NZR Edinburgh Weblog:Commission V Utrecht, Novembre 2010, Wilbert van Saane

 

Missionary training in the mirror of Edinburgh 1910

Here in the Low Lands, things are changing in the field of missionary training.

The oldest training school for  missionaries in Holland, the Hendrik Kraemer Institute, has temporarily shut down. Although the Protestant Church in the Netherlands is considering future options for the mission school, its temporary closure signals the end of an era. For many decades, “Oegstgeest” – and since 1999 Utrecht – was an essential port of call for Dutch missionaries preparing for and returning from cross-cultural ministry. The Hendrik Kraemer Institute traditionally was a treasury for Indonesia studies, with a library well-stocked with volumes on mission and cultural anthropology.

 

There is no lack of new initiatives in the field, though. Both evangelicals and reformed are pioneering with new methods for preparation and debriefing. Some believe proper training should be closely linked to missionary praxis within the Dutch context. They are now beginning to offer in-service training. Others bring missionaries together in new retreat centres. Yet others seek to restructure curriculums of theological colleges by including such majors as church planting or contextual and cross-cultural theology. Let all those flowers bloom, for mission has changed and missionary formation requires new, creative approaches. We are in a process of fermentation out of which something new will undoubtedly emerge.

 

As churches and missions work towards new structures, it is, good to look back and learn from the past. We are not the first to think about missionary training in a time of transition. In fact, one hundred years ago, at the World Missionary Conference at Edinburgh, this was a subject of great importance. Commission V devoted all its energies to a broad survey of the then available missionary training and, based upon that survey, it gave recommendations for future action. Just like mission people today, the members of this commission felt that the old paradigms were no longer satisfactory and that new approaches to missionary training were needed.

 

The missionary-hood of all believers

Before giving a more detailed analysis of Commission V, we need make one thing very clear. When we speak about “mission” we do not merely refer to something that happens far away, in those barbarian places that are devoid of any Christian presence. Mission happens everywhere and at all times! Back in the heyday of Western colonialism, the delegates at Edinburgh 1910 did not see this. They divided the world into two parts: the Christian and the non-Christian world. For them, missionary training was exclusively about those pastors, doctors, nurses and teachers who were preparing for a long sojourn in Asia, Africa or Latin America, the non-Christian world. In their minds, therefore, the regular Christian life back home was not to be characterised as a missionary life.

Today few are left who would dare to claim that only the West is Christian and the rest is not. Both home base and mission field may be located anywhere in the world. In every land, the church is called to live a missionary life among the people of that land, in its specific culture. This deeply affects our conception of missionary training.

 

No longer do we restrict the missionary calling to a few enthusiasts. All Christians have a missionary vocation. Just like there is a priesthood of all believers, there is a missionary-hood of all believers. Consequently, all believers should be trained for that essential part of their Christian life. Thankfully missionary ecclesiology is quickly becoming foundational for many theological colleges and Bible schools. Dutch Bible school “De Wittenberg”, for instance, has recently restructured its curriculum completely, attempting to offer students a training in cultural sensitivity and aiming at developing a lifelong missionary attitude. Various theological faculties are moving towards a more contextual understanding and application of theology as well.

 

However, just like the priesthood of all believers does not mean that there is no need for pastors or priests, the missionary-hood of all believers does not preclude that some have a special vocation to serve as missionaries. They are individuals serving as ecumenical, cross-cultural ambassadors of the gospel. They lead in the evangelistic ministry, they remind the church of its missionary nature and they help Christians look beyond the borders of their churches and cultures. These missionaries deserve thorough training for their special vocation. It is to that training that we now turn.

 

The weight of Western civilisation

The Christendom-paradigm had a tremendous effect on missionary formation at the beginning of the 20th century. And although the thinkers of Commission V could not wrest themselves free from that paradigm, they were not oblivious to the dominance of the Western world. Nor were they uncritical of it: “The influence of the missionary and the trader have gradually drawn the countries of Christendom into such relations with those two great continents [Africa and Asia] that the whole weight of Western civilisation is bearing down upon them with immeasurable and accelerating momentum.” (Report of Commission V, 5)
 
The spread of Western education was a particular concern for the commissioners. This was going to change non-Western societies forever, they realised. What worried them most was that the church was no longer in control of higher education. As a result, the mission schools no longer had the prerogative to graduate the cream of society. The commissioners realised that within the mission fields a secular elite was arising. It was this new elite with its secular, nationalist views that was going to shape the societies of the colonial world. Would missionaries still be able to “Christianise” the emerging, industrial societies of the non-Christian world?

 

Missionaries were facing new realities on the mission fields. Colonialism was forcing people out of their traditional crafts into mines, work on railways and factories. “Thus their whole attitude towards life and consequently towards its religious meaning is changing.” (8) Commission V indignantly speaks of the “shameful” urban slums that came into existence because of industrialisation. The delegates realised that missionaries would easily be identified with those new movements that destroyed peace and traditional life in the colonies. The people could easily turn against missions. “He [the missionary] must prove that he can help them find their way to a better and richer social life.” (9)

 

Baffled by these enormous challenges the Commission realises that not missions, but the local churches are the primary agents of mission. “Amidst all this, the hope and aim of all our work has appeared already in many lands in the shape of an indigenous Church. Through that Church the future work is to be accomplished.” (11) Commission V acknowledges that the independence of the church “in the mission field” is the overriding condition for its missionary witness.

 

Doing the job

Unfortunately, the commissioners failed to face the implications of this for missionary training. They continued to set their hopes for the evangelisation of the non-Christian world on Western missionaries. Throughout their report, it is clear that they have Western missionary agents in mind, not local African or Asian Christians. They stressed quality of missionary education, so that qualified missionary personnel would  “do the job”.

 

In their continuing focus on Western missionaries, they revealed three bias that were also reflected in the composition of the delegates at the conference. First of all, although they were ready to go a long way in appreciating other cultures, they believed Western culture was superior because it was Christian. Evidently, a missionary that represented Western culture was therefore at an advantage when it came to spreading the gospel.

 

The second bias that influenced missionary training was related to their view on the “sending” and “receiving churches”. To them, the primary missionary agent was the sending church. Although they were beginning to discover the evangelistic power of “indigenous churches”, they could not see that the dominance of Western missionaries in places curbed that power rather than released it.

 

The third problem lay deep down, on the level of spirituality. The spirituality of Edinburgh 1910 was a spirituality of action. John Mott, driving power behind the conference, embodied this. He spent his life travelling the world. To him, mission was a great battle to be won by the mobilisation of as many troops as possible. The focus at Edinburgh was on the unfinished task. No wonder that the recommendations for missionary training stressed on excellence of the candidates! This, however, drew away attention from “regular” Christians in the non-Christian world and the missionary impact they had in their immediate social environment. Edinburgh would not settle for mediocrity and that seems a very Christian attitude. But history has showed that it is through normal Christians living their everyday-life that the gospel spreads most powerfully.

 

Striking a new balance in missionary training

In the mirror of Edinburgh 1910 we discover that our days require a different emphasis in missionary training. First of all, we realise that missionary training today must be multicultural . The mission field is everywhere, in every culture, and the home base is everywhere. Contemporary missionary training should therefore provide training for missionaries who wish to work in Holland, or in Europe at large, and elsewhere in the world. It should, moreover, be aware of the different cultures within one country and tailor for that. And it should train candidate missionaries from all cultures! That means that it will not only train “outgoing” missionaries, but to a great extent also “incoming” missionaries!

Secondly, missionary training today must be radically ecumenical. That means first of all that it should take seriously that the church in a certain location is God’s church. Missionaries who are being sent to a certain area and culture must be taught to take orders from a local, indigenous church. Rather than merely representing the sending church, they serve a church-in-context. The agenda of the “sending church” should not be imposed on that “receiving church”.

 

Being radically ecumenical means, in the second place, that missionary training is best organised jointly by churches and missionary societies. In 1905, the different Dutch mission societies started cooperating in the (already existing) school of missionary training. The school has always remained a place where Christians from different denominations lived together, learnt from each other and together reflected on what it means to be a missionary. Its ecumenical character was an important ingredient that ingrained the openness so needed for mission work. Today, as leaders from churches and missions reconsider missionary training, they had best do so jointly, not excluding any denomination or ethnic church.

 

Thirdly, reconsidering missionary training must be based on deep spiritual reflection. For missionary training is essentially spiritual training. And although we may admire the spirituality of action so prevalent at Edinburgh 1910, the 20th century has taught us to think less in terms of programmes and more in terms of God’s mission that breaks through in unexpected places, often among those who are vulnerable, poor and uprooted. This, I believe, is also a matter of getting our eschatology straight. There is a “not yet” in Christian faith, but the “already” must not be forgotten, especially by missionaries. Indeed there is an unaccomplished task. But Christ has also said: “It is finished.” It is that trust in the mission of God, accomplished in the life of Christ and to be accomplished when Christ comes again, that must be at the centre of missionary training today.

 

The vocation of a missionary

Missionary training in a globalised world will be radically different than missionary training in the Christendom-paradigm. Commission V shows us mostly how not to go about missionary training today. Yet there is much to learn from the commissioners who gathered at Edinburgh in 1910. Their emphasis on high-quality missionaries rooted in a intense passion for the gospel and for people. It seems to me that not all missionary societies are guided by this concern for quality and that selection procedures of missionaries may need to be reviewed.

 

Another point much stressed by the commissioners that has eroded in the course of the 20th century is that of vocation. They insist that being a missionary is a special call that not everybody has. Today, as we affirm the missionary call of every Christian, we must not forget that not everybody is called to be a missionary in the narrower sense of the word. Not everybody is fit for cross-cultural ministry. Not everybody is called to be an ecumenical ambassador. There is still much thinking to be done in this field. How do short-term missions relate to long-term service as a missionary? How should the churches relate to their “outgoing” and their “incoming” missionaries? How can missionaries help the churches to be more culturally sensitive? It seems to me that there is a large agenda there and that the right place to address it is within a broadly ecumenical training school for missionaries, jointly carried by churches and mission societies.