CAPITULO IV-RESULTADOS Y DISCUSION
IV.3. RESISTENCIA AL IMPACTO
IV.6.5. RESPECTO DE LAS PRUEBAS DE BALISITCA
./
The New Zealand population In 1 9 1 1 was seventy per cent New Zealand born, missionaries eighty-seven per cent. The missionary sex ratio (percentages) of males to females (39: 6 1 ) was strikingly at variance with the national population's sex ratio of 53 :47. The dominance of Anglicans in the general population was not reflected in missionary data. The growing population of the North Island was only partially reflected in missionary origins, with the South Island contributing more than its proportional share of missionaries. A comparison with educational trends is harder to make. Missionary figures certainly reflected higher rates of participation in both primary and secondary education. Similarly, the increasing numbers of missionaries with university qualifications reflected the phenomenal growth rate of university
Chapter Four - Consolidation and Growth, 1 900- 1 9 1 8
students per se - a 1 3 1 per cent growth rate between 1 900 and 1 9 1 0, with the overall
numbers of university students in that decade increasing from 805 to 1 ,862.59 Yet the proportion of missionary university graduates was out of all proportion to the general population. Occupationally the 1 900- 1 9 1 8 missionary cohort continued to be disproportionately drawn from the professions.
On the surface, at least, it would appear that the missionary movement was not necessarily egalitarian. The denominational missions did draw on more ordained candidates or on those who had received specialist training in medicine, nursing and teaching. Non-denominational missions were more representative of the broader population, with respect to educational and occupational backgrounds. The data itself may also be at fault, giving a slight! y distorted picture of the relationship of missionary figures to the overall population. We know more about the Presbyterian, NZCMS and CIM missionaries because of existing application records. Further, the larger number of tertiary students applying, from 1 900 onwards, tends to mask the occupations that they came from to enter education and missionary service. As noted for the 1 890s, however, this also suggests that missionary service continued to open up educational and occupational opportunities for people from a broad socio-economic background.
There were also discernible differences between the 1 900- 1 9 1 8 missionary cohort and the cohort of unsuccessful missionary applicants in the same period (Table 4.4).
Table 4.4 -Missionaries 1900-1918 compared with Applicants 1 900-1918: Chi
Square Test for Significant Difference
Attribute
Gender
Marital Status
Significant
Difference
Geographical Origins
./Denomination
./Education
./ ./No Significant
Difference
On the one hand some of these differences may be more understandable. It could be expected that single people would figure more largely in the application data simply as a function of age. Median age at application was twenty-six years (compared with twenty eight years for age at departure). It was to be further expected that younger applicants
Chapter Four - Consolidation and Growth, 1 900- 1 9 1 8
would often not yet be married. Similarly the under-representation o f Methodists, Baptists and Brethren in the application data reflects the fact that application records for these groups either do not exist or were not examined. On the other hand results for the gender, geographical origins, and educational and occupational background of total applicants suggest that missionary interest was more broadly based than the missionary data itself suggests. Men and women applied for or enquired about missionary service in equal numbers. Auckland was second to Otago and Southland in terms of the areas from where people were interested in missionary work (and applicants also came from a surprisingly diverse range of localities). Applicants came from a broader range of educational backgrounds and they more fairly represented the occupational structure of
the New Zealand population. In this sense the wider missionary movement was more
democratised than previously indicated. What was changing was that missionary organisations were increasingly looking for well-qualified applicants, or for those who could be appropriately trained within an acceptable age range. Amongst the recorded reasons for rejection of applicants in this period, 'too old' and 'a lack of qualifications' together ranked second to 'health reasons' . A wide cross-section of the population was responding to the general call to missionary service, but it was clear that ultimately not all could be accommodated in what was becoming an increasingly specialised and professional field of endeavour.
4.5 Theological Contours of the Missionary Movement, 1 900-1918
Under the heading 'The Possibilities of Personal Work', an anonymous writer in 1 902 suggested that if 'there were only one Christian in the world, and he worked for a year and won a friend to Christ, and those two continued to win each year another . . . in thirty-one year's every person in the world would be won for Christ' . The calculated conversion figures for each of the thirty-one years were then dramatically presented,
followed by a suggested motto that read: 'I am only one - but 1 am one; 1 cannot do
everything - but 1 can do something; What I can do, I ought to do; And what I ought to
do, by the grace of God 1 will do.6o In many ways this quaint piece of imaginative
statistics summed up how people continued to conceive of the missionary task. World
War One disrupted missionary growth and presaged changes to come. Yet the overall mood of optimism and the expectation of Christianity' s unfettered global expansion
60 China 's Millions, Supplement, January 1 902, p. 1 56.
Chapter Four -Consolidation and Growth, 1 900-1 9 1 8
continued unabated. In that sense it might well be argued that the nineteenth century did not actually find its end point until the years 1 9 1 4- 1 9 1 8. Overall there was general theological congruity between this period and the preceding periods (Table 4.5).
Table 4.5 -Ranked Descriptions of Mission by New Zealanders, 1 856-1918Ql
Mission as
1 856-1 889 1 890- 1 899 1900-1918Salvation/Conversion
1 2 1Response to Great Need
7 4 2Extending God's Kingdom
4 1 1 3=Duty/Obligation
8 6 3=Christian Leavening
6 7= 5Warfare
1 2 9= 6Enlightenment
3 7= 7Preaching/Teaching
5 3 8=Going/Taking the Gospel
2 1 8=Response to a Command
9 5 1 0Service/Sacrifice
9= 1 1Representing Christ
1 2Reaping a Harvest
1 0 1 2 1 3Premillennial Urgency
1 3 1 4Liberation
1 1 1 4= 1 5Biblical Fulfilment
1 3 1 4= 1 6Theologically the missionary discourse was still framed i n predominantly conversionist terms. This was consistent throughout the period, and across boundaries of gender and denomination. 'Conversion' , like 'evangelisation', was a broadly defined concept. For each denomination and organisation examined it was not uncommon for 'conversion' to refer to both the hope for personal salvation (of recipient indigenous peoples) and to a broader notion of societal leavening, transformation or uplift. More generally non denominational missions tended to place a higher emphasis on mission as a 'response to great (or specific) need' . Baptists and Presbyterians emphasised the 'Christian leavening' aspect more than others. Women tended to emphasise mission as a 'response to great need' and, curiously, also employed the combative language of warfare and conquest. Conversely men tended to use the broader concept of 'Christian leavening' , and referred more to the notion o f mission as 'duty or obligation' . A wide range o f dichotomous imagery was once again evident throughout the theological data. The synoptic gospels, and the New Testament more generally, again provided the main
61 For the 1 900- 1 9 1 8 period there were 537 phrases, collected from 244 different documents and grouped
according to the dominant image or sentiment. Anglican -133 phrases from 44 documents; Baptist -1 1 4
phrases from 43 documents; Presbyterian -1 88 phrases from 96 documents; Other -) 02 phrases from 6 1
Chapter Four - Consolidation and Growth, 1 900- 1 9 1 8
biblical basis for missionary thinking in this period, with most emphasis on Matthew 28: 1 9-20 and Mark 1 6: 1 5 .62
The construction of mission theology continued to be based upon a wide range of words, images and concepts. At the same time there were also a number of features that require further comment. The new category 'representing Christ' was found across the denominations, but featured particularly in BIM statements. Annie Starnes wrote that 'we have a great incentive to be and do our very best, for are we not the only representatives of Jesus Christ among these people?' George Allan argued that 'what the people want is our lives dominated by Christ so that they may know and see through
us what the nature of Christ is' .63 These reflected the unique context of working in
Roman Catholic Latin America, and prevailing Protestant suspicions of ' Romanism' .
The meaning of ' evangelisation' became clearer in this period, although it was still used ambiguously and without qualification. In his Baptist Union presidential speech in 1 903 the Rev. R. S. Gray argued that 'the purpose of God' found its 'best, and indeed only adequate expression, in [the phrase] the Evangelisation of the World' . . . and that the 'place of the Church in this purpose of God is that of the divinely constituted agent'. He went on to press the need for the Church to be primarily 'missionary' in its focus and activity. ' Evangelisation' was the all-encompassing activity of going with and
communicating the gospel ' .64 In this sense 'evangelisation' incorporated all means by
which the Christian message could be communicated and the intended salvific or transformational outcomes of such activities. The Rev. Herbert Davies (CVM) suggested more explicitly that 'a country is evangelised when every man, woman and child has had an adequate opportunity of hearing carefully and fully expounded the
Gospel of Jesus Christ' .65
By 1 9 1 8 a distinct cluster of theological categories emphasised the great need of the 'heathen' peoples of the world, God's commandment to incarnate the gospel globally,
62
Also important were a number of references or allusions to Christ' s exhortation to go out into the harvest field (Luke 1 0:2), and the expectation in the Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6: 1 0) that God's kingdom and will would soon be consummated on earth. (NIV)63
Tahuantin Suyu, March 1 9 14, pp. 28-30, in 'Allan Correspondence, 1 895- 1 925', George and Mary Allan Personal Collection, Box 1 1 , BIM Archives.64
'The Place of the Church in the Purpose of God', NZBU Baptist Handbook, 1 903-1 904, pp. 14-23.65
Herbert Davies, Four Studies in World-wide Evangelisation, Dunedin: ASCU, 1 909, pp. 5-7.Chapter Four - Consolidation and Growth, 1 900- 1 9 1 8
and the duty and sense o f obligation attendant upon both individuals and churches as a response to this commandment and great need.66 Doris Wilks, reflecting on Matthew 28: 1 9 in 1 9 1 1 , suggested that 'we who know the joy of Ris salvation should be keenly anxious to pass on the same privilege . . . to lift them up from the darkness of ignorance and sin into the glorious light of Christ's gospel' .67 In a similar, if not balder vein, one Presbyterian commentator suggested that 'it is the duty of happy people to thrust their happiness upon others less happy' . 68 Such sentiments were common throughout the period, from a wide cross-section of people. This suggests that the transition in underlying theological motifs, posited by Bosch for the wider international missionary movement (noted in Chapter 2.7), was finding its completion amongst New Zealanders between 1 900- 1 9 1 8.69 The theological motive for foreign missions was now just as much anthropocentric as it was theocentric. This was perhaps epitomised in a drawing included in an Australasian Baptist Prayer Calendar produced in 1 905 (Figure 4.5). Figure 4.5 -India's Need and Christ's Call, 1 90570
'Ch" t(HICh of Chriq 'If}..:-n .iadLl- ;..� onc of t'(Hn t:'.1,s;;ion.ltc JOtld:H� ,Hod t.":icc-c " i I�J': .lPDt'.d.
66 Most often based on the Pauline sense of obligation to both 'Greeks and non-Greeks' in Romans 1 : 1 4. 67 'Doris Wilks', ANG 143/3 . 1 24, Box 1 7, NZCMS Archlves.
68 Outlook, 23 August 1 9 1 0, p. 8.
69 Bosch, Transforming Mission, pp. 285-29 1 .
70 'Australasian Baptist Mi ssions in Bengal, Prayer List Calendar', 1 905, Folder 1 , Box 0026, NZBMS
Chapter Four - Consolidation and Growth, 1 900- 1 9 1 8
The sentence beneath the picture read 'The touch of Christ upon India i s one of compassionate longing and beseeching appeal. ' The call of Christ, the perceived needs of India, and the obligation of the Church, elements that were all held together in the picture, were co-equal elements in the consciousness of the Australasian public.
The perception of what constituted 'great need' underwent some changes in this period. How it was perceived possibly depended on who was writing or speaking. It was most common amongst New Zealand observers and applicants to simply refer to 'the great need of the heathen' without further qualification. This could be interpreted in any number of ways. If it was qualified it was often with reference to specific cultural practices, like foot binding in China, and child brides and widows in India, or to systemic issues like public health or the Indian caste system.7l Missionaries often told stories that reinforced these stereotypical images for the wider public - a phenomenon that was common for the broader international missionary movement. 72 Yet missionary publicists also articulated a more sophisticated sense of the needs of others that reflected their everyday realities. Dr. John Kirk (CVM) reported to the General Assembly in 1 9 1 0 that 'the name of our hospital [Ko T'ong] stands for "Universal Love," and if this i s to have any meaning at all in the hearts of the people - aye, if the Gospel of Jesus Christ is to have any meaning at all - we cannot afford to turn poor, pain-burdened, weary souls from our door' .73 Writings from the BIM also indicated that both social amelioration of the Quechua Indians and the righting of injustices were intrinsically important. There were clearly those who saw specialist activities, like medical missions, as inherently valid and important, and not just as precursors to overt evangelism. This must also have filtered back to the New Zealand public. Application records for this period indicate a number of people applying specifically to be medical or educational missionaries.
There was one final dimension of this sense of 'need' that was new in this period. From early on there was a growing perception that many non-Christian religious systems were
71 These featured, for example, in the application of Phyllis Haddow to the NZCMS in 1 9 1 7. 'Phyllis Haddow', ANG 1 43/3.53, Box 9, NZCMS Archives.
72 See further: loan Brumberg, 'Zenanas and Girlless Villages: the Ethnology of American Evangelical Women, 1 870- 1 9 1 0', The Journal of American History, 69:2 ( 1 982), pp. 347-3 7 1 ; Janaki Nair, 'Uncovering the Zenana: Visions of Indian Womanhood in Englishwomen's Writing, 1 8 1 3- 1 940',
Journal of Women 's History, 2: I ( 1 990), pp. 8-34; Judith Rowbotham, "'Hear an Indian Sister's Plea":
Reporting the Work of 1 9th-Century British Female M issionaries', Women 's Studies International Forum,
2 1 : 3 ( 1 998), pp. 247-26 1 .
73 ' Missions Report, 1 9 1 0', PCNZ PGA, p. 1 1 1 6.
Chapter Four - Consolidation and Growth, 1 900- 1 9 1 8
about to disintegrate. The imagery shifted from one o f Christianity triumphing 'over the crumbling religions of the heathen world, 74 to one of 'pushing reinforcements . . . over the crumbling defences of heathenism, to win for the Kingdom of God the ancient and virile races that are breaking away from their ancestral creeds' . 75 In the face of modernisation in Japan, the republican revolution in China and the emerging nationalist movement in India, it was at once hoped that old religious systems would disintegrate and, at the same time, feared that the perceived atheism and materialism of the West would fill the religious vacuum. Therefore the 'great need of the heathen' world was also the need for the Christian Church in New Zealand to move quickly and decisively to assure that such a situation would not develop.
Another cluster of categories emphasised the expansionist nature of Christianity. This was not surprising in the midst of an era that witnessed the climax of European global power. Foreign missions were talked about in expansionist terms far more commonly than in either of the preceding two periods. On the surface it seems fair to argue that such thinking was not easily disentangled from language more particularly extolling the virtues of the British Empire. The Rev. John Takle best represented such sentiments in his address to the Baptist Union conference in 1 9 1 6. He stated that: