Gospel missionism (1892-1910) and the Southern Baptist Convention (USA) : prelude to a post-modern missiology

Abstract

Assessment of the past helps one seize emerging opportunities. The Southern Baptist Convention's (SBC) Foreign Mission Board (FMB) radically redesigned itself July 1, 1997, the most far reaching self-assessment since its 1845 founding. The FMB's changes neglected some essential historical precedents. In 1892, a band of FMB missionaries posted with the North China Mission resigned and established their own operation. They held and integrated three core values: indigeneity, incarnation, and responsible autonomy. Baptist historians have dismissed these dissidents because they considered them Landmarkers (an earlier movement that threatened the SBC itself). Later historical inquiry corrected this assumption demonstrating that Landmarkers seized the Gospel Mission Movement to serve its own ends not the reverse. What prorrpted these missionaries to leave their base of support and operate independently? Original sources tell the tale of strong convictions about missions that were more commonly apparent later, in a post-modern era. Gospel Missionism's peers did not listen, partly because of the Landmarkist confusion and partly because they advocated things others were not prepared to hear. The Gospel Missioners found it difficult to sustain their experiment outside the SBC. Hence, survivors gradually reentered the FMB structure, primarily the Interior China Mission. Their influence extended to the next generation of missionaries. Yet, indirectly their values entered the FMB's strategies through outside evangelicals which increasingly espoused similar core values. By 1985, the Board tackled the challenge of the least evangelized peoples. Trustees formed Cooperative Services International (CSI) to accommodate the need. Unwittingly, from within the FMB, CSI embodied Gospel Missionism's core values with more modern emphases. In 1997, trustees restructured the FMB and dismantled CSI. They borrowed its drive and its penchant for streamlined administration, but jettisoned its priority passion for those least evangelized. Only time will tell, but there is evidence that the FMB has reverted and embraced elements of an older paradigm, possibly because it was unprepared to face a postmodern future. This study concludes that the Gospel Missionism movement was a blending of both enlightenment and post-modern missiological ideals. It was an incipient, evangelical version of a post-modern missiological paradigm.