Backwards Missions

"If you build it, they will come!"

Here are some excellent & challenging observations from an old missionary. They are very relevant not only to foreign missions, but also to home missions. So as you read it, think also about how we go about planting churches here in America. This is an excerpt from Missionary Methods: St. Paul's or Ours? (pp. 51-59) by Roland Allen. I've added a few comments & explanations as footnotes:

St. Paul not only did not receive financial aid from his converts, he did not take financial support to his converts. That it could be so never seems to have suggested itself to his mind. Every province, every church, was financially independent. The Galatians are exhorted to support their teachers (Gal. 6.6). Every church is instructed to maintain its poor. There is not a hint from beginning to end of the Acts & Epistles of any one church depending upon another, with the single exception of the collection for the poor saints at Jerusalem. That collection had in the mind of St. Paul a very serious & important place, but it had nothing to do with church finance in the ordinary sense. Its importance lay in its demonstration of the unity of the church, and in the influence which such a proof of brotherly charity might have in maintaining the unity of the church. But it had no more to do with church finance in the ordinary sense of the word than a collection made in India for Christians suffering from famine in China would have to do with ordinary Indian Church finance. That one church should depend upon another for the supply of its ordinary expenses as a church, or even for a part of them, would have seemed incredible in the Four Provinces.¹

From this apostolic practice we are now as far removed in action as we are in time. We have indeed established here & there churches which support their own financial burdens, but for the most part our mission look to us for very substantial support, and it is commonly taken for granted that every new station must do so, at any rate for some considerable time. Our modern practice in founding a church is to begin by securing land & buildings in the place in which we wish to propagate the Gospel, to provide houses in which the missionary can live, and a church, or at least a room, fitted up with all the ornaments of a Western church, in which the missionary may conduct services, sometimes to open a school to which we supply the teachers. The larger the establishment & the more liberally it is supplied with every possible modern convenience, the better we think it suited to our purpose. Even in the smallest places we are anxious to secure as speedily as possible land on which to build houses & churches & schools, and we take it for granted that the acquirement of these things by the foreign missionary, or by the foreign society, is a step on the first importance. Since it is obviously impossible that the natives should supply all these things, even if they are anxious to receive our instruction, it naturally follows that we must supply them. Hence the opening of a new mission station has become primarily a financial operation, and we constantly hear our missionaries lament that they cannot open new stations where they are sorely needed, because they have not the necessary funds to purchase & equip the barest missionary establishment.

This habit of taking supplies with us is due chiefly to two causes: first, the amazing wealth of the church at home and the notion that reverence and devotion depend upon the use of expensive religious furniture² to which our luxury has accustomed us, and, secondly, the prevalence of the idea that the stability of the church in some way depends upon the permanence of its buildings.³ When we have secured a site & buildings we feel that the mission is firmly planted; we cannot then be easily driven away. A well-built church seems to imply a well-founded, stable society. So the externals of religion precede the inculcation of its principles. We must have the material establishment before we build the spiritual house....

Thus, the foundation of a new mission is primarily a financial operation. But it ought not properly to be a financial operation, and the moment it is allowed to appear as such, that moment very false & dangerous elements are introduced into our work.

1) By our eagerness to secure property for the church we often succeed in raising up many difficulties in the way of our preaching. We sometimes, especially perhaps in such a country as China, arouse the opposition of the local authorities who do not desire to give foreigners a permanent holding in their midst. We occasionally even appeal to legal support to enforce our right to purchase the property, and thus we begin our work in a turmoil of strife & excitement which we might have avoided.

2) We load our missionaries with secular business, negotiations with contractors, the superintendence of works, the management of a considerable establishment, to which is often added anxiety about the supply of funds for providing & maintaining the establishment. In this way their attention is distracted from their proper spiritual work, their energy & power is dissipated, and their first contact with the people whom they desire to evangelize is connected with contracts and other purely secular concerns....

3) But in creating these missionary establishments we not only overburden our missionaries with secular business, we misrepresent our purpose in coming to the place....

Now the purchase of land and the establishment of foreign missions in these establishments, especially if they are founded in the face of opposition from the local authorities, naturally suggest the idea of a foreign domination. The very permanence of the buildings suggests the permanence of the foreign element. The land is secured, and the buildings are raised, in the first instance by the powerful influence of foreigners. That naturally raises a question in the native mind why these people should be so eager to secure a permanent holding in their midst. They naturally suspect some evil ulterior motive. They suppose that the foreigner is eager to extend his influence & to establish himself amongst them at their expense. In China, particularly, the common idea prevalent amongst the people is that to become a Christian involves submission to foreign domination. This conception has a most powerful effect in deterring the people from approaching the missionary or from receiving his teachings with open minds. I think it is now almost universally admitted that the permanence of foreign rule in the Church ought not to be our object in propagating the Gospel. But by taking large supplies with us to provide & support our establishments & organizations we do in fact build up that which we should be most eager to destroy.

Moreover, we do not want to produce the impression that we design to introduce an institution, even if it is understood that the institution is to be naturalized. Christianity is not an institution, but a principle of life. By importing an institution we tend to obscure the spiritual character of our work. We take the externals first and so we make it easy for new converts to put the external in the place of the internal. Attendance at a house of prayer may take the place of prayer. It is easy to mistake the provision of the ornaments of worship for the duty of worship. The teachers seem to think these things so important that they must be the really important things. The duty of the Christian is to learn to attend to these things, and to go through the proper forms. The heathen naturally looks at religion from that point of view, and when he see the external provided at a cost which seems to him very great, and the things imported which the country cannot provide, he inevitably tends to suppose that our religion is as his own, and the organization & the institution take just that place in his though which was formerly occupied by his own organization & institutions of religion. But this is precisely what we want to avoid.

Nor is that all. The first glance at these missions financed from abroad naturally suggests that the religion which they represent is foreign. They are supported by foreign money, they are often foreign in appearance. Eastern people almost universally look upon Christianity as a foreign religion, and they do not want a foreign religion. This is one of the very chiefest & most insidious of our difficulties. We are not the preachers of a Western religion, and anything which tends to create or support that misunderstanding is a thing rather to be avoided than encouraged. By the introduction of Western buildings & Western religious furniture we can hardly avoid strengthening that misunderstanding. Of course, if we are prepared to maintain that our Western ornaments are essentially Catholic⁴ and must be adopted everywhere as integral parts of the Catholic Faith,⁵ there is no more to be said: but for my part I am not prepared to take up that position.

4) By importing & using & supplying to the natives buildings & ornaments which they cannot procure for themselves, we tend to pauperize the converts. They cannot supply what they think to be needful, and so they learn to accept the position of passive recipients. By supplying what they cannot supply we check them in the proper impulse to supply what they can supply. Foreign subsidies produce abroad all the ill effects of endowments at home., with the additional disadvantage that they are foreign. The converts learn to rely upon them instead of making every effort to supply their own needs.

5) It is often said that these financial bonds help to maintain unity. Native congregations have before now been held to their allegiance by threats of the withdrawal of pecuniary support. But unity so maintained, by an external bond, is not Christian unity at all. It is simply submission to bondage for the sake of secular advantage and it will fail the moment that any other & stronger motive urges in the direction of separation. There is all the difference in the world between gifts freely made by members of the one body one to another, as manifestations of the spirit of mutual charity which moves in them, and gifts or subsidies made with the intention of checking freedom of action on the part of the recipients. Spiritual forces are more powerful than external bonds, and external bonds never have preserved, and never will preserve, unity. The only unity which is worth preserving is the unity of the Spirit.

6) By the establishment of great institutions, the provision of large parsonages, mission houses, churches, and all the accompaniments of these things, we tie our missionaries to one place. They cease to be movable evangelists and become pastors. From time to time they go out on tour, but their stations are their chief care, and to their stations they are tied. Even if they find that the station is not well chosen, so much money is invested in it that they cannot easily move. Even if some new opening of larger importance is before them they cannot enter into it without serious & difficult financial adjustments.

7) Further, these establishments make it very difficult for any native to succeed to the place of a European missionary. The Christians gathered round the station are very conscious of the advantage of having a European in their midst. He has influence with governors, merchants, masters. He can give valuable recommendations. He can return home and plead for his people with societies & charitably-disposed individuals. He can collect money for his schools & hospitals. In time of need & stress he can afford to expend much. He is, or is supposed to be, above the common temptations of the people. He is naturally free from local entanglements. He cannot be accused of seeking to make places for his relations. His judgment is impartial, his opinion unbiased by any divisions or jealousies of local society. All these things incline the native converts to prefer a European to a native as the Head of their station. Consequently, it is very difficult for any native to succeed him. The native has none of these advantages. He cannot tap the sources of supply, he cannot exercise the same charitable liberality, he cannot expect, as a right, the same confidence. He is liable to attack from all sides. He has not even the prestige which attaches to a white face. His position is well-nigh impossible. Moreover, if a native is put in charge of a station, he naturally expects to be paid at the same rate as his white predecessor. If he is not so paid, he feels aggrieved. It is useless to explain to him that a native ought to be able to make one rupee or one dollar go as far as six or seven in the hands of a European. To him the salary for this work, this post, has been fixed at so much, and if he occupies the post he should receive so much. But native Christians, left to themselves, would never have created such a post, and sooner or later they will abolish it. They are accustomed to other standards, and other methods of payment, or support, for teachers. Thus by the establishment of these posts we are creating serious difficulties. We say that we hope the day is not far off when natives will succeed to our places and carry on the work which we have begun. But by the creation of these stations we have put off that day.

From this point of view it is plain that the creation of mission stations with large parsonages & churches is a far more serious difficulty than the establishment of large schools & hospitals. Great colleges & hospitals can more easily be treated as extra-parochial. They are not bound up with the ordinary life of the church. Church life can go on without them, or beside them; and special arrangements made for them do not so nearly touch the community. There must be difficulties with these; but the difficulties connected with parsonages & churches, e.g. in India & the Far East, are already pressing.

8) Finally, these endowments will sooner or later become a source of fresh difficulties. These buildings, etc., are legally held by foreign missionary societies, which have their headquarters in foreign countries. Sooner or later the native church will grow strong and will insist on managing its own affairs. Are there then to be in the future foreign patronage boards holding buildings in trust, and appointing to posts in the dioceses of native bishops in the territories of independent States? Some of the foreign missionary societies could, and no doubt would, hand over the buildings & patronage to the native church, but others could not, and would not, do that, because they hold the property for the propagation of the peculiar views held by their subscribers at home, and the trustees at home could not be sure that the native bishops would continue to hold those peculiar views whether of doctrine or ritual. Yet it is scarcely conceivable that native churches will tolerate the interference of foreign patronage boards, and a grievous strife may arise over the endowments & the buildings. Of all sources of strife, material possessions are the most prolific. If there have been in the past difficulties between the committees of missionary societies at home & bishops & other leaders in the field, whilst those bishops & leaders where of the same race & speech & habit of thought as the members of the committees, how much more are we to fear difficulties when the bishops & other leaders are natives of independent States. We speak much of the establishment of independent native churches; but the increase of endowments may not prove to be the best means of attaining that end in the future, any more than it has proved to be the best means of attaining it in the past.

Footnotes:

¹ I.e., of the Roman Empire, where Paul preached, Asia, Achaia, Galatia & Macedonia.

² I.e., organs, bells, candles, snuffers, etc.—Allen was an Anglican.

³ To these, I would add that, in our context, we Americans love the comfort & ease & electronic devices—“labor-saving,” computers & communications, etc.—which our wealth has gained us, and think we cannot live, or work, without them.

⁴ Meaning "universal," not "Roman Catholic"; i.e., essential to Christianity at all times & places.

⁵ Meaning not the "Roman Catholic Faith", but “the faith once delivered to the saints,” genuine Christianity.