Missionary Biographies

Though I have not been writing, I have not been idle.

I'm always reading new books as well as revisiting old ones. I'm not sure why but recently I was inspired to pick up and re-read a few missionary biographies.

The one "God's Smuggler" by Brother Andrew was a delight to read. When I read it many years ago I was still something of a Reformed partisan and thus was a little more critical of him. Now, I was able to appreciate him in a new light and couldn't help but chuckle as he was in part rejected by some of the Dutch Reformed because he wasn't properly 'affiliated'.

While I'm not part of the whole Arminian Altar-Call mindset, Brother Andrew's story is inspiring, praiseworthy and convicting. I was also pleased with his overall posture toward government and war. He had little time for either and undoubtedly came to some of this understanding while involved in the Dutch-Indonesian War in the late 1940's. This is one of those forgotten chapters of history, how the Imperial powers all sought to re-take their colonies after the 2^nd World War. In many cases their behaviour had not been much better than the Nazis and in these attempted reconquistas was little better. Brother Andrew seems ashamed of his participation and rightly so.

Sadly I can think of a Reformed minister who was engaged in the Malay Emergency to support British Imperial rule and yet seems proud of it.

While Brother Andrew's testimony is superior to many other missions books, I'm not sure where he's at today. Without researching it thoroughly I have reason to believe he is in favour of the "Insider" approach to missions with regard to the Muslim world. I'm afraid that's not an acceptable approach to bringing the gospel to that part of the world.

I would recommend Brother Andrew's book and I would certainly recommend Haralan Popov's book 'Tortured For His Faith'.

He's Pentecostal but a bit more sober than what we find with Richard Wurmbrand. It's hard to not be moved by Wurmbrand's 'Tortured for Christ', but his theology is so far out of bounds that it's hard to know what to think at times. God is merciful. And yet, I've never been very comfortable supporting Voice of the Martyrs. It seems like it later took a worse turn by allying with CCM artists and often it seemed to me was doing little more than trying to argue for Republican foreign policy objectives. With the recent fall of their executive director I'm not sure what the future holds for that organization.

I guess when it comes to missions I'm probably more inclined to read about Judson, Martyn and other old lights. It's an area that I've been hesitant to engage. I could say a lot and yet most of it is pretty critical. Missions need to be re-worked and re-thought and divorced from institution and politics. With Brother Andrew I think there's at least some understanding of those points even if he did in the end form a large organization himself.