CONDONING HEATHENISM by Wm. Ashmore, D.D.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 5, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 18.

CONDONING HEATHENISM.

By Wm. Ashmore, D.D.

BY WM. ASHMORE, D.D.

[Missionary of the American Baptist Missionary Union.]

This is no new thing in missionary history only this, that, in the past, it has been largely confined to Roman Catholic dealings. The noted Matthew Ricci is a conspicuous illustration. He himself went disguised as a Buddhist priest; he allowed ancestral worship; even the worship of idols could be tolerated, provided the worshiper could only affix the name of Jesus or of the Virgin behind the burning candle that was offered, so as not to be discerned by others. The man could claim that, while he was seemingly bowing in honor of the idol, he was really worshiping the Lord only or the Virgin. But condoning heathenism is no longer confined to the Romanists. It has invaded Protestant administration. In India caste exclusivism is too often excused and tolerated. In China ancestral worship is now palliated and coming to be regarded by scores of missionaries as a trivial thing, after all. There are those who, it is believed, would not demand the renunciation of it as a condition of church membership, if they were only sure that a storm would not be raised among the supporters of missions at home. Others again are teaching that all religions are of God; that pre-Christian heathenism had a divine sanction, the same as Judaism had; that the reverence paid to Confucius, if looked at in a right light, is natural and justifiable; therefore bowing down to his tablet is, or may be, quite consistent with “the faith of God’s elect;” that “a saying contained in heathen classics, if true, is entitled to just as much weight as the same sentiment found in our word of God;” and that “Buddha was one of God’s precious saints.”

Let the friends of missions at home open their eyes and look about them. Whither are they drifting? Whither are we drifting? Whither leads the missionary ship?

One of the excellent missionaries of the American Board is the Rev. W. S. Ament. He is honored out of his own mission as well as in it. He has some utterances in a former number of the Chinese Recorder worthy of more extensive reading still. So we copy some of them, and send them to the Independent, that its readers may know how goes the battle:—

“It is strenuously held by many that we must deal gently with the inherited prejudices of the Chinese. . . . We are told, also, that the heathen Chinaman is unable to take in the full scope of Christian truth at once, and that it should be gradually unfolded before him. . . . Praise should be judiciously meted out to the ancient sages, and passages quoted to show the intimate relation the classics sustain to Bible truth. On no account is the worship of ancestors to be mentioned except in accents of praise. The name of Jesus is to be metamorphosed into that of the ‘Lord of the World’s Salvation.’ A modicum of truth will do for the first few addresses. Tell the people something about foreign countries; possibly talk a little English, just to please them; show them some mechanical toy; gently throw out the hint that this globe was made by the ‘Old Man of the Heavens.’ Acquiring courage from the applause of the people, you may now possibly announce that there is one God, who made heaven and earth, and show the emptiness of idolatry. But by no means in these first interviews are the doctrines of sin, depravity, and the atonement, much less the resurrection, to be introduced. The people are not ready for these advanced truths. They should be prepared by a long course of instruction.”

All this Mr. Ament condemns in cogent speech. He says:—

“Not so—not so the method of Paul or his Master. To the Athenians, though with exquisite tact in introducing the subject of his discourse, he did not fail to proclaim the whole counsel of God, and explained to them the resurrection from the dead, though it excited their derisive sneers. Not with honeyed phrases did he preach to Agrippa and Festus, nor at Ephesus and Rome.”—The Independent.