Modern Thought and Missions

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 14, 1909

Modern Thought and Missions

The question of “The Foreign Missionary Imperative” has been more than once raised of late—whether there be not need of a restatement of the aims and motives of missionary enterprise, in order effectively to grip the hearts of disciples in this new century. At the late centenary of the Haystack meeting at Williamstown, Mass., President Hyde of Bowdoin College, undisguisedly treated the missionary motives of the pioneers of a century ago as largely based upon misconception and mistake, and now outgrown and antiquated. While honoring the self-sacrifice of these martyr spirits and their heroic consecration, it was like paying a tribute to the dead, in more senses than one—rearing a monument over what belongs to the sepulcher and may be left to decay. Dr. Thompson’s address [Dr. R. Wardlow Thompson is the secretary of the London Missionary Society, and as chairman of the Congregational Union gave the opening address in the City Temple, London, the church in which Dr. Joseph Parker formerly preached.—Ed.] is an echo, in the City Temple, London, of the voice heard two years ago in Massachusetts; and we can not avoid or evade the issue: Are we to treat the essential convictions and governing motives of the original leaders of the modern missionary century as based on misconceptions, narrow views, and superstitious notions, and forsake their platform for a new one, in which the planks are laid by evolution and Higher Criticism? Or is the main missionary motive essentially and eternally the same?

For ourselves, after watching step by step the advance of modern thought, we feel constrained to adhere to a conservative attitude. Many things have changed; but there are vital truths, as unchanging as God. This plausible argument about “progressive theology” and “enlightened opinion” overlooks largely the immutable elements in all service to God. While looking back to the deep convictions and inspiring impulses that characterized such men as Carey and Judson, Moffat and Livingstone, Duff and Scudder, Williams and Patteson, Martyn and Heber, it is well to ask how far their views and motives reflected those of Paul and others who were directly taught of the Master himself,—nay, we must go back still further, to him who was the Leader and pattern of all missionaries. The faith in the inspired Word, in one sole method of salvation, the conviction of the peril of lost souls, and the absolute necessity of the gospel for their rescue, reach back

for their roots to something deeper than the superficial and shifting sands of human opinions, and lay hold of the very Rock of Ages. We are not dealing with hyper-Calvinism, or misguided fanaticism, or traditional medievalism, but with the authoritative teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ. We can see no medium ground; we must either stand upon the essentials of the old theology of missions, or impugn, as teaching error or at least defective truth, the written Word and the living Word. For example, as to the final and irremediable condition of those who die in sin, no words ever spoken are more awful than those of that very Saviour, who, as the Lamb of God, came to bear away the sin of the world. To accept the hypothesis of the religious evolutionist is so far to abandon the standard of a divine teacher. In matters of Christian faith and conduct, the decisive question is not, What does my reason approve as most rational and acceptable? but, primarily, What saith the Scriptures? “How readest thou?” To criticize God’s pronouncements as fallible, and treat his doctrines as untenable, is to assume for ourselves a superior knowledge, wisdom, and love. Furthermore, we venture to affirm, though we are in the minority, that in proportion as the convictions and motives that, from the days of the apostles, inspired missionary endeavor and endurance, service and sacrifice, are abandoned as antiquated, and displaced by these modern innovations, the work of missions will deteriorate and degenerate in quality, even if it does not decrease in quantity. No argument for the reality of the guilt of sin and the ruin of sinners is half so potent as the fact that the Son of God died on the cross to provide a salvation. So long as that cross stands in history, it is the unanswerable proof, not only that man needs a divine Redeemer, but that no evolution, but only a radical revolution, can raise him to his final perfection. Heathenism, left to itself, instead of developing upward, will decline downward. The gospel message is the only lever that can move the world, and the cross is the only fulcrum, and the Spirit of God the only adequate force to move the lever. We still believe in the missionary principles of the apostle to the Gentiles as the basis of all heroic work and witness in behalf of a dying world; and at risk of being classed as unprogressive, cling to the simple and plain teachings of the Master, leaving the dark mysteries of God to be hereafter illumined and interpreted in the light of the day that knows no night.—Missionary Review of the World.