Apostles To The People By Hugh T. Kerr

Toyohiko Kagawa (1888-1960)

"The message of these expansive evangelists was simple and direct. Christian faith, they all agreed, whatever its personal rewards in terms of religious assurance, also promised education, health, and social progress to all sorts of deprived and oppressed peoples. In our less romantic age, we may smile at this simplistic creed, sugar-coated with token benefits, thinly hiding a political and economic policy of western imperialism…. But it would be futile to impugn the motives of these apostles to the people. Their record of astonishing achievements is available for all to examine."

AN epic chapter in modern Christian history is waiting to be assembled from the biographies of a dozen extraordinary pioneers of fifty to seventy-five years ago. From the turn of the century, 1900, to about 1925 and a little later, a steady succession of unusual emissaries provided spectacular Christian witness to untold numbers of people in many parts of the world.

E. Stanley Jones (1884-1973)


We are not talking about that enormous cloud of witnesses, men and women, young and old, of every country and denomination, who girdled the globe about the same time as representatives of the great foreign missionary movement sponsored by so many churches. Their names, and their faithfulness and endurance, are written in the book of life. That, too, is a chapter that needs re-writing for our day.

We are thinking, rather, of a special group of about a dozen who were distinguished not only for their mass evangelism but more especially for what might be called their benevolent philanthropy. Here is a partial roll-call:

James Emman Kwegyir Aggrey (1875-1927)
General Evangeline Booth (1865-1939)
G. Sherwood Eddy (1871-1963)
Sir Wilfred Grenfell (1865-1940)
Sam Higginbottom (1874-1958)
Sheldon Jackson (1834-1909)
E. Stanley Jones (1884-1973)
Toyohiko Kagawa (1888-1960)
Frank Laubach (1884-1970)
John R. Mott (1865-1955)
Sadhu Sundar Singh (1889-1933)
Robert E. Speer (1867-1947).

I

The message of these expansive evangelists was simple and direct. Christian faith, they all agreed, whatever its personal rewards in terms of religious assurance, also promised education, health, and social progress to all sorts of deprived and oppressed peoples. In our less romantic age, we may smile at this simplistic creed, sugar-coated with token benefits, thinly hiding a political and economic policy of western imperialism. Well, that may be part of the story, and the debunking of the foreign missionary enterprise has gone on apace in recent years. But it would be futile to impugn the motives of these apostles to the people. Their record of astonishing achievements is available for all to examine.

Sadhu Sundar Singh (1889-1933)


Though active just the day-before-yesterday, these extraordinary humanitarians are almost forgotten in our day. Often self-appointed and fiercely independent, these ambassadors to the poor, the oppressed, and the derelicts of society were untiring in their life-long witness that Christian faith uplifts, enlightens, heals, and empowers all who accept the message of Good News. Well-known in their own times, they should not be forgotten in our time, for they still stand as models of excellence especially in an age such as ours that belittles selfless service, mass evangelism, and ambitious programs of social betterment for marginal people.

What distinguishes this particular group from other mass evangelists of yesterday or today was their social and humanitarian conviction that Christian faith could make a real difference for multitudes of people in their quality of life. So they organized schools and colleges, they taught the illiterate to read and write, they provided health and medical facilities, they fed the undernourished, they combatted epidemic disease, they introduced new farming and agricultural techniques, they gave outcasts a caring community, and-most of all-they held out hope to the hopeless.

In many instances they were the only ones devising such programs. No one else was doing it, not government, not university education, not the free-thinkers or agnostics, not the humanists or artists, not the scientists or political theorists. The humanitarian movement of 1900-1925 was inspired by specific Christian principles, naive and guileless perhaps, but conceived and carried out on a grand scale.

Today our mass evangelists, Billy Graham, Oral Roberts, Rev. Ike, Sun Myung Moon, are mostly interested in preaching their brand of the faith, soliciting decisions and contributions from the churched and the unchurched. They are primarily concerned with personal religious experience, not social or humanitarian programs for the poor and the indigent of society. Some are interested in education and faith healing, and all would doubtless say they offered their hearers a chance for a better life.

Frank Laubach (1884-1970)
But the evangelists of the first quarter of the twentieth century, the ones we're talking about, seemed to reverse the expected sequence. They didn't usually ask people to accept Jesus Christ so they could receive promised educational or medical dividends. They appeared to be genuinely interested in helping people who needed help. It is true they also preached the gospel, made converts, and based their social programs squarely on their Christian faith. But unlike Billy Graham, for example, who says he is so busy winning souls for Christ that he has no time or inclination for social witness, these earlier mass missionaries were humanitarians first and evangelists second. Or, they probably would have preferred to say, their understanding of evangelism included social witness whether anyone was converted or not.

Hugh T. Kerr is Professor of Systematic Theology, Emeritus, Princeton Theological Seminary, and Editor of THEOLOGY TODAY'

For the rest of this thoughtful and perhaps controversial( especially in regard to his critism of Billy Graham) essay go to http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/apr1978/v35-1-article4.htm