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So just when did the term "missionary" morph into "inter-cultural studies?" And why? Was it the embarassment factor, since the word missionary smacks of "agenda?" Samuel Zwemer saw this coming, that giving up the word represented something much bigger.
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Grey Missionaries!
July 5, 2008
Samuel Zwemer, from CHRISTIANITY THE FINAL RELIGION "Thinking Grey In Missions".........
The Christian who has no convictions in regard to the great fundamentals of Christianity is easily led to treat Islam as a sister religion and all Moslems as seekers after God in their own way.
Now, if there is no real distinction between regeneration and evolution, if there was no miracle at Bethlehem and only a martyrdom on Calvary, we may patiently await the future development of Islam on the right lines.
But in that case the missionary is no longer a proclaimer of the truth; he is only a seeker after truth. He is no longer an architect and builder, but a geologist looking for fossil specimens in old strata to complete his collection of things once alive, but now dead. He has interest in religion, but not passion for Christ.
"The great obstacle," writes an experienced missionary from India, "in the way of the success of the Gospel in non-Christian lands is not the attitude of the people or the inherent difficulties of the work, but the tendency on the part of missionaries to be judges instead of advocates, with a desire to hold the balance of truth rather than wield its sword."
The painful attitude of neutral states in World War I should prove to the Christian that for him there can be no neutrality in a war for a Kingdom which has no frontiers.
The effect of thinking grey is inevitable on the messenger as well as on his message. Twilight life is not conducive to spiritual health. We need the full blaze of the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. His authority must be supreme in the intellectual sphere. His belief in the Old Testament scriptures and his statement that "they cannot be broken" leaves only one alternative; if we reject the, we reject Him also.......
A mutilated Gospel can only mean a mutilated spiritual life. When we walk in the light we do not mix colors. Christ's touch cures color-blindness. There is a noble intolerance in the very words used so often by the Apostle John: light - darkness, truth - lie, life - death, God - devil.
The effect of thinking in grey always leads to compromise, and where there is compromise there is indecision. Men have opinions instead of convictions. They join Erasmus in his study rather than Luther nailing his theses to the door of the cathedral.
But Luther would have made a better foreign missionary than Erasmus, especially in these days when so many in the Christian and non-Christian world are thinking in grey.
The Christian who has no convictions in regard to the great fundamentals of Christianity is easily led to treat Islam as a sister religion and all Moslems as seekers after God in their own way.
Now, if there is no real distinction between regeneration and evolution, if there was no miracle at Bethlehem and only a martyrdom on Calvary, we may patiently await the future development of Islam on the right lines.
But in that case the missionary is no longer a proclaimer of the truth; he is only a seeker after truth. He is no longer an architect and builder, but a geologist looking for fossil specimens in old strata to complete his collection of things once alive, but now dead. He has interest in religion, but not passion for Christ.
"The great obstacle," writes an experienced missionary from India, "in the way of the success of the Gospel in non-Christian lands is not the attitude of the people or the inherent difficulties of the work, but the tendency on the part of missionaries to be judges instead of advocates, with a desire to hold the balance of truth rather than wield its sword."
The painful attitude of neutral states in World War I should prove to the Christian that for him there can be no neutrality in a war for a Kingdom which has no frontiers.
The effect of thinking grey is inevitable on the messenger as well as on his message. Twilight life is not conducive to spiritual health. We need the full blaze of the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. His authority must be supreme in the intellectual sphere. His belief in the Old Testament scriptures and his statement that "they cannot be broken" leaves only one alternative; if we reject the, we reject Him also.......
A mutilated Gospel can only mean a mutilated spiritual life. When we walk in the light we do not mix colors. Christ's touch cures color-blindness. There is a noble intolerance in the very words used so often by the Apostle John: light - darkness, truth - lie, life - death, God - devil.
The effect of thinking in grey always leads to compromise, and where there is compromise there is indecision. Men have opinions instead of convictions. They join Erasmus in his study rather than Luther nailing his theses to the door of the cathedral.
But Luther would have made a better foreign missionary than Erasmus, especially in these days when so many in the Christian and non-Christian world are thinking in grey.
