Student Volunteer Movement - Facing A New Era

Facing A New Era

The First World War led to a drop in recruitment of new volunteers, but the months immediately following the armistice brought a phenomenal increase in new missionaries sent overseas. The peak year for enlistment of new volunteers was 1921. The high idealism of the war years still reigned, and mission work seemed to fit clearly with hopeful expectations for international democracy. The Interchurch World Movement symbolized the crusading idealism of the times with its aim of gathering all American benevolent and missionary societies into a grand campaign for the spread of Christianity. The devastating collapse of the Interchurch World Movement due to lack of financial support shocked American Protestant leaders into the realization that a new era had arrived. With the "return to normalcy", post-War economic disruption and an altered psychological mood, there was a rapid descent into what Robert Handy has called the "American religious depression" of 1925 to 1935. This religious depression, in force well before the great economic depression of the era, was grounded in the realization that American Protestantism could no longer identify itself with American culture and civilization.

The fortunes of the Student Volunteer Movement during this period provide vivid illustration of the general trends in American Protestantism. Even while missionary enthusiasm was peaking and declaration cards were pouring in, winds of dissent were buffeting the Des Moines convention of 1919/1920. As Robert Handy has described the scene, the patriarch of the Movement, John R. Mott, opened the convention with an address similar in tone to those of previous conventions. When Sherwood Eddy took the same tack, some of the students disclosed their feelings to him frankly, saying "why do you bring us this piffle, these old shibboleths, these old worn-out phrases, why are you talking to us about the living God and the divine Christ?" Eddy thereupon threw aside his prepared second address and spoke instead in support of the League of Nations and social reform, before returning again to spiritual reform.

The old Student Volunteer Movement evangelicalism no longer had the same appeal for the post-War generation of students. Proof seemed forthcoming that the surging missionary enterprise of American Protestantism's halcyon days had been in part a shield against potential controversy. When its momentum broke, several major problems arose for the Student Volunteer Movement and refused to be subdued.

The overarching difficulty was that of a widening conservative/ liberal rift whose roots extending back to the founding of the Volunteer Movement. The early focus of debate had been the Movement's watchword, "the evangelization of the world in this generation." Arthur T. Pierson, who had first used the watchword at Northfield, was a renowned conservative premillenarianist. The impression became widespread that the watchword implied a rapid, simplistic, verbal presentation of Christ to the world which would fulfill the Biblical command and bring about the Second Coming. Though Pierson himself denied this meaning and other SVM leaders, such as Mott and Speer, repeatedly urged a broader interpretation which involved church planting and educational work, the watchword remained a center of controversy. For the missionary enterprise, the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy was framed in terms of the relative merits of an emphasis on individual evangelism and salvation or a broader, social impact on foreign culture based on the tenets of Christianity. Sherwood Eddy wrote in July 1922 to the Executive Committee:"I believe that the demand of the progressive students at Des Moines voiced the new sentiment in the colleges for a more socialized and broader presentation and conduct of our whole movement . . . . The next Convention might well spend several days in making indelibly clear the Pagan racial practice both at home and abroad, the Pagan industrial situation here and in other lands, Pagan nationalism at home and abroad, and against such a background make clear the vital need for Christ's teachings and for Christ's power if the world is to be Christianized.

The growing skepticism, even pessimism, about Western civilization led American students to view foreign missions and home missions as equally important parts of the same task. It seemed clear that American society was as much in need of Christianizing as many non-Western societies. At the same time non-Western countries were beginning to doubt whether anything of value could be derived from a civilization capable of producing the horrors of World War I. Rising nationalism abroad brought distrust of the motives and methods of foreign missionaries.

These broad changes led to a distinct shift in Protestant mission theory. At first evangelization of the world had meant exportation of a Christian Western civilization. Now that Western civilization was questioned and viewed as itself un-Christian, there was increased appreciation for non-Western cultures and a conviction that Western missionary activity should find its role in support, not control, of the emerging indigenous churches. The new rationale for missionary activity was one which Charles Forman has called "ecumenical sharing."

Liberal missiology of the between-War period, as represented by Daniel Fleming, Archibald Baker, Oscar Buck, and others, was characterized by a cultural relativism with regard to religions. This relativism was bolstered by a cynical wave of negative publicity about missions work in the public press. A culmination of these liberal views was reached in the 1932 report of the Laymen's Foreign Missions Inquiry, a Rockefeller-funded body established to review the work of the American Protestant missionary enterprise. The group, led by Harvard professor William E. Hocking, concluded that missionaries should not stress the distinct claims of Christianity over against non-Christian religions. The aim of missions should be to cooperate for social improvement.

In addition, the rising student generation was demanding more say in the operations and policy of the Movement. Despite organizational changes, a student writing after the 1924 convention in Indianapolis complained about the restraining hand of the "Big Four" (Speer, Mott, Eddy and Wilder) and insisted that the new numerical majority of students in committees meant little because the adults still had the power. Another continuing problem was the relationship of the Student Volunteer Movement to the YMCA and YWCA. A third problem concerned the role of "colored" students in the SVM. Decreasing financial support exacerbated these problems even before the Depression.

As problems accumulated, Movement leaders called for radical changes. In a December 1923 John L. Childs questioned the value of the Movement, pointing to ways in which the missionary situation had evolved past it. He suggested elimination of the declaration card on the grounds that "modern missionary activity has become so complex that merely to decide to become a foreign missionary is a step of doubtful value in determining what one shall do with his life.

The adult and student leaders of the SVM proposed and put into action remedies for many of the less fundamental problems facing the Movement. They instituted an increasingly democratic system of policy formation (as detailed in the description of Series V below). They changed the formats of the conventions to allow more student participation. They discussed numerous possibilities for relating the Movement to the general Christian associations and attempted to increase the Movement's cooperation with home missions agencies. To avert criticism of the declaration card, the secretaries of the Movement urged that the cards be distributed with great reserve and only in conjunction with explanatory material. Committees set up to deal with the problems of "colored" students recommended that "colored" institutions be added to the routes of traveling secretaries and that the missions boards be encouraged to reevaluate their restrictions on sending Negro missionaries abroad. On the financial scene, efforts were again made to establish a wider basis of financial support rather than relying so heavily on a few wealthy contributors.