Student Volunteer Movement - Missions Theory

Missions Theory

Various theories regarding missions activity have prevailed in American Protestantism during different historical periods. An early emphasis on evangelization for individual salvation gave way to concentration on church planting and educational work as bases for the spread of the Christian faith. With the rise of indigenous churches overseas the concept of ecumenical sharing gave continued justification for missionary activity. The Laymen's Commission of Appraisal in 1932 proposed a more radical conception of missionary work which involved not only inter-church development but also inter-faith development, drawing on increased appreciation for non-Christian religions. However, in Charles Forman's words, "the reaction of mission boards showed that the mission theory and theology of the Laymen's Commission was not that of American missions."

When missions activity was no longer viewed as an exporting of Christian civilization, but rather seen as a mode of worldwide ecumenical cooperation, the distinction between foreign missions and home missions became blurred. Throughout the post-World War I era, the Student Volunteer Movement constantly had to justify its continuing specific concentration on foreign missions. The "revolutionaries" of Des Moines in 1920 questioned the appropriateness of sending missionaries abroad when conditions in American were so much in need of Christianization. In a meeting in February 1920, the Standing Committee discussed at length the pros and cons of Student Volunteer Movement involvement in home missions work, but decided to continue the status quo focus on recruiting for foreign fields only. In 1922, a new home missions movement, the Student Fellowship for Christian Life Service, approached the SVM seeking cooperation; for over a year it used a room in the Movement offices as its headquarters.

It was not until 1945 that the Student Volunteer Movement went beyond cooperation with home missions programs to actual participation in recruiting and educational activity for home fields. It changed its name from the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions to the Student Volunteer Movement for Christian Missions. The announcement of this change noted that:

official action recognizes that the artificial separation of home and foreign missions is now passe', since the work of the Church, even as the world itself, is one. Whether the distinction between the pioneer, frontier worker on the one hand, and the supporting work on the other, can be or should be maintained for recruitment purposes remains to be seen. The declaration card of the Movement, which formerly had offered only one option, commitment to foreign missions, was revised to offer three alternatives:

• I. It is my purpose to become a Christian missionary . . . at home or . . . abroad.

• II. I propose to seek further guidance regarding the missionary vocation.

• III. I propose to support the world mission of the Church through my prayers, gifts and daily work.

This format for the declaration card came under attack from two different angles. Some thought that the Movement was making a mistake in relinquishing its specific focus on foreign missions education and recruitment. They thought that the Movement would become too diffuse and would lose any effectiveness which it still had. At the opposite end of the spectrum, others questioned the entire idea of a declaration card, wondering why the choice of a missionary vocation should be singled out for specific attention, since the Church's mission to the world could be carried out through nearly all vocations.

In 1949 a Committee to Study the Declaration Card was established and it proposed the following format for the card:

• . . . It is my purpose to use my talents and resources to serve the Christian world mission, and in the light of its claims prayerfully to choose my life work.

• . . . Further, it is my purpose, God willing, to be a Christian missionary . . . at home . . . abroad.

More than the phrasing of words on a 3" by 5" card was at-stake in discussion of the Student Volunteer Movement declaration of purpose. There was a question of missions theory - how was missionary activity to be distinguished from the normal interrelationships of Christian churches throughout the world? There was the related issue of the membership basis of the SVM --- should it be restricted to individuals who had made a specifically missionary vocational commitment or should a wider base of students, those who were supportive of the Church's world mission, be considered members of the Movement? At a meeting in March 1952, Policy Committee members expressed divergent opinions. E. Fay Campbell felt that "The regular membership of the SVM should be made up of students . . . who have purposed to offer themselves to Missions Boards for service." Vern Rossman called the first statement on the declaration card "highly problematic." "If we say that every Christian student should be centrally missionary, then every student 'should be' an SVMer." But, in another members opinion, "If one of the prime duties of the Christian community is to point out that almost all vocations can be 'Christian,' then surely the SVM is in a sense defeating the purpose of the Church by creating the feeling that service under a mission board is necessarily more important in the world mission than other vocations."

As the 1950s progressed and the Student Volunteer Movement became increasingly involved in ecumenical ventures it became clear that the Movement would have a distinct contribution to make to the student Christian scene only if it focused its concerns quite specifically on education and recruitment for world missions service under established mission boards and agencies. The distinction implied by this focus, between the Church's general mission in the world and its "missions",was not agreeable to all, but without such a distinction the need for a Student Volunteer type movement became much less apparent. Those striving to maintain the SVM's distinctiveness felt that the Movement still had a role to play in concentrating on the "frontiers" of the Church mission to the world. There were still many places around the world where strong indigenous churches had not been established and the SVM could help to provide Christian messengers to those areas. Furthermore' it was felt that even the stronger indigenous churches overseas would increasingly welcome the assistance of Western missionaries. As a missionary to China had written to John Mott, "Members of the younger Christian churches have actually taken over the responsibility for determining the future character of the Christian movement and, having worked at this job for a period of years, they now realized its complexity and the need for comradeship." Another "frontier" which the SVM Newsletter suggested for the Student Volunteer Movement's attention in 1957, was confrontation with atheistic communism.

In the years after the Student Volunteer Movement's merger into the National Student Christian Federation, a Committee for the Fellowship of Student Volunteers produced a monthly newsletter. A large proportion of the articles in these newsletters were related to missions theory, indicating the realization that until these questions of theory were resolved the role of student volunteers could not be clarified. In the May 1960 newsletter there was a call for an "adequate theology of mission."' The problems were evident. "We used to feel that the Church has missions and thought of missions as something which was done for the other People at some distant place. Such an understanding was based on the assumption that Western Christians live in a Christian society and the Christian missionary task was to take our faith and culture to those areas where it was not known." The 1966 dissolution of the Student Volunteer Movement in its guise as the National Student Christian Federation's Commission on World Mission was the logical outcome of an increasingly prevalent theory of mission in liberal American Protestantism, one which stressed the worldwide ecumenical cooperation of the Church rather than focusing on frontier missions of the Western Church to the non-Western world.