by Albert B. Collver III
Introduction
George Santayana’s statement about history, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” is also true of Christian missions. Peter Pikkert, a South African Baptist minister and expert in the Arabic and Turkish languages, wrote a masterful description of Christian mission1 to the Muslim in Turkey. He describes Christian mission work in Turkey to Muslims over the past 150 years and offers suggestions on how to approach mission work to the Muslim, based on history and his experience.
In the forward, Pikkert reflects on 25 years of living in the Middle East and offers a critique of Protestant missionaries who have been working there in some fashion since the 1820s. Pikkert’s comments have as much to do with the changes in the mission endeavor as they do with mission to Muslims. The trends he notes are trans-denominational and even apply to Lutherans. First, Pikkert notes that Protestants fail to teach the history of missions. Missionaries often come to a place De Novo without recognizing that, with few exceptions, other missionaries preceded their arrival. Next, Pikkert notes two significant trends in Protestant missions: (1) The lowering of academic qualifications for missionaries (“dumbing down” in Pikkert’s words) and (2) “While the number of career missionaries has decreased dramatically over the years, the number of ‘short termers’ going overseas has grown in leaps and bounds. This led to an erosion of the sense of cultural depth and understanding missionaries were at one time in a position to accrue.” Pikkert claims that these factors — in particular a lack of understanding and knowledge of missionary history in the Middle East — constitute one of the “ ‘civilizational clashes’ between missionary and Muslim.”2
Pikkert reflects on some of the theories as to why Christianity has not been more successful in reaching Muslims, ranging from Reformation theology, which saw Islam as an anti-Christ of the last times, to Enlightenment philosophy, which taught the doctrine of individualism as if it were a tenant of Christianity. Pikkert identified the Enlightenment and Western Imperialism as significant contributors to the culture clash between the West and Islam. The other significant factors identified by Pikkert are internal to Islam — the loss of submission and the loss of Muslim identity — which he also cites as factors related to the clash of ideas.
Next, Pikkert reviews some of the history of Christian mission in Turkey, particularly the so-called “Great Experiment” to reach the minority Orthodox Christians through education and medical missions. A part of this mission strategy employed by Protestant missionaries in the Ottoman Empire was to reach the Muslim majority by revitalizing the ancient Orthodox Churches.3 One of the challenges with this strategy is that the ancient Orthodox churches tended to regard Protestants as heretics. Another factor was that the Orthodox churches had existed for centuries as a minority alongside the Muslim majority. Evangelism to Muslims was not part of the detente that existed for centuries. In some cases, the Protestant work among the Orthodox tribes led to catastrophic results and even genocide.
Another strategy employed by Protestant missionaries involved education. As early as 1824, the Presbyterians attempted to spread “Christian knowledge” by starting a school “for the education of Syrian females.”4 Ironically, the missionaries were more progressive about women’s rights than even Western Enlightenment society. This resulted in conflict not only among Muslims but also with mission societies back at home. Pikkert noted that Christian missionaries found the condition of Muslim women more appalling than other Western observers. An assumption of Western missionaries was that Christianity was healthy for civilization. The missionary endeavor was as much about civilizing the heathen as it was about spreading the Gospel. Pikkert notes, “Both theological liberals (social gospellers) and conservatives (fundamentalists) shared the assumption that Christianity was essential for a healthy civilization. Although at home the rift between conservatives and liberals would grow ever larger, on the mission field both were committed to the propagation of Western culture.”5 Sin became identified as ignorance. Reformed Post-Millennialism transformed itself into social gospel, making heaven on earth, that is, the benefits of Western culture and society. According to Pikkert, the propagation of Western culture rather than the Gospel of Jesus is the most significant factor in the lack of success of Christian mission in the Middle East.
Pikkert also reflected on education, a pillar of Protestant mission work. He notes in Istanbul, “The number of those educated in the mission schools was significant, totaling well over 100,000 students.”6 However, this Christian education did not lead to a single congregation being started. As a mission strategy, the education of Muslim children did not lead to the formation of Christian congregations. He describes reaching Muslims via education as the “seeker sensitive” enterprise with the seeker being Christian minorities seeking to better their lives.7 The failed strategy in Turkey in the 19th century should provide a cautionary note for similar strategies being employed today.
One of the exceptions to the “Great Experiment” of the late 19th and early 20th centuries noted by Pikkert was that of the mission efforts of the Lutherans. The Lutherans deliberately tried to reach the Muslim majority. The Lutheran Orient Mission Society (LOMS), known today as Lutheran Mideast Development, decided in 1910 to reach the Kurdish people in present-day Iraq. The first LOMS missionaries arrived in Kurdistan on Sept. 6, 1911. The LOMS sent L. O. Fossom, a pastor; Dr. Ed Edman, a physician; and two nurses. Between 1911 and 1916, the LOMS missionaries established a Kurdish Lutheran congregation. Fossom began his work by “producing a Kurdish grammar and translating into Kurdish the four Gospels, Luther’s Small Catechism, a hymnbook containing 100 hymns, and a Lutheran liturgy.”8 Later in the book, Pikkert will refer to this Lutheran model, particularly the establishment of a congregation and holding to a liturgical order, as necessary for successful work among Muslims. The model followed by Fossom and advocated by Pikkert is quite similar to the current strategy of the Missouri Synod: “Lutheran mission leads to Lutheran congregations.” Unfortunately, World War I brought an end to Lutheran mission work in Kurdistan. Shortly after World War I in 1920, Fossom died, preventing the work from resuming after the war. Pikkert notes that the Protestant missionaries had negligible effect on Muslim populations and established no permanent congregations.9
Another factor in the failure of Protestant mission to the Muslims was the Muslim response to Protestant Christian propaganda literature, which often was liberal and promoted the superiority of Western civilization over Islamic culture. Islamic scholars took note of higher criticism that tore through Protestant Christianity. Islamic scholars would promote the unity of the Koran in contrast to biblical textual criticism that called into question the words of the Jesus, the prophets and the apostles. Muslims could point out to each other that the Christians do not even agree what the text of the Bible is, unlike the text of the Koran on which all Muslims agree. Besides demonstrating the devastating effect of higher criticism on the Christian faith, this should serve as a cautionary tale on how certain scholarly activities in biblical criticism, including textual criticism, are not helpful to the missionary endeavor. In essence, any scholarly, or so-called scholarly, activity that causes doubt about the words of Jesus and the Gospel is not helpful to the missionary endeavor.
Pikkert not only describes the 19th- and 20th-century history of Protestant mission in Turkey but also that of the early 21st century. He notes that in 2005 some 1,300 missionaries from 50 organizations and 20 countries were working in Turkey. Despite these efforts, Pikkert estimates there are only 2,500 to 3,000 Protestant Christians in Turkey. 10 He also notes that despite some positive trends, “the number of missionaries who are theologically, linguistically and culturally properly equipped to share their faith with the Muslim majority … remains pathetically small.”11
Pikkert notes that while there are individual converts to Christianity, “Individual converts do not make a local church.”12 Pikkert argues against the impulse that sharing the Gospel in and of itself without intentionally starting a church is enough. He notes that house churches inevitably fail in a Muslim context, once the founding missionary departs. However, when there is an intentional effort to create a worshiping community as a church, it can and does survive the service of a particular missionary (“The house church movement has not taken off in the Middle East … They are more comfortable worshiping in a place designated for such a purpose than a house.”).13 He also notes that services must be in the indigenous language. Services in English do not allow for an indigenous church to form. Again, the model for successful mission among the Muslims is to conduct a liturgical service in the language of the people and form congregations. This is a rather remarkable insight from a Baptist, since neither of these recommendations are part of the Baptist tradition. His model is compatible with the Missouri Synod’s emphasis that Lutheran mission leads to Lutheran congregations.
Missouri Synod’s emphasis that Lutheran mission leads to Lutheran congregations.
Finally, Pikkert offers recommendations for a way forward after reviewing the history, mission strategies and techniques of Protestant missions from 1800–2005. Pikkert writes, “Both an over-emphasis on mission as Missio Dei, as well as an over-commitment to saving the world in a social and/or political sense, undermine the role of the fledgling national church in missions . . . I have concluded that the primary focus of the missionary community in the Middle East, in particular, must be the establishment of a loving, accepting community of Muslim background Christians…”14 In other words, Pikkert says a church must be planted. He says that the mission enterprise must be “church centered.” Pikkert cites a survey stating why Muslims convert to Christianity. The top two reasons given: (1) A Christian lifestyle and witness and (2) Desire to experience forgiveness.15 Pikkert also notes Islamic worship is formalistic. Because of this “some Muslims enjoy this warmth of fellowship within the framework of the liturgical aspect of church life.”16 In contrast to a contextualized theology, which might lose the truths of the Bible, Pikkert proposes a “Church-centered New Testament Spirituality Model” for reaching out to Muslims.17
In summary, Pikkert presents a fascinating description of the Protestant mission effort to the Muslims (from 1800–2005), highlighting many aspects of failure while presenting a model that is not only compatible with Lutheran theology (planting churches), but one for which the Lutheran church might be the best equipped to undertake. When one considers the Finnish Lutheran mission work in Turkey, the Istanbul Lutheran Church, we see that they follow this model — planting a congregation, holding liturgical worship in Turkish, and providing Christian community to Muslims who they come in contact with in their daily lives. Pikkert’s book is well worth the read for anyone interested in learning about mission work to Muslims.
The Rev. Dr. Albert Collver III is the LCMS director of Church Relations; LCMS director of Regional Operations for the Office of International Mission and executive secretary of the International Lutheran Council.
1 Peter Pikkert. Protestant Missionaries to the Middle East: Ambassadors of Christ or Culture? (Hamilton, Ontario: World Evangelism Canada, 2008).
2 Pikkert, 6.between the West and Islam. The other significant factors identified by Pikkert are internal to Islam — the loss of submission and the loss of Muslim identity — which he also cites as factors related to the clash of ideas.
3 Pikkert, 28.
4 Ibid, 29.
5 Pikkert, 30.
6 Ibid, 55.
7 Ibid, 57.
8 Pikkert, 70.
9 Ibid, 89.
10 Pikkert, 241
11 Ibid, 243
12 Pikkert, 244
13 Ibid, 273
14 Pikkert, 252
15 Ibid, 253
16 Ibid, 263.
17 Ibid, 266
