Ziegenbalg Quotes

It was this dynamic and comprehensive understanding of the reign of God in which salvation and well-being, soul and body, conversion and development were not to be divorced one from the other—which Ziegenbalg and Plütschau took with them to India. To give one example, before their arrival schools were the prerogative only of Brahmins, and even then only for boys; the missionaries founded schools for members of the other castes and for girls as well. Equally important: in these schools no pressure to become a Christian was brought to bear on anybody and in some instances even non-Christian teachers were appointed (Gensichen 1975a:164-170).

The full extent and far-ranging influences of Pietism on Christianity are beyond the scope of this chapter. However, it is important to note that the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation did not produce any missionaries.18 It was the advent of Pietism two centuries later that produced the first Protestant missionaries, Bartholomew Ziegenbalg and Henry Plutschau, who went to India in 1705 through the Danish-Halle mission. However, the Moravians and the mobilization efforts of Count Nicolas von Zinzendorf will be the focus of this historical spotlight because the Moravians represent the first major Protestant missionary movement.

Even those who know the chronology of missions history still sometimes cite Carey as the "father" because of the length of his ministry in India (forty-one years), because of his commitment to Bible translation, or because he was an English speaker. However, when Carey arrived in India in November 1793, the German Protestant missionary Friedrich Schwartz already was in the forty-third of what would eventually be forty-eight years of ministry in India. Furthermore, the first Protestant missionaries, Ziegenbalg and Plutschau, translated the New Testament into Tamil by 1715, less than a decade after their arrival in India. There were several well-known English-speaking missionaries before Carey, including John Eliot (1604-1690) and David Brainerd (1718-1747). In short, looking at the pure chronology of missions, it is difficult to see why Carey is considered the "first" or the "father" of modern missions. However, this is why missions history must be seen not simply through the lens of chronos but also through the lens of kairos. William Carey can be referred to as the Father of Modern Missions, but not because of any of the reasons that are normally offered. William Carey is the father of modern missions because he stepped into a kairos moment, which stimulated the founding of dozens of new voluntary missionary societies and propelled hundreds of new missionaries out onto the field in what became the largest missions mobilization in history.