애딘버러 선교대회와 애니미즘 선교

The World Missionary Conference, 1910 and the Missions to Animists: Focusing on the Continuitiesand and Discontinuities between Animism and the Gospel

The Edinburgh 1910 Missionary Conference marked the beginning of a new approach regarding other religions for the Protestant Church. Before the conference, the traditional Protestant theologians and missionaries tended to take the negative attitudes toward other religions. Most of them had emphasized only the differences between the Gospel and other religions. But coming out of the conference, the majority of participants took the positive attitudes towards other religions. The fulfillment theory, which became the dominant theory related to other religions at that time period, has been given great credit for bringing about such change. According to the fulfillment theory, God's revelations are left in fragments within other religions. And those fragmentary yearnings of other religions can be completed or fulfilled only by abiding to the Christian faith. Through the influence of the fulfillment perspective, missionaries tried to find similar phenomena between animism and the Gospel. They tried to find points of contact in order to evangelize the peoples of other religions. According to the report of Commission IV, “The Missionary Message in Relation to Non-Christian Religions,” the points of contact are the following; the Supreme Deity, the immortality of the souls and the life after death, sacrifice, rudimentary consciousness of morality and the dim consciousness of sin, prayer to the chief Spirit, and finally respect for human beings and their community. However emphasizing only the similarities between animism and the Gospel is not enough, as the differences between them remain vivid. Even though the fulfillment theory greatly contributed to establishing points of contact for evangelistic purpose, it was also proved to have weak points. As the fulfillment theory tended to overemphasize the continuity between animism and the Gospel, it was sometimes unable to clarify the differences. The spirit world of animism is very similar to the biblical perspective. However appropriating the similar aspects between them is not enough in propagating the Gospel. In proclaiming the Gospel, one has to emphasize the different aspects between them. If differences are not discerned or clarified in the process of evangelizing the animists, the new believers might be lured into the syncretism, or fall prey to heretical movements. Usually in converting to Christian faith, the new believers with animistic backgrounds tended to come in groups. In the process the confrontations between the sources of power of former belief and the new one is inevitable. Without such a confrontation, the newly converted usually tend to backslide into their former beliefs. And that is why in evangelizing the animists, the preachers need to discern the continuity as well as the discontinuity between the animism and the Gospel. In the report of commission IV, the dominant view was strongly influenced by the fulfillment theory. It tended to emphasize the continuities between animism and the Gospel, while it failed to accentuate the differences or the discontinuities between them. However, the minor view in the report submitted by Johannes Warneck and the Lutheran pietistic missionaries maintained a good balance between the continuities and the discontinuities. According to Warneck, the point of contact is like a nail in the wall. The nail itself is useful to hang a picture, yet the picture is quite different from the nail. According to him, the points of contact are convenient tools for propagating the Gospel. They do not have to be similar phenomena to other religions which has to be completed in the Christian faith. Furthermore, the minor view emphasizes that missionaries should be prepared to nurture the new converts with the Word of God, without which the changes in the perspectives from animism to the biblical ones would not occur. In that case, the new religion will only degenerate into another form of animism.