PART 4
During the last decades of the twentieth century, there were tremendous changes occurring throughout the world. “The most obvious outward trait” of the period, writes Ralph Winter, “was the unprecedented ‘Retreat of the West’”—a “collapse of four hundred years of European empire building in the non-Western world.”1 As the superpowers and their allies aligned against each other, the once politically insignificant countries of Africa, Asia, and South America became the much sought after “powers” of the Third World. Underdeveloped nations long ruled by colonial powers suddenly captured world attention—often through revolutionary movements or by blatant acts of aggression by petty dictators. Oil became the world’s most coveted raw material as the demand for energy expanded, and the proliferation of nuclear weapons increased. By the 1990s, America alone held the designation superpower and was held in awe in many parts of the world—while at the same time deep hostilities and resentment boiled to the surface.
The turbulent changes that occurred in the Third World had a decisive impact on the foreign missionary movement—an impact that had been felt through the course of the twentieth century. By the 1960s, however, attacks against missionaries increased, particularly in the face of revolutionary movements. There were deaths among the members of almost every mission society active in troubled areas of the world, and there were calls for missionaries to go home. Many mainline denominations withdrew missionaries as their own numbers declined in their homeland. But with a new focus on unreached people groups and social outreach programs, interest increased among evangelicals and Catholics.
With increasing opposition to mission work in many areas of the world, there was a heightened sense of urgency and an expanding interest in mission strategy—particularly in relation to cultural anthropology, church growth case studies and statistics, mission partnership, and Muslim evangelism. The field of missiology that was in its infant stages at the beginning of the century had become a widely recognized discipline by the new millennium.
Perhaps the greatest change in mission outreach that occurred during the course of the twentieth century was the increasing involvement of non-western Christians. From the dawn of modern missions, nationals had played a significant role in evangelizing their own people, but as the twentieth century progressed they increasingly reached out cross-culturally. And, at the same time that missionaries were being threatened by acts of violence by their so-called enemies, they were confronting tense situations with their friends. Third World Christians were no longer willing—if, in fact, they had ever been—to submissively bow to the will of the Western missionaries. They demanded leadership positions and control of their own affairs that in some cases had long been denied them.
One of the factors that has aided national leadership and participation in church ministries has been expanded Christian education. The training of national pastors and evangelists was revolutionized during the last half of the twentieth century through the introduction of TEE (Theological Education by Extension). This program served many national Christians in remote areas—especially men with families who were unable to enroll in Bible schools or seminaries because of factors of cost and distance. By the middle of the 1970s, some fifty thousand men and women in more than seventy countries were receiving advanced Bible training through TEE.
Another important influence during this era was the Lausanne movement that began with the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in 1974, where one-third of the nearly twenty-five hundred delegates came from Third World churches, with one hundred and fifty countries represented. The movement sent a strong message that completing the Great Commission was not just the white man’s burden. In a secondary sense, the movement provided an opportunity for delegates from the Third World to air their grievances. Among them was Dr. Rene Padilla, who charged “that the gospel some European and North American missionaries have exported was a ‘culture-Christianity,’ a Christian message … distorted by the materialistic, consumer culture of the West.”2
The Lausanne Committee on World Evangelization, which grew out of the 1974 Congress, sponsored many regional congresses in the following years, all reflecting the large number of outstanding national leaders in all parts of the world. A second world level meeting in Pattaya, Thailand, in 1980 again involved a large number of church leaders from the non-Western world, but “the lack of women in positions of prominence,” writes A. Scott Moreau, “was evident and a point of contention for some in attendance.”3
The Lausanne movement sent a strong message that completing the Great Commission was not just the white man’s burden.
The Lausanne movement also reflected a charismatic influence in the world-wide church. The fastest growing segment of the Christian church during the twentieth century was the Pentecostal and charismatic wing. During the decade of the 1960s the Assemblies of God and a number of other Pentecostal denominations and missions increased their missionary personnel by more than 50 percent. This mission expansion spurred growth worldwide. “The explosive growth of indigenous Pentecostal churches in Chile, Brazil and South Africa,” writes Robert Clouse, “has caused some to predict that the future center of Christianity will be in the Southern Hemisphere among non-Caucasian Pentecostals.”4
Other evangelical groups also witnessed significant growth. During the 1970s the conservative evangelical missionary force increased by almost 40 percent, encompassing a total of more than thirty-two thousand missionaries. “It is well known,” writes Robert T. Coote, “that the North American conservative agencies, taken as a whole, have experienced dramatic growth since the late 1960s. By 1980 they accounted for ten out of eleven North American Protestant career missionaries working overseas.”5 In fact, by 1983 Wycliffe Bible Translators alone was sending out twice as many missionaries as the combined total of the member denominations in the National Council of Churches.
There is indeed reason for optimism in viewing the overall picture of worldwide missions. The Protestant missionary “movement still vibrates with life and action,” wrote Herbert Kane in 1979. “Today there are more missionaries in more countries of the world than ever before in the history of the Christian church.” But, as he pointed out, there were other reasons for optimism. “Never before have the non-Christian people of the world been so open…. Some countries are now difficult to enter because of visas, resident permits, and red tape, but once in, missionaries find the people more receptive than ever before.”6
In 1982 there were more volunteers for missionary work among the Muslims than ever before, and during that same year some ten thousand students (many influenced by Inter-Varsity’s triennial Urbana Conference) spent their summer vacation in short-term mission work. Some organizations such as Operation Mobilization, founded in 1958 and headed by George Verwer, and Youth with a Mission, specialize in sending young adults on short-term assignments involving literature distribution and evangelistic work.
As the number of short-term missionaries increased, so has the number of nonprofessional missionaries, or “tentmakers,” as they have been termed. Tentmaking “is the wave of the future,” writes Herbert Kane. “Today there are millions of Americans traveling and residing overseas. If all the dedicated Christians among them could be trained and persuaded to be effective witnesses for Jesus Christ, they would add a whole new dimension to the missionary movement. The spiritual potential here is enormous.”7 Nonprofessional tentmaker missionaries were being trained by such organizations as Campus Crusade for Christ and the Navigators, both of which have extensive overseas ministries. In the era of the new millennium the North American base for mission outreach was shifting to the non-Western world—though North America still retained a powerful financial advantage which was demonstrated by its continuing dominant role.
So, what is the future of Christian missions? Is the age of the traditional lifeterm missionary over? Will Third World missionaries, short-term evangelists, and nonprofessionals carry the burden of future missionary outreach? The last decades of the twentieth century were a time when large numbers of career North American missionaries were retiring, many of which were not replaced. The fastest growing mission agencies were based in the Two-Thirds world. But despite the new trends, the age of the pioneer missionary who spends a lifetime in cross-cultural evangelism and church planting is not over.
In its two-thousand-year history, mission work has changed dramatically. But in many ways it still remains the same. Christians whose lives have been transformed reach out to their neighbors and across the world. Like many in the earliest centuries, there are ones who give their lives for the cause, whether dying at the hands of enemy bullets, or at the end of a long life spent in reaching out to the poorest of the poor in Calcutta and around the world.