A good deal of my research and writing has to do with church history, and every now and then I'll share portions of my academic papers that might have interest for a wider audience. This paper, written for a course in Baptist history, examines the life and legacy of Adoniram Judson (and his mission team), one of the greatest missionaries in the entire history of Christianity. His story has important things to say about courage, perseverance, suffering, depression, grief, and the very meaning of "success" and "failure" in missions work. The first three portions will deal with the story of Judson's work, and the final portion will examine various areas of impact in his legacy. (Reference citations for any facts or quotations within the paper can be provided upon request.)
It
would be hard to overstate the impact of Adoniram and Ann Judson (as well as
Adoniram’s later wives, Sarah Boardman and Emily Chubbuck, along with other
members of his mission team). The Judsons’ accomplishments as missionaries
include the translation of the Bible into Burmese, the establishment of a
deep-rooted church among the ethnic Karen group in the mountain and jungle
areas of Burma (now Myanmar), and the creation of a “missionary culture” among
the quickly-growing Baptist denomination back in the United States. It is worth
noting, however, that although the Judsons succeeded in all of these ventures,
often while surmounting unimaginable physical and emotional obstacles, they
were not able to attain success in the one area that was their highest goal
upon embarking on the Burma mission: the foundation of a vibrant,
self-sustaining Bamar (that is, Burmese) church movement in the Irrawaddy
heartland. All of the Judsons’ other accomplishments, as impressive as they
are, were begun as tangential efforts in support of their main pursuit: creating
an expanding Christian witness among the Bamar people of the Irrawaddy River
valley, in which they did not see much success.
The Judsons’ Ministry Beginnings
Adoniram
Judson, Jr., was born on August 9, 1788, and was raised in a ministry family.
His father, Adonriam Judson, Sr., was a Congregational clergyman. Though an
able minister, Adoniram Sr. never rose beyond the ranks of a parochial pastor
in largely rural areas, and he often envisaged a brighter future for his son:
Adoniram Jr. was destined to be a famous pastor in one of the great city
churches of New England. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, Adoniram Jr. began to rebel
against this pressure as he entered his teenage years. Within his first year of
attending Brown University (which was largely but not exclusively associated
with the Baptists), Adoniram decided to renounce his orthodox Christian faith,
encouraged by a fellow student who happened to be a deist, Jacob Eames. This,
naturally, brought great grief to the Judson family, but it serves to
illustrate Adoniram Jr.’s stubborn brand of personal independence.
He
was brought back to the faith not long later—ironically, through another
encounter with Jacob Eames. Adoniram was traveling, having recently visited his
pious uncle and a compelling young clergyman, and was reconsidering his
spiritual choices. He came upon an inn and was placed in a room close beside
that of a dying man, whom he was informed might pass away during the night. As
he lay there, listening to the dying man’s cries, he began to think about death
and eternal destiny. In the morning, he discovered that the man had died, and
learned that it was his old friend Jacob Eames. Convinced that this was
providence rather than happenstance, Adoniram re-converted to Christianity and
enrolled in Andover Theological Seminary.
While
at seminary, he began to consider a career in foreign missions. This was a
daring idea at the time, but its popularity was rising among the younger
generation of students. The older voices within Congregationalism still viewed
it as a fool’s errand, though: British Protestants had found some success in
sending out foreign missionaries, but England had a good deal more wealth and
infrastructure than the United States at that time, and thus was more easily
able to manage such enterprises. There had not yet been an overseas missionary sent
out by North American Protestants. But Adoniram felt the call of this ministry,
and was drawn from the beginning to the idea of a mission to Burma—a wealthy,
powerful, xenophobic Buddhist empire in southeast Asia, almost entirely
untouched by the Gospel. Adoniram was drawn to this both by the moral
imperative of a mission to the unreached, but also (as he admitted in his later
years) because it offered him the chance to pursue a grand, famous ministry
career which would nevertheless still frustrate his father’s ambitions for him.
While
a student at Andover, Adoniram met his future wife Ann. She was the daughter of
a local Congregational deacon, and after a brief courtship, Adoniram asked her
father for permission to wed her:
I have now to ask whether
you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no
more in this world? Whether you can consent to see her departure to a heathen
land, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of a missionary life?
Whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean; to the
fatal influence of the southern climate of India; to every kind of want and
distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death? Can
you consent to all this, for the sake of perishing immortal souls?
Ann’s father consented,
and the two were married in 1812, and immediately began to plan for their
missionary journey. Adoniram and four other men were ordained for missionary
service, pledged the support of the Congregational churches, and sent on their
way to Burma.
The Journey to Burma and
the Judsons’ Baptist Conversion
Their voyage would take
them first to India, and from there they hoped to find a ship bound for
Rangoon, at the mouth of the Irrawaddy River. But during the first leg of their
trip, their missionary enterprise began to be thrown into doubt. Adoniram was
reading some of the theology books he had brought along, and, to his great
surprise and open chagrin, was beginning to be convinced that the Baptists were
right on the matter of baptism. He dove into studies of the Greek New
Testament, hoping this wasn’t true, but he came away even more convinced that
the Baptists were right and the Congregationalists were wrong, and that he
himself had not yet undergone a valid baptism. He felt the urgency of getting
this question settled, since he would have to decide how to perform baptisms
for the new Burmese church during their missionary years. Ann, vexed at her
husband’s researches (she called this period “extremely trying”), looked into
the question herself, and, much to her dismay, came away with the same conclusion.
They were baptized by a community of English Baptist missionaries in India on
September 6, 1812, but this brought a host of questions to bear on the life of
their mission team. How could they continue to serve together, since they now
represented two denominations, and since the Congregationalists back home would
no doubt refuse to support a Baptist missionary? (Indeed, they took offense and
saw it as Adoniram’s petty attempt at revenge for an earlier reprimand.)
Eventually, Luther Rice,
one of the Judsons’ fellow missionaries, also made a conversion from
Congregationalism to the Baptist faith. Rice, finding that he would be unfit
for missionary service in that climate due to health concerns, agreed to return
to America and to raise missionary support among the Baptist churches there.
Meanwhile, the Newells, another set of their original co-missionaries, were
struck by tragedy—Harriet Newell, along with her newborn baby, died in
childbirth, and her husband Samuel decided not to pursue his intention of
pressing on to Burma with the Judsons. Everyone they had encountered on their
journey—from ship captains to government officials to their fellow missionaries—had
strongly advised them against going to Burma. So suspicious was “the Golden
Kingdom” of outsiders that the most likely result of their arrival would be
immediate execution. Nevertheless, Adoniram and Ann pressed on, now alone in
their endeavor, and boarded a ship that would take them to Rangoon.
The Judsons’ Early
Ministry in Burma
Adoniram and Ann, indeed,
found that their early life in Rangoon was difficult in the extreme. Adoniram
described their first view of the city, in July of 1813, as “quite
disheartening.” They were not executed, but that was perhaps the only bright
spot of their first days in Rangoon. They stayed at a small mission house built
by Felix Carey (the son of the British missionary William Carey), but Felix
abandoned the mission soon after their arrival. The Judsons also experienced
family tragedy, having lost one child (stillborn) on the voyage to Rangoon, and
another, Roger, at just six months of age. The Burmese people were suspicious
of them, the language was far more difficult than they anticipated, the
adherence of the populace to their talismanic form of Buddhism was complete and
unquestioning, and the beleaguered missionaries felt several times that they
were in danger of being executed by the local viceroy. Ann described their mood
during that season as “gloomy and dejected.”
But the Judsons pressed
on. Adoniram focused on his linguistic study in the early years of their
mission, eventually making significant progress in understanding the grammar of
Burmese. Ann, however, managing the daily tasks of running a household in
Rangoon, had more frequent opportunity to use conversational Burmese, and so
she became fluent before Adoniram. After about three years, they achieved
enough command of the language to transmit the Gospel message (a difficult
level to reach, seeing as Burmese lacked some of the abstract words necessary
for relating Christian theology, many of which Judson had to borrow from the
Buddhist sacred language, Pali). They produced a small Gospel tract and
distributed copies throughout the city with the help of a newly arrived
printer, George Hough. To their disappointment, there was almost no response
whatsoever to that initial presentation of the Gospel message. So Adoniram,
while still seeking through personal contacts to gain a Burmese convert, focused
on completing his translation work on the Gospel of Matthew.