8. PROBLEMS CONCERNING NEW CONVERTS.
There are many interesting and important questions connected with the
reception of new converts into the Christian fold in India. Some of these
have a growing interest to the Cause and have found an important place in
missionary discussion. I shall refer to only a few of them.
(_a_) _Shall polygamous converts be received into the Christian Church?_
In Hinduism polygamy (more especially, bigamy) is not uncommon. It is
permitted and indeed fostered by that faith and is legalized by the laws
of the country. As our faith makes increasing inroads upon that religion,
numbers, and yet never a large number, of those who have two or more wives
will accept our teaching and, with all earnestness, seek admission into
our Christian communion. What shall we say to such? How shall we meet them
and their desire? This question has, in a few cases, been sent to the
societies at home, the missions seeking from them advice and guidance.
From America the instruction has been received against receiving any such
into the Christian Church. This is natural enough from a country which is
confronted by the Mormon question. But the problem has its Eastern bearing
which is not understood in the West and which has led missionary bodies in
India almost invariably to decide in favour of receiving such into the
Christian fold.
In the consideration of the problem many things must be kept in mind. None
more important than the claims to a cordial welcome from the Church of any
man who, in true faith and Christian earnestness, seeks admittance. If it
be demanded of the man that he put away all but one of those wives taken
in heathenism; then we ask whether it is Christian, or even just, to cast
away one to whom he was solemnly and religiously pledged according to the
laws of the land and with whom he has been linked in love and harmony for
years and from whom he has begotten children? And if he is to put away one
or more of his wives, which one shall it be? Shall it be the first wife?
Certainly that would not be Christian. Or shall it be the second wife who
is the mother of his children and whom he probably married at the request
of the first, who was childless, in order that he might raise seed unto
himself? It is not easy, on Christian grounds, to decide such a problem as
this; nor is it very Christian to put a ban upon any woman who, in
accordance with their religion and their country’s laws, has formed this
sacred alliance with a man and has lived with him for years. Nor can it be
right to brand with illegitimacy the children born of such a wedlock.
I would not allow such persons, received into the Christian Church, to
become officers of the Church. But I cannot see why there may not be an
humble place in the Church of God for such and their families.
(_b_) _Should the baptism of a person, in any case, immediately follow his
confession of Christ?_
This question does not pertain to those who live in Christian communities
and within the circle of Christian light and influence. It refers mainly,
if not exclusively, to those who accept Christ under the influence of
Christian teaching at heathen festivals and who may live far away from
Christian communities. In North India, some of those who have accepted
Christ under these circumstances have received immediate baptism and have
been sent back to their villages professing Christians. At first sight
this seems unwarranted and unwise. Men who have received and made an open
confession of Christ under these circumstances have not likely received a
sufficient knowledge of our faith, or attained an adequate familiarity
with its truths; nor have they been grounded in its principles and life,
sufficiently to warrant us in the hope and assurance that they will
continue this life in their heathen homes and do honour to our cause and
the name of Christ which they have professed. And yet who are we to decide
adversely upon the application of such a man who may find, or think he
finds, in that public occasion the only opportunity of making an open
confession of Christ? And what right have we to conclude that he will not
stand firm to his pledge and promise if we are convinced that it is made
in all sincerity and earnestness, and if we are convinced that the man has
really accepted Christ as his Saviour? Or, more properly, what ground have
we to believe that the Holy Spirit cannot carry on to perfection the work
thus begun by Him in the heart of such a man? And was not this method of
immediate baptism that of the Apostolic Church, even though many thus
baptized subsequently denied their new faith?
There are, doubtless, cases of this kind where baptism cannot be refused
by the minister of God—where it is even imperative and may prove a
blessing to the heathen audience as well as to the new convert. And yet,
the ordinary method of delay and careful scrutiny and training should
still be adhered to as a normal method of the Church in heathen lands. It
is the safest way to lead to a healthy and a strong Church.
(_c_) _Another question frequently asked is that concerning secret
baptism._
Shall a missionary, at any time and under any circumstances, secretly
baptize such as are anxious to make confession of Christ, but are debarred
by family opposition, or by similar causes, from public baptism? This
problem frequently arises in connection with work for heathen women. Under
the influence of the work of a Bible woman, or a lady missionary, a woman
may abjure her faith, accept Christ as her Saviour and yearn for baptism.
But to be baptized publicly and to confess Christ before her people openly
would inevitably result in her being driven from home, separated from her
children and people, and robbed of all opportunity to influence them in
behalf of her newly found faith. Moreover, by this public confession she
is deprived of all family support and becomes a helpless dependent upon
the mission for her daily bread. The question rises whether such a woman
should be quietly baptized and thus left to pursue her way in her own home
and with her family as a pledged, but secret, follower of the Lord. There
is much to be said in favour of, as there is against, such a baptism. Many
contend that such an acceptance of Christ would be unworthy and would be
robbed of its saving power. But such are not conversant with Hindu life
and some of its terrible conditions. Some would maintain, perhaps with
more wisdom, that it would be better not to baptize such, but to encourage
them to believe that they are accepted of Christ and to treat them in
every way as Christ’s own disciples.
Another problem in this connection is as to the right or wisdom of an
unordained lady missionary to administer this initiatory rite to such
women converts. This question, of course, will be largely decided in
accordance with the ecclesiastical connection of those who consider it.
There is a growing number of persons who believe that it would be well
that ladies be authorized to administer this rite under such
circumstances.
9. Another problem is connected with the revival of thought among the
people of India whom we seek to bring to Christ.
This revival is really the result of western influence—largely the product
of Christian teaching and activity in that land. In its last analysis it
is therefore not to be deplored, but rather to be welcomed. At the same
time this new awakening seems to be, for the present, connected with a
reactionary and a militant spirit. It speaks in the interest of a new
nationalism and a false patriotism which extols everything Eastern simply
because it _is_ Oriental. Its aggressiveness is manifest even in America.
We are becoming familiar, in this country, with the yellow-robed Hindu
monk who has probably been trained in a Christian mission college and who
talks Hinduism with a strong Christian accent. Though he has violated a
peremptory command of his ancestral faith in crossing the seas; and
though, of necessity, he daily tramples in this land the whole decalogue
of Hindu life and ritual, he feels competent to champion Hindu philosophy
here! And he seems to find a coterie of admirers and quasi disciples in
this land of light and privilege! Recently an old classmate of mine
informed me, with all solemnity, that Eastern thought is now invading the
West; and that he himself had become a theosophist! I have, since hearing
this statement, travelled considerably over this country and confess that
his statement does not seem so absurd as at first I thought. For, I have
seen the recent phenomenal spread of Christian Science and of other
vagaries with which we are too familiar in this land. What is Christian
Science but the subtle, evasive idealism of India unequally yoked to a
form of Christian truth and ritual. What is theosophy, but the stupefying
philosophy and the benumbing metaphysics of the East, clothed in its own
garb of Oriental mysticism and senseless, spurious occultism. It is a sad
reflection upon our Western life that so many people who fail to find rest
in the divinely inspiring teachings of Christ, sink into the depths of a
credulity which will accept the inanities of Madame Blavatsky and the wild
assumptions of Mrs. Eddy. Let these people go out to India and live there
for years to see how Hindu thought and teachings have, for three
millenniums, worked out their legitimate results in the life of the
teeming millions of that land. Let them observe the debasing immorality,
the hollow ceremonialism, the all-pervasive ignorance and superstition
which rest, like a mighty pall, upon that people and which make life mean
and render noble manhood impossible. The situation in India reminds one of
the legendary house built upon the banks of Newfoundland. The foundation
was completed when a dense fog swept over the place and rested upon all.
After the superstructure was built and finished the fog lifted and it was
found, alas, that the building was erected some two hundred yards away
from the foundation, and rested upon nothing! Whatever one may say about
Hindu thought and philosophy as a basis of conduct, that people have been
living for many centuries in the dense fog of ignorance, superstition and
ceremonialism; and their life has been unworthy and debased because it
rested upon nothing.
[Illustration: A Brahman Gentleman.]
[Illustration: Swami Vivekananda.]
But there is another form of this awakened Eastern thought which invites
our attention and which concerns the missionary work not a little. It
appears there in a reactionary form among men of culture and leads many of
them to turn away in hearty disapproval from our faith. They are
wonderfully drawn towards Christ, our Lord. His praises are in their
mouths, and they eagerly study his example and life. They claim him as one
of the East and, therefore, as one of themselves. But these same men will
have none of Christianity, because it is, as they say, of the West,
Western. One of their number recently wrote an article under the following
caption:—“Why do We Hindus Accept Christ and Reject Christianity?” He
claims that they reject our faith because it is “not Christianity but
Churchianity”; that is, it savours of the Western Church more than it does
of Christ. There is a great deal that is false and foolish in this
contention; and yet it has an element of truth in it. We, of the West,
have not realized, perhaps we never can fully realize, the great width of
the gulf which, in thought and life, separates the Occident from the
Orient. Hence we have in part failed in the duty of adapting our faith, in
thought and ritual, to the taste and inherited bias of that people. We
forget that they and we usually approach things temporal and spiritual
from opposite sides. They are deeply mystical and poetic, while we are
obtrusively practical and meanly prosaic. Thus the Western colouring and
emphasis which is given to our faith in that land can neither be
appreciated nor approved by the educated Hindu. Even native Christians are
bemoaning this fact. I shall never forget the eloquent appeal which the
Hon. Kali Churn Banerjee, a leading native Christian in that land, made
before the Bombay Missionary Conference, begging the missionaries to cease
emphasizing, as he said, “adjectival” Christianity and to dwell more upon
“substantive” Christianity before the people of India. It is a sad fact
that we carry there our Western shibboleths, our antiquated controversies,
and our sectional jealousies. Most of these are not only unintelligible in
India; they weary the people and largely bury the essentials of our faith
from public gaze and appreciation.
The question returns to us with a new emphasis today,—How much of our
Western Christianity can we eliminate and how much must we retain in order
to present to that people the gospel in its simplicity and saving power?
How much of our modern Christianity is the product of Western thought,
interpretation and life, and how much is of the very essence of Christ’s
message? We have yet much to learn and are to be overtaken by many
surprises in this matter, I believe. God forbid that we should rob our
message of one tittle of its essential truth. But may He enable us to
discriminate more and more, and lead us to cease encumbering our gospel to
the East with such unessential thought and ritual as are suited to us but
not to them.
I doubt whether we of the West can accomplish this—it can be _fully_ done
only when the Christian Church in India shall have become indigenous and
strong, and, when freed from Western influence and leadership, it shall do
its own thinking and shape its own ritual and ceremonial on Eastern lines.
Then indeed shall we behold that welcome and mighty movement which will
draw completely the culture of India into the Christian Church. Then also,
and not until then, shall we begin to see the Indian Church contributing
her share to the Christian thought and life of the world. We, of the proud
West, are prone to think that our type of life is all-embracing and that
our religious thought is all-satisfying. Nothing can be more fallacious or
more injurious than such a conceit. The East is the full complement of the
West. In life and thought we are only an hemisphere, and we need the East
to fill up our full-orbed beauty. The mystic piety of India will correct
our too practical, mundane view of things. The quiet, passive virtues
which find their perfect realization in that land we must learn from them
to accentuate in addition to the more aggressive and positive virtues of
the West. All this is to take place in the no distant future. The Kingdom
of Christ in the East is to reach out its hand to the West and both, in
mutual helpfulness, will coöperate in bringing this whole world to Christ.
Then shall we see a universal kingdom and the beginning of the fulfillment
of the blessed vision in which “the kingdoms of this world have become the
kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and He shall reign forever and
ever.” God hasten the day.