Chapter 21: A word on missions and eschatology
In November of 1892, a scorching criticism of A.T. Pierson and the Missionary Review was sent to the editors of the Missionary Review. The writer said, "Dr. Pierson's views on missions are utterly at variance with those of almost all missionaries. More than once it has been said to me that there was danger lest he do the cause of missions more harm than good. The reason for this is that he is a strong premillenarian, and believes that the sole duty of missionaries is to preach, without any reference to conversion or the establishment of churches. He is opposed to missions having anything to do with education, the development of literature, etc. This was brought out last week at Northfield, and every foreign missionary that spoke attacked his position most earnestly" (Missionary Review, November 1892:863).
Pierson defended his position and that of the magazine by first stating that according to W. E. Blackstone, author of Jesus is Coming, most missionaries were premillenarians. He then refuted the view that premillenarians were opposed to missionary work beyond preaching. "Dr. Gordon and myself firmly believe that 'preaching the Gospel as a witness among all nations' means setting up churches, schools, a sanctified press, medical missions, and, in fact, all the institutions which are the fruit of Christianity and constitute part of its witness; but that our Lord's purpose and plan are that we should not wait in any one field for the full results of our sowing to appear in a thoroughly converted community before we press on to the regions beyond, where as yet the name of Christ has not been spoken; and that our duty is to sow everywhere and as shortly as possible the simple message of the kingdom, that it may everywhere be followed up with every other agency that helps to transform a community" (Missionary Review, November 1892:864) [Italics his]. "Not at Northfield, or anywhere else, 'last week,' or any other time, has the editor of this Review affirmed anything else than what he here boldly reaffirms, that our duty is to go into all the world and within the limits of our own generation preach the Gospel to every creature; that our first duty is contact, and that conversion is something we cannot command, but must leave to God" (Missionary Review, November 1892:864) [Italics his].
Pierson also linked the second coming of Christ with the missionary zeal of the Church. "The fact is itself an argument and an appeal that, so soon as the Lord's coming ceased to be felt to be imminent, and was projected indefinitely into the distance, the remarkable evangelism of primitive days which fed on this truth, declined and decayed, and has never been revived" (Missionary Review, May 1894:322).
A. B. Simpson wrote a landmark book, The Gospel of the Kingdom, in 1890. He made it clear that his reason for writing the book was to hasten the Lord's coming. He also affirmed Pierson's belief that the world could be evangelized by the year 1900.
Sent forth at the opening of this last decade of the century, may it prove indeed to be the Master's own Message to His Bride, and a harbinger of His own appearing. Blessed indeed if before this decade shall have closed, the feeble rushlights of our prophetic literature shall be lost in the full dawn of the Sun of Righteousness, and THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM superseded by the COMING OF THE KING (Simpson, 1890:6).
The second coming is a doctrine that motivates, according to both Simpson and Pierson. Pierson wrote,
Because the blessed hope of our Lord's return has so refining an influence on character it is very mould and matrix of missions. Its whole tendency is to make us unselfish, to relax our grhtml upon material treasures and carnal pleasures; to fashion us "not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life." It makes all time seem short and the whole world seem small; dwarfs the present age into insignificance and lifts the peaks of the age to come into loftier altitudes, on a nearer horizon, in a clearer view. It so magnifies the approval of the coming Lord as to make present compensation for service and sacrifice appear trifling (Missionary Review, May 1894:325).
After the early 1890's, much of Pierson's mission motivation was derived from a heavily dispensational perspective. Speaking to a sensitive crowd at the Congress of Missions at the Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, Pierson gave an address entitled "Thy Kingdom Come." Here he outlined the five ages or dispensations of history.
The present age is known in Scripture as an evil age, during which evil is dominant, because Satan has usurped control of this world. This is the age of the Church,..., the outgathering of the Body or Bride of Christ from all nations; and this age belongs to the times of the Gentiles, because it is by the preaching of the Gospel as a witness to all nations that the elect are to be thus outgathered (Missionary Review, November 1893:803).
Pierson was heavily criticized for the dispensational and eschatological flavor of this address, but he later defended it on the basis of its popularity among most missionaries.
But by far, the greatest proponents of a link between the missionary enterprise and prophecy were not Americans but British. Mr. and Mrs. H. Grattan Guinness, the founders of the Regions Beyond Home Union and the editors of the monthly Regions Beyond, continually set before the public an eschatological view of completing the task of world evangelization. "Simply and honestly reading the words of the Book, we cannot, therefore, but see a close connection between the Foreign Missionary work of the Church and the second Advent of her Lord and Saviour" (Regions Beyond, May 1888:139). The Guinnesses also saw the London Conference in 1888 as fulfillment of prophecy. They would be hastening the return of the Lord by looking at completing the task of world evangelization as speedily as possible.
Look up, therefore; lift up your heads, and be of joyful courage, for the coming of our Jesus is very close at hand; we live in the last hours of the world's long, dark night, already over heathendom the dawn is beginning to rise, it will not be much longer before the Sun of Righteousness shall shine forth. Hasten, hasten to gather in the last lost sheep to the fold of the tender Shepherd, to finish the work of the Lord, and so to be ready to meet Him when He shall appear! (Regions Beyond, February 1889:48).
Pierson also spoke of the Lord's return as a motive to mission. "This was, no doubt, the foremost of all motives, hopes and incentives, which moved early disciples to zeal and activity in missions; and to revive this hopeÑto make it practically the mighty motor to us that it was to them, is to provide a new impulse and impetus in the work of a world's evangelization" (Pierson, 1895:414). This hope, beyond mere incentive, provided disciples with a reason to finish the task as quickly as possible. "So soon and so long as that hope was dim, and Christ's Coming was pushed in the far-off future, the Church began leisurely working, then flippantly playing at missions, as though vast cycles of time lay before us to witness to the world. Revive this hope of the Lord's Coming and it begets hourly watching, ceaseless praying, tireless toiling, patient waiting" (Pierson, 1895:416).
Robert E. Speer later defended this connection, "I never yet saw a Christian man or woman anywhere who did not believe that this work of evangelizing the world relates itself in some way to the second advent of our Lord" (Speer, 1902:517).
