f BY 2063) .R67°1925.._, 
 Rowland, Henry Hosie, 1884- 
 Native churches in foreign 
 
 
 
 fields 
 

 
pal ae rs 
 ' eleh), We as ie bid 
 f 7 i] -_ 
 
 
 
ENE Career 
 “SE&Y OF PRit Ass 
 Aan OF PRINCES 
 4 *y .% S/ ~ 
 
 
 
 
 rere 
 Native Churc 
 in Foreign Fields 
 
 By 
 HENRY HOSIE 
 "ROWLAND 
 
 _ THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN 
 NEW YORK CINCINNATI 
 
 
 
Copyright, 1925, by 
 HENRY HOSIE ROWLAND 
 
 All rights reserved, including that of translation into 
 foreign languages, including the Scandinavian 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
To 
 
 MY FATHER 
 AND 
 
 MY MOTHER 
 
hay 
 
 LP ce! 
 » 
 
 io i i”, 
 
 
 
noe 
 
 He CO 
 
 12 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 THE INDIGENOUS CHURCH DEFINED 
 PAGE 
 . Not as the goal but as the means.............. 15 
 . Self-supporting, self-governing, and self-extending 
 —the three features commonly accepted....... 16 
 . With a culture that is native yet Christian also.. 19 
 . A religion adapted to national needs............ 19 
 (a) Socially. 
 
 (b) Industrially. 
 (ce) In esthetics. 
 (1) Architecture. 
 (2) Musical harmony. 
 (3) Ritual. 
 (d) In philosophy. 
 (e) In church discipline. 
 (f) In customs. 
 
 (a) Before it is self-supporting? 
 (b) While the missionary is still on the field? 
 (c) When the church makes the decisions? 
 
 . The deeper, spiritual quality of the truly in- 
 
 UIPOrOe | GET eN s ok e-e 2e k el ees Ue 29 
 (a) Filled with the Holy Spirit and therefore 
 (1) United. 
 (2) With missionary zeal. 
 
 . “Indigenous” does not make impossible interna- 
 
 tional federation or union................ 31 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 WHY AN INDIGENOUS CHURCH? 
 
 . The Christian, democratic point of view demands it 32 
 . “Christian” nations and Christianity not identical. 
 
 5 
 
7 = 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 . The innate difference of different peoples........ 35 
 . Different emphases in different forms of society 
 have led to different interpretations of 
 
 Christiantty ooo ei neath: nits eeelae tie ontee e 35 
 
 . The same right of adaptation is due the new 
 churches 73) (OS Y a at ote ee tree 37 
 
 The best type of Christianity is dependent upon 
 freedom 3! <.y 52 celles rite ee ee ele nei 37 
 
 There is a demand for an indigenous church on 
 the’fields 2) iF) 02 4ia ahs ae Si 39 
 
 (a) Some churches have become independent. 
 
 (b) The spirit of the leaders in the movement for 
 indigenous churches is often praiseworthy. 
 
 (c) Results prove the value of the movement. 
 
 (d) There has come through the movement a wel- 
 come change in the attitude of the nationals. 
 
 . Christianity may be more easily understood in the 
 
 East than in the West.....0...-0 00.0035 44 
 . The answer in the development of the Church... 44 
 CHAPTER ITI 
 HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 1. From THE APOSTLES TO CONSTANTINE...... 46 
 . Unfavorable and favorable conditions met....... 46 
 . Features of the early church................... 49 
 
 (a) Simplicity. 
 
 (b) Autonomy. 
 
 (c) Self-support. 
 
 (d) Development into a close organization. 
 (e) Literature. 
 
 (f) Heathen survivals. 
 
 (g) The change to externalism. 
 
 The achievement) 420/00 eee a ee 54 
 Comparison with the present.................. 55 
 2. From ConsTANTINE TO CAREY............ 56 
 
 - The rige of monasticism fios2 it, ee ee ae 56 
 
 (a) The condition of the church that caused it. 
 (b) The come-back of the monks. 
 
 6 
 
Dore ge 
 
 2 = 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 (c) Their great task. 
 (d) The conditions which they faced. 
 . The evangelizing of the North................. 58 
 
 (a) Methods used. 
 (b) The work of the monks. 
 (c) Were the resulting church organizations in- 
 digenous? 
 (1) Self-support. 
 (2) Autonomy. 
 (3) Adaptation to heathenism. 
 (4) Literature. 
 Summary—the loss of indigenous character 
 and Christianity too. 
 
 . Roman Catholic Missions in the East and in 
 
 A MErieay estore a wat Acca eat tee a a 64 
 Protestant eres 360 oak aos se Me Se ia 67 
 The Nestoriansiteiacts niet ce wae han ees 68 
 SUOMI ALY. Glee ee ae Bete ar ee REG MER ahs te oT 68 
 
 8. From CarREY TO THE EpINBURGH Conrer- 
 RIN CSR ana id Aine NATO UAT GRAD. Yanl 08 Bis A poRL a Ds 69 
 . Comparisons of periods 1, 2, and 3............. 69 
 . Conditions met by the missionary.............. 70 
 
 (a) Favorable. 
 (b) Unfavorable. 
 
 . Developing indigenous churches. ............... 73 
 
 (a) The ideal set forth. 
 (b) The ideal at work in 
 (1) India. 
 (2) Burma. 
 (3) Africa. 
 (4) Madagascar. 
 (5) The islands of the sea. 
 (6) Korea. 
 
 (9) The Near East. 
 (10) Other fields. 
 (c) The ideal as carried out by societies. 
 (d) The attitude of converts. 
 (e) The influence of strong personalities. 
 (f) Summary. 
 
 7 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 4. From tHE Epinsurcu CONFERENCE TO THE 
 PRI COTY Pinan hak con eaten en 
 1. The significance of the Edinburgh Conference.... 89 
 2. The working out of the principles laid down 
 Fed PUNE I OPE ON Fi ara ABH has Aue ts 92 
 (a) Comity. 
 (hh): Union: eflottes|. 6c. gWiews innate were an 94 
 (1) Japan 
 
 (2) Formosa and Chosen. 
 (3) The canna st 
 
 (6) Africa and Madagascar. 
 (7) Latin America. 
 (c) The development of self-consciousness....... - 100 
 (1) Self-support. 
 a. Advance in giving. 
 b. Hindrances to self-support. 
 1. Higher education. 
 2. Rising standards and prices. 
 c. Methods of different societies. 
 (2) specunenst a eR it el pr PART Ne ome age 104 
 
 1. American Methodist. 
 2. Anglican. 
 8. Presbyterian bodies. 
 4. Congregational bodies. 
 5. India in general. 
 China. | 
 Japan. 
 . Philippines. | 
 . Chosen. 
 Latin America. 
 . Africa. 
 . Summary. 
 (3) Evan elim bi ncce kkk hall ike See ak ee Oa 113 
 (4) New dimphases. |. 6 oS, necks cos wees ye ee 116 
 
 a. Social activity. 
 
 b. Education. 
 
 c. Other features. 
 
 
 
 ee 
 
 roa ho LO oF 
 
Ome OF w% 
 
 — 
 
 em 6929 
 
 a 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 
 PAGE 
 Ly LCPRD DUCTION. GO. lo ade ck te tue cae sed 120 
 
 Factors which condition the work of missions. 
 A. Those External to the Church............ 120 
 
 . The scientific spirit among the educated classes 
 makes an unprecedented situation for the 
 Christian Church to meet ............... 120 
 
 . The rise of the spirit.of democracy and national- 
 
 ism makes necessary a new approach......... 123 
 
 . The changing industrial situation requires a new 
 Bbiatideiccce. © dees teres o etek onde eae 124 
 
 . Poverty, ignorance and fatalism of the millions.. 125 
 
 Sek 16) tate ATL MUTI ETE Sc sks es Cs acd bs ee eats 126 
 
 B. Factors Present in the Church in the Way 
 Of Achrevementa' oo. ete AP Soa et" 126 
 . The great unlearned multitudes that have come 
 WEN Bo tiehe rth ead Cahn lc ee GPO eer ara Uae Waele a late es 126 
 . The educated few eager to take control......... 127 
 . Great educational and other institutions to be 
 WORE Tire cro PE face uh eine aie b ee eG 128 
 . The desire of many for union.................. 129 
 2. PROBLEMS 
 As OU SUD DOTES eis | MeL Dae aattaase os 130 
 Why is self-support essential?.................. 130 
 Uh dialect elo Phegieh gel eat cur Maly aR eae Ad ha UL aOR AR 131 
 
 (a) Financing the work of the church the task of 
 the church. 
 (b) 1. Mostly done by the missionary. 
 2. Drastic action disastrous. 
 3. The Grant-in-aid method. 
 4. Salary schedules. 
 (c) Workers should be responsible to the church, 
 not to the missionary. 
 
 Med PUSEHULIOS see ee on hick okt rane ee A tm 135 
 
 (a) The economic situation on some fields. 
 (b) Well educated workers and poor churches. 
 (c) The lack of training in giving. 
 
 9 
 
a 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 (d) Big plants that entail a large budget for up- 
 keep. 
 (e) Increasing costs of maintenance. 
 
 . Aids in cultivating self-support................. 142 
 >.Drvisions of self-stppportsy Us ects ae veloute E 143 
 
 (a) The unit of support. Individual church or 
 group of churches? 
 (b) The content of self-support. 
 1. Support the missionary? 
 2. Only the pastor? 
 3. Other evangelistic work as well? 
 4. The order of items? 
 
 . Indigenous consciousness the true basis of self- 
 
 SUPPORE's Vili acaie oie le acute tata ale eh eee res 146 
 
 By Leadership oii Geet thee ce ee 147 
 
 . The importance of leadership.................. 147 
 “Education of leaders 20 eave.) tat eaaer a cater te 147 
 a. Education necessary. 
 b. Different degrees of education for paid workers. 
 ce. Training lay workers. 
 d. Educating the church membership. 
 e. Theological School curriculum. 
 
 . The leaders should be responsible to the church, 
 
 not to the amussionaryes. ects ok okie ete 151 
 a. Difficulties. 
 (1) Dislike of being subordinated to foreigner. 
 (2) Fear of conservative church members. 
 (3) The difficulty in lands of little culture. 
 (4) Racial feeling. 
 b. The solution of the problem in brotherhood. 
 . The dependence of the church on leadership. ... 156 
 
 C.. Self-government (aires Sune Sar. ian 157 
 
 1,\As-yet. largely unattained .).2 [05021 9. eee 157 
 2. Stages in the process of devolution............. 158 
 3. The various ways of devolution............... 158 
 
 a. The item-by-item method. 
 
 b. The local-to-general method. 
 
 c. Method of increasing the number of ordained 
 men. 
 
 10 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 4. The relation of self-support to self-government... 162 
 5. Shall nationals be allowed to handle foreign 
 LSE ond) Ae d Btae e ¢ ore ls eel a oat 164 
 6. Ability at self-government to be found by test- 
 Ng PIAS rea Pe ae eile es ee ars 166 
 7. The deaieh should be trained from the start... 167 
 8. When grant self-government?................. 168 
 9. When shall the missionary and the mission board 
 POLICE A EVI ce NAG Site er caie ee cals 169 
 10. In the solution Christian brotherhood is more 
 vital than the machinery of organization... 170 
 D. Denominationalism and the Tendency To- 
 ard CHIR a ete oe eee es 171 
 1. The growth of the spirit of union............... 171 
 2. The question on the field, Why a divided Chris- 
 RIBDIUY Fotis ote Sts Vee a ate 8 1S otal ves 172 
 3. Union movements on the field.................. 172 
 4. The growing demand for union on the field...... 173 
 Bee Cues ea erates ele a eek d cele das hoe, Miata 173 
 
 a. The unwillimgness of the home constituency. 
 b. Denominationalism on the field. 
 c. Ecclesiastical organizations. 
 
 d. Inertia. 
 
 e. Doctrinal views. 
 
 . Methods suggested for union.................-. 175 
 
 a. By local and provincial union. 
 b. By union of bodies of similar church polity. 
 
 PAU ET DENS LOsUTMOM i Abin sak cn cael kaa serie e 176 
 Behe | DODE LOD UNIO ae calc b ates a lebe tre teeieic is 176 
 E. The Missionary’s Responsibility......... 177 
 1. The question of the responsibility of the mis- 
 sionary for the ultimate form of indigenous 
 CHriIshianity:: vid tie css ARR see aatatatioL we ae 177 
 2. The attitude of the national toward the problem.. 178 
 3. The right attitude for the missionary........... 179 
 Me ERIS CRAIC CE fee ere AML, Masa ged les lave sk ates athe bok 179 
 
 a. To give the message. 
 b. To develop leadership. 
 c. To lay the responsibility upon the Church. 
 
 11 
 
rw 
 
 > or & oo 
 
 OW Aorwmoorw 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 F. The Responsibility of the Indigenous Church 180 
 
 . The former status of inability. ................. 180 
 . Responsibility for evangelism.................. 181 
 
 a. A concrete example. 
 b. The need for scientific thoroughness. 
 
 . Responsibility for education and literary work.... 183 
 Responsibility for hospitals, ete.............-.. 184 
 « National 'respousibility,) aa an ss os ee ee 184 
 . International responsibility.................... 186 
 CHAPTER V 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 . Christian character is developed in social con- 
 BATS. cl itlaiosg tapcistaeg mien a sk ie oe tanked ak te eae 187 
 . Leadership of priceless value................... 187 
 . Training leaders the first task.................. 188 
 » Phe methodol traintig wa, 2s i sola eie eek 188 
 A Tuthire of Dronises aout eee eee eee 189 
 
 The indigenous character of the church of the 
 fuse), c Ves ee sates arene 190 
 .pA: pléa for, equality. ou i en es on erage 190 
 . The hope of a Church Universal................ 191 
 
 12 
 
AUTHOR’S PREFACE 
 
 Out of ten years of actual effort on the mis- 
 sion field in North China and a year of inten- 
 sive study of the mission fields in general from 
 apostolic times down to the present, the writer 
 has arrived at the conclusions set forth in this 
 volume. Realizing that many are to-day think- 
 ing along the same line, the writer desires to 
 offer this contribution to the as yet somewhat 
 scanty literature on the Indigenous Church. 
 
 Lest any take offense at the criticism of 
 the work of missionaries past and present, the 
 writer would say that of most of the faults 
 mentioned he himself has been guilty, and 
 some of the conclusions arrived at are trace- 
 able to personal experience as well as to the 
 evidence presented by others. Missionaries 
 are not all statesmen with a far look ahead. 
 Many are men of action, who in the midst of 
 their work have little or no time to get out 
 from under their burden sufficiently to get 
 the perspective necessary for the thinking 
 through of great problems. 
 
 We are a bit hard on what is known as the 
 “old convert,” but I think not unjustly. A 
 
 13 
 
AUTHOR’S PREFACE 
 
 fellow missionary once told me that when he 
 exhorted one of these gentlemen to stop his 
 bad habits or he would miss the joys of heaven, 
 he replied, “If it is the will of the Lord that 
 I be damned, then let the Lord’s will be done.” 
 Enough said! 
 
 The author is indebted beyond the power 
 of words to express to Dr. Henry B. Robins, 
 of the faculty of the Rochester Theological 
 Seminary, for his generously given guidance 
 in reading and his invaluable suggestions 
 regarding the form in which the matters 
 treated in this volume appear. Thanks are 
 also due to the librarians of the Rochester 
 Theological Seminary for their kindly assist- 
 ance in the finding of the materials used. 
 
 In the hope that many who are working on 
 the problem of evangelizing the peoples of the 
 non-Christian Jands may find the same help 
 that the author has found, this little volume is 
 placed before the public. It has been the 
 writer’s aim to gather together the most sig- 
 nificant facts bearing upon the building up of 
 churches in the foreign fields and to present 
 them in such fashion as will not only be in- 
 forming but also use them for the future of the 
 Church of Christ throughout the world. 
 
 14 
 
CHAPTER I 
 THE INDIGENOUS CHURCH DEFINED 
 
 THE aim of Jesus was to restore lost sons 
 and daughters to the heavenly Father and 
 thereby make one family of all who would 
 receive God into their hearts as Father. The 
 church, in so far as it is viewed as identical 
 with this “family,” is therefore the end of 
 missionary effort. But in so far as it is an 
 organization for the purpose of winning men, 
 women, and children to this “family” ideal, 
 it is the means to the end. The inability of 
 the foreign missionary alone to cope with the 
 task is obvious. The best instrument the Holy 
 Spirit can use to bring all the human race 
 through Christ to the Father is the body of 
 Christians raised up each in its own land. It 
 is the purpose of this volume to follow the 
 development of the organized churches in for- 
 eign fields down to the present, in an effort to 
 discover the best ways of building them up as 
 instruments for accomplishing the aim of 
 Jesus as set forth above. With this word of 
 explanation we proceed to the definition of the 
 indigenous church. 
 
 15 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 As in education there are the three R’s, so 
 in modern Protestant missions there have 
 been three S’s, namely, self-support, self-goy- 
 ernment, and self-extension or self-propaga- 
 tion. These three have been for decades the 
 recognized marks, as it were, on the hands, the 
 head, and the feet of a really indigenous 
 church: self-support, the members of the 
 church with the work of their own hands sup- 
 porting their church in all its activities; self- 
 government, using their heads to direct their 
 own affairs; and self-propagation, with their 
 own feet carrying the gospel. “How beautiful 
 upon the mountains,” whether the Andes or 
 the Himalayas, “are the feet of him that 
 bringeth good tidings” (Isa. 52. 7). 
 
 Self-support means the doing away with for- 
 eign grants or subsidies and the assumption 
 by the local, provincial, or national churches 
 of the financial burden incident to such activi- 
 ties as the church carries on. It implies that 
 all the money used for current expenses (1) 
 of an annually recurring nature, as pastor’s 
 salary, and (2) of a nonrecurring nature, such 
 as the erection of a new church building, is 
 raised by the church itself. If the people in 
 the church really recognize the enterprise as 
 their own and not as the creature of the for- 
 eign missionary, they will naturally be willing 
 
 16 
 
THE INDIGENOUS CHURCH DEFINED 
 
 to support it of their substance just as truly 
 as a self-respecting husband and father takes 
 pride and joy in contributing to the necessi- 
 ties of his family and would be ashamed to 
 ask another man to support his family. Self- 
 support, therefore, is not merely a matter of 
 paying the bills: it is that attitude of mind 
 on the part of the church that is not content 
 until it stands before the world in God’s 
 strength without leaning on the golden staff 
 of the foreign missionary. 
 
 Self-government or autonomy means the 
 government of the church by the church itself. 
 In this state, viewed ideally, the seat of 
 authority in all matters relating to the church 
 life is no longer occupied by the foreign mis- 
 sionary or by the foreign mission board. That 
 this is a reasonable requirement for an indig- 
 enous church is easy to see when we consider 
 how restive our own youth become under par- 
 ental authority and how relations in the family 
 are sometimes strained when the father insists 
 on obedience. How much more restive are 
 peoples of strange races, especially in these 
 days of increasing race and national con- 
 sciousness. God has given other races the 
 same craving for independence that he has 
 given the European, and having this in their 
 nature without satisfying it would keep Chris- 
 
 17 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 tianity a foreign religion, whereas the satis- 
 fying of this craving insures the nationalizing 
 of the religion of Jesus. 
 
 Self-extension or self-propagation means 
 that the vitalizing power of the Holy Spirit is 
 so present in the church that it must express 
 itself in that which is natural to all true fol- 
 lowers of Christ, namely, the carrying of the 
 gospel. A church must have within itself the 
 living heart of Christianity to do this. A dead 
 or dying church has no urge within itself to 
 go with the message. <A church that feels the 
 message belongs to the missionary or the 
 foreign-paid national agent has no interest in 
 this most characteristic of all Christian work. 
 Only a church that has a real fellowship with 
 the Christ and is energized by the power of 
 the Holy Spirit, not pushed and coaxed by 
 the foreigner, accepts the challenge of the 
 ' unreached millions. This, then, is the third 
 and the most convincing of the marks that the 
 church is truly indigenous. To contribute to 
 what is one’s own and to manage one’s own 
 affairs, certainly are activities that do not 
 go as deep into the heart life of the Christian 
 as to pray for, give money for, or go to those 
 outside of his own circle. 
 
 The goals of self-support, self-government, 
 and self-extension were set forth by two great 
 
 18 
 
THE INDIGENOUS CHURCH DEFINED 
 
 leaders, one on each side of the Atlantic: Sec- 
 retary Henry Venn, of the Church Missionary 
 Society, and Secretary Anderson, of the 
 American Board. In mission conferences and 
 councils since their day these have been the 
 goals of the endeavor of the foreign missionary 
 societies. When they are attained, then it 
 is recognized that the churches in the foreign 
 fields have truly attained their majority. 
 
 But there are other features in an indige- 
 nous church. A culture that is native yet 
 also Christian is sure to. spring up. A church 
 dependent entirely upon translations for the 
 cultivation of its life in Christ surely lacks in 
 indigenous character. A literature of native 
 production is proof that Christ has captured 
 the heart and the mind; and when poetic souls 
 are inspired to compose hymns in praise of 
 our Lord, we have deeper reason still to feel . 
 that Christianity is growing up in the heart 
 and is no more. regarded as a foreign plant. 
 The developing of a native literature, both 
 prose and poetry, is as natural a one as the 
 unfolding of the rose from the rosebud. Any 
 failure to mature indicates either death or a 
 counterfeit. 
 
 In addition to literature pure and simple, 
 an interpretation of Christianity that is 
 adapted to the needs of the country, is another 
 
 19 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 rightly expected fruit of an indigenous reli- 
 gion. 
 
 The structure of Western society has led us 
 of the West to emphasize the individuality of 
 Christianity. Among the Eastern peoples, 
 where much, if not most, of our mission work 
 is now conducted, the family and the clan play 
 a greater part. <A very good illustration of 
 the different point of view came with a shock 
 to the writer on one occasion in China when 
 he was examining for baptism a number of 
 converts. A youth appeared among them as 
 proxy for his father, who was too busy to 
 come and be baptized himself! Now, baptism 
 by proxy is in no danger of being adopted 
 even in China, but where the social order is 
 not unchristian, it must stand, or denational- 
 ization, which term includes a church that is 
 not indigenous, must result. Jesus, himself 
 an Oriental, fits better into the social struc- 
 ture we find in the mission fields of the East 
 than into our Western, more individualistic 
 society. 
 
 The occupations of people and their rela- 
 tions economically to one another all must be 
 allowed to determine the application of reli- 
 gion, For example, an agricultural people 
 need a religion that is interested in the prob- 
 lems of the farmer. There is great room for 
 
 20 
 
THE INDIGENOUS CHURCH DEFINED 
 
 change in emphasis between countries like the 
 United States of America, where over one half 
 of the population live in cities, and China or 
 India, where probably eighty-five to ninety-five 
 per cent live in the country districts. If 
 Christianity gets hold of a people, it will natu- 
 rally be adapted to their industrial needs. 
 
 Aisthetics also have their place. Gothic 
 architecture in India or Japan seems out of 
 place; our Western music cannot reach the 
 heart of the Chinese as their own music does, 
 and a ritual that is brought from over the 
 seas has a foreign tinge that sets the people 
 of the land against it. These matters are all 
 part of the problem of the indigenous church, 
 Recognizing the religious nature of all peoples, 
 we may well allow the national forms to 
 clothe the Christian religion as well as to 
 clothe their previous religion. 
 
 A particular style of architecture is not 
 accursed because it has been used by Bud- 
 dhists or Mohammedans. Architecture existed 
 before Jesus was born in Bethlehem. He 
 advised no style of architecture. What did 
 the first Christians use in their church build- 
 ings in the way of architecture? They did not 
 follow the synagogue style of architecture, as 
 one might expect if there was to be a style 
 peculiarly Christian, a model for the whole 
 
 21 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 world never to be departed from, settled for- 
 ever because Jesus himself worshiped in the 
 synagogue. The first Christian edifice, erected 
 at Edessa, was built upon a model of the 
 Jewish temple, and this model was followed 
 largely in Nestorian churches. But through- 
 out the Roman Empire the Christians prob- 
 ably first hired or erected plain rectangular 
 buildings, such as were numerous in Roman 
 towns. Later basilicas were used. These were 
 buildings on the style of the Roman court 
 house and exchange for commercial transac- 
 tions. Wealthy Romans also had basilicas in 
 their houses. Hence we see that outside of the 
 Nestorian churches the style of architecture 
 in the early days was not what we could call 
 distinctively Christian, not even religious, but 
 was distinctly adapted to what was already 
 in vogue in the lands where Christianity was 
 preached. The indigenous church of to-day 
 would therefore have excellent reason for us- 
 ing in church buildings such style of archi- 
 tecture as would not provoke the comment 
 that it was foreign, but such a style as would 
 disarm criticism and furthermore make the 
 people feel that it was really their own. That 
 style, of course, would be one to which they 
 are accustomed. 
 One has only to live among the people of 
 22 
 
THE INDIGENOUS CHURCH DEFINED 
 
 other countries to find out that each land or 
 race prefers its own kind of music. That is 
 the kind that takes them back to all the pre- 
 cious memories of childhood, their environ- 
 ment, the dreams of the future in which they 
 indulged—in short, the woof and warp of their 
 existence. Nothing can ever take away from 
 them the charm of their own music. For this 
 reason foreign music has a foreign sound, and 
 only when the music of their hymns and their 
 other sacred music is their own will they feel 
 entirely at home with them. For this reason 
 the character of the music should be indig- 
 enous. 
 
 Ritual too is a feature of religious life that 
 cannot be disregarded. The ritual we have in 
 our religion is not vital to the religion itself. 
 Jesus made no provision for it. It has been 
 a gradual growth through the centuries. Much 
 now used and regarded as Christian came 
 from heathen worship. Saint Gregory intro- 
 duced even the dancing of the Apollo cult into 
 religious services. It seems quite reasonable 
 that a truly indigenous church will develop its 
 own ritual or adapt a foreign one to such a 
 form as will make it seem truly indigenous. 
 
 Early Christianity likewise coming into con- 
 tact with the then systems of philosophy, more 
 or less adopted them. Jerome, stanchly Chris- 
 
 23 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 tian, was nevertheless “fervently addicted to 
 heathen literature and admired Plato and 
 Cicero, the chiefs of profane philosophy.” 
 Beethius, a professed Christian who lived after 
 Constantine, and a man steadfast in suffering, 
 in setting forth the true grounds of spiritual 
 consolation on which he rested in the hour of 
 trial, shows no trace of Christianity, only 
 pure, unmingled naturalism. Merivale, in 
 The Conversion of the Northern Nations cites 
 these two instances as typical of that time. 
 As it was natural in those days for Chris- 
 tianity to relate itself with the philosophy 
 current in those times, so it is to be expected 
 that a truly indigenous Christianity will like- 
 wise relate itself to the philosophy of the 
 nations that are now the fields of foreign- 
 mission enterprise. 
 
 Church discipline too may be subject to 
 adaptation. Although Jesus himself mingled 
 with men so that they even charged him with 
 being a glutton and a winebibber, many 
 devoted followers of his became hermits, 
 pillar saints, and other kinds of recluse. Mon- 
 tanus, the founder of the Montanist heresy, 
 having been a priest of Cybele in Phrygia, 
 naturally brought over into his discipline 
 Cybele elements, such as ecstatic manifesta- 
 tions and extreme self-mortification. To-day 
 
 24 
 
THE INDIGENOUS CHURCH DEFINED 
 
 there are those that say India will give us a 
 _ Christian type of holy man or fakir, who, while 
 not mutilating his body, will travel about in 
 poverty preaching the Christian religion, and 
 that, in fact, this has already begun in the 
 person of the Sadhu Sunder Singh and others. 
 The expression natural to the country in ques- 
 tion is bound to appear when the church has 
 become truly of indigenous character. 
 Among all these problems one of the most 
 difficult before ‘the missionary has been what 
 to do with native customs. Some have tried 
 to substitute a purely Western form, thinking 
 that it was Christian because it came from a 
 more Christian land than the land to which 
 they had come. Others have attempted to con- 
 serve what was not distinctly opposed to 
 Christianity ; for example, they would have to 
 exclude from the Chinese wedding ceremony 
 the worshiping of heaven and earth. But the 
 ceremony might still be kept with the Creator 
 of heaven and earth as the object of worship. 
 No one would hold that our present cere- 
 monies of marriage or usages at funerals and 
 festivals and our other customs are those laid 
 down by Jesus. The origin of many customs 
 is very obscure. Very few Christians know 
 how Saint Nicholas burst into the Christmas 
 festivities and robbed Jesus of his rightful 
 25 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 preeminence. In the same way very few 
 Chinese can account for the origin of the fes- 
 tival of the Eighth Moon. The consideration 
 of such facts fosters humility in the attitude 
 of Westerners. Why not expect the people of 
 other lands also to retain their customs, fes- 
 tivals, etc., even in their church life, altering 
 them only so far as they need it to make them 
 Christian? For an indigenous church to do 
 otherwise would be to become foreign and 
 open to the charge of denationalizing its mem- 
 bers. Customs are not Christian simply 
 because they are Western. It is as simple and 
 as reasonable that, as our ancestors put a 
 Christian content into already existing cus- 
 toms, so shall the converts of India, Africa, 
 and other lands do with their customs. 
 
 To illustrate, let us take a concrete case of 
 fundamental type. A church that disregards, 
 as too often has been done in the past, the ele- 
 ments of filial piety in ancestor worship, which 
 is the most prominent feature in the religious 
 life of the East, throws away a priceless asset 
 of those peoples. Of course the burning of 
 incense and prostration in worship before the 
 ancestral tablets would seem to be steps away 
 from Christianity ; but the preservation of the 
 tablets and the holding of memorial services, 
 or the employment of some other method of 
 
 26 
 
THE INDIGENOUS CHURCH DEFINED 
 
 showing respect for the memory, and some 
 form of rite at the grave, would seem to be 
 essential to the preservation of the inner life 
 so long fostered and of such obvious value to 
 the younger generation. If this is altered— 
 as, indeed, it can be—there is no valid reason 
 why almost all customs cannot be Christian- 
 ized, instead of being thrown overboard 
 entirely and usurped by purely Western ones. 
 
 When may a church be characterized as 
 indigenous? This is a proper question to ask 
 at the conclusion of this sketch of the various 
 implications underlying the idea of the indige- 
 nous church. Must a church have all these 
 - qualifications before it may be truly classed 
 as indigenous? Or is there a time when it 
 has passed over from the rating of a foreign 
 enterprise into the indigenous column, even 
 though it has not yet produced all the fruits 
 an indigenous plant is expected to produce? 
 Some of these fruits, for example, philosophy 
 and literature, require generations to produce. 
 
 So much has been said about self-support 
 that the question arises: May the church then 
 be called indigenous when it supports itself? 
 And, may it ever be indigenous before it is 
 self-supporting? Now, there are on the field 
 churches that are self-supporting, as the 
 Samoan Church, but they are unable as yet to 
 
 27 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 do without the missionary. Financial ability, 
 then, may be present, but the ability to develop 
 a well-rounded Christianity does not arise 
 alone out of the possession and the generous 
 use of money. On the other hand, there are 
 churches whose economic situation is a prob- 
 lem, as in the Telugu country, but which have 
 developed capable men to manage their affairs, 
 If it is only money that they need, can they 
 not be called as truly indigenous as a weak 
 Presbyterian or Methodist church on the home 
 mission field? Self-support, then, is not the 
 sole criterion. Its attainment does not neces- 
 sarily imply indigenous character, and only 
 partial attainment does not necessarily dis- 
 qualify a church. 
 
 Another question that naturally arises is: 
 While the missicnary is still on the field is the 
 chureh indigenous? Does even his presence, 
 though only as an adviser, hinder the church 
 from being called indigenous? The presence 
 of French instructors in the American army 
 in the European War was never thought of 
 as denationalizing the army. They had no 
 control over the War Department. Even so, 
 the church may be indigenous and yet have 
 the missionary. To decide otherwise would be 
 to go against a very strong body of opinion in 
 the foreign lands, particularly Japan, where 
 
 28 
 
THE INDIGENOUS CHURCH DEFINED 
 
 the missionary still is working, but where the 
 churches have shown so many qualities of an 
 indigenous nature that it would be an injus- 
 tice to deny their indigenous character. 
 
 When shall a church be considered indige- 
 nous? Must it pass one hundred per cent 
 on the tests already suggested? We have 
 already hinted that this is not necessary. Mr. 
 J. H. Oldham, in his address at the National 
 Christian Conference in Shanghai, China, in 
 May, 1922, put the issue clearly when he 
 answered the question, “When does Chris- 
 tianity become truly national in its expres- 
 sion?” with these words, “when the main direc- 
 tion and control of the Christian movement is 
 in the hands of the people of the country— 
 when they make the decisions.” That is the 
 turning point. It implies that the church has 
 accepted Christianity not on trial, but as its 
 own for good or ill. It is committed to it, 
 heart and soul. 
 
 Besides the goals of self-support, self-gov- 
 ernment, and self-propagation, besides an 
 indigenous culture and an interpretation of 
 Christianity that is adapted to the needs of a 
 country, there is a deeper, spiritual quality 
 that is essential to the development of indige- 
 nous Christianity. This quality, in fact, 
 underlies and in natural course works through 
 
 29 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 all these external features, just as the spirit 
 of a man shows through the activity of his 
 body. This is none other than the presence of 
 the Holy Spirit in the life of the church, ener- 
 gizing and leading to ultimate victory over 
 the forces of evil. 
 
 This indigenous force, present in all the fol- 
 lowers of Jesus, a force that is indigenous to 
 all the human race, when. actually possessed 
 of his Spirit, shows itself in two ways that 
 have a deep mutual interrelation. The first 
 of these is a desire to unite with all other fol- 
 lowers of Jesus. The second is the baptism of 
 the missionary spirit, already mentioned under 
 “self-propagation.” The plea of Jesus by act 
 and word for union and his charge to his dis- 
 ciples in word and in the implication of his 
 life and his teaching leave us no room to doubt 
 that a united body of believers with the mis- 
 sionary spirit was the great prayer of his 
 heart. That the mission fields to-day present 
 to us these features so strikingly (1) in the 
 many union and federation movements and 
 (2) in the missionary zeal not only as evi- 
 denced by the support on the part of the home 
 churches of over twenty thousand missionaries 
 abroad, but also in the evangelistic zeal of the 
 people newly won to Christ, indicates that 
 Christianity is firmly grounded and also gives 
 
 30 
 
THE INDIGENOUS CHURCH DEFINED 
 
 rise to the glorious hope that some day we 
 shall see a mighty, united church, actually 
 accomplishing the work that Jesus sent his 
 followers forth to do. 
 
 This brings us to the question of whether 
 an indigenous church in China, or one in 
 India, or one in other lands, or several in any 
 one land, interferes with an international fed- 
 eration or union. The answer to this question 
 is that the indigenous character of the church 
 in the different lands is merely the adapta- 
 tion of Christianity to those peoples, and that 
 an international bond of union would in no 
 way interfere with the indigenous character of 
 the churches. There is enough in common in 
 human nature, particularly when it is conse- 
 crated to God and baptized by the Holy Spirit, 
 to unite us all in Christian fellowship. That 
 is to say, that by “indigenous” is not meant 
 that offensive type of nationalism which is so 
 present in the world to-day. The indigenous 
 character of the national church is not divi- 
 sive, but looks to the natural development of 
 the different Christian bodies in their own 
 environment with a view to ultimate union in 
 our common Lord, whether we view that union 
 as an external church or as an inner fellow- 
 ship or both. 
 
 31 
 
CHAPTER II 
 WHY AN INDIGENOUS CHURCH? 
 
 Isn’r the American, English, or Continental 
 type of church good enough? is a question that 
 has been asked more in the past than now. 
 Lest there be any vestiges of it yet, let us 
 answer it here. It is a question that arises 
 out of nationalistic pride. If these lands were 
 thoroughly Christian, there might be reason 
 for asking it. But in all these countries mod- 
 ern Civilization is so intertwined with our 
 form of Christianity that in asking it there is 
 no understanding of how much of our civiliza- 
 tion goes with it. “Make Americans of them.” 
 “Teach them the English language.” These 
 are suggestions given to missionaries. But 
 who has the right to make such a demand? It 
 implies that we are the dominating race. Who 
 gave us that position? We say that we believe 
 in democracy; that we are the champions of 
 democracy. If we really are fair-minded, let 
 uS give everyone an equal say. Poll China’s 
 four hundred million, India’s three hundred 
 and fifteen million, Africa’s millions and all 
 the rest, and our question of Americanization 
 
 32 
 
WHY AN INDIGENOUS CHURCH? 
 
 or Anglicizing fades into thin air. We pro- 
 claim freedom to the world and then want to 
 give them our religious customs or want to 
 dictate the form of their church government, 
 or in some other way inflict on them our 
 superiority! It is not only undemocratic but 
 unchristian. What they do with the message 
 that we give them interests us greatly, but we 
 have no authority to compel their acceptance; 
 and to insist that after they accept it they 
 shall also accept our interpretation of it for 
 their lives, our hymns, our literature, our cus- 
 toms, and all the rest, if they want to be called 
 Christians, would be to take an ungentlemanly 
 advantage of those who have placed themselves 
 in our care. 
 
 Not only is it right to leave to them the 
 choice of the kind of church they wish, but in 
 fairness to them and to the future of Chris- 
 tianity throughout the world, the missionary 
 ought to make clear to them where Christian- 
 ity ends and where civilization and culture of 
 the Western order begin. The only distinc- 
 tion between Christian and nonchristian 
 lands is, to quote James S. Dennis, that in 
 Christian lands, “the forces of resistance to 
 evil are alert and vigorous. The standards of 
 life and conduct are permanently elevated. 
 The demands of public opinion are enforced 
 
 33 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 by regnant principles. ... The heathen world 
 is now, as of old, moribund. It is destitute in 
 itself of recuperative power.” 
 
 To deny, however, that there are powerful 
 forces of evil at work in Christian lands and 
 that much of our life is still strongly pagan, 
 would be contrary to the facts. The mis- 
 sionary is the ambassador of the cross, not the 
 agent of Western theology, custom, methods, 
 and what not. In the light of what injustice 
 the countries of the missionaries have inflicted 
 upon the weaker nonchristian nations and 
 peoples, such discrimination becomes a crying 
 need. 
 
 Too often have the missionaries been faced 
 with the obvious contradiction between the 
 principles of Jesus and the practice of their 
 own nations. Jesus as the Prince of Peace 
 contrasted with nations which not only spend 
 fabulous sums on armies and navies in prepar- 
 ation for war, but also actually carry on war 
 in such ruthless fashion as the lands of the 
 mission field could not carry on if they would, 
 are as far apart as white from black. There 
 is no explaining it away. The only course is 
 to disavow the connection between such a civi- 
 
 
 
 *Dennis, James S., Christian Missions and Social Progress, 
 vol. I, p. 75f. Fleming H. Revell Company. Used by per- 
 mission. 
 
 34 
 
WHY AN INDIGENOUS CHURCH? 
 
 lization and pure Christianity. The same may 
 be said too with reference to all that is dis- 
 tinctly the outgrowth of former heathen cus- 
 tom or bitter unchristian controversy on the- 
 ology and all that relates to the form of the 
 church—everything, in short, that was added 
 to what Jesus said and did. If the new 
 churches wish to express their Christianity in 
 our way, that is their affair; but it is not fair 
 for us to prejudice them. Let us introduce 
 them to the Christ, but let them receive him in 
 their natural fashion, and we shall then be 
 more sure that the purpose of God for them 
 and for all the world will be better accom- 
 plished. 
 
 We may well recognize that God as the Cre- 
 ator and Father of all peoples had a purpose 
 in making us as we are. The genius of one 
 people is not that of another. For example, 
 India is called the soul of Asia, China the 
 hands, and Japan the head. Our Western or 
 Hellenized individualistic form of Christian- 
 ity has suited the West. But from the make- 
 up of Eastern society it looks as if a more 
 social type would fit in better with their 
 scheme of life. 
 
 Different ages and different social groups 
 as well as different peoples have had different 
 emphases. Dr. Shailer Mathews in an article, 
 
 35 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 “Theology and the Social Mind” calls atten- 
 tion to various types of social mind that have 
 characterized Christianity at various stages of 
 its development. First, the Semitic with its 
 society an Oriental monarchy and therefore 
 with a Messianic hope of national scope 
 “transcendentalized into a scenario of the 
 world drama.” Next in order he cites the 
 Greco-Roman, with the Logos doctrine loom- 
 ing large, somewhat as the theory of evolu- 
 tion does to-day, with the demand for an abso- 
 lute God, but one that could cleanse and save 
 worshipers by actual contact, as in the mys- 
 tery religions of Isis and Osiris, of Mithras, 
 of Atys and Cybele. This led to emphasis on 
 the doctrine of the incarnation as well as the 
 relation of the Logos to the Father. Then 
 came the imperialistic social mind, developed 
 in Italy, Spain, and Gaul. In the Kast, Orien- 
 tal despotism brought stagnation; but in the 
 West there was the thought of God in terms 
 of the imperial Roman Empire, with a church 
 naturally unsympathetic toward mass move- 
 ments for more social privilege and that “hated 
 democracy and saw salvation in heaven.” 
 North of Latin Europe there was the Na- 
 tionalistic social mind. Imperialism did not 
 get the hold there that it had on southern 
 Europe. National churches arose out of this 
 36 
 
WHY AN INDIGENOUS CHURCH? 
 
 type of mind. In the seventeenth, eighteenth 
 and nineteenth centuries there was the Bur- 
 geois social mind. This period is character- 
 ized by commercialism, with the mind blunted 
 to the unchristian character of the slave traffic 
 and the opium traffic, not to mention the injus- 
 tices of industry, and largely concerned with 
 individual salvation. Lastly comes the Mod- 
 ern social mind which is scientific and demo- 
 cratic, with Roman Catholicism still antidemo- 
 eratic and the bulk of Protestantism Burgeois, 
 though moving toward the Modern. The Mod- 
 _ ern social mind would save society as well as 
 individuals. 
 
 As Christianity in the West has thus been 
 adapted to suit the forms of government, the 
 movements in social life, the changes in indus- 
 try, and the tendencies of thought, so it is 
 reasonable to leave it to the churches of the 
 foreign mission fields to shape Christianity to 
 meet the needs of their own social order. The 
 West has, as we look back over history, made 
 many mistakes in her adaptations, and we may 
 with good reason hope that they may afford 
 to the peoples now in the process of accepting 
 Christianity valuable signposts to keep them 
 from going astray. 
 
 But whether they go astray or no, Christ is 
 as much the Christ of the African as the Christ 
 
 37 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 of the European, and as much the Saviour of 
 the Asiatic as of the American. 
 
 To have the religious scheme of another land 
 stand between them and God is as harmful to 
 the development of a complete expression of 
 Christianity as the standing of a _ priest 
 between a man and God. It destroys God- 
 given initiative. It makes impossible that 
 sense of nearness to God that Jesus found so 
 precious and stimulating. It restricts the nat- 
 ural growth of the Christian soul, just as the 
 shade of a great tree keeps a little plant from 
 attaining its full size. Christ emphasized 
 freedom. “Ye shall know the truth, and the 
 truth shall make you free.” Some are afraid 
 of freedom; but if the Spirit is really present 
 in the Christian Church, we shall have that 
 atmosphere of freedom to which Paul referred, 
 when he wrote, “Where the Spirit of the Lord 
 is, there is liberty.” We have therefore noth- 
 ing to fear if the churches of the foreign fields 
 are given this freedom, but, on the contrary, 
 it is their divine right as Christians; and to 
 grant it to them will release those natural, 
 God-given faculties which will enable them to 
 build up the most efficient churches and the 
 highest type of Christian character through 
 the agency of the unrestricted power of the 
 God and Father of all mankind. Without this 
 
 38 
 
WHY AN INDIGENOUS CHURCH? 
 
 freedom their growth will be dwarfed. With 
 it we should see churches filled with the energy 
 of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 Out of the feeling about the value of indig- 
 enous Christianity on the part of the peoples 
 themselves has grown an active demand for 
 indigenous churches. This demand is so gen- 
 eral among all capable and educated people 
 that it must be granted or we shall lose the 
 best leadership. Listen to their appeal. This 
 one comes from China: 
 
 A transplanted religion without being adapted 
 to suit native soil, loses its savor and fails to 
 grow. ... Let the foreign missionaries change 
 their domineering attitude, if they hold such an 
 attitude, and work as servants of Christ for the 
 Church of China. 
 
 Again, among the demands of the Christian 
 students of China is this: “To have a real 
 Chinese Church.” 
 
 In 1923 the Y. M. C. A. and the Y. W.-C. A. 
 appointed a student commission. One of the 
 recommendations for the Student Christian 
 Movement was that “it should be indigenous.” 
 Another voice from China says: 
 
 It is the missionaries’ church. Every plan for 
 work or extension comes from them; they meet, 
 *Chinese Recorder, Aug., 1923, p. 488, art. by Y. T. Wu, 
 executive secretary, Peking Christian Student Work Union. 
 bad 6 
 Y 
 
 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 consult, and decide what is best, and then set 
 about doing it, largely with the help of the native 
 worker, who has not, however, been called in to 
 share their counsels.t 
 
 And this one from India: 
 
 Who can long interest himself in a work in the 
 conduct of which he has no voice, where he is con- 
 sidered a machine not to be consulted with, and 
 when he is not at liberty to impress his person- 
 ality, and where the responsibility also is not on 
 his shouiders.? 
 
 Among the complaints of the Indian Chris- 
 tians has been that the “whole system of doc- 
 trine, worship, and organization is foreign. 
 India wants liberty.”* In the Continuation 
 Committee Conferences held in India in 1912 
 and 1913 greater freedom was demanded by 
 Indian opinion. It was also urged that the 
 Indian Church should have entire freedom to 
 develop on such lines as will conduce to the 
 most natural expression of the spiritual 
 instincts of the Indians. 
 
 The movement for independence has re- 
 sulted in some quarters in definite action. As 
 early as 1892 we find what was known as the 
 
 
 
 *World Missions Conference, Commission I, p. 831. Flem- 
 vy Ses Revell Company. Used by permission. 
 a 
 *Church Missionary Review, 1922, p. 296, art. by E. H. M, 
 Waller. Used by permission. 
 
 40 
 
WHY AN INDIGENOUS CHURCH? 
 
 “Ethiopian Movement,” or “Africa for the 
 Africans,” rending some of the churches of 
 South Africa. Since then this expression of 
 racial consciousness, demanding independence 
 from the rule of the white man, has been more 
 or less in evidence in many parts of Africa, 
 now and then flaring up in schisms and inde- 
 pendent movements. In China the independ- 
 ent societies that are due to the desire to be 
 free from foreign control are many. Even 
 Brazil, the Philippines, and Burma furnish 
 us with similar examples. But the greatest 
 progress in attainment of independence from 
 foreign control has been in Japan, where the 
 larger Japanese churches for the most part 
 years ago pressed the question until they were 
 allowed to establish their independence of mis- 
 sionary society and missionary. In these cases 
 there is no longer any question. The matter 
 is settled. 
 
 And in other situations there is no more 
 staying the demand for an indigenous church 
 than there was in staying the American col- 
 onies from persisting in independence after 
 their world-famed declaration of the fourth of 
 July, 1776, when we see the vigor and nobility 
 of this spirit as set forth in the words of Pro- 
 fessor T. C. Chao: 
 
 Chinese civilization at its height is thoroughly 
 41 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 ethical and Christianity in its essence is the God 
 life, issuing in the moral relationships of men 
 and women.... 
 
 The Chinese Church is national because it has a 
 special message for the Chinese people and a 
 special task of spiritualizing Chinese civilization.! 
 
 This is the spirit of the leaders in the Chris- 
 tian movement of all lands. Who would put 
 a damper upon such divine enthusiasm? The 
 doxology would be more appropriate. 
 
 Moreover, this irrepressible demand becomes 
 still more irrepressible when we view the 
 results that follow the encouragement of this 
 spirit. Take Japan, where, as already noted, 
 “Christianity has become in a real sense indig- 
 enous.” There “its influence on the social and 
 intellectual life of the nation has been pro- 
 portionately far in advance of its numerical 
 strength.’’? 
 
 Considering how little has been done in 
 other lands to adapt national customs to 
 Christianity, the following is significant in 
 showing the result of an indigenous spirit in 
 the church: 
 
 The question of giving new meaning to ancient 
 customs connected with the religions in Japan, 
 so that they may be transformed into Christian 
 
 *Chinese Recorder, June, 1923. 
 
 "International Review of Missions, 1913, p- 4 Used by 
 permission, 
 
 
 
 42 
 
WHY AN INDIGENOUS CHURCH? 
 
 ceremonies and festivals, is receiving increasing 
 attention from the missionaries.! 
 
 The testimony is well-nigh universal that 
 where there has been a recognition of the value 
 of an indigenous church in all its implications, 
 the Christians concerned have taken a new 
 interest in the church. And Amos Burnet, in 
 discussing “Ethiopianism,” says that the 
 growth of “those churches which have from the 
 beginning exercised a generous policy in the 
 calling out and ordination of African minis- 
 ters” is “most marked.’ 
 
 How true this is in other fields than Africa 
 we dare not say, but it is reasonable to expect 
 that increased enthusiasm naturally resulting 
 from this policy would have a similar effect. 
 
 There has also come a great change in the 
 attitude of the nationals under the greater 
 freedom grarfted them in directing their 
 churches, as evidenced in the following: 
 
 Who that knows India to-day and can compare 
 it with fifteen years ago would not choose to deal 
 with the Christian nationalist, outspoken and 
 
 independent, rather than be stifled, blanketed, and 
 paralyzed by the old clinging subserviences ?* 
 
 *International Review of Missions, 1917, p. 5. Used by 
 permission, See Japan Evangelist, July, 1916, pp. 243, 
 246-249. 
 
 *Church Missionary Review, 1922, p. 33. Used by per- 
 mission. 
 
 ‘International Review of Missions, October, 1923, art. by 
 Frank Lenwood. Used by permission. 
 
 43 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 Substituting for India the name of any other 
 country where a similar change had taken 
 place, these words will apply there also. 
 They take into account too the misunderstand- 
 ings that have arisen between missionaries and 
 nationals. There has, in short, come such a 
 welcome change that it has overshadowed all 
 the perplexities, disappointments, and losses 
 that have come with it. 
 
 And when we come down to the point, we 
 may well ask ourselves: Since Christianity 
 has been naturalized in our Western lands, 
 why not in theirs? The Bible, our great book 
 for the propagating of our faith, is more easily 
 understood in the East than in the West, for 
 it has an Oriental setting. It is closer to them 
 than to us. The religion of which it tells 
 ought then to be more natural to them than 
 to us. 
 
 Finally, our answer to the question, Why 
 an indigenous church? is in the study of the 
 development of the churches in the foreign 
 fields. The results of the different methods 
 used by missionaries is a convincing argu- 
 ment. There have been men who have paid 
 no attention to the building up of churches 
 with an indigenous consciousness, and there 
 have been those who have with purpose 
 directed their efforts to the development of 
 
 44 
 
WHY AN INDIGENOUS CHURCH? 
 
 such churches. One kind of church has been 
 developed by one type of work, and quite 
 another kind by the other. In the succeeding 
 chapters we shall proceed to trace this devel- 
 opment. 
 
 45 
 
CHAPTER III 
 HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 Ir is the purpose of this chapter to trace 
 from apostolic times to the present the spread 
 of Christianity in those respects which have a 
 definite relation to the formation and develop- 
 ment of indigenous churches as defined in the 
 previous chapters. Such material as is at 
 hand falls into three divisions: (1) condi- 
 tions met, (2) methods used, and (8) results 
 obtained. The first period of missionary 
 endeavor is quite generally recognized as from 
 apostolic days until the time of Constantine, 
 about 300 a. p. The second for the purposes 
 of this book extends to about 1800, or, more 
 exactly, 1792, which date signalizes the begin- 
 ning of the rise of Protestant missionary soci- 
 eties in rapid succession. The third takes us 
 from the days of isolated efforts and the crude 
 beginnings of the early nineteenth century to 
 1910, the date of the World Missionary Con- 
 ference at Edinburgh, and the fourth from 
 that date down to the present time. In this 
 chapter the above chronological order will be 
 followed in the main. 
 
 46 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 1. FRoM THE APOSTLES TO CONSTANTINE 
 
 The religion of Jesus met at its inception 
 the opposition that people everywhere accord 
 to the new. False charges of atheism, of crimi- 
 nal origin, of secret and horrible rites, of 
 responsibility for public calamities and of the 
 aloofness of Christians from accepting civilian 
 duties, were preferred against it by the com- 
 mon people; and charges of lack of culture, 
 of superstition, of being of foreign origin, of 
 being of the lower classes, of plagiarism, and 
 later on even of division over dogmas, came 
 from the enlightened classes—both types of 
 charges that are quite familiar to the pioneer 
 missionaries of our own day. Worst of all, 
 Christians, by refusing to burn incense to the 
 emperor, were persecuted as traitors to the 
 state. Such were the forces arrayed against 
 it. 
 
 On the other hand, there were forces exter- 
 nal and internal which opened the way for the 
 rapid adoption of Christianity as the natural 
 religion of the empire. Christianity came 
 through Judaism. Jesus was a Jew. The 
 early apostles went first to the Jews of the 
 dispersion. Judaism had permeated the 
 Roman Empire so thoroughly that its tenets 
 were widely known and so opened the way 
 
 47 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 for Christianity, for through this as an intro- 
 duction, Christianity did not seem so strange 
 as it does to the minds of the peoples of the 
 modern missionary lands. Also a unified cul- 
 ture and language did away with a great bar- 
 rier which missionaries of to-day have to pass 
 and so made the way incomparably easier. 
 Political unity, the excellence of communica- 
 tion and its wide use throughout the empire 
 also worked for the rapid breaking down of 
 hostile prejudice, in sharp contrast again to 
 the difficulties of communication in Africa, 
 China, and other fields. Meantime the minds 
 of people were being prepared for the recep- 
 tion of Christianity. The Stoics believed in 
 the equality of men and the duty of brother- 
 hood. These were just what Jesus taught. 
 The Eastern mystery religions had met with 
 wide acceptance, because they satisfied in a 
 measure the craving for revelation, and opened 
 up the way for the more complete satisfaction 
 that Christianity afforded. Men were think- 
 ing of the soul as separate from the body, of 
 God as incomprehensible, yet good, of the 
 world as needing redemption; they were crav- 
 ing eternal life, substituting individualism 
 for nationalism and discounting polytheism. 
 These thoughts were vital in Jesus’ mind, and 
 he gave clear and authoritative answers to 
 48 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 them all. These were all elements of a live, 
 progressive culture, whereas in modern mis- 
 sion fields, Christianity has had to face a 
 dying, backward and stultified culture. This 
 culture and Christianity were headed in the 
 same direction, both looking forward, while in 
 our time Christianity in its missionary work 
 in foreign fields has had to turn people about 
 from a backward-glancing inertia and fa- 
 talism. Hence we see in the Roman Empire 
 despite the opposition a real outward and 
 inward preparation for the entrance of the 
 Light. It was so striking a situation that 
 scholars have rightly seen in it the providence 
 of God. For the planting of an indigenous 
 church it was a supremely fertile soil that the 
 Roman Empire furnished. 
 
 Those early days were days of simplicity ; no 
 mission boards, no drives for centenary cele- 
 brations, no question of salary either for the 
 missionary or his loca] helper, no synod, no 
 council, no discipline, no ritual worthy the 
 name, a minimum of authority and a maxi- 
 mum of freedom—truly a great new country 
 with no roads and no signposts. The follow- 
 ers of Jesus went hither and thither to the con- 
 fines of the empire and beyond, most of them 
 independently and each with his own concep- 
 tion of the message. 
 
 49 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 From the start the methods used assured an 
 indigenous character to the church. The 
 Christian communities were autonomous in 
 their government and democratic in their wor- 
 ship. Everyone—except the women !—could 
 have the floor. The parent church at Jerusa- 
 lem did not assume authority over the Gentile 
 Christians. Paul exhorted the Corinthian 
 church to purge itself of the wrongdoer. The 
 apostles did indeed appoint leaders in the local 
 churches, but those leaders were local men and 
 what respect and obedience were accorded the 
 apostles was never due to the fear that a grant- 
 in-aid would be withheld; and many of the 
 early churches, especially those not visited by 
 the apostles, chose their own leaders. 
 
 The question of self-support was never 
 raised. Instead of the Jerusalem church tak- 
 ing up a collection for the propagation of the 
 gospel in foreign parts, the indigenous foreign- 
 field churches established the to-us paradoxi- 
 cal precedent of contributing to her support. 
 The leader, whether teacher, elder or bishop, 
 either supported himself or depended upon the 
 local congregation for his support wholly or 
 in part. Whatever buildings they worshiped 
 in had to be provided for out of their own 
 purses or by the toil of their own hands. 
 
 The power of the Holy Spirit was manifest 
 
 50 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 in their spirit of unity, their virtuous lives, 
 and their evangelistic zeal to a degree that 
 has probably never been excelled. In short, it 
 was their church and was therefore really 
 indigenous. 
 
 But there were problems that arose, and in 
 the solving of those problems came a new situ- 
 ation. The very success of the propagation of 
 the gospel brought with it many difficulties. 
 As converts became more numerous there were 
 some whose love cooled. Discipline had to be 
 administered. The numerous wandering 
 prophets and apostles at times had their gen- 
 uineness questioned. Some one had to take 
 them in hand. Differences of opinion regard- 
 ing the person of Christ, culminating in gnos- 
 ticism, required handling. What teaching was 
 authoritative, what creed should be subscribed 
 to, what books were canonical, what proceed- 
 ure was correct in the administering of the 
 sacraments and other questions, must be an- 
 swered. It was felt in all these matters that 
 the word of the apostles, who had been asso- 
 ciated with Christ, was final; and men who 
 had been appointed by them were also entitled 
 to this authority. Out of all this there grad- 
 ually arose a close organization. The bishops 
 became the authoritative heads of the church. 
 Gradually too the churches were organized by 
 
 51 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 provinces, with a metropolitan bishop at the 
 head. In the West the development went on 
 into the papal power as the supreme authority, 
 and in the East the various metropolitans 
 became supreme. The former democratic 
 freedom disappeared and a hierarchy arose. 
 
 The growing need for some form of organi- 
 zation, however, did not determine the particu- 
 lar form that the organization took. It was 
 the form of government to which the people 
 were accustomed that was adopted by the 
 church. It was modeled upon the Imperial 
 Rule of the Roman State. This is a tribute 
 to the adaptibility of Christianity to the envi- 
 ronment it meets. For our day we would 
 accordingly expect that with the rise of 
 democracy throughout the world the prevail- 
 ing form of church organization ‘would be 
 democratic. A study of modern missions goes 
 far to confirm this observation. 
 
 Besides church organization there were 
 other developments under way.. A Christian 
 literature sprang up. Apostolic letters, those 
 of the New Testament. as it is to-day and others 
 too, Gospels, apocalypses, and later on also 
 apologetic literature and treatises on disci- 
 pline, spiritual life, and other topics bore wit- 
 ness to the indigenous character of the church. 
 In the development of this literature schools 
 
 52 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 at Alexandria, Antioch, and Carthage played 
 a part. Through the influence of Alexandria, 
 the Greek learning, which was fought against 
 as unchristian by one element in the church, 
 was adopted, thus bringing in another indige- 
 nous element. 
 
 As more and more people joined the Chris- 
 tians, nonchristian elements were increas- 
 ingly adopted. To make up for local divini- 
 ties displaced by the Christian religion, saints 
 were given the position formerly accorded 
 them. Local cults and holy places were insti- 
 tuted. Very likely the celebration of Epiph- 
 any was taken largely from the cult of Diony- 
 sius. ‘These were but a few out of many. 
 Such elements were indeed indigenous, and 
 the adoption of some at least was justifiable. 
 But to substitute for the prerogatives of idols 
 and demons those of saints, was dragging 
 Christ in the mire of heathenism; for, to wor- 
 ship saints, pray to them, and expect help 
 from them, displaced Christ and kept the reli- 
 gion still heathen. For an indigenous Chris- 
 tianity the preservation of Christianity is as 
 essential as is its indigenous character. 
 
 Discipline and spiritual power too began to 
 wane before the end of this period. At first 
 to become a follower of Jesus was to join the 
 aliens. But as time progressed more of the 
 
 53 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 upper classes became Christians. The stand- 
 ing of these folk and the ever-growing num- 
 bers in the church made Christianity more and 
 more popular. In many cases converts clung 
 to the old customs and ways. Instead of 
 purging out the old to make room for the new, 
 they added on Christianity. Church disci- 
 pline began to relax, and the church gradually 
 lost the driving power of the Spirit. To 
 many, Christianity became largely a religion 
 of form, a warning for all time against the 
 disintegrating influence resulting from letting 
 in folk who have not in heart accepted the 
 principles of Jesus and against the assump- 
 tion of authority by clergy alone. 
 
 Thus we see, before the fourth century, when 
 Constantine founded the state church, the 
 Holy Spirit working through the underworld 
 of the Roman Empire, binding together in the 
 love of Christ a body of men and women, who 
 with a despised culture and a message that 
 appealed to women as well as to men—whereas 
 in the mission fields to-day women are usually 
 slower than men to accept a new religion— 
 until in less than three centuries from the 
 crucifixion of their Lord, the empire was liter- 
 ally honeycombed with Christianity, so that 
 the church (1) felt that the work of evan- 
 gelizing the world had been practically done 
 
 54 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 and (2) had attained a very close form of 
 organization. While there are features in 
 this development which indicate the loss of 
 early spiritual power and a willingness to com- 
 promise, we have the remarkable story of the 
 growth of an indigenous body that was adapt- 
 ing itself more and more, as time went on, to 
 the customs and ideals of the empire. Through 
 compromising with the world came, however, 
 the loss of that sense of difference between the 
 followers of Christ and those who were not, 
 and consequently sounded the death knell of 
 evangelistic fervor, which is ever the life-blood 
 of the church. This period makes clear the 
 adaptability of Christianity and its wonder- 
 ful power to capture the minds and hearts of 
 men and women, but also as well shows 
 clearly the dangers of (1) too much adapta- 
 tion and (2) the monopoly of power by the 
 few. 
 
 To compare the mission field of that day 
 with the mission fields of our day is a task 
 that requires much care. There are those who 
 would have us return to apostolic methods. 
 In part their contention is worthy of consid- 
 eration, especially in respect to the freedom 
 which the apostles granted the local churches. 
 But, as for self-support, before saying the last 
 word, we would like to wait until a later 
 
 5d 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 chapter gives us a chance to view the whole 
 field. Here we cannot but notice that in Paul’s 
 day his social status was on a par with that of 
 his converts. He naturally lived with them. 
 His culture was their culture. His customs, 
 his language, his whole manner of life was 
 theirs. To-day the missionary comes from 
 lands, some of which, because of the difference 
 of level and the impossibility of assimilation 
 (so we are told), restrict or utterly forbid the 
 immigration to their land of the people to 
 whom the missionary goes with the gospel. 
 Culture, social order, customs, language, and 
 the standard of living are totally different. A 
 thoroughgoing apostolic way of doing the mis- 
 sionary task would seem to be suicidal to the 
 missionary cause; and this great difference 
 suggests the advantage of finding and train- 
 ing those who can do the work, at the same 
 time living on the plane of the people, just as 
 the apostles did of old. 
 
 2. From CONSTANTINE TO CAREY 
 
 After the establishment of the Christian 
 religion as the State Religion of the Roman 
 Empire by Constantine, the moral and spir- 
 itual disintegration which had already set in, 
 continued and enlarged. The suppression by 
 the authorities of the church of the Montanist 
 
 56 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 movement toward spiritual freedom in the 
 third century had driven men from the organ- 
 ized church to live as recluses, but they still 
 remained followers of Christ. The corrup- 
 tion that was in the church was a second 
 reason that increased the number of those who 
 took to lives of solitude. A third force was 
 also at work, the desire of some to suffer for 
 Christ. This desire could no longer be satis- 
 fied by enduring persecution, for persecution 
 had ended. They accordingly sought an out- 
 let for their devotion by depriving themselves 
 of human society and the other joys of life. 
 
 The men who thus withdrew from the out- 
 side world spent their lives in such a way that 
 they developed ability which the church was 
 bound to use. Education became enshrined 
 in the monasteries which they founded. True 
 religion found its vital force there. More than 
 this, the monks who had fled from the hated 
 social order later became the pioneers of civi- 
 lization and the intellectual leaders of the 
 world. In fact, so strong did the monastic 
 system become that monks became Popes, as 
 for example, Gregory the Great. 
 
 These were not the only ways in which the 
 Spirit of God used this great movement. In 
 the last section was noticed the feeling 
 throughout the church that with the advent 
 
 dT 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 of the state church the work of evangelizing 
 was done. But the constant pressure of the 
 northern tribes upon the boundaries of the 
 empire kept reminding the more devoted of 
 Christ’s followers that there were great num- 
 bers beyond, to whom the gospel had not been 
 carried. Naturally, the monks, being the most 
 spiritually minded, felt the urge most of all. 
 To them fell the task, therefore, of winning 
 the northern tribes. 
 
 In the ideals of these peoples there was 
 much that was favorable to the spread of 
 Christianity. The Celts had already become 
 subject in part to Roman influence and those 
 within the empire had accepted the state 
 religion. Throughout the northern tribes, 
 despite the fact that they all—Celts, Slavs, 
 and Teutons—had a degenerate nature wor- 
 ship, there was a passion for immortality, 
 comparatively high regard for women, and a 
 strong, independent, nationalistic spirit— 
 splendid ground for the planting of an indige- 
 nous Christianity. 
 
 But the methods that were employed from 
 this time were the reverse of those that had 
 been so successful in the early days, Then 
 Christianity had worked up from the bottom 
 to the top. After Christianity became the 
 state religion the process was from the top 
 
 58 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 down. The church had become allied with the 
 state in the empire and laws were passed com- 
 pelling the acceptance of Christianity. The 
 church proceeded to ally itself with the state 
 throughout the North and the East too. Rul- 
 ers were the first object of conversion. Then 
 when the ruler was won, he used his influence, 
 and often his authority, to propagate Chris- 
 tianity among his subjects. The British Isles 
 were the only exception. Augustine’s exegesis 
 of the passage, “Compel them to come in” was 
 accepted as against that of men like Chrysos- 
 tom, who would use only persuasion, not force. 
 For instance, Vladimir, king of Russia, becom- 
 ing a Christian as the result of a vow, made 
 short work of the “Christianizing” of his king- 
 dom. He issued a proclamation that “whoso- 
 ever, rich or poor, shall not come to-morrow 
 to the river to receive baptism, will fall into 
 disgrace in my sight.”! History records a big 
 turnout on the morrow. But that was very 
 mild when compared with the thoroughgoing 
 methods of Charlemagne, the Teutonic Knights 
 and others, who tried to kill the two birds 
 of political and religious opposition with the 
 one stone of armed force. 
 
 If these had been the only means of con- 
 
 
 
 *Robinson, C. C., Conversion of Europe, p. 499. Long- 
 mans, Green & Co. Used by permission. 
 
 59 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 version used, Europe would no doubt be far 
 worse off than she is to-day. Fortunately, 
 there were not only rulers concerned in the 
 spread of Christianity, but the monks as well; 
 and no matter how one may criticize their 
 haste in securing first a nominal acceptance 
 of Christianity, it must be granted that they 
 were devoted men and also did a great work 
 in transforming the northern tribes into na- 
 tions with settled habits. They were tireless 
 in their efforts for the social and spiritual 
 uplift of the people who had been received in 
 wholesale fashion into the church. They 
 cleared forests, taught the people agriculture, 
 practiced charity, and gave them religious 
 instruction. But the religious instruction 
 could not get very far, as the people were 
 already baptized, and therefore saved, as they 
 thought. It left little inducement to learn. 
 In judging the work of the monks, however, 
 it is necessary to take into account the task 
 they had to perform and the training they 
 themselves had. 
 
 Questioning the indigenous character of the 
 church organizations which resulted from their 
 work, there are a number of features to con- 
 sider. 
 
 (1) The matter of self-support was easy 
 of settlement. The monks worked faithfully 
 
 60 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 with their hands. Often they secured grants 
 from the rulers, a policy quite in harmony 
 with the principles of an indigenous church, 
 as to-day the government grants for educa- 
 tion in India. Very early too they taught 
 the people to bring tithes and gifts. This 
 part of their work was well done for indige- 
 nous church ends. 
 
 (2) Autonomy, however, was a different 
 matter. Here there was a distinct lack. The 
 Trish Church for a time held out against the 
 papal power, but finally succumbed, as did 
 Germany and France, whose submission was 
 largely due to the statesmanship of Boniface, 
 not only a redoubtable missionary, but also the 
 avowed champion of an imperial church, sub- 
 ject to the papal see. Of course, also work- 
 ing against autonomy was the wholesale char- 
 acter of the conversion of northern Europe, 
 which made impossible any clear comprehen- 
 sion of Christ’s message and the work of the 
 church. Such a method did not build up an 
 intelligent ministry and much less an intelli- 
 gent laity. Hence churches were born that 
 did not know enough to take the reins of gov- 
 ernment into their own hands. Furthermore, 
 the holding of all authority in the church by 
 the celibates was like laying the ax at the 
 root of the tree of democracy. The man of 
 
 61 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 normal development, married and living like 
 the rest of mankind, fitted by normal expe- 
 rience to form judgments and play the part of 
 aman, had nochance. Education and religion 
 were in the cold storage plant of the monas- 
 tery. Hence in government we find only a 
 development still further away from a natural 
 Christianity. ) 
 
 This weakness in the indigenous character 
 of their religion was felt more and more as 
 time went on and men began to think for 
 themselves. We have seen the revolt of a 
 greater part of Germany, England, part of 
 Scotland, France, Switzerland, Holland, the 
 Scandinavian kingdoms, not to mention the 
 earlier breaking away of the Eastern Church. 
 These all refused to be governed by a foreign 
 religious power, in most cases organizing na- 
 tional churches of their own. 
 
 (3) During all this time there was con- 
 tinued the adaptation of Christianity to the 
 customs and ways of the people that overdid 
 the work of making the church indigenous. 
 Saints’ chapels were substituted for demons’ 
 shrines, just as earlier in the southern part of 
 Europe. Among the Letts, Maria became the 
 “Mother of Cattle.” Among the Slavs, John 
 _ the Baptist fell heir to the position of Ivan 
 Kupalo, the god of summer. As late as the 
 
 62 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 eighth century German priests still attended 
 Woden’s festivals and made sacrifies to him. 
 Old marriage customs, superstitions about the 
 planting of seed, and countless other heathen 
 beliefs kept on, some of them even to our,own 
 time. The elaborate ritual of the church out- 
 did heathenism and obscured from the half- 
 converted the real message and life of Christ. 
 
 (4) Another and happier adaptation was the 
 development of a Christian literature and the 
 use of religious plays. The earliest transla- 
 tion of the Bible into the vernacular of any 
 tribe was that by Ulfilas into the Gothic 
 tongue. There followed poems, paraphrases, 
 and translations of parts of the Bible. These 
 date from the eighth century on. The first 
 religious play in England was about 1100. On 
 the Continent there were plays also, and we 
 have in 1204 the instance of missionaries at 
 Riga using the religious play to propagate the 
 faith. The church, however, frowned upon a 
 part of this naturalizing of Christianity, for 
 in 1229 a canon was passed at the Council of 
 Toulouse, rigorously condemning the use of 
 vernacular translations. Another very effec- 
 tive barrier to this feature of indigenous 
 Christianity was the illiteracy of the great 
 bulk of the population. The task of educat- 
 ing these vast numbers was one that took cen- 
 
 63 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 turies and, sad to say, it was the policy of 
 Rome, continued until now in many lands, to 
 discourage the education that would bring 
 indigenous development. 
 
 Thus the church lost its indigenous charac- 
 ter through the rise of the foreign religious 
 power of Rome and its Christian character 
 through the overwhelming flood of heathen- 
 ism coming in and making only a formal 
 acceptance of Christianity. A real, red- 
 blooded Christianity, laymen and clergy work- 
 ing hand in hand for the salvation of the 
 world, had given way to the celibate type alone 
 doing the work. Not that men and women 
 who consecrate themselves to a life of entire 
 self-sacrifice for Christ and his church are to 
 be looked down upon. Far be it from that. 
 Who would belittle the character of their devo- 
 tion? But a church whose sole guides and 
 messengers to the heathen world are of this 
 one Class, is a lopsided development, not a nor- 
 mal, well-rounded one. 
 
 With Europe evangelized in a superficial 
 manner, there came with the advent of the 
 explorers in North and South America, Africa 
 and Asia, fresh calls to the church to spread 
 the gospel. The methods that were used in 
 these other fields, so far as the Roman Catholic 
 missions were concerned, were for the most 
 
 64 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 part still dependent upon external authority 
 and naturally no strong churches were built 
 up in any of those lands. In India the work 
 of Xavier, of deNobili, who lived like a Brah- 
 man and won one hundred thousand converts, 
 and of others, was so widespread and super- 
 ficial, though generally without the use of 
 authority, that a Roman Catholic, Father 
 Dubois, for thirty-two years in Mysore, wrote 
 on December 15, 1815: 
 
 In twenty-five years I cannot say that I once 
 found anywhere one single downright and 
 straightforward Christian among the natives of 
 India. ... Their entire religion is confined to 
 the observance of a few external ordinances and 
 the repetition of certain forms of prayer... .1 
 Bishop Milne of the Anglican Church quite 
 agrees with this, for in writing of Xavier’s 
 work he says: 
 
 The conversion of the country to Christianity 
 is no nearer than when he left it, for anything 
 that his followers have done; they form but a 
 Christian caste, unprogressive, incapable of 
 evangelizing.” 
 
 While the government employed force in the 
 conversion of the people, the Jesuits and other 
 orders toiled most faithfully, organized the 
 
 *Richter, J., 4 History of Missions in India, p. 93. 
 Fleming H. Revell Company. Used by permission. 
 
 *Robinson, C. H., History of Christian Missions, p. 13. 
 Charles Scribner’s Sons. Used by permission. 
 
 65 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 American Indians into villages, taught them 
 various trades, doing in those early days what 
 modern missions have seen necessary in fields 
 where the economic level of the converts is 
 so low that some form of industrial training 
 is a prerequisite to self-support, self-respect, 
 and other elements that make up an indige- 
 nous church. Where their work lasted, their 
 system of paternalism, never encouraging 
 the people to think for themselves and take 
 the reins in their own hands, but ever keeping 
 them in subjection first to Rome and secondly 
 to the clergy of the country, has failed to 
 develop that spirit of initiative and that feel- 
 ing of “my church” and “our church,” which 
 “is characteristic of a really indigenous Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 What their system has developed is wit- 
 nessed to by many, both Catholic and Protes- 
 tant. Abbe Dominic, chaplain of the Emperor 
 Maximilian, called Mexican Christianity a 
 “baptized heathenism.” An Archbishop of 
 Venezuela wrote of his field. “The clergy have 
 fallen into profound contempt.’? Sir James 
 Bryce writes of South America: “Men of the 
 upper or educated class appear wholly indif- 
 ferent to theology and Christian worship. It 
 
 
 
 *Robinson, C. H., History of Christian Missions, p. 408. 
 Charles Scribner’s Sons. Used by permission. 
 
 66 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 has no interest for them.”? To sum it up, the 
 masses are heathen, the clergy not respectable, 
 and the respectable folk alienated. Neither 
 “indigenous” nor “Christian” apply. 
 
 The work of the Puritans among the Indians 
 and that of the Moravians among the Eskimos, 
 slaves, and other backward and downtrodden 
 people though most thorough in method and 
 devoted in spirit, resulting in many conver- 
 sions, failed likewise to build up strong 
 churches. There were two factors that hin- 
 dered the work of the Moravians. The first 
 was the inferior mental capacity of the people. 
 The Eskimos and the Negro slaves when evan- 
 gelized, still needed the guidance of the white 
 man. The second was that they did not work 
 definitely toward the building up of indige- 
 nous communities of Christians. In 1909 the 
 Moravians confessed as much. They felt that 
 their system, at least in some cases, should be 
 modified in the direction of throwing more 
 responsibility upon the native Christians early 
 in a mission’s history. The work of Eliot and 
 others was developing native leadership when 
 wars and removals put an end to it. The 
 Danish-Halle Mission in India, first working 
 to convert outecaste slaves, made no attempt 
 
 
 
 *Robinson, C. H., History of Christian Missions, p. 411. 
 Charles Scribner’s Sons. Used by permission. 
 
 67 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 to develop initiative, but was paternalism to 
 the extent that the missionary could fine or 
 flog, with authority from the government. 
 Diffusive effort and neglect to train up a 
 strong, native ministry were other hindrances 
 to the building up of a strong church. 
 
 Before closing this section a word is due the 
 Nestorian movement. When the emperor out- 
 lawed the Nestorians, they went eastward, 
 founded schools which not only prepared mis- 
 sionaries, but also taught the sciences of the 
 time and carried the gospel as far as into 
 China and India. There they lost their mis- 
 sionary zeal, in China, by the acquirement of 
 wealth and social position, in India by drop- 
 ping into the caste system. In the Nearer 
 East their life was crushed out, as was that 
 of the other Eastern branches of the church, 
 by minute theological speculation, and finally 
 by the tide of Mohammedanism which put an 
 abrupt stop to the propagation of Christianity. 
 Here we see a church that was able to sup- 
 port and govern itself, but was side-tracked 
 from its missionary zeal by worldliness and 
 exclusiveness, and so lost its vitality. 
 
 SUMMARY 
 
 This long period from 300 to 1800, then, 
 has no model of a church of a truly indige- 
 68 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 nous type established in a foreign land by the 
 work of missionaries. Some were self-support- 
 ing, some became self-governing, but none 
 developed and held a real missionary zeal. 
 The nearest approaches to it were the work 
 of the monks, and we have seen how one-sided 
 that development was and the Nestorian 
 movement eastward. The period, while replete 
 with Christlike heroism on the part of both 
 Roman Catholic and Protestant missionaries, 
 failed to produce any theory of an indigenous 
 church, much less any attempt to build up 
 such a church. It is clear that (1) authority 
 of an armed kind and (2) “paternalism,” each 
 alone or combined, were unable to produce a 
 virile Christianity; (3) that. the loss of mis- 
 sionary zeal, as in the case of the Nestorians, 
 is fatal; and that (4) scattered effort is at 
 best mostly a waste of otherwise commendable 
 zeal, so far as the founding of indigenous 
 churches is concerned. 
 
 3. From CAREY TO THE EDINBURGH 
 CONFERENCE 
 
 In the first period we found the develop- 
 ment of missionary activity leading to what 
 we now look upon as an unfortunate conclu- 
 sion. In the second period there were no 
 developments of a really constructive nature. 
 
 69 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 But things began to move in the third period. 
 The Protestant denominations took up the 
 work of missions more and more in earnest as 
 the time went on, and we see not only a devel- 
 opment from mere individual effort for indi- 
 viduals to cooperative work in individual 
 missions and between missions, first of the 
 same denomination, and second, of various 
 denominations, but also a development from 
 the one method of evangelistic work to the 
 multiform activities of educational, medical, 
 social, and industrial work, culminating in 
 1910 at Edinburgh in a great missionary gath- 
 ering at which conditions faced, methods used, 
 and results achieved were considered as a 
 whole and a program laid out for the whole 
 work. 
 
 In this period there was a situation through- 
 out the mission fields which, though it could 
 not approximate for favorableness the situa- 
 tion that the first apostles faced, yet had many 
 favoring factors. For example, the Confu- 
 cianism of China has so much in common with 
 Christianity that the Jesuit Ricci in the six- 
 teenth century assured the Chinese that Chris- 
 tianity was a development of Confucianism. 
 Scholars like Legge have interpreted the 
 Chinese Classics as committed to a belief in 
 a Supreme Being. In India, deNobili, as 
 
 70 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 already noted, in finding that the Brahmins 
 
 had a high conception of One God, lived like 
 one of them. In Japan the missionaries found 
 a form of Buddhism which seemed to have 
 met with some form of Christianity and to 
 have been thereby modified so that it possessed 
 features of similarity to Christianity. Among 
 the Karens of Burma there was current a tra- 
 dition much like that in the early chapters of 
 Genesis and a belief that white men from the 
 West would come with the message of salva- 
 tion. 
 
 In striking contrast with the necessity 
 Christianity had in the first three centuries 
 of developing a culture of its own, the record 
 of the missionary work of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury shows that wherever the missionary went 
 he was the bearer of a culture that was far in 
 advance of the culture of the nation which 
 became his field of labor. The degradation, 
 superstition, and illiteracy of the South Sea 
 Islander, the African, the American Indian, 
 the great masses of China, Japan, and India, 
 placed the missionary in the position of an 
 all-round benefactor, far above the people to 
 whom he ministered. Even to the cultured of 
 the Near East, of China, of India, and of 
 Japan, he brought the fruits of modern medi- 
 cal science and all the learning of the West. 
 
 71 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 But there was much too that prejudiced 
 these peoples against Christianity. Besides 
 their natural aversion to anything foreign we 
 must add the oppression of the Spanish explor- 
 ers and rulers in America, those of the Dutch, 
 Spanish, Portuguese and English in the East 
 and the injustices committed by the United 
 States, particularly toward Mexico. All these, 
 save the English and Americans, strove at one 
 time or another in one region or another to 
 force Christianity on the people. Later on 
 came the strife for Asia and Africa between 
 France, Germany, England, Italy, Russia, and 
 others—all known as Christian, for from them 
 the Christian missionaries came—and these 
 countries gave protection to their nationals 
 serving as missionaries. It was hard to under- 
 stand the Dove of Peace sitting on the Mailed 
 Fist. And throughout the world the traders 
 from Christian countries committed such 
 atrocities that in revenge the missionaries suf- 
 fered, and sometimes were even killed and 
 eaten. The degenerate type of Christianity 
 in the Near East and of the Syrian Christians 
 in the Far East were a poor recommendation 
 for the Prostestant missionaries. Further- 
 more, where there was a high type of culture, 
 there was a lofty pride which rated that cul- 
 ture as superior to Christianity when the pos- 
 
 72 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 sessor of that culture saw the unchristian, 
 domineering attitude of the Westerners. These 
 all served to neutralize the advantages pos- 
 sessed by the missionaries. 
 
 At the beginning of this period Carey 
 sounded the note of the indigenous church for 
 the foreign field. He began with (1) the ideal 
 of self-support, (2) started a policy of concen- 
 tration in the establishment of a training col- 
 lege, and (38) began the production of a 
 literature for the uplifting of the people. 
 Says Doctor Mylne, in Missions to the Hindus, 
 
 I should hardly be saying too much did I lay 
 down that subsequent missions have proved suc- 
 
 cessful or the opposite in a proportion fairly 
 exact to their adoption of Carey’s methods. 
 
 The London Missionary Society first, and 
 later the Church Missionary Society in Eng- 
 land, and still later the American Board in 
 America declared their belief in indigenous 
 churches. The second mentioned society 
 expressed it as “the development of native 
 churches, with a view to their ultimate settle- 
 ment upon a self-supporting, self-governing 
 and self-extending system.’”” 
 
 The carrying out of this ideal was another 
 
 *Robinson, 4d History of ‘Christian Missions, p. 81. 
 Charles Scribner’s Sons. Used by permission. 
 
 *Stock, History of the Church Missionary Society, vol. 
 II, p. 15, Church Missionary Society. Used by permission. 
 
 rys> 
 bo 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 matter. Societies aplenty and missionaries 
 unnumbered seem never to have heard of these 
 ideals. We shall follow the development by 
 fields. 
 
 In India the early days were taken up with 
 preaching and work with the Bible. The low 
 social standing of the converts, of whom many 
 were rescued famine victims and low-caste 
 people, and all with rare exceptions born and 
 brought up in subjection to others, led to a 
 body of Christians dependent upon the mis- 
 sionary as children upon their parents. Quot- 
 ing Richter: 
 
 During the first half of the nineteenth century 
 the native churches in connection with all the 
 various missionary agencies were equally depend- 
 ent on the missionaries and their respective 
 societies. .. . Even where they employed native 
 assistants . . . they were only the curates, so to 
 speak, of the missionaries. 
 
 That it was by no means an ideal arrangement 
 .. . had as yet occurred to hardly a single mis- 
 sionary society.! 
 
 About 1830 a change of policy toward a 
 widening of missionary activity began. Edu- 
 cation played a larger part, but there was as 
 yet practically no responsibility placed upon 
 trained Indian workers. Theological classes 
 
 * Richter, Julius, 4 History of Missions in India, p. 230, 
 Fleming H. Revell Company. Used by permission. 
 
 74 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 too were conducted in English, and Latin and 
 Greek were taught the students. Secretary 
 Rufus Anderson of the American Board noted 
 that “men too far uplifted above the average 
 . lust after more cultured hearers than. . 
 are found in the villages and after higher 
 salaries than could be obtained.’? This state 
 of affairs did not harmonize with newly awak- 
 ened conceptions of an indigenous church, as 
 the following shows: 
 
 Toward the middle of the century the view be- 
 came prevalent that Indian Christendom ought to 
 provide adequately for its own pastoral oversight, 
 and this ought to be so arranged as that the sup- 
 port of the preachers should impose no intoler- 
 able burden upon the native churches.? 
 
 Accordingly, 
 
 Greek and Latin, as well as a number of dog- 
 matic subjects, were thrown overboard, instruc- 
 tion was given in the vernacular (instead of Eng- 
 lish) and an attempt was made to preserve the 
 catechist’s sense of nationality as far as possible. 
 Men trained in these lines were now ordained in 
 larger numbers so that the native churches might 
 be sufficiently provided with pastors.® 
 
 Henry Venn set himself to the task of making 
 the churches of the Church Missionary Society 
 
 *Richter, Julius, d History of Missions in India, p. 421. 
 Used by Spgs 
 
 *Ibid., p. 4 
 
 *"Ibid., p. 120. 
 
 45 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 indigenous. The application of his plan, how- 
 ever, was followed by a checking of the rapid 
 growth of that mission’s work. Doctor Rich- 
 ter offers the explanation that the number of 
 missionaries was reduced too rapidly and the 
 district made too large. 
 
 But better evidence of the naturalization 
 of Christianity in India lies in the expression 
 of the Indians themselves. In 1870 an inde- 
 pendent church known as the Christo Samaj 
 was founded. Various pseudo-Christian sects 
 also sprang up in the north. In South India 
 more particularly Christian songs were com- 
 posed by Indians and set to Indian music. 
 Early expressions of desire to unite in one 
 Christian body in 1872 and again in 1892 died 
 out. But in 1908 the United Church of South 
 India, combining the churches of the Presby- 
 terians, the American Board and the London 
 Missionary Society, was organized. Then the 
 Presbyterian bodies throughout the rest of 
 India united. Soon after 1900 four separate 
 Indian missionary societies were formed by 
 Indian Christians. Coming along at the same 
 time was a rapid advance in self-support, 
 much of it arising out of the conviction on the 
 part of the Indian preachers and laity that it 
 was their duty. More important still, the 
 self-consciousness of the Indian Churches was 
 
 76 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 rapidly developing and the educated men of 
 the church were growing decidedly restive 
 under the domination of the missionary and 
 the foreign society. This led to the granting 
 of a great measure of autonomy by the major- 
 ity of the missions. 
 
 The work of the Baptists in Burma fur- 
 nishes a remarkable instance of the working 
 out of a policy consciously directed to the 
 building up of an indigenous church. The 
 work of Abbott, Carpenter, and others in the 
 Karen Basein Mission from the start had in 
 operation a self-supporting and increasingly 
 self-governing church. So thoroughly was the 
 idea of self-respect indoctrinated that in 1849 
 the “native preachers adopted a resolution 
 that they would not receive any further money 
 from America, and this rule has prevailed in 
 the mission to the present day.”’ Hand in 
 hand went self-propagation. This is a clear 
 case of the workability of the indigenous 
 church if the missionary has vision, faith, and 
 perseverance. 
 
 In Africa the development of the churches 
 founded by the missionaries took varied forms. 
 The deadly effect of the West Coast climate 
 on Europeans led the Church Missionary Soci- 
 
 *Merriman, E. F., 4 History of Baptist Missions, p. 74. 
 American Baptist Publication Society. Used by permis- 
 
 sion. 
 17 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 ety to appoint a Negro bishop in 1843 
 (Crowther) and put him in charge. But his 
 lack of administrative ability, despite his fine 
 Christian character, made the experiment dis- 
 astrous, and later English bishops were again 
 appointed. A great falling away followed 
 this return to foreign supervision, but most 
 who seceded and formed independent bodies 
 afterward return to the fold. In Sierra Leone 
 the withdrawal of the Church Missionary Soci- 
 ety in 1861 is now regarded as somewhat pre- 
 mature. Many of the Negro pastors were 
 highly trained intellectually and were men of 
 true piety, but, with some exceptions, they 
 lacked the ripeness of character that guards 
 against occasional backsliding. They also 
 lacked firmness of discipline, self-control, 
 steadfastness and humility. 
 
 In South Africa the London Missionary So- 
 ciety and the American .Board stressed self- 
 government and self-support with the result 
 that in Natal by 1894 (the work was begun in 
 1835) the Board in America was no longer 
 asked for aid in supporting the churches, and 
 as early as 1865 the churches were supporting 
 three missionaries of their own race. In 1873 
 the London Missionary Society withdrew all 
 support. Other missions found autonomy 
 brought vigor and self-support. 
 
 78 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 In Uganda the Church Missionary Society 
 began in 1893 a work on definitely self-sup- 
 porting and self-governing principles. Its 
 success was phenomenal. From the start the 
 entire responsibility for the support of African 
 workers and the building of churches was 
 placed upon the Uganda church, and a large 
 measure of autonomy was granted them, using 
 their local system of government as the church 
 system, with sympathetic superintendence, 
 not domination, by the European. It went far 
 to show that the best work was done where no 
 European other than the missionary was. 
 
 Putting together the work of the missions 
 noted as the ones most outstanding in their 
 success at developing indigenous churches and 
 adding what other missions throughout the 
 continent have done, and much of it splendid 
 work too, we find that the nineteenth century 
 brought a great development everywhere from 
 the smallest of beginnings to the training up 
 of a body of zealous workers and of churches 
 of no small amount of missionary zeal, with 
 great advance in self-support, and the awak- 
 ening in the African churches of a strong 
 desire to govern themselves, with some seces- 
 sions, with estrangements, particularly where 
 numbers of Europeans and Africans were 
 thrown together, and the giving over of author- 
 
 9 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 ity in the more advanced missions very largely 
 to the Africans. During this period, however, 
 the character of the African did not show any 
 general sign of outgrowing its immaturity— 
 in the immediate future, at least. Withdrawal 
 of missionary control or the absence of the 
 missionary was generally followed by lapses 
 in sex relations and reversion to heathen wor- 
 ship. The presence of the white man, too, 
 introduced a very trying factor. Too much 
 of the refuse of Europe, the idea the whites 
 often held of their superiority, and the color- 
 line drawn, hindered the founding of strong 
 churches. In some sections the government, 
 fearing the Ethiopian Movement, forbade the 
 organizing of local congregations unless under 
 the control of a foreign missionary. The fol- 
 lowing quotation sums up the situation: 
 
 Everywhere native helpers have been educated 
 who give assistance in church and school; but 
 their subordinate social standing and the lack of 
 maturity of character in most of,them prevent the 
 native pastors from enjoying the respect necessary 
 in order to leadership, although there are not 
 wanting commanding individual personalities.? 
 
 Take it all in all, though self-government was 
 in many missions granted in large measure 
 
 *Warneck, Gustav, 4 History of Protestant Missions, p. 
 235. Fleming H. Revell Company. Used by permission. 
 
 80 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 and proved a source of increased zeal to the 
 church, still Africa by 1910 was far from ripe 
 for the withdrawal of European supervision. 
 In Madagascar we have the wonderful story 
 of the withdrawal of the London Missionary 
 Society for twenty-five years (1835-1861), at 
 the end of which time the church was four 
 times as strong in numbers as when the mis- 
 sionaries left. It looks as if there the presence 
 of the missionary were not equal to his 
 absence. But though the missionaries, before 
 the terrible persecution that made their with- 
 drawal advisable, had given the Malagasy the 
 New Testament, and many had learned to read 
 it, there was still the work of training an ade- 
 quate ministry and also much other work to 
 be done. The story of Madagascar goes to 
 show that there at least, just as in the early 
 church, persecution only served to strengthen 
 the cause, and in Madagascar the people were 
 inferior in culture to the early disciples. 
 The work of evangelizing Hawaii and the 
 South Sea Islands was carried on largely by 
 the London Missionary Society and the Ameri- 
 ean Board. When the first difficulties had 
 been overcome, the smallness of the communi- 
 ties made possible the rapid development of 
 church organization. The great distances, the 
 poor means of communication, and the small 
 81 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 number of the missionaries all combined to 
 lead the missionary early to look forward to 
 local autonomy. Self-support was compara- 
 tively easy of attainment, as on the islands 
 the line, “Man wants but little here below,” 
 applies if it applies anywhere. The great task 
 of the missionary was the creation of a willing- 
 ness on the part of the local church to shoulder 
 responsibility. There was also the danger of 
 moral relapse as already noted in Africa. On 
 the other hand, the evangelistic zeal of these 
 churches was truly remarkable. These little 
 communities early began their development 
 toward the ideal of an indigenous church, but 
 again, as in Africa, they needed either some 
 form of supervision or the presence of the mis- 
 Sionary as adviser. 
 
 Korea is another field where remarkable 
 progress in the naturalizing of Christianity 
 took place. The Korean Christians took so 
 readily to giving of their goods and to spread- 
 ing the gospel that from 1884 to 1900 little 
 need was felt for training up a ministry. 
 Short period Bible and training classes were 
 well attended and in these strong leaders were 
 developed. Such was the power of the church 
 that it has been called “The Church of the 
 Holy Spirit.” From a subordinate position 
 the Korean leaders rose with the encourage- 
 
 82 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 ment of the missionaries to the position of 
 coworkers with them. From 1900 on, the need 
 of having men to administer the rites of the 
 church led to training that looked forward 
 to the ordination of a ministry. The mis- 
 sionaries for the most part left to the Koreans 
 the task of building their own churches in 
 their national style of architecture, and en- 
 couraged them in self-support. The success 
 attained was largely due to the good sense 
 of the missionaries in keeping the church close 
 to the ideal of an indigenous organization. 
 
 Almost from the start in Japan there were 
 signs that the churches would not have to be 
 urged to take responsibility. The compara- 
 tively high intellectual character of the first 
 converts and the strong nationalistic feeling 
 of the Japanese led them even to insist in 
 many cases that they be given the authority. 
 Any church that was not self-supporting was 
 looked down upon. Before 1910 the Congre- 
 gationalists, Presbyterians, and Methodists 
 had three separate strong churches, made up 
 of practically all the churches of the same 
 polity, all separate from foreign control. 
 Quoting from the Edinburgh Conference 
 Report: 
 
 Christianity has become naturalized, has given 
 birth to leaders comparable in character and abil- 
 
 83 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 ity to those of the West, and has created some 
 aggressive, self-governing denominations. The 
 passion for independence has driven the churches 
 to self-support.+ 
 
 In making Christianity their own and aggres- 
 sively assuming their responsibility for the 
 care of the church, the Japanese stand easily 
 first in this period. 
 
 In striking contrast we have the backward- 
 ness of the Chinese churches, though the work 
 was begun in China many decades before it 
 was started in Japan. The progress of the two 
 churches was much as the progress of the two 
 countries in taking over Western education 
 and invention. Before 1910 there were iso- 
 lated churches supporting their own pastors 
 and there were even churches like those in 
 Manchuria, Fukien, and some in Honan sup- 
 porting their own work entirely or nearly so. 
 In West China the different churches were at 
 the end of this period just at the point where 
 they would have joined in one organic union, 
 but the Home Boards refused to allow the 
 union. Education had as in Japan and India, 
 made great strides, and much of it was union 
 education too; and there was already some 
 moving toward a wider union. The Presby- 
 
 
 
 *World Missions Conference, Commission I, p. 65. Flem- 
 ing H. Revell. Used by permission. 
 
 84 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 terians and the Anglicans each were getting 
 their various bodies together into one organi- 
 zation. But a real national consciousness, 
 such as had early come to the front in Japan 
 and had by 1910 in India reached a very 
 advanced stage of development, was still dor- 
 mant, waiting for the Revolution of 1911-12 
 to awaken the nation and the Christian Church 
 to its responsibility and opportunity. The 
 church was still pretty much content to lie 
 in the lap of the foreign missionary society. 
 
 Though the American Board started its 
 work in the Near East with the avowed pur- 
 pose of helping the already established 
 churches, it was driven by opposition to start 
 new churches. At Harpoot, under the guid- 
 ance of Crosby H. Wheeler, there was devel- 
 oped a unique work, promoting self-support 
 and autonomy. 
 
 Other missions too had worth-while features, 
 but it is impossible to note them all. Under 
 the Rhenish Mission the Batak Church of 
 Sumatra was so successful that it deserves a 
 word here. The local chiefs were used as lead- 
 ers in church as well as society and all 
 churches were built in simple Batak style. AU 
 customs not distinctly antichristian were 
 allowed. The ideal of self-support was kept 
 before the church. Not only was self-support 
 
 85 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 developed, but also such a strong missionary 
 spirit that they won seven thousand Moham- 
 medans to Christ. In Brazil a well-established 
 Presbyterian Church had started work among 
 the Indians, and many other bodies in various 
 countries had organized missionary societies 
 and were supporting workers in other fields. 
 With regard to the different societies at 
 work, meaning those in the home lands, we 
 have already noted that some set forth the 
 ideal of indigenous churches. But even the 
 workers of these societies did not always enter 
 into the spirit of that ideal. There were times 
 too when the societies most praiseworthy in 
 their efforts to start truly indigenous churches 
 overestimated the ability of the people they 
 had been training. For example, the Chris- 
 tian Missionary Society withdrew too soon on 
 the Niger, the Society for the Propagation of 
 the Gospel in parts of South India and 
 Burma, the Wesleyan Missionary Society in 
 South Africa, the London Missionary Society 
 in British Guiana. Robinson cites these 
 cases. To them we may add the early with- 
 drawal of the American Board from Hawaii 
 and the mistake of the Christian Missionary 
 Society in reducing too rapidly the number 
 of missionaries in South India, already noted. 
 It would be strange if we had no mistakes of 
 86 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 this kind, and though one cannot help noting: 
 that it was quite often the societies that were 
 emphasizing the indigenous character of the 
 churches that made the mistake, there must 
 in all fairness too be the admission that their 
 work must have been of a high order to bring 
 them to the question of withdrawal at all, for 
 the great majority of the missions in this 
 period never got their churches to the place 
 where they had to think about withdrawing. 
 The general policy of the society must, there- 
 fore, be reckoned as one of the factors, but 
 not the only factor, in the building up of 
 indigenous churches in this period. 
 
 A very good case to illustrate the variation 
 in the working of the same policy in different 
 fields by different missionaries and in different 
 ways is that of the Christian Missionary Soci- 
 ety. In South India there was too sudden a 
 break away from the missionary supervision, 
 and retardation resulted. In the North 
 another way of working out the policy was 
 tried with success. In West Africa there was 
 too much haste. In Uganda, the last of the 
 fields we are considering, the mistake of put- 
 ting the national ahead too fast was not made. 
 There the basis was self-support and a great 
 measure of autonomy, and the greatest suc- 
 cess was there attained. 
 
 87 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 Without the development of the church in 
 self-consciousness any moves evidently ought 
 to be slow. In the cases mentioned the mis- 
 sionary was the one in a hurry. In Japan 
 where there was a high degree of self-respect, 
 the churches themselves sought for autonomy. 
 Self-respect and a national consciousness pre- 
 ceded the change in Japan. This factor is a 
 vital one. 
 
 Not only the policy of societies and the self- 
 respect of the churches, but also the personal- 
 ity and the policy of the missionary on the 
 field were most vital in the development. 
 Without a Wheeler where would self-support 
 have been in the Near East, or without Abbott 
 and his successors in Burma, what would the 
 church have become? Korea, Manchuria, and 
 many other fields that developed strong 
 churches largely owe their success to the deter- 
 mined, far-seeing policy of the missionaries. 
 
 In all these factors we see the work of the 
 Holy Spirit. He worked through the Boards, 
 the missionaries, and the hearts of the people 
 won to Christ, striving to develop bodies of 
 Christians to carry on the work of Christ. 
 
 SUMMARY 
 
 The period from 1800 to 1910, not only from 
 the point of view of the success of the propax 
 88 : 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 gation of the gospel, but from the viewpoint of 
 the development of indigenous churches, is 
 nothing short of marvelous. It rose in many 
 fields from zero to the boiling point. The 
 Spirit moved men and women to go one by 
 one and two by two, knowing little of condi- 
 tions and of methods. But they buried their 
 lives in service and there sprang up bands of 
 Christians just as in the early days. Before 
 the end of the period we have churches in 
 many lands with many of the characteristics 
 of indigenous churches. There was too a draw- 
 ing together of many bodies of Christians who 
 found, despite differences of polity and doc- 
 trine, that their task was one. The varying 
 methods and different problems were being 
 recognized more and more as requiring a thor- 
 ough overhauling that the overlapping and the 
 waste might be eliminated and that all might 
 learn from the experience of one another what 
 methods were best for carrying on to a suc- 
 cessful end the great task the Master left for 
 us to do. Out of all this came the Edinburgh 
 Conference in 1910. 
 
 4. FroM THE EDINBURGH CONFERENCE TO THE 
 PRESENT 
 
 The Edinburgh Conference marks the begin- 
 ning of a new epoch. It signifies the real 
 89 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 beginning of a world-wide cooperation between 
 the different missionary societies of the Prot- 
 estant denominations. Before 1910 there 
 were scattered efforts to get together, but since 
 then that has been the universal watchword. 
 Comity, union movements, federations have all 
 seen great developments. There were many 
 half-recognized and half-believed policies that 
 since Edinburgh have become axiomatic. The 
 Protestant world is now coming to see what 
 its task really is and how to go about it. 
 
 In the first place the idea of the indigenous 
 church was clearly set forth as the kind ‘of 
 church the missionary should strive to pro- 
 mote. F. Schwager, S. V. D., makes a point 
 of the difference between the Roman Catholic 
 and the Protestant views. He quotes the 
 Protestant view as expressed at Edinburgh: 
 
 The aim of Christian missionaries should be 
 not to transplant to any country in which they 
 labor that form or type of Christianity which is 
 prevalent in the lands from which they come, but 
 to lodge in the hearts of the people the funda- 
 mental truths of Christianity, in the confidence 
 that these are fitted for all nations and classes, 
 and will bear their own appropriate and beneficial 
 fruits in a type of Christian life and institution 
 consonant with the genius of each of the several 
 nations. To this end, emphasis on the distinctive 
 views of any one branch of the Christian Church, 
 when it is not imperatively demanded by fidelity 
 
 90 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 to what is deemed a vital truth, should be avoided 
 in favor of a simple and elemental presentation 
 of fundamental truth. 
 
 In contrast to this he states the Roman Cath- 
 olic position: 
 
 Roman Catholic missionaries regard themselves 
 as bound in their preaching by the saying of our 
 Lord, “Teaching them to observe all things what- 
 soever I command you.” This applies to dogmas 
 of the church and does not distinguish important 
 from others. All are equally valuable so far as 
 we are concerned for teaching them.? 
 
 To the Roman Catholic the true Christ is the 
 Christ of the church. To the Protestant he 
 is the Christ known in the New Testament and 
 experienced by the believer. The Church of 
 Rome is imperial, and for that reason in these 
 modern democratic times of all times it can- 
 not develop truly indigenous churches. They 
 must always in the last analysis lean upon 
 Rome. The weakness of this type of Chris- 
 tianity on the mission fields we have already 
 pointed out. At Edinburgh Protestantism 
 faced the issue. There were cries from many 
 quarters that there was “a tendency especially 
 in certain lands and districts, to denational- 
 ize converts, that is, to alienate them from the 
 
 International Review of Missions, 1914, p. 492. Used by 
 
 permission. 
 *Ibid., p. 492. 
 
 91 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 life and sympathies of their fellow country- 
 men, so as to make it possible to suggest that 
 Christianity is a foreign influence, tending to 
 alienate its converts from the national life.’ 
 In Chapter II there were cited complaints 
 that the missionary did not take the national 
 into his confidence and that the church was 
 a foreign church. The Edinburgh Conference 
 left with the leaders of the missionary move- 
 ment the conviction that these complaints 
 should be heeded and that accordingly the 
 churches on the foreign field should be made 
 self-supporting, self-governing, self-propagat- 
 ing, and in all other respects a natural expres- 
 sion of the religious nature of the people, 
 rather than a copy of what the missionary had 
 seen in his native land. 
 
 A natural corollary to the main proposition 
 of the indigenous church idea was this: since 
 church forms are not vital, but only funda- 
 mental truths, why should two bodies of 
 Christians be working in the same territory in 
 opposition to each other? This question led 
 to the real practice of comity throughout the 
 world. In Japan directly after the Edinburgh 
 Conference a commission was appointed on 
 the distribution of forces. In South America 
 
 
 
 *World Missionary Conference, Commission II, p. 6. 
 Fleming H. Revell Company. Used by permission. 
 
 92 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 relations had previously been inharmonious, 
 but the Regional Conferences following the 
 Edinburgh Conference ironed out the differ- 
 ences, and by 1921 all South America was 
 reported as working well together. In Mexico 
 one mission, the Presbyterian, moved its whole 
 force from the north to the south. In India 
 by one adjustment 15,000 Christians were 
 transferred from the Methodist to the Presby- 
 terian Church. In China the principles of 
 comity were set forth in 1913 and in 1923 
 almost universal acceptance of these prin- 
 ciples was reported. In the Philippines in 
 1901 the Protestants had agreed on a division 
 of territory, and in Madagascar soon after the 
 Edinburgh Conference. Still other adjust- 
 ments were made, some of them long-standing 
 differences. In 1912 African Missions seemed 
 far from the practice of comity, particularly 
 in the cities, but some progress has been made 
 since in the Kikuyu Conferences in 1913 and 
 - 1918 and in North Nigeria. The irresponsi- 
 bility of Africans caused some breaches of 
 comity. The Seventh-Day Adventists share 
 with the Salvation Army the charge of violat- 
 ing the rules of comity. But despite these 
 irregularities, the situation throughout the 
 world in the matter of comity is infinitely 
 better than it was fourteen years ago. 
 93 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 The next step after comity is united effort. 
 This too was not first thought of after Edin- 
 burgh. In the years before that Conference 
 a number of cases of union and cooperation 
 have been noticed. Since then the spirit of 
 united effort has grown wonderfully. Start- 
 ing with Japan, though in that country there 
 has been no movement toward organic union, 
 the Christians of Japan have drawn closer 
 together. Not only have various missions of 
 similar polity become federated, but also five 
 unions in theological education have been 
 achieved. There is still, however, great need 
 of getting together in this field, as, including 
 the schools for women, there are still thirty- 
 one theological and Bible schools, whereas five 
 ought to suffice. In 1911 a federation of eight 
 of the leading churches was formed to pro- 
 mote common action in social and moral 
 questions and in evangelistic work, besides 
 other matters of mutual interest. A further 
 step was taken in 1922 when the Continuation 
 Committee that had been functioning for some 
 years called a National Christian Conference; 
 120 delegates from the churches and 70 mis- 
 sionaries from 24 missions met in May. At — 
 this Conference a National Christian Council 
 was asked for. It was proposed that it have 
 100 members—51 Japanese, 34 missionaries, 
 
 94 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 and 15 coopted by the 85 already named. 
 This council was to have no authority in doc- 
 trine or ecclesiastical affairs, no legislative 
 functions, but was to foster fellowship and 
 unity throughout Japan and the world, to 
 serve as a medium for the churches as a whole 
 to speak on social and religious matters, to 
 make surveys and to do various other coopera- 
 tive work. Favorable action has already been 
 taken by a number of the churches and mis- 
 sions, and it is expected that others will 
 follow. 
 
 In Formosa the Presbyterian bodies have 
 formed one “Presbyterian Church of Christ in 
 Formosa.” In Chosen (the new name of 
 Korea) division of territory has been made 
 among the missions, union in a number of edu- 
 cational institutions, notably Chosen Chris- 
 tian College with five missions participating, 
 achieved ; since 1917 Chosen has had a Korean 
 Church Council, and now there is a movement 
 to unite this with the Federated Council of 
 Evangelical Missions. 
 
 In the Philippines there are at present a 
 number of agencies of a union nature, liter- 
 ary, medical work, and a Union Bible Semi- 
 nary (five bodies participating). The Fili- 
 pinos themselves desire a united church. 
 
 In China the progress toward union has far 
 
 95 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 surpassed that in Japan in the last thirteen 
 years. To list the number of institutions that 
 are run on a union basis would approach a 
 catalogue in length. In 1917 the number was 
 given as forty-three. Five large Union Uni- 
 versities strategically located, seven strong 
 theological seminaries, one of which (Canton) 
 has eight denominations participating, and 
 the fact that in theological education union 
 work is strongest with general education 
 second and medical work third, shows the 
 remarkable advance that the Missions in 
 China have made toward union. In addition 
 there have been union evangelistic campaigns 
 of city-wide scope, union in Sunday-school and 
 publishing work and the getting together in 
 sectional associations for educational work 
 and nationally for medical work. Next come 
 the church unions. The Independent Chinese 
 churches have two organizations. In some of 
 the large cities the churches of all denomina- 
 tions have organized for social and evangelis- 
 tic work. In Kuangtung, Southern Fukien, 
 and Hupeh Provinces all the churches of 
 Presbyterian type and the American Board 
 and the London Missionary Society type of 
 churches have united in what may be called 
 a divisional council of the proposed United 
 Church of all China. In September, 1920, a 
 96 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 constitution was formed by forty-three Chinese 
 and six missionaries for all the churches of 
 Kansu Province. Nationwide unions too have 
 been formed. In 1912 the Anglican bodies had 
 united and formed a general synod. In 1918 
 twelve missions of the American, German and 
 Scandinavian Lutherans entered into an 
 organic union. The Methodist Episcopals 
 (North) every four years hold an East Asia 
 Conference, at present embracing only China 
 and Chosen. But the largest union of all, if 
 ratified, will grow out of the union of ten 
 Presbyterian bodies in 1918 into a Provisional 
 General Assembly. ‘At that time the British 
 and American Congregationalists expressed a 
 desire for federation looking toward organic 
 union. One year later complete agreement as 
 to doctrinal basis was secured, a temporary 
 plan of union drawn up and the matter 
 referred to the Home Boards. If the plan is 
 voted down, there is still a united Presbyterian 
 Church in Central and North China besides 
 the Presbyterian-Congregational unions al- 
 ready mentioned. Other bodies have as yet 
 done little or nothing toward any large union, 
 though much has been said and written. 
 Very significant too are the national move- 
 ments such as the “China for Christ’? Move- 
 ment, launched in December, 1919, at Shang- 
 97 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 hai by some hundred leading Chinese Chris- 
 tians and missionaries. This was followed in 
 1922 by a National Christian Conference sum- 
 moned by the China Continuation Committee, 
 bringing together from practically all the com- 
 munions in China about one thousand dele- 
 gates. Of these over one half were Chinese, 
 and a Chinese leader, Dr. C. Y. Cheng, was 
 chosen chairman. Out of this gathering came 
 a National Christian Council, with the major- 
 ity of its members Chinese and with duties 
 similar to those of the proposed Council in 
 Japan. The China Council has already begun 
 to function. 
 
 India, well started on the road toward union 
 before 1910, particularly in the South, has 
 continued to progress; but, outside of a few 
 educational consolidations, the advance made 
 has been in the character of the negotiations 
 rather than in any accomplished union of sig- 
 nificant character. In 1919, following a con- 
 ference of Presbyterians, Congregationalists, 
 and the South India United Church, at which 
 a basis of union and a constitution was drawn 
 up, twenty-three ministers of the Anglican and 
 the South India United Church had a meeting 
 at which union was proposed. Soon after, the 
 Malabar Suffragan, of the Mar Thoma Syrian 
 Church, issued an informal statement that he 
 
 98 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 and others of his communion were prepared 
 to take steps for further union on the lines of 
 the meeting just mentioned. There has as yet 
 been no final outcome of these gatherings. 
 Meantime the National Missionary Council of 
 India has become the National Christian Coun- 
 cil of India, Burma, and Ceylon with at least 
 one half of its membership made up of na- 
 tionals. This Council will function on the 
 lines of the similar organizations in Japan 
 and China. 
 
 In Africa no large union organization as in 
 the fields already noted could be expected, 
 because of the difficulties of transportation 
 and the many different political divisions, but 
 in Madagascar a Continuation Commitee was 
 organized soon after the Edinburgh Confer- 
 ence. Under the influence of “the spirit of 
 Edinburgh” a union normal school has been 
 established for all seven bodies working on 
 the island and in theological education and 
 missionary work there are other unions, 
 though not such comprehensive ones as the 
 normal school. In East, South and Central 
 Africa some union in theological work has 
 come and union of churches too, and in West 
 Africa (North Nigeria) a Continuation Com- 
 mittee. But the most important move of all 
 has been the 1913 and 1918 Kikuyu Confer- 
 
 99 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 ences, at which six bodies of widely differing 
 church polity met, and though they recognized 
 that intercommunion between episcopal and 
 nonepiscopal missions was not yet possible, 
 they formed an alliance with mutual relations 
 and aims, agreeing among other things to 
 respect each others’ spheres, foster union, and 
 each respect the other’s decisions in discipline. 
 A doctrinal statement formed the basis of the 
 alliance, a representative council of mission- 
 aries was formed with advisory relation, and 
 provision was made for African participation. 
 
 Great advance in Latin America followed 
 the Regional Conferences of 1912-18 and a 
 later Conference in Mexico. By 1922 there 
 were Union Theological Seminaries in the City 
 of Mexico (seven bodies uniting), in Porto 
 Rico, Chile, Argentina, and Brazil (four 
 bodies), besides other educational unions and 
 union in literary work. Many other union 
 schemes have been approved but not yet 
 worked out. 
 
 Thus we see the missionaries and the 
 churches on the fields, with the Presbyterians 
 taking the most active part, drawing closer 
 together in that Christian fellowship that is 
 characteristic of really indigenous churches. 
 
 In the years since Edinburgh there has also 
 been phenomenal progress in many fields in 
 
 100 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 the self-consciousness of the churches. In 
 measuring this progress a review of their 
 expression in respect to the following matters 
 is in order: 
 
 1. Self-support. 
 
 2. Autonomy. 
 
 3. Evangelism. 
 
 4, Social expression. 
 
 There is no question that great advances 
 have been made in the giving of the churches 
 of the mission fields. Not only increased 
 numbers but an increase in the sense of respon- 
 sibility have been leading factors. Many indi- 
 vidual churches on practically all the fields 
 have become self-supporting. Some missions, 
 as in Samoa, have attained, but probably 
 more attained before the Edinburgh Confer- 
 ence than since. 
 
 The increase in educational work during the 
 past few years has stayed the arrival at thor- 
 oughgoing self-support, that is, support not 
 only of local churches but also the educational 
 work of the mission. On account of the expan- 
 sion of the activities of missionary work the 
 churches are often further behind than ever, 
 when we consider the whole work. For ex- 
 ample, in Japan, where the Church of Christ 
 (Presbyterian) and the Kumiai (Congrega- 
 tional) Churches are self-supporting, yet their 
 
 101 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 educational work is largely supported from 
 abroad. The same is true in large measure 
 among other bodies and on other fields. In 
 the International Review of Missions for July, 
 1923, G. H. Williams writes, 
 
 There can be no question whatever that the 
 Indian Christian community will not for many a 
 
 long day be able either to finance or to administer 
 the work of Christian education. 
 
 Yet self-support has been pushed in educa- 
 tion by the raising of fees, and in some fields 
 the schools have advanced to self-support. 
 But in many other fields, especially where pov- 
 erty is extreme, for example, South India, the 
 higher the education, the more difficult the 
 matter of support. In some fields where self- 
 support had been a success it has become a 
 problem because of higher education. In 
 Uganda, for instance, it has become difficult 
 to get men of high intellectual attainment for 
 the ministry because of the inadequate pay 
 offered by the churches, which are on a self- 
 support basis. This difficulty is increased 
 where nationals can get high pay working for 
 foreigners. 
 
 The rise in the standard of living and also 
 the rise in prices have kept back many 
 churches that otherwise might have arrived 
 
 “Used by permission, 
 
 102 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 at self-support. Many are no nearer propor- 
 tionately than they were ten years ago, though 
 giving twice as much now as then. Some are 
 further from self-support. This has produced 
 in many lands the situation described in a 
 recent report of conditions in one mission in 
 Japan: 
 
 We have been unable to employ graduates of 
 our theological school, and these men have taken 
 secular positions at more than twice the salary 
 
 they would have received as catechists and clergy- 
 men. 
 
 As regards methods and results a given 
 board has not always used the same methods on 
 different fields, and where two boards on the 
 same general field have used different methods 
 there have been sometimes somewhat different 
 results, but so many factors enter in that gen- 
 eralizing is often unsafe. Missions working in 
 the same general section of the field seem to 
 have about the same response in the matter of 
 support. In China, for example, Amoy, 
 Swatow, Foochow, and Canton, regardless of 
 mission, stand first in self-support for China. 
 As already noticed, there are striking excep- 
 tions, but this holds pretty generally as the 
 rule. Many missions have adopted a sliding 
 
 *Protestant Episcopal Missions, Annual Report, 1919, p. 
 208. 
 
 103 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 scale for self-support, proportionately reduc- 
 ing their grant year by year until at the end 
 of five or ten years the church is self-support- 
 ing. Other missions have made grants to the 
 churches conditional on what the church gives. 
 Human nature the world over is much the 
 same. People will not help themselves if 
 others will help them, unless their self-respect 
 is very strong. Self-support has accordingly 
 been a most unwelcome bone of contention for 
 all societies. 
 
 We have, then, as far as self-support is con- 
 cerned, no such advance as we have noted in 
 comity and union work. The rise in educa- 
 tional standards, in living standards, and in 
 prices has, for the time being, at any rate, 
 administered a decided check to the prospects 
 of entirely self-supporting churches on the for-_ 
 eign fields. 
 
 Self-government, however, which presup- 
 poses mental ability, an adequate self-respect, 
 and ofttimes a strong nationalistic feeling, has 
 forged ahead with almost bewildering rapidity 
 in the past twelve or thirteen years. Of the 
 outstanding large fields China and India show 
 the most remarkable progress. 
 
 In India, with early pressure on the part of 
 the educated members of the church for more 
 authority, there have been many developments, 
 
 104 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 a considerable part of which started before 
 the Edinburgh Conference. 
 
 In the American Methodist work the vest- 
 ing of authority in the Annual Conferences, 
 the fact that the Methodists have been more 
 ready to ordain men than other missions have 
 (this on the testimony of a Presbyterian), and 
 that, once ordained, an Indian has the same 
 voting power as the foreigner, have all made 
 for the smooth transfer.of power from the for- 
 eign missionary to the Indian. The only real 
 point where friction could come has been that, 
 though the Indians have been in the majority 
 in the Conferences, still they have not been in 
 a majority on the Finance Committees which 
 handle the money from America. But this 
 difficulty is being overcome by the increase of 
 the number.of Indians on these committees. 
 
 The Anglican societies have worked a par- 
 allel administration, (1) the Indian Churches 
 organized into District Councils with a mis- 
 sionary at the head, and (2) the mission car- 
 rying on the educational work and all evan- 
 gelistic work outside of the local church 
 organizations and the Indian missionary soci- 
 eties, using an Indian staff under foreign con- 
 trol. Out of this state of affairs, which of late 
 years has become impossible, because of the 
 restiveness of the Indians under foreign con- 
 
 105 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 trol, the Society for the Propagation of the 
 Gospel in the Telugu field has changed the 
 complexion of the chief governing body from 
 all missionary to twelve Indians and four 
 Europeans, and the Bishop of Madras has 
 asked the Indian Bishop of Dornakal to pre- 
 side. In the punjab the Church Missionary 
 Society has united the Mission and the Indian 
 Council in one body under the Bishop of 
 Lahore. A further move in the Church Mis- 
 sionary Society work toward devolution was 
 made in February, 1923, when the matter was 
 placed in the hands of a Committee of Refer- 
 ence and it was provided that the government 
 of the dioceses be democratic. The Home 
 Society under this plan still renders financial 
 assistance to the dioceses. 
 
 Several bodies of the Presbyterian type have 
 followed the policy of gradually increasing 
 the responsibility of the Indians, working 
 through Presbytery, Assembly, or Synod. The 
 United Free Church of Scotland Mission in 
 West India has a Board of ten Indians and 
 three foreigners, all responsible to the Pres- 
 bytery. What is known as the Arcot Assembly 
 has taken over from the Arcot Mission entire 
 control. The Assembly is a joint body repre- 
 senting both the Church and the Mission. The 
 Presbyterian General Assembly in 1915 
 
 106 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 already had thirty-five of sixty-three members 
 Indians and the Moderator an Indian. In the 
 South India United Church the majority in 
 the General Assembly are always Indians. 
 
 In the Congregational bodies, the turning 
 over of responsibilities has, like the Presbyter- 
 ian, been gradual. The first steps were often 
 to ask Indians to sit in the council of the mis- 
 sionaries, next to take a part in the proceed- 
 ings, gradually increasing the number of 
 Indians, and turning over one responsibility 
 after another, but running the Mission and the 
 Church separately and with the Mission still 
 controlling the funds. When the individual 
 churches, whether Baptist, London Missionary 
 Society or American Board, became self-sup- 
 porting, they became independent. Some at- 
 tempts to draw them together into associa- 
 tions and, where it seemed advisable, allow- 
 ing them to share in the plans of the Mission, 
 have been worked. This also applies to the 
 situation in Burma. 
 
 The leaders of the Indian Churches, seeing 
 that the Government has given more import- 
 ant posts to Indians, have not been satisfied 
 with the treatment they have been accorded in 
 the churches. Though many modifications 
 have been made, complete control has not been 
 transferred. The Indians do not want to be 
 
 107 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 under Europeans, and it is very galling to the 
 Indian to have the financial control in the 
 hands of the Europeans. At an informal 
 gathering at Allahabad in April, 1919, several 
 well-known missionaries and leading Indian 
 Christians gave out their findings, part of 
 which were (1) the growing tension between 
 mission and church and (2) a fundamental 
 breach, made acute because the missionary is 
 of the dominant and too often domineering 
 race. Though since then several years have 
 passed, and many concessions have been 
 granted, the situation is still very acute for 
 many sections of the work. 
 
 In China the same lines set forth in the 
 situation in India with regard to the church 
 and mission status hold true. The church 
 stands for the organized bodies of Chinese 
 Christians. The mission pays out subsidies to 
 the church and employs Chinese in educa- 
 tional, medical, and evangelistic work. The 
 same may be said for all the fields, with the 
 exception of the Methodist body and a few 
 other bodies which have not made such a dis- 
 tinction between the functions of mission and 
 church; but even in the Methodist work 
 nationals have often felt that the funds were 
 too much in the hands of the foreigners. 
 
 Many autonomous churches, some independ- 
 
 108 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 ent of any connection with any mission organi- 
 zation and known as independent Chinese 
 churches, others closely related to the mis- 
 sions and depending on and taking an active 
 interest in the mission, such as the schools and 
 the medical and evangelistic work, are the two 
 divisions to be noted. In this second class we 
 have for example the South China Mission of 
 the American Baptists, the Assembly of God 
 in Kansu, which, starting with missionary con- 
 trol, in September, 1923, gave the Chinese 
 eighty per cent of the governing power, the 
 North China work of the American Board 
 which has a Council composed of three for- 
 eigners and eight Chinese, the Foochow Con- 
 gregational Mission, where church and mis- 
 sion are separate with an Association commit- 
 tee usually one half Chinese, also the North 
 China and Shantung Missions of the Pres- 
 byterians, which depend upon an equal number 
 of Chinese and foreigners to administer their 
 foreign funds, besides the larger bodies as the 
 United Churches of Fukien, Kuangtung, Man- 
 churia, Hupeh, and the Union of the Presby- 
 terian bodies, the union of Lutherans, and that 
 of the Anglicans who have made the move of 
 consecrating a Chinese assistant bishop in the 
 Diocese of Chekiang. In the Methodist Epis- 
 copal (North) missions in China not only the 
 109 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 Annual Conferences have passed over by vir- 
 tue of a majority of numbers to the control of 
 the Chinese, but also the All China Finance 
 Committee which handles the finances has a 
 majority of Chinese members. The same holds 
 good of the Finance Committees elected by 
 and responsible to the Annual Conferences. 
 
 With many organizations far from these 
 advanced stages the general situation in China 
 is well summed up in the two following quo- 
 tations: 
 
 In practically two thirds of China the leader- 
 ship is still largely in the hands of the foreign 
 missionary, who alone receives converts into 
 church membership and administers the sacra- 
 ments. 
 
 In the main it might be said that the present 
 
 is the period of joint control with Chinese leader- 
 ship becoming more prominent.? 
 
 In Japan, while there were already inde- 
 pendent churches and the general situation 
 has during this whole period been far beyond 
 China and India in point of autonomous deyel- 
 opment, there have still been missions work- 
 ing. Although some of the Methodist mis- 
 sionaries worked in the church organization 
 except in publication and educational work, 
 
 
 
 *The Chinese Church as Revealed in the National Chris- 
 tian Conference of 1922, 1923, p. 102. 
 *The Christian Occupation of China. 
 
 110 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 the Presbyterian and Congregational bodies 
 of missionaries were working outside also in 
 evangelistic work. In 1922 a great advance 
 was made in unifying the work and taking 
 the Japanese into a share of control of the 
 work of the missions. The Baptists and Pres- 
 byterians took the Japanese in on equal terms, 
 and the Congregationalists gave the Japanese 
 the controlling power, even in the appointment 
 of the missionaries. The Anglican bodies 
 also transferred all control, in the same year, 
 to the Japanese and in 1923 consecrated two 
 Japanese bishops. The Methodists had had a 
 bishop since 1907. Other missions showed 
 similar progress. 
 
 In the Philippines the Presbyterian mis- 
 sionaries granted the church complete separa- 
 tion in 1914, and it has since been the “Evyan- 
 gelical Church of the Philippines.” 
 
 In Chosen there are two Korean Presby- 
 teries, self-governing under a Korean General 
 Assembly. The Methodist work is the same 
 with its Annual Conferences. 
 
 In all South America the sentiment for self- 
 government has been very strong. In Brazil 
 one Presbyterian church has been entirely 
 independent in government and support, and 
 the other also, except for grants-in-aid which 
 are cut ten per cent each year. In Chile there 
 
 111 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 are Chileans in the Annual Conference and 
 members of the Finance Committee in the 
 Methodist Church, and the Presbyterian 
 Church Presbytery is composed largely of 
 Chileans, and they have a vote in the distribu- 
 tion of funds. The Presbytery frequently has 
 a Chilean president. Educational work, how- 
 ever, is still largely in the hands of the for- 
 eigners. 
 
 A number of moves have been made toward 
 devolution in various parts of Africa. In 
 Basutoland the Paris Society has its Assembly 
 more than half African; the Moravians have 
 surrendered the temporal administration to a 
 committee elected by Africans; in Uganda the 
 Church Missionary Society Church Councils 
 have been composed of a majority of Africans 
 and the Bishop has not been known to over- 
 ride their decisions. Now three of twelve large 
 districts are supervised by Africans. In West 
 Equatorial Africa, as well as in the Yoruba 
 country and on the Niger, provisional Church 
 Councils have been found successful, and two 
 African assistant bishops have been ordained. 
 Other societies with long-established work 
 have made similar advances. The evangelistic 
 zeal and pastoral work in some stations in 
 Madagascar have made hopeful the entire 
 transfer of work to the Malagasy Church very 
 
 112 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 soon. But the generations of no literary cul- 
 ture on the one hand and the domination of 
 the whites on the other throughout Africa are 
 serious hindrances to complete self-govern- 
 ment. It will take a long time and much train- 
 ing to develop that ripeness of character and 
 that firmly grounded and genuine self-respect 
 which will make the Negro, not now and then, 
 but as a rule, the administrative equal of the 
 white man. 
 
 Self-government is the aim that the mis- 
 sionary in many fields has consciously had for 
 the past decade or more. The results we have 
 noted in the various fields. Many fields are 
 far behind what has here been set forth. Those 
 recorded here are only some of the outstand- 
 ing movements. The prospects for the future 
 evidently depend upon Christian education 
 which will develop not only a Christian type 
 of religion, but also a real sense of responsi- 
 bility and ability to assume it. We have seen 
 that as soon as education is well grounded, the 
 converts to Christianity develop a desire to 
 manage their own church, but where they are 
 still partly submerged in the illiteracy of their 
 past, they have no such desire. This state of 
 affairs may be said to be true of every mission 
 field without exception. 
 
 The amount of missionary work undertaken 
 
 . 113 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 by the churches on the fields and its success, 
 are also a witness to the genuinely indigenous 
 character of the faith in the hearts of these 
 noble Christian brothers and sisters. It is 
 impossible to do more than cite some of the 
 more striking cases. The Samoan Church, 
 besides maintaining 192 ordained and 260 
 unordained preachers, has sent 5,000 pounds 
 sterling to London for missionary work in 
 other lands. “A vigorous and successful home- 
 mission work is maintained by the Presbytery 
 of Manila on the Island of Mindoro.”! In 
 Brazil a group of Christians commissioned one 
 of their best-trained preachers to carry the 
 message of salvation back to the mother coun- 
 try. In another part of Latin America a group 
 organized a missionary society and for a num- 
 ber of years has been carrying on work in two 
 different countries. The Christian bodies of 
 Porto Rico have united in sending two mis- 
 sionaries to Santo Domingo. In West Equa- 
 torial Africa Christian traders have yolun- 
 tarily spread their religion. The churches 
 founded support their own teachers and build 
 their own places of worship. In South Africa 
 there are eighteen small self-sown missions 
 founded by laborers from the Rand. In Burma 
 the churches, uniting in “The Burman Mission 
 
 *Annual Report Presbyterian Missions, 1922, p. 56. 
 114 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 Conference,” have gone so far as to appoint a 
 full-time secretary. In India native music has 
 been used largely in evangelistic efforts and 
 women have actively participated in evangelis- 
 tic work. In one field (the Telugu) even non- 
 christians have cooperated in the work. The 
 National Missionary Society, established in 
 1905, had in 1911 over 400 branches organized, 
 was publishing six journals, and had 26 agents 
 working in five different language areas. In 
 China the “Christian General” Feng has been 
 used to win his officers and men to the num- 
 ber of nearly 10,000. The Anglican Church 
 Mission to Shensi, begun in 1915, had in 1919 
 a budget of $5,500 and has been doing success- 
 ful work. In 1920 there were reported in 
 China 25 home missionary societies raising 
 between $10,000 and $15,000 almost entirely 
 from Chinese sources. In 1918 a nation-wide 
 missionary movement with the Province of 
 Yunnan as its field was organized and has met 
 with good results. The Koreans, both Meth- 
 odists and Presbyterians, have sent three mis- 
 sionaries to Shantung Province in China, and 
 wherever they have gone as laymen, whether 
 to Manchuria, Siberia, Mexico or the isles of 
 the sea, they have spread the gospel. The 
 Kumiai Churches sent their first missionary 
 to Chosen in 1904. In 1922 there were 143 
 115 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 organized congregations with 14,000 members 
 (including 6,000 associate members), and the 
 Korean Church had become independent. Lay- 
 men’s missionary organizations have been a 
 feature not only of the Kumiai, but of other 
 churches as well. From these and the numer- 
 ous other missionary agencies not mentioned 
 here one can see that the type of Christianity 
 being propagated in our day is a vital one. 
 
 A number of changes in emphasis are to be 
 noted in the past twelve or thirteen years. In 
 general, they take the forms (1) of more inten- 
 sive evangelistic work, and (2) of enlarging 
 the activities of the work. Social activity, 
 education of a general nature and of a tech- 
 nical character, as industrial, agricultural, 
 and professional as normal and theological, 
 institutional churches, attempts to reach the 
 educated classes, are all features that one can 
 see at a glance are vital in building up a strong 
 ministry and a laity that can develop strong 
 indigenous churches. 
 
 In Japan and China particularly the 
 churches have been active for the good of soci- 
 ety and in nearly all lands the Christians have 
 caught the vision of a transformed society and 
 the part the Church of Christ has in bringing 
 it about. The efforts of the Christian churches 
 in Osaka kept that city from granting a sec- 
 
 116 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 tion of territory to licensed vice. In Canton 
 their petition secured the government prohi- 
 bition of gambling. The National Council of 
 the Christian Churches of China has spoken 
 for better working conditions in industry, and 
 various city Church Unions have taken up the 
 matter too. In China alone there are reported 
 to be over seventeen institutional churches. 
 Great attention has been paid to education. 
 Dr. C. Y. Cheng has said regarding the devel- 
 opment of an indigenous church in China, 
 
 In our opinion it can only be effectively done 
 by means of education. There seems to be no 
 short cut to a success that is real and lasting.? 
 
 To handle the mass movement in India, says 
 Dr. G. H. Williams, “The only salvation of 
 the church is by education.”? Missions that 
 were backward in education have been striy- 
 ing to catch up. Educational Commissions, 
 composed of representative educators, have 
 visited the fields and laid out programs for the 
 unifying and advancement of educational 
 work. The standards of theological education 
 have been raised, and normal, agricultural and 
 industrial schools have been opened, particu- 
 larly in China, India, and Africa. 
 
 International Review of Missions, 1923, p. 59. Used by 
 permission. 
 
 *Ibid., pp. 342-3, 
 
 117 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 The work has become truly hundred-handed. 
 The effort to reach the educated classes is seen 
 in the great Eddy and Mott student meetings 
 held throughout the East in the large cities, 
 and the expansion of the work of the Y. W. 
 C. A. and the Y. M. C. A. New emphasis on 
 work for women, Bible study, Christian stew- 
 ardship, the wide distribution of New Testa- 
 ment portions and other literature, newspaper 
 evangelism (in Japan), intensive evangelistic 
 campaigns with great stress on personal work 
 carried on in a dozen different ways, the 
 nation-wide observance of a Week of Evan- 
 gelism (in China), concentration of effort on 
 a smaller area than formerly, sometimes lead- 
 ing to the entire withdrawal of a mission’s 
 forces from a field, massing of evangelistic 
 forces on a given point and many other signs 
 of thorough work, have characterized this 
 period. 
 
 SuMMARY 
 
 Thus we see since the Edinburgh Conference 
 not only the Christian churches in the home 
 lands rousing themselves anew to the task, 
 the Boards pulling together with better under- 
 standing of the work to be done and with a 
 strong spirit of fellowship, but also churches 
 on the foreign fields that have, so far as their 
 
 118 
 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
 leaders are concerned, expressed in no uncer- 
 tain terms their eagerness to take charge of 
 their own churches and their longing for the 
 day when they shall not only be free from all 
 foreign control, but may also be strong enough 
 to assume their own financial support. They 
 want, moreover, for the most part (China, 
 India, the Philippines, and parts of Africa) 
 united churches, and all desire churches that 
 shall express Christianity in their own 
 national terms. Lacking, however, sufficient 
 leadership and means on the part of their 
 churches, they recognize the necessity of still 
 using European and American leadership in 
 education and finance for some time to come. 
 
 119 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 1. INTRODUCTION 
 
 Factors WHICH CONDITION THE WORK OF 
 MISSIONS 
 
 A. Those External to the Church 
 
 Wuart the old Hebrew prophet wrote about 
 casting idols to the bats and to the moles is 
 really being fulfilled these days in the lands 
 that are awakening to the truths of the gos- 
 pel. The passion for science in the lands of 
 the Far East has led men to scoff at super- 
 stitions and even to question the value of 
 any religion at all. Prominent educators, such 
 as the chancellor of the Government Uni- 
 versity in Peking and many other leaders in 
 the Chinese Renaissance or New Thought 
 Movement, are avowed atheists and the great 
 majority of the students follow in their train. 
 In China an antireligion organization has 
 been formed. In Japan the last religious 
 census of the Imperial University at Tokyo 
 showed agnostics, 2,989; atheists, 1,511: 
 Christians, 60; Buddhists, 49; Shintoists, 9, 
 
 120 
 
INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 
 These figures show what the teaching of 
 science has done to the old religions. In 
 China, Latin America, and, to a large extent, 
 India, government schools would, so far as 
 the number of atheists and agnostics as 
 against men of some religious belief is con- 
 cerned, approximate these figures. The 
 young men of these universities will be the 
 predominant influence in government, in edu- 
 cation, and in the development of a national 
 culture. To meet such a situation, the man 
 who lacks the modern scientific viewpoint is 
 like a flintlock on a twentieth century battle 
 field. Men must be trained to meet these 
 future leaders on their own ground. Old 
 theology, antiquated terminology need to be 
 changed for terms that put real, present, un- 
 mistakable life into religious concepts. To 
 make religion appeal to these men as the sine 
 qua non, it must be stripped of all that denies 
 the findings of modern science. The essence 
 of Christianity, the compelling character of 
 Jesus and his ideal of whole-souled love to 
 God and man, his power to revive and in- 
 spire—in short, the kind of Christianity Abra- 
 ham Lincoln approved of and lived, must be 
 presented. This means that much that is dear 
 to us from its sacred associations, because it 
 seems to them inconsistent with or irrelevant 
 to the truths they are learning, cannot be 
 121 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 forced upon or even wisely urged upon them 
 as essential. Some would lay this situation 
 to the effects of modern destructive criticism ; 
 but it goes deeper than that; it is the com- 
 mendable spirit of our time that is not con- 
 tent, as men formerly were, to guess and ac- 
 cept what they were told of religion without 
 testing it themselves. The man who is willing 
 to let every truth be put to scientific test and 
 who makes that a condition of the religion he 
 proclaims, is the only man who will to-day 
 get a hearing among the educated classes on 
 the foreign mission fields. 
 
 How else can one meet them? The writer 
 was once having a friendly chat with a Mo- 
 hammedan cleric. We found much in com- 
 mon but we naturally found disagreements 
 too. At last what happened to Jesus came to 
 the fore. Our Scriptures say he was crucified. 
 His deny it. I suggested that the way to find 
 the truth was to investigate the sources. He 
 came back in a flash that it couldn’t be done, 
 as the Koran had been given to Mohammed 
 straight from heaven. There was no use in 
 my citing the good Christianity has done, for 
 he could have answered it with the good Mo- 
 hammedanism has done and also much evil 
 that has been done in the name of Christ. In 
 the scientific viewpoint lay the solution of 
 our difficulty. His,ground made impossible 
 
 122 
 
INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 
 an approach to the modern student. The stu- 
 dent, on the contrary, is willing to take the 
 common viewpoint of science, and one honestly 
 seeking truth can be convinced. 
 
 Besides the scientific viewpoint among the 
 educated classes, there is the comparatively 
 new spirit of nationalism already noticed and 
 the belief in democracy throughout the world, 
 which makes the national of every country, 
 when aroused by education or by other con- 
 tact with the modern tides of thought, assert 
 that his country ought to have freedom and 
 ought not to be imposed upon by any other 
 country simply because that country is more 
 powerful than his in armed force, and he 
 asserts also his right as a man to equality 
 with any other man, no matter of what nation 
 or race. There was a time when the white 
 man felt himself a better man, and other 
 races to a large extent granted that he was; 
 but they do not grant that any more and some 
 of the whites too are coming to recognize the 
 equality of mankind. By virtue of being the 
 first to grasp and use the truths of modern 
 science, the whites have imposed their rule 
 upon other races, notably in America, Africa, 
 Asia, and the isles of the sea. The mission- 
 ary, being of the dominant race, was allowed 
 by the national, as we have already seen in 
 the previous chapters, to dominate his thought 
 
 123 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 and manage his church. But that day is 
 rapidly approaching sunset. In some fields 
 sunset has come, in some it is already passed, 
 and in others it is coming. It behooves the_ 
 missionary to have an exit ready for his grace- 
 ful retirement from the throne of temporal 
 authority. It is his task too to make ready, 
 as Moses did, someone to take his place, 
 thoroughly equipped for the work. 
 
 Modern industry too is making such an 
 impact on the life of the peoples of the for- 
 eign mission fields that a new situation is 
 before us. In Africa, in India, in Japan, and 
 in China there is a movement toward the 
 manufacturing and mining centers. Factories 
 and mines are employing the people that once 
 worked on the farms in the fresh open air. 
 Crowding in miserable houses, long hours in 
 badly ventilated interiors, pitiably low wages, 
 the exploiting of men and also of women and 
 even of small boys and girls are bringing 
 about a state of affairs in which physical 
 powers are being destroyed, mentality stunted, 
 morals are being submerged, and religious ex- 
 pression crushed out. With the Christian 
 churches of these lands as practically the only 
 agency interested in the welfare of fellow hu- 
 man beings, there is an increasing conviction 
 that the burden of saving these unfortunates 
 from the grinding heel of modern industry is 
 
 124 
 
INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 
 one that the churches must take up. The 
 attitude of the churches toward this practical 
 problem is going to be a vital factor in the 
 acceptance or rejection of Christianity by all 
 classes of people in these countries. “By 
 their fruits ye shall know them,” is the test 
 folk of every land are to-day applying to 
 religion. 
 
 Only those who have lived in non-Christian 
 lands can realize the pall of poverty, igno- 
 rance, and the inertia of fatalism that hangs 
 like a death shroud, so all pervading and so 
 overwhelmingly depressing are these infiu- 
 ences. While the few educated are waking up 
 ‘to modern ideas, there are millions upon mil- 
 lions who are still wending their old-time 
 way, apparently oblivious to the impending 
 doom the economic situation holds for them 
 and the ruin of their moral and religious ideals 
 that threatens in the fast approaching over- 
 throw of their long established social order. 
 To arouse them, to lift them up, to start them 
 in search of a Saviour, is infinitely more than 
 a herculean task. They are truly like sheep 
 without a shepherd. Centuries of illiteracy, 
 dire poverty, the backward look, degraded so- 
 cial position have deprived the great masses 
 of people in these countries almost of all power 
 of initiative. Without the Spirit of God it is 
 impossible to make any impression upon such 
 
 125 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 minds, for they seem dulled beyond the pos- 
 sibility of arousing. 
 
 Numerically too the task confronting the 
 Christian Church is stupendous. In the past 
 one hundred years and more the Protestant 
 Christian missions have won a matter of 400,- 
 000 or so in China. What are these among 
 400,000,000? One one-thousandth. And 
 China, though the largest in point of numbers, 
 is but one of the fields. Whole countries, as 
 Afghanistan, have yet to be entered by Chris- 
 tian missionaries, not to mention the lands 
 where the force of workers is ridiculously 
 small. Knowing what we do of the greatness 
 of the task, we should with fervor equal to 
 that of the early disciples of Jesus, “pray the 
 Lord of the harvest that he send forth 
 laborers into his harvest.” 
 
 B. Factors PRESENT IN THE CHURCH IN THB 
 Way OF ACHIEVEMENTS 
 
 As in the apostolic days it is mainly the 
 poor that have heard with gladness the tidings 
 of Jesus, but their coming to him has meant 
 a big problem for the churches. In India the 
 churches have literally been swamped by suc- 
 cess. Mass movements there, in Africa, and 
 some parts of China (the native tribes) have 
 placed upon the churches a task of instruction 
 which they have been quite unprepared to 
 
 126 
 
INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 
 undertake. There are not enough workers. 
 Taking people into the church without ade- 
 quate instruction has been shown by the re- 
 sults of the work of Xavier, de Nobili, and 
 others to be disastrous. Even the thorough 
 work of the Jesuits in Paraguay and that of 
 other orders in northern Mexico and other 
 parts of the world, must be set down as a 
 failure, because no indigenous leadership was 
 provided for. It has been proved over and 
 over again that people have to be lifted a long 
 way out of heathenism to keep them from 
 falling back in when the missionary is re- 
 moved. Madagascar is not the rule but the 
 exception. The cases just mentioned, the 
 work of the Dutch in Ceylon, that of the Dan- 
 ish-Halle Mission in India, and instances in 
 Africa, all witness to this danger. 
 
 At the other extreme there are the self- 
 respecting, wide-awake leaders of the churches 
 —few indeed, but of great influence. These 
 men and women are the choicest of the fruits 
 of missionary work. Through their force of 
 character and their lofty and uncompromising 
 Christian ideals they have made in their own 
 lands an impression even outside church 
 circles all out of proportion to their number. 
 Recently a prominent weekly in China took 
 a vote of its readers on the greatest man in 
 China to-day. The two getting the highest 
 
 127 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 vote were Sun Yat Sen and Feng Yiti Hsiang, 
 both Christians. In Japan the proportion of 
 Christians prominent in public life is far 
 greater than that of men professing other reli- 
 gions. The Christian leaders, lay and clerical, 
 feel that the church is theirs, not the for- 
 eigners’, and that therefore they should have 
 the say in all matters. They recognize the 
 value of the missionaries’ contribution, but 
 hold that the church is their own, and that, 
 being able to control, the authority should be 
 turned over to them. The main bone of con- 
 tention in this talk of transfer of power from 
 the missionaries to the national leaders is 
 the money question. The national leaders 
 feel that if the control of the funds is in the 
 hands of the missionaries, they have a lever- 
 age with which they control the church. In 
 some way this difficulty must be settled satis- 
 factorily. 
 
 To say that the large and numerous educa- 
 tional institutions, largely built with foreign 
 money, are factors within the church, is a 
 questionable statement, for the control of 
 them is for the most part still in the hands of 
 the mission; but they are so closely related to 
 the life of the future church, and they must at 
 some time sooner or later become a part of the 
 church’s responsibility. The importance of 
 these institutions lies in their work of train- 
 
 128 
 
INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 
 ing the leaders and also the rank and file of 
 the church. On the quality of the work of 
 these institutions depends in a very large 
 measure the future character of the church. 
 But the financial obligation their upkeep en- 
 tails and the direction of them form problems 
 that for the most part have yet to be solved 
 in such a way as will put them under the 
 church, where they must ultimately be. 
 
 Hospitals, leper and orphan asylums, homes 
 for the blind, and other such agencies are at 
 present also in the same category as the edu- 
 cational institutions just mentioned. How to 
 get them from the control of the mission to 
 that of the church means not only much train- 
 ing but also much confidence in the ability of 
 the national and willingness to surrender the 
 control of funds, of property, and of manage- 
 ment. It is evidently a long time before con- 
 trol in the main will be surrendered, and a 
 longer time still before the local constituency 
 can finance these institutions. 
 
 A last but potent factor in the situation is 
 the desire for united churches on the mission 
 fields. Many unions consummated years ago 
 by the missionaries had no interest for the 
 nationals, and, as we have noted, there are 
 countries where denominationalism has so 
 strong a hold that there are no prospects of 
 union; for example, Japan; and there are 
 
 - 129 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 some denominations which do not desire union 
 but, rather, independence or the adoption of 
 their own tenets as alternatives; but in some 
 lands, for example, India and China, many of 
 the leaders of the church have of late been 
 praying and working for united churches, and 
 the same may be said of some denominations. 
 
 Summary 
 
 These are prominent features in the situa- 
 tion at present. A scientific outlook demand- 
 ing a highly trained leadership, the rise of 
 nationalism and democracy asking for control 
 instead of domination by the foreigner and the 
 question of support involved in that control 
 by the national, together with the stupendous 
 nature of the task and the conflicting opinions 
 regarding union, all are present problems 
 which are crying for solution. 
 
 2. PROBLEMS 
 A. Self-Support 
 
 Why is self-support essential? Missionaries 
 in every clime answer, “Because subsidizing 
 pauperizes. Human nature, when exposed to 
 generosity and patronage, multiplies avarice 
 in proportion to the willingness of the bene- 
 factor to be exploited.” “Here lies the mis- 
 sionary’s protégé,’ might be inscribed over 
 
 130 
 
INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 
 many a dead church and over many a spir- 
 itually dead convert; and “Killed by kindness” 
 would do for the second line of the epitaph. 
 
 “Heaven helps those who help themselves,” 
 is as true of the church and the convert on 
 the foreign mission field as it is at home, where 
 many a preacher and many another benefactor 
 has learned in sorrow that a dollar spent to 
 help someone to help himself is better than a 
 hundred dollars handed out just for temporary 
 relief. | 
 
 Financing the work of the Church on the 
 mission field in the last analysis is not the task 
 of the missionary, nor of the national agent, 
 but of the church on the field. In the end it 
 must be so. In the beginning it was so. “The 
 laborer is worthy of his hire.’ The Antioch 
 church did not support Paul. Paul never ex- 
 pected it to, but he did say that the churches 
 to whom the gospel was preached ought to care 
 for the workers. His support of himself was 
 an exception. Jesus made no attempt to 
 finance the Twelve nor the Seventy. He told 
 them to take what the people gave them. That 
 the church should support its own workers is 
 a foundation principle. It is scriptural, laid 
 down by Jesus and by Paul. It is found 
 throughout the Old Testament too. In those 
 times the clergy were supported by the tithes 
 of the people. In the New Testament foreign 
 
 131 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 money never entered into the question. The 
 implication is therefore that this principle 
 should be followed. ‘The experience of man 
 with his fellow men, backed up by scriptural 
 injunction, ought to be sufficient for the settle- 
 ment of the question. 
 
 But it has not been so. Missionaries have 
 argued that since the national could be hired 
 with foreign money more cheaply than a for- 
 eigner can be and, besides, has a better knowl- 
 edge of the language and the customs, it was 
 more than justifiable to pay him a salary out 
 of foreign money to preach the gospel and act 
 as pastor to his own people, who, in the nature 
 of the case, ought to support him; but, since 
 they would not, and the gospel ought to be 
 preached and the converts cared for, therefore 
 the missionary was justified in hiring him 
 with the more plentiful foreign money. This 
 policy, it must be admitted, while not develop- 
 ing strength of character in the individual nor 
 in the church, has been quite successful in win- 
 ning great numbers to Christianity. Much 
 speed has been attained, but the churches de- 
 veloped by such a policy have been a constant 
 drag upon the missionary to whom they have 
 looked as did the early Christians of India for 
 education and for a livelihood. This is com- 
 mon talk among missionaries who share with 
 independent-minded converts a profound con- 
 
 132 
 
INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 
 tempt for the churches and, as they are called, 
 the “old converts” who expect the mission- 
 aries to continue the old policy of supporting 
 the work they started, and which the “old 
 convert” feels the missionary should therefore 
 continue supporting. He has no program for 
 the elimination of the missionary nor of the 
 money that comes through the missionary. 
 
 The financial policy on many a mission field 
 to-day is such that a sudden reversal would 
 tear the church to pieces. A sudden change 
 to self-support would lead to much hard feel- 
 ing, much desertion, and—perhaps to the edi- 
 fication of the church in some quarters even 
 if the change came through the instrumen- 
 tality of the mission. But rarely has a mission 
 dared take such a drastic step. 
 
 But most missions have been following a 
 policy of subsidizing the work with foreign 
 money, and the task now is to change as 
 rapidly as possible with the least possible fric- 
 tion to a policy of self-support. Many mis- 
 sions have undertaken by yearly diminishing 
 grants-in-aid to bring self-support. The very 
 number of such attempts is a strong recom- 
 mendation of their value. 
 
 Many missions have gotten so far away from 
 first principles that not only have they disre- 
 garded the scriptural injunction that “The 
 laborer is worthy of his hire” and the frailty 
 
 133 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 of human nature, but have gone to the making 
 of salary schedules for nationals, making 
 themselves as a mission responsible for the 
 specified salary for each grade of worker, 
 without any consideration of the ability of the 
 local churches to support their pastors or the 
 possibility that they ever will be able to do so. 
 These schedules, prepared to avoid the muddle 
 into which a non-self-support policy has gotten 
 them, have only added to the misunderstand- 
 ings that come between missions and nationals 
 and led national and missionary alike to loathe 
 the day the schedule was ever invented. This 
 situation has grown out of the carrying the 
 load by the mission, making the nationals re- 
 sponsible to the foreigner. He has been the 
 “poss.” This, of course, is a most unnatural 
 situation. It has educated the churches and 
 the workers in entirely the wrong way. 
 
 For the building up of strong indigenous 
 churches the responsibility ought to be placed 
 on them. The church should be the employer 
 of the worker. He should work for his own 
 church and not for the missionary nor for 
 someone who supports him from the home 
 field. Ifthe church can support him, well and 
 good. If it cannot do it all, then it certainly 
 ought to do what it can; and what it can’t do 
 still ought to be paid to the church by the mis- 
 sion and by the church to the worker, whether 
 
 134 
 
INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 
 it be a local church or a body of churches. 
 Then the worker will work for the church and 
 not for the missionary. If he receives part 
 of his salary from one and part from the other, 
 he is most likely to work for the one who will 
 make up any deficit in his salary. That is 
 more likely to be the missionary, as he is more 
 easily touched by a “hard-luck” story. Until 
 the grant-in-aid is paid to the church and not 
 to the worker, the worker is going to be a 
 foreign-paid, foreign-controlled man. When 
 he gets all his salary from the church, no 
 matter where the church gets it, he becomes 
 an indigenous worker, and, instead of being a 
 rolling stone, is a stone in the building of the 
 church in which he is working. With such a 
 plan the diminishing grant system will work 
 for the advancement of a truly self-supporting 
 church and help to develop a ministry respon- 
 sible to it. 
 
 But there are many difficulties which make 
 it necessary to qualify the out-and-out state- 
 ments of the preceding paragraphs. We have 
 already hinted at the muddle in which many 
 missions are now through the subsidy plan. 
 The difficulties which led them to compromise 
 are still in the field. 
 
 First of all, there is the economic situation 
 in some fields: take, for example, the Telugu 
 field in South India. The history of missions 
 
 135 
 
s 
 
 NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 shows us that a church without a well-trained 
 leadership cannot grow, and where people are 
 living in such abject poverty as in South India 
 it is impossible for them to acquire such train- 
 ing as will insure the development of intelli- 
 gent leadership. It is spiritually a parallel 
 to the physical helplessness of famine vic- 
 tims. They are so far down that temporary 
 relief must be given. In some way they must 
 be helped on their feet. Industrial work has 
 been suggested and tried, and for people that 
 are in such a situation as that of the Telugu 
 and others in China and elsewhere, it would 
 seem as if this were the best solution. They 
 must be enabled to get to the place where they 
 can help themselves. In the process, consider- 
 able assistance of a financial nature must be 
 given, but the dispensers of the relief are in 
 duty bound to develop, with all the means God 
 gives them, a spirit of self-reliance and self- 
 respect. The main task is not the extortion 
 of money from the converts, that they may 
 be technically self-supporting, but that they 
 may be so raised in the social scale that their 
 former abject state of mind may be replaced 
 by one that dares with Christian humility to 
 look every man in the face. Being able to 
 pay their own bills will help that self-respect 
 to grow, but the cultivation of ability with the - 
 burden of responsibility for their own church 
 136 
 
INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 
 is essential. This kind of cultivation has been 
 a potent factor on many fields in the increase 
 of self-support. 
 
 The second difficulty is that of having well- 
 educated and high-salaried workers with poor 
 churches to support them. When the leaders 
 are trained, their standards of living rise. 
 They require more books, better sanitation, 
 more respectable living quarters, and more 
 suitable food. Their whole outlook upon life 
 has been enlarged. All these things take 
 money. We must have leaders who can hold 
 their own with the leading men in literature 
 and government. In America the situation is 
 quite different. The man far up is not so 
 far above the man way down. In lands like 
 China and India there is a great gulf. The 
 ignorance and the squalor of the poor country 
 Christians is incomprehensible to the person 
 who has not seen them with his own eyes. 
 How can they ever support a highly trained 
 preacher? Yet such have been sent them by 
 the missions. This is the extreme case. But 
 the problem is a real problem all the way 
 through, as, taken generally, the trained man, 
 even when not highly trained, is raised so 
 much higher than the general level of his fel- 
 low countrymen that there is a decided diffi- 
 culty in providing his support. Instead of, 
 as in America, being the one to receive gifts 
 
 137 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 from his parishioners, he is more able to give 
 to them than they to him, so much higher has 
 he risen in the scale of living. He is the one 
 to set the standard of living not only spir- 
 itually and educationally, but also in sanita- 
 tion and all that modern civilization has 
 brought us. He is much the type of leader in 
 his community that the minister of a hundred 
 years ago or more was, the best informed and 
 most capable man in the community. Shall 
 we take him away because his local congrega- 
 tion cannot pay his salary? If we do, we take 
 from them the one possibility of their progress, 
 socially, politically, in sanitation, morals, edu- 
 cation and religion—in fact, everything vital 
 to their salvation. It would seem, however, as 
 if some grading ought to be made. The high- 
 est-trained men should go to the churches that 
 can come the nearest to supporting them and 
 so on down. This will place the best men 
 where their influence, as far as man can tell, 
 will count for the most; as such churches, for 
 the most part, can best appreciate their min- 
 istrations. They are not so far removed from 
 them as from the poorer churches. This would 
 also encourage Sself-support. In some missions 
 the churches are given pastors only when they 
 can support them. In such cases the plan 
 works automatically. 
 
 A third difficulty is the previous lack of 
 
 138 
 
INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 
 training in giving. At first in many fields the 
 missionaries were so glad to get converts that 
 they did not dare mention the subject of giv- 
 ing for fear of scaring away their hard-won 
 converts. The nationals have also often fol- 
 lowed this policy, even in some cases urging 
 with vigor that anyone who became a Chris- 
 tian would save money, being relieved from 
 the severe strain upon his purse that idolatry 
 imposed. Truly a far cry from Jesus’ words, 
 “Give and it shall be given you”! and “Lay 
 up for yourselves treasure in heaven”! The 
 missionaries have been all too generous in 
 their giving. But too often they have for- 
 gotten that people who have never been under 
 the influence of Christianity but are sur- 
 rounded by crass materialism are strongly 
 tempted to take advantage of the missionary’s 
 generosity as a heaven-sent blessing without 
 any thought that they ought to follow his ex- 
 ample. Such people have to be trained in giv- 
 ing. In many fields no sense of responsibility 
 has been developed among the churches. Win- 
 ning converts has been the exclusive aim. 
 Because of this it has become very difficult to 
 put upon the older established churches the 
 burden they ought to bear. They are so used 
 to having the missionary or the national leader 
 carry it for them that they want no change. 
 But the day has come when such churches must 
 139 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 be shocked into initiative, even if it means the 
 closing of some of them. Some missions have 
 gotten desperate over such churches and have 
 withdrawn all support, starting in on a new 
 self-supporting policy, for example, the Lon- 
 don Mission field of Tsangchow and Hsiao- 
 chang in Chihli Province, China. 
 
 A fourth difficulty is the maintenance of 
 foreign-built institutions, churches, schools, 
 hospitals, ete. These could not have been put 
 up by the churches; but they are being put to 
 good use. Many doubt the wisdom of build- 
 ing expensive plants that are foreign in style 
 and on such a vast scale that the churches 
 cannot in the near future, at any rate, keep 
 them up without outside assistance. But how- 
 ever we may criticize the policy that has 
 created these institutions and provided such 
 advanced equipment, and however we may 
 praise the style of church that the Koreans and 
 others have put up, as suited to their purses 
 and their natural tastes, the fact remains that 
 there are these great plants. They are there- 
 fore to be reckoned with. Some such plants 
 have been put up largely by the use of money 
 raised on the field: some of them too are sup- 
 ported entirely and others largely by gifts and 
 fees obtained on the field. Such are not a 
 problem. But there are numbers that are. It 
 would be folly to scrap them; but their control 
 
 140 
 
INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 
 by the local church or other body made up 
 of nationals is to be sought for as early as pos- 
 sible, even where the money must come from 
 foreign lands. Surely some agreement can be 
 worked out whereby the wishes of the donors 
 can be conserved and their confidence retained 
 until the local constituency is able to shoulder 
 the financial responsibility. 
 
 There is also the problem of highly sub- 
 sidized work with increasing costs. These in- 
 creasing costs are due largely to the salaries 
 of the highly trained national staff who are 
 essential to the standard of the institution. 
 As noted before, prices are rising, standards 
 of living are going up, and salaries must fol- 
 low them in the upward trend. There is no 
 use to make light of these facts. The advance 
 made by government and private institutions 
 of learning and medicine makes imperative the 
 raising of the standards of the missionary in- 
 stitutions. It is not a case of the national 
 churches catching up with present situation. 
 It is, rather, a race in which they are increas- 
 ing their contributions and the institutions 
 are steadily increasing their expenses. One 
 does not stand still for the other to overtake 
 it. To keep up the efficiency of the work, it 
 looks as if in many cases it might be necessary 
 to waive for the time being the goal of self- 
 support as the primary goal and put efficiency 
 
 141 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 as the first requisite. This applies especially 
 to educational, medical, and social work. 
 Whereas in evangelistic work a definite goal 
 of self-support in terms of years with the 
 diminishing grant system as the method of 
 attainment is generally feasible, for institu- 
 tional work there is good ground for the theory 
 that in time the additional money put into 
 equipment and highly paid workers will so 
 raise the standard of the national giver and 
 so command his respect and interest, whether 
 he be Christian or only interested in the insti- 
 tution, that the question of support will be 
 settled. There are already many institutions 
 like the Anglo-Chinese College in Singapore 
 which have reached this much-desired goal. 
 
 As aids in the promotion of self-support 
 there are a number of helps that have proven 
 valuable and can therefore be recommended. 
 Education in giving has produced wonderful 
 results in Chosen, among the Karens of 
 Burma, at Harpoot and on other fields. In- 
 dustrial missions have done infinitely more 
 for the Telugu than ever did the old “barrack” 
 system in India. Again and again it has been 
 reported that self-support has seen great ad- 
 vance upon the granting of a larger measure 
 of self-government to the church on the field. 
 And, lastly, the power of the Holy Spirit in 
 special meetings has at times led nationals to 
 
 142 
 
INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 
 declare that they would no longer depend 
 upon the foreigner for their salary, but would 
 throw themselves upon the mercy of their own 
 people. 
 
 The matter of self-support has many divi- 
 sions. Let us consider first the unit of sup- 
 port. Shall it be the local church or a group 
 of churches banded together into one organ- 
 ization? Of course independent churches 
 have already settled this matter for them- 
 selves. But where a number of churches are 
 organized into a synod, presbytery, confer- 
 ence, or association, it would seem advisable 
 that the unit should be the whole body. There 
 may be some churches that are unable to sup- 
 port themselves entirely and must depend 
 upon others for help. Some churches, as in 
 Western lands, are in such localities that they 
 cannot be expected to support themselves, but 
 need to be kept open as missions. 
 
 Secondly, should support include that of the 
 missionary? Since he is of another nation 
 and his standard of living is so different and 
 often so much higher, it is hardly reasonable 
 to expect that the church on the field should 
 provide his salary. In some of the South Sea 
 Islands, however, it is done, and even furlough 
 expenses are paid. Where the church is able, 
 as these churches are, to do this, it is most 
 commendable. But there can be no question 
 
 143 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 as to the order of objects to be provided for. 
 The salary and other expenses of the mission- 
 ary ought to be the last on the list. 
 
 Third, shall it be evangelistic work only, 
 that is, pastoral support, that shall be counted 
 as self-support? It is often counted that way. 
 Usually because of the high costs of education 
 and other institutional work, the attainment 
 of self-support in evangelistic work is first. 
 But there is a pride born of the fact of sup- 
 porting its own pastor that leads to the rejec- 
 tion of other features of self-support. In edu- 
 cating the church in its self-support ideal, the 
 missionary needs to guard against this by 
 showing the church its duty in education, 
 medical and social work, and outside evan- 
 gelistic and missionary work. But the point 
 of first emphasis for the churches, other things 
 being equal, is the support of their pastors. 
 Educational and other institutional work in 
 our Western lands is largely endowed, so that 
 the matter of self-support in these matters on 
 the foreign field is more difficult of attainment, 
 because of the comparative poverty of our 
 foreign-field churches. 
 
 Fourth, should there be a division between 
 the work of the churches and the work of the 
 mission in the evangelistic field? Some mis- 
 sions have let the self-supporting churches 
 support their own work while the missions 
 
 144 
 
INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 
 have carried on evangelistic work outside, 
 more or less independently of the churches 
 themselves. This policy was pursued in 
 Japan until quite recently, but it has been 
 practically discontinued now. The Church 
 Missionary Society in South India and other 
 missions too have found that such a policy 
 narrows the outlook of the churches and 
 makes needless division in the work. The task 
 of saving their own country ought to be laid 
 directly upon the churches, and how is that 
 possible if all the evangelistic work outside of 
 the Jocal church organizations is left to for- 
 eigners and nationals hired with foreign 
 funds administered by foreigners? 
 
 We would then conclude that this should be 
 the natural order of enterprises undertaken 
 by the churches as items for their support: 
 first, their own pastors; second, the carrying 
 on of evangelistic work outside their own com- 
 munities; third, the institutional side of the 
 work; and fourth, the missionary. We put 
 evangelistic work outside of the community 
 before institutional work because it is more 
 of the same type as pastoral support, can be 
 managed more easily, and supported usually 
 at less expense. 
 
 The preceding paragraphs have dealt 
 largely with the state of affairs of the mis- 
 sions that have been operating some time on 
 
 145 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 a subsidy basis; but there also arises the ques- 
 tion of newly opened work. Should that be 
 self-supporting from the start? Bishop Tho- 
 burn has expressed himself as believing that 
 it should. Many other missionaries who have 
 studied the field have said the same. Inas- 
 much as some missions have been started and 
 continued on this basis with great success, as 
 already noted, and as the principle of self- 
 support is now admitted by practically all 
 workers to be valid, any work not started on 
 a self-support basis surely ought to be able to 
 show very excellent reasons for departing from 
 the principle of self-support. Certainly, if any 
 aid is granted, it ought to be granted in such 
 a way as would not put the national in the 
 relation of a hired helper to the mission, if he 
 has also any relation, such as pastor, to a 
 body of church members; and a definite self- 
 support program ought to be placed before the 
 new converts so that they will understand very 
 clearly that the help given is only for a short 
 time and is conditional on what they them- 
 selves do. 
 
 The solution of the whole problem of self- 
 support in the last analysis, is in an indige- 
 nous consciousness on the part of the converts, 
 or, where such consciousness is lacking, in its 
 development. Nothing will take the place of 
 this. The whole matter is a question of the 
 
 146 
 
INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 
 attitude of the Christians on the field. As 
 soon as they have sufficient self-respect they 
 will not be contented with the stigma of being 
 supported by money from foreign lands. To 
 cultivate this kind of an attitude is one of the 
 great tasks of the missionary and the indige- 
 nous church leaders. Just as the young man 
 who works his way through school, instead of 
 having his way paid, develops a self-reliance 
 and initiative that will stand him in good stead 
 all his days, so the church that, like the Karen 
 Church of Burma, refuses to take proffered 
 foreign money, will develop into a strong, ac- 
 tive, and progressive Christian organization. 
 
 B. LEADERSHIP 
 
 Self-respect and self-reliance are most to be 
 looked for among educated leaders. In a 
 word, this shows the importance of leadership 
 in the indigenous churches being formed on 
 the foreign fields. It is the leaders that are 
 the first to catch the vision of the indigenous 
 church. It is therefore through them that 
 the whole church must catch the vision. For 
 this reason, the development of strong leader- 
 ship is the Open Sesame to the work of build- 
 ing up strong churches. 
 
 In training leaders an educational system 
 is a necessity. These are days of thoroughly 
 organized education. The church cannot 
 
 147 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 afford to be behind in the opportunities she 
 affords her leaders to make themselves as effi- 
 cient as modern education can make them. 
 Without well-educated, scientifically trained 
 minds at the head of the Christian enterprise 
 there is no guarantee of sanity in the church 
 of the future. The mission boards are send- 
 ing only highly trained, well-educated men and 
 women to the foreign fields, as they realize the 
 need of balance and ability to meet difficult 
 situations. The national leaders need educa- 
 tion just as the missionary does. 
 
 As there are all classes to meet in the work 
 of winning men and women to Christ, different 
 types of institution are needed for the trained 
 worker. ‘To meet the educated classes on their 
 own ground and to preach to educated Chris- 
 tians, there is a type of worker needed who 
 has thoroughly prepared himself in the kind 
 of questions put and the kind of problem raised 
 by the educated man and woman. <A worker 
 without much in common with the one he is 
 dealing with cannot sympathetically discuss 
 with him the difficulties he has, nor answer the 
 objections he brings up. But it is impossible 
 to give all leaders the highest type of educa- 
 tion. Personal capacity and finance are effec- 
 tive limitations. Not all can go through col- 
 lege and theological school. Provision must 
 be made for lower grades of instruction. Be- 
 
 148 
 
INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 
 sides the graduate type of institution, there 
 are on the mission-field theological schools, 
 institutes and Bible schools of various grades, 
 providing instruction for men and women who 
 have not been able to go as far as college. 
 Some of these institutions take men and 
 women who have passed through only the 
 primary grades, and some have little or no 
 standard of admission. The standards 
 of these schools, as well as the quality of in- 
 struction in them, is being steadily raised. 
 The ideal on the field as at home is to give all 
 the training possible. 
 
 Besides the training of men and women who 
 look forward to religious work as their pro- 
 fession, there is also much need for the train- 
 ing of lay workers, who devote whole or part 
 time with or without pay to religious work. 
 The large family unit on many fields in con- 
 trast to the individualism of our Western so- 
 ciety, makes possible a great deal of work by 
 men who have leisure time. Many have re- 
 tired from business; for the Oriental, when 
 his wants are sufficiently provided for, is more 
 likely than the Occidental, to cease the piling 
 up of more wealth. There are also many who 
 can give specified times of the year to Chris- 
 tian work. This state of affairs makes pos- 
 sible the opening of special schools, usually 
 of from ten days’ to a few months’ duration, 
 
 149 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 for the instruction of these men and also of 
 women who have leisure. Such schools have 
 been made use of with most encouraging re- 
 sults. 
 
 To educate the members of the future indig- 
 enous churches so that they may take their 
 rightful place in the conduct of the church is 
 a very vital part of the program of missionary 
 work. Literary, professional, and industrial 
 training all have their place in the creating of 
 an intelligent church. The strength of Prot- 
 estant Christianity is largely here. Much has 
 been accomplished in the way of strengthen- 
 ing lay leadership, but there is much more 
 work ahead in this line. 
 
 In the training of leaders for religious work 
 there has ever been a tendency to make the 
 course too scholastic, too theoretical, and so 
 divorce it from real life. Men coming out of 
 the theological institutions have been criti- 
 cized on all hands as having lost their grip 
 on the practical matters that concern common 
 folk. This criticism has led to the adapting 
 of the curriculum to the needs of the task and 
 to the practice while in school that keeps the 
 theologue in touch with the world. Much dis- 
 cussion of the value of Hebrew, Greek, and 
 Latin has been indulged in, and these lan- 
 guages have, just as in Western lands, lost the 
 place they once held. English too, as a medium 
 
 150 
 
INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 
 of instruction, has come in for its share of 
 criticism, as separating a man from his people. 
 Some years ago the Bishop of Madras, recog- 
 nizing that the study of English books was 
 necessary to give a man the material he 
 needed, and also recognizing the alienation it 
 meant from the people of the country, changed 
 the course of instruction in theology. He had 
 the students do their reading in English, then 
 write out what they got in Telugu, following 
 up this exercise by personal conference instead 
 of using lectures, which he abolished alto- 
 gether. It has not been the fortune of the 
 writer to come across a more sensible plan. 
 Of course many cannot study enough to ac- 
 quire the proficiency in English necessary to 
 carry out this plan. The only thing to do in 
 such cases is to depend upon hearing lectures 
 and reading such books as are available in 
 the vernacular. 
 
 In the training of leaders there is a funda- 
 mental principle already touched upon in the 
 section on self-support, namely, the relation 
 of the national leader to the church rather 
 than to the mission. The mission is a for- 
 eign institution. The church is national. He 
 is a national. He should therefore be respon- 
 sible to the church and should from the church 
 receive his support. Although the church can- 
 not support him, still the money should pass 
 
 151 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 through the hands of the church, that the 
 proper relation may be kept. 
 
 This principle is easier to state than to work 
 out. It is a rocky road that it has to travel. 
 Some nationals feel that the missionary domi- 
 nates the church because he has in his hands 
 the control of the funds with which the church 
 is largely run. He feels that if he enters 
 Christian work, he will be under the supervi- 
 sion of a foreigner and dependent largely upon 
 the foreigner for his daily bread. His pride 
 rebels at such a relation. For this reason some 
 avoid religious work, and others who are in 
 it are continually protesting and longing for 
 a change. 
 
 Another difficulty is the fear of the national 
 religious worker that the church will not back 
 him. He would like to be freed from foreign 
 control and from the acceptance of foreign 
 money, but he cannot see how it can be done, 
 because he doubts, sometimes the willingness, 
 sometimes the ability of the church to support 
 him. Some are disgusted with the type of 
 Christianity which has developed in the 
 churches and feel that they would be so ham- 
 pered by the conservatism of the membership 
 that they would be unable to contribute 
 through the ministry what they wish to give to 
 their country. 
 
 In some fields, as far as the type of leader- 
 
 152 
 
INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 
 ship to whom the church may be turned over 
 to goes, the problem is far from solution. The 
 distance from paganism is sometimes too short 
 to make sure that there will be no lapse even 
 on the part of leaders. They are not suffi- 
 ciently developed in character in such fields 
 to be left without the supervision of the mis- 
 sionary. This condition holds in lands where 
 animism has prevailed as the religion and 
 where before the arrival of the missionary 
 there was no literature. 
 
 Racial discrimination has been a very tender 
 point in the matter of leadership. Men of 
 another race are very sensitive to any indica- 
 tion of the preference of a man of another race 
 over one of their own, when they can see no 
 reason for it save the race of the man pre- 
 ferred. This discrimination may be not only 
 racial but also national. The missionary has 
 often given evidence of his confidence in men 
 of his own nationality and distrust of those 
 of another nationality. At times his dis- 
 crimination has been warranted; at other 
 times it has not. There has been too much 
 hesitation to trust men of another nation or of 
 another race. 
 
 The solution of the problem of leadership 
 for the churches of the foreign fields lies in 
 Christian brotherhood. ‘There are mission- 
 aries who would ever play the father, as we 
 
 153 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 have seen the Roman Catholic clerics do. 
 Some take a peculiar fatherly interest in cer- 
 tain boys whom they delight in educating out 
 of their own purse and follow them in their 
 work afterward. But the opinion of the na- 
 tional leaders is against patronage of this 
 kind. They have no respect for a man who 
 has thus been brought up on foreign bounty 
 and who feels more or less bound personally 
 to his benefactor. Such patronage too de- 
 stroys the freedom of the one helped and does 
 not fit him to be a big-minded man with the 
 self-reliance a real man ought to have. All 
 touches of patronage need to be done away 
 with. All signs of the feeling that the national 
 is a child, in fact, anything that says, “I know 
 better than you do,” must be concealed, if it 
 cannot be entirely erased from the thought of 
 the missionary. The domineering attitude of 
 the missionary he himself is quite unconscious 
 of, and he would never call his attitude that; 
 it grows naturally out of his generalization 
 that the race of people with whom he is deal- 
 ing is inferior to his own and that he is sent 
 as their benefactor. Before he knows it and 
 without his knowing it, he shows his attitude 
 and offends the people he wants to win. He 
 gives the people with whom he is working no 
 credit for having any pride. If in his mind he 
 would reverse the situation and imagine what 
 154 
 
INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 
 it would be like if he were in the shoes of the 
 national and the national in his shoes, his days 
 of patronizing and domineering would be at an 
 end. He would see that what is needed is 
 brotherly sympathy. He would realize that 
 he is not the proprietor of the concern, but a 
 guest in the home; that it is not his prerogative 
 to give orders as a father to a son or an em- 
 ployer to a workman, but to find ways of sug- 
 gesting improvements and to give inspiration. 
 The way that missionaries of the white race 
 have presumed upon the graces of their hosts, 
 while not to be compared with the arrogance 
 of some other white men, has at least caused 
 much misunderstanding and estrangement. 
 If it were not for the Christian patience exer- 
 cised by the nationals, there would often be no 
 getting on together. . Where patience has been 
 absent, sad results have followed. 
 
 Just as long as the missionary is the pay- 
 master, there must exist a barrier between mis- 
 Sionary and national. True brotherhood is 
 impossible. The social relation of the em- 
 ployer and his employee in our own land is 
 not, Save in rare cases, on an equality. How 
 much farther apart must they be when not 
 only this relation of employer to employee 
 separates them but also the dividing lines of 
 race and nation! This alone is a powerful 
 argument for the paying of national workers 
 
 155 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 by the church and not by the missionary. The 
 man who is employed by the missionary or by 
 the mission feels that he is under them. He 
 must do their bidding or lose his job. This 
 matter of pay ought not to be allowed any 
 jonger to stand in the way of good feeling be- 
 tween missionary and national. The mission- 
 ary should cease being an accountant and pay- 
 master and assume the relation of a brother. 
 What accounting and paying has to be done 
 ought to be arranged for between the church 
 and the mission or the mission treasurer, and 
 the utmost publicity ought to be given to all 
 accounts. This will do away with the sub- 
 servient position that the national is com- 
 pelled to feel and give him a chance to de- 
 velop in self-respect himself and so enable his 
 church to grow in self-respect. 
 
 The future of the churches depends upon 
 leadership more than upon any one other 
 thing. Without well-trained leaders they 
 must be under the guardianship of the mis- 
 sionary and so be open to the charge of being 
 called foreign institutions. Without indige- 
 nous leadership there will be no such thing as 
 an indigenous church. That it is paying to 
 train national leadership and to intrust it 
 with responsibility is clearly indicated by the 
 following quotation from Secretary J. H. 
 Franklin: 
 
 156 
 
INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 
 As a secretary, I have traveled in numerous 
 countries of the Orient, and I have received the 
 impression that the missionary agencies which 
 were most willing to grant a large degree of lead- 
 ership to native forces—yes, in certain fields, to 
 place responsibilities entirely upon such forees— 
 have made the most notable contributions, so far 
 as I could observe. 
 
 The attitude of the Protestant Episcopal 
 Church which has received the nationals on 
 equal terms is highly commended and their 
 success is ascribed by Secretary Franklin 
 largely to this attitude. To make this leader- 
 ship self-respecting, we must give them the 
 same place, the same privileges, the same social 
 standing as we have. 
 
 C. SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 Leadership presupposes some stage or form 
 of self-government. In fact, the matter of 
 leadership leads directly to the problem of self- 
 government. The church must have an organ- 
 ization and that implies leadership. Since 
 most missions started work without paying 
 much attention to the formation of the church, 
 there have arisen multitudes of churches, and 
 even whole areas of churches, which know 
 little about the management of their own 
 affairs. For example, in 1923, “in practically 
 two thirds of China the leadership of the 
 
 157 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 church is still largely in the hands of the for- 
 eign missionary, who alone receives converts 
 into the church membership and administers 
 the sacraments.”! Many missions are to-day 
 accordingly struggling with the problem of 
 devolving the authority of the missions upon 
 the churches. 
 
 In the process of growth in missionary work 
 there are usually three stages to be marked. 
 In the first the missionary leads. In the 
 second the missionary and the national leaders 
 work together with joint powers. In the third 
 the national leaders are in charge. The goal 
 is the third stage. In Japan as far as concerns 
 church organization this was arrived at in a 
 comparatively short time. In other fields 
 some churches or groups of churches have also 
 arrived at self-government, as we have noted. 
 Many missions are still in the first stage and 
 many in the second. 
 
 There are so many ways of making the 
 transition and so many variations of grade 
 that to list and describe them all would be a 
 most lengthy and wearisome task. We can 
 here mention only some of the more outstand- 
 ing ways. The others are closely related to 
 these and partake of much the same features, 
 sometimes more of one and sometimes more 
 
 
 
 *The Chinese Church, 1923, p. 102. 
 158 
 
INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 
 of another. We here note the three main 
 types of devolution. 
 
 The first is the method of turning over the 
 church government by the mission to the 
 church item by item. This is the policy that 
 has usually been followed by the Congrega- 
 tional and Presbyterian types of mission. 
 Some examples of these are as follows: 
 
 (1) In Basutoland the Paris Society has broken 
 up large districts into parishes and created sev- 
 eral pastorates under nationals. 
 
 (2) In the Madura Mission of the A. B. C. F. M. 
 a District Conference was organized in 1910 with 
 the proportion in members of two Indians to one 
 American, and this Conference was given charge 
 of evangelistic and elementary educational work.? 
 
 (3) In the West India Presbyterian Mission 
 the decision has been made to transfer to the 
 Indian Church a gradually increasing amount of 
 the work carried on by the Mission Council. 
 Work actually transferred is the evangelistic and 
 primary school work in certain areas, also a hostel 
 in Poona and the work in Thana, including med- 
 ical work. (The names of the places are not sig- 
 nificant, only the types of work.)* 
 
 (4) Generally the local churches founded by 
 the Baptists and the Congregationalists, on 
 reaching self-support, have become self-governing. 
 
 International Review of Missions, 1913, p. 59. Used by 
 permission. 
 
 "American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 
 Annual Report, 1914, p. 126. 
 
 "The East and the West, 1923, p. 124. Society for the 
 
 Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. Used by per- 
 mission. 
 159 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 When these churches have become organized into 
 Associations, then the task has been to turn over 
 one activity after another to the Association or 
 Convention until all is in the hands of the 
 church.! 
 
 This method requires the running of two 
 separate organizations—the mission and the 
 church. The work being done concerns them 
 both. Yet they are separate. Naturally, the 
 question arises: Why can’t they work together? 
 The reason in the past has been that the mis- 
 sionary has been unwilling to share on equal 
 terms the authority which his control of the 
 funds has given him. Sometimes his reason 
 was a good one, where capable leaders had not 
 been developed. Sometimes the leaders might 
 have been developed if the mission had under- 
 stood its task better. It is significant and 
 encouraging to note that some missions which 
 have been working on this line are changing 
 that policy for one in which the nationals are 
 being given a vital part in the affairs of the 
 mission. A very excellent example is the for- 
 mation of the Arcot Assembly (in India) 
 which in January of this year took over the 
 entire work of the church and the mission. 
 
 The second method of devolution is that 
 
 *The East and the West, 1923, p. 124. Society for Propa- 
 gation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts: also Chinese 
 Recorder, 1917, p. 80, 1923, p. 157, Baptist Missionary 
 Review, 1923, p. 288, 
 
 160 
 
INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 
 of building up the authority of the church 
 from the local church to the district, then to 
 the synod, or diocese. The Anglican bodies 
 have largely followed this procedure. This 
 method has broken down at the same place 
 the first one has, namely, the division of work 
 —the mission with its separate native staff 
 doing the work the church ought to be doing 
 and managing. Why the separation? There 
 comes & time when the two administrations be- 
 come impossible. Many of the best workers 
 prefer missionary service to the work of the 
 church because of the certainty that their posts 
 and salary are secure. The church too is 
 limited to its own self and is tempted to for- 
 get the needs outside as these are falsely re- 
 garded as the task of the mission. In India 
 and Japan particularly steps have been taken 
 to transfer the mission work to the church. 
 The third method is the increase of the au- 
 thority of the nationals by increasing the num- 
 ber of ordained men who have equal powers 
 with the ordained missionaries. This is the 
 policy of the Methodist Episcopal mission 
 work, in connection with which there is no 
 mission in the generally understood meaning 
 of that term. The authority, being vested in 
 the Annual Conference which is composed of 
 ordained men, passes without any process of 
 devolution from the missionaries to the na- 
 161 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 tionals as soon as the latter are in the ma- 
 jority. All institutions and committees are 
 subject to the Annual Conference. Even the 
 character of the missionary is reviewed and 
 reports from all agencies are required by this 
 body. This form of organization with the 
 minimum of friction transfers authority from 
 the missionaries to the nationals. One weak- 
 ness, however, is its failure to provide for ade- 
 quate representation for the laity and for their 
 equal share in the responsibilities of the 
 church. This weakness is shared too by some 
 of the other bodies. The only way it is over- 
 come in the Methodist polity is in the equal 
 lay and clerical representation at the General 
 Conference, the supreme legislative body, 
 meeting once in four years in the United 
 States of America, but this body, because of 
 its international character, cannot give due 
 consideration to the problems of each branch 
 of the church in different lands. Another 
 weakness, though many Methodists will not 
 agree that it is a weakness, is its international 
 character, which interferes with any possible 
 union with other bodies in the formation of 
 national churches. In Japan, however, this 
 difficulty was overcome by separation from the 
 larger body and by a union of three Methodist 
 bodies in Japan itself. 
 
 The question whether a church should be 
 
 162 
 
INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 
 self-supporting before self-government is 
 granted and whether self-government should 
 be granted in proportion to self-support, has 
 been often raised. In some fields the mission 
 has agreed that the church shall govern it- 
 self as soon as it is self-supporting. Most Bap- 
 tist and Congregationalist Missions have 
 adopted that policy in dealing with single 
 churches. The Presbyterians in Japan have 
 done it with an organized body of churches. 
 There a number of Japanese leaders some 
 years ago were even unwilling to receive 
 churches into their organization until they 
 were self-supporting. But ability in self-gov- 
 ernment and ability in self-support cannot 
 always keep together. In some fields, as for 
 example one in the South Sea Islands, the 
 people developed ability to support their 
 church work before they had ability to govern 
 their churches. In other fields the intellectual 
 and moral ability has come before the finan- 
 cial. In such cases it does not seem right to 
 hold back authority from the church. Further- 
 more, the matter of self-support, when applied 
 to a local church, sometimes means one thing 
 and sometimes another. A rich man may have 
 died and endowed the local church. Or the 
 pastor may be supporting himself with the 
 labor of his hands or have enough wealth of 
 his own to forego support by any church. 
 163 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 Again, a church may be paying a poorly 
 trained man five dollars a month and another 
 church a well-trained man one hundred dollars 
 a month. And all goes as self-support. The 
 fact that there is such a variety of circum- 
 stances favors the granting of self-government 
 without any special reference to self-support. 
 Self-government is not a prize to be paid for 
 but a matter of due responsibility. Of course 
 where a church can support itself and will not, 
 it is lacking in the self-respect that is at the 
 basis of self-government. Either education or 
 an operation is needed. But when mentally 
 equipped and morally capable, that is the 
 proper time to grant self-government. When 
 the church can do it, why not let it do it? 
 There has been much said and written re- 
 garding the expenditure of the contributions 
 of Western churches by the missionaries 
 rather than by the nationals. Some think 
 that because the money has been raised in the 
 missionary’s country, the missionary should 
 determine where and how it should be used. 
 This is another species of race discrimination. 
 The money is not the missionary’s any more 
 than it is the national’s. It is the Lord’s 
 money to be used for his work. As it is to be 
 spent in the country of the national, it is 
 sooner or later going to pass into the hands 
 of the nationals. If the missionary allocates 
 164 
 
INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 
 money to a certain object, he is not, however, 
 omnipresent, so that he can see that it is spent 
 as he would have it. The writer knows of 
 many cases too where money turned over to 
 a national was made to stretch much further 
 than it ever could have gone if a missionary 
 had the care of it. In many missions to-day 
 nationals are sitting on boards with mission- 
 aries, deciding what to do with foreign con- 
 tributions. When a vote is taken, the ayes 
 are not all missionaries and the nays all‘ na- 
 tionals. In matters of judgment, therefore, it 
 is not the national against the foreigner, but 
 individual against individual, regardless of 
 nation or race. Some years ago missionaries 
 in certain missions were fearful of letting the 
 nationals know the ins and outs of mission 
 finance. When they did let one or two or 
 even more into meetings, they still had to 
 have secret meetings by themselves for fear 
 the nationals would know it all. As the na- 
 tionals have been taken into confidence more 
 and more and the secret meetings discon- 
 tinued, nothing dreadful has happened. In 
 fact, when nationals have been given the chair- 
 manship of finance committees and been given 
 a majority of votes in such committees, there 
 has been no loss in efficiency nor misuse of 
 funds. There should be no national line drawn 
 here. The problems to be solved are (1) the 
 165 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 capability of the national—a quality which 
 the missionary can easily ascertain by sharing 
 his problems with the nationals, and (2) the 
 willingness of the missionary to give up his 
 control of affairs. If the missionary takes 
 pains to find whether the judgment of the na- 
 tional is sane or not and will put aside preju- 
 dice, the problem will soon be settled. 
 
 The ability of the church to govern itself 
 is best acquired by giving it a chance to try 
 self-government. In India the complaint has 
 been made that the civil government has given 
 more important posts to Indians than the 
 missions have. There are a few who object 
 that if administration is turned over to the 
 nationals, the leaders will be more domineer- 
 ing than ever the missionaries have been. 
 Such an objection, however, must presuppose 
 authority derived from ‘the missionary and 
 not from the church, for if a church finds its 
 leaders adopt a dictatorial attitude, all the 
 church has to do is to vote for a change. The 
 writer has seen the overbearing national effec- 
 tually rebuked by his brethren. These are 
 mere incidents in the process. With a demo- 
 cratically organized church they will be 
 ironed out by the nationals themselves. Such 
 matters need not concern the missionary. His 
 work is to train the church in self-government, 
 and as long as he fails to experiment, how can 
 
 166 
 
INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 
 he expect the church to develop ability? No 
 child has as yet been known to learn how to 
 walk without making the effort himself, and a 
 few falls must come as a matter of course. 
 The policy of the missionary is not faultless, 
 nor is the policy of the church in the home 
 lands. In looking over the whole field one is 
 impressed with the fact that administration 
 has been in a few cases turned over too.soon, 
 or, rather, too suddenly, to the church, but that 
 in most cases there has been too much with- 
 holding of authority. The difficulty in mis- 
 sions where there has been no devolution is 
 that the missionary has kept the reins in his 
 own hands, not trusting the national with 
 power, because he fears the national may mis- 
 use it. The result has been that the national 
 has learned to lean upon the missionary and 
 so has either lost or has not acquired the sense 
 of responsibility he ought to have, or he has 
 gone to the other extreme and thrown off all 
 restraint, starting a church of his own or leay- 
 ing organized Christianity altogether. 
 
 The solution of the difficulty is in taking 
 into confidence from the beginning the church 
 in the person of its leaders, in all things that 
 concern its welfare. This means that admin- 
 istration on the part of the missionary should 
 give way to suggestion and advice as fast as 
 possible. The administration of the sacra- 
 
 167 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 ments, discipline, and the allocation of funds 
 are matters that any body of Christians have 
 opinions on, and the missionary, instead of 
 going ahead without learning these opinions, 
 ought to take time to make inquiry, ought to 
 show clearly that he has respect for those opin- 
 ions, and where he finds them incorrect, should 
 inform or exhort, as the case may require. 
 Usually the missionary has been so much in a 
 hurry to get things done that he has not had 
 time to train nationals to do them and so be 
 fitted to carry the burden which rightly be- 
 longs to them. It has been so much easier and 
 has saved so much time at the moment. But 
 the work is the work of the church, and the 
 church ought to be trained in that work from 
 the very beginning. Through that training 
 there will come the development of the church. 
 
 In fields where no self-government has been 
 granted or where only a measure has been 
 granted, what should be the attitude of the 
 mission? Should self-government be granted 
 as fast as the church asks for it? Or should 
 the mission urge autonomy on the church? Or 
 should it hold back when its judgment so 
 directs? Forcing is an unnatural process. It 
 would seem better to create a desire for self- 
 government in fields where no such desire 
 exists, or in communities which have so long 
 looked up to the missionary as the source of all 
 
 168 
 
INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 
 blessings that they do not want a change, or 
 in the case of the worker who would rather 
 have the missionary rule and also pay his 
 salary for the reason that his own future is in 
 this way better assured. If the appetite for 
 self-government cannot be created in them, it 
 is plainly a sign of disease. Either a drastic 
 self-support plaster or the tonic of a revival 
 meeting may remedy the situation. We would 
 recall here that self-respect will naturally ask 
 for autonomy. Yet in some missions the mis- 
 Sionaries have realized before the nationals 
 that self-government ought to come and have 
 accordingly made provision for the transfer of 
 authority. Where they can anticipate the 
 desires of the nationals and lead them on and 
 up to complete self-government, there is a 
 situation in which the friction is reduced to 
 nothing. This is the ideal. On the other 
 hand, there are cases where the nationals are 
 unreasonable in their demands, or where they 
 have not gotten on well with the missionaries, 
 and therefore ask for authority. Since cases 
 differ so much from one another, it would be 
 very difficult to lay down any principle here 
 other than that of praying and consulting in 
 sympathetic, brotherly fashion with the na- 
 tionals, trusting the Holy Spirit to guide into 
 the truth for the good of the church. 
 
 When the process of devolution is com- 
 
 169 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 pleted, there comes the questions, What shall 
 we do with the missionary? and What shall be 
 the relation of the mission board to the 
 church? In some fields these questions have 
 already been answered. The Samoans have 
 said, “Keep the missionary and pay him.” 
 His spiritual qualities, his advice and the con- 
 nection his presence affords with the rest of 
 the Christian world, are too valuable to lose. 
 In Japan the churches are still able and glad 
 to use the missionary, in some churches not 
 holding him responsible entirely to the church 
 on the field, while in others he is entirely under 
 the church, though paid from abroad. In 
 China the Christian leaders are saying that 
 they do not want the missionary to go, as 
 they need him spiritually. Evidently, if the 
 missionary makes himself indispensable in the 
 realm of the spirit rather than in that of ad- 
 ministration, he has still a long period of use- 
 fulness ahead. And as for the mission boards, 
 though they will have no control over the 
 church, they will still play a great part in the 
 life of all churches that still need financial 
 assistance in education, medical, social, and 
 evangelistic work. 
 
 While we have in this section gone in some 
 detail into the matter of devolution in a tech- 
 nical sense, the organization that now is and 
 the organization that is to be, though impor- 
 
 170 
 
INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 
 tant, are not the primary factors in the matter, 
 The matter of greatest importance is a spirit 
 of Christian brotherhood that has overcome 
 distrust and suspicion with sympathy and 
 “magnanimity, and a deep conviction on the 
 part of the missionary that his task is to serve 
 rather than administer and to train nationals 
 to govern rather than himself to govern. This 
 kind of spirit will make short work of any 
 obstacles that organization may offer. 
 
 Norrt.—It seems hardly necessary to say 
 that as long as the property on which church 
 activities are conducted is owned by a foreign 
 society and both property and Christians are 
 protected by foreign diplomats, the church will 
 be regarded as a foreign institution. 
 
 D. DENOMINATIONALISM AND THE TENDENCY 
 TowARD UNION 
 
 The problem of denominationalism is a very 
 real one on the mission fields to-day, and it is 
 closely allied to the situation at the home base. 
 At the time Protestant missions began there 
 was scarcely any sign of federation among the 
 churches. Each denomination ran its whole 
 work without reference to the feelings or the 
 rights of other denominations. The lack of 
 comity on the mission field is one very good 
 illustration of this, and another is the plant- 
 ing of a church of one denomination across the 
 
 171 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 road from one or another right in our own 
 land. To-day in America we have the Federal 
 Council of Churches, joint meetings of the 
 boards of different denominations to discuss 
 policies, organic union of churches already 
 consummated and others under discussion. 
 The times have changed from division to 
 union. 
 
 The spirit of union has invaded the foreign 
 field. Why one Christ but a divided church? 
 asks the national. The missionary asks the 
 same question. Some seem to feel that they 
 have what they feel is an adequate answer, but 
 their number is diminishing. The progressive 
 man and the progressive woman are saying to- 
 day that union must come. Among the na- 
 tional leaders the feeling is abroad that the 
 denominations are an extra which the missions 
 have brought them, in good faith indeed, but 
 not essential to Christianity; that denomina- 
 tional differences are due to the historical 
 developments of Western lands and that they 
 can therefore well be done away with as of no 
 value to the lands of the mission fields. 
 
 The union movements of our day have been 
 noted in a previous chapter. It will therefore 
 suffice here to recall the fact that much has 
 been done on the fields to unite the various 
 churches, union in general, professional and 
 other education, organic union of churches, 
 
 172 
 
INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 
 national councils, union in publication and 
 other work; but that the task is only well 
 begun is very evident. 
 
 The movements toward union, it is interest- 
 ing to note, have largely been due to the vision 
 of the missionaries, but the nationals have 
 been fast coming into possession of the same 
 attitude. The union of the Presbyterian 
 bodies in India in 1908 was the desire of the 
 missionaries, not that of the nationals. But 
 since then we have noted in another chapter 
 the negotiations between the Indian Malabar 
 of the Mar Thoma Syrian Church, leaders of 
 the Anglican Church and those of the South 
 India United Church for an organic church 
 union. This shows the growth of the desire of 
 the nationals for union. In China there has 
 been the same progress of feeling on the part 
 of nationals. 
 
 But there are difficulties in the way in the 
 organizing of great national churches. 
 
 1. The home constituency has not all come 
 to the point where it is willing to allow its 
 funds to go to an enterprise which unites the 
 converts of their mission with those of another. 
 A proposed organic union in West China, as 
 we have seen, was held up by the Home Boards 
 of more than one church. Not all com- 
 munions, sad to relate, are as eager for church 
 union as the Presbyterians and Congrega- 
 
 173 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 tionalists. Some, in fact, are very chary of 
 the subject. 
 
 2. On the field too denominationalism has 
 often been drilled into the converts so deeply 
 that the nationals are less willing for union 
 than the missionaries. They have been led to 
 believe or have themselves developed the be- 
 lief that no other church is doing the work they 
 are doing and that no other can. Often 
 jealousy of their individual influence is 
 mingled with their denominational convic- 
 tions. The two combined are extremely hard 
 to dislodge. 
 
 3. Ecclesiastical organizations are hard to 
 alter or adapt. This is especially true because 
 of prejudice in favor of what one has become 
 used to. Few have ever studied the organiza- 
 tion of a sister denomination and so they have 
 naturally no sympathy with it. Practically 
 all the unions of churches on the fields have 
 come between churches of the same style of 
 organization, and the others have been of de- 
 nominations of Presbyterian and Congrega- 
 tionalist polity. In the latter case the union 
 was made less difficult than one would antici- 
 pate by the recognition of the Congregational- 
 ists that a closer form of organization than 
 theirs is an advantage on the foreign field. 
 
 4, Inertia is another barrier. The great ma- 
 jority of Christians are satisfied with things 
 
 174 
 
INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 
 as they are. They do not see the use of change. 
 Even many of the leaders are too busy with 
 other problems and are content to let what 
 they consider well enough alone. 
 
 5. Doctrinal views, while to-day dividing 
 not so much between denominations as inside 
 denominations themselves, are still divisive 
 factors. Some denominations still are inclined 
 to discriminate against the doctrinal liberality 
 of others. The matter of the type of baptism, 
 the question of apostolic succession, and the 
 administration of the sacraments are matters 
 on which some denominations are still unwill- 
 ing to give ground, despite a measure of liber- 
 ality on the part of a minority within the 
 churches in question. 
 
 These difficulties indicate that the strength 
 of the movement for united churches, while not 
 insignificant, is still far from universal. In 
 Japan and Latin America denominationalism 
 is at present strong. India, China, the Philip- 
 pines and East Africa have a large body of 
 Christians who want to see union. But in 
 these countries too the difficulties previously 
 mentioned are all operating against union. 
 
 Methods suggested for union have been of 
 two kinds, (1) local and provincial union, and 
 (2) union of bodies of similar church polity. 
 In India we have noted under the first kind 
 of union that of the United Church of South 
 
 175 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 India, and in China unions in Kuangtung, 
 Fukien, Hupeh, and Kansu Provinces. Under 
 the second type of union are the uniting of the 
 Presbyterian bodies in Japan, China, Formosa, 
 Chosen, and India, the union of the Anglican 
 bodies in Japan and China, that of the Meth- 
 odist bodies in Japan, and that of the Luther- 
 ans in China. Beyond these in the growth of 
 Christian unity, if they are consummated, will 
 be the union of the Congregationalists, both 
 English and American, and the Presbyterians 
 of China and the union of the South India 
 Church with the Church Missionary Society 
 and the Mar Thoma Syrian Churches. 
 
 Besides these are the alliance formed at 
 Kikuyu in East Africa and the movement to- 
 ward National Christian Councils in Japan, 
 China, and India, which, though avowedly not 
 looking toward organic union, are great fac- 
 tors toward helping the churches to get to- 
 gether and understand and respect one an- 
 other. The great number of union institutions 
 and other unions are also factors that will 
 have a great bearing on the future. 
 
 What reasonable hope is there then of union 
 into national churches? It will not come to- 
 morrow, but in most of the fields it is nearer 
 than it was even five years ago. In China it 
 is talked about since the 1922 Conference at 
 Shanghai as never before. In India and 
 
 176 
 
INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 
 Japan the present forming of the National 
 Christian Councils is a great step forward, 
 and the actual consummation of a National 
 Christian Council in China is an even greater 
 step. Union as yet is only a fond hope in many 
 hearts. Those who seek shall find, however, 
 and the ever-growing spirit of tolerance and 
 Christian fellowship evidenced in many com- 
 munions is being used of the Holy Spirit to 
 bring about the day when still more far-reach- 
 ing unions than have yet been seen shall be 
 consummated. 
 
 E. THe MISSIONARY’S RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 What is the extent of the responsibility of 
 the missionary for the ultimate form of indige- 
 nous Christianity on the foreign mission 
 fields? This is a question that has had many 
 answers. The Roman Catholic, as already 
 noted, holds that he is responsible for the 
 whole teaching of the church as well as that of 
 the New Testament. He would go so far as to 
 make all church organization subject to the 
 supreme authority of Rome, which, in the opin- 
 ion of the writer, makes a church not indige- 
 nous but imperial. Many Protestant mission- 
 aries have attempted to teach as essentials the 
 doctrines of their church. Most have pro- 
 ceeded on the assumption that their particular 
 form of church government and organization 
 
 177 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 was suited for every age and circumstance. 
 In discipline too many missionaries have tried 
 to apply the one they have been brought up on. 
 In esthetic appreciation and expression also 
 most have brought to the field their accustomed 
 type; in music, ritual, architecture, and other 
 matters no place has been given in most fields 
 for national expression. A great many mis- 
 sionaries in the past have seemed to proceed 
 on the ground that everything native was 
 heathenish and everything European and 
 American, except whisky, was part and parcel 
 of Christianity, even to nightshirts and the 
 English language. 
 
 The standpoint of the national has changed 
 like a kaleidoscope. First he fought bitterly 
 against everything foreign. Next he imitated 
 everything foreign. Now he is discriminating. 
 These changes in attitude indicate first an 
 ignorant fear and scorn of the alien; then, see- 
 ing the power of the foreigner and the useful- 
 ness of his inventions, he tried to adopt them 
 wholesale. The spirit of investigation next set 
 him to appraising. He is now more or less 
 ready to take what is of value, but he also real- 
 izes that his own individuality and that of his 
 eountry are in danger. The rise of national- 
 ism throughout the world has made him set up 
 his own heritage against that of the foreigner 
 and he has come to a new conception of its 
 
 178 
 
INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 
 value. The intelligent Christian to-day is ask- 
 ing for a church that is not bound in any par- 
 ticulars to follow American or European 
 standards, but one that shall be strictly indige- 
 nous. He is asking the missionary to leave his 
 hands off these things and limit himself to the 
 message of Christ. 
 
 Under the caption of “Why an Indigenous 
 Church?” (Chapter II) we have already indi- 
 cated the fact that the most real response and 
 the greatest development can come only 
 through a truly indigenous form of Christian- 
 ity. If the missionary is to be of help in this 
 respect, he must take the attitude not of a 
 dictator but that of an assistant. 
 
 The task of the missionary is (1) to give 
 the message, whether it be by preaching, by 
 friendship, by teaching, by tract, or Bible or 
 other book, by healing or by any other channel 
 through which he can express the love of God 
 in Christ; and (2) to develop leadership 
 among the nationals by instructing, exhorting, 
 advising, suggesting, praying with patience, 
 hoping and believing that God will raise up 
 leaders to carry on his work in his way; and 
 (3) to lay upon the church its responsibility 
 for carrying the message to neighbors near and 
 far, for the development of a Christian system 
 of education and its support, also a Christian 
 literature, and for the care of the body as well 
 
 179 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 as the mind and soul. As Doctor Laws, of the 
 Scottish Livingstonia Mission, has well said, 
 “The missionary should never do any work 
 which the native worker is able to do for him- 
 self.”! His task is to make the church realize 
 its burden and to help it all he can to take up 
 the cross and follow Christ. No missionary 
 with a living evangel burning in his heart will 
 ask for a greater task than this. It is a great 
 pity that in the past so many missionaries 
 have been side-tracked from this great work 
 to take up the task of the divider of the inheri- 
 tance or have served tables. Some will say 
 that these duties are all a part of the task, and 
 it is rightly said, but when such things have 
 had to be done, the missionary should have 
 been training nationals to take them over and 
 he should have avoided as far as possible the 
 assuming of any authority. In the mind of 
 the missionary must be constantly the thought 
 that the church must increase and he must 
 decrease, and his actions should show that he 
 is steadily increasing the power of the church 
 and decreasing his own. 
 
 F. THe RESPONSIBILITY OF THE INDIGENOUS 
 CHURCH 
 In the previous sections has been described 
 
 *World Missionary Conference, Commission I, p. 338. 
 Fleming H. Revell Company. Used by permission. 
 
 180 
 
INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 
 the responsibility of the churches for many 
 things that the missionary has often carried 
 himself, to the exhaustion of body and mind, 
 support and government and many other tasks 
 that are clearly the tasks of the church. The 
 missionary has felt that the nationals were not 
 able to carry the load. The nationals them- 
 selves too, before being awakened from the 
 sleep of centuries of inertia and dependence, 
 were convinced of their inability. 
 
 In the light of this situation one of the 
 most encouraging signs of our times is the 
 recognition by national and missionary alike 
 that the task of evangelizing any country 
 must be undertaken by the nationals them- 
 selves—that it is the task of the church. It 
 is a task in which the missionary will be al- 
 lowed to help, but in which he will not be 
 the leader. His position of leadership in evan- 
 gelistic work has recently passed in Japan. In 
 many organizations in other lands too the 
 leadership in evangelistic work has passed to 
 the church. The same applies to missionary 
 work. The move is to unite all under the care 
 of the church. With the church getting under 
 this burden her future usefulness is assured. 
 
 One of the most successful methods of 
 indigenous evangelism has been employed in 
 central Shansi and northern Shensi Provinces 
 of China. A brief description of the method is 
 
 181 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 all that can be given here. A fuller account is 
 found in the 1919 China Mission Year Book, 
 pp. 109ff. The plan is as follows: Two Chris- 
 tians arrive at a town incognito. They put up 
 at an inn. They next make the acquaintance 
 of two or three of the leading men of the place 
 and gradually introduce to them the subject 
 of Christianity. When they have won them, 
 they suggest getting a hall for the public pres- 
 entation of Christianity. The people see 
 reputable men connected with the new work, 
 so that opposition is practically nil. After a 
 time the missionary comes and calls. When 
 the work is well established, then the local 
 people are encouraged to go and carry out the 
 Same program in another place. This en- 
 courages indigenous leadership, removes prej- 
 udice, opposition, and persecution and does 
 the work at small expense. By placing the 
 work in the hands of the Chinese in this way 
 and laying upon them the responsibility, a 
 strong church is being developed. 
 
 Africa, India, China, Chosen, the Philip- 
 pines, and other fields have shown forms of 
 spontaneous but effective evangelism, some of 
 which we have noted, but with scientific 
 methods and common sense at her disposal in 
 accord with Jesus’ words “Be ye wise as 
 serpents,” the church ought in our day to work 
 some definite plan in evangelism as that de- 
 
 182 
 
INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 
 scribed above. It is a task that requires the 
 most astute mental effort as well as the deep- 
 est, most self-sacrificing consecration, baptized 
 in the Holy Spirit. 
 
 In education and the production of Chris- 
 tian literature the transfer is slower. The 
 evangel is simple, but modern education is a 
 complicated matter, and the development of a 
 literature is a task that takes maturity in the 
 Christian life. But the church must under- 
 take, or, rather, the missionary must show 
 the church that it must, the work of education, 
 authorship, and publication. Reports from 
 every land tell of the foreign missionary 
 leadership in education and literature. As yet 
 the nationals have done but little and the 
 churches have been quite content to let the 
 mission boards finance, produce, and super- 
 intend. This is said in the large. There are 
 exceptions. The church should, as in Western 
 lands, control these matters rather than let 
 foreigners do it. The great mass of literature, 
 textbooks, tracts, devotional books, ete., are 
 translations or the product of Westerners. 
 Bibles bear the imprint of foreign societies. 
 We are a long way from indigenous Chris- 
 tianity in this part of the work. There are 
 signs of the dawn, however; for in Japan na- 
 tionals for some time have been producing 
 Christian literature and in India and China 
 
 183 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 a beginning has been made, but even in these 
 countries the help of the foreigners will be 
 needed for some time yet; and in Africa and 
 other fields where the life of the people is more 
 primitive than in the three Asiatic countries 
 above mentioned, the nationals will have to be 
 in training for some time before they can 
 arrive even at the early stage reached by the 
 Christians in those countries. 
 
 In institutions for the relief of bodily ail- 
 ments the situation is about the same. In 
 Japan entirely and in India to a large extent 
 the government has undertaken this work; but 
 in Africa, China, and many other fields there 
 is still great scope for the development of this 
 branch of the service. But the transfer to the 
 church has not even begun to be made. To 
 many it will seem strange to say that this is 
 work that the church onght to be managing, 
 as this type of institution is so distinctly for- 
 eign in its management. But in the home 
 lands we do not have foreigners in control. It 
 must come in time that the nationals shall be 
 in charge, and the sooner the missionary starts 
 to talk about these institutions as belonging 
 to the church and of their work as the work 
 of the church, the sooner will come the time 
 when the transfer will be made. 
 
 What of the churches on the field in their 
 relation to the country in which they are? 
 
 184 
 
INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 
 This question covers everything from govern- 
 ment to social and industrial conditions. 
 Already the church federations and national 
 councils are giving out their pronouncements 
 regarding working conditions in industry and 
 their views on social questions. City unions 
 of churches have done the same. Campaigns 
 for better sanitary conditions, social ideals, 
 etc., have enlisted the support of the Young 
 Men’s and Young Women’s Christian Asso- 
 ciations and the churches. Definite results 
 have been accomplished, in Osaka, Japan, in 
 the limiting of vice, and in Canton, China, in 
 stopping gambling. In this connection there 
 is the great task of adapting national customs 
 to Christian ends, filling them with Christian 
 meaning. A beginning has been made in some 
 quarters. <A particular instance is the work 
 of the Wesley Methodist Church, of Tientsin, 
 China, where a wealthy Chinese Christian is 
 financing the organization of a society for 
 adapting funeral and wedding ceremonies, pre- 
 serving their Chinese character, yet making 
 them Christian in spirit, and striving for 
 higher ideals in the family. In India and 
 Japan as well as in China there is a very 
 strong sentiment among the educated Chris- 
 tians for the preservation of features of the 
 national life. It would seem that in these 
 countries at least the missionaries could safely 
 185 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 leave these matters to the churches, render- 
 ing aid or giving advice when asked. 
 
 When we consider the churches of the dif- 
 ferent countries in their international rela- 
 tions, we see a great task ahead of them. In 
 the countries of Europe, Christianity, though 
 supposedly at the helm, was unable to stave 
 off the Great War. The bond that united 
 Christianity was insufficient to check the na- 
 tions in their mad fury. Will the churches on 
 the mission fields unite so strongly in interna- 
 tional fellowship that they will be able to 
 prevent a repetition of that awful cataclysm? 
 Strained relations of a few years ago that led 
 to the refusal of the Chinese churches to send 
 delegates to Japan to the World Sunday 
 School Convention in Tokyo have been healed 
 over. This, the most outstanding break on the 
 mission field, has changed for an ever more 
 cordial feeling between the Christians of the 
 two countries. The National Councils have a 
 splendid opportunity in this field to cement 
 international friendship. 
 
 186 
 
CHAPTER V 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 CHRISTIAN character is the objective of all 
 missionary work. We want the world filled 
 with people who live the Christ life. But the 
 finest Christian character is developed not in 
 solitude but in social contacts. Christianity 
 is nothing if not a social religion. Jesus, the 
 founder, was supremely interested in people. 
 He spent the greater part of his time with 
 them, and it was in them that he placed his 
 hopes. “But where there is no vision the peo- 
 ple perish.” 
 
 Jesus prayed all night before selecting the 
 men who were to be the leaders of his fol- 
 lowers, for he knew that true leadership has 
 the vision that keeps the people from perish- 
 ing. From the way Jesus worked with these 
 future leaders, we can see that he was 
 thoroughly convinced that his training of them 
 was allimportant. He sought to perfect them, 
 that they might truly represent him when he 
 must leave them. And to-day, much as the 
 missionary sometimes feels he needs money, it 
 is quite safe to say that any missionary would 
 
 187 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 rate a consecrated worker of ability above any 
 amount of money. 
 
 We would then place first of all to-day the 
 training of more leaders. This is the great 
 task in the raising up of an indigenous church. 
 We must have men filled with the power of 
 the Holy Spirit, men who have the balance of 
 a well-rounded education, men who have inde- 
 pendence of spirit, initiative, self-respect, men 
 who are unreservedly committed to the task 
 of creating churches worthy of the Christ who 
 gave himself for them and “ever liveth to make 
 intercession” for them. To assist in the train- 
 ing up of a larger body of such men and 
 women is the main task before the missionary ; 
 for, sooner or later, to them must be committed 
 the burden the missionary has carried. 
 
 As we have tried to show, this task is not 
 one of handing over any mass of doctrine, nor 
 one that requires any show of authority of an 
 external nature, but the living of the life of 
 Christ by the missionary and his helpful, sym- 
 pathetic cooperation. Nothing can be suc- 
 cessfully forced upon those who have arrived 
 at years of discretion. Far more can be ac- 
 complished by the practice of love than by the 
 use of authority. Authority may coerce, but, 
 when removed, a reaction is sure to follow. 
 Love, on the other hand, compels with the con- 
 sent of the loved. The churches on the fields 
 
 188 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 will have the advantage of a running start 
 when the missionary is no longer needed, if 
 they are given the place of responsibility and 
 encouraged to take control of their own affairs. 
 
 The future of the churches in the fields, 
 judging from the signs of a sense of respon- 
 sibility among the churches, particularly 
 among the leaders, is bright. These leaders 
 have, many of them, an aspiration to make 
 their Christianity so national that it may not 
 only get into the hearts of their people, but 
 may also develop, because indigenous, a more 
 real Christianity; that is, one truer to Christ, 
 and one that shall in that power contribute 
 to the world something that shall be both 
 original and a boon to mankind. There is ex- 
 cellent prospect for the fulfillment of this long- 
 ing. Jesus himself was an Oriental, and his 
 religion, brought back into that environment 
 of the Orient after centuries of banishment to 
 the Occident, where his teachings have often 
 been sadly warped and sadly neglected, 
 though accepted in a measure, should shine 
 forth with a new radiance in the lives of the 
 people of the East and those of Africa, who 
 with the people of India possess such deeply 
 religious natures. With all that science has 
 brought us, with the present longing for a 
 world-wide Christian unity, with the experi- 
 ence of the church, mistakes surely ought to 
 
 189 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 be at a minimum, and these new children of 
 the Father can reasonably look forward to a 
 remarkable growth in the Lord Jesus. 
 
 As to the character of the church, unless all 
 present signs fail, it is going to be indigenous. 
 These are days of democracy and nationalism. 
 With all due respect to the Roman Catholie 
 followers of Christ and with the greatest ad- 
 miration for the devotion of their missionaries, 
 one cannot but feel that in our day their ideal 
 of a great imperial church is out of date. 
 Though such a system as that of our Catholic 
 friends has a hold and will continue to have a 
 hold for some time to come upon large numbers 
 of people, the handwriting on the wall, already 
 seen in Europe and in Latin America in the 
 attitude of the educated men, shows clearly 
 which type of Christianity is going to count 
 for the most in the future for the betterment 
 of the whole world. 
 
 It is full time for all of the Protestant mis- 
 sionaries, who with the Roman Catholic are 
 not consciously striving to build up indige- 
 nous churches, to look the mission fields over 
 carefully and see what our brothers and sisters 
 of these fields have been doing. They are 
 proving themselves our equals and sometimes 
 our superiors in the Christian life. Let us 
 give them the right hand of fellowship. Let 
 us treat them no longer as children, but as 
 
 190 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 brothers and sisters in Christ. In racial and 
 national distinctions we must still abide; their 
 customs are not ours, their standards are not 
 ours; but let us not expect of them what they 
 have not a right to expect of us. If we treat 
 them as different socially, we should yet treat 
 them as our equals socially. Their rights are 
 as precious as ours, and it is due to them as 
 Christian brothers and sisters that they be 
 respected. The same God made us all. The 
 same Christ died for us all, and in him there 
 is neither bond nor free, but all one creature. 
 
 The church that is built up upon this basis 
 instead of upon patronage, will become a self- 
 respecting church just as our churches in 
 Western lands are. God will raise up leaders 
 as he has ever done in the church and his 
 power will be the guiding hand. The broad- 
 minded leadership of Christian statesmen, 
 theirs and ours, we trust may some day unite 
 all Christendom, yes, all the world, in one 
 great church Universal. 
 
 “City of God, how broad and far 
 Outspread thy walls sublime! 
 The true thy chartered freemen are, 
 Of every age and clime.” 
 —Samuel Johnson. 
 
 191 
 
oo 
 ey? 
 
 sii Wire 
 tT 
 
 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 The following sources of information have been 
 used in the preparation of this work, to the pub- 
 lishers of which the author desires to acknowledge 
 indebtedness : 
 
 Allen, Alexander V. G.—Christian Institutions. 
 New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1897. 
 
 Allen, Roland—Missionary Methods, Saint Paul’s 
 or Ours? New York and Chicago, Fleming H. 
 Revell Company, 1918. 
 
 American Arcot Mission—Mysore. Wesleyan 
 Mission Press, 1921, 1922. 
 
 American Board of Commissioners for Foreign 
 Missions, Annual Report, Boston, 1913-1922, 
 inclusive. 
 
 Arcot Assembly, The Second Meeting of the Tem- 
 porary Organization of, Vellore, January 4-7, 
 1928. 
 
 Baptist Convention, North, The Annual of the— 
 Philadelphia, American Baptist Publication 
 Society, 1909-1922, inclusive. 
 
 Baptist Convention, South, Annual Report of the 
 Foreign Mission Board to the—Richmond, Va., 
 1919-1922, inclusive. 
 
 Baptist Missionary Review, The—Bizwada, India. 
 American Baptist Telugu Mission, 1895-1923, 
 inclusive. 
 
 Barnes, L. C.—Two Thousand Years of Missions 
 Before Carey. Chicago, The Christian Culture 
 Press, 1900. 
 
 193 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 Carpenter C. H.—Self-support Illustrated in the 
 History of the Bassein Karen Mission from 
 1840-1880. Boston, Rand, Avery & Co., 1883. 
 
 Cary, Otis—A History of Christianity in Japan. 
 New York, Fleming H. Revell Company, 1909. 
 
 Centenary Conference of the Protestant Missions 
 of the World, Report of the—London, 1888. 
 2 vols., New York, Fleming H. Revell Company, 
 1888. 
 
 Century of Protestant Missions in China, A— 
 Shanghai, American Presbyterian Press, 1907. 
 
 China Centenary Missionary Conference Records, 
 1907. American Tract Society, 1907. 
 
 China Mission Year Book—Shanghai, Christian 
 Literature Society, 1910-1923, inclusive. 
 
 Chinese Church as Revealed in the National Chris- 
 tian Conference of 1922, The—Editorial Com- 
 mittee, F. Rawlinson, Chairman, Shanghai, 
 Oriental Press, 1923. 
 
 Chinese Recorder, The—Shanghai, Presbyterian 
 Mission Press, 1910-1923, inclusive. 
 
 Christian Movement in Japan, The—Tokyo, pub- 
 lished for the Standing Committee of Coopera- 
 tive Christian Missions, 1903-1923, inclusive. 
 
 Christian Occupation of China, The—Milton T. 
 Stauffer, secretary and editor. Shanghai, 
 China Continuation Committee, 1922. 
 
 Church Missionary Review—London, Church Mis- 
 sionary Society, 1907-1923, inclusive. 
 
 Coleridge, Henry James—Life and Letters of Saint 
 Francis Xavier, 2 vols., third edition, London, 
 Burns & Oats, 1876. 
 
 Conference on Missions, held in 1860 at Liverpool 
 —London, James Nisbet & Co., 1860. 
 
 Continuation Committee Conferences in Asia, 
 
 194 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 1912-1913. New York, published by Chairman 
 of the C. C. C., 1918. 
 
 Cunningham-Graham, R. B.—A Vanished Arca- 
 dia. London, William Heineman, 1901. 
 
 Dennis, James 8.—Christian Missions and Social 
 Progress, 3 vols. New York, Fleming H. Revell 
 Company, 1897. 
 
 DuPlessis, J. A.—History of Christian Missions 
 in South Africa. London and New York, Long- 
 mans, Green & Co., 1911. 
 
 East and the West, The—London, The Society for 
 the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 
 1907-1923, inclusive. 
 
 Etheridge, J. W.—The Syrian Churches and the 
 Gospels. London, Longmans, Green, Brown & 
 Longmans, 1846. 
 
 Ecumenical Missionary Conference, New York, 
 1900. New York, American Tract Society, 1900. 
 2 vols. 
 
 Fisher, George P.—History of the Christian 
 Church. New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 
 1890. 
 
 Fleming, D. J—Contacts with Non-Christian Cul- 
 tures. A Case Book in the Christian Movement 
 Abroad. New York, George H. Doran Com- 
 pany, 1928. 
 
 Fleming, D. J.—Devolution in Mission Adminis- 
 tration. New York, Fleming H. Revell Com- 
 pany, 1916. 
 
 Foreign Missions, Proceedings of the General 
 Conference on, held at the Conference hall in 
 Mildmay Park, London, October, 1878. lLon- 
 don, Jno. F. Shaw & Co., 1879. 
 
 Foreign Missions Conference of North America. 
 
 195 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 New York, Foreign Missions Library, 1893- 
 1923, inclusive. 
 
 Guiness, M. Geraldine—The Story of the China 
 Inland Mission. London, Morgan & Scott, 1900. 
 
 Hall, G. Stanley—Youth. New York, D. Apple- 
 ton & Co., 1907. 
 
 Harnack, Adolf—The Mission and Expansion of 
 Christianity in the First Three Centuries. 
 Translated and edited by James Moffatt. 2 vols. 
 Second edition. New York, G. P. Putnam’s 
 Sons, 1908. 
 
 Hatch, Edwin—Growth of Christian Institutions. 
 New York, Thomas Whittaker, 1887. 
 
 Helps, Arthur—Jife of Las Casas. London, Bell 
 & Daldy, 1868. 
 
 Hobhouse, Walter—The Church and the World 
 in Idea and in History. Second edition. Lon- 
 don, The Macmillan Company, 1916. 
 
 Hopkins, E. Washburn—The History of Religions. 
 New York, The Macmillan Company, 1918. 
 Horne, C. Silvester—The Story of the London 
 Missionary Society. London, London Mission- 
 
 ary Society, 1894. 
 
 Hurst, Jno. F.—Short History of the Christian 
 Church. New York, Harper & Brothers, 1893. 
 
 International Review of Missions—London and 
 New York, Oxford University Press and Mis- 
 sionary Education Movement, Committee of 
 Reference and Council, 1912-1923, inclusive. 
 
 India, Burma and Ceylon, The Year Book of Mis- 
 sions in—Edited by the Rev. J. P. Jones. Chris- 
 tian Literature Society for India, 1912. 
 
 Japan Evangelist—Tokyo, Kyo Bun Kwan, 1894— 
 1897, inclusive; 1921-1923, inclusive. 
 
 196 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Koebel, W. H.—Jn Jesuit Land. London, Stan- 
 ley Paul & Co., 1912. 
 
 Lloyd, Arthur—The Creed of Half Japan. Lon- 
 don, E. P. Dutton & Co., 1911. 
 
 Lutheran Church in America, Annual Report of 
 the Foreign Missions of the United—Baltimore, 
 1919-1922, inclusive. 
 
 McConaughey, David—The World Work of the 
 Presbyterian Church in the United States of 
 America. New York, Presbyterian Board of 
 Publication, 1912. 
 
 McGlinchey, Joseph F.—Conversion of the Pagan 
 World. ‘Translated from the Italian of Rev. 
 Paolo Manna. Boston, Society for the Propa- 
 gation of the Faith, 1921. 
 
 MacLear, George Frederick—History of Christian 
 Missions During the Middie Ages. Cambridge 
 and London, The Macmillan Company, 1863. 
 
 Martindale, Cyril Charlie—In God’s Army. 8 vols. 
 London, R. & T. Washbourne, 1915-1917. 
 
 Mathews, Shailer—Art. ‘Theology and the Social 
 Mind,” in Biblical World, vol. xlvi, 1915, p. 206. 
 
 Merivale, Charles—The Conversion of the North- 
 ern Nations. London, Longmans, Green & Co., 
 1866. 
 
 Merriam, E. F.—A History of the American Bap- 
 tist Missions. Philadelphia, American Baptist 
 Publication Society, 1900. 
 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, The Annual Report 
 of the Board of Foreign Missions of the—New 
 York, 1913-1922, inclusive. 
 
 Moore, E. C.—The Spread of Christianity in the 
 Modern World. Chicago, University of Chicago 
 Press, 1919. 
 
 197 
 
NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 
 
 Moore, G. F.—History of Religions. New York, 
 Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1919. 
 
 Panama Congress, 1916. Christian Work in Latin 
 America. New York, The Missionary Educa- 
 tion Movement, 1917. 3 vols. 
 
 Parkman, Francis—The Jesuits in North Amer- 
 ica. Third edition. Boston, Little, Brown & 
 Co., 1868. 
 
 Presbyterian Church in the United States of 
 America, Annual Report of the Board of For- 
 eign Missions of the—19138-1922, inclusive. 
 
 Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States 
 of America, Annual Report, Board of Missions. 
 New York, 1913-1921, inclusive. 
 
 Rainy, Robert—The Ancient Catholic Church. 
 New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1902. 
 
 Reformed Church in America, Annual Report of 
 the Board of Foreign Missions of the—New 
 York, 1914-1928, inclusive. 
 
 Regional Conferences in Latin America—New 
 York, Missionary Educational Movement, 1917. 
 
 Reid, J. M., and J. T. Gracey—Missions and the 
 Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church. New York, The Methodist Book Con- 
 cern, 1895. 
 
 Richter, Julius—A History of Missions in India. 
 Translated by S. H. Moore. New York, Flem- 
 ing H. Revell Company, 1908. 
 
 Robinson, Charles H.—The Conversion of Europe. 
 London, Longmans, Green & Co., 1917. 
 
 Robinson, Charles H.—History of Christian Mis- 
 sions. New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1915. 
 
 Schmidt, C—The Social Results of Early Chris- 
 tianity. Translated by Mrs. Thorpe. London, 
 Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd., 1907. 
 
 198 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Stock, Eugene—History of the Church Missionary 
 Society. London, Church Missionary Society, 
 1899. . 
 
 Strong, William E.—The Story of the American 
 Board. Boston, The Pilgrim Press, 1910. 
 
 Ulhorn, Gerhard—Conflict of Christianity with 
 Heathenism. Edited and translated from the 
 third German edition by Egbert C. Smyth and 
 C. J. H. Ropes. New York, Charles Scribner’s 
 Sons, 1879; revised edition, 1912. 
 
 United Presbyterian Church of North America, 
 The Annual Report of the Foreign Missions of 
 the—1912-1921, inclusive. 
 
 Warneck, Gustav—Outline of a History of Chris- 
 tian Missions. Translated from the seventh 
 German edition by George Robson. New York, 
 Fleming H. Revell Company, 1901. 
 
 Weizicker, Carl von—The Apostolic Age of the 
 Christian Church. Translated from the second 
 and revised edition by James Millar. New 
 York, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1894. 
 
 World Missions Conference (Edinburgh, 1910), 9 
 vols. New York, Fleming H. Revell Company, 
 1910. 
 
 World Service of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
 The—R. E. Diffendorfer, editor. Chicago, 
 Methodist Episcopal Church Council of Boards 
 of Benevolence, Committee on Conservation and 
 Advance, 1923. 
 
 Yohannan, Abraham—The Death of a Nation. 
 New York, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1916. 
 
 199 
 
a fl € 
 a gee nae E 
 Ree cit ia aoa 
 i mi ae i at ar Hie: + ae 
 ie yas Bret PN Ne Et Suds ee 
 cont, ns Sea) pg ee een "ee by Bie, rae lh thas yon 
 fi) OHS Vy ~ ha a SO 
 ent Wenn * nie Hee ee aie 
 %, - one ae pa ni eae pres Atg 
 ea nae Ad one yn rail i; ou i ¥j : A 5 he Pn > 
 
 ef a yan, 
 eg ears a ey 
 7 0) Sats me art ne A 
 ha ee : 
 
 coe ‘nie a F 
 oo eae a 
 
 
 
mu) A yy Ea ast! } 
 Ratan Yo Res at 
 nt f cy i Ly t Mt 
 wry ‘al 
 
 fay 
 
 
 
wm 
 
 ew) 
 0 
 
 Z a 
 oO 
 
 = 
 
 oO 
 
 ry —_— 
 
 Ry a = 
 ry Eee I 3 bic 9 
 i a = 
 
 a | 
 
 cm 
 ~ As 
 = tote << # : 
 
 fs) els + 
 > Se 
 
 I 
 ee 
 
 NINN 
 3