When Ian Wyllie and I published Religious Trends last December, the Director of Christian Research, Benita Hewitt, kindly gave us a Christmas present inscribed with the above words. It is a quotation from a famous 18th Century pro-missionary sermon on Isaiah 54:2-3 by William Carey in which he repeatedly used this epigram that has become his most famous quotation. He later founded, in 1792, a missionary society in Benita's home town of Kettering, which in part explains her fondness for the quote.
Originally, the mission was called the Particular Baptist Society for the Propagation of the Gospel amongst the Heathen. Mercifully, it was soon known as the Baptist Missionary Society and since 2000 as BMS World Mission (http://www.bmsworldmission.org ). It is still usually abbreviated to BMS by Baptists such as myself.
What very much interests, and inspires, me in my capacity in Christian Research is the story leading up to the founding of BMS. In addition to his inspiring sermon, Carey published a booklet An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens. (http://www.wmcarey.edu/carey/enquiry/anenquiry.pdf)
This short manifesto comprises five parts. In the first part, he makes a strong theological argument for Christian missionary activity (Matthew 28:18-20) and then he outlines the history of mission from the early Church to his own time. Part 4 deals with objections to sending missionaries and the last part calls for the missionary society to be formed.
However, it was Part 3 that has caught my attention, as there are 26 pages of tables of statistics for every country in the world, giving the nation's area, population and main religions. This is what Christian Research now offers within Religious Trends (http://www.christian-research.org/world-religion/introduction.html). Ours is, of course, better but Carey did not have the resources such as the internet to undertake this research. I expect he spent much time in correspondence and on visiting sources, whereas I did most of the data gathering on the PC I am using to write this blog. It seems that Carey had compiled these figures during the period 1785-1792 when he was a shoemaker and schoolteacher in the village of Moulton, Northamptonshire, and pastor of its local Particular Baptist church.
What an excellent example is Carey’s Enquiry of an evidence-based strategy! Carey kept a chart of the world on the wall in front of his workbench so that as he made and repaired shoes, he would weep over the millions who were not following Jesus and for the Gospel that could save them.
In our churches, it is clear that those with leadership and clear vision are most likely to grow. Many of the success stories we hear about have as part of their strategy a programme to soak the neighbourhood with prayer. Perhaps we should soak our neighbours with our tears as well.
Today, William Carey would surely and gladly pay his £30 membership to study Religious Trends, but I believe he would still weep.
Written by Michael Hudson
