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THE KING’S ENGLISH IN A TAMIL TONGUE Then in September of 1963, such a short time after arrival in Shillong, J. C. decided that he and his family would go to Southern India. Of course he offered such to us, but we all knew he was the one going. Ray and I had been promised support of two hundred dollars per month, each, by J. C. We came on one-way tickets. Then the bomb dropped: J. C. would go south and take all the money with him. His promises to the Perrys, Ray and me failed. We were without money support. Talk about being left “high and dry!” We were half way around the world and now what? J. C. had the money. . . . All other monies also went with him. J. C. took little interest in the Northeast and the three small congregations and us. He was what I call a trail blazer, always being lured on by a greener pasture in the venture for souls. During this time, if I had a return ticket I would have left. 33 Although various Church of Christ missionaries preceded him, Bailey is described as “lighting a spark for the evangelization of India.” 34 What was meant by this, however, was that Bailey lit the spark for a distinctly Church of Christ evangelization in India. When Bailey arrived in 1963, he actually found three a cappella congregations totaling approximately 80 members. 35 Bailey worked as a missionary to India for twenty-five years, from 1963 to 1988. During the first nine years he took residence in India. In 1972 he moved back to Canada. 36 Between 1972 and 1988 he made twenty more evangelistic trips. It is estimated that over 100,000 faithful Church of Christ members resulted from his ministry there. 37 However, statistics in India are rarely taken at face value. For example, Bailey’s first convert in the state of Andhra Pradesh, Joshua Gootam, claims, “There are now estimated to be more than 2 million members of the church [meaning Church of Christ] in this state alone.” 38 Millan is a Church of Christ missionary who currently lives in Regina, Saskatchewan, but he travels to India twice per year for extended mission trips. Ray was one of two missionaries who brought J. C. Bailey’s wife, three adopted children, and cargo to India in 1963, three months after Bailey had arrived. J. C. flew from Canada to India. However, Ray flew from Winnipeg to London and met fellow missionary David Hallett and J. C. Bailey’s family there (they had traveled by ship from Montreal to London). McMillan, Hallett, and J. C. ’s family then traveled by ship from London to Bombay via the Suez Canal. McMillan is still very connected to the churches established by Bailey and is one of the few people living who are acquainted with Bailey’s early years in India. 33 Hallett, 14–15. 34 Lynn, 106. 35 For this statistic, see Roy Davison, “Biographical Information: John Carlos Bailey,” The Old Paths Archive, http://www.oldpaths.com/archive/bailey/john/carlos/1903/bio.html. See also Lynn, 107. Lynn discusses the pre-Bailey Church of Christ group in northeast India. A Presbyterian minister in Mawlai (near Shillong in the Indian state of Meghalaya) discovered a church bulletin from the Hillcrest Church of Christ in Abilene, Texas, and wrote to the church. The Abilene church sent a missionary who was in Japan at the time, E. W. McMillan (no relation to Ray McMillan). Ray McMillan, e-mail message to author, March 30, 2011. The Independent Christian Church (instrumental) learned about these events and did follow up work and had some success. Bailey would later rail against the Christian Church and their use of instruments. The Church of Christ–Christian Church rivalry in India was discussed earlier in the article when Bill Phillips in The Harvest Field argued that the best approach to missions in India was to “invade” the Christian Churches and convert them to the Church of Christ. 36 Telephone interview with Ray McMillan, March 25, 2011. 37 “Obituaries,” The Christian Chronicle. The estimate comes from Bailey’s co-worker Charles F. Scott. 38 Joshua Gootam, e-mail message to author, March 24, 2011. Gootam claims to be Bailey’s first convert in Andhra Pradesh and several other sources either confirm or allude to that claim. J. C. Bailey’s son John has been a very helpful resource in my research. John Bailey, e-mail message to author, March 22, 2011: “Joshua Gootam was the first convert my dad made in South India. He has been a radio preacher for over 30 years and has more knowledge of my dad’s work in India than anyone living.” 99
MISSIO DEI 4.1 (FEBRUARY 2013): 89–109 Nevertheless, the point should not be missed: prior to J. C. Bailey’s arrival in 1963, there were scant traces of the a cappella Church of Christ in India. By the end of his ministry in that nation, there were hundreds of thousands of members—and many of them could trace their origins to Bailey’s work. PATERNALISM Bailey’s great successes and conviction have not been forgotten. This was the great heyday of the non-instrumental Church of Christ in India, and Bailey’s impressive work fostered extreme loyalty to him. Faithfulness and loyalty to this strong leader has resulted in what I am calling a “time capsule effect.” The continued use of the KJV is one aspect of a much larger issue that has historically been identified as “paternalism” in the church. Paternalism is a concept that has been denounced by missionaries and church historians for decades, but Christian leaders even still continue to battle it. Ideally, missionaries plant churches that evolve and indigenize, and one day become independent. However, the opposite often happens: churches become stunted in their development, becoming ever more dependent on the supporting churches in the West. This loyalty to the parent church is reinforced in various ways: (1) through the memory of the heroic missionaries and preservation of their theology, (2) through continued financial support, and (3) through an unspoken division of authority wherein the missionary remains a father figure, even long after his death. The phenomenon of missionary paternalism has received considerable scholarly attention in recent years. Boston University historian Dana Robert writes of the many and serious problems it can cause. 39 It prevents the sending and receiving churches from developing authentic friendships. It thwarts collegiality by perpetuating unbalanced relationships between foreigners and indigenous. The sending church holds the power. It is able to superimpose everything from the leadership of the church to the formulation of its doctrines, no matter how out of synch they may be with the local culture. Robert defines paternalism as a “father-like relationship between the missionary and the people.” This dependency is very difficult to overcome. She argues that “unreflective paternalism” can prove dangerous since it has often “lacked the equality assumed by modern ideals of friendship.” 40 Another historian, University of Edinburgh’s Brian Stanley, writes that while, theoretically, Indian and Western Christians should work shoulder to shoulder as equals, there are often fault lines—racial and otherwise—that prevent “real, intimate, brotherly and 39 Dana L. Robert, “Cross-Cultural Friendship in the Creation of Twentieth-Century World Christianity,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 35, no. 2 (April 2011): 100, http://www.internationalbulletin.org/ system/files/2011-02-100-robert.pdf. See also Susan Billington Harper, In the Shadow of the Mahatma: Bishop V. S. Azariah and the Travails of Christianity in British India, Studies in the History of Christian Missions (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000). Azariah was consecrated as India’s first Anglican bishop. He began his bishopric in 1912 in the diocese of Dornakal. He considered himself part of “a new generation of Christians who do not wish to be treated like children.” He saw “interracial cooperation in the cause of Christ” as the only solution to the problem of systemic paternalism. Harper, 148. 40 Robert, 103, 106–7. 100
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FEBRUARY 2013 EDITORIAL BOARD Execu
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MISSIONAL THEOLOGY
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“MISSION IN WEAKNESS AND VULNERAB
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BIBLIOGRAPHY “MISSION IN WEAKNESS
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Economy of Grace: An Early Christia
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Economy of Grace in Ephesians ECONO
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ECONOMY OF GRACE discovery and the
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ECONOMY OF GRACE missionaries must
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UNVEILING EMPIRE Howard-Brook, Wes.
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REFLECTIONS
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BOOK REVIEWS
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