Edinburgh 1910 and Pentecostalism: Towards a Pneumatological Missiology

Introduction

The World Missionary Conference which met in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1910 is a significant event in the history of the Protestant missionary movement. According to Randall Davidson, the archbishop of Canterbury, who addressed the opening evening session of the Conference on 14 June 1910, ‘this Conference is in some respects unique, . . . where . . .1200 thoughtful men and women met who could contribute a like amount of knowledge . . .’ ¹ The major thrust of the conference was ‘an invitation to Christians around the globe to join in the task of evangelizing the entire world’. ² The Conference had official representatives from many missionary societies and denominations, which were ‘operating among non-Christian people’. ³ At the same time, the newly formed movement, Pentecostalism also had the same goal of world evangelization, and involved extensively in evangelistic activities in the non-Christian world. Although the Conference had hardly any influence on Pentecostalism, it soon became a global missionary movement, and started making significant missiological contribution. This article seeks to study the missiological drive of the Edinburgh Conference as well as Pentecostalism, which eventually lead to construct a ‘Pneumatological Pentecostal Missiology’. As I have been involved with the Pentecostal movement in Rajasthan, India, since 1991, reflections will be drawn from this context in the construction of a pneumatological missiology.

The Spirit of Optimism and Confidence at Edinburgh

As Thangaraj rightly observes, ‘the ethos that dominated the World Mission Conference at Edinburgh was one of confidence and optimism’. Since the leadership of the conference largely came from those actively involved in Student Volunteer Fellowship, the motto of the Fellowship, ‘the evangelization of the world in our own generation’, echoed the mood of Edinburgh 1910. ⁴ Such a confidence was seen even from the opening address of the archbishop. If the Western church was ready to give the mission of non-Christian world, the central place in their plans, policy, and prayers, the archbishop hoped, ‘there be some standing here tonight who shall not taste of death till they see, . . . the Kingdom of God come with power’. ⁵ According to David Bosch, ‘the spirit of optimism and confidence’ which prevailed at the Edinburgh Conference, ‘. . . represented the all-time high water mark in Western missionary enthusiasm, the zenith of the optimistic and pragmatist approach to missions’. He claimed that although the Western missionary circle in general reacted rather negatively to the Enlightenment, the mood of Edinburgh in its optimism and confidence was a clear indication of the spirit of Enlightenment. Bosch saw that ‘more than in any preceding period, Christians of this era believed that the future of the world and of God’s cause depended on them’. ⁶ The closing address of John R Mott, one of the leaders of the Conference, shows this spirit. He said:

The end of the Conference is the beginning of the conquest. . . . We go out with a larger acquaintanceship, with deeper realization of this fellowship which we have just seen, and that is a rich talent which makes possible wonderful achievements. Our best days are ahead of us because of a larger body of experience now happily placed at the disposal of Christendom. . . . Therefore, with rich talents like these which we bear forth, surely our best days are ahead of every one of us, even the most distinguished person in our great company. ⁷

As Bosch observes, the confidence and mood at Edinburgh shows that their time was a mandate for mission, as the participants affirmatively believed that it was ‘an opportune time,’ and ‘a decisive hour for the Christian mission’. ⁸

Although there are several reasons for such an optimistic confidence at Edinburgh, I would like to discuss three of them. ⁹ First, the success stories of foreign missionaries from the mission field around the world. As the home church began to receive voluminous reports of the achievements by their missionaries in the foreign land, they had ample reasons to believe that it was the era of world evangelization. The report of the Commission II for the Conference says:

It is perhaps one of the most encouraging signs, both of the progress of mission work itself, and of the advance which has been made in the thought of the Church at home with regard to it, that ‘The Church in the Mission Field’ now occupies so prominent a position in the discussion of mission questions and methods. It is easy to recall the time when the work of foreign missions was commonly regarded . . . as the sending of a small forlorn hope . . ., from which very little could be looked for in return. The missionaries’ work was conceived to be a continual struggle with heathenism, and at the best the converts gained were thought of as little groups of unimportant people, whose conversion was gratifying for the sake of the individuals gained, but who had no important share in the missionary enterprise as a whole. Now, . . . this view must be entirely abandoned. ¹⁰

Therefore, the major focus of the Commission II was to discuss various concerns related to the institutionalization of the church in the mission field, such as ‘the constitution and organization of the church’, ‘conditions of membership’, and ‘Christian literature and theology’. ¹¹

The second reason is the self-confidence in Human. Although it was acknowledged that the task of making ‘Christ known to all men is a superhuman work’, ¹² it is clear from the report of the Conference that there was a firm belief that the goal of world evangelization could be achieved through human agencies, resources and strategies. The report says:

Its [Western church’s] resources are more than adequate. There are tens of millions of communicant members. The money power in the hands of believing Christians of our generation is enormous. There are many strong missionary societies and boards in Europe, America, Australasia and South Africa, and they have accumulated a vast fund of experience, and have developed a variety of helpful methods and facilities through generations of activity throughout the world. Surely they possess directive energy amply sufficient to conceive, plan and execute a campaign literally world-wide in its scope. The extent, character and promise of the Christian Church make it by no means an inefficient part of the Body of Christ. ¹³

Although the Commission II acknowledged that the chief objective of their missionary endeavour in ‘every field they enter is the creation and training of a native Church’, and the church ‘in each nation or tribe is the supreme instrument for its complete evangelisation’, the superior attitude of white men was clear in the report. While talking of the advantage of the foreign missionary in the mission field, white man was described as a ‘primitive race’, who can exert enormous influence on the native because, he is a ‘representative of the higher knowledge, the superior forces, the marvellous apparatus of the outer world, which breaks the “lower level” of the natives, and the qualities developed in him by education and culture, could win the confidence of the natives’. ¹⁴

Third, the Commission had an impression that the non-Christian religions were losing their hold in many places, at least on certain classes. ¹⁵ They believed from the report of some missionaries from various mission fields that the influence of these religions was waning, especially among the educated classes. The report says:

. . . this breaking up of the old faiths and their failure to satisfy the deepest longings and highest aspirations of men impose a serious responsibility upon the Christian Church. The danger is that, released from the restraints of their old religions, these peoples will give themselves up entirely to irreligion, indifference, and demoralising practices. The dying-out of old superstitions leaves hearts ‘empty, swept, and garnished,’ either for the Gospel or for the seven spirits more evil than the first.

Therefore, they believed that it was the best time to spread the Christian message.

Although the Edinburgh delegates left the Conference with enormous enthusiasm and expectation that they would ‘plan’, ‘act’, ‘live’ and ‘sacrifice’ in such a way that the prophecy of the archbishop to see the ‘Kingdom of God come with power’ be fulfilled in their life time, ¹⁶ the optimistic confidence for evangelizing the whole world in a generation has been gradually toned down. According to Brian Stanley, Edinburgh’s confident voice was ‘soon to be rendered hollow and ultimately silent by the First World War and its aftermath’. ¹⁷ Thangaraj identifies several factors for the waning away of the optimistic confidence of Evangelicals after Edinburgh conference. Therefore, confidence in the efforts of missionaries to evangelize the whole world was eroded after the World Wars, and also that these events and changes that took place since 1910 had a radical effect on Christian mission theology and practice. ¹⁸

Pentecostal Impact

It is significant to note that when the optimistic confidence of Evangelical Christians for world evangelization was in decline in the post-Edinburgh period, Pentecostal missionaries were found to be evangelizing several parts of the globe. Allan Anderson’s Spreading Fires provides a clear picture of Pentecostal expansion during this period. According to him, the Edinburgh conference and its emphasis had little influence on Pentecostal missions as Pentecostals were not invited to participate. ¹⁹ As Anderson’s study reveals, Pentecostal missionaries were sent out from Azusa Street and other centres to places as far as ‘China, India, Japan, Argentina, Brazil, all over Europe, Palestine, Egypt, Somaliland, Liberia, Angola and South Africa’, within 2 years of the beginning of the Azusa Street revival. He claims that this achievement is ‘arguably the most significant global expansion of a Christian movement in the entire history of Christianity’. ²⁰ Most early Pentecostal missionaries were ‘poor, untrained and unprepared for what awaited them’, and they went out ‘by faith without any income’, but with ‘very little and trusting God to supply the necessary finances usually through home contacts and periodical support’. ²¹ However, it is significant to understand that in 100 years, after Edinburgh Conference, Pentecostalism has become a leading force in global Christianity today. Analysing the phenomenal growth of Pentecostalism, Philip Jenkins comments that it is ‘perhaps the most successful social movement of the past century’. ²²

It is a crystal fact that the centre of gravity of global Christianity has shifted indisputably from north to south and from west to east. The rapid expansion of the Pentecostal movement is argued to be a major reason for the unprecedented growth of Christianity in the south and east. ²³ Stanley’s observation in his recent study on the Edinburgh Conference is noteworthy:

The measure of missionary success enjoyed by Christianity in the century that followed arguably owed rather little to the priorities set and the objectives enunciated at Edinburgh. The Christian faith was indeed to be transfigured over the next century, but not in the way or through the mechanisms that they imagined. The most effective instrument of that transfiguration would not be western mission agencies or institutions of any kind, but rather a great and sometimes unorthodox miscellany of indigenous pastors, prophets, catechists, and evangelists, men and women who had little or no access to the metropolitan mission headquarters and the wealth of dollars and pounds which kept the missionary society machinery turning; they professed instead to rely on the simple transforming power of the Spirit and the Word. ²⁴

This does not mean that Stanley meant that all these missionaries were Pentecostals, but Pentecostals were called as ‘people of the Spirit’ and ‘people of the Book [Word]’. ²⁵

‘The primary motivation’ for the Pentecostal growth was their belief that ‘they had received the Missionary Spirit, who had empowered them to go to the nations’. ²⁶ From the inception of the movement, the Holy Spirit has been understood as a missionary Spirit by Pentecostals, and they believed that the outpouring of the Spirit was mainly for world evangelization. This was why the gift of tongues was even interpreted by early Pentecostals as ‘missionary tongues’, to enable them to communicate the gospel effectively in indigenous languages. However, as Anderson ²⁷ and Gary B McGee ²⁸ discussed, they soon found this to be unfeasible, and so reformulated their ‘tongues’ theology.

Missiological Shift

A careful study of the growth of Pentecostalism in the post-Edinburgh period shows that there has been a clear theological shift in mission. As discussed above, the call of Edinburgh missionary conference failed in achieving the goal of world evangelization by the most able and intellectual Western people having sufficient human resources. On the other hand, the ordinary Pentecostal missionaries accomplished far great in terms of evangelization. Thus, they established the fact that mission is beyond a human enterprise. While the optimistic confidence in human resources at the Edinburgh conference exposes the anthropocentric dimension of mission, the Pentecostal missionary activities under the impulse of the Spirit reveal the theocentric dimension. Pentecostals believed that they could be empowered by the extraordinary power of the Spirit of God, and with that power they could achieve global mission. Therefore they asked their missionaries to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and so it was the most essential qualification, and in some cases the only qualification to be a Pentecostal missionary. Being filled with the Spirit and being motivated by the Spirit, they took the challenge of world evangelization. Thus, we see the shift from anthropocentrism to theocentricism, particularly pneumatocentricism in mission. This theological shift is one of the greatest contributions of Pentecostalism to theology of mission.

The aforesaid theological shift not only had its impact in missiology but in other theological disciplines as well. Therefore, we see a pneumatological revivalism today. For example, the pneumatological shift created resurgence in the development of Spirit Christologies. ²⁹ This does not mean that Spirit Christology is new, but there are few examples of the existence of the concept even before the current pneumatological renaissance. ³⁰ However, there has been a novel interest in Pneumatological Christology in the recent years. According to Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, the most outstanding growth of Christian churches is taking place ‘outside the West’, and the local churches and ‘non-traditional churches are heavily pneumatologically and charismatically loaded in their spirituality and theology’. ³¹

Towards a Pneumatological Missiology

Pneumatocentricism is the core of Pentecostal missiology. This emphasis on the Spirit in Pentecostal mission theology and practice inspired Pentecostal missiologists like Pomerville ³² and McClung ³³ to refer to Pentecostals as ‘People of the Spirit’. McClung further explains this Spirit-centred missiology as ‘a “theology on the move.” Its character has been more experiential than cognitive, more activist than reflective. Pentecostals have often acted now and theologized later’. Although there have been attempts by Pentecostals to articulate their teachings and practices, ‘only recently have Pentecostal missiologists begun to solidify a more formalized “pentecostal missions theology”’. ³⁴

Pneumatological Discernment

It seems that the current debate within the pneumatological theology of religions is centred on the issue of discernment. The most common discernment argued for is Christological. However, it is argued that a genuine pneumatological theology should use pneumato-centric Christology for discernment. Roland Allen, a pioneer thinker in linking pneumatology to missiology, is significant in this respect. According to him:

We believe that it is the Holy Spirit of Christ which inspires and guides us: we can not believe that the same Spirit will guide and inspire them [our converts, new believers, new churches, younger churches]. We believe that the Holy Spirit has taught us and is teaching us true conceptions of morality, doctrine, ritual: we can not believe that the same Spirit will teach them. ⁷³

Kirsteen Kim’s discussion on the debate of discernment seems to be useful from the perspective of a pneumatological missiology as the Spirit dimension is clear. She discusses four useful biblical criteria for discernment, for she affirms that ‘the Christian contribution to the debate of discernment will always be Christ-centred’. The first is ecclesial, ‘the confession of Jesus Christ as Lord by the Christian community’, with the help of the Holy Spirit. The second is ethical, ‘the evidence of the fruits of the Spirit . . . in the up-building of community’. The third is charismatic, ‘the practice of the gifts of the Spirit’, and the fourth is liberational, ‘consideration for the poor’, as the Spirit anointed Jesus announced (Lk 4:18). She suggests that these criteria should not be taken as ‘concrete evidence’, but as ‘indicators’, and so ‘any one of these four criteria could indicate the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit’. However, she adds that ‘discernment is not an easy task’, but a ‘complex process and an inexact science’. ⁷⁴

This is not to argue for a limitless pneumatology, but to state the importance of using Spirit-centred Christological discernment, as God the Spirit is sovereign in the church’s interfaith mission. The sovereignty of the Spirit in mission with people of other faiths should be the underlying basis for a pneumatological Pentecostal theology of religions.

Conclusion

The above discussion shows that the optimistic confidence at the Edinburgh Conference 1910 to evangelize the whole world by the best human resources of the Western church was soon faded away. As Stanley observes, its success remains as ‘an appeal to Protestant Christians to subordinate their denominational and national differences . . . to the task of world mission’. ⁷⁵ On the other hand, the Pentecostal Movement, which began in the same decade, became a global missionary movement, and subsequently ‘the fastest expanding religious movement’ ⁷⁶ in the world today in 100 years. The Holy Spirit is argued as the chief reason behind the Pentecostal growth. If Edinburgh was marked for the anthropocentric dimension of mission, Pentecostalism stands for the pneumatocentric dimension. This missiological shift, from anthropocentric to pneumatocentric, is argued as one of the greatest contribution of Pentecostalism to theology of mission. Thus, Pentecostal missiology is arguably a pneumatological missiology that underlines the central role of the Holy Spirit in mission. As Lesslie Newbigin says,

mission is not just something that the church does; it is something that is done by the Spirit, who is himself the witness, who changes both the world and the church, who always goes before the church in its missionary journey. ⁷⁷

In brief, a pneumatological missiology has the potential to deal with a variety of contextual issues in mission, and as it serves multiple purposes, it takes into consideration several aspects of mission, including evangelism, social action, and engaging with people of other faiths.