Francis Xavier, an Extraordinary Missionary and Saint

The Feast of St. Francis Xavier will be celebrated in Goa, India, this Saturday. That special yearly observance commemorates and honors Xavier and his remarkable Christian missionary activity (see this link). He died 470 years ago, on December 3, 1552.

I have mentioned Xavier several times in my blog posts through the years, the first being on Aug. 15, 2009, my twelfth post on this blog started the previous month. 

Francis Xavier was born in 1506 in what is now northern Spain. When he was 19, he enrolled in Paris University, the world’s premier university at the time.

While a student in Paris, Xavier became friends with Ignatius of Loyola, and he became one of the seven original members of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) started by Ignatius on August 15, 1534.*

Xavier became one of the most famous Jesuits of all time in spite of his early death only eighteen years and a few months after the formation of that new Roman Catholic order. Further, he became one of the most effective Catholic missionaries of all time, even though he served only 10½ years.

Xavier’s missionary work began on May 6, 1542, when after a treacherous sea voyage of several months he disembarked in Goa, the center of Portuguese activity in the East. He worked there with considerable success for about three years.

For the next three years, Xavier engaged in missionary work in what now is the country of Malaysia. It was there that he met Anjirō, a Japanese fugitive, who accompanied him when he returned to Goa.

Xavier was the first Christian missionary to reach Japan. With Anjirō as his interpreter and guide, Xavier left Goa in April 1549, and exactly four months later, on August 15, set foot in Kagoshima at the southernmost part of the Japanese island of Kyushu.

For a little over two years, Xavier engaged in energetic missionary work—and struggled with the Japanese language, which he reportedly called the “Devil’s language,” designed to keep the Gospel out of Japan.

His contact with the Japanese Emperor in Kyoto proved disappointing, but he then had considerable success in what is now Yamaguchi Prefecture at the southern tip of the major island of Honshu. He also enjoyed a measure of success in what are now Nagasaki and Oita Prefectures on Kyushu.

Surprisingly, Xavier didn’t think he was particularly successful in Japan, but he established the work for other Jesuit missionaries there and scholars have estimated that more than 300,000 people in Japan converted to Christianity over the next fifty years.

Xavier is widely known and respected in Japan to this day. I have been to the St. Francis Xavier Memorial Church in Yamaguchi (see here for a picture) and have seen the statue of Xavier in downtown Oita City (pictured below). 

Xavier’s impressive legacy is well worth noting. While still in Japan, Xavier longed to go to mainland China and to evangelize there.

After a short visit back in Goa, in April 1552 Xavier set off for China. In late August, he arrived at Shangchuan Island, less than nine miles from the mainland, but he was not allowed to enter the country that was closed to foreigners. As he waited and waited, he grew ill and then died on Dec. 3.

His remains were taken back to Goa where they are preserved in a silver casket within Bom Jesus Basilica there.

Xavier’s dream of entering China and meeting the Emperor was fulfilled by the Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci, who was born less than two months before Xavier died.**

Xavier was canonized 400 years ago, in March 1622, and in 1927 he was named the Roman Catholic patron saint of all missions.

He is justly credited for his idea that missionaries must adapt to the customs and language of the people they evangelize, and for his advocation of an educated native clergy.

Partly because of Xavier’s emphasis on education, the Jesuits founded many universities around the world.

In the U.S., currently there are 29 Jesuit universities, including Xavier University in Cincinnati and Rockhurst University here in Kansas City, where I had the distinct privilege of teaching for 17 semesters from 2006 to 2014.

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* See my Oct. 25, 2013, blog post titled “In Appreciation of Ignatius and the Jesuits.”

** See my blog article about Ricci posted last month on Oct. 10.

Note: While teaching at Rockhurst U., I sometimes showed my classes part of a DVD titled “Xavier: Missionary & Saint.” That 2006 PBS documentary is now available for viewing (here) on YouTube. 

Contextualizing Christianity: In Memory of Matteo Ricci

On March 31 last year, The Economist published an article about “Sinifying Christianity,” that is, seeking to make Chinese Christians more “Chinese.” The article begins by referring to James Hudson Taylor, the famous 19th-century Protestant missionary. They could have looked back much further.

Italian Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci sought to Sinicize (=to change or modify by Chinese influence) Christianity in the 16^th century. His pioneer evangelistic activity is noteworthy even now, and there are Protestants as well as Catholics who remember his missionary work with deep appreciation.

Christianity Today, the flagship moderate evangelical Christian magazine, published an article in June of this year with praise, and a picture, of Ricci. 

Ricci and Chinese scholar Xu Guangqi

Ricci was born 470 years ago, on October 6, 1552. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1581, and the next year he arrived in Macao and prepared for entering China. He did enter the mainland in 1583 and remained there until his death 27 years later, in 1610.

As Baptist missiologist Justice Anderson wrote in 1998, “to win the favor of the Chinese, Ricci adopted their culture and appeared in the guise of a Confucian scholar.” He was quite successful: by 1650, forty years after his death, there were some 250,000 Christians in China.*

According to the article in The Economist, since 2018 the Chinese government has encouraged churches “to use Chinese architecture and Chinese tunes for hymns, as well as Chinese-style painting, calligraphy and other ‘popular cultural forms.’” All this would have pleased Ricci.

The Catholic Church, though, was not pleased with Ricci’s emphasis. Ricci and his successors “permitted converts to engage in ancestral and state rites regarding those as social and civil rather than religious in character.”**

That led to what is known as the Chinese Rites controversy (which is summarized well in Wikipedia). It was settled by the Pope in the early 1700s—against the Jesuits and to the great detriment of the continued expansion of Christianity in China.

I first learned about Ricci when I was a graduate student in the 1960s. Dr. Hugo Culpepper, a Missions professor at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, stressed the importance of what was then often called accommodation.

Later the terms indigenization, inculturation, or contextualization became more common. The emphasis was the same, however: effective mission activity must seek to relate intentionally and positively to the culture in which the missionary is located. That is certainly what Ricci sought to do.

Even now, and perhaps now even more than in past decades, there are many who criticize missionary activity as being a form of imperialism.

The critics think that Western missionaries were intentionally linked to the Western powers that sought to gain political and economic control over Asian and African countries.

Unfortunately, that was often the case in the 19^th and early 20^th century. Missionaries sought to make Christians and churches in non-Western lands look much like the Christians and churches of the West. Converts were given “Christian” names, and church buildings exhibited Western architecture.

My first Japanese pastor was an elderly man who was born into a samurai family in 1890. When he was baptized as a young man, he was given the name Timothy. (Fortunately, he was not using that name when I first met him in 1966.)

As the article in The Economist notes, “long before the Communist Party seized power in 1949, people used to say, ‘One more Christian, one fewer Chinese.’ Officials in China still mutter this phrase today.”

But to cite the same 4/3/21 source again, in 1867 the prominent English missionary Hudson Taylor (1832~1905) “wrote a letter home defending his policy of encouraging fellow preachers in China to wear Chinese robes and the Manchu-style pigtail.”

Taylor’s emphasis was quite similar to what Catholic missionary Ricci had advocated 275 years earlier.

While the specifics changed, the central point of Ricci (and Taylor) was adopted more and more in the last half of the 20^th century.

Along with many of my missionary colleagues, during my 38 years in Japan I intentionally sought to practice accommodation/indigenization as much as possible—and have bristled some when accused, directly or indirectly, of fostering Western (Christian) imperialism.

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* “Medieval and Renaissance Missions (500-1792),” Missiology: An Introduction to the Foundations, History, and Strategies of World Missions (1998), p. 192.

** R. Pierce Beaver, “The History of Mission Strategy,” Perspectives on the World Christian Movement: A Reader (1981), p. 194.

Leaving Lottie: My Sad Journey Away from the LMCO

This month I have been feeling nostalgic for the early Decembers fondly remembered in past years.

Those were times when I was privileged to preach/speak in Southern Baptist churches about world missions, which I always did with gladness—and with appreciation for the support received from those churches as an SB missionary. But, sadly, things have changed.

An Enthusiastic Supporter of the LMCO

Except for active Southern Baptists, past and/or present, few know (or care) what LMCO stands for. It means the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, which has been a lifeline for missionaries deployed by the International Mission Board (IMB) of the Southern Baptist Convention. 

An IMB webpage explains that the LMCO “is an annual offering collected by Southern Baptists to support international missions. The offering was officially named in 1918 by Woman’s Missionary Union in honor of the missionary to China who urged churches to start it and give sacrificially.”

(For information about the SB missionary Lottie Moon, see my 12/26/12 blog article about her and the LMCO.)

The same IMB webpage reports, “Through the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, Southern Baptists have given over $5 billion to international missions.” That’s a lot of money!

My family and I were on missionary “furlough,” now called “stateside assignment,” in 1971, ’76, ’81, ’86, and ’91. Each of those years provided opportunities to visit churches, especially in early December, to promote giving to/through the LMCO—and to thank Southern Baptists for their support.

A Reluctant Supporter of the LMCO

Since 1980, the Southern Baptist Convention steadily became more and more conservative/fundamentalist. In that same period, my own faith had grown in the opposite direction. In the 1990s I increasingly became only a rather reluctant supporter of the LMCO.

After 2000, it became even more difficult for me to promote the LMCO enthusiastically, as I had done for decades. The problem was the adoption of a revised Baptist Faith and Message document that, among other things, mitigated against women serving as pastors.

After being forced to retire as an SBC missionary in 2004, my support for the LMCO virtually ended in 2005. Reflecting back, I grieve over that sad separation from a long and meaningful relationship.

A Non-Supporter of the LMCO

As the SBC grew more and more conservative, being a Southern Baptist meant not only opposing women in ministry but also being stanchly opposed to pro-choice (=anti-abortion) and pro-LGBTQ (=anti-gay) positions.

Naturally, the change in the SBC meant that newly appointed missionaries, and those older missionaries who chose to remain with the SBC, were mainly those who agreed with SBC’s theological and ethical positions.

It was not too surprising, then, that an overwhelming majority of Southern Baptists voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020. And it seems that Baptists in other countries have been influenced in the same direction by SB missionaries.

Brazil is one of the countries to which Southern Baptists have sent the most missionaries for the longest time. As a boy, I grew up hearing about the Bagbys of Brazil. Buck and Anne Bagby arrived in Brazil as SB missionaries in 1881. Five of their nine children later became missionaries to Brazil.

But just as Baptists in the U.S. have been, and still are, big supporters of Trump, in recent years Brazilian Baptists (and other evangelicals) have been strong supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro.

Bolsonaro (b. 1955) has reportedly remained a Catholic. But in 2016 he was baptized (immersed) in the Jordan River by an evangelical pastor, and he attends the Baptist church where his wife is a member.

Mrs. Bolsonaro’s church is the Attitude Baptist Church (interesting name!), which was organized in 2000 mainly through the work of an SB missionary.

“Bolsonaro’s faith-based enablers” is a Dec. 1 Christian Century article that describes how Bolsonaro and his evangelical support in Brazil mirror Trump and his evangelical support in the U.S.

As an outspoken critic of Christian fundamentalism for the past two decades, I am sadly no longer able to affirm a mission board and the long-esteemed LMCO which now mainly supports conservative evangelical missionaries who nourish similar believers in other nations, such as Brazil.

Confessions of a Missionary

“The Limits of Liberal Views of World Missions” is the title of the ninth chapter of my book The Limits of Liberalism: A Historical, Theological, and Personal Appraisal of Christian Liberalism (2010), which I am updating and slightly revising for re-publication at year’s end. 

This post is related to the subject of that next-to-last chapter of the book, but it is mainly the confessions of a missionary, who happens to be me. 

Confessing Shame over Missionary Mistakes

In Chapter Nine, I sadly indicate some of the mistakes made by many missionaries of the past, mistakes that are widely, and for good reason, criticized especially in liberal Christian circles.

From the last of the 15^th century, Christianity was largely spread by means of the imperialistic activities of European nations.

“God, guns, and gold” were linked: the activities of missionaries were often forerunners of, or concomitant with, the military forces that secured foreign wealth for the powerful countries of Europe. Spanish missionary Junípero Serra, whom I wrote about on Oct. 5, was just one example of many.

Early Protestant missionaries such as William Carey, “the father of modern (Protestant) missions,” and early missionaries such as Ann and Adoniram Judson were not linked with imperialistic power, but unfortunately, many of their successors in the 19^th century were.

I confess that I am ashamed of much that has been done by missionaries in the past, although the same sort of activities are, thankfully, rarely seen in the present.

Confessing Lack of Missionary Success

On a more personal level, I confess that I was not particularly successful as a missionary to Japan from 1966 to 2004—and sadly, most of the missionaries to Japan over the last 60 years would have to make a similar confession.

Traditionally, overseas missionaries have been popularly pictured as living in poor countries and having to cope with challenging living conditions. That certainly wasn’t true for those of us who served in Japan after, say, 1965.

The challenge we regularly faced was how to deal with the sense of failure in what we were sent there to do. In contrast to the first 20 years after WWII, those of us missionaries who went to Japan after 1965 have to confess that, to a large part, we saw scant success from our efforts.

(I would be happy to respond to questions concerning this matter.)

“Confessing” Joy from a Missionary Career

“Liberal” Christians have long held a dim view of missionary activity, and I have personally seen a shift in attitudes toward missionaries. During my family’s second missionary “furlough,” as it was called then, we lived in a house generously provided by Second Baptist Church here in Liberty.

That year of 1976-77 was a good year for our family and we were well treated and supported by the church. Then, in 2005 after retiring from our missionary work in Japan, we bought a house in Liberty and that fall became members again of Second Baptist Church.

It was a bit of a shock when I began to sense negative feelings toward missionaries by some—and only by a very few—members of the church. They seemed to think that missionary work was wrongheaded, and the implication was that June and I had wasted our lives being missionaries.

Nevertheless, the last part of the ninth chapter of my book is titled “Reaffirmation of the Christian Mission,” and in it I contend that “world missions” is legitimate and that the rejection of such is a major weakness of Christian liberalism.

And even though I don’t say so directly in the book, I have to “confess” that in spite of the criticism of missionary activity by some, I count it a great joy to have been able to serve as a missionary for 38 years—and I appreciate the support of Southern Baptists during those years.

If I had it all to do over again, I would unhesitatingly choose to do the same thing—although I would, I hope, do it a little better the second time around.

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For more about my thought on this topic, see “#13  Missionary Activity Is Still Legitimate And Important” in my book Thirty True Things Everyone Needs to Know Now (2018) and my May 20, 2018 blog article based on that chapter.

Junípero Serra: A Sorry Saint

Even though he has little name recognition in most circles, this article is about a man of considerable importance in the history of California and of marked religious interest since he was canonized by Pope Francis five years ago on September 23, 2015. 

Who Was Junípero Serra?

Miguel José Serra was born in November 1713 on the Spanish island of Mallorca in the Mediterranean Sea. When he took his vows to become a Franciscan priest in 1737, Serra took the name Junípero, which was the name of one of St. Francis’s devoted friends.

From his childhood, Serra dreamed of becoming a missionary. After teaching philosophy for several years in Spain, in 1749 he finally was able to make the 6,000-mile trip to Mexico and to begin missionary work there.

On December 15 of that year, Father Serra and another priest started walking from the coastal city of Veracruz to Mexico City, some 260 miles away. On the journey, he was bitten by a mosquito and his left foot became infected. He suffered for the rest of his life from that malady.

Serra spent 38½ years as a missionary in Mexico, Baja California, and in what was then known as Alta California. He died in what is now Monterey County, California, in August 1784 at the age of 70.

The Noble Junípero Serra

Serra’s main claim to fame is as the founder of nine “missions” along the coast of California, from San Diego de Alcalá (in 1769) in the south to San Francisco de Asís (in 1776) on the north. The current cities of San Diego and San Francisco, of course, grew out of Serra’s missions.

In 1769, it is estimated that there were around 300,000 Native Americans in what is now California. Through the indefatigable efforts of Serra and his co-workers, about one-third of those became Roman Catholics.

Because of his meritorious missionary work, Serra became the first Hispanic person to be canonized—by the first Hispanic Pope in the first canonization mass held in the United States.

Even though he was a Franciscan priest and missionary, Serra is sometimes called “the father of California” (see here, for example). Pope Francis has said that he sees Serra as “one of the founding fathers of the United States.” Many Californians through the years have agreed.

As you probably know, each state chooses statues of two of the most important persons in their states to stand in the U.S. Capitol Building. California’s statues are of Ronald Regan and the noble Junípero Serra.

The Ignoble Junípero Serra

There are many who disagree with Serra’s adulation, however. At the time of his canonization, there were serious protests in California, especially by Native Americans. Serra’s statue in a city park in Monterey was decapitated at that time. 

Interestingly, in sympathy with the protests against Confederate statues this year, Serra’s monuments again became targets of protest. On June 19 activists pulled down a Serra statue in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, and the next day, a Serra statue in Los Angeles was toppled. 

A 9/29/15 New York Times article frankly states, “Historians agree that [Serra] forced Native Americans to abandon their tribal culture and convert to Christianity, and that he had them whipped and imprisoned and sometimes worked or tortured to death.”

Ten weeks before Serra’s canonization, Pope Francis publicly apologized for the “grave sins” of colonialism against Indigenous Peoples of America. But that did not keep him from following through with his making Serra a saint.

Although there is much to admire about Junípero Serra, it was probably a mistake for him to be canonized—but since he was, it is fitting to call Serra a sorry saint.

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Dan Horan is a Franciscan priest and a theology professor whom I cited at some length in my August 25 blog post. On July 8 he had a thought-provoking article largely about Serra in the National Catholic Reporter, and I recommend the careful reading of that perceptive article titled “The preferential option for the removal of statues.”

Don't Grieve, Give Thanks

Even though I had another article ready to post today, I decided to postpone it and instead to post the following reflections about my brief trip to Japan, which ends today. (I am scheduled to arrive back in Kansas City just after noon today.)

Grieving What Is No More

During my first and last full days in Japan, October 3 and 8, I experienced considerable sadness at the strong likelihood that this would be my last time in Japan. Especially on Monday evening, I walked around familiar places with tears in my eyes because the next morning I was going to be leaving the place I have loved so much.

As I was jogging early Tuesday morning, though, I started thinking about the words that I had called to mind last week after visiting my good friend Otsuka Kumiko-san, who has terminal cancer: Don’t grieve over what is no more; rather, give thanks for what once was.

I began to apply those words to myself and my grieving because of leaving Japan for the last time.

Giving Thanks for What Once Was

So, yesterday morning I began to give thanks for each thing I had been feeling sad about, including the following:

** I am thankful for the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board, as it was called then, for appointing June and me as missionaries to Japan in 1966 and for supporting us throughout our 38 years there. The Southern Baptist Convention has changed through the years and I am no longer able to be a Southern Baptist; nevertheless, I am deeply grateful for what once was.

** I am thankful for Seinan Gakuin, the school system in Fukuoka City that Southern Baptist missionaries founded in 1916, and for the trustees electing me to the university faculty 50 years ago. I am deeply grateful for the privilege of being able to teach there for 36 years and to serve as chancellor during my final eight years in Japan.

** I am thankful for Hirao Baptist Church, which June and I joined 50 years ago and which was our church home for twelve years. I am also thankful Hirao Church sponsored us in starting the Fukuoka International Church (FIC) and that I was able to serve for 24 years as part-time pastor of that church.

** I am thankful for many Japanese friends, mentors, and co-workers--especially Otsuka Kumiko-san (about whom I wrote, here, on Sept. 5) and Kaneko Sumio-sensei, who was the pastor of Hirao Church for most of the years we attended there. I am thankful for the good visits I had with Otsuka-san on Oct. 3-4  and with Kaneko-sensei on Oct. 4.

** I am thankful for the many former FIC congregants whom I fondly remember--and especially those I was able to visit with over a delicious meal on Oct. 6. That gathering was organized by Fukuoka Kikuko-san, who was the first person I had the privilege of baptizing as pastor of FIC.

** I am thankful for the many students that I had the privilege of teaching at Seinan Gakuin University and especially those with whom I still have contact--such as those I met with on the afternoon of Oct. 8 for a delightful two hours.

What a Difference It Makes!

At dusk on Monday when I left the gathering of former students just mentioned, I walked around familiar places for about two hours, grieving at having to leave Japan for the last time the next day. It was a sad time of thinking of what will be no more, at least of direct experience in Japan.

But Tuesday morning each time I began to have sad thoughts, I would give thanks for what has been--and what a difference that made in how I felt!

Thank you for allowing me to share some of my thoughts / experiences of the past week. In spite of this article being mostly about me, I hope many of you will remember, and profit from, the main point:

Don’t grieve over what is no more; rather, give thanks for what once was.

TTT #14 The Goal of Missions is the Kingdom of God

The article I posted on May 20 summarized some legitimate reasons why Christians still engage in, and support, global evangelistic missionary activity. (I encourage you to check out the comments made, here, about that article.) It is now fitting to consider what the ultimate goal of missions is.

Three Problematic Goals

In the history of Christianity there have been various goals for mission work, and while not equally problematic three such goals can be negatively stated as follows:

(1) The goal of missions is not primarily the expansion of Christianity.

It cannot be doubted that from the time of its beginning as a small Jewish “sect,” for centuries Christianity expanded greatly. Much of that expansion was clearly due to missionary activity.

That does not mean, however, that expansion was, or should have been, the primary goal of missions. Nor, certainly, does it mean that that expansion through the centuries was always done by legitimate or admirable means, even by missionaries.

Much of the expansion of Christianity in the seven hundred years between 300 and 1000, for example, was due to the military and political activities of powerful kings and emperors.

The expansion of Christianity, especially for political reasons, should in no way be considered the primary goal of missions.

(2) The goal of missions is not primarily the spreading of Western civilization.

To some Christians in the past few centuries, missionary activity was linked to the spread of “civilization” to the “benighted” lands of the world.

European civilization was considered superior to that of the indigenous cultures of the other parts of the world, so spreading that civilization, seen largely as the fruit of the Christian faith, was considered a legitimate and praiseworthy activity for many Christians, especially in Great Britain and then in the United States.

There were, of course, important contributions made by missionaries, along with others, who took “civilization” into “primitive” societies. The introduction of Western medicine, for example, was a great benefit to multitudes of people.

But local cultures, societal structures, and religions were sometimes trampled underfoot in that process, and that type of missionary activity has, justifiably, come under intense criticism.

The spreading of Western civilization cannot legitimately be recognized as the major goal of Christian missions.

(3) The goal of missions is not primarily the planting of churches.

During the last decade of my missionary career, the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention began to place almost complete emphasis not only on planting new churches but on the “church planting movement,” which was said to be the “rapid multiplication of indigenous churches planting churches that sweeps through a people group or population segment.”

While planting churches certainly is a commendable activity, still, that should be one means of reaching the proper goal of missions, not the goal itself.

The Proper Goal

As stated in the title, the goal of missions is the Kingdom of God, and as I emphasized in the article posted on Feb. 28, the main characteristic of the God’s Kingdom is shalom (peace and justice).

This matter was well presented by E. Luther Copeland, my former missionary colleague and good friend in Japan. His 1985 book is titled World Mission, World Survival: The Challenge and Urgency of Global Missions Today.

In his last chapter, “The Kingdom and the Mission,” Copeland (1916~2011) elucidates that the goal of mission(s) is the kingdom of God (p. 139). 

That often overlooked point was made more than 100 years by Christoph Blumhardt. He wrote to his missionary son-in-law, “[T]here is no other purpose in your mission work than to proclaim God’s kingdom.”

Yes; true then, true now.

[Christoph Blumhardt (1842~1919) was a German Lutheran pastor. His letters to Richard Wilhelm are presented in the 2015 book Everyone Belongs to God, compiled and edited by Charles E. Moore.]

[The 14^th chapter of Thirty True Things . . . (TTT), which includes much more than could be presented in this article, can be found by clicking on this link.]

TTT #13 Missionary Activity is Still Legitimate and Important

This article, based on the 13^th chapter of Thirty True Things... (TTT), is presented here with the hope that it will help Christian believers reflect on their own faith and practice and that it will help others come to a better understanding of Christianity.

The Modern Missionary Era

There have been missionaries to “foreign” places and ethnic groups from the time of the Apostle Paul to the present. The modern Protestant missionary movement, however, began with Englishman William Carey in 1792.

Building upon Carey’s ground-breaking ideas and actions, extensive time, effort, and resources have been expended on global missionary activities during the 225 years since Carey first went to India. 

According to the most recent statistics I could find (here), in 2010 there were approximately 400,000 serving as international Christian missionaries. Of those, 127,000 were U.S. missionaries; surprisingly, Brazil was the number two missionary-sending country.

As missionary activity by Europeans and Americans is much less prominent now than in previous generations, nearly half of the world's top missionary-sending countries are now located in the global South.

In this country, there are now many Christians who seem to think that evangelistic missionary activities ought to be curtailed altogether.

Criticism of Missionary Activity

There were, of course, opponents and critics of the modern missionary movement from the beginning and throughout the two centuries in which it flourished. From the beginning, Carey struggled to overcome strong opposition to his ideas about missions.

In recent decades, though, much of the criticism of “foreign” missionary work has been, justifiably, because of what was so often a tie between the work of the missionaries and the colonialistic and imperialistic activities of the Western countries from which most missionaries were sent.

Previously, that link was also the scourge of Catholic missions in the so-called “new world” from the time of Columbus, who saw himself as a missionary of sorts. And Hernán Cortés (1485~1547), who founded Vera Cruz [true cross], Mexico, reportedly said, “We have come here to win souls for Holy Mother Church, and to get much gold.”

More than three centuries later, the famous Scottish missionary David Livingstone (1813~73) declared in a 1857 speech given at Cambridge, “My desire is to open a path to this district [in Africa], that civilization, commerce, and Christianity might find their way there.”

To many critics, even more odious than the link between missionary activity and economic imperialism was what seemed to be cultural and/or religious imperialism promulgated by the missionaries. The latter was especially seen in much of the missionary work among the “Indians” of North America.

The Shifting Focus of Missionary Activity

Perhaps largely because of the criticism of much traditional missionary activity, which emphasized converting people to Christianity, the focus of much mission work in recent years has shifted primarily to benevolent work aimed at helping people live better in this present world.

“Mission trips,” which have become commonplace for many churches and Christian organizations, are almost completely concerned with helping people in physical need or deprivation.

To be sure, through the years since the beginning of the modern mission movement, responding in Christian love to the physical and psychological needs of suffering people has been a definite part of missionary activity.

For most forms of the faith, however, that activity was conducted in addition to, and usually secondarily to, the work of evangelism that endeavored to lead people to make a confession of faith in Jesus as Savior, to be baptized, and to become members of a local church.

While there is good reason to emphasize deeds and not just words, is there any reason not to have both?

TTT #9 Christians Must Be Careful When They Call Jesus “Lord”

Once again I am sharing content only from the first part of a chapter in my unpublished book Thirty True Things Everyone Needs to Know Now (TTT). (Readers who have the time and interest are invited to click here in order to read the entire chapter.)

Confessing Jesus as Lord

“Jesus is Lord” is the first and oldest confession of faith by Christians. To present times, that has been a common declaration of faith—and one wonders how different things would be if Christian believers had stuck with that concise confession rather than crafting more complicated creeds.

Back in 1960 when I was a seminary student, June and I became the proud owners of a 1958 Hillman Minx, a British car that looked a lot better than it started in the wintertime. At some point, we pasted a Jesus is Lord sticker on the trunk (or I guess I should say the boot) of our pretty little red and grey car.

In addition to being a seminary student, I was also pastor of the Ekron Baptist Church in Meade County, south of Louisville, and I was happy to witness to Jesus as I drove around the Ekron community.

I had no idea then, and have not realized until fairly recently, that proclaiming that Jesus is Lord can be offensive to some people. But now I understand that Christians must be careful when they call Jesus Lord.

Objecting to Calling Jesus Lord

"Tink" Tinker (b. 1944)

American Indian Liberation (2008) is a challenging book by George E. (“Tink”) Tinker, a professor at Iliff School of Theology in Colorado. Dr. Tinker specifically objects to calling Jesus Lord. 

While the original meaning of that term was an indication of a believer’s commitment to Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world, it came to be experienced by American Indians, as well as by aboriginal people in other countries around the world, as a term of conquest and colonization.

What was meant to be a term designating, among other things, the humble submission of believers to Christ eventually came to be a term even Christian missionaries used to lord it over other people.

Proclaiming Jesus as Lord led an imperialistic church to exude triumphalism in contact with American Indians and with many ethnic groups around the world.

That triumphalistic spirit is seen in hymns such as “Jesus Shall Reign” (1719). The first verse of that hymn by Isaac Watts says, “Jesus shall reign where'er the sun / does its successive journeys run; / his kingdom spread from shore to shore, / till moons shall wax and wane no more.”

And then the third verse of Watts’s hymn, one that is not usually found in modern hymnals, proclaims, “There Persia, glorious to behold, / There India shines in eastern gold; / And barb’rous nations at His word / Submit, and bow, and own their Lord.”

The triumphalism of the hymn becomes more problematic when one considers how Persia at that time was ruled by a Shi’a Islamic dynasty.

Confessing Jesus as Lord Today

The preaching of Paul and the early missionaries was clearly about the lordship of Christ. But as Christianity then was a small movement without power or prestige, there was no way that it could lord it over other people the way some missionaries and other Christians did later when Christianity was linked to imperialistic activities of powerful Western nations.

Because of that misuse of the concept of lordship, Christians today need to be careful how they use the words “Jesus is Lord.” That confession must be only a statement of one’s faith in and personal commitment to Christ and never as suggesting or approving domination of others.

Winning a Hearing / Losing a Hearing

A couple of weeks before Easter, a friend sent a link to an Easter sermon to me and others on his mailing list. He said it was one of the best Easter sermons he had ever heard. I listened to it, and it was all right—but I was unable to appreciate the sermon fully because of the preacher’s public political stance.

Winning a Hearing

Among “progressive” Christians, there seems to be minimal desire to share the “good news” of the Christian faith with those who are not Christians. That is a real problem, I think, and I am growing increasingly weary of progressive Christians eschewing anything thought to smack of evangelism.

For much of my ministry as a pastor and then as a missionary, one of my ongoing concerns was trying to win a hearing. By that I mean the desire to engage other people in such a way that they would give some active attention to what I wanted to share about the Christian faith, which I thought of as “good news,” literally. 

Winning a hearing was a real challenge in Japan where most people were reared with a worldview that was definitely non-Christian. Some were even anti-Christian, although most didn’t have what could be called a personal religious faith.

The majority of the students I taught in a Japanese university were negative not only toward Christianity but to all religion—and quite often more negative toward Shinto and Buddhism than toward Christianity.

My constant challenge was to win a hearing, to spark people’s interest and desire to learn more about Jesus Christ and his life and teachings. Such matters were, I thought, for their personal benefit and for the benefit of the society/world in which they lived.

Losing a Hearing

Back in the late 1960s and early ’70s, more than winning a hearing for the Gospel, some of my missionary colleagues in Japan lost a hearing for the “good news” of Jesus because of their support for the Vietnam War.

There were student protests against that war in Japan just as there were in the States, and missionaries who were vocal in their support of the U.S. war efforts in Vietnam mostly lost any possibility of sharing about Jesus to the many Japanese students who strongly opposed the war. Their political position destroyed their opportunity for Christian witness.

As a pacifist, it was not hard for me to agree with the students in opposing the war in Indochina. My anti-war stance was not a ruse to curry favor among the students but a position I took because of my belief in Jesus.

That position, happily, made it possible for me to win a hearing from many of the students I taught and talked with on campus.

The Case of the Preacher

The preacher of the Resurrection sermon mentioned in the beginning was one of the earliest widely-known Christian pastors publicly to endorse Donald Trump for President. 

I first thought that was probably because of his choosing the “lesser of two evils.” As a strong conservative Christian, he was/is adamantly opposed to abortion and LGBT rights, so he doubtlessly thought he had to oppose Hillary.

But this pastor has continued to be one of DJT’s most vocal supporters in spite of all the charges of political, financial, and moral charges of impropriety. Since his continuing support has given him access to the White House, perhaps an underlying motive is a desire for power and prestige.

So, sadly, while the noted pastor’s sermon on the Resurrection may have been a good one, it is not likely to be heard with appreciation by those who strongly disagree with his blatant political stance.