Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, edited by Gerald H. Anderson. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998. 845 pages, including Index and a multi-part Appendix.
After many years of on-and-off reading, a page or two at a time, I finally finished this magnificent volume.
Honestly, I was sad when I came to the end of the biographies, for they had opened my eyes, enlightened my mind, and stirred my heart. Though published more than twenty years ago, this massive compendium of information remains an essential resource for all students of Christian missions, world Christianity, and world history.
“Information” doesn’t capture the wealth of these brief entries. Somehow, almost all the contributors were able to include not only the basic biographical data for each person (name, dates, nationality, education, affiliations, accomplishments, publications, etc.), but also a few words of insightful analysis and evaluation. We learn not only who they were and what they did, but how they fit into their historical contexts and, usually, what they contributed to the Christian mission worldwide.
In other words, this dictionary is not just filled with essential facts, but also helpful interpretation. Unless you possess comprehensive knowledge about the entire history of the worldwide Christian mission, you will find virtually every article not only informative but also stimulating.
“Written by 350 experts from 45 countries,” The Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions contains “2,400 original, signed biographies portraying missionaries from the patristic age to the present, representing” all branches of Christianity, “arranged in an A-Z format” (from the back cover).
Who were the missionaries?
Reading through this volume gave me a new understanding of the scope, variety, history, and immense reach of the Christian missionary movement over the past 2,000 years.
Extensive appendices track this international workforce: From the early church to 800 A.D., more than sixty pioneers and church leaders carried the gospel throughout the Roman Empire and beyond. The dictionary gives biographies of more than ninety significant figures born from 800 to 1500 A.D. After that, the numbers explode: Around 800+ from 1500 to 1800; 1,000 from 1801-1850; 1100+ from 1851-1900; tapering to 600 from 1900 to the latter part of the 20th century.
Of course, these articles represent only a tiny fraction of the total missionary and support force. We are reading only about the truly outstanding ones, but not all the significant workers.
In the past two centuries, women have comprised a major part of missionaries and missions advocates. The BDCM contains biographies of 300 of the most notable figures. Still, the great preponderance of entries about men reflects at least two facts: 1) for more than 1,600 years, most missionaries and senders were single men; and 2) after the Protestant missions movement gained momentum, most Protestant female missionaries were wives of men, many of whose stories appear in this volume. They were, of course, indispensable companions, helpers, and partners in the work of their husbands, even if they do not receive separate mentions.
Since Stephen, Peter, Paul, and the apostles, martyrdom has been common. Articles on more than 100 “martyrs” demonstrate the high cost of spreading the gospel.
Where did they live and serve?
The Christian missionary movements began in the Roman Empire and its neighbors then spread throughout the world, reaching almost every nation by the middle of the 20th century. This volume includes entries on about 470 Christian witnesses to Sub-Saharan Africa; 390 to Central and Northern Asia (including China, Mongolia, Tibet, Nepal, Afghanistan, and Siberia); 400 to India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka; around 140 in Japan and Korea; around 240 to Southeast Asia; 560 in Europe; 110 in the Middle East (including Western Asia); 575 in North America (including Central America and Mexico); 100 to the Pacific Islands; and 175 to South America.
Several things stand out: The large number of Christian senders and missionaries in Europe reflects the long history of Christian expansion in Europe from the time of the early church. Sub-Saharan Africa, India, and North Asia, especially China, were major centers of Christian witness, especially after the 16th century; and the huge proportion of entries of those serving in North America shows that colonization and settling were accompanied by vigorous missionary work among the native populations in the first few centuries. The United States and Canada were bases for sending cross-cultural witnesses for more than a hundred years, and churches in those two countries engaged in energetic outreach of many kinds to their own growing populations.
What did they do?
Because of the particular focus of this website, in the following discussion I will restrict myself to examples from Westerners, especially Protestants, who were involved in the missionary movement in China.
Note: Missionaries whose names are followed with an asterisk (*) are also subjects of shorter or longer articles in the online Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity. Two asterisks (**) after a name indicate that the person is treated in even greater detail in Builders of the Chinese Church, edited by G. Wright Doyle (Wipf & Stock, 2014).
Preaching and Bible teaching
For the first hundred years, most Protestant missionaries considered their first task to be proclaiming the gospel through preaching and teaching. Especially after the First Opium War, when treaty ports were opened to foreigners, missionaries communicated their message in street chapels, open-air venues, religious temples, marketplaces, tea shops, and anywhere else they could gain an audience. Space would not allow us to list their names. From William Milne*, David Abeel*, Elijah Bridgman*, and William C. Burns*, to J. Hudson Taylor**, John Nevius* and Jonathan Goforth**, they traversed the length and breadth of China, engaging in evangelism and elementary biblical teaching of converts.
Even Timothy Richard used oral proclamation in his early years, along with teaching Christians to memorize large portions of the Bible, before he turned to other methods. In the twentieth century, when more and more missionaries focused on social reform and education, at least half of the foreign workers still made preaching and teaching their main activity. Though members of the China Inland Mission (CIM) like J.O. Fraser* and David Adeney* are often mentioned by Chinese and Westerners alike, other societies fielded intrepid evangelists and preachers, like the Baptist heroine Lottie Moon*.
Literature work
Bible translation
From the beginning, Protestants placed the highest priority on translating the Bible into Chinese. Believing that the Scriptures alone were the inspired Word of God, and that both initial faith and consistent Christian living must stem from a knowledge of the truths revealed in the Bible, they expended enormous time, energy, and resources to produce one translation after another in various dialects of Chinese.
Robert Morrison** (1782-1834) paved the way, of course, with the help of William Milne* (1785-1822), who later joined Morrison in the work. Together, they completed the translation of the entire Bible in 1819. Morrison saw his translation as only a first step. Others quickly began the task of revising his version to make it more accurate and readable. For the next one hundred years, usually working in teams but sometimes singly, Samuel Dyer*, Charles Gutzlaff*, Hudson Taylor**, Walter Henry Medhurst*, John L. Nevius*, Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereshewsky*, Griffith John**, W.A.P. Martin**, and a host of others took time from other tasks to make the Scriptures available to Chinese readers. Their efforts culminated in the publication in 1919 of the Chinese Union Version, which is still the most widely used translation of the Bible in Chinese.
Missionaries also reduced several minority languages to writing and published portions of the Bible in those new scripts. George W. Hunter*, with the China Inland Mission, translated “scripture portions into Kazak and a dialect of Kalmuk or Western Mongolian,” along with tracts. Samuel Pollard*, another CIM worker, developed the “Pollard script,” which he used when he translated the New Testament into the Miao language. J.O. Fraser* reduced the Lisu language to writing and produced translations of the Bible, a hymnal, catechism, and other Christian books.
Reference works
Here, too, Morrison** was the pioneer, with his massive three-volume Chinese-English and English-Chinese Dictionary, a Grammar of the Chinese Language, three-volume Vocabulary of the Canton Dialect (Chinese-English, English-Chinese), plus smaller works. J. Hudson Taylor** added cross-references to his revision of the Ningbo New Testament. Schereshewsky* produced reference Bibles in Mandarin and Easy Wenli. Samuel Wells Williams*, like Morrison, compiled a dictionary, called A Syllabic Dictionary of the Chinese Language.
Tracts and books
By 1895, many Protestant missionaries had acquired enough facility in the written language to have produced several thousand books and tracts on Christian subjects. The “tracts” ranged in length from a few to several hundred pages. These were a testimony to the missionaries’ intelligence and diligence, though they almost always employed Chinese assistants. W.A.P. Martin’s** Tiantao Suyuan (Evidences of Christianity) “was recognized by the 1907 Centennial Missionary Conference as the single best Christian book of the century” (437). John Nevius* authored A Manual for Inquirers. Samuel Schereschewsky* published a Chinese Book of Common Prayer.
Believing that Western knowledge on all subjects, written from a Christian perspective, should be made available to Chinese, missionaries published a large number of textbooks and some influential periodicals. Calvin Mateer* was outstanding in this regard, as were Alexander Williamson* and Timothy Richard**.
Education
From the beginning, missionaries opened schools. Usually, they began with primary schools, though a system of intermediate and then higher education later emerged from the Protestant missionary movement. Almost all missionaries thought that primary schools were an effective means of gaining trust and doing good in pioneer outreach. Later, they sought to educate the children of converts, then to train Chinese church works and evangelists, and finally to educate elite youth in Western learning.
Hudson Taylor** began teaching Chinese children within months of arriving in Shanghai, and other CIM missionaries followed suit, but the CIM in general did not rely on these schools as much as other missions did. Missionaries differed about whether English should be taught. Calvin Mateer* insisted on Chinese, while others advocated English, which finally became the practice in mission-founded colleges.
Young J. Allen* established one of several high schools. Timothy Richard** and Samuel Schereshewsky* founded universities. George Leslie Mackay* founded Oxford College in Tamsui, Taiwan, and a theological school that became Taiwan Theological College near Taipei.
Beginning with William Milne’s wife Rachel*, missionaries pioneered education for girls in China. Eliza Jane Bridgman*, wife of Elijah Bridgman*, who opened the Bridgman School in Beijing and then in Shanghai, was only one of hundreds of married and single missionary women who made the education of girls their major form of ministry. Martha Foster Crawford*, wife of Tarleton P. Crawford*, devoted some of her best energies to teaching Chinese children.
By teaching Chinese converts to read the Bible, missionaries produced a significant group of Chinese whose level of literacy far exceeded that of the population as a whole.
Medical work
From the beginning, showing God’s love through physical healing complemented their missionary methods. The famed eye surgeon Peter Parker* is said to have “opened China at the point of a lancet.” J. Hudson Taylor** received training in medicine, surgery, and midwifery. In Ningbo, he ran the hospital begun by his fellow missionary William Parker after Parker had to leave China. In Hangzhou, the base of the first group of CIM workers, he opened a clinic where he saw hundreds of patients each week. The CIM went on to found many hospitals and clinics, but they were not alone.
Notable missionary physicians included John Kenneth Mackenzie in Tianjin. Dougald Christie pioneered medical work and medical education in Manchuria, where he founded Manchuria’s first hospital and Mukden Medical College, as well as propounding a comprehensive philosophy of medical missions as “integral, not ancillary, to the gospel.” Nelson Bell*, a Southern Presbyterian, turned the Love and Mercy Hospital in Hauiyin into one of the largest in China.
Introducing China to the West
Following in the footsteps of learned Roman Catholics, Protestant missionaries served as the primary interpreters of China to the West well into the twentieth century. Morrison** wrote about Chinese customs, as well as a multitude of other subjects, in his massive dictionary. J. Hudson Taylor** was made a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society for his observations on the flora and fauna; his articles in the CIM journal China’s Millions later, supplemented by contributions from Cim workers, covered all aspects of Chinese life. Other invaluable introductions included John Nevius’s* China and the Chinese; W.A.P. Martin’s* Cycle of Cathay and Lore of Cathay; James Legge’s* monumental translations of the Chinese classics; Samuel Wells Williams’* two-volume The Middle Kingdom, and Kenneth Scott Latourette’s The Chinese: Their History and Culture. (1967). Other noted Sinologists included Alexander Wylie*, Joseph Edkins*, and Frederick William Baller*. Though not included in this volume, Helen Nevius’ biography of her husband, Our Life in China, and R.H. Graves’ Forty Years in China (1895) both reflected careful and sympathetic observation of Chinese society
Famine relief
When the terrible famine of 1877-78 hit northern China, most missionaries dropped everything else and plunged into emergency relief work. Timothy Richard** is famous for his brilliant organization of relief efforts in cooperation with the government, but many others, including John L. Nevius* and Jenny Faulding Taylor* (Hudson Taylor’s second wife) worked tirelessly in the devastated hinterland to provide food and money to destitute sufferers.
Missionaries and Western imperialism
We know that some missionaries served as agents for foreign entities as interpreters, negotiators, or even diplomats. Robert Morrison** worked as an interpreter for the East India Company; Peter Parker* was U.S. commissioner plenipotentiary for almost two years (1855-57); W.A.P. Martin** “participated actively in the American delegation that produced the Treaty of Tientsin” in 1860. There were many others. Some expressed too much enthusiasm for the “unequal treaties” that opened China to both merchants and missionaries.
In their roles as negotiators, however, these men generally endeavored to mitigate the harsher proposed terms of the treaties in favor of the Chinese. Without their active intervention, the resulting treaties would have been worse for China.
Most missionaries did not approve of the use of force to “open” China, and none of them approved of the hated opium trade, but they all saw the results of Western aggression as the sovereign work of God in making the gospel available to the Chinese people.
What were they like?
We often read that foreign missionaries were proud, arrogant, and contemptuous of the Chinese and their culture. When we look more closely, however, we find that, though there were undoubtedly some missionaries who conformed to this caricature, the vast majority lived lives of love, patience, incredible hard work, and self-sacrifice. They loved the Chinese as individuals, even if their Christian convictions led them to criticize certain aspects of Chinese culture and society.
True, a few were like Tarleton P. Crawford, who everyone agrees was “dogmatic and often irascible” and “repeatedly absorbed with missionary colleagues and nationals.” These types were notable for their rarity, however. The overwhelming majority come across as sincere servants of Christ seeking to bring health and true happiness to the Chinese, whom they loved, and to the nation in which they served, usually for many decades.
Not a few, like William Burns*, J. Hudson Taylor**, and Lottie Moon*, impressed those who knew them by their extraordinary love for God and for others, expressed by heroic labors and apostolic suffering for the cause of the gospel.
Most of the missionaries showed their respect for Chinese culture by expending time and effort to learn the language, familiarize themselves with the customs, and live kindly among the people they came to serve.
Though they did not usually tell us the full names of their Chinese co-workers, it is clear that they loved, admired, and valued them as indispensable partners in their work.
Despite their theological differences, they generally cooperated with members of other missionary societies, eventually forging impressive bonds of unity and cooperation, until the disruptive Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy of the early twentieth century. We see this in the various cooperative endeavors, including Bible translation, literature production, “comity agreements,” and the major missionary conferences, where all worshiped together in a spirit of love and harmony, despite their differences of opinion over some matters of policy. The irreconcilable theological and missiological conflict between J. Hudson Taylor** and Timothy Richard** was an outstanding exception, again until the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy.
The missionaries’ legacy
What we have seen in the careers of missionaries to China could equally be said of the countless numbers of Christians who crossed cultural boundaries to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to peoples all over the world throughout Christian history, as masterfully illustrated in the Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions.
What of their legacy?
Very briefly: Missionaries throughout the centuries have been used by God to bring the saving knowledge of Christ to countless individuals; create churches of local believers; introduce literacy; bring healing; re-vitalize local languages; diffuse the knowledge of different cultures to people of their home nations, thus creating an ever-widening body of understanding and appreciation of our common humanity and our unity in Christ; and lay the foundation for a worldwide Christian community.
As Robert Woodberry has shown, Christian missions and indigenous churches founded economic, social, legal, and political reforms, including the introduction of Western law and even constitutional changes. Andrew Spencer lists some of Woodberry’s findings:
“Not only did they educate people, but missionaries brought in the concept of private property so traders wouldn’t take advantage of them. They taught new skills, like carpentry and advanced agricultural techniques. Missionaries introduced new crops to countries, which gave indigenous people opportunities to engage in trade with products that were desirable in Europe” (Andrew Spencer, “How Christian Missionaries Changed the World for Better,” accessed July 10, 2020).
In the last two centuries, Protestant missionaries in China and elsewhere have left two enduring legacies: first, as already mentioned, the existence of self-supporting, self-propagating, and self-governing churches in every nation and in thousands of people groups; and second, the bringing of the benefits of modernization from the West to the rest.
While we can debate the nature of these “benefits,” mixed as they have been with the baneful features of modern Western civilization, and while we can deplore the overweening pride of those who considered Western civilization to be categorically and universally superior to all others, we cannot ignore the institution of medical, educational, and social reforms that have lifted millions from disease, poverty, and ignorance.
Nor can we downplay what for Christians is the prime achievement of Christian missions since the time of Christ: bringing, by God’s grace and the power of the Holy Spirit, millions of people into a saving knowledge of God through faith in Jesus Christ, and into the worldwide family of God’s redeemed children.
That was the cumulative effect for me of reading this stunning volume. The variety, extent, and sheer nobility of the Christian missionary enterprise left me thanking and praising God. Historians will be in debt to Gerald Anderson’s marvelous work for decades to come.