Chapter 6: Missionaries & Evangelization (1881-1882)
At this critical point in the debate, missionaries began writing in from the field to say that evangelization in their countries was possible in a short amount of time.
George King of the China Inland Mission added fuel to the fire by asking the question, "Shall the Gospel Be Preached to This Generation of the Chinese_" This document was sent to The Christian for publication and was printed in Regions Beyond in May 1883. Hudson Taylor also printed it in the January issue of China's Millions:
The Gospel preached to this generation_ Then there is not much time to lose if that is to be done. "The King's business requireth haste." ... Preach the Gospel to this generation_ Yes, dear friends, it is neither impracticable nor impossible... Now the first step is a thorough and general stirring up of believers, so that the great duty of the Church to disciple all nations may be recognized as the burning question of the day. We may be sure GOD never intended that a mere sprinkling of earnest souls—a few here and a few there—should be the only ones possessed by an intense longing for the salvation of the heathen (China's Millions, January 1884:2-3).
Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission were constantly raising the possibility of the speedy evangelization of China. Taylor had provided much of the initiative in the Shanghai conference in 1877. Here his promotion of George King's ideas kept one all-important factor in the forefront: If missionaries on the field believed the world could be evangelized quickly, who could doubt its validity_ This kind of thinking also inspired missionaries in other fields to believe the same.
Pierson used historical models of missions to challenge the church. Taking the Moravians as an example, in The Gospel in All Lands, January 1884, Pierson asked the question, "What Hinders the World's Speedy Evangelization_"
It has been often and clearly shown to be mathematically possible, and practically feasible, to preach the gospel to every creature now living, within twenty-five years! The Moravians give one in fifty-eight of their numbers to the missionary work, and their converts number four times as many as their own Brotherhood. What if all the Protestant Evangelical Christians did the same! We should have two million missionaries, enough to gather all the heathen under easy supervision, giving only a few hundred to each missionary; and if the converts should ever bear the same proportion to the laborers, as with the Moravian missionaries, there would be over 464,000,000! (The Gospel in All Lands, January 1884).
Also in 1884, Pierson's article "God's Hand in Missions" was published as a foreword to a reprint of David Brainerd's memoirs. Here Pierson eloquently affirmed that the time had come for the world to be evangelized.
The fullness of the times has surely come for the last great crusade against the powers of darkness. Everything is providentially ripe and ready. Nearly fourscore missionary societies enclose the globe in their golden network. The walls of the nations lie flat, and challenge us to move from every quarter, and move together and at once, and take the very capitals and centers of Satan's dominion. The word of God may be had in every leading tongue, and the miracle of Babel is reversed, and the miracle of Pentecost crystallizes into permanence! The coffers of disciples contain wealth so vast that a tithe of it would furnish all the funds for a world's evangelization; and the numbers of disciples are so vast that a tithe of them would give one missionary to every one hundred of the population of the globe! Time and space are practically annihilated and all nations are neighbors. And in addition to all, from out the shining pillar of a luminous and leading Providence rings out the trumpet voice of God, bidding us "go forward!" (Sherwood, 1884:lxxix-lxxx).
The Regions Beyond continued to provide food for thought on this subject.
The question is really this. Is it the will and purpose of God, that one race of men should be evangelized ten thousand times over, and another never once hear the glad tidings_ or is it His will and purpose that all nations should receive the good news of forgiveness of sins and eternal life through Christ_... It is of the very essence of Christianity to extend itself till it has embraced the world, and it ceases to be pure and powerful in proportion as it ceases to expand... We need to realize more than we do the breadth, the width, the all-embracing character of our blessed faith—its missionary nature. There is nothing narrow or limited or even bounded at all, save by the limits of humanity, about it. It is not local to any land, special to any family of the race, but wide as the world, universal, eternal!" (Regions Beyond, January 1884:18).
Looking back to the Old Testament, missionaries found encouragement that, if they took their job seriously, their task could be completed by the year 1900.
If about 2,400 years ago two separate messages from Ahasuerus, King of the Medes and Persians, could be translated into various languages, written and delivered, at different times, in 127 provinces, and both messages delivered in one year (see the book of Esther), how long ought it to take Christians now to obey the command of their King, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords, to translate, print and deliver to every creature in all the world his one message_ (From The Christian quoted in Baptist Missionary Magazine, February 1885:50).
National Christians also caught the vision for evangelizing their countries—believing that it could be completed in a short amount of time. "The Japanese Christians are praying and working that their country may be wholly Christian by the year 1900" (Baptist Missionary Magazine, February 1885:51).
