The missionary-academic

With one PhD under his belt, and plans to start a second when he arrives to lecture at South Africa’s George Whitefield College in mid-2011, CMS missionary Nathan Lovell can undoubtedly be included in this category. And as he explains, the modern mission world holds many openings for those similarly qualified - particularly in Europe, ‘closed’ parts of Asia and the Middle East, and his own future mission field of Africa...

On 23 April 2009 Don Carson and John Piper spoke at a gathering in Chicago. The topics were, respectively, ‘The Pastor as a Scholar’ by John Piper, and ‘The Scholar as a Pastor’ by Don Carson.¹

I might summarise the theme of the night this way: not every Christian is academically oriented or gifted, and that is all right. But there remains an indispensable place within the church, and particularly within the pastorate, for people who are capable of deep reflection and rigorous thought about the word of God and about his world. Carson and Piper proceeded to discuss what this might look like in practice, and to review some of the distinctive pastoral and academic challenges that these so-called ‘pastor-theologians’ face.

Of course their discussion was limited to their own context: to the church as it exists in the West. There remain, then, several fruitful avenues of exploration surrounding the topic of Christians and academia. One such avenue, I believe, will prove to be very important for the worldwide church over the next several decades: the place of the missionary-academic.

It is true that academics in certain specialties have always had an important role within worldwide mission. Linguists have been responsible for Bible translation, anthropologists have addressed issues of culture, and theologians have planted Bible schools and taught the Scriptures. What is less obvious is how a PhD in Philosophy, Mathematics or Literature might be used profitably on the mission field.

If such a specialisation seems incongruous, it is only because of our preconceptions of the nature of the mission field itself. The last half-century has seen a dramatic shift in the nature of worldwide mission, a shift that has been well documented by missiologists.²

Gone, it seems, are the days when worldwide mission could be understood exclusively in terms of unreached people groups whose most urgent earthly needs are sanitation, rudimentary schooling and literacy programs. These needs certainly still exist, and I suspect we will always require translators, doctors and school teachers to go and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with the lost in this way.

However, just as lost are the billions of Asians who have university educations and live in cites as economically developed as any in the West. Just as lost are the millions of Europeans whose entire post-Christian culture prepares them from a very young age to faithfully defend the tenants of atheistic belief and practice. Just as lost are the thousands of Africans who now attend university with the realistic expectation that they will be the generation through whom Africa finally comes of age as a world economic power.

The question for mission agencies like CMS, then, is what types of missionaries can be sent to live, work and witness for Christ in these new mission fields? What kinds of people, humanly speaking, will an educated Chinese or Indonesian person respect and honour enough to listen to their proclamation of the gospel? What kind of person can maintain a credible Christian witness within a culture steeped in the Enlightenment thinking of Voltaire or Nietzsche?

No doubt God will continue to use a wide range of people to build his church, but it seems to me that the time has arrived for Christian academics to step up and play a larger role in God’s mission to the nations. Without for a moment pretending to be exhaustive, here are some of the ways in which Christians with academic gifts might do that:

The need for academics in Europe

Europe is a significant mission field, with most people now ignorant not only of the Christian gospel but also of the continent’s Christian heritage. This is due, in large part, to the university. Two centuries of Enlightenment rationalism followed by nearly a century of Existentialism and Postmodernism have, for many, completely undermined any claim the gospel has to contemporary relevance. This heritage of thought is simply part of the air that every educated European breathes.

Since the academy has had such a powerful impact on European culture, it is the Christian academic who has the potential to radically reshape the way people think, by challenging these thought structures at their foundational levels. The Christian task in Europe is not simply to mount an intellectually credible defence of the faith (1 Peter 3:15), as if it were the church’s only responsibility to comfort herself that she has not gone insane! As well as this, it is her commission to expose the weaknesses and bankruptcy of the intellectual climate of this age (2 Corinthians 10:4-5). In the end, secular philosophy offers only a false gospel, which must be undone. Got a PhD in Philosophy or History? Europe needs you!

The people who are most responsible for this intellectual climate, the academics, represent in themselves a significantly large unreached people group. Can our church find people who are willing and able to become missionaries to this group of people - the intelligentsia? What kind of training might equip someone for that task? How encouraging would it be for the university student, wrestling with the intellectual questions of their faith, to see their professor doing precisely the same thing, and to find together a satisfying resolution to the questions posed by their culture? What good might be done by such a simple ministry for a people that finds Christianity intellectually incredible?

The need for academics in ‘closed’ parts of Asia and the Middle East

The situation is slightly different in other parts of the world, but once again there is a niche for mission work that is really only open to academics.

Countries that are in the main part closed or hostile to gospel work often find themselves in a quandary when a suitably qualified Christian candidate applies to work at one of their universities. For many countries, including several Middle Eastern nations, Indonesia, China and (dare we even mention) North Korea, Western academics are highly valued. Although several of these countries view themselves as a prominent presence on the global stage, they know that their universities still struggle to compete with those of the West. And so, provided the work is done with some caution and wisdom, a suitably qualified missionary might find a profitable ministry among students or other academics in a country that would otherwise be completely closed to their presence.

Furthermore, imagine the encouragement that such a person would be to the Christians around them. Alienated Christian students on campus might suddenly find that they can book a room for their Bible study, because a faculty member vouched for them. Christian student workers might suddenly find the gates of the campus open to them, because a faculty member has invited them. In many places the persecuted church would rejoice in the presence of a foreigner just to know that their country is not completely closed to Christians. What a fruitful harvest such a ministry might have!

The need for academics in Africa

African universities are beginning to come of age. Academics in every specialty are needed, but particularly the social sciences and technical fields. If you could help the next generation of African leadership think in a Christian way about some of the social issues that have plagued the continent, you would be a valuable asset to the community.

Issues of corruption, poverty, church and state, just warfare and the distribution of power must be addressed if African nations are going to break out of their current cycles of warfare and poverty. The southern half of the continent is actively looking for Christians who are qualified to instruct future African leaders in this way. Furthermore, if you can equip locals to develop the infrastructure of their country, or to increase their manufacturing capabilities, or in any number of technical specialisations, then I am sure you would be warmly received.

There are ample opportunities for missionary-academics in a wide variety of specialisations in Africa. Many of the best African universities are openly and actively Christian and teach courses explicitly based on the Christian worldview. This means that academics have the opportunity to speak in an openly Christian way - yes even to proclaim the gospel forthrightly - to a captive audience (and then to grade them on their responses!).

Furthermore, in some countries, up to half of the students in any given class will be Muslim. They come because Christian universities are known for their high standard of education. And they come to be educated in the Christian worldview. There are very few opportunities for this kind of ministry to Muslims in any other setting anywhere in the world.

Is it even possible to be a missionary-academic?

Of course, there are many other opportunities I might point out. I haven’t even begun to mention the enormous need for PhDs in Theology in mission work. Or for IT specialists in countries that are trying to develop their communications infrastructure - Malaysia or India would be notable examples.

Perhaps, though, I should conclude with some practicalities. What would it look like to be a missionary-academic?

In times past, it would have been almost inconceivable. Becoming a missionary usually meant moving to a remote part of the world, which in turn isolated you from your home society. In such circumstances it is hard to see how one could be an academic and a missionary at the same time. Academics need libraries, and peer-reviewed journals, and colleagues.

But today the world has changed. No longer does being a missionary come with necessary isolation from the academic world. In fact, somewhere like Africa is much closer to the academic hub of activity in Europe than Australia is. For many specialties, a base in Africa, or indeed South America, would be convenient for travelling to conferences.

Access to the internet and digital media has meant that it is becoming increasingly possible to do academic work from any location. In fact, I managed to get through a whole PhD in Artificial Intelligence with almost no use of a physical library! In terms of research, I could have just as easily been in Saudi Arabia. If academic work is becoming increasingly location-neutral, then why not do it in a place that will have a huge impact for the gospel?

One of the serious challenges, I suspect, will come from supporters at home - from the people reading this article. Being a missionary-academic won’t necessarily look like other kinds of mission work, and the academics you support won’t necessarily come home every three years with many stories about lives and communities transformed by Christ.

What if, instead of planting churches or running small groups, the missionary you prayed for and supported came home and reported that they had spent a lot of time in the library writing journal articles? What if they required travel expenses to participate in academic conferences? Would you be convinced of the value of their work if the product of their 10-year ministry in Paris was a book about the impact of Jean-Jacques Rousseau on contemporary French culture with an accompanying Christian response?

I hope you would. Academic missionaries represent a long-term investment. This investment will sometimes pay very little in the form of immediate returns, and we need to recognise that. But the dividends will often be reaped in generations to come, as their work trickles down through universities, schools and Bible colleges into the thought-world of -popular culture.

The world has changed, and mission is changing with it. We should pray earnestly to the God of the harvest that he will send out workers equipped for these new mission fields. Workers who are ready to help the Christians in their locations engage credibly with the most educated generation of atheists and agnostics who have ever lived. Workers who are able to think deeply about the implications of the gospel for broken, impoverished and corrupt societies run by warlords. And workers who will, simply by virtue of their presence, be prominent Christian voices in places where the gospel is seldom heard.

Read about Nathan and Diane Lovell’s journey to the mission field in the Autumn issue of CMS’s Checkpoint magazine.