Roland Allen’s Apostolic Principles: An Analysis of his ‘The Ministry of Expansion’

Introduction

In terms of the historic mission of the Church, there has never been a shortage of analytical voices which emerged at times to challenge the institutional side of Christendom, whenever there were alleged evidences of deviation from Pauline apostolic teaching and practice. The actuality of historic Christianity – within its Eastern and Western ethos – has traditionally maintained a belief in the meaningful role of the Holy Spirit for the Church’s rationale and growth. Contemporary emphases of the Christian faith, as extended through its mission in the world, no matter the context in which it exists, is confronted with the necessity to define its theology of mission. Over the centuries, Western Christian mission has attempted to culturally influence the world, yet this endeavour has had its dark side. The disparity between institutional mission coerced by colonial expansionism, over against the apostolic-type of mission, with its emphasis on indigenization, have collided.

Throughout the centuries, the Church has attempted to respond, rehearse, and realize, this question, however, not always according to an apostolic missionary policy. One such voice did emerge within the ‘heyday of colonialism’ ¹ and addressed some paternalistic missionary practices. This one voice was a British missionary to China, priest in the Anglican Communion, and significant missiologist, Roland Allen. It is not the intention of this paper to represent a biographical sketch of Allen’s life, which has been provided in Hubert Allen’s biography, Roland Allen: Pioneer, Priest, and Prophet. ²

One of the ways in which Roland Allen set out to challenge the misrepresentation of Pauline missionary methods within the colonial context of his day, was to write the book Missionary Methods: St Paul’s or Ours?, originally printed in 1912. ³ This seminal book eventually challenged many mission societies within the branches of the Church to re-think their practices. Basically, Allen explained Paul’s missionary principles and practices within the four provinces of Galatia, Achaia, Macedonia and Asia. He argued that prior to AD 47, these four provinces had no established churches within them, yet, after Paul left that region by AD 57, indigenous churches had been planted through the Apostle’s missionary efforts. ⁴ And, the remarkable quality evidenced within these apostolic churches was their ability to be self-governing, self-sustaining and self-propagating. The Apostle believed in the ministry of the Holy Spirit to equip these churches from within its own context, wherein local spiritual leadership emerged organically. This was the apostolic practice of Paul the missionary.

Roland Allen confronted various aspects of Western missionary practices with its organizational colonial paradigm. He contrasted this model with his understanding of a Pauline paradigm of indigenous Church planting found in the New Testament. He argued that the Western missiological paradigm created and produced a dependency on its missionaries, due to various mission societies’ need for control of the missions they established and maintained. With Allen’s organic approach to mission, he argued for a ‘release of control’ by the mission societies. His belief was that if the mission societies released control giving the works over to the indigenous converts, the latter could rely on the Holy Spirit’s ability to govern, sustain, and propagate the Church’s growth apart from foreign influence. The centrality of Allen’s pneumatology was influenced by Paul’s epistles and Luke’s historical account of the Acts of the Apostles, which Allen called ‘missionary history.’ ⁵ Consider the following influence of Pauline practice upon Allen’s mission theology

St. Paul was a preacher of a Gospel, not of a law … This is the most distinctive mark of Pauline Christianity. This is what separates his doctrine from all other systems of religion … We have seen this truth illustrated in his practice again and again. He did not establish a constitution, he inculcated principles. He did not introduce any practice to be received on his own or any human authority, he strove to make his converts realize and understand its relation to Christ. He always aimed at convincing their minds and stirring their consciences. He never sought to enforce their obedience by decree; he always strove to win their heartfelt approval and their intelligent co-operation. He never proceeded by command, but always by persuasion. He never did things for them; he always left them to do things for themselves. He set them an example according to the mind of Christ, and he was persuaded that the Spirit of Christ in them would teach them to approve that example and inspire them to follow it. ⁶

In terms of Pauline theology, Allen believed that the Apostle’s practice of church-planting was permeated with a dependency on the Holy Spirit’s ability to lead the Church into all truth, as revealed in John 16:13. That said, Allen believed that the Church’s global expansion was based upon foundational apostolic principles organically energized through a realized pneumatology, empowered ecclesiology and an applied mission theology he believed stemmed from Pauline practice.

What are Some of the Apostolic Principles Allen Emphasized?

Arguably, the key principles Allen emphasized are: (1) The one holy catholic and apostolic Church: Scriptures, basic creed, orders, sacraments; ⁷ (2) apostolic evangelists called and sent to plant and equip indigenous churches; ⁸ (3) church-planters organize, train and retire from young church-plants as soon as possible; ⁹ (4) indigenous churches retain self-support, self-government, self-propagation; ¹⁰ (5) self-supporting churches produce home-grown leadership from the inception (non-devolution); ¹¹ (6) ordination of indigenous voluntary clergy authorized to administer the sacraments frequently; ¹² (7) the ministry of the Holy Spirit empowers the spontaneous expansion of the Church; ¹³ (8) all Christians are missionaries – the Church is a missionary body; ¹⁴ (9) the priesthood of the laity, by which he referred to the empowerment of the community; ¹⁵ and (10) an ordered ministry in apostolic succession through missionary ecclesiology. ¹⁶ Having identified these apostolic principles, I now want to unpack them in relation, primarily, to the context of the beginning chapters of Allen’s unpublished ‘The Ministry of Expansion: the Priesthood of the Laity’ and, secondarily, to various comments from throughout his other significant works.

A cursory and selective study of Roland Allen’s writings has caused some to misrepresent his missiology. One must come to terms with what he meant by words such as: Church, Spirit, mission, apostolic, indigenous, expansion, sacraments, orders and principles. First of all, Allen defined these words from what he believed was Pauline missionary principles and practices. Second, Allen was a High Churchman within the Anglican Communion which presupposed a framework of belief that embraced historic Christianity – the faith once delivered to the saints – that being, apostolic and catholic. As a ‘Protestant’ Anglican, Church history did not begin for Allen during the 16th century Reformation but at Pentecost. In other words, Allen’s thought and writings stemmed from the backdrop of the historic ministry of the Holy Spirit, which clearly included the first 1500 years of the life of the Church. And, when reading him carefully, one will find a ‘catholic’ (that is, universal) understanding of the Christian faith, especially articulated through the first five centuries of the ‘undivided’ Church. That said, an understanding of his mission theology will contribute significantly to contemporary missiology.

What About Apostolic Succession? ¹⁷

The ongoing conversation of ‘apostolic succession’ continues to remain an ecclesiastical topic within the context of the established Church today. Some contemporary evidence of this is shown through the writings of the recently deceased Roman Catholic theologian from Belgium, Edward Schillebeeckx, wherein he indicated a radical break from a ‘mechanical’ belief in apostolic succession. ¹⁸ As a leading theological voice within Roman Catholicism since Vatican II, his challenge to the Church’s position on apostolic succession, reasserts the need for further discussion within the Church of Rome. The same can be said of the Anglican Church. Former differences of opinion within the Church of England during the 19th century manifested themselves through knee-jerk reactions among High, Low and Broad Churchmen, as well as between Liberals and Evangelicals. Albeit the 19th century ecclesiastical emphasis to maintain the episcopal order of apostolic succession with a specialized priesthood, the Tractarian leaders of the Oxford Movement in the early 1830’s ¹⁹ stood in contrast to certain Broad Churchmen, such as Samuel Coleridge and Thomas Arnold, who set out to emphasize the universal priesthood of the laity for the Church of England. ²⁰

On the one hand, these former discussions concerning the issue of apostolic succession and its validity or relevance within the Church posited one aspect concerning the historicity of the Church’s institutional life. On the other hand, the Anglo-Catholic emphasis of the Oxford Movement articulated especially through the writings of Charles Gore and Robert Campbell Moberly argued for a more disciplined approach to Church order at home in England, and yet, apparently did not consider how this could be applied to ‘pioneer’ regions where the Anglican Church had been spreading within British colonies. This seemingly neglected application was confronted by Roland Allen, a High Church missiologist. Allen did not argue against the validity of apostolic succession, as presented by Gore and Moberly, rather he challenged their legal, formal, and strained theory ²¹ which he believed resulted in an exclusiveness that denied any ‘lay expression’ of sacramental grace, due to the absence of ordained clergy under apostolic succession within these remote regions. ²²

In terms of lay presidency at the Lord’s Table, what did Roland Allen believe? First, according to Hubert Allen, his ecumenical-style of ministry never diminished his devotion to Anglican High Churchmanship. ²³ Secondly, concerning Allen’s tenacious persona when he addressed various institutional deficiencies and unreasoned practices in the Church, making a distinction between two types of Anglican Churchmen, the ‘conformist’ and the ‘radical,’ Hubert Allen notes that, while his brother Willoughby Charles Allen was a ‘conformist,’ Allen himself was a ‘radical.’ ²⁴ This makes sense, for, while, on the one hand, as a High Church Anglican, he did believe in the appropriate administration of the Holy Communion by ordained priests and bishops (that was divine order), on the other hand, his view for the Church’s expansion to pioneer regions organically emerging within new territories – even if properly ordained clergy were not locally present ²⁵ – still necessitated the continuance of the sacramental meal whenever Christians met together. ²⁶ According to Allen’s sacramental emphasis, whenever the Church gathered together for worship, the Lord’s Supper ought to be practiced on a regular basis. Who, therefore, was qualified to administer the Holy Communion if ordained clergymen were absent? Allen came to the conclusion that they must act for themselves since, he believed, if Christ is spiritually present in the Holy Communion, ‘it is Christ who consecrates the elements Himself, and that He will not desert them because they have no ordained priest at hand.’ ²⁷ He argued for its continual practice in these cases even if ordained clergy were not present to preside. ²⁸

How could Allen as an Anglican clergyman, one who was fostered and mentored at the feet of some of Oxford’s principal Anglo-Catholic defenders of apostolic succession, defend such a break from seemingly normal Churchmanship? Allen believed there was sufficient ground to justify such an action through apostolic practice as recorded in the New Testament among the young churches of Samaria, Lydda, Joppa, Phoenicia, Cyprus, Antioch, Galatia and Rome ²⁹ and that which is recorded in the Didache. ³⁰ He thought apostolic precedent provided a basis for such action.

Soteriology Trumps Ecclesiology

Allen’s central understanding for the celebration of the sacrament of the Holy Communion within a trans-denominational or ecumenical format – a true expression of communion among Christians from different backgrounds – is indicative of how his ‘catholic’ faith trumped ecclesiastical differences. Evidence of Allen’s incipient ecumenism in the early part of the 20th century is expressed within the following comments:

If the Holy Ghost is given, those to whom He is given are certainly accepted in Christ by God … Men may separate them, systems may part them from the enjoyment and strength of their unity; but, if they share the one Spirit, they are one … Men who hold a theory of the Church which excludes from communion those whom they admit to have the Spirit of Christ simply proclaim that their theory is in flat contradiction to the spiritual fact. ³¹

Allen attempted to deal with the apparent tension between a strict form of clericalism which denied sacramental celebration as a means of grace whenever professional clerics were absent ³² and a sacramental form which refused to withhold grace to those who gathered together as a community of faith and believed Christ was spiritually present to consecrate the elements. ³³ He believed that to withhold the sacrament was a violation of apostolic principle. Allen’s sacramental emphasis in ‘The Ministry of Expansion: the Priesthood of the Laity’ moved away from a theoretical treatise on the subject by personally identifying himself with the ‘scattered sheep’. ³⁴ Allen’s initial concern consisted of small congregations spread throughout remote areas of the world which conducted services without any ‘ordained priests’ to serve those communities sacramentally. With this context in view, Allen proceeded to challenge what he believed was the ‘teaching which strangles us’ located within these two books, written by ‘two great theologians…Gore…Moberly’. ³⁵

In 1889, Gore wrote an ‘apology’ concerning what he believed was ‘the principle of the apostolic succession’ in his book The Ministry of the Christian Church. ³⁶ After the writing of Gore’s book, in 1897, Moberly wrote Ministerial Priesthood, essentially as ‘a study of the Anglican Ordinal’. ³⁷ Allen believed these books did not specifically address the spontaneous growth of the Church which was occurring within distant lands, where congregational life grew organically without the presence of episcopally-ordained clergymen. In essence, Allen thought Gore and Moberly were myopic, or, as we tend to say, ‘out-of-touch’ with the expansion of the Church outside of the Western context. Consider Allen’s comments:

Those are the books which are most easily obtainable, and have now long been the standard works for many theological students. Therefore I have restricted myself almost entirely to them. In so doing I recognize sadly that I must appear to many careful readers, and to all careless ones, to be opposing those good and eminent men. That is most unfortunate … I would gladly have avoided it, but I am compelled to run that risk because of the widespread influence which they exercise, and the fact that appeal is so often made to them by the men who teach what I maintain to be false. I am compelled to do it because if I had not mentioned them I should have seemed to be ignoring most powerful objections to the practice which I advocate. ³⁸

Allen attempted to contextualize some apostolic principles to what he observed were neglected regions which lacked Episcopal response and this ‘compelled’ him to argue against their theory of Apostolic Succession. ³⁹ Listen to Allen’s words on apostolic practice:

It is high time that we should definitely face the question whether we will not in the future return to the biblical apostolic practice and by establishing apostolic churches open the door for that expansion and make it the foundation of our missionary policy; for we are at a turning point in our missionary history, and what is to be the future course of that history will depend upon the attitude which we take up on this question. ⁴⁰

For Allen, Apostolic Succession exists not to sideline the ministry in some sort of ecclesiastical castle but from historic precedent to equip the ministry to proactively advance the apostolic faith and reproduce apostolic churches spontaneously.

Summary of Preface

In the Preface of ‘The Ministry of Expansion: the Priesthood of the Laity’, Allen initiated the conversation by confronting a certain ‘cruel bondage’ which he believed kept churches ‘hindered’ from receiving the sacramental grace of Holy Communion due to non-existent ordained clergy within their context. ⁴¹ The significance of his sacramental view within this unpublished work stands out as a systematic conviction which he held throughout his life and within his writings as a missiologist. ⁴² His passion comes through clearly on this matter within the opening paragraphs with phrases such as, ‘I see Christians scattered as sheep having no shepherd … I feel compassion … and I write as one of them … I speak of our fears … our hesitations … our common condition …’ ⁴³ One may get the sense that he represented the neglected and disenfranchised, especially as one who needed to speak on behalf of the people.

Allen next moves from a defence for the disenfranchised people to a proactive prophetic posture calling upon the bishops to solve the current deficiency. The following paragraph summarizes the contents of Chapter 1 within ‘The Ministry of Expansion: the Priesthood of the Laity’.

Firstly, Allen’s projection of three main principles for the Christian community necessitates a basic assumption that Christ’s sacraments are for all His children, that this command is applicable to all, and, that it is unnatural to deny sacramental grace to anyone. ⁴⁴ Secondly, he argued that there is a proclivity in human nature to create customs and traditions which ultimately disallow basic principles. Whenever customs take precedence over principles, the Church is hindered in its developmental growth. However, when the basic principles of sacramental grace are freely administered, whether clergy are present or not, this grace will generate life. ⁴⁵ Thirdly, the deficiency of any proactive approach from the bishops at Lambeth, as stated in their Report (1930) to address with compassion and strategy the current crisis of ‘hundreds of thousands’ ⁴⁶ of communicants without any resident priests to administer the sacraments, was considered unacceptable according to Allen’s analysis. Fourthly, Allen’s assessment of the crisis did not suggest that he ruled out the necessity to maintain Anglican order through the significance of Episcopal ordination. That said, Allen believed the bishops needed to demonstrate a pre-emptive approach to the crisis by offering to ordain ⁴⁷ indigenous leadership wherever a community of Christians gather for worship. Fifthly, the non-existent priests and bishops excludes nothing, therefore, Allen believed, this vacancy made room for Christians to act for themselves sacramentally.

The Church is a Missionary Body

Mission, according to Allen, always began with the establishment of the Church as a missionary community which always was evidenced through its faithfulness to Holy Scripture, a basic creed, the ministry and the sacraments. For him, these were apostolic principles which were foundational to the establishment of the Church. He always recognized the necessity for leadership to ‘lead’ and ‘empower’ all members of the local Church (Ephesians 4:11–16). Åke Talltorp points out that Allen’s emphasis on the laity’s calling as ‘unofficial missionaries‘ was probably influenced through the missionary writings of his friend, Father HH Kelly, in addition to WH Temple Gairdner. ⁴⁸ In terms of Kelly, Talltorp said:

Allen shared the idea of every Christian as a missionary with Herbert Kelly, who already in 1908 had written: ‘It is really next to no use at all for a priest to teach, to preach, to instruct, if the laity are not themselves preaching, teaching, living the Church … Lay Christianity and Lay Christians can only be rightly made by laymen. It is the priest’s true business to guide, to feed, to inspire, to build; but the essential work of manifesting the Faith, of using it, of bringing men to it, must be done by its members.’ ⁴⁹

According to these Anglican missionaries (that is, Allen, Kelly, Temple Gairdner), the apostolic principle – all Christians are missionaries – highlighted how the Church is a missionary body ⁵⁰ in the world. This emphasis has been furthered in one of OCMS’s publications wherein Mangisi Simorangkir cited Allen:

The secret of success in St. Paul’s work ‘lies in the beginning at the very beginning. It is the training of the first converts which sets the type for the future.’ ⁵¹ In his conclusions he said that a sense of mutual responsibility of all Christians for each other should be carefully inculcated and practiced. ⁵² In other words, St. Paul stressed contextualization in his missionary method and showed that contextualization in mission must begin with the local people … Christians are a ministering community rather than a community gathered around a minister or missionary. ⁵³

Allen’s Missionary Ecclesiology

This concept of the indigenous Church which ‘from the beginning’ is empowered to administrate its own activities was foremost in Allen’s thought. He did not accept the concept that the Church is indigenous only after its local leadership had somehow proved their ability to govern by the benchmark of foreign mission policy. Self-government within the local Church, like self-support, always stemmed from within the ministering community. And, the ministering community was called to function according to the apostolic principle of mutual responsibility, as Allen said:

I should like to see it accepted as a general principle that converts should be presented by members of the church to the church, and accepted by the church and baptized on the authority of the whole local church acting as a church. ⁵⁴

However, could this approach work successfully among suppressed people groups? The answer is, yes. Allen’s missionary ecclesiology extended to all people. In fact, his praxis enhanced the poor and the suppressed for he believed that the gospel of Christ did not discriminate between anyone on the basis of race or social class. An example of Allen’s influence on the poor and lower castes of India is documented through the evidence recorded in letters between Bishop VS Azariah ⁵⁵ and Allen. Susan Harper addresses how much influence Allen had on Azariah and the people of India, saying:

Azariah continued to consult Allen during his tenure in Dornakal and invited him to address a conference of Dornakal’s clergy in December 1927 concerning the barriers to church growth created by the existence of a stipendiary professional clergy and the advantages of ecclesiastical self-support. ⁵⁶

Allen wrote in his diary concerning his visit to Dornakal that his books were completely sold out and then discovered that he was being quoted ‘in season and out of season.’ ⁵⁷ Allen’s missiological writings so effected Azariah’s thinking that it also mobilized his church planting methodology, especially with the later development of ecumenism, particularly evidenced in the formation of the Church of South India. Azariah is well known to be the main catalyst for Church expansion which preceded the development of the Church of South India (CSI). This ecumenical expression of Christianity began to move forward after Azariah’s address at the 1910 World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh ⁵⁸ and after reading much of Allen’s writings. ⁵⁹

The possibility to engage the laity to take ownership of its local activities stemmed from Allen’s missionary ecclesiology which sought to empower the members to act for themselves when necessary. The next chapter takes a step back to analyze what happened within the Church of England when it developed some habits and traditions both good and bad. This next part is called ‘Habit and Tradition’.

Habit and Tradition

This next portion of Allen’s work commences with recognition how unreasoned habits within the established Church of England quite often neglected to consider a place of ministry for the laity. ⁶⁰ Fixed patterns of practice within the Church of England remained as habits and traditions not to be reformed. ⁶¹ He proceeded to examine ‘our hesitation to minister for ourselves’ as that which stemmed from custom, not as that rooted through any reasoned conviction. ⁶² This custom in England where ordained clergy were always within close proximity, along with daily Prayer Book services, were led by priests, sometimes led by deacons, even though deacons were not permitted to celebrate the Eucharist, sufficed Church members. ⁶³ Then, Allen drew attention to Anglican mission expansion, wherein ‘we went abroad and found ourselves where there was no priest at all.’ ⁶⁴ He systematically addressed how basic services of the Church were taken for granted in England, only to be in need of any priests within a foreign land. Allen’s perception of minimal visionary thinking on the part of English bishops to address the problem was only indicative of a systemic failure to ordain clergy for new areas. ⁶⁵

Has this always been a problem within the English Church? No. Throughout the centuries the English Church had learned to adapt to its growing challenges by appointing indigenous leadership whenever and wherever it was necessary. Consider Allen’s comments concerning the growth of the indigenous Church of England in the 6th century when Pope Gregory the Great sent Augustine and his associates as missionaries to England.

Indigenous Bishops in England: In our own history, St Augustine was consecrated bishop, not of England, but of Canterbury. He was consecrated in AD 597; seven years later there were two other bishops, in Rochester and London. Forty years later (AD 644) a native was consecrated to Rochester, and he by himself consecrated the first native bishop of Canterbury in AD 654, and at that time all the bishops derived from Augustine were natives; that is within sixty years of St Augustine’s landing. Of course, nearly all the clergy were natives.

If we examine Bishop Stubb’s Registrum Sacrum Anglicanum, we find that the last of the Augustinian mission to be consecrated was Honorius (AD 627) to Canterbury. In that year Felix, a Burgundian, was consecrated to Dunwich. After that the only foreign bishops were Theodore of Tarsus (AD 668) to Canterbury, Agilbert (AD 650) to Dorchester, and Leutherius (AD 670) to Winchester. Both these last were from Paris, which was much nearer in every respect to the south of England than Canton or Shanghai to Peking. Between the years AD 669 and AD 687 Theodore consecrated twenty bishops, of whom only one was not a native of this island.

If we look at the sees established – Lichfield was founded in AD 656, and all the names of its bishops are native; Lindsey was founded in AD 678, and the names of all its bishops are native; at Dunwich, after Felix the Burgundian, all the names are native; at Elmham (AD 673–1055) they are all native; at Worchester (AD 680–1095) they are all native; at Hereford (AD 676–1079) they are all native. In fact, see after see was established, and see after see was established with a native bishop. ⁶⁶

Allen’s forthright appeal to the historic English Church’s ability of adjusting to current needs by consecrating a sufficient amount of bishops to blaze new trails for Church extension between the 7th and 11th centuries is an example of how he reasoned when dealing with contemporary challenges. And yet, what was the Church of England to do after it had extended its influence through colonial control in distant lands without enough trained clergy to meet the immediate needs? The answer to this question is found in Allen’s apostolic principle of training home-grown leadership, addressed within Chapter 3 entitled ‘Charismatic Ministry.’

Charismatic Ministry

Allen’s established outline for this next chapter encompasses the following points. He began by defining the term ‘charismatic ministry.’ ⁶⁷ First of all, he addressed his readers with the assumption that they already ‘know this ministry.’ ⁶⁸ Secondly, he reminds them that these type of ministers already appear within their Missions overseas, for they are noted by the way they ‘work spontaneously, unordained and undirected … cannot be classed’ and tend to be out of place and ‘not at home in the organization of a mission.’ ⁶⁹ Thirdly, this type of ministry does not oppose Church order. ⁷⁰ Fourthly, ‘the language of the New Testament suggests that it was familiar then,’ and yet, ‘the language used by modern writers seems to exclude it,’ take for example, Gore and Moberly. ⁷¹ Fifthly, there remains the position which must accept this type of ‘language as used only within the limits of the organized Church.’ ⁷² Sixthly, since various charismatic ministers regularly celebrate the Lord’s Supper, Allen thought it necessary to ‘enquire whether this is not also outside the limits of any argument used by modern theologians who would appear to forbid it.’ ⁷³ We now begin an attempt to come to terms with Allen’s definition of ‘charismatic ministry’ or how the ministry of the Holy Spirit empowers the spontaneous expansion of the Church. ⁷⁴

Allen’s Pneumatology

The focus of this next chapter on ‘charismatic ministry’ appears to be the pervasive pneumatological thought existent in Allen’s writings. In other words, Allen devoted himself to the clarity of thought concerning the transcendence of the Spirit’s work in the life of the Church. Take note of Allen’s definition:

By ‘charismatic ministry’ I mean here a ministry which is exercised by a man who is moved to perform it by an inward, internal, impulse of that Holy Spirit Who desires and strives after the salvation of men in Christ. I do not deny that men receive a charisma, a gift of grace, for their ministry in ordination: but I use the word ‘charismatic’ to express the ministry which is exercised in virtue of that direct internal impulse of the Spirit, as distinguished from the ministry which is exercised by those who have been ecclesiastically ordained or commissioned. ⁷⁵

Allen’s ecclesiology engaged the ‘both-and’ approach rather than the ‘either-or’ attitude of charismatic ministry within Christian mission. This means Allen recognized both the significance of the Church’s applied ‘charisma’ – as a gift of grace – within the ordination rite, ⁷⁶ as well as, the transcendent empowerment which he called the ‘direct internal impulse of the Spirit’. ⁷⁷ That said, he accepted both the ‘charisma’ of commission through the Church corporately, in addition to the individual ‘charisma’ expressed pneumatologically.

In terms of the ‘charisma’ which was evident among those not ordained by the Church, he cited both Sundar Singh of India and an African commonly referred to as ‘Prophet Harris’ ⁷⁸ who was an evangelist serving among the people of the Ivory and Gold Coasts. Singh and Harris were indicative of a plethora of ministers with ‘charisma’ who functioned outside the context of the established Church. Allen stated that:

they are men whom missionary teachers would deem ill-qualified for the work … No man sends them out to do it … they work outside all ecclesiastical organization, independent of all ecclesiastical authority and supervision … with no recognition, no commission, no ordination … but are moved solely by an internal impulse … yet they certainly perform a ministry … in the eyes of those among whom they work. ⁷⁹

What contributed to Allen’s willingness to recognize the validity of non-conformist ministries? A concise response to this question reveals that Allen had a creedal view of the Church as ‘one catholic and apostolic’ ⁸⁰ in faith and practice which caused him to demonstrate an ‘inclusive’ approach within the Christian community. He had an emerging mission theology which embraced both trans-denominational and non-denominational expressions of Christianity and this stemmed from his pneumatology. And, it appears that Allen recognized unique expressions of ‘charisma’ at work in what he would call the ‘apostolic method’ as evidenced through the ministries of the two men previously mentioned. Allen was not alone in thinking this way about the ‘Prophet Harris’ (that is, William Wade Harris). For almost 80 years after Harris’ death in 1929, he is still talked about within academia. The Professor of History and World Christianity at Yale University, Lamin Sanneh, said this:

Harris established Christianity on the central primal pillar of its post-Western dispensation, and thereby set it against the terms of metropolitan entitlement. Indeed, he wrested Christianity from colonial control and compelled missionaries to face a totally different direction if they wished to see the work of God. The thousands who were converted at his hands, and who stood firm in defiance of the armed containment of colonial sequestration, vindicated his surefooted grasp of their yearning for salvation. Between the French in the Ivory Coast and the British in the Gold Coast, Harris promoted frontier Christianity as a reality transcending the cultural and political boundaries designed for a vanquished people. Salvation-without-strings was the antidote to conversion by civilization. When Harris taught his followers that God was their friend, and that this mattered more than the view that Europeans might be their enemies, he became the epitome of the age. He was the people’s prophet, and they embraced him with uncommon devotion and honor. ⁸¹

Both Allen and Sanneh recognized that Harris had a ‘prophetic’ ⁸² charisma which was operative within his ministry even though he was not commissioned by any ecclesiastical body. Yet, this evangelist encouraged the thousands of Christian converts (the French Government officials calculated about 100,000 converts) ⁸³ to receive instruction within both Protestant and Roman Catholic communions ⁸⁴ rather than rallying the new converts around himself. Examples such as this influenced Allen to learn how to accept this phenomenal expression of charisma due to his own spiritual formation which was influenced by an ever-developing pneumatology.

Various missiologists have recognized Allen’s pneumatological contribution to the study of mission theology. One missiologist writing from Northern Nigeria was Harry R Boer. ⁸⁵ Consider Boer’s description of Allen’s influence:

No review of the place which the Spirit as power occupies in missionary literature may fail to mention the name of Roland Allen. He is pre-eminently the missionary thinker of the Spirit. Allen’s conception of the missionary task finds in the doctrine of the Spirit its determinative factor, and from it he drew important conclusions for the practical execution of the work. ⁸⁶

Boer’s assessment of Allen’s pneumatology and how it relates to mission is only one example of his contribution to missiological thinking within the twentieth century, not to mention his continued influence today among leading missiologists. ⁸⁷

Apostolic Method

For those who are familiar with Allen’s missiological writings they would not find any hesitancy with his use of the word ‘apostolic’ when addressing the planting of the Church and the training of its leadership. For example, Allen called for a return to the principles of ‘apostolic method’ ⁸⁸ when developing local leadership by an appeal to Pauline practice in contrast to contemporary methods used in the early 1900’s. For Allen, the ‘apostolic method’ derived from ‘apostolic order’. Consider Allen’s definition of ‘apostolic order’ when applied to the primary focus of the missionary:

If the missionary had no local Church to care for; if it was his business to go up and down the country striving to convert men to Christ and to bring them to realize that they could have the fullest Church life the moment that they were willing to receive it; if wherever they heard his message the Church was established, two things would inevitably follow: first, settlers who desired Church life, seeing that it was at hand, seeing that they could enjoy it if they would, and that there was nothing to hinder them if they would serve, would realize their power. There are many, very many, good Church people scattered about the world who would respond, and wherever they responded, there the Church would be. Secondly the missionary, being no longer bound to minister to settled groups, would be able to proceed from place to place over a very wide area, and his success would consist not in finding a group which would restrain his further progress, but in establishing a Church from which he could make a further advance. If the members of any group over the widest areas had not, in a very short time, a full Church life, it would be entirely their own fault, because such a system would supply the need of every group that wanted Church life. Working on that Apostolic order, every group in the world could have its full Church life. ⁸⁹

Allen believed that Pauline emphasis on leadership gifts ⁹⁰ provided a contextual setting to argue for historic ‘apostolic’ ministry once again, as evidenced by those first ‘wandering evangelists and prophets’ – not known by the established order of apostles – which had established communities throughout Antioch, Lydda and also Rome. ⁹¹ Within the context of leadership gifts Allen pointed out that these functions of prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers actually ‘follow apostles in a list of the gifts’. ⁹² When applying ‘apostles’ to his early 20th century context, what did he mean? Allen believed these apostles, prophets and teachers – ‘wandering evangelists’ ⁹³ – were the gifted missionaries who planted and equipped the churches. Many modern Christians would find Allen’s use of the word ‘apostle’ as inappropriate and would prefer the word ‘missionary’ instead. Even so, they were the ‘itinerant’ missionaries who were known to work ‘outside’ the established order, ⁹⁴ yet could function ‘within’ the established structure wherever and whenever resident elected leadership (that is, bishops, deacons) ⁹⁵ accepted their vocation. These ‘wandering evangelists’ plant the indigenous Church, train its local leadership and then attempt to ‘retire’ from what they have established. To Allen, this was ‘apostolic order.’ Even Moberly recognized that ‘Apostles no doubt would be thought of as characteristically non-local.’ ⁹⁶

In 1997, a group of British theological and sociological scholars wrote Charismatic Christianity: Sociological Perspectives and specifically addressed this emphasis on the apostolic. In particular, Nigel Wright explained the use of this word by saying:

Of primary importance in the Restoration movement is the recovery of apostolic ministries understood as the concomitant of spiritual gifts… Clearly, apostleship is not understood as the reconstituting of the original 12, who were marked out as being historically unique by the Resurrection appearances, but as the recovery of a spiritual function in the church in line with the five-fold ministry referred to in Ephesians 4:11. ⁹⁷

Is Wright right? Possibly. Wright’s comment that ‘apostleship is not understood as the reconstituting of the original 12 … historically unique by the Resurrection appearances’ ⁹⁸ makes the distinction between the ‘original’ apostles from ‘subsequent’ apostles, that is, those who do ‘apostolic’ work as an extension of the apostolate, which is how Allen understood this itinerant ministry served the Church.

Even later in life, Allen continued to apply apostolic ministry in this sense to current situations. Consider his correspondence with a bishop of Central Tanganyika after an appeal was made in The Times:

In a diocese like yours, surely you are in the position rather of an apostle than of a territorial bishop. You cannot do everything … In the life of St. Paul we see how it was done in the lives of many succeeding apostles. They knew that their one work [emphasis in original] was to establish the Church, and to establish the Church they needed nothing [emphasis in original] that was not before them on the spot. They needed Christian men: they were there in the persons of non-Christian men. They gathered together the souls whom God called, and they established them, ordaining elders among them to lead and to feed. ⁹⁹

This emphasis of apostolic principles and ministry was paramount in Allen’s missionary ecclesiology. At the end of Chapter 3, he concludes with a brief story from Mildred Cable’s book Through Jade Gate ¹⁰⁰ telling how a missionary teacher was invited to the Chinese district of Kansu to instruct various people in the Bible. Allen stated that Cable was amazed to see many churches planted there already by one evangelist named Dr. Kao, who, had ‘not only baptized his converts but taught them all to observe the Lord’s Supper.’ ¹⁰¹ This spontaneous expansion of churches where Christians were celebrating the sacrament without any resident clergy appeared to Allen to be a positive sign of ‘charismatic’ ministry at work by evangelists not necessarily commissioned by Episcopal authorities. Was this something ‘new’ or has the Church endorsed this practice in its past history? This question is briefly answered in Chapter 4: ‘The Practice in the Early Church’.

The Practice in the Early Church

Firstly, early on in this chapter Allen focused on whether or not the New Testament provided any evidence for the celebration of the Lord’s Supper by ‘ordained’ ministers within the Churches of Samaria, Antioch, Cyprus, Lydda, Phoenicia, Joppa, Galatia, and Rome. ¹⁰² Secondly, he drew attention to the non-canonical Didache’ where it seems to show no evidence that the eucharistic officers were even ‘ecclesiastically ordained.’ ¹⁰³ Thirdly, by appealing to the Didache’, he attempted to find evidence whether or not its reference to the work of apostles and prophets, in addition to charismatic evangelists and elected officers, actually ‘celebrated the Lord’s Supper in the absence of a priest.’ ¹⁰⁴ Fourthly, Allen appeals to the evidence found in Tertullian and critiques ‘Bishop Gore’s repudiation of that evidence examined.’ ¹⁰⁵ Fifthly, Allen was convinced there was sufficient evidence in the early Church for what he was suggesting to be applied to his situation. ¹⁰⁶

The Didache ¹⁰⁷

For those of you here today, it is possible that some of you read the April 2011 issue of OCMS’s journal Transformation, where Thomas O’Loughlin presented an article ‘The Missionary Strategy of the Didache’. ¹⁰⁸ If so, maybe we can see its relevance to today’s topic. Not only did Allen refer to the Didache in ‘The Ministry of Expansion: the Priesthood of the Laity’, but also we find that he cited it earlier in 1912 in Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours? ¹⁰⁹ when discussing elders and teachers in the early Church.

From this we get a glimpse of Allen’s commitment first, to the primacy of Scripture when defining apostolic ministry from Pauline dogma (Ephesians 4:11–12). Secondly, we can notice his willingness to cite catholic tradition by his appeal to the Didache. And, thirdly, we observe how he makes use of reason to argue from Scripture and tradition when applying his interpretation of missionary evangelists to the current context of the young churches in distant lands. His missionary ecclesiology includes the apostolic, as seen through the lens of the Didache where

we find evangelists called Apostles, Prophets, and Teachers, who wander about, and Churches established by them whose local officers are called bishops and deacons and are elected. ¹¹⁰

Allen clearly distinguishes between the apostolic order and practice of itinerate evangelists (that is, apostles, prophets and teachers) and the resident local ministry (that is, bishops and deacons). Again, Allen argues directly from what he believes is the Didache’s application of apostolic instruction concerning the proper reception and limited provision for these ministers whenever their itineration brought them into contact with various primitive churches. ¹¹¹ Allen cited the Didache’s reference to the eucharistic meal (14:1–3) as a common expression of their faith with the understanding that not all of these primitive churches had resident clergy, as seen in the instruction to give ‘the first fruits’ (that is, the tithe) to the poor ‘if you have no prophet [settled in your community]’ (13:3). This reference to a ‘prophet’ who might settle within a certain community implies their vocation to be itinerant in nature. This point is critical within Allen’s understanding of the vocation of itinerant evangelists. ¹¹²

Conclusion

The remaining chapters of ‘The Ministry of Expansion: the Priesthood of the Laity’ were not originally intended to be discussed within the context of this paper. That said, those remaining chapters are:

Hopefully this paper has served its purpose of continuing the conversation for an application of the missiology of Roland Allen to global Christianity today. A summary of some of the apostolic principles – planting the indigenous Church through short-term itinerant evangelists; establishing the Church in apostolic order – the Scriptures, a basic creed, the ministry, the sacraments; self-governing churches which ordain locally trained leadership to administer the sacraments frequently; self-supporting churches which manage their own affairs; and, self-propagating churches which empower the laity to influence the culture as a missionary body, are reiterated today for ongoing missiological discussion. These are some of the principles which compelled Allen to serve the Church as a missionary in his day. As missionaries within the 21st century today, may we be challenged to contextualize a missionary ecclesiology that stems from apostolic principles and which is empowered by the Holy Spirit.