Some Questions the Quarterly Must Help to Answer

by Horace L. Fenton, Jr.

Although more than ten years have gone by since the days when the Evangelical Missions Quarterly was only the dream of a few people, and of a committee appointed to bring the project to fruition, it’s not hard to remember the questions that flooded our minds as we faced the job.

Although more than ten years have gone by since the days when the Evangelical Missions Quarterly was only the dream of a few people, and of a committee appointed to bring the project to fruition, it’s not hard to remember the questions that flooded our minds as we faced the job.

Some of them were very practical. We had to ask ourselves, of course, whether there was really a need for such a journal. Moreover, there was the hard question of whether or not a publication of this sort could survive economically. Again, careful thought had to be given to the kind of audience we were aiming for, and to the perplexing problem of how the needs o£ such a readership could be met.

Perhaps the most difficult question of all was whether or not we could bring together ‘a sufficient number of solid, thought-provoking articles-evough to give the magazine real substance and to win it a respectful hearing by the constituency to which it was addressed.

Some of our questions were of a more philosophical nature. At the time of the quarterly’s birth, cooperation between the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association and the Evangelical Foreign Missions Association had been on a very limited basis, and it seemed only right to ask whether or not the publication of a journal like this was a legitimate area for cooperation between these two groups. This question in itself provoked other related ones.

Recognizing that, while the doctrinal statements of the two sponsoring groups were very similar, the member entities of those two organizations had varied convictions about a number of important issues, we had to face the question of whether or not such a magazine could adequately reflect those diverse convictions, without affecting the relationships between the two groups.

Again, thought had to be given as to what kind of editorial machinery should be set up to make sure that the end product, the magazine itself, would be largely satisfactory to the sponsoring organizations and to the member missions that compose them.

Some of us had unvoiced questions as to whether the quarterly would have to be so "safe" that it would lose its opportunity to be helpful; whether it would content itself merely to reflect trends in missions and then offer only belated reactions to what we felt was good or bad in such trends.

These were not our only questions, but they may well be a fair sample of them. Nor were they unworthy preoccupations; such issues needed to be faced before the first issue was printed, even though all the answers coup not be found by that deadline. Some of these questions are of the sort that never stay answered-they have to be faced again and again as they appear in new forms and under differing circumstances.

But as we look back over ten years of the quarterly’s history, we can rejoice that most of these questions have been answered in a positive and helpful way, even though ultimate solutions have not always been found. We have abundant reason to thank God and take courage. If we still long far and need a larger circulation and a greater influence, we dare not forget that in a wonderful way the quarterly has sustained itself economically and has been widely appreciated in many parts of the world.

Moreover, it has been demonstrated that this is indeed another area where together IFMA and EFMA can do what neither of them could accomplish alone. Without ignoring or minimizing any of the differences between the two organizations, we have been able to show that we stand as one in our concern for the evangelization of the world and in our desire to be more effective for God in the carrying out of that task. We have demonstrated that, without compromising our individual convictions, we can produce a publication that isn’t automatically condemned to the blindness which results from a lowest-common-denominator type of editorial policy.

All of this is to say that we can be thankful for the way our questions have been answered and for the manner in which faithful men and women have contributed to the cause of missions through the Evangelical Missions Quarterly.

But we dare not pretend that all of our questions are answered. Some that we had in those early days remain unanswered, and equally significant new queries have arisen in the meanwhile. Indeed, it may well be that the success of the quarterly in the years ahead may depend on our finding adequate answers to some of these questions.

CAN WE ENGAGE IN SELF-CRITICISM?
In my thinking there is one basic question that above all others challenges us, and it is this: Can we, as evangelicals, engage in positive, helpful criticism of our own methods and programs learning from our failures as well as from our successes? The answer to that one is not clear; we are often a defensive lot, spending most of our time justifying positions we have taken and attacking nonevangelicals who disagree with us.

Of course, the Evangelical Missions Quarterly has helped us occasionally in self-evaluation, but largely this is an untouched field, perhaps because we have not yet learned to distinguish between uniformity and unity, and consequently have not yet discovered how to differ with one another, gracefully and helpfully, remembering that it is to unity in the Spirit, not uniformity in thinking, that Christ calls us. A question of this sort has many implications, and I would like to touch upon a few of them here.

EVANGELISM MUST BE EVALUATED
Do we, for example, dare to examine critically our various approaches to evangelism, seeking to evaluate them first by biblical standards and then by their observable results? This is a subject worthy of fuller study than we have ever given it in the pages of the quarterly. What are the strengths and what are the weaknesses of the evangelistic movements that have proven helpful around the world in the past decade? Is there a better way we can do the job of world evangelization? Can the quarterly help us to find it?

CULTURAL BAGGAGE
Our basic question has implications, too, for the whole idea of the cultural baggage that has so often weighed down the cause of missions. For years, we’ve wanted to divest ourselves of the cultural accretions that too often have been a part of our message in strange lands. We have recognized our vulnerability to charges of paternalism, of empirebuilding, and of complicating our gospel by the North American methods that we have made a part of it. We have learned bitter lessons in these areas and have made some valiant and moderately successful attempts to overcome these handicaps.

But do we really think that we have fully overcome the problem? Do we not need help in perceiving where we are still more paternalistic, more empire-conscious, more North American than we mean to be? Are there not ways in which we have unwittingly added to the gospel message, all the while we were condemning those who subtracted from it`? Are there not still sacred cows among us, which the Evangelical Missions Quarterly might help us first so see and then to slay?

CHURCH GROWTH
Do we dare to take a closer look at the theory and the practice of church growth? Almost every mission field in the world has benefited by the helpful emphases of this Godgiven movement in our time. None of us is minded to downgrade its influence. But may it not be the ministry of the quarterly to help us to evaluate our church growth theory and practice objectively, to see its strengths and to correct its weaknesses? Is the resistance-axis teaching of church growth really a biblical concept? Is it legitimate to try to establish certain of the church growth principles on the basis of Christ’s parables, which were usually given to illustrate one particular truth?

These questions ought to be answered seriously, after careful study and evaluation, whether our ultimate findings are affirmative or negative. We need the help of a journal like the quarterly in answering them.

SCRIPTURAL ECUMENICITY
Our magazine ought to be helping us to find a true, scriptural ecumenicity. Granted that there as a strong biblical emphasis on the unity of the Body of Christ, have we thought through thoroughly the question of evangelical alternatives to the Ecumenical Movement? Is there a better way than we lave yet discovered to enable the worldwide church of Christ to experience and to manifest its unity in him? How can churches in the Third World enjoy ecumenicity in a biblical sense without feeling that a North American or a European organizational pattern is being thrust upon them?

These are hard questions, as evidenced by the fact that full answers to them have not yet been found, but Evangelical Missions Quarterly perhaps owes us an all-out attempt to grapple with these problems and to seek with us their solutions.

EDUCATION BY EXTENSION
Many of us are giving thanks to God for the current emphasis on theological education by extension. In many parts of the world, there are evidences of God’s blessing on this emphasis. But perhaps what is needed now is not so much promotion of the idea as objective evaluation of the ways we have applied it. We are in danger, once again, of accepting a good idea uncritically, and thereby of failing to grapple with its weaknesses or to set about eliminating them. And so, if we wake up someday to the discovery that this new emphasis has not done as much for us as we had hoped, we shall have only ourselves to blame, since we failed to raise the right questions and to tackle the basic issues early in the game.

Is it too much to expect that the quarterly might help us in thus important task, and thereby contribute to the further sharpening of an effective tool that the Lord has placed in our hands?

The list of questions still facing us could be extended almost indefinitely. We have much yet to learn about how to reeducate our constituencies, so that their understanding of missions is not based on nineteenth century concepts. If this is a serious concern of many of us, the quarterly might well help us to grapple with it. The whole system of personalized support, used by many of our missions, needs to be reexamined, so we can exploit its legitimate advantages and eliminate its too obvious disadvantages. The quarterly could lead out in a helpful study of these and other matters.

Mine has been the relatively easy task in this article of phrasing some of the unanswered questions that still arise in our minds. As I have done so, I have often thought of the frequently repeated words of a college professor of mine: "Any fool can ask more questions than a wise man. can answer!" I am often convicted by that statement, but whatever else it means, I feel sure it is not meant to preclude us from continuing to ask questions.

The asking of questions, the groping for answers, the readiness to submit ourselves and our work to the evaluation of one another-these are part of our service for Christ, a very important part. One of the wonderful things that God did for us as missionaries and as missionary organizations in giving us the Evangelical Missions quarterly was to provide a means whereby we could look at our problems together, in a humble spirit that confesses that we have not found all the answers and that the Lord may use us to help each other in finding them.

It is my sincere conviction that the success or failure of the quarterly in the years ahead may well depend on its readiness to tackle the hard problems that face us and to enable us to see where we have failed to deal with them and how we can move toward their solution. Unanswered questions are not a threat to us; rightly understood, they are a challenge which may well enable us to serve God better in the days ahead and to become more effective instruments in the accomplishment of his purposes for the world for which Christ died.

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