Missions History of Missions

Dr. Robert PattonMissionary to Suriname,

South America

Calvin

John Calvin developed his religious views and left the Catholic church. He was forced to leave France and relocated in Geneva, which he set up as a sort of model community. He sent many men back to France. Calvinism ended up being strong in Holland, Northern Ireland and Scotland

John Calvin

Anglican church

There was a struggle between the Catholics and Protestants resulting in many deaths; they killed a number of Protestants as heretics. The battle became especially fierce from the children of Henry VIII – Protestant Eduard VI, Catholic Mary, and then Anglican Elizabeth

King Edward VIMary, queen of Scots

Queen Elizabeth I

Anglican Church

When the Anglican church won, there was a reformed movement, the Puritans. Many went to America and Holland to avoid persecution, and later formed the Congregational church. Some became baptists.

Summary of the Protestant reformation

The Protestants dominated most of northern Europe, but not the south – particularly Spain, France and Italy

Protestantism was characterized by individual freedom, salvation by faith, the priesthood of the believer, and the authority of the Bible

Roman Catholic counter-reformation

The Catholics won some territory Spain had strong Catholic leaders

as kings The popes regained more strength

and reformed spiritually The church stopped some of the

worst abuses of the priests

The Portuguese and Spanish inquisition

Priests asking a “heretic” to repent

Counter-reformation

The Jesuits rose as a powerful group to help the pope

The inquisition intimidated many The “ban” prevented the faithful

Catholic from reading controversial books as well as the Bible.

Galileo & the inquisition

The life of Raymond Lull

Francis of Assisi

He was born wealthy, but was impressed to live a life of poverty and abandoned his former friends

He established a very simple order of the Franciscans, which was eventually recognized by Pope Innocent.

Francis and the Sultan challenged to trial by fire

Painting of Francis

Exploration of the 16th century

First Venice and Genoa were the great explorers

Then Portugal and Spain explored along the African coast and around the Cape of Good Hope

The pope divided the “New World” between both countries, dividing so Brazil was Portuguese

Settlement of Americas astonishing

The West Indies, and then Mexico and South America were explored, conquered and “Christianized” in the 16th century with astonishing speed

Natives were not really resistant. Aztecs fell to Cortez; the Incas to Pizarro

Cortez

Pizarro

Emperor Charles V

Las Casas

Joined the Dominicans while a priest in Cuba. Became aware of his responsibility, and became the voice for the Indians

Las Casas defended the Indians (Mexico & south) from exploitation when Spain aggressively took over these areas.

Las Casas Opposed by colonists & some of

his own priests when age 70 he was appointed Bishop of Chiapa.

He refused absolution of those who were abusing the Indians.

Portrait of Las Casas

Las Casas After 3 years, he resigned but

worked in Spain till about 90 years of age for betterment of the Indians.

Emperor Charles V changed some laws to provide basic human rights for the Indians

However, many Dominicans and Franciscans were involved in the Inquisition

St. Peter Claver

A Jesuit priest who was much concerned about the miserable situation of the slaves. He not only instructed and baptized them, but did his best, as did Las Casas with the Indians, to insure that they were not misused

St. Peter Claver

Catholic missions to China

There were several effective missionaries

John of Montecorvino 13th century Franciscan monk

Matthew Ricci Francis Xavier

John of Montecorvino

Effective Franciscan monk sent by Pope Nicholas VI to open Asia. About the same time Marco Polo had come to China, and said that the Mongol Kublai Khan was open to Christianity

The trip took several years, stopping in India for a year. When he arrived, Kublai Khan had just died

John of Montecorvino

He was opposed by the Nestorians who were already there, but built an effective organization with more monks coming. He saw over 100,000 persons come into the church.

He was made archbishop – trained young men,

John of Montecorvino – first archbishop of Peking

Jesuits

Ignatius of Loyola formed the Jesuits - aggressive and well organized loyal to the pope. His best known follower was Francis Xavier.

The Jesuits have been totally committed to the pope, and very aggressive – the end justifies the means

Grew rapidly to 15,000 members

Ignatius of Loyola

Frances Xavier One of original 6 inner circle of Jesuits Born 1506 of noble family. Originally

interested in Paris in the Protestants, he came under the influence of Loyola.

Made a vow of poverty and celibacy to promote the Catholic church

Originally assigned India when another was sick

Frances Xavier He started in Goa; disturbed by

worldliness Started working with children He went to India, taught prayers and

baptized them by the thousands He worked among poor pearl fisherman.

Taught children to break idols and teach others prayers

Frances Xavier Others replaced him as he went to the

far east – Malacca Eventually went to Japan, having been

encouraged by Anjiro, a Japanese man. He was hindered by Anjiro’s poor translations

He left 100 converts. He arrived at a time that Japan was open, but had to leave after the Japanese minister, who had been favorable to the Catholics, was assassinated

Travels of Francis Xavier

Frances Xavier In 10 years, he planted missions in 52

kingdoms, traveled 9000 miles, and “baptized” 1,000,000 persons.

Robert Glover states: we have an example of that strange and paradoxical combination of genuine love and devotion for Christ and holy passion for souls, along with doctrines wholly unsound and policies of work utterly unworthy….

St. Francis Xavier

Francis Xavier followed byThe Visitor of the Catholic church, Valignano

Many local leaders were converted. They started a seminary to train Japanese pastors, and eventually they were consecrated by a bishop

The Japanese Islands were consolidated under Hideyoshi in 1590. His children persecuted the foreigners – competition with the Franciscans, and also the arrival of English and Dutch

Catholicism eliminated

1900 Japanese Christians were tortured and killed – usually by crucifixion, and 62 foreign missionaries. Often they tried to get apostacy by torturing till near death

Matthew Ricci Preceded by Friar John, who was

protected by the Mongols ruling in China

Born in 1522, brilliant student Joined the Jesuits Initially went to Goa, then Macao,

off China

Matteo Ricci – missionary to China

Matthew Ricci His expertise in mathematics, astronomy, en

various gadgets and maps allowed him to influence the intellectuals.

He and another Jesuit shaved their heads & dressed like Buddhist monks

He learned to speak, and read and write in classic Chinese – made a dictionary of Chinese and Portuguese – lost, found in 1934

After his fellow was falsely accused of immorality, he adopted the garb of a Confucian scholar

Matthew Ricci He encouraged a syncretism with

Confucianism, and adopted the Confucian scholar attire. He allowed ancestor worship though the Roman church opposed that practice. Some were apparently genuinely converted

He studied and respected Confucian classics, and rejected that belief must begin on a tabula rasa (clean slate)… thus syncretism. He translated some Confuician classics

Roberto de Nobile joined the Brahmins in India to do the same

Matthew Ricci He was eventually brought to Peking

under the protection of the emperor. He had favor for his skill in repairing clocks and making maps. He saw about 2000 saved. He tried to permit as many Chinese customs as possible

There was great conflict between the Jesuits (contextualizing) and Dominicans and Franciscans

Some were genuinely saved, and the church grew over the next 200 years – 100 fold

Roman Catholic missions Vietnam - Alexander de Rhodes (1591-

1660) He was a Jesuit priest, made a

Portuguese-Latin-Vietnamese dictionary. Apparently many baptized

Twice he was thrown out of the country but returned

After his third time, he went to Persia and died there. But others followed with more success

Alexander de Rhodes

S. India - Robert de Nobili -

Italian Jesuit missionary Adopted local dress customs and

diet Fluent in Tamil and Sanscrit, and

did some translation He separated himself from the

Portuguese bishop Apparently many Catholics date

from his arrival

S. India - Robert de Nobili -

He was able to penetrate into the upper classes and saw even Brahmins baptized. However his syncretism brought much protest which went back to Rome. In 37 years, he saw about 6- high caste converts, but many of the lower caste. Most missionaries could not take the country and climate

Apparently many Catholics date from his arrival

Further work

Britto went as a priest, was tortured, released, went back, but later was publically beheaded as a martyr

Father Beschi mastered Tamil and wrote in classic form

There was a big debate as to how much contextualization could occur. The church finally limited it severely

Roberto de Nobili

Roman Catholic missions Philippines - Father Legaspi effective -

2,000,000 converts baptized in 100 years. It was difficult to find if he was really a father or an administrator

Virtually all the major Catholic groups were present in the Philippines by the next century

They built schools, hospitals, etc – and converted the animistic people to Catholicism

Philippines – under Spain

The Pope put the bishop under Mexico, considering the normal way to go from Mexico across the Pacific

All orders were there. No attraction of gold. No older religion. Catholic schools and university were established

The understanding of of the people was superficial -

“Propaganda” Catholic program

The Catholics began to see the need for nationalization. It became obvious that Portugal and Spain could not handle all the New World. France began to contribute

There was more contextualization as well as training of nationals, but with a lot of contention in the ranks

Summary: Roman Catholic Missions Operating with a strong base, Roman

Catholics did what Protestants had not done

The orders were significantly effective Millions were baptized with only a dim

view of Roman Catholicism, and even less of the true gospel

There was frequent compromise with animistic religion

There was lack of permanence in many places

Summary of Roman Catholic missions

There was little attempt to develop a national priesthood, especially in more primitive societies. In fact, there was little emphasis on learning the language and culture.

The Jesuits were closed in 1742, with the collapse of many missions

Orthodox church expansion

The fall of Constantinople 1453 was the end of the old Eastern Orthodox church

The patriarchs of Antioch, Jerusalem, Constantinople, and Alexandria were not aggressive

The original Tartars became Muslim, but not aggressive. The later Khans were more aggressive

Orthodox church

Moscow became the new center Gradual expansion eastward till

finally all of Russia and Siberia were reached

Tibet was under shamanistic Lamaism of Buddhism

Stefan Charp was a very effective missonary with modern methods (14th century)

Orthodox church

Ivan III was Christian, and Ivan IV, or Ivan the terrible, was aggressively Christian.

Peter asked for help setting up the Metropolitan of Tobolsk to Christianize Siberia & Russia. The initial bishop was aggressive but also forgave taxes for those baptized. Later men had problems

Ivan IV – the great (and the terrible)

Mission orthodox church

Volga region – finally in mid 17th century, nearly 500,000 persons were baptized as they were made free from service in the Russian army. The Tartars resisted, and later Russia pulled out the priest and sent him to Russia

Mission to China

When the emperor recognized China over Mongolia, they were allowed to bring 4 priests to China, and only a handful Chinese were in the church

Kalmucks, a nomadic people, were really not reached

East Siberia – Cossacks

They purchased slaves and set them free and set them free to work on their grounds – but lasted only while the missionaries were there and then ceased

Cyril Suchanov was a godly layman, later priest, who lived simply among the nomads and eventually started a church

Orthodox – Kamschatka

Peninsula incredibly cold with high volcanos

Martinian arrived in 1705, baptized some, but was murdured.

Ioasuf Chotkunshevsky organized the entire area with several workers and baptized over 10,000 by 1748, and the area was settled and Christianized

Orthodox – Aleutian islands

Islands were annexed by Russia, and then sent missionaries with considerable success – 10,000 baptized. The man who organized it was made a bishop but all hands on a ship were lost at sea, and the people destroyed by liquor and disease

Summary of Russian expansion

Strange combination Statesmanship Zeal Coercion Apostolic simplicity Willingness to suffer and die

Somewhat limited long term effects