A few years ago the journal Themelios
was being added to a database which allows people to search across lots of
different journals and read abstracts of articles. Because 30 or so of its articles
didn’t have abstracts I was asked to read and summarise them. One of my
favourites was Calvinism and Missions: The Contested Relationship Revisited by
Kenneth J. Stewart.
He is defending Calvinism
from the perennial accusation that it doesn’t naturally produce mission-minded
people. One of his key points is that we wrongly define mission only as
over-the-seas-and-far-away, whereas the Reformers saw Europe itself as a
mission field since it was “imperfectly Christianised.” That puts it mildly,
then as now.
Here’s the abstract I wrote.
I hope it’s accurate. You can check for yourself and be blessed by a great
article here
The accusation that Calvinist theology cuts the nerve
of missionary endeavour is a change as old as Calvinism itself. There are a
number of factors, which either mitigate the charge or show it to be
unjustified. First, the assumed standard is transoceanic mission which demanded
access to the oceans and financial resources which Protestants lacked, since they had neither royal
nor commercial backing. This
definition of mission also overlooks the commitment, clear in Reformed
cities throughout Europe, to evangelising the regions and countries around
them, a commitment in part driven by the view that Europe was imperfectly
Christianised. Finally, there are also early Calvinist missions to Brazil, New
England and Southeast Asia. These set a precedent for the later work of the
wider missionary expansion of the eighteenth century, driven by the same
evangelical zeal and Calvinist theology.