[ Home Page | Book Page | TOC | Chapter 2 ]
Chapter 1: In A Nutshell
In 1881 an article was published in the Missionary Review entitled "Can the World Be Evangelized in Twenty Years_" This document set off a vigorous debate that would last until at least 1892. The focus of the debate was the question, "Can the World Be Evangelized in the Present Century (by the year 1900)_", with advocates stressing a definition of evangelization that emphasized proclamation rather than conversion. Most of the widely circulated mission periodicals of the day joined in, either supporting or criticizing the idea. By the time it was no longer possible (by 1894-5), much ground had been covered.
The leading proponent of the idea, and the author of the pivotal 1881 article in the Missionary Review, was a pastor of a Presbyterian church in Philadelphia and a widely known mission advocate. Arthur Tappan (A. T.) Pierson, named after a devout evangelical social reformer for whom his father worked, continually set before the church of his day the idea that the Great Commission could be finished within a single generation, perhaps even by the turn of the century.
Pierson used statistics in his left hand and the Biblical mandate in his right to keep the church constantly aware that bringing the gospel to every creature was a distinct possibility if only it would wake up to the opportunity. To Pierson, this special opportunity and the responsibility that went with it was "the crisis of missions." Five years later, in 1886, he would publish a book by that title that remained at the center of the debate.
The appendix of The Crisis of Missions contained a document titled "An Appeal to Disciples Everywhere" that had been penned by a committee at a conference led by D. L. Moody in Northfield, Massachusetts in 1885. This appeal called for an ecumenical council in an international city where major church and mission leaders could meet to divide up the unevangelized world. Indirectly the appeal led to the London Conference of 1888. There mission leaders congratulated each other on what had been done but never got around, as planned, to dividing up the remaining task.
After London, Pierson and many others continued to stress the possibility of an evangelized world by the year 1900, highlighting the potential significance of the last decade of the nineteenth century and the inauguration of the second century of modern missions (1892, dating from the time William Carey left for India). Though the Church’s awareness of the missionary task was heightened, the year 1900 came and went with the world not fully evangelized. Pierson attributed this failure to a lack of consecration in the churchÑevidenced by a lack of giving, faith, personal holiness, and, perhaps most of all, prevailing prayer. The result, in Pierson’s words, was a "trifling with souls."
This story begins and ends with a world not completely reached. Today we face a similar challenge: Can the world be evangelized by the end of the twentieth century_ When will every last unevangelized population be included in the plans of the Christian Church_ Only when these questions are carefully considered by all Christians who have it within their power to change the world will the "crisis of missions" be confronted in our day.