The first missionary societies in England were formed in the 1790’s. William Carey is well known for establishing the Baptist Missionary Society in 1792. The congregationalist London Missionary Society was born in 1795. A few years later, the abolitionist William Wilberforce and the Venn family of the Clapham Community were instrumental in establishing the Anglican Church Missionary Society in 1799.
They copied the systems of colonial British trading companies and military, establishing the pattern for what we have come to know as the modern missionary movement. American societies and many others developed similarly over the following decades. Modified along the way, much of the model and theological framing remains the same, yet the world has changed dramatically. We can all learn a lesson from one of the oldest Protestant missionary receiving contexts in the world, once the location of the most significant and least known movements of almost an entire people group to Christ in colonial missions history.
A triumph and a tragedy
In the first decade of the 1800’s tribesmen from some large islands east of Australia found their way to Sydney on whaling ships and other trading vessels. One of these was Prince Ruatara who put to sea on the whaling ship Argo in 1805. He had a desire to go to England to meet King George III and figured the whaler the best way to do that. In truth he was conscripted and traded from ship to ship. He got to England but did not see much of it, let alone meet the king.
In 1809 Ruatara, beaten, mistreated, and neglected by his shipmates, worked the good ship Ann on its voyage from England to Port Jackson (Sydney), Australia. The Māori prince was so sorry-looking that a clergyman by the name of Samuel Marsden took pity on him and ensured that Ruatara was well cared for. Upon their arrival, the clergyman freed Ruatara from his bonded labor and for eight months they worked together on a plan to set up a wheat production business in Ruatara’s homeland.
The prince returned home a free and wealthier man on another whaling ship, the Frederick, only to find that his tribe had been decimated by a conflict with whalers who had been abusing his people. He was recognized as the only person left in royal succession to become chief. Once established, Ruatara became an important connection point between Marsden the clergyman, who was a member of the Anglican Church Missionary Society, and the first people to inhabit the islands due east of Australia.
On Christmas day of 1814, accompanied by his initial missionary recruits, Samuel Marsden preached the first ever gospel service to Ruatara’s people and those of surrounding tribes who had come to see the spectacle. In those days, the British called the tribal people Māori (literally meaning ‘normal’ in the Māori language) and the islands east of Australia, New Zealand—or as we Māori prefer, Aotearoa (the land of the long white cloud).
The British missionary endeavor to New Zealand... catalyzed one of the least known and largest people movements to Christ in colonial missions history.
Thus began the British missionary endeavor to New Zealand which catalyzed one of the least known and largest people movements to Christ in colonial missions history. Historic records confirm that as many as 90% of the Māori population were following Jesus by the 1870’s.
An outsider might want to use this history as a wonderful colonial missionary success story. Except it wasn’t.
The initial colonial mission was a bit of a disaster. Samuel Marsden’s first missionaries were beset by infighting, mental health problems, illicit arms trading, and outright immorality. Marsden himself is well known for mistreating the ancient Australian peoples and leveraging his religious positions for wealth-seeking.
The New Zealand mission eventually stabilized under the leadership of a former British Naval Lieutenant, Henry Williams, who fought in the Napoleonic wars, became a pacifist, and then joined CMS as a missionary in 1820. He and his family arrived in New Zealand in 1823 to lead the mission in firm military style. Williams oversaw mission station development, conducted church services, and built relationships with the locals, especially chiefs, who came to respect his counsel. A new wave of culturally sensitive English missionaries learned the language, reduced it to writing, translated the Bible, taught literacy, and provided catechism and introductory theological education.
The rapid spread of the gospel was achieved indigenously, by young Māori evangelists, mostly beyond the control of the missionaries.
While the foreign missionaries provided resources for the advance of the gospel in Aotearoa New Zealand, the rapid spread of the gospel was achieved indigenously, by young Māori evangelists, mostly beyond the control of the missionaries. Many of these young evangelists were from southern tribes, captured as slaves by northern tribes. They learned the gospel from the missionaries who lived in the north.
Released when their captors became Christians, these former slaves returned to their villages with the good news. Word spread like wildfire. Demand for literacy teachers dramatically increased. Everyone wanted a missionary to come teach them (there weren't enough to meet the demand), and they wanted a Bible to read and learn from. With the good news came an end to inter-tribal warfare and unprecedented peace.
Reconciliation was a hallmark of the New Creation reality established among Māori, by Māori, for the wellbeing of Māori. It was made possible by European missionaries, who brought a seed more precious than Marsden's wheat. They taught the basics, but once planted, the gospel seed quickly became indigenous to the islands of my ancestors. Well documented research confirms as many as 90% of Māori were followers of Christ by 1852.
At least it was that way until the European settlers started flooding in from 1840 in their thousands, bringing their cultural Christianity with them and utterly destroying the witness of the missionaries and local evangelists. By the end of the 1800’s faith in Jesus had begun to decline amongst Māori as they struggled to reconcile the faith and scriptures they believed with the behavior of culturally Christian colonists, a sizeable number of whom swindled and murdered, taking ownership of natural resources by force with the proactive assistance of a colonial government representing the British Crown—contravening the Treaty of Waitangi established in 1840 between a majority of Māori Chiefs and the Crown.
Furthermore, churchmen who came to minister to the settlers became highly critical of Māori Christianity and condemned indigenous preachers and prophets as heretics. Early missionaries were powerless to intercede. Some even had credentials cancelled when they tried to speak up for Māori. Such was the power of the English settlers’ syncretized Christianity.
A time for change
This is the context from which I engage in conversations about Evangelical missionary practice. These days we might say it is from a Majority World (non-Western) perspective. It is the viewpoint of recipients of the gospel more than that of foreign messengers of the gospel. It is an indigenous understanding of biblically-faithful Christian witness.
Because of the treatment of my father’s people, and even of my father as a Māori minister, I am very sensitive to the force of influence upon local people by people from outside of the culture, especially missionaries—which perpetuates a form of colonizing power.
As soon as possible the message needs to be internalized within a culture and expressed in culturally appropriate ways by local disciples.
I firmly believe that the gospel still needs to be made readily available and understandable where people have little or no access to it. But, I am convinced, for the sake of the gospel and its transformative impact on societies, as soon as possible the message needs to be internalized within a culture and expressed in culturally appropriate ways by local disciples so that it is recognizable as an indigenous religion.
Much has been said about “incarnational missions” in past years. It is usually misconceived as the foreign missionary incarnating into another culture. Yet this is impossible and it is an inappropriate interpretation of Jesus’ incarnation. Foreign missionaries can and should learn, acculturate, and identify closely with their host culture, but they will never incarnate because they were not born into the culture.
The gospel, however, can fully incarnate. The story of Jesus can be born anew within another context, becoming internalized by local believers and enfleshed in their communities as they grow in their understanding of the love of Christ and God’s purposes as revealed in the Bible.
Revealing an ethnocentric fear of syncretism, established might Christians ask, “how can we be sure that the faith in Jesus taking root in another culture is authentic to Christian tradition?” In response, I would question the lack confidence in the sovereignty of God and the power of the Holy Spirit to lead new believers along the right path.
The other mitigating factor of course is that the new believers are not alone. They have almost 2,000 years of Christian history and scholarship to lean on and learn from, along with mutual fellowship with the global body of Christ, so there is much support. Yet, local believers must be entrusted to become guardians of the gospel for their people, as the young Māori evangelists were for mine.
I do not want to see an indigenous gospel strangled because of some exotic vine restricting its growth.
As World Christianity continues to grow and mature, I do not want to see indigenous expressions of the gospel strangled because of some exotic vine restricting its growth. Jesus is the only vine we need. A strangling vine is what foreign missionaries can be if their theology and doctrinal demands are too bound to their own culture, or the cultural Christianity they inherited. Outsiders are rarely aware of their own syncretistic beliefs.
A challenge to consider
Having some responsibility as a global missions leader, I share a deep concern for both the Evangelical missionary community and local Evangelical churches and movements. My hope for Majority World missions movements is that we carefully examine the kind of Christianity we have inherited. Is it really ours or still a foreign one? Are our missionary models inherited from colonial norms or are we offering unique innovations from our cultural backgrounds to the global Christian community with cultural sensitivity? We have a lot of thinking to do about such things.
Foreign involvement and investment continues to be valuable in helping the gospel and its benefits to get established in new places.
Westerners have a saying, “do not throw the baby out with the bathwater”. That means do not throw the out the good with the bad. Foreign involvement and investment continues to be valuable in helping the gospel and its benefits to get established in new places. It can be very appropriate to share resources in a way that waters and fertilizes the gospel seed until it becomes well rooted and assists the growth that God brings forth.
New believers need guidance and encouragement and fellowship. New churches need to feel connected to the global body of Christ. Societal challenges can benefit from outside expertise. We need each other. The global body of Christ needs to be mutually beneficial organism. We just need to learn to defer to the felt needs of our new brothers and sisters where the gospel is emerging for the first time (or reviving in new ways). In this, I pray that we will have the courage to let the locals lead.
My standard way now of describing this kind of deep mutuality between followers of Jesus from all nations to all people is: the people of God participating in the purposes of God, co-creating New Creation for the glory of God in all the earth.
Dr Jay Mātenga is a contexual theologian of Māori heritage. He serves as the Executive Director of the World Evangelical Alliance’s Mission Commission and Opinion Editor for Christian Daily International. Jay has served cross-cultural missions for over 30 years, with missionary deploying agencies and missions alliances. Jay's passion is to strengthen participation by the people of God in the purposes of God towards co-creating new creation for the glory of God. Jay keeps a monthly blog and other contributions archived at https://jaymatenga.com.
