While there may be a formal alliance or other treaty
obligations between the influenced and influencer, such formal
arrangements are not necessary and the influence can often be more of an
example of soft power.
Similarly, a formal alliance does not necessarily mean that one country
lies within another's sphere of influence. High levels of exclusivity
have historically been associated with higher levels of conflict.
In more extreme cases, a country within the "sphere of influence"
of another may become a subsidiary of that state and serve in effect as
a satellite state or de factocolony. This was the case with the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc
after World War II. The system of spheres of influence by which
powerful nations intervene in the affairs of others continues to the
present. It is often analyzed in terms of superpowers, great powers, and/or middle powers.[
The term is also used to describe non-political situations, e.g., a shopping mall is said to have a 'sphere of influence' that designates the geographical area where it dominates the retail trade.
This doctrine, dubbed the 'Monroe Doctrine', was formalized under President James Monroe, who asserted that the New World was to be established as a Sphere of influence, removed from European encroachment. As the U.S. emerged as a world power, few nations dared to trespass on this sphere. (A notable exception occurred with the Soviet Union and the Cuban Missile Crisis.)
Delimitation of British and Russian influence in Iran
For Siam (Thailand), Britain and France signed an agreement in 1904 whereby the British recognised a French sphere of influence to the east of the River Menam's (Chao Phraya River) basin; in turn, the French recognised British influence over the territory to the west of the Menam basin and west of the Gulf of Thailand. Both parties disclaimed any idea of annexing Siamese territory.
In the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, Britain and Russia divided Persia (Iran)
into spheres of influence, with the Russians gaining recognition for
influence over most of northern Iran, and Britain establishing a zone in
the Southeast.
China
In China, during the mid 19th and 20th centuries (known in China as the "century of humiliation"), Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and Japan
held special powers over large swaths of Chinese territory based on
securing "nonalienation commitments" for their "spheres of interest";
only the United States was unable to participate due to their
involvement in the Spanish–American War. These spheres of influence were acquired by forcing the Qing government to sign "unequal treaties" and long-term leases.
In early 1895, the French laid claim to a sphere in Southwest China. By December 1897, German Kaiser Wilhelm II
declared his intent to seize territory in China, precipitating the
scramble to demarcate zones of influence in China. The Germans acquired,
in Shandong province, exclusive control over developmental loans, mining, and railway ownership, while Russia gained a sphere over all territory north of the Great Wall, in addition to the previous tax exemption for trade in Mongolia and Xinjiang, economic powers similar to Germany's over Fengtian, Jilin, and Heilongjiang provinces. France gained a sphere over Yunnan, as well as most of Guangxi and Guangdong provinces; Japan over Fujian province; and the British over the whole Yangtze River valley (defined as all provinces adjoining the Yangtze river as well as Henan and Zhejiang provinces), parts of Guangdong and Guangxi provinces, and part of Tibet. Only Italy's request for Zhejiang province was declined by the Chinese government. These do not include the lease and concession territories where the foreign powers had full authority.
Spheres of influence in Chinese empire in early 20th century
The Russian government militarily occupied their zone, imposed their
law and schools, seized mining and logging privileges, settled their
citizens, and even established their municipal administration on several
cities, the latter without Chinese consent.
The powers (and the United States) might have their own courts,
post offices, commercial institutions, railroads, and gunboats in what
was on paper Chinese territory. However, the foreign powers and their
control in some cases could have been exaggerated; the local government
persistently restricted further encroachment. The system ended after the Second World War.
On September 6, 1899, U.S. Secretary of State John Hay
sent notes to the major powers (France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Japan,
and Russia), asking them to declare formally that they would uphold
Chinese territorial and administrative integrity and would not interfere
with the free use of the treaty ports
within their spheres of influence in China, as the United States felt
threatened by other powers' much larger spheres of influence in China
and worried that it might lose access to the Chinese market should the
country be officially partitioned. Although treaties made after 1900 refer to this "Open Door Policy",
competition among the various powers for special concessions within
China for railroad rights, mining rights, loans, foreign trade ports,
and so forth, continued unabated, with the US itself contradicting the policy by agreeing to recognise the Japanese sphere in the Lansing-Ishii Agreement.
In 1910, the great powers, Britain, France, Germany, United
States, and later, Russia and Japan, ignored the Open Door Policy to
form a banking consortium, consisting of national banking groups backed
by respective governments, through which all foreign loans to China were
monopolised, granting the powers political influence over China and
reducing economic competition between foreigners. This organisation
controlled the majority of Chinese tax revenue in a "trust", utilising a
small portion to bolster the rule of Chinese warlord Yuan Shikai
to great effect. The renewed consortium of UK, France, Japan and the
U.S. in 1920 effectively vetoed all developmental loans to China,
exerting control over the Chinese government by aiming to control all
railroads, ports and highways in China.
The Consortium helped to contain the political and financial conflict
between parties and states over the loans, while imposing foreign
control on China's finances during the period of revolutionary upheaval,
which the Consortium also helped to precipitate.
World War II (1939–1945)
Empire of Japan
German and Japanese direct spheres of influence at their greatest extents in fall 1942.
For another example, during the height of its existence in World War II, the Japanese Empire had quite a large sphere of influence. The Japanese government directly governed events in Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, and parts of Mainland China. The "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" could thus be quite easily drawn on a map of the Pacific Ocean as a large "bubble" surrounding the islands of Japan and the Asian and Pacific nations it controlled.
Poland was to be partitioned in the event of its "political rearrangement"—the areas east of the Narev, Vistula, and San Rivers going to the Soviet Union, while Germany would occupy the west.
Lithuania, adjacent to East Prussia,
would be in the German sphere of influence, although a second secret
protocol agreed in September 1939 assigned Lithuania to the USSR.
Another clause of the treaty stipulated that Bessarabia, then part of Romania, would join the Moldovan ASSR and become the Moldovan SSR under the control of Moscow. The Soviet invasion of Bukovina on 28 June 1940 violated the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, as it went beyond the Soviet sphere of influence as agreed with the Axis. The USSR continued to deny the existence of the Pact's protocols until after the dissolution of the Soviet Union when the Russian government fully acknowledged the existence and authenticity of the secret protocols.
End of World War II
From 1941 and the German attack on the Soviet Union, the Allied Coalition operated on the unwritten assumption that the Western Powers and the Soviet Union
had each its own sphere of influence. The presumption of the US-British
and Soviet unrestricted rights in their respective spheres began to
cause difficulties as the Nazi-controlled territory shrank and the
allied powers successively liberated other states.
The wartime spheres lacked a practical definition and it had
never been determined if a dominant allied power was entitled to
unilateral decisions only in the area of military activity, or could
also force its will regarding political, social and economic future of
other states. This overly informal system backfired during the late
stages of the war and afterward, when it turned out that the Soviets and
the Western Allies had very different ideas concerning the administration and future development of the liberated regions and of Germany itself.
However, the level of control exerted in these spheres varied and was not absolute. For instance, France and the United Kingdom were able to act independently to invade (with Israel) the Suez Canal (they were later forced to withdraw by joint U.S. and Soviet pressure). Later, France was also able to withdraw from the military arm of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO). Cuba, as another example, often took positions that put it at
odds with its Soviet ally, including momentary alliances with China,
economic reorganizations, and providing support for insurgencies in
Africa and the Americas without prior approval from the Soviet Union.[
According to Ulrich Speck, writing for Carnegie Europe,
"After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the West's focus was on Russia.
Western nations implicitly treated the post-Soviet countries (besides
the Baltic states) as Russia's sphere of influence."
In 1997, NATO and Russia signed the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security,
stating the "aim of creating in Europe a common space of security and
stability, without dividing lines or spheres of influence limiting the
sovereignty of any state."
On August 31, 2008, Russian president Dmitri Medvedev stated five
principles of foreign policy, including the claim of a privileged
sphere of influence that comprised "the border region, but not only". In 2009, Russia asserted that the European Union desires a sphere of influence and that the Eastern Partnership is "an attempt to extend" it. In March that year, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt
stated that the "Eastern Partnership is not about spheres of influence.
The difference is that these countries themselves opted to join."
Following the 2008 Russo-Georgian War, Václav Havel
and other former central and eastern European leaders signed an open
letter stating that Russia had "violated the core principles of the Helsinki Final Act, the Charter of Paris ... all in the name of defending a sphere of influence on its borders." In April 2014, NATO stated that, contrary to the Founding Act,
Russia
now appears to be attempting to recreate a sphere of influence by
seizing a part of Ukraine, maintaining large numbers of forces on its
borders, and demanding, as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently stated, that "Ukraine cannot be part of any bloc."
Criticising Russia in November 2014, German Chancellor Angela Merkel
said that "old thinking about spheres of influence, which runs
roughshod over international law" put the "entire European peace order
into question." In January 2017, British Prime Minister Theresa May
said, "We should not jeopardise the freedoms that President Reagan and
Mrs Thatcher brought to Eastern Europe by accepting President Putin's
claim that it is now in his sphere of influence."
In corporate terms, the sphere of influence of a business,
organization, or group can show its power and influence in the
decisions of other businesses/organizations/groups. The influence shows
in several ways, such as in size, frequency of visits, etc. In most
cases, a company described as "bigger" has a larger sphere of influence.
For example, the software company Microsoft has a large sphere of influence in the market of operating systems;
any entity wishing to sell a software product may weigh up
compatibility with Microsoft's products as part of a marketing plan.
In another example, retailers wishing to make the most profits must
ensure they open their stores in the correct location. This is also true
for shopping centers that, to reap the most profits, must be able to
attract customers to their vicinity.
There is no defined scale measuring such spheres of influence.
However, one can evaluate the spheres of influence of two shopping
centers by seeing how far people are prepared to travel to each shopping
center, how much time they spend in its vicinity, how often they visit,
the order of goods available, etc.
Corporations have significant influence on the regulations and regulators that monitor them. During the Gilded Age
in the United States, corruption was rampant as business leaders spent
significant amounts of money ensuring that government did not regulate
their activities. Wall Street spent a record $2 billion trying to influence the 2016 United States elections.
A Christian mission is an organized effort for the propagation of the Christian faith. Missions involve sending individuals and groups across boundaries, most commonly geographical boundaries, to carry on evangelism or other activities, such as educational or hospital work. Sometimes individuals are sent and are called missionaries, and historically may have been based in mission stations.
When groups are sent, they are often called mission teams and they do
mission trips. There are a few different kinds of mission trips:
short-term, long-term, relational and those that simply help people in
need. Some people choose to dedicate their whole lives to mission.
Missionaries preach the Christian faith (and sometimes to administer
sacraments), and provide humanitarian aid. Christian doctrines (such as
the "Doctrine of Love" professed by many missions) permit the provision
of aid without requiring religious conversion. However, Christian
missionaries are implicated in the genocide of indigenous peoples. Around 100,000 native people in California, U.S., or 1/3 of the native population, are said to have died due to missions.
From Late Antiquity onward, much missionary activity was carried out by members of religious orders. Monasteries
followed disciplines and supported missions, libraries, and practical
research, all of which were perceived as works to reduce human misery
and suffering and glorify the Christian God. For example, Nestorian communities evangelized parts of Central Asia, as well as Tibet, China, and India. Cistercians evangelized much of Northern Europe, as well as developing most of European agriculture's classic techniques. St Patrick evangelized many in Ireland. St David was active in Wales.
During the Middle Ages, Ramon Llull advanced the concept of preaching to Muslims and converting them to Christianity by means of non-violent argument. A vision for large-scale mission to Muslims would die with him, not to be revived until the 19th century.
One of the main goals of the Christopher Columbus expedition financed
by Queen Isabella of Spain was to spread Christianity. During the Age of Discovery, Spain and Portugal established many missions in their American and Asian colonies. The most active orders were the Jesuits, Augustinians, Franciscans and Dominicans.
The Portuguese sent missions into Africa. These are some of the most
well-known missions in history. While some of these missions were
associated with imperialism and oppression, others (notably Matteo Ricci's Jesuit mission to China) were relatively peaceful and focused on inculturation rather than cultural imperialism.
In both Portugal and Spain, religion was an integral part of the
state and evangelization was seen as having both secular and spiritual
benefits. Wherever these powers attempted to expand their territories
or influence, missionaries would soon follow. By the Treaty of Tordesillas,
the two powers divided the world between them into exclusive spheres of
influence, trade and colonization. The proselytization of Asia became
linked to Portuguese colonial policy.
From 1499 onward, Portuguese trade with Asia rapidly proved profitable. As Jesuits arrived in India around 1540 the colonial government in Goa supported the mission with incentives for baptized Christians. Beginning in 1552, the Church sent Jesuits to China and to other countries in Asia.
During the time of the Holland (Batavia) Mission
(1592–1853), when the Roman Catholic church in the country was
suppressed, there were neither parishes nor dioceses, and the country
effectively became a mission area in which congregations were called "stations" (staties). Statie, usually called a clandestine church in English, refers to both the congregation's church and its seat or location.
The Reformation
unfolded in Europe in the early 16th century. For over a hundred years,
occupied by their struggle with the Catholic Church, the early
Protestant churches as a body were not strongly focused on missions to
"heathen" lands.
Instead, the focus was initially more on Christian lands in the hope to
spread the Protestant faith, identifying the papacy with the Antichrist.
In the centuries that followed, Protestant churches began sending
out missionaries in increasing numbers, spreading the proclamation of
the Christian message to previously unreached people. In North America, missionaries to the Native Americans included Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758), the well-known preacher of the Great Awakening (c. 1731–1755), who in his later years retired from the very public life of his early career. He became a missionary to the Housatonic Native Americans (1751) and a staunch advocate for them against cultural imperialism.
As European culture has been established in the midst of
indigenous peoples, the cultural distance between Christians of
differing cultures has been difficult to overcome. One
early solution was the creation of segregated "praying towns" of
Christian natives. This pattern of grudging acceptance of converts played out again later in Hawaii
when Congregational missionaries from New England went there and
converted the native population, including the royalty. In the course of
the Spanish colonization of the Americas, the Catholic missionaries learned the languages of the Amerindians and devised writing systems for them. Then they preached to indigenous people in those languages (Quechua, Guarani, Nahuatl) instead of Spanish, to keep Indians away from "sinful" whites. An extreme case of segregation occurred in the GuaraniReductions, a theocratic semi-independent region established by the Jesuits in the region of the future Paraguay between the early 17th century and 1767.
From 1732 onwards the Moravian Church began sending out missionaries.
Around 1780, an indigent Baptist cobbler named William Carey began reading about James Cook's
travels voyages in Polynesia. His interest grew to a furious sort of
"backwards homesickness", inspiring him to obtain Baptist orders, and
eventually to write his famous 1792 pamphlet, "An Enquiry into the Obligation of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of Heathen".
Far from a dry book of theology, Carey's work used the best available
geographic and ethnographic data to map and count the number of people
who had never heard the Gospel. It inspired a movement that has grown
with increasing speed from his day to the present.
Thomas Coke, (1747–1814) the first bishop of the American Methodists,
was "the Father of Methodist Missions". After spending time in the
newly formed United States of America strengthening the infant Methodist Church alongside Episcopal colleague Francis Asbury,
the British-born Coke left for mission work. During his time in
America, Coke worked vigorously to increase Methodist support of
Christian missions and of raising up mission workers. Coke died while on
a mission trip to India, but his legacy among Methodists – his passion
for missions – continues.
A wave of missions, starting in the early 1850s, targeted inland areas, led by a Briton Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) with his China Inland Mission (1865– ). Taylor was later supported by Henry Grattan Guinness (1835–1910) who founded (1883) Cliff College, which continues as of 2014 to train and equip for local and global mission.
The missions inspired by Taylor and Guinness have collectively been called "faith missions" and owe much to the ideas and example of Anthony Norris Groves (1795–1853). Taylor, a thorough-going nativist,
offended the missionaries of his era by wearing Chinese clothing and
speaking Chinese at home. His books, speaking, and examples led to the
formation of numerous inland missions and of the Student Volunteer Movement
(SVM, founded in 1886), which from 1850 to about 1950 sent nearly
10,000 missionaries to inland areas, often at great personal sacrifice.
Many early SVM missionaries traveling to areas with endemic tropical
diseases left with their belongings packed in a coffin, aware that 80%
of them would die within two years.
British Empire
In the 18th century, and even more so in the 19th century, missionaries based in Britain saw the British Empire as a fertile field for proselytizing for Christianity. All the main denominations were involved, including the Church of England,
Scottish Presbyterian, and Nonconformists. Much of the enthusiasm
emerged from the Evangelical revival. Within the Church of England, the
Church Mission Society (CMS) originated in 1799 and went on to undertake activity all around the world, including in what became known as "the Middle East".
Before the American Revolution, British Anglican and Methodist missionaries were active in the Thirteen Colonies. The Methodists, led by George Whitefield,
were the most successful and after the Revolution an entirely distinct
American Methodist denomination emerged that became the largest
Protestant denomination in the United States.
A major problem for British colonial officials was the demand of the
Church of England to set up an American bishop; this was strongly
opposed by most of the Americans colonists, as it had never happened
before. Colonial officials increasingly took a neutral position on
religious matters, even in those colonies such as Virginia where the Church of England was officially established, but in practice controlled by laymen in the local vestries. After the American War of Independence, colonial officials decided to enhance the power and wealth of the Church of England in all British colonies, including British North America.
Missionary societies funded their own operations that were not
supervised or directed by the Colonial Office. Tensions emerged between
the missionaries and the colonial officials. The latter feared that
missionaries might stir up trouble or encourage the natives to challenge
colonial authority. In general, colonial officials were much more
comfortable with working with the established local leadership,
including the native religions, rather than introducing the divisive
force of Christianity. This proved especially troublesome in India, were
very few local elites were attracted to Christianity. In Africa,
especially, the missionaries made many converts. As of the 21st century
there were more Anglicans in Nigeria than in England.
Missionaries increasingly came to focus on education, medical
help, and long-term modernization of the native personality to inculcate
European middle-class values. They established schools and medical
clinics. Christian missionaries played a public role, especially in
promoting sanitation and public health. Many were trained as
physicians, or took special courses in public health and tropical
medicine at Livingstone College, London.
After 1870
By
the 1870s, Protestant missions around the world generally acknowledged
the long-term material goal was the formation of independent,
self-governing, self-supporting, self-propagating churches. The rise of
nationalism in the Third World
provoked challenges from critics who complained that the missionaries
were teaching Western ways, and ignoring the indigenous culture. The Boxer Rebellion in China in 1899–1901 involved bloody attacks on Christian missions and especially their converts. The First World War diverted resources, and pulled most Germans out of missionary work when that country lost its empire. The worldwide Great Depression of the 1930s was a major blow to funding mission activities.
In 1910, the Edinburgh Missionary Conference was presided over by active SVM and YMCA leader John R. Mott, an American Methodist
layperson, the conference reviewed the state of evangelism, Bible
translation, mobilization of church support, and the training of
indigenous leadership.
Looking to the future, conferees worked on strategies for worldwide
evangelism and cooperation. The conference not only established greater
ecumenical cooperation in missions, but also essentially launched the
modern ecumenical movement.
The next wave of missions was started by two missionaries, Cameron Townsend and Donald McGavran,
around 1935. These men realized that although earlier missionaries had
reached geographic areas, there were numerous ethnographic groups that
were isolated by language, or class from the groups that missionaries
had reached. Cameron formed Wycliffe Bible Translators
to translate the Bible into native languages. McGavran concentrated on
finding bridges to cross the class and cultural barriers in places like
India, which has upwards of 4,600 peoples, separated by a combination of
language, culture, and caste. Despite democratic reforms, caste and class differences are still fundamental in many cultures.
An equally important dimension of missions strategy is the
indigenous method of nationals reaching their own people. In Asia this
wave of missions was pioneered by men like Dr G. D. James of Singapore, Rev Theodore Williams of India and Dr David Cho of Korea. The "two thirds missions movement" as it is referred to, is today a major force in missions.
Most modern missionaries and missionary societies have repudiated cultural imperialism, and elected to focus on spreading the gospel and translating the Bible. Sometimes, missionaries have been vital in preserving and documenting the culture of the peoples among whom they live.
Often, missionaries provide welfare and health services, as a good deed
or to make friends with the locals. Thousands of schools, orphanages,
and hospitals have been established by missions. One service provided by
missionaries was the Each one, teach oneliteracy program begun by Dr. Frank Laubach in the Philippines in 1935. The program has since spread around the world and brought literacy to the least enabled members of many societies.
During this period missionaries, especially evangelical and Pentecostal missionaries, witnessed a substantial increase in the number of conversions of Muslims to Christianity.
In an interview published in 2013 a leader of a key missionary agency
focused on Muslims claimed that the world is living in a "day of
salvation for Muslims everywhere."
The word "mission" was historically often applied to the building, the "mission station"
in which the missionary lives or works. In some colonies, these mission
stations became a focus of settlement of displaced or formerly nomadic people. Particularly in rural Australia, mission stations (known as missions) became home to many Indigenous Australians.
Major
nations not only send and fund missionaries abroad, but also receive
them from other countries. In 2010, the United States sent out 127,000
missionaries, while 32,400 came to the United States. Brazil was second,
sending out 34,000, and receiving 20,000. France sent out 21,000 and
received 10,000. Britain sent out 15,000 and received 10,000. India sent
out 10,000 and received 8000. Other major exporters included Spain at
21,000 sent out, Italy at 20,000, South Korea at 20,000, Germany at
14,000, and Canada at 8,500. Large recipient nations included Russia,
receiving 20,000; Congo receiving 15,000; South Africa, 12,000;
Argentina, 10,000; and Chile, 8,500. The largest sending agency in the
United States is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints who, at
this date 2019, has 67,000 full time proselytizing young missionaries
all over the world with many more elder missionaries serving in similar
circumstances. The Southern Baptist Convention, has 4,800 missionaries,
plus 450 support staff working inside the United States. The annual
budget is about $50,000 per year per missionary. In recent years,
however, the Southern Baptist foreign missionary operation (the
International Mission Board) has operated at a deficit, and it is
cutting operations by 15 percent. It is encouraging older missionaries
to retire and return to the United States.
Modern missionary methods and doctrines among conservative Protestants
The Lausanne Congress
of 1974, birthed a movement that supports evangelical mission among
non-Christians and nominal Christians. It regards "mission" as that
which is designed "to form a viable indigenous church-planting and world changing movement." This definition is motivated by a theologically imperative theme of the Bible to make God known, as outlined in the Great Commission. The definition is claimed to summarize the acts of Jesus' ministry, which is taken as a model motivation for all ministries.
This Christian missionary movement seeks to implement churches
after the pattern of the first century Apostles. The process of forming disciples
is necessarily social. "Church" should be understood in the widest
sense, as a body of believers of Christ rather than simply a building.
In this view, even those who are already culturally Christian must be
"evangelized".
Church planting by cross-cultural missionaries leads to the
establishment of self-governing, self-supporting and self-propagating
communities of believers. This is the famous "three-self" formula
formulated by Henry Venn of the London Church Missionary Society
in the 19th century. Cross-cultural missionaries are persons who accept
church-planting duties to evangelize people outside their culture, as
Christ commanded in the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18–20, Mark 16:15–18).
The objective of these missionaries is to give an understandable
presentation of their beliefs with the hope that people will choose to
following the teaching of Jesus Christ and live their lives as His
disciples. As a matter of strategy, many evangelical Christians around the world now focus on what they call the "10/40 window", a band of countries between 10 and 40 degrees northlatitude and reaching from western Africa through Asia. Christian missions strategist Luis Bush pinpointed the need for a major focus of evangelism in the "10/40 Window", a phrase he coined in his presentation at the missionary conference Lausanne 1989
in Manila. Sometimes referred to as the "Resistant Belt", it is an area
that includes 35% of the world's land mass, 90% of the world's poorest
peoples and 95% of those who have yet to hear anything about
Christianity.
Modern mission techniques are sufficiently refined that within
ten to fifteen years, most indigenous churches are locally pastored,
managed, taught, self-supporting and evangelizing. The process can be
substantially faster if a preexisting translation of the Bible and higher pastoral education are already available, perhaps left over from earlier, less effective missions.
One strategy is to let indigenous cultural groups decide to adopt
Christian doctrines and benefits, when (as in most cultures) such major
decisions are normally made by groups. In this way, opinion leaders in
the groups can persuade much or most of the groups to convert. When
combined with training in discipleship, church planting and other modern
missionary doctrine, the result is an accelerating, self-propelled conversion of large portions of the culture.
A typical modern mission is a co-operative effort by many
different ministries, often including several coordinating ministries,
such as the Faith2Share network, often with separate funding sources. One typical effort proceeded as follows:
A missionary radio group recruits, trains and broadcasts in the
main dialect of the target culture's language. Broadcast content is
carefully adapted to avoid syncretism
yet help the Christian Gospel seem like a native, normal part of the
target culture. Broadcast content often includes news, music,
entertainment and education in the language, as well as purely Christian
items.
Broadcasts might advertise programs, inexpensive radios (possibly
spring-wound), and a literature ministry that sells a Christian
mail-order correspondence course at nominal costs. The literature
ministry is key, and is normally a separate organization from the radio
ministry. Modern literature missions are shifting to web-based content
where it makes sense (as in Western Europe and Japan).
When a person or group completes a correspondence course, they are
invited to contact a church-planting missionary group from (if possible)
a related cultural group. The church-planting ministry is usually a
different ministry from either the literature or radio ministries. The
church-planting ministry usually requires its missionaries to be fluent
in the target language, and trained in modern church-planting
techniques.
The missionary then leads the group to start a church. Churches
planted by these groups are usually a group that meets in a house. The
object is the minimum organization that can perform the required
character development and spiritual growth. Buildings, complex
ministries and other expensive items are mentioned, but deprecated until
the group naturally achieves the size and budget to afford them. The
crucial training is how to become a Christian (by faith in Jesus Christ)
and then how to set up a church (meet to study the Bible, and perform
communion and worship), usually in that order.
A new generation of churches is created, and the growth begins to
accelerate geometrically. Frequently, daughter churches are created only
a few months after a church's creation. In the fastest-growing
Christian movements, the pastoral education is "pipelined", flowing in a
just-in-time fashion from the central churches to daughter churches.
That is, planting of churches does not wait for the complete training of
pastors.
The most crucial part of church planting is selection and training of
leadership. Classically, leadership training required an expensive stay
at a seminary, a Bible college. Modern church planters deprecate this
because it substantially slows the growth of the church without much
immediate benefit. Modern mission doctrines replace the seminary
with programmed curricula or (even less expensive) books of discussion
questions, and access to real theological books. The materials are
usually made available in a major trading language in which most native
leaders are likely to be fluent. In some cases, the materials can be
adapted for oral use.
It turns out that new pastors' practical needs for theology are well addressed by a combination of practical procedures for church
planting, discussion in small groups, and motivated Bible-based study
from diverse theological texts. As a culture's church's wealth
increases, it will naturally form classic seminaries on its own.
Another related mission is Bible translation. The above-mentioned literature has to be translated. Missionaries actively experiment with advanced linguistic techniques
to speed translation and literacy. Bible translation not only speeds a
church's growth by aiding self-training, but it also assures that
Christian information becomes a permanent part of the native culture and
literature. Some ministries also use modern recording techniques to
reach groups with audio that could not be soon reached with literature.
Among Roman Catholics
For Catholics, “Missions” is the term given to those particular undertakings by which the heralds of the Gospel, sent out by the Church
and going forth into the whole world, carry out the task of preaching
the Gospel and planting the Church among peoples or groups who do not
yet believe in Christ.
Vatican II made a deep impact on Catholic missions around the world. The Church's relations to non-Christian religions like Judaism and Islam were revisited.
A steep decline in the number of people entering the priesthood
and religious life in the West has made the Church look towards laity
more and more. Communities like Opus Dei arose to meet this need.
Inculturation
increasingly became a key topic of missiological reflection for
Catholics. Inculturation is understood as the meeting of the Christian
message with a community in their cultural context.
Liberation Theology and liturgical reform have also been important in forming and influencing the mission of the Catholic Church in the 20th and 21st Centuries.
In relation to mission, Pope Benedict XVI made the re-evangelization of Europe and North America a priority in his own ministry,
even while the upper leadership of the Roman Catholic hierarchy and the
college of cardinals has more members from Latin America, Africa, and
Asia than ever before.
Christian
mission organisations have long depended on the printed word as a
channel through which to do mission. At times when countries have been
"closed" to Christians, great efforts have been made to smuggle Bibles
and other literature into those countries. Brother Andrew, the founder
of Open Doors, started smuggling Bibles into communist countries in the
1950s. Operation Mobilisation was established in 1957 by George Verwer. Other Christian publishers, such as Plough Publishing, provide free books to people in the UK and US as a form of mission. The Bible Society translates and prints Bibles, in an attempt to reach every country in the world.
The internet now provides Christian mission organisations a convent way of reaching people in the form of podcasts.
Podcasts provide a way of dissemination for a message that has
potential to endanger the recipient, since it is very hard to track who
has downloaded a specific podcast. An example of this is the Crescent
Project. Other podcasts, such as the Life Together podcast, The Sacred, and Harvest are aimed at both non-Christians and Christians in the home country.
The shift in world Christian
population from Europe and North America to the non-Western world, and
the migration of Africans, Asians, and Latin Americans to the West has
given rise to what some have termed "reverse mission". It demonstrates a reversal of the missionary movement, in that it reverses the direction of earlier missionary efforts.
Inter-Organizational Missions
Globalization
of the 21st century has served as a platform for opportunity for
independent Christian organizations to unite together in cooperation for
outreach missions and discipleship.
Some organizations are Christian consortiums which
organizationally band themselves together like 50,000 persons in the
Illinois based Missio Nexus organization led by Ted Esler.
Other organizations are united by a common source of financial
funding, cooperation in outreach projects and digital communications
between internal missions personnel around the world and their partners
like the 25,000 people united in the GMNF Global Mission Society,
founded by Anton R. Williams of Kalamazoo, Michigan and Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Still other organizations sign legal contacts with an agencies to
join together for specific functions in missions like the SIMS
organization.
This [Christian] proselytization
will mean no peace in the world. Conversions are harmful to India. If I
had the power and could legislate I should certainly stop all
proselytizing ... It pains me to have to say that the Christian
missionaries as a body, with honorable exceptions, have actively
supported a system which has impoverished, enervated and demoralized a
people considered to be among the gentlest and most civilized on earth.
In mid-May, the Vatican was also co-sponsoring a meeting
about how some religious groups abuse liberties by proselytizing, or by
evangelizing in aggressive or deceptive ways. Iraq ... has become an
open field for foreigners looking for fresh converts. Some Catholic
Church leaders and aid organizations have expressed concern about new
Christian groups coming in and luring Iraqis to their churches with
offers of cash, clothing, food or jobs. ... Reports of aggressive
proselytism and reportedly forced conversions in mostly Hindu India have
fueled religious tensions and violence there and have prompted some
regional governments to pass laws banning proselytism or religious
conversion. ... Sadhvi Vrnda Chaitanya, a Hindu monk from southern
India, told CNS that India's poor and uneducated are especially
vulnerable to coercive or deceptive methods of evangelization. ... Aid
work must not hide any ulterior motives and avoid exploiting vulnerable
people like children and the disabled, she said.
In an interview with Outlook
magazine, Sadhvi Vrnda Chaitanya said "If the Vatican could understand
that every religious and spiritual tradition is as sacred as
Christianity, and that they have a right to exist without being
denigrated or extinguished, it will greatly serve the interests of
dialogue, mutual respect, and peaceful coexistence."
Communicating diseases
European
explorers in the Americas introduced Afro-Eurasian diseases to which
Amerindian peoples had no immunity, leading to tens of millions of
deaths. Missionaries, along with other travelers, brought diseases into native populations. Smallpox, measles, and common cold, have been blamed on their arrivals. David Igler of the University of California, Irvine,
includes missionary activity as a cause of spreading germs. However, he
says that commercial traders were the main agents of disease:
other diseases arrived on
non-commercial voyages; missionary activities certainly spread germs,
and Spanish conquests had dispersed deadly germs in parts of the
Americas and Pacific prior to the late eighteenth century. Yet, for the
period between the 1770s and the 1840s, trading vessels were the main
agents of disease, creating in the Pacific what Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie
has called a "paroxysm" of the "microbian unification of the world." By
1850, the microbes of Europe, Asia, and Africa circulated in almost
every Pacific population.
Aid and evangelism
While
there is a general agreement among most major aid organizations not to
mix aid with proselyting, others see disasters as a useful opportunity
to spread the word. One such an occurrence was the tsunami that devastated parts of Asia on December 26, 2004.
"This (disaster) is one of the greatest opportunities God
has given us to share his love with people," said K.P. Yohannan,
president of the Texas-based Gospel for Asia. In an interview, Yohannan
said his 14,500 "native missionaries" in India, Sri Lanka and the
Andaman Islands are giving survivors Bibles and booklets about "how to
find hope in this time through the word of God." In Krabi, Thailand, a
Southern Baptist church had been "praying for a way to make inroads"
with a particular ethnic group of fishermen, according to Southern
Baptist relief coordinator Pat Julian. Then came the tsunami, "a
phenomenal opportunity" to provide ministry and care, Julian told the
Baptist Press news service. ... Not all evangelicals agree with these
tactics. "It's not appropriate in a crisis like this to take advantage
of people who are hurting and suffering", said the Rev. Franklin Graham,
head of Samaritan's Purse and son of evangelist Billy Graham.
The Christian Science Monitor echoes these concerns: "'I think
evangelists do this out of the best intentions, but there is a
responsibility to try to understand other faith groups and their
culture,' says Vince Isner, director of FaithfulAmerica.org, a program
of the National Council of Churches USA."
The Bush administration has made it easier for U.S. faith-based groups and missionary societies to tie aid and church together.
For decades, US policy has sought to avoid intermingling
government programs and religious proselytizing. The aim is both to
abide by the Constitution's prohibition against a state religion and to
ensure that aid recipients don't forgo assistance because they don't
share the religion of the provider. ... But many of those restrictions
were removed by Bush in a little-noticed series of executive orders – a
policy change that cleared the way for religious groups to obtain
hundreds of millions of dollars in additional government funding. It
also helped change the message American aid workers bring to many
corners of the world, from emphasizing religious neutrality to touting
the healing powers of the Christian God.
Christian counter-claims
Missionaries
say that the government in India has passed anti-conversion laws in
several states that are supposedly meant to prevent conversions from
"force or allurement", but are primarily used, they say, to persecute
and criminalize voluntary conversion due to the government's broad
definition of "force and allurement". Any gift received from a Christian
in exchange for, or with the intention of, conversion is considered
allurement. Voice of the Martyrs
reports that aid-workers claim that they are being hindered from
reaching people with much needed services as a result of this
persecution. Alan de Lastic, Roman Catholic archbishop of New Delhi states that claims of forced conversion are false.
"'There are attacks practically every week, maybe not resulting
in death, but still, violent attacks,' Richard Howell, general secretary
of the Evangelical Fellowship of India tells The Christian Science
Monitor today. 'They [India's controlling BJP party] have created an
atmosphere where minorities do feel insecure.'"
According to Prakash Louis, director of the secular Indian Social
Institute in New Delhi, "We are seeing a broad attempt to stifle
religious minorities and their constitutional rights ... Today, they say
you have no right to convert, Tomorrow you have no right to worship in
certain places." Existing congregations, often during times of worship, are being persecuted. Properties are sometimes destroyed and burnt to the ground, while native pastors are sometimes beaten and left for dead.
Political scientist Robert Woodberry claims that conversionary
Protestants were a crucial catalyst in spreading religious liberty,
education, and democracy.
While his historical analysis is exhaustive, the accompanying empirical
evidence suffers from severe inconsistencies. Elena Nikolova and Jakub
Polansky replicate Woodberry's analysis using twenty-six alternative
democracy measures and extend the time period over which the democracy
measures are averaged. These two simple modifications lead to the
breakdown of Woodberry's results. Overall, no significant relationship
between Protestant missions and the development of democracy can be
established.
