India's Problem, Krishna or Christ

by John P. Jones

5. The Missionary's Attitude Towards the Non-Christian World.

This attitude is one of considerable importance to the missionary because it furnishes largely the motive of his life work. Before one goes out as a missionary [pg 215] he should acquire some definite and sound views as to the condition of the non-Christians who constitute three-fourths of our race. This means that he must decide as to his missionary motive,—what motive power shall impel him to leave his native land and go to live among a benighted people surrounded by a thousand disadvantages.

Since the organization of our missionary societies—less than a century ago—there has been an important change of emphasis in the matter of missionary motives. The progress, I might almost say revolution, in theology has worked towards this change. The recent discovery of new sciences, and the utilization of the wonderful modern means of communication whereby a new knowledge of non-Christian peoples has been made possible to us, has affected our consideration of the whole problem of missionary work and has especially modified the missionary motive. Dr. W. N. Clark, in his admirable book on Christian Missions, discusses fully this question. “The difference,” he says, “between our conception of man today and that of a century ago is mainly not that something true has fallen out of it, though that may be the fact with many minds: it is rather that immeasurably much that is true has been added to it. Unquestionably our conception of man is still incomplete, unbalanced and incorrect, but it certainly has been altered within the century by the addition of much that must remain in any true conception. Our knowledge must have experienced true and legitimate growth and from our present conception of the human world we can never go back to that which our fathers held when they began [pg 216] the work of modern missions ... our thought concerning our fellow-men contains elements of truth and justice that our fathers knew nothing of. The best Christian feeling towards the heathen world today is far more true, righteous, sympathetic, Christlike, than the feelings of those who were interested in missions an hundred years ago. But the single motive which, standing alone, led to the missionary enterprise has come to be so surrounded by other thoughts and motives as to lose its relative importance, and be less available than it then was as a controlling influence. This is one of the great and significant causes of the crisis in missions.”

It is not necessarily true that the paramount motive of a century ago is no longer believed; but that other motives have grown and reached a commanding influence as a power in the Christian consciousness of today. A Christian missionary has indeed changed his views, for instance, concerning the origin and character of Hinduism. Through modern enlightenment and the study of comparative religion no man can go out as a missionary, even as I was expected to go less than a quarter of a century ago, with a general belief that that great religion is entirely of the devil and is in itself evil and only evil continually. The missionary of today must discriminate, must study appreciation and consider historic facts. He must know that ethnic, and all non-Christian religions, have had their uses, and that some still have their uses in the world. They are the expression of the deepest religious instincts of the human soul. And they have, especially such a faith as Hinduism, not a few elements of truth which a missionary [pg 217] should know no less than he should understand the great evils which enter as a part of them.

The greatest missionary motive of today lies in the last commission of our Lord which emanates from the heart, and reveals the essence of our religion. His command to his disciples to go and disciple the nations stands now as the Supreme Christian Command; and its significance is appreciated and emphasized today as never before. And so long as a Church gives increasing emphasis to this, His greatest commission, it must necessarily be in the path of duty, of privilege, of blessing and of power. Above all other missionary motives this must remain supreme.

And there must go hand in hand with this loyalty to Christ, a deepening loyalty to Christianity and a growing appreciation of its uniqueness in the world. Christianity is not one religion among many; it stands alone as the soul-satisfying and soul-saving faith. The scattered lights of other faiths find here their centre, and all their prophesies find here fulfillment. The need of Christianity, by all men, is supreme. Whatever may be said in favour of other faiths we must say of them that they are, in many respects, perverted and are inadequate as a means of salvation.

And in addition to this the missionary must feel that all non-Christian peoples are in supreme need of Christ, the Saviour. This fact we cannot afford to qualify, without, in very truth, cutting the nerve of missions. When a missionary regards Christ and His mission and message as only an incident in the life and need of our race and ceases to acknowledge that all men need Christ supremely, he had better [pg 218] give up his work; for his missionary motive has lost its foundation and his life work has been robbed of its power.

The missionary is called to go wherever the Macedonian cry of human need and of spiritual helplessness is heard. Our Lord's command was world-embracing in its extent; it was a discipling of all nations; it was a call to be witnesses unto the uttermost parts of the earth.

Shall the missionary go and preach everywhere the gospel of Christ, whether men invite him or not? In view of recent events in China and in other lands some people (and among them are a few well-meaning Christians) question our duty and even our right and privilege to carry the gospel to a people against its will and when it is satisfied with its own faith. They claim that this restraint is demanded by true Christian altruism and by the spirit of Christ. That the day has come when the Christian Church should thoroughly reconsider the best methods of missionary approach to such peoples I readily agree. I also maintain that Protestant missions should everywhere scrupulously avoid all Jesuitical methods and political influences and should always strive to minimize, if not ignore, their political rights and magnify the spiritual side of their work. Under these conditions no people has lent an unwilling ear to the missionary's message, or, for a long time, failed to rejoice in his presence and work. But had missionary societies sent their missionaries only to those people who invited them, or were prepared to give them a cordial welcome, where could they have found work or how achieve the magnificent success of the last [pg 219] century? Imagine the great missionary apostle sending messengers in advance to inquire whether the inhabitants of Lystra and Ephesus, of Thessalonica and Athens were willing to receive him, and turning away his face because, forsooth, they were not prepared to welcome him! The only invitation he did receive was from Macedonia in a vision. The acceptance of the invitation brought to him at once opposition and stripes. Paul said that he knew that bonds awaited him wherever he went. But that did not deter him.