Learning from the Western Missionary Legacy:A historical perspective

David Harley, OMF

Before I address the issue of the lessons that the Korean Church may learn from the Western missionary legacy, I wish to affirm how much the Christians in the West can learn from the church in South Korea. You have demonstrated a passionate commitment to the task of world mission. You have invested huge resources of finance and personnel. You have sent thousands of dedicated and prayerful missionaries all over the world. I praise God for the Korean missionary movement. I want to express my appreciation for your partnership in the work of the gospel and affirm the significance of the contribution of the Korean churches to global evangelism 

When I speak of the Western missionary legacy, I shall concentrate on the last two hundred years. It would be possible, of course, to refer back to the early centuries of the Christian era, the work of the Celtic missionaries, the monastic movement and the Roman Catholic religious orders, etc. I will briefly refer to the Jesuits but will focus on the 19th and 20th centuries, which are often described as the two great centuries of Protestant missionary endeavor   

The examples given here are not true of all Western missionaries. They did not always follow the good practices mentioned here, nor did they all commit the mistakes outlined below. However, both the good and bad examples are found enough times in the annals of Western missionary history to justify their inclusion in this brief survey. Since it is impossible in one short paper to examine every aspect of missionary work, I have chosen six aspects of Western missionary work during this period.  

Motivation

A strong desire to share the good news of Jesus Christ with those who had never had the chance to respond to the gospel was probably the strongest motivating factor behind the Western missionary movement was so moved with the spiritual need of the people of China that he felt compelled to found the China Inland Mission in 1865. Reflecting on that decision, he wrote: " Every day tens of thousands in that land were passing into Christ-less graves! Perishing China so filled my heart and mind that there was no rest by day and little sleep by night, till health gave way. Meanwhile a million a month were dying in that land, dying without God. This was burned into my very soul." Many years later, a subsequent General Director of the CIM, Bishop Frank Houghton, composed a hymn with these words:

Facing a task unfinished,

That drives us to our knees . . .

With none to hear their crying 

For life and love and light, 

Unnumbered souls are dying,

And pass into the night.

(Frank Houghton, 1894-1992) 

The zeal of these early Western missionaries is also seen in the lives of Korean missionaries today. Korean Christians demonstrate a passion to save the lost and a willingness to face danger and hardship to reach those who have never heard about Jesus. Some were motivated by obedience to the Great Commission of Matthew 28: 16-20; some were driven by a desire to hasten the return of Christ; some were anxious to extend the influence of their denomination; some were keen to bring the riches of their culture to peoples that they viewed as uncivilized; and some saw Christianization as an opportunity to develop trade or extend the influence of their nation.

In the 21st century, it is equally possible for people to offer for service in the mission field from a variety of motives. Some may simply want to get away from home or from their home country. Some may believe that missionary service in another country can offer better educational prospects for themselves or their children. Some may have been less than successful in their home ministry and may feel that the status of missionary will give them fresh significance and recognition. Some may have unrealistic ideas of what they may be able to achieve in their missionary work. 

Motives for missionary service need to be carefully analyzed and effective selection processes put in place. It is not sufficient for a person to state that they feel called. The church or mission agency needs to examine their motivation carefully. It is better not to accept a candidate than to send out the wrong people who are driven by the wrong motives.  High rates of attrition may indicate an inadequate selection process. 

Preparation

The Western churches have not always prepared their missionaries well. At the great missionary conference held in Edinburgh in 1910, a 300-page report was presented, outlining serious deficiencies in the preparation of missionary candidates. One missionary with forty years experience said he had "never met a missionary who had studied the science of missions." 

Yet in spite of the insistence at Edinburgh and subsequent international missionary conferences that missionaries should be thoroughly prepared for their work, the majority of Western missionaries continued to be sent out with little or no specialized training.

Commenting on the experience of one denomination, Alan Henderson writes:" Prior to 1936 relatively little practical attention was devoted to the training and preparation of the overseas missionary." A similar situation is reflected in a survey that was sponsored by the Missionary Research Library in New York to ascertain the rate and causes of missionary turnover. Nearly one thousand missionaries took part in this survey, conducted in 1953. 74 % of those questioned said that they had received no training in the principles, history and methods of mission. 83% said that they had received no cultural orientation before leaving for the field. 

More recently, a survey on missionary attrition organized by the Missions Commission of the World Evangelical Fellowship has identified the lack of adequate missionary training as one of the key reasons why missionaries return home early. One agency reported: "47% of missionaries leave the field during the first five years. 71% of them do so for preventable reasons. Effective training, or the lack of it, plays a critical role."  

Some serious attempts were made over the years to provide better training. New Bible colleges and missionary training institutions were set up with the primary purpose of training men and women for work on the mission field. The academic standard of these institutions was not always very high but they were a serious attempt to develop holistic and relevant programs. 

Those who have been engaged in the training of missionaries have laid great emphasis on the development of the spiritual life and personal character. Douglas Webster, of the Church Missionary Society, expressed the view that "the basic preparation of missionaries is a spiritual one, for the missionary vocation has strains and temptations of its own." Douglas Sargent, Principal of the Church Missionary Society Men's Training College, wrote in 1960: "We are much more concerned with what the student is to be than what he is to know. It is the ability to live together that we would foster rather than the capacity to pass examinations."

Writing in Internationalizing missionary training, Lois McKinney argues that missionary training must equip the whole person for their future service. She maintains that missionaries must be prepared spiritually, psychologically, theologically, historically, culturally, missiologically; they must be prepared to relate to others; they must be prepared as families; they must be prepared for cross-cultural ministry; they must be prepared for ministry in the midst of suffering.

If there is a lesson to be learned in this area from the past two hundred years of missionary work, it is that missionaries need to be thoroughly and professionally trained for cross-cultural ministry. It is not adequate to give someone a basic degree in biblical or theological studies. That will not prepare them for life and ministry in another culture. It will not help them to reflect on the theology and practice of mission. It will not equip them to contextualize the gospel in another cultural context, to teach biblical truth effectively in a strange environment or to disciple new converts who come form a totally different background. It will not prepare them, their spouses or their children to live and minister effectively in a culture that is not their own. Yet so many of our colleges, seminaries and church leaders still feel that the same biblical and theological training designed for pastors is adequate for cross-cultural missionaries.  

3. Understanding of mission

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Western missionary movement saw evangelism as its primary task. Slogans like "the evangelization of the world in our generation" characterized the optimistic spirit of the movement, in the period before the two world wars. At the same time, throughout the 19thcentury, mission leaders had recognized their responsibility to care for the whole person. They opened schools and founded hospitals. Hudson Taylor was a medical doctor and sought to do what he could to alleviate suffering. Within the first fifty years of ministry in China, the CIM founded 12 hospitals. William Carey worked with the Indian government on issues of social behavior, such as the burning of widows on the funeral pyre of their husbands. 

Many examples could be given of the involvement of Western missionaries in educational, medical and social work. They made a huge contribution to the development of emerging nations. Many who benefited from the work of these institutions deeply appreciated the service that Christians had given to their country and this in turn often led to greater receptivity for the gospel.  

However, after the First World War, evangelicals reacted negatively to the teaching of liberal theologians who wanted to replace evangelism with social action. The liberals appeared to take the heart out of the missionary task and to promote 'another gospel.'As a consequence, evangelicals concentrated almost exclusively on evangelism and turned away from their original more wholistic approach to mission.

It was fifty years later at the meeting of the Lausanne Consultation on World Evangelization when evangelicals reaffirmed evangelism and social action as integral parts of the Church's mission in the world. "We express penitence both for our neglect and for having sometimes regarded evangelism and social action as mutually exclusive. Although reconciliation with man is not reconciliation with God, nor is social action evangelism, nor is political action salvation, nevertheless we affirm that evangelism and socio-political involvement are both part of our Christian duty."

Where the missionary is only concerned with the spiritual needs of those around, he sends out a message that God is not interested in the other areas of an individual's life. This is contrary both to biblical teaching and to the historical tradition of evangelical missionary activity. When I asked a bishop in Kenya for an explanation of the rapid growth of the church in his country, he explained that one key reason was the involvement of church leaders in issuesof social and political justice. By contrast the silence of some Church leaders in Myanmar on issues of human rights has been a great disappointment to Aung San Sui Kyi. It makes her question whether the church has a message that is relevant to the needs of her people. 

The debate regarding the relationship between evangelism and social action will continue, but it is imperative that missionaries continue to think carefully and biblically about these things. In the past, mission practitioners have often failed to reflect theologically on their ministry. They often do not think about what they are doing but simply accept the strategy they have been taught. 

Today there are numerous professors of missiology and many seminaries offer doctoral programs in mission studies, but there is sometimes a gap between those who think about mission and those who practice it. Those who spend most time writing and teaching about mission are often not directly engaged in the task of mission. Those who are out in the mission field doing the actual work often lack the time, the resources, the inclination and, sometimes, the ability to engage in deeper theological reflection.

4. Identification 

Some of the early Jesuit missionaries set a high standard of identification with the people they were seeking to win into the Church. When Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) went to Macao, he set about the task of learning Chinese. As Rose Dowsett comments: "Ricci immersed himself in Chinese language and culture, and was greatly respected by Chinese scholars." 

Early in the development of the CIM, Hudson Taylor established basic principles for the mission. One was: "Missionaries would wear Chinese dress, and as far as possible identify themselves with the Chinese people." This policy was ridiculed by other missionaries of the time who thought this pattern of behavior was quite bizarre and inappropriate.

However, the result of this policy was that the missionaries developed a much closer relationship with the people they were serving. They were seen to be following the incarnational pattern set by the Lord Jesus himself, who lived among the poor and the outcast of society. They were doing mission 'in Christ's way'to quote the title given to the WCC conference on mission held in San Antonio in 1989.

Many traditional Western agencies still attach a strong importance to good language learning. They are not satisfied with a superficial smattering of language acquisition and they are not happy simply to minister by interpretation. OMF missionaries in East Asia are expected to spend at least two years learning, and many more years improving their knowledge of the local language, whether it is Mandarin, Japanese, or Mongolian.

While many Western missionaries identified closely with the people to whom they went, this was not always the case. Some preferred to live close to other missionaries. A group of missionaries and their families would often live in a specially built mission compound. This was sometimes because it was more convenient and partly for reasons of safety and security.  

While there were many advantages in this policy, it had the effect of separating the missionaries from the very people they came to serve. Often there were high walls or locked gates that stood as a barrier between the bearersof the gospel and the people they came to reach. Invariably the missionaries' homes were nicer than those of the local people.

This pattern of missionary life contrasted with those who were content to live simply and live among the people they served. It often provoked criticism and jealousy among the locals. It caused them to ask whether the missionaries had come to their country to serve the people of that country or simply because they could enjoy a more pleasant lifestyle there than they could back home.  

The standard of living and the location of missionary homes still pose a serious problem in today's world. Missionaries struggle with these questions. Do they live near other missionaries of the same nationality or similar background? Do they choose a location because it is suitable for their children's education? Do they live in a nice house and maintain a similar standard to that which they have at home or do they live at the same level as the local people? 

This is not just a problem for Western missionaries. An African mission leader complained to me that when Nigerian missionaries go to other parts of Africa they also tend to live close together and to spend more of their time with fellow Nigerians than with the local people. 

One of the most common faults among Western missionaries was their racial pride. They assumed they were superior to other people because of their race, their color, their education or their civilization. They often displayed remarkable ignorance about the culture and customs of others. 

These attitudes were observed both at Edinburgh 1910 and in subsequent conferences of the IMC. One of the problems acknowledged at Edinburgh was the incipient racial prejudice and arrogance that characterized many missionaries. "The white man soinstinctively feels that he is lord of creation, that it is hard for him, no matter how Christian he may be, to get over the idea that men of a different colour are his inferiors. He is apt to be brusque and peremptory. He is always in a hurry and impatient of delays." 

At the Tambaram conference of the International Missionary Council, it was stated that missionaries must be willing to work under the direction of national leaders. They had to be free from any sense of racial, cultural, spiritual superiority and denominational narrowness. 

Sadly the tendency to racial arrogance is still fairly widespread and it is not only limited to a few Western nations. Missionaries of almost any race can appear to be arrogant both in their words and in their attitudes.Those who come from countries with a rich historical and cultural heritage and who have a strong sense of ethnic identity will always struggle with this issue, as is evident from the records of British missionaries. When an African pastor spoke to the international student community at All Nations Christian College, a missionary training college in the UK, he said: "If you come to Africa, do not come as if you were the fourth member of the Trinity!"

5. Missionary methods

A strong characteristic of the Western missionary endeavor, particularly in the 19th century, was a commitment to long-term or life-long service. The China Inland Mission has two old volumes that record the details of every missionary that served with that mission, from the year of its foundation in 1865. It shows the age of each missionary when they began their period of service, the numbers of years they served and the number of furloughs they took during their career. A study of these volumes is inspiring. It shows how many of these missionaries served in China for over forty years, some of them over fifty years, during which time they only visited their home country two or three times. They went out knowing that they might never return home but might die in some remote corner of that vast country, and many of them did die within a few years or even months of their arrival.

In many cases one generation after another has continued a family tradition of missionary service. Those who were born on the mission field themselves became missionaries, sometimes in the very country and among the same people among whom they were born. Five succeeding generations of Hudson Taylor's family have served as missionaries, and in 1980 his own great grandson became the General Director of the China Inland Mission. 

In recent years the average length of service for 'long-term' or 'career'missionaries has dropped considerably. Most Westerners from a Protestant evangelical background would consider ten years or even five years as long-term service. By contrast Roman Catholic religious orders consider ten years of mission service as short term. Even so, many of the more traditional and well-established missions are still committed to promoting long-term service rather than just two or three years. 

The rapid expansion of the evangelical missionary movement in the 19th century encouraged the involvement of lay peoplein ministry. It was no longer necessary to be a priest or an ordained pastor to be engaged in full-time service for God. You could be a farmer, a shoe-maker, a carpenter or a house maid and still be called to the mission field. As Rose Dowsett pointed out: "Blacksmiths, shepherds, sailors and factory hands every humble walk of life is represented in the records of missionary societies." 

In the 19th century, women too began to join this growing missionary force. They discovered that whereas their gifts and ministries were severely limited in their home countries, they were able to engage in a wide range of evangelistic and pastoral ministries on the field. Missionary pioneers like Hudson Taylor soon realized the invaluable and distinctive role that women could play. Frederic Franson, the founder of the Evangelical Alliance Mission, believed that "the task of reaching the lost was far more important than quibbling over the precise role of women." 

Women began to play an increasing role in the work of world mission. Many became missionary pioneers like Mary Slessor in Nigeria, who had been a factory girl, and Gladys Aylward who worked  both in China and Taiwan, but had started her working life as a housemaid. At the beginning of the 20th century, women constituted more than 50% of the evangelical work force. On the field, they were allowed to do pioneer evangelism in places sometimes difficult for men. They planted many churches and were often quicker than men to hand over to indigenous leadership. 

A careful study of the Western missionary legacy will demonstrate the importance of making full use of the gifts and potential of women both in ministry and in leadership.   

One of the common mistakes made by missionaries in the past has been the unwise use of money. Missionaries have provided generously for the physical needs of the people they serve. They have employed local Christians as pastors and evangelists. They have built churches and schools, and provided for all the needs of converts. This has usually been done out of the motive of love and concern for the true welfare of the new Christians. Sadly it often has results in bringing a harvest that does not last. 

When we served in Ethiopia, generations of missionaries before us had been most generous in providing for the needs of local Christians. They employed many people as local evangelists. They bought Bibles for those who came to Christ. They gave big feasts for the local people to enjoy. They gave free education and medical care. They offered two years'free training at a residential Bible school. They truly loved the Ethiopians among whom they worked but they did not teach them how to give to God,or how to trust God rather than the Western missionary, for their needs. In consequence when the offering was taken during Sunday worship, the offertory plate was only brought to the foreigners. None of the Ethiopians were expected to contribute anything to the offertory. 

It is possible to gain quick results through the use of money. Many people may appear to come to Christ. Many churches may seem to be established. This may read well in missionary prayer letters and supporting churches back home will be delighted. But many 'converts' may turn out to be rice Christians after all, and some of those churches may not continue once the foreign funding is withdrawn. 

6. Ecclesiastical Imperialism

Missionaries that were sent out by their denomination were expected to plant churches of that denomination. That is what they were sent out to do and that is what they were supported to achieve. But the inevitable result of this policy was that wherever Western missionaries went countless denominations were established.Furthermore, since missionaries came from many different Western countries they brought with them all the denominational divisions of each country. This meant that the receiving country faced an even greater multiplication of denominations than each missionary knew at home. So even in a country where today the church is quite small, it is possible to find Anglican churches, Methodist churches, Presbyterian churches, Brethren assemblies, Baptist churches, Pentetostal churches etc., etc., and within each of these major denominations countless divisions. In 1970, there were 40 different Baptist groups in the city of Manila. 

We each cherish the particular richness and traditions of our denomination but the command that the Lord gave to his disciples was not "Go into the world and make a multiplicity of denominations!"It saddened me when I heard that the mission statement of one Singaporean missionary society was to go and plant churches of their denomination where there were no churches of their denomination.

When we impose our denominational traditions on a new group of believers in another country, and insist that they conduct their services and express their doctrine and conduct their church meetings in exactly the same way that we do, we are in danger of ecclesiastical imperialism. When we ignore the fact that there are already ten other churches in the same small town but still insist on starting our own because that is what the missionary supporters want to hear back home, we are in danger of serving men rather than God. 

Pressure from denominational leaders in the home country may restrict or inhibit missionaries who want to cooperate with others on the field. But even if we can argue a strong case for planting churches of a particular denomination, it is imperative that we work as closely as possible with other mission agencies and with local churches. The Dawn movement in the Philippines demonstrates the huge benefits of inter-mission and inter-church cooperation. It brought together a wide cross-section of evangelical Christians in a shared vision to reach every community in the country, and this was one of the main reasons for the enormous growth in the number of evangelicals in the past thirty years.  

Over the centuries many different strategies have been put forward for the task of completing the evangelization of the world. In recent years the number of new strategies for global evangelism have increased dramatically. Many of these are pragmatic in their approach and take much of their theory from the world of secular management and sales. 

Western missiologists and missionaries have usually led the way in promoting and implementing these strategies. They have undoubtedly made a significant contribution to mission thinking and practice. They have caused many agencies and churches to review their modus operandi and they have helped many field workers to sharpen the focus of their ministry.

However, these strategies are sometimes imposed in situations where local Christians have not been consulted and where local church leaders do not think they are culturally appropriate. One African church leader complained to me that each successive generation of Western missionaries brought their own mission strategy, ignoring whatever had been done before or whatever was being done by the churches. Sometimes new Western strategies are introduced in contexts where the national church is already being extremely effective. I personally listened with embarrassment as one Western missionary, freshly arrived in Nigeria, told the founder of a Nigerian mission of 1,000 missionaries, that he did not really know what he was doing and that his strategy for reaching West Africa with the gospel was clearly mistaken.

Sadly it is the case that too often Western missionaries have imposed their way of doing things, assuming that they know better than the locals or that they, the missionaries, are more committed to evangelism than the national pastors.  Such an attitude betrays both arrogance and ignorance. It is another subtle form of missionary colonialism.

One problem faced by the early Jesuit missionaries was the control that was exercised on their ministry by Rome. Even though the papal authorities were thousands of miles away and could only be consulted by means of long sea journeys,they still insisted on overriding decisions made by the missionaries on the field. Again and again this resulted in serious setbacks in the work and in the case of Japan seems to have led to a complete collapse of the Catholic missionary endeavor.

Hudson Taylor suffered himself from the incompetence and ignorance of serving under a missionary committee that was based in the UK, who did not understand his situation and who often failed to send him adequate financial support. This led him to the conviction that a mission should be controlled from the field rather than from the home side. So when he founded the CIM, he put the headquarters in Shanghai and not in London. For the past 140 years the HQ of the mission has remained in East Asia.

A basic lesson thatcan be learned from the Western experience is that church elders and members of mission committees who live a long way away from the field and have only a minimal comprehension of the context in which the missionaries are working are not in the best position to make major decisions about the way the work is conducted in that field. Ease of travel, the telephone and the use of email have increased the danger of inappropriate interference from the home side.

The history of the Korean Church demonstrates whatcan happen when sound missionary principles are followed and the emergence of a strong independent church is encouraged from the beginning. John Nevius, who visited Korea in 1890, encouraged the growth of indigenous younger churches. He stressed the principles of self-propagation, self-support and self-government, fostering a spirit of independence and self reliance. Stephen Neil comments on the rapid growth in the growth and character of the Korean church that resulted from the adoption of these principles: "The Korean Christians have shown a spirit of independence that would not lie down under any kind of missionary domination, and were thereby prepared to hold on in faith in the periods of trouble which were to come."    

Conclusion

Fortunately God continues to use imperfect people. In Scripture, we read that He has chosen "the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; the weak things of the world to shame the strong; the lowly things of the world and the things that are not to nullify the things that are."1 Corinthians 1: 27f.We all make mistakes in ministry. Certainly the missionaries who have gone out from the West to share the gospel have made their fair share of mistakes and we do well to learn from them, whether we come from the East or the West. If we fail to learn from history, we will be destined to repeat the mistakes of the past. At the same time, missionaries from the West achieved a great deal for the kingdom of God by His grace. The Christian Church has grown from a community limited largely to Europe and the East coast of North America to a truly global family in less than 200 years. Those who took the gospel to the far corners of the earth often paid the ultimate price. They set us a wonderful example of faith, courage and sacrifice. We should begrateful to God if we can do as well. 

Ten years ago, a group of Korean missionaries, who were beginning their ministry in Kenya, invited an African theologian to advise them on how they conduct their missionary work. His main advice was: "Make new mistakes!"

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