Commission I and Gustav Warneck’s warning

“My dear Mr. Mott, It is a great grief to me to be prevented by the growing infirmity of old age from being present at the Edinburgh Mission Conference. You will understand how vital is my interest in the proceedings of this conference, which has been so carefully planned and which is of such critical importance for the future of missions, and how it has been to me the subject of continued and most earnest prayer that God may crown it with his richest blessings and make it fruitful for the expansion and development of His Kingdom in the non-Christian world.” (Carrying the Gospel, 434)

These are the opening words of a letter that the great German missiologist Gustav Warneck sent to John R. Mott, chairman of the World Missionary Conference at Edinburgh 1910. Warneck and Mott knew and respected one another, but had some substantial missiological disagreements. It must have come as no surprise to Mott that Warneck’s letter was full of concern.

In fact, John Mott had once visited the Professor in person at Halle, where Warneck occupied the first ever academic chair of missiology. Their meeting had not resolved the tensions between their views. Prior to the Edinburgh meeting, Warneck had continued to voice his concern about the approach of Mott and the Student Volunteer Movement and Mott had replied – all of this in the same brotherly spirit that the letter also breathes.

I believe the Warneck-Mott exchange guides us to a fundamental missiological tension that surfaced during the Edinburgh 1910 gathering and is still apparent in mission theology and practice today. I also believe this tension need not and should not lead to controversy and, if balanced carefully, can indeed give both strength and creativity to Christian mission. What then is Warneck’s essential critique of John Mott’s approach and the Edinburgh conference?

Warneck’s letter was included in the official report of Commission I of the Edinburgh conference entitled Carrying the Gospel to All the Non-Christian World. This commission, the flagship of the conference, was chaired by Mott himself and clearly bears his stamp. The report includes a broad survey of worldwide mission fields and considers strategies and methods for effective evangelisation of the non-Christian world, particularly Asia and Africa. A sense of optimism and urgency transpires from almost every page of the report. “It is possible today to a degree far greater than at any time in the past to give the Gospel to all the non-Christian world.” (Carrying the Gospel, 5) The same urgency pervaded the life and ministry of John Mott and was so powerfully captured in the watchword of the Student Volunteer Movement: “the evangelization of the world in this generation”.

It is exactly that watchword that was a stumbling block to Gustav Warneck. He felt that there was an unwarranted activism and triumphalism behind this. Mission work required patience and perseverance rather than haste, he believed. Watchwords and impetuous missionary action could even turn out to have a counterproductive effect by provoking a reaction against all mission. In Warneck’s opinion, mission in the apostolic way was primarily a matter of the local church, of faithful discipleship. Foreign missionaries should, therefore, focus on strengthening Christian communities rather than rashly breaking new ground. “Nothing is achieved by mere doctrinaire watchwords; indeed, they may do much harm; we must have congregations that are spiritually and morally matured, and, moreover, native pastors who are spiritually and morally matured; then only do you have sound foundations for self-administration.” (Carrying the Gospel, 435)
 
Warneck also had a strong reaction against Edinburgh’s lopsided focus on permeating all the non-Christian world. He felt that more prudence and patience was needed; not all nations and areas were quite ripe to receive Christian mission. Moreover, he argued, the key battles are not always in as yet unoccupied areas; they may well have to be fought in places where there are concentrations of missionaries already, but where Christianity is feeble and vulnerable. “We have no superfluidity of workers. If we scatter them because of a predilection for the watchword, ‘occupation of the whole world in this present generation,’ and push on into countries which are at present either difficult of access or not yet ripe for missions, we can easily miss the most hopeful opportunities, or we may lose hundreds of thousands to Mohammedanism, whilst perhaps winning some few Christians in a country like Tibet.” (Carrying the Gospel, 435)

Finally, Warneck had serious objections against Edinburgh’s focus on missionary methods and strategies. In his letter he takes an almost Barthian position, avant la lettre, stressing the sufficiency of the Gospel of Christ. Various authors have pointed to the lack of theological reflection at Edinburgh 1910. There was a conscious focus on strategy and method. The organisers sensed that theological discussion could hinder practical cooperation and chose to avoid that trap.

However, it proved to be a mere postponement of the debate. Unaddressed theological questions would impose themselves much more forcefully on the agenda later in the 20th century. By that time, gaps had widened and serious controversy erupted, for example between evangelical and ecumenical mission theologians during the 1960s and 1970s. In retrospect, Warneck’s concern that over-emphasis on method and strategy may actually harm the message itself proved prophetic. “The main source of our strength is not in the method but in the message of this Gospel, in the messengers proclaiming it in the fulness of faith, and in the Christians who have become new creatures thereby.” (Carrying the Gospel, 436)

The tension between the approaches of Mott and Warneck runs parallel to the tension between faith mission relying on volunteers and ecclesial mission relying on clergy. It is the tension between focus on individual commitments and christianising a nation; between geographical expansion and deepening discipleship; between pioneering and settling; between the first part of the Great Commission (go and make disciples) and the second part of the Great Commission (teaching them to obey). In this tension we also sense the enduring friction between the American missionary frontier tradition and the continental European church-centred tradition.

In a very general statement, we could argue that this tension was enshrined and institutionalised when the ecumenical and evangelical movements parted ways. The evangelical Lausanne Movement has focused on world evangelisation, unreached people groups, Bible translation, church planting and strategic cooperation. Ecumenical bodies have strived for equality in the world church, peace and justice issues as well as other issues that seek to transform societies in the light of God’s Kingdom. Comparing the agendas of the Edinburgh Centenary conference and Lausanne III at Cape Town, you feel there is still something to these stereotypes.

Thankfully separations between evangelical and ecumenical Christians are by no means watertight. Evangelism has always remained a major concern for ecumenical Christians and responsible discipleship has certainly been on evangelical minds. Moreover, much of majority world Christianity seems to surpass and obliterate the evangelical-ecumenical dichotomy by naturally choosing for mission that witnesses in service and serves by witnessing. It is my hope that the centenary celebrations of this year will challenge Christians worldwide to appreciate the manifold faces mission can have. The different emphases, Mott’s and Warneck’s, are both legitimate. Together they give mission that creative tension that helps avoid imbalance and gives both credibility and conviction.

Utrecht, Epiphany 2010
Wilbert van Saane
                                  

For further reading:

• Hans Kasdorf, “The Legacy of Gustav Warneck,” Occasional Bulletin of Missionary Research 7 (1980), 102-7.
• David A. Kerr and Kenneth R. Ross, eds., Edinburgh 2010: Mission Then and Now. Pasadena. Ca.: William Carey International University Press, 2009.
• Kenneth R. Ross, Edinburgh 2010: Springboard for Mission. Pasadena, Ca.: William Carey International University Press, 2009.
• Timothy Yates, Christian Mission in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
• World Missionary Conference, 1910, Report of Commission I: Carrying the Gospel to All the Non-Christian World. Edinburgh and London: Oliphant,
• Anderson & Ferrier/New York, Chicago, and Toronto: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1910.