wfn.org | Conference Explores Past, Present, Future of Missions Overseas

[PCUSA NEWS <pcusa.news@ecunet.org>]

14-May-1999 
99187 
 
    Conference Explores Past, Present, Future 
    of Presbyterian Missions Overseas - Part One 
 
    by John Filiatreau, Evan Silverstein and Jerry L. Van Marter 
 
 Once from a European shore men sailed to find and rule the earth, 
 to purchase slave with bales of cloth, or claim a civilizing law. 
 Give thanks that some upon that tide, with faith and failings like our 
own, 
 went out to preach in lands unknown that Christ for all the world had 
died. 
                            - Brian Wren 
 
FLOYD'S KNOBS, Ind. - Participants in a May 10-12 Overseas Mission History 
Conference at the Franciscan Retreat House in Southern Indiana assessed the 
state of Presbyterian missions around the world at the dawn of a new 
millennium, and tried to envision the missions of the 21st century. 
 
    In the conference, subtitled "Reviewing the Past, Assessing the Present 
and Inventing the Future," speakers drawn from the ranks of long-time 
Presbyterian missionaries discussed the recent history of four major 
mission regions - China, the Middle East, India and Latin America - and 
surveyed two broader, global topics: "Women in Mission," and "An Overview 
of (Presbyterian) Mission Policy Since the Reunion of 1983." 
 
    The conference "presenters" and "responders" touched upon several 
common themes in talking about the current state of foreign missions: 
 
    * The rise of ecumenism and the decline of denominationalism; 
    * Female enfranchisement after centuries of male domination; 
    * Nations' assertions of rights to self-determination after centuries 
of Western imperialism and colonialism; 
    * Increasing Christian identification with people who are poor, 
exploited and marginalized, which pushes missionary work "more and more 
into the ethical arena"; 
    * The replacement of "aggressive evangelism" by missions of Christian 
service, witness and "presence"; 
    * An effort to educate millions of "appallingly ignorant" Americans 
about foreign cultures; 
    * A pressing need for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to recruit, 
train and challenge a new generation of missionaries to take up the task of 
carrying the message of the Gospel to the ends of the Earth. 
 
    "Let us remember," one speaker said, "that the Acts of the Apostles is 
still the book in the Bible that has never been completed!" 
 
    About 50 Presbyterians, most of them former foreign missionaries or 
representatives of the Worldwide Ministries Division (WMD), listened to the 
presentations and joined in the discussions that ensued. The conference was 
co-sponsored by WMD and the PC(USA) Department of History. 
 
   "Towards an Overseas Christian Presence in Twenty-First Century China" 
 
    Franklin J. Woo, a former missionary in China and a former director of 
the China Program of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the 
U.S.A. (1976-1993), pointed out that "in the last half-century ... under 
Communist rule, Protestant Christianity ... has increased (by) more than 20 
times, without any assistance from Western missionaries." 
 
    The causes of this increase, he said, include "the value crisis left by 
the demise of Marxist-Maoist ideology after the Cultural Revolution 
(1966-1976); the effective witness of ordinary Christians in their work 
places; and the association of Christianity with modernization." 
 
    A major complication, he said, is the "historical reality" of "the 
unfortunate coincidence of the Imperial Age with (the) Industrial 
Revolution." 
 
    "From China's perspective, the Protestant Gospel and Western gunboats 
(with opium) came to China simultaneously in the early 19th century," Woo 
said, reading from his paper. "Missionaries were seen as part and parcel of 
Western aggression in China." 
 
    He added: "To see the ambiguity of the missionary enterprise is not to 
denigrate a glorious tradition nor to diminish the Gospel." 
 
    Woo said the rise of science and technology has brought us "an era of 
irony in which the poor of the world seem to be getting poorer at the same 
time that the rich are getting richer." He said this presents a challenge 
to Christianity: 
 
    "While we participate in China's modernization effort wherever and 
whenever invited to do so, we must be also forever cognizant of the 
injustices in the world that separate the poor from the rich, and we must 
stand in solidarity with the poor." 
 
    In her response, Jean Woo, Franklin's wife and missionary partner, 
agreed that Christianity has thrived in China in recent decades. She quoted 
one Chinese official's report to a group of American pastors "that since 
1979, churches have been either newly built or reopened in China at the 
astonishing rate of six and a half churches every day," and that "over 20 
million copies of the Bible (were) printed between December 1987 and March 
1999," making it a best-seller by any standard. 
 
    "Chinese Christians are for the large part theologically conservative," 
she said, pointing out that many believe in such practices as putting the 
Bible under one's pillow to cure a headache. "They are marked by an 
uncomplicated faith and a simple love for Jesus - unique characteristics 
that we cannot help but admire and respect.  But this conservatism, or 
`fundamentalism,' as senior Chinese leaders call it ... (leads to) a narrow 
and literal interpretation of scriptures, anti-intellectualism, 
preoccupation with piety, divisiveness, and lack of social concern." 
 
    Jean Woo said the church must respect "the self-hood of the Chinese 
Church." 
 
    "Sending missionaries to China is not in the foreseeable future," she 
said, adding that our "Christian presence" there should continue through 
"people-to-people exchanges" and participation in programs of "education, 
social welfare, rural development, medical and health-care (improvements) 
and disaster relief." 
 
    One respondent said a Chinese bishop and spokesman for the China 
Christian Council "has said that Chinese culture is more open to 
Christianity today than it has been in the last twelve-hundred years." 
 
            "An Ecumenical Mission Strategy for Latin America" 
 
    John H. Sinclair, a Presbyterian who served as mission board secretary 
of the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (1960-1973), espoused a 
brand of ecumenism rooted in "the Protestant inheritance of freedom and 
self-identity," an ecumenism that would reach even beyond Christianity. 
 
    "We have within our circle of friends and spiritual kin the Mayans in 
Central America, the Quechuas and Aymaras in the Andes, and the blacks in 
Brazil and Cuba," he said. "We still can connect with the sons and 
daughters of Latin Americans who are now caught up with Oriental 
spirituality and New Age cults." 
 
    Sinclair pointed out that the Roman Catholic Church, after Vatican II, 
observed that Protestants are "only separated brothers and sisters in the 
Christian family"; and spoke of the rapid growth of Pentecostalism in Latin 
America. "We must repent of caricatures and indifference toward 
Pentecostals," he said. "We have not given due attention to the work of the 
Holy Spirit outside our traditional denominations." 
 
    Defining ecumenism as "a common commitment to the search for Christian 
unity through mission," Sinclair said the ecumenical scene is changing 
rapidly today: 
 
    "We must move on to a new century with new attitudes and more flexible 
ecumenical structures. ... The role of ecumenical organizations in the 
coming decade may well be to serve as a coordinating and information center 
for Christian organizations, helping them to pool their efforts to move the 
church beyond the personal evangelism and church planting of the 20th 
century." 
 
    He said the ecumenical dialogue of our times "pushes us, as churches, 
more and more into the ethical arena. ... Sadly, we are often more 
interested in defending our denominational past than in taking our place in 
the emerging ecumenical future." 
 
    Finally, he pointed out some factors that work against ecumenism in 
Latin America. 
 
    "National councils of churches ... should have been the centers for 
ecumenical dialogue, but were ... largely mired in petty in-house politics. 
 ... Ecumenical strategies for Latin America had to deal with a backlog of 
fierce denominationalism and stubborn resistance to constructive relations 
with Roman Catholics. ... 
 
    "Few of the Presbyterian denominations in Latin America are even today 
members of the World Council of Churches." 
 
            "Demise and Revival of Rural Mission in North India" 
 
    In a voice choked with emotion, Robert Alter recounted the January day 
in 1966 when he handed out severance checks to 51 Indian pastors and 
teachers in his front yard in Etah, Uttar Pradesh - what he called "the 
final act in what was the demise" of the Rural Church Program of the United 
Church of North India. 
 
    The churches were products of "mass movements" of low-caste Indians, 
particularly the Lal Begis - an "untouchable" class of people who eked out 
subsistence living by cleaning latrines and cesspools. Presbyterian 
missionaries at first were reluctant to baptize them, Alter said, because 
the conventional missionary wisdom was to convert high-caste Hindus first 
and let Christianity "trickle down" to the lower castes. "To start the 
other way around," he said, "would only impede the desired conversion of 
higher-caste Hindus." 
 
    The fate of the rural church in North India was sealed shortly after 
the Presbyterian merger in 1958, when a newly created Commission on 
Ecumenical Mission and Relations (COEMAR) of the United Presbyterian Church 
in the United States of America adopted a new policy requiring overseas 
pastoral ministries to be self-supporting. "We were determined to break the 
pattern of dependency," recalled Don Black, who was on the COEMAR staff at 
that time. 
 
    "This meant virtually the end of the rural church in India as we had 
known it," Alter said. 
 
    Because the Lal Begis were very poor and lived in widely scattered 
families, organizing congregations and presbyteries "wasn't going to work," 
explained Alter, who was born in India and worked there as a missionary 
with his wife, Ellen, for more than 40 years. So pastors and teachers were 
paid for by the mission, not by the Indian church - an arrangement that was 
unacceptable under the new COEMAR policy. 
 
    Ironically, added John Webster, who served as a missionary in India 
from 1963 to 1981, the "mass movement" of rural, lower-caste Indians to 
Christianity has caught fire again in recent years.  This "resurrection 
movement," he added, "is much closer to the original vision of a 
self-supporting, self-propagating Christian church than the rural church 
that was left to die in 1966." 
 
    The new movement received considerable funding from U.S. Presbyterians, 
as its COEMAR-sponsored predecessor did; but the Lal Begis are in full 
control this time.  Franklin Woo likened the movement in India to the 
"Three-Self" (self-governing, self-supporting, self-propagating) Christian 
community in China. "It's not a dependency system," Woo said, referring to 
the movements in both countries. "They don't care where the money comes 
from, as long there's no strings." 
 
          "Mission Policy in the Muslim World of the Middle East" 
 
    When Presbyterian missionaries first reached out to the Muslim world in 
the 1820s, their charge was clear, said Jack Lorimer, a Presbyterian 
missionary to Egypt for 45 years. "The overriding purpose of their labors 
was evangelization, by any and every means." 
 
    The approach of the early missionaries reflected "the mentality of the 
Crusades," Lorimer added. "The western missionary in those days viewed 
Islam in varying degrees of suspicion, hatred, contempt and pity." 
 
    Well into the 20th century, he said, the attitude of missionaries 
toward Islam was that articulated by one Samuel Zwemer: "Islam stands out 
among all the non-Christian religions as that religion which has 
blindfolded Christ, smitten him, spat upon him and his followers and for 
thirteen centuries has raised the cry, `Not this man, but Barabbas.'" 
 
    Lorimer said education - followed much later by medical missions - 
became a major initiative for the first missionaries. "There was an obvious 
and serious need, and schools were generally welcomed by the people," he 
explained. 
 
    The 1958 merger that created the United Presbyterian Church in the 
United States of America led to a major conference in Asmara, Eritrea, 
where the predominant theme was "that earlier confrontational approaches 
had failed because they had served to alienate rather than to win." 
 
    Thus was launched a new approach, Lorimer said, "that emphasized a 
considerate and loving approach to Muslims ... though the historic goal 
remained - by any and every means to present the Muslim world with the 
claims of Christ." Dialogue - in many forms, and by groups of all 
theological convictions - has persisted as the predominant evangelistic 
approach to this day. In the words of Kenneth Cragg, this approach "can be 
described simply as finding Christianity in Islam and Islam in 
Christianity, and engaging Muslim and Christian together in the search for 
common ground." 
 
    Similarly, a World Council of Churches report commended by the 1993 
General Assembly states: "We Christians are called to be witnesses to 
others, not judges of them. ... In dialogue we are invited to listen in 
openness to the possibility that the God we know in Jesus Christ may 
encounter us also in the lives of our neighbors of other faiths." 
 
    New technologies - Web sites and television - have been employed by 
some evangelists, while groups like the Navigators have adopted Islamic 
dress styles and observe Islamic rituals of prayer and fasting to more 
fully engage Islamic cultures, Lorimer said. 
 
    "At a time in our mission history when the traditional institutional 
approaches to Islam have admittedly lost their effectiveness," he 
concluded, "the PC(USA) might do well to find ways to encourage and support 
such non-traditional endeavors, with or without its historic linkages to 
national churches." 

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