India's Problem, Krishna or Christ Part 17

The Christian Church in the mission field should be organized ecclesiastically and administratively in such a way that it may ultimately, and as speedily as may seem wise, become entirely self-governing. Every mission should aim to so teach the people that they may control and conduct successfully their own affairs. It should establish a Church which sends its roots deep into the soil of the land and which will become, in the highest sense, indigenous. One of the necessary evils of missionary life is the early Western control and guidance of everything. I should like to see the day, when the native Church can establish that polity which is most congenial to its taste and run its affairs independently and on Oriental lines, in such a way as to win more effectively the people of India to Christ. The question is sometimes asked,-"Must our Congregational missions bind, to our Congregational form of ecclesiastical government, the people whom they bring over from heathenism? Must our church polity, in the mission field, be Congregational, or Presbyterian, etc., regardless of its adaptation, or want of adaptation, to the people?" The affirmative answer has usually been given by all societies (and wrongly I think) to this inquiry; and thus every denomination transplants into heathen lands, with renewed emphasis, not only its own peculiar s.h.i.+bboleths of doctrine; it also exalts to a heavenly command the government and ritual which it represents.

Missions in India are conscientiously endeavouring, with varying degrees of wisdom and success, to lead forward their people in the line of self-government. But both love of power and a conviction of the inability of the infant Church to wisely control its affairs, combine to render this transfer of power from the mission to the native Church a very slow matter-more slow than seems wise to many besides the leaders of the native Church themselves. It is a significant fact, in India today, that the Methodist missions, by their compact organization, are able to, or at any rate do, confer more ecclesiastical and administrative power upon the native Church than any other mission; while Congregational missions-the least organized-are the most backward in this matter. A study for the causes of this would be instructive.

_Those Organisations Which Promote Self-Extension._

One of the first things that a mission should do, after gathering the Christian community, is to organize, in the community, such activities as are outreaching and self-extending. In the Madura Mission there has been for many years a Home Missionary Society whose aim is to help support weak churches and also maintain a force of evangelists to preach to non-Christians. It is the society of the native Christians-supported and largely directed by them. It has created, maintained and increased the interest of the people in furthering the cause of Christ.

Many such societies exist in India today and they render valuable service in keeping before the mind of the people the deepest characteristics of our faith and the highest privilege of a Christian community-that of outgoing love, and self-extending enthusiasm.

_Those Organisations Which Further Self-Support._

How extensively should the idea of self-support be at present urged upon the native Christian community? This is a question which we will discuss later on. There is no question however but that every mission should so organize its benevolences that the infant Church may, at as early a date as possible, cease to seek support from a foreign land; and that it cultivate at the same time a spirit of self-denial and of self-reliance.

The poverty of the people is, and will long remain, a serious barrier to this consummation. But the evil of poverty may be counterbalanced by a careful system whereby the benevolent feelings, generous impulses and the sense of obligation of the people are conserved, strengthened and made fully effective. This matter should not be left to haphazard or to spasmodic appeal. Every Christian, even the poorest, should be so directed and inspired in his benevolence that he may effectively contribute to the worthy object of self-support.

These three _desiderata_ of the native Christian Church-self-support, self-propagation and self-government-are to be desired above all other blessings by the missions and should be sought with a persistence and a well-organized intelligence, which will mean advance and ultimate success.

When these three have been attained, missions, with all their expensive machinery, may gladly disband and feel that their end has been accomplished and that they are no longer needed.

Chapter IX.

PRESENT DAY MISSIONARY PROBLEMS.

Every age has its own problems to solve; and so has every department of life. The problems which belong to missionary life, method and work are many. The permanence and future success of the missionary effort of the Church of G.o.d depends upon the wise solution of these problems. Nowhere is this more manifest than in India. In that land Christian effort for the conversion of the people has been made for many centuries by numerous nationalities and Christian communities with varying success or want of success. Unwillingness or an inability to thoroughly confront and master the deep problems of the field, the work and the people, with a view to adapting Christianity to them has largely been the cause of the slow progress of our faith in that land. Successive efforts by the Greek, the Syrian, the Romish and the Protestant Churches have not been prolific in marked and permanent results, simply because they have not adequately studied the novel and strange conditions of the land and the best methods of presenting Christ and His truth.

We need in India, today, highest wisdom in order to establish worthy missions, and to conduct them in the right and best way so as to attain results commensurate with the resources of the kingdom and of the great King whose we are and whom we preach.

The missionary problems of today are many.

1. The initial and preliminary question as to the right of the Christian Church to send forth its missionaries, and to establish its missions in heathen lands.

This question is now raised by many. They ask it because they believe in the integrity of the doctrine of evolution. "Why do you not," they say, "leave those non-Christian peoples to work out their own salvation through a natural evolution of their own faiths? Let those old crude religions pa.s.s into something higher through the natural process of evolution rather than resort to the cataclysmic method of over-throwing the old and introducing a faith that is entirely foreign. Why not let the process of growth work out its own results even though it takes a long time for it?"

This objection to our work is modern and thoroughgoing. Of course it is equally p.r.o.nounced against supernaturalism in all its forms and ramifications. It would be futile to reply to this by appealing to the command of our Lord to go and disciple all nations. It is enough to remind this objector that the doctrine of evolution admits that the highest altruism is a part of the evolution process. And if that is so, then the highest Christian altruism must find its n.o.blest exercise in the work of bringing, by Christians to non-Christians, those ideas and that life which they deem the best and of which those outside of Christ stand in urgent need. The highest evolution of our race has been, and ever must be, through that Christian altruism which will not rest until the n.o.blest truth and the fullest life are brought to all the benighted souls of our race. Is not this the last message of evolution to us at this present? And is it not identical with the last commission of our Lord to His followers-to go and disciple the nations? And while it is the function of Christianity to maintain the evolution principle of the survival of the fittest, it does this by indirection-by seizing upon the most unfit and unworthy and making them fit to stand before G.o.d and worthy to enjoy the life eternal in all its glory.

Moving a step forward we come to,-

Another problem kindred to the one mentioned-one which concerns the aims and the results which should animate missionary endeavour.

2. What shall a man or a mission entertain as a motive or as an aim to be attained and as results worthy of achievement in missionary work?

This question also is based upon and will cover very largely the character of the work accomplished.

There are two distinct and separate motives and aims impelling Christians, at the present time, to missionary effort. They are, in the main, an emphasis given, respectively, to each of Christ's two final commands to his disciples upon earth.

In the first instance his last commission to his followers to go and make disciples of the nations is taken as the watch-word; and this has always meant thorough, patient, all-inclusive effort for the redemption and elevation of all the races of the earth.

The other cla.s.s has taken as its watch-word our Lord's last utterance upon earth-"Ye shall be My witnesses." "Witness-bearing" has become to them the expression of the Church's great duty to the world.

There is a great difference between these two cla.s.ses of aims and motives, and they are a.s.sociated with two cla.s.ses of theological thinking.

According to the former theory the Kingdom of our Lord, under the dispensation of the Holy Spirit, is to spread in regenerating power and triumphant efficacy until all the nations of the earth shall come under its sway. This is a great and arduous undertaking. The planting of this Kingdom in heathen lands and the discipling of those people until the Church of G.o.d shall have become a living and a self-propagating church in all the regions of the earth is a work of ages, worthy of the combined effort of heaven and earth. And this consummation will surely take place.

G.o.d has promised it; Christ's work involves it; the Holy Spirit came into the world for its realization. They who entertain this belief are Christian optimists. No reverses can daunt them; no opposition can discourage them. They lay broad and deep the foundations of their work and labour patiently but hopefully for the great and final consummation.

Those, on the other hand, who are pessimistic as to the triumph of the Kingdom of Christ under the dispensation of the Spirit, maintain, with exclusive emphasis, the Christian duty of witness-bearing. They claim, in Dr. Pierson's words, that our mission to the heathen world should be one of diffusion and not of concentration; that we should bear witness concerning Christ to the people who know Him not and then pa.s.s on to others, rather than remain to expand, to convert, to train and to establish living churches. They maintain that our duty is preeminently to bear witness to Christ, that we have no responsibility for the conversion of the people and for the building up of strong churches.

This claim that it is the duty of the Church to herald the good news of redemption to all men as speedily as possible apart from the expectation that they will accept it: does not commend itself to me either upon Scriptural grounds or upon grounds of reason.

The idea of preaching the gospel to the heathen "for a witness," in the ordinary acceptance of that term, does not const.i.tute a worthy Christian motive. Dr. W. N. Clark well a.n.a.lyzes this thought in the following words, (page 53, in "Study of Christian Missions"),-"At the outset, there is one motive, often, though not necessarily, a.s.sociated with the theory of heralding, that must be rejected as no Christian motive. It is often held that in this rapid work the gospel is not to be preached mainly in order that it may be believed unto salvation, but rather 'for a witness,'-which is taken to mean 'for a witness against,' the hearers when they meet the judgment of G.o.d. The hearing of the gospel marks a turning-point, both in experience and destiny. When once men have heard the gospel, they will be saved if they believe, and justly condemned if they do not. Only a few will be saved by the missionary preaching; the elect will be gathered out of the ma.s.s, and the many will remain indifferent. But the blame of their ruin will be upon themselves, not upon G.o.d or the Christian people; and it is to insure this result that the gospel is preached to them for a witness. But this is no _Christian truth_. Such teaching cannot truly represent the motive of G.o.d the Saviour. We must maintain that G.o.d acts in good faith in the offers of His grace, or Christianity becomes a delusion.

We must preserve our own good faith also in conveying the offer of grace, or our hearers will rise in the judgment to condemn us. No allowance should be made for any such unchristian motive in our plans for Christian missions, and we must hold no theory of missions that implies it."

Moreover the view is thoroughly pessimistic, so far as this dispensation is concerned, and fails to realize the power and the glory of Christian truth and of the kingdom of Christ as inspired by the Holy Spirit. A theory of missions which is pessimistic at the core can hardly be a safe or an inspiring one.

It should be remembered also that missions are not an end in themselves.

They should aim at making themselves unnecessary by the establis.h.i.+ng of vigorous churches which shall become self-extending and indigenous in all the lands of the earth. The hope of missions, and the hope of the world through missions, lies not, ultimately, in the missions, but in the churches which they establish. Therefore they should be well established and patiently developed. The Church of G.o.d must take up its missionary work with a full appreciation of its supreme greatness and difficulty. Let it not be supposed that it is called simply to "bear witness." This heralding of the gospel of Christ, is only a part, and indeed a small part, of the great duty of the Church to the world. It is also specifically, and with greater urgency, called upon to _disciple_ the nations-to bring them into full possession of saving truth and into joyful acceptance of, and life in, Christ.

Let us not delude ourselves with the idea that this work is easy, that we can pa.s.s over it lightly or that we have no responsibility for the conversion of the world. As I have preached for the first time to a heathen village I have felt that my obligation to its inhabitants for their salvation was thereby increased rather than fulfilled. There is no doubt that Christian missionaries realize today as never before the greatness of the task set before G.o.d's people to _disciple_ the nations.

The obstacles to it and the conflict which it involves seem greater than ever. The romance of missions has largely given way to sober work and the rush of battle has been succeeded by a great siege. This is preeminently the condition in India today. Let us not forget this in our missionary enterprise lest we lose courage by the way. But let us also remember that it is _G.o.d's_ work. He is pledged to bring it to its ultimate triumph, and He will do it. He will fulfill His promise and give to His Son the heathen for His inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession.

_This_ theory of missionary work is the only one that has produced, and can maintain, all the present organized activity of the missionary Church.

The aim of the manifold activities and various departments of missionary effort, as witnessed in India today, can be nothing less than the ultimate conquest of that land for Christ through the establishment of a living, an ever-growing and self-extending Indian Church there.

Let us now consider some of the problems which specially exist in India.

3. THE CASTE PROBLEM.

The caste problem has been, and continues to be, the most troublesome and obtrusive among all the questions which confront missions in that land. It is a more serious problem-more pervasive and intense-in Southern than in Northern India.

This is radically different from social problems in all other lands, in that it traces its source to, and gathers its authority from, religion. It enforces all that it sanctions by the most compact and relentless religious system the world has known. It maintains that men have been created into a great number of castes or cla.s.ses from none of which can they, by any possibility, pa.s.s into another. In whatever social stratum a man is born there must he live and die. It is impious for him to attempt to evade or to violate this heavenly cla.s.sification. His interests and all his rights are confined to that one caste of his birth. It is sin for him to marry out of it or, in any way, to transgress his natal compact with it. Neither added wealth, growing culture, a new ambition, nor anything else can enable him to change his caste. All the forces of religion are directed, like a mighty engine of tyranny, to bind him to it.

This sentiment of caste, after millenniums of teaching, of rigid observance and custom, has become even more than second nature to the Hindu,-it has grown into a sweet necessity of his life, from whose claims and demands he neither expects nor desires relief. To the ordinary Hindu a change of caste would be as unexpected, yea as impossible, as his sudden change into the lower brute, or into the higher angelic, kingdom.

When Christianity was first established in India the problem of the adoption or the rejection of caste by the Christian church had to be faced. It was rejected by the earliest Christian community in India; for we find no traces of it in the Syrian church on the coast of Malabar today. Even caste t.i.tles, that dearest remnant of that system to all other native Christians in India, have entirely disappeared from that community.

It is a great pity that the history of that victory over caste has not been preserved as a lesson and a heritage to later Christians.

The Romish Church, which next invaded India, unfortunately despised the Syrian community, sought no instruction from its history, made a friend of the caste system and adopted it in all its hideousness. It did not wait to consider the terrible fact, so patent to all at present, that Hinduism and caste are convertible terms-that one cannot cease to be a Hindu who maintains the caste system in its integrity. Its intention was, no doubt, good in its way. It was an effort to make an easy way out of Hinduism into Christianity and thus to swell the tide of incoming converts. But, unfortunately, the path was made _too_ easy; the narrow gate was sufficiently enlarged for the Hindu to enter with his burden of heathen prejudices and superst.i.tions, and it soon became the highway of insincerity and hypocrisy. Moreover, the Romish Church has found, to its cost, that an easy way from Hinduism to Christianity is an equally easy path to return. A man who carried much of his Hinduism with him into the Christian Church was easily drawn back by the remaining old ties and affections. The consequence is that, while Romanism has made large inroads upon Hinduism in some places, it has only been for a time; and the back-sliders have been as numerous as the new converts; so that Roman Catholicism has made little net progress in India for many years.

This alliance which Christianity made, four centuries ago, with caste was, thus, a fatal one. It gave also a clue to the earliest Protestant missionaries-a clue which they, in a weak moment, decided to follow. For, the first Danish missionaries also made a sad compromise with this monster evil. I presume that this may be regarded as a continental failing of that day, when in Europe cla.s.s differences were great and almost insurmountable. Human rights and individual liberty were not held so sacred, or so scrupulously defended, in Europe in those days as they are in Anglo-Saxon countries today. Otherwise any alliance by the Church with the caste system would have been an impossibility in India. Even today some Protestant missionaries from the European continent are found in India who defend the adoption of the caste system by the Christian Church.

How different would have been the att.i.tude of the Protestant Church towards this heathenish inst.i.tution had men of the Anglo-Saxon type of today rather than Continentals of two centuries ago started its work in South India! In any case, the att.i.tude of compromise a.s.sumed towards the caste system in those early days has led to interminable evil and to constant trouble in the Christian Church in that land.

After caste had first found admission as a friend and then was discovered to be an uncompromising enemy to Christian life and principles, much effort was made to expel it. Nearly all Protestant missions now denounce it, root and branch, and preach against it, and in various ways try to check and to cast it out. But with no great success thus far. The false step taken at the beginning has cost the Church terribly. Today in South India more than nine-tenths of all Protestant native Christians, while they seek an alliance only among Christians, nevertheless marry not on lines of Christian affinity so much as on Hindu caste lines. It is not often that we find a man among common Christians who has courage and sense enough to seek a match for son or daughter outside of the limits of that caste to which he and his people belonged in Hinduism. This custom is found not only extremely inconvenient and troublesome to them; worst of all, it perpetuates, in the Christian fold, the old heathen lines of cleavage. And thus life in the Christian community is still running somewhat in the old channels of Hinduism and largely preserves those social distinctions of the past which should have been buried with them at baptism and forever abandoned.

Under these circ.u.mstances what should missions do? What should be their att.i.tude towards caste spirit and customs? Through former misapprehension and neglect the evil is in the Christian Church and exercises a potent influence. How shall it be overcome or expelled? Some believe in the _laissez faire_ method. They maintain that, if left to itself for a time, it will die out, or the general spirit of Christianity will naturally drive it out. The spirit of caste is not exorcised in that way. So long as it is perpetuated by marriage affinity, the source of the whole evil, and by habits of eating together on caste lines, it will not diminish very much or cease to torment the Church. A century of such waiting, in some missions that I have known, finds the evil not much diminished. It is only in those missions where it is attacked and constantly denounced and its terrible evils exposed, that progress is evident.

That which can do speedy and sure work, in the destruction of this evil in Christian missions is inter-caste marriage. And through this I am glad to see that increasing good is wrought. Missions should in every way encourage and put a premium upon marriages among their members from different castes. They should teach frequently and emphatically that members.h.i.+p in different castes does not const.i.tute a prohibited marriage relations.h.i.+p; but rather does it furnish the best ground for marriage. In this way, and in this way only, will this wretched caste feeling speedily die a natural death and Christians come to marry, eat, sympathize, love and live on Christian, rather than on Hindu, lines. A mission which does not improve every opportunity to show its hatred of the caste system and to antagonize it positively and persistently can find no peace; nor will it find any permanent prosperity. Missions are feeling this increasingly and are acting accordingly.