The Problem of Communication

Extract

FOR a considerable time the services of most missionaries of the larger British Societies have been engaged in institutional and administrative work, and comparatively few of them have had wide experience as evangelists among simple people. The work of direct contact with non-Christians has either been left to indigenous evangelists who tend not to be able to stand far enough back from their work to give a reasoned account of it, or to the missionaries of small pioneer Societies, a majority of whom, though admirable and successful evangelists, lack deep theological knowledge, and are not able to establish a rationale of the work which they themselves have been carrying out. The situation is very different with continental Societies. It has been known for some time that a number of very able and theologically well-trained Dutch and German missionaries have been serving as evangelists among some of the most primitive peoples in the world, and that their results have been such as to raise many important questions of method, which are of interest to all those concerned with the Christian missionary enterprise. Unfortunately, almost all their works have been written in Dutch or German, and are therefore much less widely accessible in the Christian world than could be desired.

The book under review is a very good specimen of the type of missionary study produced by these continental scholars.