Wesleyan Pastoral Ministry, Evangelism, and Global Missions — Unit 8: Holiness Missions in Latin America, Africa, and Asia

Key Verse

"After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palms in their hands," (Revelation 7:9, NKJV)

Learning Objectives

When you finish this unit, you should be able to:

1. Describe how Methodist and Holiness missions reached Latin America, Africa and Asia, naming key people and places that are well documented.

2. Explain the three-self principle (self-supporting, self-governing, self-propagating) and why Wesleyans have come to value it.

3. Explain the part played by education, medicine, women missionaries and national leaders in Wesleyan missions.

4. State the main objections to Protestant and Holiness missions in these regions and give the Wesleyan answer.

5. Apply the lessons of this history to a partnership between a local church and a foreign mission team.

The Voice of This Course

This course is written from inside the evangelical Wesleyan tradition, for pastors who belong to it or want to understand it. We hold that the Bible is the inspired and final authority. Many CTS students live in Latin America and Africa, and some of you serve in churches that were planted by the people we describe. The record of missions includes courage and faithfulness and also mistakes. We say so honestly. In this unit we have included only facts that are well documented, and we say plainly where the story is larger than what we can tell here. The history of Wesleyan work in your own country is likely richer than this short unit, and we encourage you to learn it from your own church's records.

A Multitude from Every Nation

Revelation 7:9 shows the end of the story: people from every nation, tribe, people and language before the throne. Missions is the way God gathers this multitude. Today, much of the world's Wesleyan family lives in Africa, Latin America and Asia, not in Britain or North America. In Course 1, Unit 8 you learned something of the story of Methodism in these regions. This unit asks a different question: what can a pastor learn from the way Holiness missions worked?

Latin America

Early Methodist work. In the nineteenth century, Methodist missionaries from the United States began work in Latin America. Methodist work in Mexico began in the 1870s. Methodist churches that came from these missions exist in many Latin American countries, and some of them, such as the Iglesia Metodista de México, are self-governing churches today. We name them descriptively. Not every Methodist body keeps Wesley's doctrine of Scripture and salvation as firmly as it should, and a pastor must judge each one by its teaching and not only its name.

William Taylor and self-supporting missions. One of the most unusual missionaries of the nineteenth century was William Taylor, a Methodist Episcopal preacher and evangelist from the United States. In the late 1870s he traveled along the west coast of South America and to Brazil. He started schools that taught English and also taught the Bible, and these schools were meant to help pay for the work. His idea was that mission churches should be self-supporting from the start, and not depend on money from abroad. Taylor's approach had mixed success, and he met many hardships, but his idea was important: a mission should not make a church a permanent dependent.

The Chilean revival. In 1909 a revival among Methodists in Valparaiso, Chile, under the Methodist missionary Willis Hoover, led to a new Pentecostal movement. The story is told in the Pentecostal course, and we do not repeat it. We mention it here because it shows what can happen when a mission church is hungry for the Spirit and its own people are free to lead.

Holiness churches. Today the Church of the Nazarene, the Wesleyan Church and the Free Methodist Church all have congregations in Latin America and the Caribbean. We do not give lists here, because the history differs in each country, and a pastor should ask his own district for the local story.

Africa

West Africa. The Methodist Episcopal Church began work in Liberia in the 1830s. The British Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society sent Joseph Dunwell to the Gold Coast (today Ghana) in 1835, and he died within a few months, as many early missionaries did, because of tropical diseases. This sacrifice was not wasted. Thomas Birch Freeman, who was of African and English descent, arrived in 1838. He traveled widely, visited the Asante capital of Kumasi in 1839, and in the early 1840s carried the work into what is now Nigeria, to Badagry and then to Abeokuta. His story reminds us that African and Black missionaries were part of Methodist missions from early on.

Bishop William Taylor in Africa. In 1884 Taylor was elected missionary bishop for Africa. In 1885 he led parties of self-supporting missionaries to Angola and the Congo region. The plan faced severe difficulties, and many suffered illness and death. Historians still debate how much was lasting. We learn from this the same lesson as in Latin America: zeal needs wisdom, planning and care for the workers.

Southern Africa. In the early 1900s Nazarene missionaries, among them Harmon Schmelzenbach and his wife Lula, began work in southern Africa, among the Swazi people and in nearby regions. Their work is remembered in the Church of the Nazarene as the start of its growth in Africa. Wesleyan missionaries from Britain had already reached South Africa in the early 1800s.

Africa today. The Methodist and Holiness churches in Africa are no longer only the product of foreign missions. They are large churches led by Africans. Africa is now a main center of the Wesleyan family in the world, and African churches send their own missionaries.

We have left out many people and countries, because in a short unit we can name only those whose stories we can state with confidence. Your own national church history may name others.

Asia

India and Ceylon. In Unit 7 you learned that Thomas Coke died at sea on his way to Ceylon in 1814. In India, American Methodists began work in 1856 under William Butler. Isabella Thoburn opened a girls' school in Lucknow that grew into a women's college. She is one of many women who led Wesleyan work in Asia.

Korea. Henry Appenzeller, an American Methodist missionary, arrived in Korea in 1885. He opened the Pai Chai school in the same year. In 1886 Mary Scranton, a Methodist woman missionary, began a school for girls that later became Ewha. Korea later became one of the most vibrant centers of Christianity in Asia, though many streams of Christians, not only Methodists, share in that story.

Japan. In 1901 Charles and Lettie Cowman and Ernest Kilbourne, with the Japanese evangelist Juji Nakada, began the work that became the Oriental Missionary Society, a Holiness mission that began in Tokyo. They taught holiness and made use of Bible schools and evangelism.

Common Features of Wesleyan Missions

From these examples we can see some patterns.

Preaching and teaching together. Wesleyan missionaries preached for conversion and then discipled. Wesley's pattern of classes and societies was carried to the field. Bible schools, Sunday schools and catechisms followed.

Education. Schools were a major part of Wesleyan missions. They taught people to read the Bible, trained leaders and often served girls, who had few opportunities.

Medicine. Many missions opened clinics and hospitals. This follows Wesley's concern for the sick, which we studied in Unit 6.

Women. Women's missionary societies were a major force, such as the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, founded in 1869. Women teachers, doctors and evangelists did work that men could not easily do, especially among women and children.

Holiness and culture. Wesleyan missionaries taught that holiness is love for God and neighbor. Wise ones learned to separate the heart of the message from the outward customs of their home country. A convert in Lagos, Guadalajara or Seoul does not have to dress or sing like a missionary to be holy.

The cost. Early missionaries paid heavily in sickness, loneliness and early death. Churches that send workers today must care for them with proper preparation, health care and support, and must not treat them as expendable.

Local leaders. The deepest lesson is that the church must come to rest in the hands of its own people. Wesley used laymen as preachers and class leaders. This habit made it natural to raise local leaders quickly. In the nineteenth century two mission leaders, Henry Venn of the Church Missionary Society and Rufus Anderson of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, taught that a mission church should be self-supporting, self-governing and self-propagating. It is called the three-self principle. Wesleyans have valued it because it fits Wesley's use of lay leaders, and because experience has shown that churches which depend forever on foreign money or foreign leaders stay weak.

Questions Historians and Critics Ask

Question 1: Why send Protestant missionaries to Latin American lands that were already Catholic?

Many Catholic leaders, and some historians, say that Protestant missions in Latin America were unfair proselytism, taking people from a church that already carried Christ's name.

Our answer. We respect the many Catholic believers who love Christ and we do not insult them. Wesleyans must never speak of other Christians with contempt. But the Wesleyan message of the new birth, the witness of the Spirit and holiness of heart and life (see Courses 2 and 3) was not widely taught, and many people in every country, whatever church their parents belonged to, have never heard that they can know their sins forgiven and know Christ personally. Wesley himself was a baptized and ordained Anglican, and he preached to nominal Christians and to the churched. The aim is not to attack another church but to bring each person to a living faith (Romans 10:9-10, cited by reference).

Question 2: Were missions tied to colonialism and controlled from abroad?

Historians, including many Christian ones in Africa and Asia, point out that missionaries often came under colonial protection, that they sometimes judged local customs harshly, and that the transfer of leadership to nationals was often too slow.

Our answer. These criticisms contain real truth. Missionaries were people of their time, and some confused their own culture with the gospel. At the same time, many missionaries opposed the slave trade, taught the poor, translated Scriptures into local languages and trained local leaders, and some suffered for it. The right response is to repent where we were wrong, and to hold to the biblical standard. The three-self principle came out of this experience. A Holiness church must teach holiness as a matter of the heart and of Christlike love (see Course 3, Unit 8) and must not confuse it with the customs of one nation.

Question 3: Is the age of the foreign missionary over?

Some argue that now that Africa, Latin America and Asia have strong churches, outside missionaries are no longer needed, and money should simply be sent.

Our answer. The center of Christianity has moved south, and the churches of these regions now send missionaries to their own regions and beyond. This is a joyful result. But the Great Commission is for every people, and many peoples in every continent still have no church of their own. Mission now goes from everywhere to everywhere. Foreign partners can still help, if they come as servants and partners and not as masters.

Pastoral Application

A pastor in a growing city church is visited by a team from a foreign mission. They offer to build a large new building and fund a youth program. But they also ask to choose the building plan, name the youth director and have final say over the budget. The members are excited by the money. Some are uneasy.

The pastor can use the lessons of this unit.

First, he thanks the team. Their love and generosity are real, and he should not treat them as enemies.

Second, he asks the church board to pray and to count the cost. Who will own the building? Who will pay for its upkeep ten years from now? What happens when the team goes home?

Third, he applies the three-self test. Will this project help the church support itself, govern itself and share the gospel on its own? Or will it make the church depend on outside money and outside decisions?

Fourth, he proposes a partnership. The church will contribute its own labor and funds, however modest, and local leaders will make the key decisions about its people and programs. The team may help with training, materials and prayer.

Fifth, he puts the agreement in writing and asks his district for counsel. If the team will not agree to local leadership, he may kindly decline. A church that grows slowly and stands on its own feet is stronger than one that grows quickly and cannot stand.

Summary

Methodist and Holiness missions reached Latin America, Africa and Asia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In Latin America, Methodist work began in the 1870s in Mexico, and William Taylor tried self-supporting missions on the west coast of South America and in Brazil. In West Africa, Joseph Dunwell died in 1835 and Thomas Birch Freeman carried the work to Kumasi and into Nigeria. Taylor, elected missionary bishop in 1884, led self-supporting parties to Africa, and Nazarene missionaries began in southern Africa in the early 1900s. In Asia, William Butler began work in India in 1856, Henry Appenzeller and Mary Scranton opened schools in Korea in 1885 and 1886, and the Oriental Missionary Society began in Japan in 1901. Common features include preaching with teaching, schools, medicine, women's societies and the training of local leaders under the three-self principle. We answer critics who call these missions unfair to Catholics, tied to colonialism or no longer needed. We admit mistakes and hold to the gospel for every nation.

Further Reading

• John Wesley, sermon "The General Spread of the Gospel."

• John Wesley, sermon "Catholic Spirit."

• Francis Asbury, Journal.

• John Wesley, Journal.

• John Wesley, Notes on the New Testament, on Revelation 7.

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