Full Text for Church History 3 - Volume 23 - The Impact of Mission Work (Video)

ROUGHLY EDITED COPY CH3-023 PROFESSOR LAWRENCE REST PROFESSOR WILL SCHUMACHER Captioning Provided By: Caption First, Inc. P.O. Box 1924 Lombard, IL 60148 800-825-5234 ***** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communications Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. ***** >> DAVID: Clearly, the work of missionaries has been blessed. Surely, the impact of the mission activity of the various branches of Christianity began to shape the worldwide picture of the church. Can you describe that change? >> SPEAKER: Well, David, I think if I could adequately describe that change, I'd probably be famous. The fact is the changes are so many and so profound that probably no one person can really get a handle all of them. For starters, without that 19th century age of missionary work, especially the Protestant missionary work, we probably wouldn't be able to talk about a worldwide picture of the church as you put it in your question. In other words, Protestantism very well would have remained a European or American phenomenon and largely a phenomenon among Caucasians. If I were to ask you what race is a Protestant, you'd probably think that that's a nonsensical question because, of course, Protestants are all races. They�re white and black and Asian and Hispanic, and how can you answer a question about that. In the year 1800 if I asked you the question what race is a Protestant, it would be a pretty clear and concise answer. Protestants are white Europeans. The fact is that our whole image of the church, the way we imagine the church, has changed dramatically partly because that age of Protestant missionary work was so successful. I believe actually Roman Catholics have been quicker than Protestants in recognizing this as a theological fact about the church; namely, when we confess in the creed that the church is catholic or universal, we're also at the same time implying that it includes and embraces a wide diversity of cultures. That if the church is catholic, it's also diverse in terms of culture and language. The church lives and works and witnesses and worships in a huge variety of cultural contexts and settings. We become more vividly aware of that as the church moves out into the world. What happened in that century of missionary work is that the vision of Revelation 7, of people from every tribe and language and nation under heaven all gather in worshiping God on the last day. That vision has become more vivid reality to us in a way that was probably unimaginable for most Protestant Christians 200 years ago. That reality of the global character of the church and at the same time the cultural diversity of the church is much clearer to us today than it was, say, to David Livingstone that we�ve talked about a little bit. Livingstone thought that he was bringing Christianity and that was equivalent to bringing the benefits of civilization and commerce. Of course, civilization in his mind meant English civilization. To be civilized was to be as much like the English as you could be. And commerce meant commerce on the economic model of the European powers and preferably in a way that would benefit the European powers. David Livingstone, for all his contributions, was very Eurocentric. His world was centered on the assumption that European Christians were superior in virtually every way to other people's in the world, and it was their obligation, therefore, to help bring the rest of the world up to their level. One of the biggest ways in which our thinking and view of the world has changed is that we don't always imagine today that the church will always and everywhere look and act pretty much the way we do. For us, I think, to be Christianized is not the same as to be Americanized. I'm sure some of you taking this course understand that in very concrete terms, whether you're working with a diversity of races and languages and ethnic groups in an urban setting, or with some minority in other community. To be Christianized is not the same as to become Americanized. We're more appreciative of the global diversity of Christianity than that early generation of missionaries. But we're aware of that because of their work. That's one of the most profound ways that this 19th century Protestant missions has changed the way we think about Christianity today. ***** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communications Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. *****