The Modern Missionary Movement

Historical Theology

Historical Setting

For much of the post-Reformation era, Protestantism had been strangely silent on foreign missions. Many held that the Great Commission was binding only upon the apostles; others were so absorbed in the doctrine of election as to conclude that God would save the heathen without human means. The Reformed and Lutheran churches built confessions and fought theological battles, but few sent missionaries to the unreached nations.

That changed dramatically at the close of the eighteenth century. The very awakenings that warmed the church’s heart (see 06_02) rekindled her concern for the lost beyond Christendom. The result was an explosion of cross-cultural mission unparalleled since the apostolic age — a movement so consequential the nineteenth century has been called “the Great Century” of Christian expansion.

What Was at Stake

At stake was the church’s obedience to her risen Lord’s final command, and the destiny of millions who had never heard the name of Christ. But a theological question had to be settled first: is the Great Commission still binding? When the young Baptist cobbler William Carey urged his elders to consider the duty of evangelizing the nations, a senior minister is said to have rebuked him: “Young man, sit down. When God pleases to convert the heathen, He will do it without your aid or mine.” The recovery of missions required recovering the conviction that God ordains means as well as ends.

Key Players

William Carey (1761–1834), rightly called “the father of modern missions,” answered that objection in his epochal pamphlet An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens (1792). His sermon at Nottingham gave the movement its motto: “Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.” Carey sailed for India and labored at Serampore, where the Serampore Trio — Carey, Joshua Marshman, and William Ward — translated the Scriptures into dozens of Indian languages, founded schools, and campaigned against the burning of widows (sati).

Adoniram Judson (1788–1850), the first American foreign missionary, gave his life to Burma, enduring imprisonment, the deaths of wives and children, and years without a convert before God gave fruit and a Burmese Bible.

David Livingstone (1813–1873) opened vast regions of central Africa, combining exploration, medicine, and a fierce opposition to the slave trade with his evangelistic vision.

Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) founded the China Inland Mission (1865), pioneering a faith mission that adopted Chinese dress and customs to reach the interior, and trusting God alone for provision. His self-emptying identification with the people he served set a pattern for generations.

These were joined by countless others — Henry Martyn, Robert Moffat, the missionary societies that multiplied across Britain and America — and, crucially, by women and indigenous evangelists whose labors the records too often underweight.

The Outcome

Within a century, the Christian faith had taken root across India, Burma, China, Africa, and the islands of the Pacific. The Bible was translated into hundreds of tongues. Schools, hospitals, and presses followed. The church became, for the first time in centuries, a genuinely global communion — a foretaste of the great multitude “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” (Revelation 7:9).

Scriptural Grounding

The movement rested squarely on the Lord’s own command and on the glory of God among the nations.

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 28:19)

“How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?” (Romans 10:14)

The deepest motive was the glory of God:

“Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples!” (Psalm 96:3)

Doctrinal Significance

The missionary movement clarified, in the life of the church, that God’s decree of election does not abolish the means of grace but establishes them. Carey’s insight — that we are to use means for the conversion of the nations — is profoundly Reformed: the same God who ordains the end ordains the preaching by which the end is reached. Missions is thus not in tension with sovereign grace but its expression. Because Christ has His sheep among every people (John 10:16), the church may “attempt great things” with confidence that God will gather His own.

This also recovered the eschatological vision that the gospel of the kingdom must be “proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations” (Matthew 24:14) before the end.

A Reformed Assessment — Wheat and Chaff

The wheat is glorious, and we celebrate it without reservation as obedience to Christ. Carey, Judson, Taylor, and their fellow laborers counted their lives as nothing for the sake of the gospel, and the global church today is their living fruit. Their recovery of the Great Commission corrected a genuine declension in Protestant theology and restored the church to her missionary calling.

Yet honesty requires that we name the entanglements. The missionary enterprise unfolded within the age of European colonialism and empire, and the two were not always cleanly separable. Some missionaries confused the gospel with Western culture, exporting European dress, customs, and assumptions as though they were the faith itself. Some leaned on colonial power for protection and access; some were slow to entrust leadership to indigenous Christians. These are real failures, and to deny them would be to abandon the charitable accuracy our tradition demands.

But the chaff must not be mistaken for the whole harvest. The same movement produced fierce critics of empire and slavery — Carey against sati, Livingstone against the slave trade, Taylor’s deliberate rejection of cultural imperialism. And the gospel proved greater than its flawed messengers: the churches planted soon outgrew their founders’ limitations and became indigenous, vibrant, and self-governing. We assess honestly, and we give thanks.

Connections

This guide engages Ecclesiology (the mission of the church), Soteriology (the necessity of hearing the gospel for salvation), and Eschatology (the gathering of the nations). It connects to WCF 10.1 on effectual calling through the ministry of the Word, and to the Larger Catechism on the duties flowing from Christ’s kingly office.

Backward, the movement corrects a gap in post-Reformation practice and flows directly from the awakenings (06_02) and their renewed zeal. It presupposes the high view of Scripture defended at Princeton (06_04), for it was the trustworthy Word that the translators labored to render. Forward, the missionary movement’s global fruit reshapes the contemporary church (07_xx), even as the twentieth century would debate the relation of evangelism to social action and the proper response to the liberal “social gospel” trajectory (06_03).

Lessons for Today

The missionary movement teaches that sovereign grace and human means belong together, and that obedience to the Great Commission is non-negotiable for a faithful church. It teaches us to celebrate costly obedience while examining honestly the cultural baggage we, too, may confuse with the gospel. And it teaches the abiding lesson of Carey’s life: “Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.”