Missions and modern thought

Preface

Every institution and activity of Christianity finds itself challeng-ed at the bar of modern thoug^ht. The g-lory of this ag-e is its skepticism which is the natural outcome of its extensive discoveries. It is not to be taken for granted that modern thought is always right and that all that is not modern must either give place to what is new or adjust itself to it. The adjustment must often be made from the other side. A new railway compels many established things to make way for it, but some of the mountains and the rivers compel the new railway to take them into account, and adjust itself to their permanence. Yet our life and work are in the modern world and it is our business at least to seek to understand the relations of whatever we deem worth while to the spirit and tendencies of our times. It is hoped that the following pages may contribute somewhat to defining the relations of the missionary enterprise of the Church to the thought of the time in which we live.

vu

I

THE TERMS OF THE CHALLENGE

Chapter I

At the beginning- of the twentieth century the Christian Church found itself facing the most marvelous opportunity in its history for extending its faith to cover the entire earth. The multitudes of its adherents, the enormous wealth in their hands, and the open condition of all the world for interchange of thought and travel were met by a spirit of inquiry and an eagerness to learn on the part of all the backward nations of the world. It seemed as if everything was favorable for that which has been, in its best elements, the constant purpose of Christianity from the days of Christ. But at the moment when the call to victorious conquest is sounding in her ears the Church meets a challenge from the current thought of the time, not only of her right to bring all the world to the acceptance of her faith, but also, from many quarters, of her own right to be. Having answered all the arguments of ignorance the missionaries find themselves facing an array of questions from learning.

William Carey forced upon Protestant Christianity the continuous facing of the question : "Is not the command given to the apostles to teach all nations obligatory on all succeeding ministers to the end of the world, seeing that the accompanying promise was of equal extent?" He also framed the answer for Protestantism for a century, in "An Inquiry into the Obligation of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathen; in which the Religious State of the Different Nations of the World, the Success of Former Undertakings, and the Practicability of Further Undertakings, are considered." The question was not raised by him for the first time, but had been vigorously and persistently urged by able advocates, and foreign mission work had long been carried on, sufficiently at least to prove its practicability and value. So much Carey was glad to recognize and use as an argument for English Christians to undertake the work.

From his day, English Christians had put their hand to the plow that was to cultivate all the fields of the earth. But the churches were slow to commit themselves to the task. After the work had been carried on by voluntary societies, from 1824 the various churches gradually committed themselves organically to the work until it came to be taken for granted that this is a business of the Church.

Beginning with 1892, we have been celebrating missionary centennials in Great Britain, and, since 1906, in America. In connection with these centennials, there has been a great increase of interest in missions, and for a time gratifying advances in their support. There has grown up a very extensive missionary literature; history, biography, discussions of theory, narratives, stories, statistics, besides marked improvement and enlargement in the magazine literature of missions.

Even with all this, there has been a distinct feeling of unrest and uncertainty that has not been met by all the output of books and periodicals. For a little more than a decade, there has been arising in one form or another a questioning of the whole principle of foreign missions. This questioning has arisen in part from a skepticism from without, that cared little, if anything, for the missionary work; but partly also from within, on the part of men deeply devoted to the enterprise, but with a feeling that new conditions call for a questioning of the motives, methods and aims of this work. This voicing has been sometimes in the secular press, where the subject has usually been treated superficially; partly in some of the general scholarly magazines, for example the Hibbert Journal and the American Journal of Theology ; partly in prominent addresses at annual missionary assemblies; and partly in addresses and discussions published in the missionary magazines and elsewhere. Professor W. N. Clarke, in his "Study of Christian Missions," in 1900, called for a new motive in missions; in 1905, Rev. Robert A. Hume, after lecturing on the subject in several prominent theological schools of the United States, published a study of "Missions from the Modern View ;" and in 1908, Dr. Dennis came forward with "A New Horoscope of Missions." The Rev. R. Wardlaw Thompson, D. D., took for the subject of his annual presidential address before the "Congregational Union of England and Wales," 1908, "The Message, the Task, the Power." These discussions, like many others besides, seek to find for the missionary enterprise a firm footing in modern life and thought. The late Charles Cuthbert Hall, D.D., became in the latter years of his fruitful life, the apostle of the missionary idea in its freest and fullest sense as the true spirit of all that is true in what we are so proudly calling the modern world. His apostleship finds expression chiefly in his "Christ and the Eastern

Soul/' and ''Christ and the Human Race," wherein he undertakes to interpret "the attitude of Jesus Christ toward foreign races and rehgions."

Such works show clearly both that there is a feeling of need for fresh study of the grounds of the foreign mission work and that some serious study is already devoted to these subjects.

In England the situation is more serious than in America. The demands of the older British societies, with their more extensive work, are more urgent, if possible, than in America, and the pressure of skepticism is more keenly felt. The religious and social conditions in Great Britain are likewise more pressing and divert attention from the world-wide effort as they do not yet in America. Ten years ago America was feeling a relative lack of concern for foreign missions, on account of various conditions prevailing in the latter years of the nineteenth century. From this there has been a large measure of recovery. At that time England was making rapid advances and the outlook seemed bright, while now there is a relative slackening of interest in that country. We cannot enter into the details of the sources of the problem in the different countries, where there are peculiarities. It will be sufficient if we inquire into the nature of the question and the common conditions that have given rise to it, thus getting before us definitely the question that faces our missionary task to-day.

We constantly meet the sentiment that modern thinking is radically different from that of a century ago in almost all respects, so that "the modern world," ''modern thought," "modern life," "modem learning," are constantly asserting their presence, their importance, their distinction from former ways of thinking, knowing and living. We have come to know much that was formerly not known and to recognize limitations upon our knowledge formerly not recognized. We are proud of our knowledge and of our agnosticism, of our science and of our nescience. The inductive method of learning, the evolutionary interpretation of all growth, the scientific and historical tests of all knowledge, the practical demands of all life; these are supposed to mark us as a peculiar people, and our age as a new age, different from all that has been.

Truly the nineteenth century was a century of marvels. It seems to have destroyed pretty much all that it found in the world. It was an iconoclastic century. It not only destroyed the scientific theories inherited from the sixteenth century, but destroyed and rebuilt its own theories until it came to be a maxim of science that no book more than ten years old is worth shelf-room. Philosophy found itself in the grasp of a new spirit, took the wings of imaginative logic, and reached wonderful heights of speculation concerning the Absolute. But just when it seemed to be perched upon the summit of perfection it dropped to ruin, and the last half of the century knew only forms of eclecticism. With the turn into the new century we find philosophic thought under the lead of a new conception, calling itself "Pragmatism," and "Humanism," which is, after all, the negation of philosophy in the true sense, and only an effort to make man content with a theory comprehending human life and the present order, and to stop with that. To be sure, this is leading the way to a philosophy which will base itself on the spiritual experiences of the soul, but we are still without a philosophy.

In religion we have found the same process of question, negation, agnosticism, enlargement. Theology has largely gone to pieces. We have had numerous celebrations of its death, some joyous celebrations of the passing of dogma, but with not a few tearful mourners about the bier of the departed. We have had also many who still believed that the body was alive and adored it as of old.

lO MISSIONS AND MODERN THOUGHT

while others would galvanize it back into a semblance of life. We have had many honest toilers at the task of theological reconstruction. But we face the fact that theology has suffered a very serious shock from which up to the moment it has not recovered, and it is clearly evident that it can no more live the old life. When it shall live again, it will be a new life from the dead.

We had inherited from the Reformation the unquestioning conviction that *'the Bible, the Bible alone, [is] the religion of Protestants," and there could be no general question of the "seat of authority in religion." But the last century planted a great question mark before this belief, and we are still struggling in the effort to remove it. So far it sticks fast. Most men have still been sure that there was — that there ever is — if not a seat, at least a scepter, of authority in religion; for they could not get away from it. But among those who still feel and recognize the fact of authority, there is wide diversity of opinion concerning its location, among half a dozen suggested sites. That there is some indication of emergence from the confusion of thought on this subject is cause for congratulation, but we cannot yet see that there is any definite hope of agreement. What the place of the Bible

OUTLOOK ON THE SITUATION II

is in our Christianity, what the nature of its authority, even what its contents, are for very many open questions.

A century ago Christianity was generally looked upon as a fixed set of dogmas with certain definite institutions. There were disputes among the various sects of Protestantism about some of the dogmas, and there was strife as to the correct form of the institutions. But the day of polemic warfare over essentials of the Reformation faith lay in the past. While there was no little strife and no little bitterness concerning ordinances and institutions, there was little question as to the vital and permanent value of these, and in most of the denominations various items of polity or practice were so prominently stressed as to give character to the denominational integrity and position.

So far as the obligation to Christianize the world was accepted, the content and nature of its mission were generally agreed to be to carry a certain body of doctrines and forms into so much of the world as Christianity might claim. That this work was to seek the redemption of such as were reached by the Gospel was clear enough. But there is not much evidence that Christians generally had in mind introducing the force of Christianity as a redemptive factor in the total life of humanity, with the goal a redeemed race. That idea belongs to the developing conceptions of race, society, history and religion. Christianity is now^ conceived as living rather than established, as grov^ing rather than fixed, and, by consequence, capable of almost indefinite adaptation to environment. A century of effort, in connection with many other forces at work, shows that European and American Christians must, in some measure, modify their conceptions of the Faith. By various influences, we have been driven to an effort to ascertain what is "primitive Christianity," "the Christianity of Christ," ''original Christianity," "Apostolic Christianity," all of which means that we are driven to seek "essential Christianity." We seek the nature of the faith and force that have produced historic Christianity by reaction of its spirit on the environments of the centuries. If we can determine that, then we know what is the function of the missionary in our own, and in all, times. For it is to proclaim that faith and free that force in all environments of the given generation and thus to allow them to work out the character of the institutions of Christianity under the laws of adaptation, conformity, and conformation. Some are in dread

OUTLOOK ON THE SITUATION I3

of the principles of adaptation and conformity, unwilling to admit that the forms of Christianity are properly subject to these laws ; while other some fail to recognize and to insist on the law of conformation. Jesus Christ was himself the product of personality reacting on environment. He was not exactly the same that He would have been in any other time and place in history. That is why He came *'in the fullness of the times." His religion is for all times, and is subject to the laws that operated in the life of its Founder. His personality could not be other than it was, and no environment was allowed to vitiate that, however much it might mar or modify His form. So of the faith of the Savior: if we know its essential character and set that freely and fairly in any environment, we shall have to allow it to produce the form that its character will effect in the given environment. This change in the way of conceiving the nature and the task of Christianity is part of the newness of the thought of our time.

The changed conception of the nature of God and of His relation to the world and to humanity has cooperated with the conception of religious evolution in the race to discredit the notion that men who "die out of Christ" are doomed to death eternal. It remains true that no satisfactory explanation has been offered how any other fate can await men who do not attain unto salvation through the Gospel. Still, many men cannot believe in God — the God whom they know in experience, and think they know in the processes of nature and history — and believe that any creature of God shall be forever in sin or in misery. For a quarter of a century we have been facing with growing urgency, the question : Have we a sufficient motive for missions if not to rescue men from eternal doom?

We must seek to answer the problem, whether the new way of thinking of religions alters the duty of the Christian and the destiny of Christianity. Fifty years ago it was assumed that Christianity was to supplant all other religions. That claim is now ridiculed by scientific students of religion, who tell us that the circumstances of race and place, of climatic, social, political and cultural conditions, determine the character and form which religion will take, with the added stimulation of personal leadership. So that we must now determine how far it is our right and duty to make Christianity part of the environment, or even to make it the determining element in the direction of the religious spirit in humanity. The foreign mission enterprise has had to face the question of its right of existence before the sciences of Comparative Rehgion, the History of Religion and the Philosophy of Religion. We have said that our thought of God and the world have changed. There is not uniformity of view, but the dominant idea of our time stresses the immanence of God, His omnipresent activity. On that account, but in a widely different sense, we come to conceive, as definitely as did the ancient Hebrews, that all things that come to pass are God's doings. That raises a further question for missions. The ever-present, all-embracing God is as truly making the religions of India and the faiths of China as He is the doctrines and life of Christendom. Shall we therefore interfere ? Have we any right to interfere? Or, having the right, have we the imperative obligation? Beyond doubt, this form of thinking affects the depth of the sense of sin, tending to make it transitory and functional rather than essential and deadly; affects the sense of human responsibility, enwrapping all in a vague fatalism; affects the imperious importance of proclaiming the Gospel, since all-enveloping love is surrounding all men and moving — if slowly, still surely — to the final goal of ill, in the universal good. That such inferences are superficial and not involved in the idea of the omnipresent immanence of the holy Father, and that refuge from responsibility, and lapsing into lethargy on account of this idea are unworthy this conception of God and delay the goal of the race ought to become evident in the study of the missionary duty.

There have come about two great changes in science, that have serious significance for religion: first, in the conception of nature prevalent in the natural sciences ; and second, in the place which the physical sciences hold in the culture and thought of the time. It is only necessary to call attention to the place occupied by the sciences in the curricula of colleges to indicate the changed position of science in modern culture. The one stronghold of the Humanities, as sufficient for the culture of the scholar, that stands out prominently before the world is Oxford; and the warfare which is being waged to maintain the historic position of this great seat of learning is significant of the new order — the one shining exception that proves emphatically the rule. Science holds first place in the education of 'the day. In American colleges the ancient languages are held at a discount, and in Germany the same tendency is evident enough. The circle of the sciences has grow^n so extensive that they

OUTLOOK ON THE SITUATION I7

attract attention for very magnitude. They touch practical life so powerfully and so universally that they not only clamor for recognition, they fill the horizon and they tend to materialize our life ; and this materialization of life, with its cares, its comforts, its luxuries and striving after luxuries touches seriously in many ways the idealism of the missionary cause and the practical working of missions from the home base, as well as in the field of missionary activity.

The most serious aspect of science for Christian missions is the encroachment of the scientific field on that of philosophy, involving the effort to apply the principle of exclusion to all that does not fall within the field of scientific investigation and classification. Sir Oliver Lodge is good authority for the statement of the attitude of many scientists, when he says, "that orthodox modern science shows us a self-contained and self-sufficient universe, not in touch with anything beyond itself — the general trend and outline of it known ; nothing supernatural or miraculous, no intervention of beings other than ourselves, being conceived possible."^ Such an attitude reacts powerfully against Christian missions. Applied in history, it assails

^Science and Immortality.

the historical foundations of Christianity, in the person and Hfe of Jesus and of the early Church. The effort has been made by the Ritschlian Theology to free Christianity from dependence on scientific demonstration of historic facts, and this effort has largely succeeded with many, enabling them illogically to get a new grip on a slipping faith. But the same position is otherwise used to destroy the faith of many more, who had not before seen the situation in this light. In any case, the Christian is supposed by many to be left without a sure message, with no sufficient support for his Gospel, with no right to expect the Spirit of God to bear witness with the Gospel, since prayer and all forms of supernatural activity are excluded. Indeed, all reality is excluded from the necessary foundations of knowledge and faith alike. It amounts to an effort to free religion from dependence on both science and philosophy. In a sense, religion has this freedom, for it is not practically dependent on either or both of these, nor subordinate to them. It is just the fault of certain scientists and philosophers that they think of religion as subordinate. Religion may exist without science and without philosophy. In most men it does so exist, but it does not long live in the man for whom science and

OUTLOOK ON THE SITUATION I9

philosophy have destroyed the reality of all values by a mistaken play upon the term 'Value- judgment." A value- judgment whose value arises wholly from a subjective source and contains nothing more than a subjective concept is valueless for religion, and can have no propaganda, for it cannot evidence itself in another consciousness. Religion is peculiarly founded on the value-judgment in the sense of judgments of eternal value, in the object and the objects of rehgion. If Christianity is cut off wholly from its historical facts by inexorable negations of a science which demands physical demonstration in a moral realm, and which denies the supernatural on the basis of an assumed circuit of the natural, that is closed and impenetrable; or if Christianity is denied natural explanation by a philosophy that proceeds upon the assumption of the unknowableness of the supernatural, then indeed is Christianity cut off from projecting itself into the life of humanity as a history-producing force, and is cut off from the rational life of man, since man has thus already irrationally excluded religion from his life.

It will appear upon reflection on the terms of this challenge of missions that the question of the validity, the right, the continuity of Christian missions is a question of the very existence of Christianity.

If Christianity has any place in the life of man at all, it has place in the life of mankind. Certainly early Christianity contemplated "a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness" as the outcome of its proclamation. It must have such a destiny, or it will cease to be. Our inquiry is thus seen really to involve the whole field of Christian apologetics. A hundred years of study and practice of the duty of foreign missions have made clear to modern Christian thought that universalism lies in the heart of Christianity. It will not be possible to cover, in this volume, the whole field of apologetics and to justify Christianity in the face of all forms of attack and conflict arising from the various fields of current criticism, thought, and ideals. It is hoped to show in several directions, most antagonistic to the conquering spirit of Christianity, that there is no necessary antagonism between any established facts or any accepted principles of life and learning in our day and the missionary contention that *'the Glad Tidings of the Kingdom shall be preached among all nations." One hopes to suggest that there is rather encouragement for the Christian to accept the authority, value and spirit of his mission, and that there is no reason to fear the outcome of the work which was so well begun in the last century.

The difficulties confronting us might be serious and discouraging but for two facts : first, that there are no fundamentally new objections now urged against the missionary enterprise; and second, that missionaries and their supporters at home are not wholly unprepared for the new order. This new order has come with startling suddenness, but not without observation. There has been some little time for adjustment to the new way of looking at things. And missions and missionaries have had so large a share in producing the new order that they have considerable acquaintance and sympathy with it.

Another element of especial encouragement is that there is much enthusiastic interest, and widely prevalent throughout the Christian world, in the missionary cause. And this enthusiasm has its sources deep in extensive instruction and culture in the history and methods of missions. There are very many and very convincing proofs of the vitality of our religion and of its abiding interest in its universal enterprise. God is stretching forth the scepter of His strength out of Zion and calling upon His King to rule in the midst of His enemies. The Lord's people make a holy array of freewill offerings in the day of His power. The youth are to the Lord like dew out of the womb of the morning of the day of His triumph.^ The very things that make us sometimes so much afraid are in great measure the result of Christianity outgrowing its forms and breaking its fetters for the freedom of its world task. Along with the spirit of rationalism, there is a spirit of revival, more or less manifest, in all parts of the world. It is a form of revival such as we are unaccustomed to in the records of the more recent past. We are in the habit of thinking of revival as primarily a process of adding converts to the church. In many parts of America this feature is present in the current revival, but in other places it is not so much so. In Korea multiplication marks the work of the Spirit, and in some parts of India, while from South America come accounts of the same sort. In England, apart from the remarkable Welsh revival, the efficacy of which some have doubted, so far from having additions in great numbers, the churches have in recent years found themselves unable to hold their own numerically. Does it seem useless to talk of revival already at work in a Church that seems barren? At any rate, there is serious and searching questioning of the condition, and that is ^ Cf. Psalm no.

itself a mark of revival. The condition in England is, in an extreme way, characteristic of the spiritual awakening in other parts of the world. It is a moral awakening, a new sense of the responsibility of the Church — of Christians, perhaps we should say — for the life of the nation, for the salvation of society, for the condition of the world. In America it manifests itself most significantly in civic reforms, in widespread awakening of public conscience, in ethical devotion to the needs and wrongs of children, of prisoners, and of the depraved and outcast. In England there has been rising a consciousness of the extent of Christian responsibility for social evils of all sorts. There are more serious efforts than ever before, in the established Church and the free Churches, to bring Christianity vitally to bear upon the profound problems that press for solution. Even where no way yet appears out of the difficulties there is the pressure of the difficulties upon the Christian conscience, such as only a deep sense of God and a profound yearning of the spirit of brotherhood can account for.

In international relations, with all the deceit and indirection that remain, there is a new diplomacy of frankness and honor, and in the Christian conscience there is an almost universal sense of shame and mortification that no way yet appears for escape from the cruel speed with which feverish fear and unholy ambition are arming the international jealousies. Underneath it all the religious conscience is stirred by the Christ spirit, and the Christian heart prays for deliverance.

It is this ethical sense, this yearning for practical religion, this deepening sense of the bonds that unite all into one social community, that characterizes the new manifestation of the Holy Spirit in the people of God. Confession of sin, devotion to righteousness, yearning for the realization of the Kingdom are some of the marks of this revival in Japan and India, as well as of the notable work of grace in Manchuria and in China. Only let these fundamental effects of the Spirit continue and multitudes of new disciples will be won to Christ.

For evidences of deep and general interest in the direct work of missions, let us begin with reference to the Ecumenical Conference in Edinburgh in 1910. The great significance of this Conference is that it proposes to deal with the question of Christianizing the world as a practical undertaking, and to apply to the problem the best wisdom of men of all lands and creeds under the lead of the Spirit of God. The first such Conference, in 1888, was full of the Spirit of extending the Gospel message to all the nations, but was not stirred with any expectation of the speedy accomplishment of this result. In that of 1900 the spirit of world conquest was strong. There was recounting and surveying of the forces engaged, and some estimate of forces available. Now, so have faith and endeavor grown, and so has consecrated determination laid hold on the Church, we are discussing in systematic fashion ten great questions intended to embrace the whole problem of how immediately to press our advance so that Christ may be brought home to the needs and lives of all mankind. We omit, or greatly subordinate, the feature of popular exhortation, while the main object is statesmanlike deliberation on the methods for doing the work to which we feel absolutely committed. To this end carefully selected commissions have been engaged for months in the study of these ten phases of the problem, so as to bring matured thought and suggestion to the Conference. These deliberations have occupied the attention of some two hundred men, selected from mission boards, professional chairs, and business offices. That so many men of highest ability and foremost rank are found ready to give time and trained thought to such questions is a new thing in modern missions.