[The items in boxes below are my added comments, and do not belonging to the text being quoted. RDW]

*China Inland Mission/Overseas Missionary Fellowship

I. Chapter 25, William Carey, Father of Modern Missions, F. Deauville Walker, 1925
Sorrow Upon Sorrow
1810-1827 Age 49-66

We have spoken of the achievements of the Serampore Mission as “teamwork.” And such in truth it was; but the members of the team were very far from equal either in ability or energy. Carey, Marshman, and Ward towered high above their fellows both in ability and strength of personality.

Of the men who joined them as the years passed were not a few of fine character and outstanding devotion to their work, and several were men of marked ability—as for example John Mack, who went out in 1821 and rendered excellent service in the college. But unfortunately some of the missionaries were men of inferior quality. So early as 1811 we find Carey writing:

There are two or three circumstances in the Mission which occasion us pain; I mean the un-missionary spirit which operated in a love of ease, an anxiety for European society, and other things of the same nature which enervate the soul of a missionary and unfit him for his work.

That some of the younger men were a disappointment is evident from numerous letters. We read:

Brother R____, who never entered with spirit into the Bootan Mission, has now relinquished it. His great object is to stay at Serampore where he vainly imagines his abilities as a preacher…will be properly appreciated. His temper is such as absolutely unfits him for living at Serampore, or perhaps anywhere else with another brother.

We wished X____to go to Goomalty…till the way was open to Java. At this he is so offended that it is doubtful whether he will go to Java.

One fruitful source of trouble was a marked inclination on the part of the juniors to resent the authority of the older men.

This became especially perplexing due to the sudden relaxation of restrictions against missionaries in a new revision of the East India Company charter. A small cluster of young men all the same age came out at about the same time, and a large age gap then was exaggerated. RDW

Unfortunately, the rules laid it down that all the brethren were equal and had an equal vote in everything. This was excellent at first; but when years had intervened and made a gulf of age and experience between the great Trio and the youthful recruits, the position became difficult, for the inexperienced young men could always outvote the judgment of the seasoned veterans.

Military units do not take votes about what action to take. Families do not take votes about all matters—where age and experience differences are great. Businesses do not take votes in all circumstances. The CIM/OMF tradition, which built on the William Carey experience, functions with an informal democracy. One missionary society recently instituted a voting system, and finds an alarming disunity and party spirit developing already. RDW

It is always necessary to make allowances for the dashing enthusiasms of youth which naturally chafes at the “slowness” of older men; but in this case it was usually the other way about: the veterans were for hard work and sacrifice and the younger men for having an easier time.

I don't think our younger people today are wanting an easier time. They may be more inclined to work on their own, without adequate supervision. This reaction to authority is endemic in our individualistic U.S. A. society, made worse by our “no fault” society, which makes it extra difficult for youth to accept even the gentlest advice or correction. RDW

For some reason the younger men heartily disliked Marshman and found all kinds of fault with him. Writing to Fuller in 1811, Carey said:

You ask why the younger brethren are so much prejudiced against brother Marshman? I do not know that they have any settled prejudice, yet a suspicion against him is, I confess, soon excited. I believe his natural make is the occasion of it.

Brother Marshman is a man whose whole heart is in the work of the Mission, and who may be considered as the soul and life of it. He is ardent, very sanguine, excessively tenacious of any idea which strikes him as right or important. His labours are excessive, his body scarcely susceptible of fatigue, his religious feelings strong, his jealousy for God great, his regard for the feelings of others very little, when the cause of God is in question. His memory is uncommonly retentive, his reading has been, and still is, extensive and general; in short, his diligence reproaches the indolence of some; his acquirements reproach their ignorance, and his unaccommodating mind not infrequently excites sentiments of resentment and dislike. He has also, perhaps, the foible of dragging himself and his children more into public observation than is desirable. These things, I suppose, lie at the bottom of all the dislike which our younger brethren have felt for him. For my own part I consider him as a man whose value to the Mission can scarcely be sufficiently appreciated, and whose death would be a most severe loss. We, viz. Brother Marshman, Ward and myself, live in the utmost harmony.

With the above sketch of Marshman before us, it does not need much knowledge of psychology to understand the gradual growth of the trouble. Marshman could not endure slackness, and slackers had little love for him. Unfortunately, this spirit of suspicion and enmity was allowed to grow until the estrangement became deep and even bitter.

Painful as these domestic squabbles were, greater troubles were brewing.

Let us not confuse the internal struggles on the field (which were eventually ironed out) with the struggle of principle involved in the concept of the right role of a mission board of directors. The latter was never-resolved, and led to schism. RDW

In England, old friends were passing away, and new ones took their place on the committee of the missionary society. Samuel Pearce died in 1799, John Sutcliff in 1814, and Andrew Fuller in 1815. The last was the greatest loss of all, for Fuller had been the mainstay of the home base of the mission. Many changes followed his death. After considerable discussion and an interim period of nearly two years, the Rev. John Dyer of Reading was appointed to the vacant secretaryship.

The veterans of Serampore soon became conscious of a very marked change in the attitude of the committee [Home board] to themselves; we find Carey confiding to his friend Ryland that Secretary Dyer's letters were cold and official, so different from those he had been accustomed to receive from Fuller. The Trio began to regard the committee as a sort of imitation “court of directors,” and they complained that some of their letters resembled the high and mighty dispatches from Leadenhall Street to subordinates in Calcutta rather than the communications of a Christian missionary society to its old and trusted workers on the field.

Secretary Dyer and a group of London men were determined to run the mission on the same lines as a business concern, and to put its mission staff on the same footing as the employees of a commercial house—with regard to receiving instructions, be it noted, not with regard to remuneration. In a very haughty manner they demanded information as to the deeds of the property at Serampore and particulars as to its purchase. Regardless of the fact that Carey and his companions had, for many years, almost kept the mission going with the money they themselves had earned by their own labors, the officials in England called for a full statement of accounts in tones that suggested they were dealing with untrustworthy employees. The Trio were pricked to the heart by this obvious lack of confidence.

It is irrelevant to the board/staff issue that the property in India had been purchased by funds earned by William Carey and others rather than by mission funds from London. This can easily confuse the issue. Missionaries characteristically give more than they are paid for. RDW

It is today a recognized principle of missionary society organization that a mission must be run on strictly business lines.

Apparently the author (writing in 1925) is wholly unaware of the inaccuracy of this statement. In 1925, the internal-board pattern had been in existence since Hudson Taylor founded the CIM/OMF in 1865! The CIM had, by 1925, even taken the initiative in the founding of the IFMA in 1917, which resulted in part because of the wide-spread following of the OMF pattern by that date. RDW

The committee in England had a perfect right and even a duty to look into the management of affairs, and also to ask for full information. That information Carey, Marshman and Ward were perfectly willing to give, and did give; what they were grieved about was the tone and spirit of the demands and the way the correspondence was conducted. We find Carey pathetically protesting that he and his brethren are not “dishonest men” and that they never had the slightest intention of converting the property to their own use. (He had learned from new missionaries that “a part in the Committee” actually suspected him of these things!) Such an idea “never entered our minds” he declares, adding:

We have exerted ourselves to the utmost of our power, and in the simplicity of our hearts, and have denied ourselves many of the most common conveniences of life to serve the cause of God. . . . We did not even allow ourselves the common conveniences for taking the air [using the large cloth fans common in India], so necessary to health, till absolutely forced to it by ill-health, nor have I to this day a horse to ride.

Then a demand was made that all expenditure—even the money earned by the Trio themselves—must be controlled from London. This sounded reasonable enough; but the situation at Serampore was unique. It is estimated that Carey, Marshman and Ward poured not less than one hundred thousand pounds of their own earnings into the work, and allowance should have been made for this fact. Moreover, they knew perfectly well that the committee did not at all understand the situation in India and were men of narrow vision.

In many cases today, external board members are not at a distance, but their inability to mix with the working members of a mission society and sit where they sit, much less keep track of the day to day developments, makes it unwise for an external board to be “supervisory.” RDW

The proposal to found Serampore College created a new wave of criticism. Ward visited England in 1819 and was surprised to find how deep the feeling against “Serampore” had become. He returned to India and again threw himself into the work. Then, in 1823, he died suddenly of cholera, at the age of fifty-three. It was the first break in that glorious fellowship.

The tension increased. Some friends resented the teaching of Indian classics in the college, and there was a movement to withdraw support.

The secular activities of many mission agencies has often and emotionally been opposed by donors, and is not able to be explained easily to those at a distance from the real situation. But the people back in England could not possibly have imagined the crucial value of Carey and Marshman's translation of the Ramayana into English in turning the tide of attitude of a key Governor General of India toward missionary work. It was, providentially, lay antipathy to the secular activity which later allowed Carey and Marshman to keep that property while the London board insisted on control over all else. RDW

Ryland died. The Home Committee looked upon their great missionaries at Serampore as “rebels” against authority. Some of the younger men working in Calcutta separated themselves from “Serampore” and placed themselves under the direct control of Secretary Dyer and the committee.

This long-drawn-out strife within the gates troubled Carey far more than all the fierce attacks of outward foes had done. Through it all, it is most noticeable that the critics constantly declared that their confidence in Carey himself was unshaken and that their strictures were against Marshman. This attempt to throw the blame on to his colleague roused Carey to fury. He would have none of it, and refused to allow the distinction; he was too high-minded to save his own reputation at the expense of his devoted fellow missionary. So difficult did the situation become, however, that Carey seriously contemplated leaving Serampore altogether, and he made arrangements to acquire a property nearer Calcutta.

In 1827, hoping to remove misunderstandings by personal interviews and discussions, Dr. Marshman came to England, and on several occasions met the committee. Some of the members saw the reasonableness of the “Serampore” case. There were heated debates, with proposals and counter-proposals and numerous amendments. It was thirty-four years since Carey had left England; all who had been associated with him had passed away, and the committee relied on the judgment of the younger missionaries whom they knew. By many personal interviews and by patient efforts to explain the situation to the committee, Marshman strove nobly to come to some agreement. Unhappily Secretary Dyer and his party were resolute, and they won their way. When a breach was seen to be inevitable, Marshman, with reluctance and grief, signed an agreement of separation, by which he and Carey were to be left in charge of the college and grounds attached to it, and all the older mission property was to be vacated and left in the hands of the committee. This meant complete severance from the missionary society Carey himself had founded. Never in his lifetime was the breach healed.

Marshman returned to India to support his colleague in this, the greatest trial through which they had passed. Sorrowfully they withdrew the press and all their own plant from the familiar houses in which they had so long lived, to concentrate upon the college site to which the committee could make no claim. Henceforth “Serampore” was separated from the Baptist Missionary Society.

We would fain draw a curtain of charity over these painful controversies, and conclude with Shakespeare's lines:

There, Sir, stop:
Let us not burthen our remembrance
With a heaviness that's gone. 

II. Portions of Chapter 8, of William Carey, The Father of Modern Missions, Basil Miller, Zondervan, 1952.

( Note, these selections are meaningful only as they are added to the complete chapter above. RDW )

During these years vexing problems arose. With the revision of the East India Company charter which resulted in the lifting of restrictions against missionary work, a number of helpers arrived in Serampore…
These workers were most welcome. Carey himself was busier than ever…many translations under his supervision…
Though these newcomers fitted helpfully into the actual physical work, they did introduce a note of friction and discord into the peaceful community life. Johns, who had been sent back to England just before the restrictions against missionaries were removed, resentfully spread reports against Carey and Ward, but especially toward Marshman. Some of the newcomers were in this way prejudiced against Carey before they arrived; some did not like community living.

While the age-schism with the younger men alarmed and energized the home board into a new management posture, the schism was of a different nature, and was ironed out. But the divergence over the proper function of the Board was never settled in Carey's lifetime. RDW

Eventually four of them joined forces, separated themselves from the others and started a church in Calcutta. They established schools as rivals to Marshman's against whom them were especially prejudiced. They even operated a printing press…Consequently, Carey wrote to Dr. Ryland:

“I do not recollect in my whole life anything which has given me so much distress as this schism. Many sleepless nights have I spent in examining what we have done to give it occasion, but can discover nothing. The mission, however, is rent in twain, and exhibits the scandalous appearance of a body divided against itself. We could easily vindicate ourselves, but the vindication would be ours and their disgrace. We have therefore resolved to say nothing, but to leave the matter in God's hands.”

Troubles of an even more heartbreaking nature fell upon Carey. Rumors [stemming from Johns' return, RDW] spread in England that the missionaries were making private fortunes, also that Carey was providing for the future of his sons, both financially as well as affording “soft positions for them.” The exact opposite was the truth, for the missionaries, after supplying their own simple necessities, freely returned all earnings to the mission.

The [London, RDW] Committee demanded the precise terms of trust of the Indian property and advised that eight British trustees be appointed to serve with the three at Serampore. This was perhaps only a business formality, but to the three leaders at Serampore, whose child the Mission and its work was, it was trying. Even Ryland, the last of the old guard in England, wrote forebodingly:

“I have unbounding fears for the future. I tremble for the Ark of God when it shall fall into the hands of mere counting-house men.”

One of the glorious things about most mission disciplines is the fact that all missionaries in any given society receive the same level of support. This eliminates money either as a measure of ability or as a motivating factor. There have to be other motives in missions. By eliminating money marvelous transformations take place. In many mission societies all income from royalties, honoraria, whatever, are turned over to the organization. RDW

Further indications of the change in the home viewpoint was the “assigning” of Pearce and his wife when they arrived in August of 1817, to “reside in the Serampore family, Ward's colleagues in the press.” This was an innovation that touched the Serampore family rather unpleasantly. Hitherto, those who had joined them had done so after the various parties had become acquainted, and then by unanimous vote they were assigned their task. This seemed another indication of the ironclad authority England intended to maintain over mission affairs. Consequently Carey wrote Ryland, saying:

“I have scarcely ever written under such distress of mind. We are yours to live and die for you, but as your brothers, not as your servants. I beseech you, therefore, not to attempt to exercise a power over us to which we shall never submit. My heart is exceedingly wounded at the Society's proposal of the eight British trustees, and at several concomitant symptoms.”

…We have always counted it our glory to be related to the Society, and with them pursue the same grand purpose, and we shall rejoice therein, so long as you permit us; but we shall come under the power of none. I do hope that the ideas of domination which Fuller never thought of, but which the Society has imbibed since his death, will be given up, as we shall never ‘give place by way of subjection, no, not for an hour.'”

COMMENT: What Carey is pointing to in the above two paragraphs is not that he expected the board to have no power. I think he would have said that the board in fact has all power. That, in fact is why Carey and Marshman did finally sign away virtually everything. What they were talking about was the role of making assignments of personnel, the role of making supervisory and administrative decisions. They did not feel that was the beneficial function of the board. The normal, practical function of a mission board lies in the three areas expounded so neatly by Jim Downing of the Navigators:

Appraise (help evaluate what is being done, with an outside perspective)

Approve (perform those legal functions which the board can alone provide)

Appeal (hear the appeals of anyone whatsoever who does not feel properly treated—but to hear the other side as well)

Always an important and entirely reasonable function of a board is to safeguard the public from administration that is illegal, unethical or insane.

III. S. Pierce Carey, William Carey , 1923, gives us more detail about the impact of even a single resentful person returning from the field.

[S. Pierce Carey is the great-grandson of William Carey, and generally takes the point of view of the younger workers who separated from the Serampore Trio. However, he does not sympathize with Johns's destructive bitterness. Johns was forced to return to England, when all efforts to persuade the British officials in India to allow him to stay eventually failed. RDW]

What pained Carey more than the violence of Government [in not allowing the new missionaries to stay, RDW] was the contention it brought to ‘Serampore.' Johns would not believe that sufficient pressure had been brought to bear on the authorities for his retention [in India, RDW] , though they did all they knew to this end—keen to have in their ranks one of his valued profession [pharmacist and surgeon, RDW] , and the more that, on his delayed way out, he had raised in America £1,200 for the work. But he charged them with inadequate effort, and with favouring Lawson,—blaming especially Marshman, who had conducted the very difficult negotiations, and who had really striven his best. ‘Carey labored as never before for reconciliation,' but to no effect. Johns bitterness remained, and in England he sowed the dragon's teeth of suspicion of Marshman, whose harvest was tragic. The distress of it made Carey ‘alarmingly ill,' so that he ‘looked for death.'

IV. Excerpts from A. Christopher Smith, Missiology, An International Review , April 1990, pp. 185-209.

[Joshua Marshman, in attempting to deal with the enigmatic impasse, came out in 1825 with a paper entitled “Thoughts on Missions to India.” Smith's lengthy article focusing on Christopher Anderson contains the following summarizing points. There is much more of value in this 24 page article. RDW]

In the first section, Marshman depicted “the spirit and disposition in which efforts ought to be conducted for converting the heathen in India…” Hinduism, he declared, had to be destroyed and Asia won for Christ. That was the grand objective, but how would it ever be achieved, given the slow conversion rate thus far? How, given the way that Baptist missioners were being treated by the London committee [board, RDW] ? It was time to take stock. The BMS (Baptist Mission Society) needed to shed the straitjacket of organizationalism for the free-flowing garment of Pauline spirituality. Greater value needed to be set on sanctified relationships between home and abroad, in place of all the strain and distrust that had dogged their steps over the past decade. Otherwise, the whole work would grind to a halt. Internal hassle was bogging the work down, to the dismay of the field workers who wished to move ahead with freedom to win the masses, to the glory of God.

Sad to say, such hassles prevented Carey and Marshman from focusing their thought more creatively on effective mission strategy in the field. Problems generated from the home base sapped away at their energy, diminishing their contribution to contextual reflection on how to penetrate Asia further for Christ. They grieved over the self-defeating tendency of the BMS “apparatus for missionary efforts”; they were appalled that missionaries had been virtually reduced to the status of “mere stipendiary servants” obliged to obey the keepers-of-the-purse in Britain. They felt depersonalized and found it ever more difficult to face daunting evangelistic odds. Serious inefficiency resulted…Marshman and Carey could not afford to be anything other than candid now, even if it meant they would have to “do mission” independently of the society to which they had given so much of their lives for so long…control would therefore have to be returned to where it properly belonged. The BMS leadership would have to “decrease” so that God's cause could “increase.”

In summary, then, during 1824 and 1825 Christopher Anderson [the one leader, a Scot, who did side with the Trio] and Joshua Marshman in their own ways struck at the very heart of the BMS executive's modus operandi. They challenged the committee's ethos with a practical declaration and a biblically based appeal that called for a new order of relations between “home and abroad.” With that, the leaders of the Serampore mission and the larger BMS arrived at a fork in the road. The question had to be answered: would it be a place for parting, or a place for missiological renewal? Would human structures and administrative procedures be overhauled for the sake of God's interests in Asia, or not?

V. Excerpts from Hudson Taylor and China's Open Century: Book Five, Refiner's Fire , pp. 64-67

[In what follows, Maria is Hudson Taylor's wife. Mr. Berger is the man in London who, like Fuller in Carey's case, worked with him hand in glove. Emily worked with the missionary children, Jennie was a single missionary. The following scenes take place during the year 1868, about two years after the initial voyage of the ship Lammermuir brought their founding team to China. In a section talking primarily about the opposition of the Chinese, I am picking out some references to internal disputes. RDW]

The total of missionaries in China had grown to about two hundred and fifty but the CIM's thirty four members still included seven beginners and several more who had make little progress since arriving. Among them were the Nicols, now obsessively rebellious, and at least three following their lead. Progress depended on many things, not least the readiness of the team…

A letter critical of the Report of the Hangchow Branch of the CIM had been published by the North China Daily News …Hudson Taylor said, “I shall not think of answering publicly…the Lord Reigneth. If it only has the effect of knitting us more closely together we shall have cause for gratitude to God.” “Gossip must ever work mischief,” Maria wrote to Mr. Berger, “and I fear there has been a great deal of this.”

Far worse than gibes in the press was the obsessive correspondence by Lewis Nicol with William Berger and others. Nearly two years after [arriving in China] he was building on the same old complaints…Mr. Berger replied to Nicol, “It seems to me, that if you cannot have confidence in us it will be your duty to retire from the Mission.” On May 9 Emily was writing to Jennie at Hudson Taylor's request to answer more allegations made to the Judds. Nicol had been saying that ‘Large stores of English clothing and material for making such, brought out for the use of the mission in China, are stored away rather to rot than sell them to anyone out here who would make use of them.' Hudson Taylor had ‘changed his mind' after reaching Shanghai, and made them all wear Chinese clothes. It was all nonsense, Emily reminded Jennie. No such foreign clothes or materials ever existed.…

On May 5, William Berger wrote to Hudson Taylor, ‘It is still with me a grave question whether a brother who avows he has no confidence in you (or me) should continue connected with the Mission.‘ His advice would have taken about two months to reach Hudson Taylor, who confided to Jennie, ‘I do not see how we can keep them in the Mission after a letter, worse than ever he has written before, recently sent to Mr. Berger.' The pain of dismissing a colleague, and the prospect of unpleasant repercussions, gnawed at his heart and mind while he still hoped that Nicol would reform.

Harder to face was the effect of subversion on other members of the team, for the Cordons and Stephen Barchet were the latest partisans. …Writing to Thomas Marshall, his Congregational minister in London, he [Stephan Barchet] enclosed a copy of a letter he had intended to send to Hudson Taylor but had withheld. In it he expressed ‘the desire to be considered a friend, not a member of the Mission (because) elements of the Mission tend to anarchy. If it be thought proper that a Methodist should be pastor of a Presbyterian church or a Presbyterian of a Baptist church I differ in opinion, for if a church is Baptist let it be Baptist.' Meadows, a Methodist, had baptized the Presbyterian Crombie's converts, and Nicol had called in an American Presbyterian to sprinkle the Xiaoshan converts rather than have Hudson Taylor immerse them…

That was not all. Stephan continued, ‘Further may be mentioned the despotic government of the Mission. So long as a man is fallible, it must be seen how dangerous it is to give the entire control of a mission into the hands of a single individual.' He had nothing against Hudson Taylor's character, he emphasized, and was not saying that he acted despotically, but objected to the principle he himself had previously accepted. Finally, and perhaps the crux of the matter, ‘I would prefer not to be associated with men who are under the influence of petty jealousies, and are seldom at peace'…Nicol and his sympathizers had been to Ningbo often enough to have sickened Stephan. He (Stephan) resigned in June. When the Bryanston Hall congregation ceased to support him, William Berger offered to do so instead. Before long Stephan married Mary Bausum, went to the States and became a doctor of medicine. They returned to China and forty years later were still good friends of the CIM…

On September 13 [1868], the day Hudson Taylor wrote, ‘We intend to go forward', he also wrote to Nicol. He could hope no longer for a change of heart. The letter is a window on both men. William Berger had sent him, he said, a copy of Nicol's ‘disgraceful' letter of February 13. Naming missionaries who had testified to the fact that the ‘falsehoods and misrepresentations' in the letter had been repeated in conversation with members of his own and other missions ‘in the habitual breach and perversion of the truth', the only course left was to ‘terminate your connection with the China Inland Mission'. In doing so he was ‘acting after conference with and with the concurrence of all the brethren of the Lammermuir party and as many of the other brethren of the Mission as I have had opportunity of meeting, since I received the copy of your letter. I do not dismiss you because of your denominational views nor yet for your preference for the English costume; nor indeed on any other ground in whole or in part than that of a habitual and deliberate falsehood.'

…To the Taylor's grief, by October 5 they had received letters of resignation from Susan Barnes and the McLean sisters. They had hoped that the dismissal would dissolve the alliance and save these three for the Mission, but it was not to be.

RDW COMMENT: Stephen was apparently a very fine, honorable person. What he could not abide was the tolerance of the Mission for petty bickering, when it went on and on. Taylor's dismissal of Nicol was probably too little and too late. Others had already been offended by his willingness to be patient with recalcitrance. Stephen also had ironclad Baptist democratic principles in mind, and a despot was a despot, he began to think. Ironically, this particular “despot” (Hudson Taylor) was not acting decisively in this matter. But it is not unreasonable that to a person of Congregational or Baptist persuasion, pure democracy seemed close to pure religion, and the Hudson Taylor pattern, which has now 125 years to commend it, did not at first appear to Stephan Barchet to be legitimate—nevertheless “forty years later they were still good friends of the CIM.” (CIM now is OMF).

Both then and now there are often two interrelated issues: one has to do with unresolved disagreements about small issues and resulting malicious gossip, the other has to do with the very structure of the organization and perhaps malicious gossip. Stephen resigned due to the existence of both factors.

Another dimension is what would seem similar to “sibling rivalry,” and the accompanying “Father Vacancy” many young people suffer. One younger person is hurt when another is perceived to receive greater favor from a potential father figure. Rejection is talked about, and missionaries who drop out may feel they are ‘forgotten.' It is widely estimated that 60% of all mission candidates derive from backgrounds of dysfunctional families. If all it takes for a family to be defined as dysfunctional is for the children to be out of fellowship with their parents, then the percentage in America would seem to be even higher than 60. It is also true that young people who make it through the entire candidate process of a major mission are far better sifted than those who sign up for a two-year period, or are sent out by local congregations (as the sending body—one of the least effective patterns).

Some Americans are bound to suspect the apparently great authority of an OMF General Director, who after great effort and the gathering of much advice, appoints new directors—there are no elections in the OMF pattern.

The often confusing issue is not the power of a board but the role of a board—the question of when and to what extent its power should be exercised. The State of California requires a board to guard against illegality, unethical practice, moral turpitude, insanity, etc. This clearly does not require a board to overturn a General Director's sense of guidance every time it has a majority in opposition. This is reflected by the fact that the State of California specifically allows for an internal board in the case of “Religious Corporations.” Most mission boards are boards of religious corporations and are, specifically, what the U.S. government, and church historians call an order . Many do not employ the term, order , in their relations to the public, even though Wycliffe Bible Translators, Campus Crusade, Navigators, Overseas Missionary Fellowship, etc. are from the perspective of the U.S. Government officially orders . No matter who you are talking to you have to use terms that are understood. You need to speak to the government in its language and to the Protestant public in its language—not to deceive but for the opposite purpose, namely to be sure you are understood. In any event, a great deal of light is shed on this discussion simply to note what the U.S. Government considers an order to be like.*

The following is a statement from the Internal Revenue Service as to what they understand an order to be. They sum it up in five points.

“1. The members of the organization undertake a sacred obligation, often under the discipline of a religious superior, to live in accordance with a strict set of religious rules that govern their secular and religious lives. These religious rules often include the traditional vow of obedience, chastity and poverty.

2. The members of the organization, after successful completion of the organization's training program and probationary period, make a lifetime (or very long-term) commitment to the organization.

3. The members of the organization are, directly or indirectly, under the control and supervision of a church or convention or association of churches.

4. The members of the organization are held to a significantly higher level of obedience than that required of lay church members.

5. The members of the organization, who often live as part of a community, participate daily in such activities as community prayer and worship, charitable or religious work, or private prayer and religious reading.

RDW: A Concluding Illustration

I am unable to quote from a specific book in this instance, the seventh volume of the Hudson Taylor biography by A. J. Broomhall, not having emerged from the press. But in what follows I am aided by some recent graduate work by the Canadian director of OMF, and conversations with OMF members.

It was twenty-three years after the founding of the CIM that perhaps the greatest test of the organizational pattern took place.

Henry Frost, an influential American supporter of the CIM, sought to establish a branch of the CIM in the U.S.A. He made a trip to London to press his case. Hudson Taylor came back from China to participate in the discussion. The answer was ‘No.'

Always before, Taylor had preferred to help other missions into existence—in Scandinavia, on the Continent—rather than extend the CIM structure to other sending countries. Frost returned defeated. Taylor then returned to China, but returned enroute through Canada and the United States. He attended the famous Niagara Falls Bible Conference and was impressed by the enthusiasm for the CIM, the offering of funds apart from any specific mission candidates. He travelled by train with Frost from Niagara back to Philadelphia, and gradually came to the conclusion that the decision in London had been wrong. The Americans were not like the Swedish and the Germans. They spoke the same language. It could be different.

He wrote London that he had moved ahead to establish a U.S.A. branch and went on to China. But the reaction of London at this initiative was so serious that he had to return to London from China just to settle it. The final resolution left such matters in the hands of Taylor, and this significantly confirmed the OMF pattern in which the founder and the field (the members) outweigh the home board.

Basically, today, the CIM/OMF continues with a General Director. James Hudson Taylor III has just recently appointed a new General Director to take his place. The OMF General Director appoints the various field directors for Thailand, Indonesia, etc., and also the various home directors for Canada, U.S.A., the United Kingdom, etc. The Field Directors meet once a year at the Field Council. On alternate years the Home Directors are present and the enlarged council is called the Central Council. This body has the power to remove a General Director, and has done so in one instance in 125 years.

Normally, the General Director (in Singapore now instead of China) takes very seriously the insights and opinions of these annual bodies, but is not bound by them. It is OMF tradition to work in unanimity, and of course new field, home, and general directors are appointed by the General Director only after a great deal of harvesting is done of members' opinions about various possible candidates. But nowhere within the OMF do they divide the house by any formal democratic procedures.

[Later note: the influence of democratic ideals being very great, some Catholic orders (and, perhaps to some degree the OMF) have gone to great pains to try to explain what they do in democratic terms. Importing democracy into what has been a directorship pattern has happened in the case of the Bethany Missionary Fellowship in Minnesota. That is one way to cope with the conflict between paradigms. It is not at all clear that doing so has been beneficial to the Bethany Fellowship. RDW] END

For reference: Orders can be organized in many different types of patterns:

1. Directorship, where the various members of the board of directors are appointed by the general director (the OMF pattern), where the board carries an obligation to the civil authorities to protect the public against any insanity or immorality or illegality in which a general director might be engulfed, and where the board has the corresponding power to remove a general director.

2. Eldership, where the board of directors is appointed by the board itself—a “self-perpetuating board,” and the board selects and ultimately guides the general director

3. Representative Democracy, where the board of directors is elected by representatives. The board selects and ultimately guides the general director.

4. Pure Democracy, where the general director is elected by a vote of every member (how Carey started out), and, a board of directors is itself elected by the vote of every member.