Dr. Stephen V. Monsma (Ph.D.) is chairman of the Political Science Department at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. As a master’s student in political science, he specialized in African affairs, and his master’s thesis dealt with Nigeria. Presently, he is teaching a non-western politics course as an associate professor at Calvin. THE OUTLOOK appreciates Dr. Monsma’s competence to deal with the subject which he writes and also his willingness to make this contribution available for publication.
The Background
On February 13, 1971, dedication ceremonies were held for the Reformed Theological College of Nigeria.1 This seminary has been established by the Tiv Church of Christ in the Sudan, a church which was described several years ago as the fastest growing church in the world.2 Since the Tiv Church of Christ is the outgrowth of the work of Dutch Reformed missionaries, and, since 1961, of Christian Reformed missionaries, one would suppose that the tremendous growth of the church and now the organization of its own theological college would be greeted by the Christian Reformed Church with prayers of thanksgiving and joy to almighty God “from whom all blessings flow.”
But this has not been the case in regard to the founding of the theological college—it has resulted in cries of dismay by many of the missionaries and by varying degrees of non-cooperation by the missionaries and the Christian Reformed Church in the effort.3 The chief cause of the dismay stems from the missionaries’ and the Christian Reformed Church’s desire that the national church send its men to a union seminary, the Theological College of Northern Nigeria, established by seven cooperating evangelical denominations. The Tiv Church of Christ, on the other hand, prefers to establish its own theological college (although it is willing to continue to send some of its men to the union theological college).
Controversy has swirled around the issue of the proper way to provide theological training for the young men of the Tiv church. This has been true within the national church itself, among the foreign missionaries, within the Christian Reformed Board of Foreign Missions, and within the Christian Reformed Synod. Unanimity has rarely prevailed within these bodies. But usually majorities among the foreign missionaries and within the Christian Reformed Board of Foreign Missions and Synod have favored exclusive use of the union theological college, and a majority of the national church has favored the development of its own theological college.4 Writing as a white, Christian Reformed American who has some, but limited, knowledge of Nigeria, I propose to consider the controversy that has gone on among the foreign missionaries and within the Christian Reformed Church in North America—not the controversy within the national church.
For the most part, this controversy has centered upon the merits of the case—whether the nature and needs of the national church and the nature and needs of the Christian church generally in Nigeria can be served better by training the Tiv church’s future clergymen in the church’s own theological college or in the union theological college. One side points to the higher quality education the union theological college call provide and the advantages of an inter-denominational, intertribal school as a living demonstration of Christian unity in a nation tom by tribalism and threatened by denominational fragmentation. The other side points to the advantages of a distinctively Reformed theological education and the church’s need for more men to he trained than the union theological college has been able to accept. The purpose of this paper is not to rehash these arguments which have been debated and redebated over a number of years. I wish to explore an aspect of the issue that has been largely ignored.
But before going into that aspect I wish to establish the proposition, that, even if one leaves open the question of whether or not the national church’s decision to establish its own theological college was the wisest course it could have taken, this decision certainly is not clearly contrary to the Word of God nor obviously without merit. This decision is not in the same class as decisions—to take some totally inconceivable examples—to build luxury homes for all of its pastors or to pour thousands of dollars into a plush meeting hall for the church’s synod meetings. For a rapidly expanding church to decide to establish its own theological college for training sorely needed clergymen is—on the surface -a reasonable decision to make and is not obviously contrary to a sanctified sense of priorities. However, the question of whether this is the wisest of all possible courses, is, admittedly, still open—and one I do not intend to explore in this paper.
National-Church Independence versus Sending-Church Paternalism
The aspect of the controversy that I am convinced the Christian Reformed Church and its missionaries, mission board, and Synod have largely ignored is whether we as white Westerners, either living as guests in another country or living thousands of miles away from the .scene, have a right to impose onto the national church our judgments on the merits of the issue. I say, “No.” Cast in these terms the controversy takes on the coloration of a clash that has been all too frequent in the history of western missions—a clash between the indigenous church, struggling to free itself from the restraints imposed by the “mother” church, and the “mother” church, convinced that it knows better than its younger, less experienced “offspring.” The too frequent pattern has been for the founding church to exercise for too long a period of time a paternalistic supervision of the national church. One student of missions has written:
Our approach has frequently departed from the New Testament pattern in this crucially important respect: it has made missionary control of the Church which its witness brought into being a normal and extended stage between the beginning of the witness and the coming into being of truly independent Churches . . . .The defect of our approach in many places has been that it withheld from converts the freedom Christ has gained for them.5
The tendency of sending-churches to exercise too great a supervision over the more recently established churches has been a particularly prevalent problem in the modern period of Christian missions. During this period most foreign mission activity has taken the form of white, western, more technologically advanced societies sending missionaries to non-white, non-western, less technologically advanced societies. Problems of mutual understanding have been compounded by the resulting cultural barriers; problems of paternalism have been encouraged by an all too natural tendency for missionaries and sending-churches to develop feelings of superiority towards the “backward» people to whom they were sent.
History has shown that the most vital, successful missionary efforts have come about when it has been possible to follow an essentially indigenous mission pattern—when the national church has been given the freedom to develop and support its own evangelistic efforts.6 The Tiv Church of Christ is no exception to this rule. Formally, it is a fully independent church no more under the formal control and tutelage of the Christian Reformed Church than are the Gereformeerde Kerken of The Netherlands.
As we saw earlier, the Tiv Church of Christ has been experiencing phenomenal growth under its independent status. And the evangelism strategy that, with God’s blessings, has been a key factor in this success has been a strategy developed by the Tiv Christians themselves, not by the western missionaries. “It should be noted here that this ‘Bible school’ movement was not primarily the result of missionary prodding, but arose among the Tiv themselves. It became in the end the most powerful means of evangelism in Tivland.”7 Both the history of Christian missions generally and the history of the Tiv church suggest the wisdom of national church independence and the dangers of sending-church paternalism.
Thus it seems strange that the Christian Reformed Board of Foreign Missions and the Christian Reformed Synod have both decided that they can better judge the theological training needs of the Tiv Church of Christ than can the Tiv church itself. In effect they are saying that even though they are thousands of miles away from the scene, even though the vast majority of their members have never visited Nigeria, and even though the vast majority of them have probably read or studied next to nothing about Nigeria in general and the Tiv church and Tiv tribe in particular, they know better than the national church what is its own best interest.
I suspect that a position such as this would appear totally preposterous to us if the requesting church were not composed of black, “primitive” persons. If, for example, the Gereformeerde Kerken of The Netherlands had, immediately following the devastation of World War II, indicated their need for a new seminary and had requested financial assistance from the Christian Reformed Church, I do not doubt that the requested support and financial help would have been readily given. And if someone would have suggested that perhaps our brethren in The Netherlands could better work with a union seminary or use some other means to train their men for the ministry, our natural response would have been that surely the men who are right on the scene—not we who are an ocean away -are in the best position to judge the needs. I cannot help but suspect that a bit of western superiority and white racism has unintentionally crept into the refusal to cooperate with the Tiv national church in establishing a theological college.
The Sending Church’s “Superior” Competence
But, some persons may object, the Christian Reformed Board of Foreign Missions and Synod are guided in their decisions by the advice of the missionaries who are right on the scene and by the staff and members of the Mission Board who have made trips to Nigeria and have observed the situation first hand. Undoubtedly, there is a measure of truth in this assertion. But it leaves the question of whether or not white Westerners, either visiting Nigeria for a few weeks or living there for several years as guests in a foreign culture, are better able to judge the needs of the national church than is the church itself. Those who would answer yes to this question can point to the superior theological training and the broader perspective that the missionaries and home board observers have as compared with the Nigerians, who, it call be claimed, have a more limited education and a more parochial loyalty to a tribal group.
I believe this line of reasoning fails on two counts. First, it is necessary to recognize it for what it is: pure paternalism. “Father knows best” is its moving spirit. Admittedly, sometimes father does how best. But just as there comes a time when every child must be given the freedom to learn by making his own choices, so also there comes a time when every young church must be free to learn by making its own choices. This time, I feel, has long ago come and gone for the Tiv Church of Christ in the Sudan. This is an area where principle and practicality meet. Harry H. Boer has enunciated the principle: “But whatever the specific approach [of missionary activity], there will be a common desire to place converts and their churches at liberty, there will be a common desire to let them be masters in their own house.”8 Practicality states that—for good or for bad—the age of white paternalism in Africa is over. This is true in the political realm; it is no less true in the ecclesiastical realm.
I reject the line of reasoning stated earlier for a second reason: it rests on false assumptions. I challenge the assumption that white foreign missionaries, living in an alien culture for several years, or white mission board members taking a whirlwind tour of the mission field, “know best.” Is their education and perspective truly superior to that of the national Christian leaders? An education is superior or inferior relative to the task at hand. A superbly educated physician would be very poorly educated to build a bridge. Even so, the usually strong theological training of the foreign missionary has not necessarily prepared him to understand issues involving a foreign culture, set in a society and political system of which he knows little.
When I was able to visit the Tiv mission field very briefly in conjunction with a more extended trip to Nigeria some years ago, I was struck by the extent to which the missionaries had failed to enter into the political, social, and cultural life of Nigeria. The Banner was in almost every missionary home I visited; the Lagos Times was not. Many missionaries had never visited the major cities of Nigeria such as Lagos, Ibadan, and Port Harcourt. And, I am sad to say, a condescending spirit toward the Nigerian was not totally absent. Stewards—the accepted term for men who work about the house performing many of the tasks machines perform in American homes were constantly referred to as “boys” by missionaries—even though they generally were grown, married men with families of their own. And one missionary, when he heard that I was planning to take the train up to Kano (missionaries almost always drive private cars or fly), remarked: “Yes, those Nigerian trains are not too bad, going first class.” I hardly dared tell him I was planning to go third class, since he had assumed that any American would travel first class (thereby separating himself from most Nigerians).
My point in relating these cases is not to deprecate the foreign missionaries, whom I respect for their dedication, sacrifice, and deeply felt commitment all this no one can take away, and surely not a three day visitor to the mission field. My point, rather, is that missionaries are human, with all the frailties and weaknesses inherent in human beings. And one of the most natural of all human tendencies is to be culturally parochial, to want to live within the comforting confines of one’s own cultural background and to see and evaluate issues that lie within a foreign cultural context within the context of one’s own culture. To break out of one’s cultural blinders is difficult for all, impossible for some. The Christian Reformed missionary in Nigeria is no exception to this rule.
The basic, all-important conclusion that I reach from these various observations is that the missionary’s education and perspective, while they may be superior and broader than the Nigerian’s from a western point of view, may be inferior and narrower than the Nigerian’s relative to the Nigerian scene. The belief that foreign missionaries or the home Board of Missions can judge the theological training needs of the Tiv church better than its own leaders can simply cannot be demonstrated.
Conclusion
The inescapable conclusion of this paper is that the theological training of the Tiv church’s clergymen is an area in which the Christian Reformed missionaries and official bodies—while being; free to make observations and to give advice—should, in the final analysis, defer to the judgment of the national church leaders.9 They, not we, are closest to the scene. They, not we, have the more intimate knowledge of their needs and problems. They, not we, will be the ones most directly affected by the decision.
To defer to their judgment means at the very least that we—including those of us who may have some misgivings about the wisdom of the choice should accept their decision, should pray for the success of their venture, and should cooperate with them when and where appropriate.
To charge that base motives such as tribal pride have motivated the decision, to forbid any missionaries from serving on the theological college’s board, to call for the removal of two missionaries from the field who have supported the national church’s decision to establish their own theological college, in fact to rebuke officially these two missionaries, and to refuse all financial help -all of which are actions individual missionaries or official missionary bodies have taken—is not to defer to the national church’s judgment, but is to engage in a stubborn paternalism that should have gone out with the bush jacket and pith helmet.
I pray that the Tiv Church of Christ will show a deeper spirit of Christian understanding, patience, and love than most of the Christian Reformed missionaries and official Christian Reformed bodies have shown towards it.
FOOTNOTES
1. Since my brother, the Reverend Timothy M. Monsma, is a member of the Tiv Church of Christ and a missionary working within that church, I should emphasize that this paper and the views contained in it arc purely my own and not those of my brother. He has not seen or read this paper and does not even know I am writing it. I am solely responsible for all the observations and conclusions contained in this paper.
2. The communicant membership of the church has approximately doubled every four years since its organization as an independent church in 1957. One scholar has estimated that by 1979 it will have 70,000 to 80,000 communicant members (compared with a 1969 figure of 30,000) and it will have 140 to 160 congregations (compared with a 1969 figure of 35). See Eugene Rubingh, Son of Tiv (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1969), pp. 237-239.
3. For example, both the official governing body of the missionaries in Nigeria and the Christian Reformed Board of Foreign Missions have forbidden any missionaries from serving on the school’s board of governors—including even missionaries who arc members of the national church.
4. To be fully accurate it sho11ld be noted that in 1970 the Christian Reformed Synod decided. in view of the inability of the union seminary to accept all of the qualified Tiv students, to authorize a four-year class for the theological training of Tiv students; that is, one group or students would receive a four year theological training, hut it would be a temporary, one-time arrangement, not an ongoing seminary.
5. Harry R. Boer, Pentecost and Missions (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961), p. 221.
6. For an excellent analysis of indigenous mission methods an<l their relationship to church growth see Donald A. McGavran, Understanding Church Growth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), pp. 335-353.
7. Rubingh, op. cit., p. 125.
8. Boer, op. cit., p. 224. Curiously enough, Dr. Boer has been a leading opponent of supporting the national church in its own choice of theological education.
9. If the national church were proposing a project which was clearly contrary to God’s Word or to all good reason, it would not, I feel, be incumbent upon us to defer to its judgment. My thesis should not be pushed too far. But as I pointed out earlier in this paper—the choices the national church has made in the area of theological training certainly are not clearly contrary to God’s Word nor to all good reason.
The Background
On February 13, 1971, dedication ceremonies were held for the Reformed Theological College of Nigeria.1 This seminary has been established by the Tiv Church of Christ in the Sudan, a church which was described several years ago as the fastest growing church in the world.2 Since the Tiv Church of Christ is the outgrowth of the work of Dutch Reformed missionaries, and, since 1961, of Christian Reformed missionaries, one would suppose that the tremendous growth of the church and now the organization of its own theological college would be greeted by the Christian Reformed Church with prayers of thanksgiving and joy to almighty God “from whom all blessings flow.”
But this has not been the case in regard to the founding of the theological college—it has resulted in cries of dismay by many of the missionaries and by varying degrees of non-cooperation by the missionaries and the Christian Reformed Church in the effort.3 The chief cause of the dismay stems from the missionaries’ and the Christian Reformed Church’s desire that the national church send its men to a union seminary, the Theological College of Northern Nigeria, established by seven cooperating evangelical denominations. The Tiv Church of Christ, on the other hand, prefers to establish its own theological college (although it is willing to continue to send some of its men to the union theological college).
Controversy has swirled around the issue of the proper way to provide theological training for the young men of the Tiv church. This has been true within the national church itself, among the foreign missionaries, within the Christian Reformed Board of Foreign Missions, and within the Christian Reformed Synod. Unanimity has rarely prevailed within these bodies. But usually majorities among the foreign missionaries and within the Christian Reformed Board of Foreign Missions and Synod have favored exclusive use of the union theological college, and a majority of the national church has favored the development of its own theological college.4 Writing as a white, Christian Reformed American who has some, but limited, knowledge of Nigeria, I propose to consider the controversy that has gone on among the foreign missionaries and within the Christian Reformed Church in North America—not the controversy within the national church.
For the most part, this controversy has centered upon the merits of the case—whether the nature and needs of the national church and the nature and needs of the Christian church generally in Nigeria can be served better by training the Tiv church’s future clergymen in the church’s own theological college or in the union theological college. One side points to the higher quality education the union theological college call provide and the advantages of an inter-denominational, intertribal school as a living demonstration of Christian unity in a nation tom by tribalism and threatened by denominational fragmentation. The other side points to the advantages of a distinctively Reformed theological education and the church’s need for more men to he trained than the union theological college has been able to accept. The purpose of this paper is not to rehash these arguments which have been debated and redebated over a number of years. I wish to explore an aspect of the issue that has been largely ignored.
But before going into that aspect I wish to establish the proposition, that, even if one leaves open the question of whether or not the national church’s decision to establish its own theological college was the wisest course it could have taken, this decision certainly is not clearly contrary to the Word of God nor obviously without merit. This decision is not in the same class as decisions—to take some totally inconceivable examples—to build luxury homes for all of its pastors or to pour thousands of dollars into a plush meeting hall for the church’s synod meetings. For a rapidly expanding church to decide to establish its own theological college for training sorely needed clergymen is—on the surface -a reasonable decision to make and is not obviously contrary to a sanctified sense of priorities. However, the question of whether this is the wisest of all possible courses, is, admittedly, still open—and one I do not intend to explore in this paper.
National-Church Independence versus Sending-Church Paternalism
The aspect of the controversy that I am convinced the Christian Reformed Church and its missionaries, mission board, and Synod have largely ignored is whether we as white Westerners, either living as guests in another country or living thousands of miles away from the .scene, have a right to impose onto the national church our judgments on the merits of the issue. I say, “No.” Cast in these terms the controversy takes on the coloration of a clash that has been all too frequent in the history of western missions—a clash between the indigenous church, struggling to free itself from the restraints imposed by the “mother” church, and the “mother” church, convinced that it knows better than its younger, less experienced “offspring.” The too frequent pattern has been for the founding church to exercise for too long a period of time a paternalistic supervision of the national church. One student of missions has written:
Our approach has frequently departed from the New Testament pattern in this crucially important respect: it has made missionary control of the Church which its witness brought into being a normal and extended stage between the beginning of the witness and the coming into being of truly independent Churches . . . .The defect of our approach in many places has been that it withheld from converts the freedom Christ has gained for them.5
The tendency of sending-churches to exercise too great a supervision over the more recently established churches has been a particularly prevalent problem in the modern period of Christian missions. During this period most foreign mission activity has taken the form of white, western, more technologically advanced societies sending missionaries to non-white, non-western, less technologically advanced societies. Problems of mutual understanding have been compounded by the resulting cultural barriers; problems of paternalism have been encouraged by an all too natural tendency for missionaries and sending-churches to develop feelings of superiority towards the “backward» people to whom they were sent.
History has shown that the most vital, successful missionary efforts have come about when it has been possible to follow an essentially indigenous mission pattern—when the national church has been given the freedom to develop and support its own evangelistic efforts.6 The Tiv Church of Christ is no exception to this rule. Formally, it is a fully independent church no more under the formal control and tutelage of the Christian Reformed Church than are the Gereformeerde Kerken of The Netherlands.
As we saw earlier, the Tiv Church of Christ has been experiencing phenomenal growth under its independent status. And the evangelism strategy that, with God’s blessings, has been a key factor in this success has been a strategy developed by the Tiv Christians themselves, not by the western missionaries. “It should be noted here that this ‘Bible school’ movement was not primarily the result of missionary prodding, but arose among the Tiv themselves. It became in the end the most powerful means of evangelism in Tivland.”7 Both the history of Christian missions generally and the history of the Tiv church suggest the wisdom of national church independence and the dangers of sending-church paternalism.
Thus it seems strange that the Christian Reformed Board of Foreign Missions and the Christian Reformed Synod have both decided that they can better judge the theological training needs of the Tiv Church of Christ than can the Tiv church itself. In effect they are saying that even though they are thousands of miles away from the scene, even though the vast majority of their members have never visited Nigeria, and even though the vast majority of them have probably read or studied next to nothing about Nigeria in general and the Tiv church and Tiv tribe in particular, they know better than the national church what is its own best interest.
I suspect that a position such as this would appear totally preposterous to us if the requesting church were not composed of black, “primitive” persons. If, for example, the Gereformeerde Kerken of The Netherlands had, immediately following the devastation of World War II, indicated their need for a new seminary and had requested financial assistance from the Christian Reformed Church, I do not doubt that the requested support and financial help would have been readily given. And if someone would have suggested that perhaps our brethren in The Netherlands could better work with a union seminary or use some other means to train their men for the ministry, our natural response would have been that surely the men who are right on the scene—not we who are an ocean away -are in the best position to judge the needs. I cannot help but suspect that a bit of western superiority and white racism has unintentionally crept into the refusal to cooperate with the Tiv national church in establishing a theological college.
The Sending Church’s “Superior” Competence
But, some persons may object, the Christian Reformed Board of Foreign Missions and Synod are guided in their decisions by the advice of the missionaries who are right on the scene and by the staff and members of the Mission Board who have made trips to Nigeria and have observed the situation first hand. Undoubtedly, there is a measure of truth in this assertion. But it leaves the question of whether or not white Westerners, either visiting Nigeria for a few weeks or living there for several years as guests in a foreign culture, are better able to judge the needs of the national church than is the church itself. Those who would answer yes to this question can point to the superior theological training and the broader perspective that the missionaries and home board observers have as compared with the Nigerians, who, it call be claimed, have a more limited education and a more parochial loyalty to a tribal group.
I believe this line of reasoning fails on two counts. First, it is necessary to recognize it for what it is: pure paternalism. “Father knows best” is its moving spirit. Admittedly, sometimes father does how best. But just as there comes a time when every child must be given the freedom to learn by making his own choices, so also there comes a time when every young church must be free to learn by making its own choices. This time, I feel, has long ago come and gone for the Tiv Church of Christ in the Sudan. This is an area where principle and practicality meet. Harry H. Boer has enunciated the principle: “But whatever the specific approach [of missionary activity], there will be a common desire to place converts and their churches at liberty, there will be a common desire to let them be masters in their own house.”8 Practicality states that—for good or for bad—the age of white paternalism in Africa is over. This is true in the political realm; it is no less true in the ecclesiastical realm.
I reject the line of reasoning stated earlier for a second reason: it rests on false assumptions. I challenge the assumption that white foreign missionaries, living in an alien culture for several years, or white mission board members taking a whirlwind tour of the mission field, “know best.” Is their education and perspective truly superior to that of the national Christian leaders? An education is superior or inferior relative to the task at hand. A superbly educated physician would be very poorly educated to build a bridge. Even so, the usually strong theological training of the foreign missionary has not necessarily prepared him to understand issues involving a foreign culture, set in a society and political system of which he knows little.
When I was able to visit the Tiv mission field very briefly in conjunction with a more extended trip to Nigeria some years ago, I was struck by the extent to which the missionaries had failed to enter into the political, social, and cultural life of Nigeria. The Banner was in almost every missionary home I visited; the Lagos Times was not. Many missionaries had never visited the major cities of Nigeria such as Lagos, Ibadan, and Port Harcourt. And, I am sad to say, a condescending spirit toward the Nigerian was not totally absent. Stewards—the accepted term for men who work about the house performing many of the tasks machines perform in American homes were constantly referred to as “boys” by missionaries—even though they generally were grown, married men with families of their own. And one missionary, when he heard that I was planning to take the train up to Kano (missionaries almost always drive private cars or fly), remarked: “Yes, those Nigerian trains are not too bad, going first class.” I hardly dared tell him I was planning to go third class, since he had assumed that any American would travel first class (thereby separating himself from most Nigerians).
My point in relating these cases is not to deprecate the foreign missionaries, whom I respect for their dedication, sacrifice, and deeply felt commitment all this no one can take away, and surely not a three day visitor to the mission field. My point, rather, is that missionaries are human, with all the frailties and weaknesses inherent in human beings. And one of the most natural of all human tendencies is to be culturally parochial, to want to live within the comforting confines of one’s own cultural background and to see and evaluate issues that lie within a foreign cultural context within the context of one’s own culture. To break out of one’s cultural blinders is difficult for all, impossible for some. The Christian Reformed missionary in Nigeria is no exception to this rule.
The basic, all-important conclusion that I reach from these various observations is that the missionary’s education and perspective, while they may be superior and broader than the Nigerian’s from a western point of view, may be inferior and narrower than the Nigerian’s relative to the Nigerian scene. The belief that foreign missionaries or the home Board of Missions can judge the theological training needs of the Tiv church better than its own leaders can simply cannot be demonstrated.
Conclusion
The inescapable conclusion of this paper is that the theological training of the Tiv church’s clergymen is an area in which the Christian Reformed missionaries and official bodies—while being; free to make observations and to give advice—should, in the final analysis, defer to the judgment of the national church leaders.9 They, not we, are closest to the scene. They, not we, have the more intimate knowledge of their needs and problems. They, not we, will be the ones most directly affected by the decision.
To defer to their judgment means at the very least that we—including those of us who may have some misgivings about the wisdom of the choice should accept their decision, should pray for the success of their venture, and should cooperate with them when and where appropriate.
To charge that base motives such as tribal pride have motivated the decision, to forbid any missionaries from serving on the theological college’s board, to call for the removal of two missionaries from the field who have supported the national church’s decision to establish their own theological college, in fact to rebuke officially these two missionaries, and to refuse all financial help -all of which are actions individual missionaries or official missionary bodies have taken—is not to defer to the national church’s judgment, but is to engage in a stubborn paternalism that should have gone out with the bush jacket and pith helmet.
I pray that the Tiv Church of Christ will show a deeper spirit of Christian understanding, patience, and love than most of the Christian Reformed missionaries and official Christian Reformed bodies have shown towards it.
FOOTNOTES
1. Since my brother, the Reverend Timothy M. Monsma, is a member of the Tiv Church of Christ and a missionary working within that church, I should emphasize that this paper and the views contained in it arc purely my own and not those of my brother. He has not seen or read this paper and does not even know I am writing it. I am solely responsible for all the observations and conclusions contained in this paper.
2. The communicant membership of the church has approximately doubled every four years since its organization as an independent church in 1957. One scholar has estimated that by 1979 it will have 70,000 to 80,000 communicant members (compared with a 1969 figure of 30,000) and it will have 140 to 160 congregations (compared with a 1969 figure of 35). See Eugene Rubingh, Son of Tiv (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1969), pp. 237-239.
3. For example, both the official governing body of the missionaries in Nigeria and the Christian Reformed Board of Foreign Missions have forbidden any missionaries from serving on the school’s board of governors—including even missionaries who arc members of the national church.
4. To be fully accurate it sho11ld be noted that in 1970 the Christian Reformed Synod decided. in view of the inability of the union seminary to accept all of the qualified Tiv students, to authorize a four-year class for the theological training of Tiv students; that is, one group or students would receive a four year theological training, hut it would be a temporary, one-time arrangement, not an ongoing seminary.
5. Harry R. Boer, Pentecost and Missions (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961), p. 221.
6. For an excellent analysis of indigenous mission methods an<l their relationship to church growth see Donald A. McGavran, Understanding Church Growth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), pp. 335-353.
7. Rubingh, op. cit., p. 125.
8. Boer, op. cit., p. 224. Curiously enough, Dr. Boer has been a leading opponent of supporting the national church in its own choice of theological education.
9. If the national church were proposing a project which was clearly contrary to God’s Word or to all good reason, it would not, I feel, be incumbent upon us to defer to its judgment. My thesis should not be pushed too far. But as I pointed out earlier in this paper—the choices the national church has made in the area of theological training certainly are not clearly contrary to God’s Word nor to all good reason.