The Two Structures of

God’s Redemptive Mission

Ralph D. Winter

In an address given to the All-Asia Mission Consultation in Seoul,

Korea, in August 1973 (the founding of the Asia Missions Associa-
tion), Ralph Winter describes the forms that God’s two “redemptive
structures” take in every human society, and have taken throughout
history. His thesis has two major implications: (1) We must accept
both structures, represented in the Christian church today by the
local church and the mission society, as legitimate and necessary,
and as part of “God’s People, the Church”; and (2) non-Western
churches must form and utilize mission societies if they are to exer-
cise their missionary responsibility.

I t is the thesis of this article that whether Christianity

takes on Western or Asian form, there will still be two
basic kinds of structures that will make up the move-
ment. Most of the emphasis will be placed on pointing out
the existence of these two structures as they have continu-
ously appeared across the centuries. This will serve to de-
fine, illustrate and compare their nature and importance.
The writer will also endeavor to explain why he believes our
efforts today in any part of the world will be most effective
only if both of these two structures are fully and properly in-
After serving ten volved and supportive of each other.
years as a mis-
sionary among Redemptive Structures in New Testament Times
Mayan Indians First of all, let us recognize the structure so fondly called
in the highlands “the New Testament Church” as basically a Christian syna-
of Guatemala, Ralph D. Winter was gogue.1 Paul’s missionary work consisted primarily of going
called to be a Professor of Missions to synagogues scattered across the Roman Empire, begin-
at the School of World Mission at ning in Asia Minor, and making clear to the Jewish and Gen-
Fuller Theological Seminary. Ten tile believers in those synagogues that the Messiah had come
years later he and his wife, Roberta, in Jesus Christ, the Son of God; that in Christ a final author-
founded a mission society called ity even greater than Moses existed; and that this made more
the Frontier Mission Fellowship understandable than ever the welcoming of the Gentiles
(FMF) in Pasadena, California. This without forcing upon them any literal cultural adaptation to
in turn spawned the U.S. Center for the ritual provisions of the Mosaic Law. An outward novelty
World Mission and the William of Paul’s work was the development eventually of wholly
Carey International University, new synagogues that were not only Christian but Greek.
both of which serve other missions Very few Christians, casually reading the New Testament
working at the frontiers of mission. (and with only the New Testament available to them), would
He is the General Director of the surmise the degree to which there had been Jewish evange-
Frontier Mission Fellowship. See lists who went before Paul all over the Roman Empire—a
expanded biographical sketch at movement that began 100 years before Christ. Some of these
the end of the book. were the people whom Jesus himself described as “travers-

220 Chapter 35
 RALPH D. WINTER 221

ing land and sea to make a single proselyte.” form is not made concrete for us on the basis
Saul followed their path; Paul built on their of remaining documents, neither, of course, is
efforts and went beyond them with the new the structure of a New Testament congrega-
gospel he preached, which allowed the tion defined concretely for us in the pages of
Greeks to remain Greeks and not be circum- the New Testament. In both cases, the ab-
cised and culturally assimilated into the Jew- sence of any such definition implies the pre-
ish way of life. Paul had a vast foundation on existence of a commonly understood pattern
which to build: Peter declared “Moses is of relationship, whether in the case of the
preached in every city (of the Roman Em- congregational structure or the missionary
pire)” (Acts 15:21). band structure which Paul employed earlier
Yet not only did Paul apparently go to ev- as Saul the Pharisee, and later, at the time the
ery existing synagogue of Asia,2 after which Antioch congregation in Acts 13:2 released
he declared, “…all Asia has heard the gos- Paul and Barnabas for missionary work.
pel,” but, when occasion demanded, he es- Thus, on the one hand, the structure we
tablished brand new synagogue-type fellow- call the New Testament church is a prototype of
ships of believers as the basic unit of his all subsequent Christian fellowships where
missionary activity. The first structure in the old and young, male and female are gathered
New Testament together as normal
scene is thus what biological families
is often called the The harmony between the modality in aggregate. On
New Testament the other hand,
and the sodality achieved by the
Church. It was es- Paul’s missionary
sentially built along Roman Church is perhaps the most band can be consid-
Jewish synagogue
significant characteristic of this phase ered a prototype of
lines,3 embracing all subsequent mis-
the community of of the world Christian movement sionary endeavors
the faithful in any organized out of
given place. The defining characteristic of committed, experienced workers who affili-
this structure is that it included old and ated themselves as a second decision beyond
young, male and female. Note, too, that Paul membership in the first structure.
was willing to build such fellowships out of Note well the additional commitment. Note
former Jews as well as non-Jewish Greeks. also that the structure that resulted was
There is a second, quite different structure something definitely more than the extended
in the New Testament context. While we outreach of the Antioch church. No matter
know very little about the structure of the what we think the structure was, we know
evangelistic outreach within which pre- that it was not simply the Antioch church op-
Pauline Jewish proselytizers worked, we do erating at a distance from its home base. It
know, as already mentioned, that they oper- was something else, something different. We
ated all over the Roman Empire. It would be will consider the missionary band the second
surprising if Paul didn’t follow somewhat the of the two redemptive structures in New Tes-
same procedures. And we know a great deal tament times.
more about the way Paul operated. He was, In conclusion, it is very important to note
true enough, sent out by the church in that neither of these two structures was, as it
Antioch. But once away from Antioch he were, “let down from heaven” in a special way.
seemed very much on his own. The little It may be shocking at first to think that God
team he formed was economically self-suffi- made use of either a Jewish synagogue pattern
cient when occasion demanded. It was also or a Jewish evangelistic pattern. But this must
dependent, from time-to-time, not alone not be more surprising than the fact that God
upon the Antioch church, but upon other employed the use of the pagan Greek lan-
churches that had risen as a result of evange- guage, the Holy Spirit guiding the biblical
listic labors. Paul’s team may certainly be writers to lay hold of such terms as kurios
considered a structure. While its design and (originally a pagan term), and pound them
222 Chapter 35 TWO STRUCTURES

into shape to carry the Christian revelation. pattern, and in some cases to force it out of
The New Testament refers to a synagogue existence, especially where it was possible for
dedicated to Satan, but this did not mean that Jewish congregations of the dispersion to
Christians, to avoid such a pattern, could not arouse public persecution of the apparently
fellowship together in the synagogue pattern. deviant Christian synagogues. Unlike the
These considerations prepare us for what Jews, Christians had no official license for
comes next in the history of the expansion of their alternative to the Roman Imperial cult.5
the gospel, because we see other patterns cho- Thus, whereas each synagogue was consider-
sen by Christians at a later date whose origins ably independent of the others, the Christian
are just as clearly “borrowed patterns” as were pattern was soon assimilated to the Roman
those in the New Testament period. context, and bishops became invested with
In fact, the profound missiological impli- authority over more than one congregation
cation of all this is that the New Testament is with a territorial jurisdiction not altogether
trying to show us how to borrow effective pat- different from the pattern of Roman civil
terns; it is trying to free all future missionaries government. This tendency is well confirmed
from the need to follow the precise forms of by the time the official recognition of Chris-
the Jewish synagogue and Jewish missionary tianity had its full impact: the very Latin
band, and yet to allow them to choose com- word for Roman magisterial territories was
parable indigenous structures in the count- appropriated—the diocese—within which
less new situations across history and around parishes are to be found on the local level.
the world—structures which will correspond In any case, while the more “congrega-
faithfully to the function of patterns Paul em- tional” pattern of the independent synagogue
ployed, if not their form! It is no wonder that became pervasively replaced by a “connec-
a considerable body of literature in the field tional” Roman pattern the new Christian par-
of missiology today underlies the fact that ish church still preserved the basic constituency
world Christianity has generally employed of the synagogue, namely, the combination of
the various existing languages and cultures old and young, male and female—that is, a bio-
of the world-human community—more so logically perpetuating organism.
than any other religion—and in so doing, has Meanwhile, the monastic tradition in vari-
cast into a shadow all efforts to canonize as ous early forms developed as a second struc-
universal any kind of mechanically formal ture. This new, widely proliferating structure
extension of the New Testament church— undoubtedly had no connection at all with
which is “the people of God” however those the missionary band in which Paul was in-
individuals are organized. As Kraft has said volved. Indeed, it more substantially drew
earlier, we seek dynamic equivalence, not for- from Roman military structure than from any
mal replication.4 other single source. Pachomius, a former
military man, gained 3,000 followers and at-
The Early Development tracted the attention of people like Basil of
of Christian Structures Caesarea, and then through Basil, John
within Roman Culture Cassian, who labored in southern Gaul at a
We have seen how the Christian movement later date.6 These men thus carried forward a
built itself upon two different kinds of struc- disciplined structure, borrowed primarily
tures that had pre-existed in the Jewish cul- from the military, which allowed nominal
tural tradition. It is now our task to see if the Christians to make a second-level choice—an
functional equivalents of these same two additional specific commitment.
structures were to appear in later Christian Perhaps it would be well to pause here for
cultural traditions as the gospel invaded that a moment. Any reference to the monasteries
larger world. gives Protestants culture shock. The Protes-
Of course, the original synagogue pattern tant Reformation fought desperately against
persisted as a Christian structure for some certain degraded conditions at the very end of
time. Rivalry between Christians and Jews, the 1000-year Medieval period. We have no
however, tended to defeat this as a Christian desire to deny the fact that conditions in mon-
 RALPH D. WINTER 223

asteries were not always ideal; what the aver- stereotype is even more dramatically and deci-
age Protestant knows about monasteries may sively reinforced by the magnificent record of
be correct for certain situations; but the popu- the Irish peregrini, who were Celtic monks
lar Protestant stereotype surely cannot de- who did more to reach out to convert Anglo-
scribe correctly all that happened during the Saxons than did Augustine’s later mission
1000 years! During those centuries there were from the South, and who contributed more to
many different eras and epochs and a wide the evangelization of Western Europe, even
variety of monastic movements, radically dif- Central Europe, than any other force.
ferent from each other, as we shall see in a From its very inception this second kind of
minute; and any generalization about so vast structure was highly significant to the growth
a phenomenon is bound to be simply an unre- and development of the Christian movement.
liable and no doubt prejudiced caricature. Even though Protestants have an inbuilt
Let me give just one example of how far prejudice against it for various reasons, as we
wrong our Protestant stereotypes can be. We have seen, there is no denying the fact that
often hear that the monks “fled the world.” apart from this structure it would be hard
Compare that idea with this description by a even to imagine the vital continuity of the
Baptist missionary scholar: Christian tradition across the centuries. Prot-
The Benedictine rule and the many derived
estants are equally dismayed by the other
from it probably helped to give dignity to structure—the parish and diocesan structure.
labor, including manual labor in the fields. It is, in fact, the relative weakness and
This was in striking contrast with the aris- nominality of the diocesan structure that
tocratic conviction of the servile status of makes the monastic structure so significant.
manual work which prevailed in much of Men like Jerome and Augustine, for example,
ancient society and which was also the at- are thought of by Protestants not as monks
titude of the warriors and non-monastic
ecclesiastics who constituted the upper
but as great scholars; and people like John
middle classes of the Middle Ages…. To the Calvin lean very heavily upon writings pro-
monasteries…was obviously due much duced by such monks. But Protestants do not
clearing of land and improvement in meth- usually give any credit to the specific struc-
ods of agriculture. In the midst of barbar- ture within which Jerome and Augustine and
ism, the monasteries were centres of orderly many other monastic scholars worked, a
and settled life and monks were assigned
structure without which Protestant labors
the duty of road-building and road repair.
Until the rise of the towns in the eleventh would have had very little to build on, not
century, they were pioneers in industry and even a Bible.
commerce. The shops of the monasteries We must now follow these threads into
preserved the industries of Roman times…. the next period, where we will see the for-
The earliest use of marl in improving the mal emergence of the major monastic struc-
soil is attributed to them. The great French tures. It is sufficient at this point merely to
monastic orders led in the agricultural
note that there are already by the fourth
colonization of Western Europe. Especially
did the Cistercians make their houses century two very different kinds of struc-
centres of agriculture and contribute to im- tures—the diocese and the monastery—
provements in that occupation. With their both of them significant in the transmission
lay brothers and their hired laborers, they and expansion of Christianity. They are
became great landed proprietors. In Hun- each patterns borrowed from the cultural
gary and on the German frontier the context of their time, just as were the earlier
Cistercians were particularly important in
Christian synagogue and missionary band.
reducing the soil to cultivation and in fur-
thering colonization. In Poland, too, the It is even more important for our purpose
German monasteries set advanced here to note that while these two structures
standards in agriculture and introduced ar- are formally different from—and historically
tisans and craftsmen.7 unrelated to—the two in New Testament
times, they are nevertheless functionally the
For all of us who are interested in missions, same. In order to speak conveniently about
the shattering of the “monks fled the world” the continuing similarities in function, let us
224 Chapter 35 TWO STRUCTURES

now call the synagogue and diocese modali- at the same time. The monastic (or sodality)
ties, and the missionary band and monastery pattern turned out to be much more durable,
sodalities. Elsewhere I have developed these and as a result gained greater importance in
terms in detail, but briefly, a modality is a the early Medieval period than it might have
structured fellowship in which there is no otherwise. The survival of the modality (di-
distinction of sex or age, while a sodality is a ocesan Christianity) was further compro-
structured fellowship in which membership mised by the fact that the invaders of this
involves an adult second decision beyond early Medieval period generally belonged to
modality membership, and is limited by ei- a different brand of Christian belief—they
ther age or sex or marital status. In this use of were Arians. As a result, in many places there
these terms, both the denomination and the lo- were both “Arian” and “Catholic” Christian
cal congregation are modalities, while a mis- churches on opposite corners of a main
sion agency or a local men’s club are sodali- street—something like today, where we have
ties.8 A secular parallel would be that of a Methodist and Presbyterian churches across
town (modality) compared to a private busi- the street from each other.
ness (a sodality)—perhaps a chain of stores Again, however, it is not our purpose to
found in many towns. The sodalities are sub- downplay the significance of the parish or di-
ject to the authority of the more general ocesan form of Christianity, but simply to
structures, usually. They are “regulated” but point out that during this early period of the
not “administered” by the modalities. A com- Medieval epoch the specialized house called
plete state socialism exists where there are no the monastery, or its equivalent, became ever
regulated, decentralized private initiatives. so much more important in the perpetuation
Some denominational traditions, like the Ro- of the Christian movement than was the or-
man and the Anglican, allow for such initia- ganized system of parishes, which we often
tives. Many Protestant denominations, taking call the church as if there were no other struc-
their cue from Luther’s rejection of the so- ture making up the church.
dalities of his time, try to govern everything Perhaps the most outstanding illustration
from a denominational office. Some local in the early Medieval period of the impor-
congregations cannot understand the value tance of the relationship between modality
or the need for mission structures. Paul was and sodality is the collaboration between
“sent off” not “sent out” by the Antioch con- Gregory the Great and a man later called Au-
gregation. He may have reported back to it gustine of Canterbury. While Gregory, as the
but did not take orders from it. His mission bishop of the diocese of Rome, was the head
band (sodality) had all the autonomy and au- of a modality, both he and Augustine were
thority of a “traveling congregation.” the products of monastic houses—a fact
In the early period beyond the pages of which reflects the dominance even then of
the Bible, however, there was little relation the sodality pattern of Christian structure. In
between modality and sodality, while in any case, Gregory called upon his friend Au-
Paul’s time his missionary band specifically gustine to undertake a major mission to En-
nourished the congregations—a most signifi- gland in order to try to plant a diocesan
cant symbiosis. We shall now see how the structure there, where Celtic Christianity had
medieval period essentially recovered the been deeply wounded by the invasion of
healthy New Testament relationship between Saxon warriors from the continent.
modality and sodality. As strong as Gregory was in his own dio-
cese, he simply had no structure to call upon
The Medieval Synthesis to reach out in this intended mission other
of Modality and Sodality than the sodality, which at this point in his-
We can say that the Medieval period began tory took the form of a Benedictine monastery.
when the Roman Empire in the West started This is why he ended up asking Augustine
to break down. To some extent the diocesan and a group of other members of the same
pattern, following as it did the Roman civil- monastery to undertake this rather danger-
governmental pattern, tended to break down ous journey and important mission on his be-
 RALPH D. WINTER 225

half. The purpose of the mission, curiously, Note, however, that is not our intention to
was not to extend the Benedictine form of claim that any one organization, whether mo-
monasticism. The remnant of the Celtic dality or sodality, was continuously the
“church” in England was itself a network of champion of vitality and vigor throughout
sodalities since there were no parish systems the thousands of years of the Medieval ep-
in the Celtic area. No, Augustine went to En- och. As a matter of fact, there really is no very
gland to establish diocesan Christianity, impressive organizational continuity in the
though he himself was not a diocesan priest. Christian movement, either in the form of
Interestingly enough, the Benedictine “Rule” modality or sodality. (The list of bishops at
(way of life) was so attractive that gradually Rome is at many points a most shaky con-
virtually all of the Celtic houses adopted the struct and unfortunately does not even pro-
Benedictine Rule, or Regula (in Latin). vide a focus for the entire Christian move-
This is quite characteristic. During a ment.) On the other hand, it is clear that the
lengthy period of time, perhaps a thousand sodality, as it was recreated again and again
years, the building and rebuilding of the by different leaders, was almost always the
modalities was mainly the work of the so- structural prime mover, the source of inspira-
dalities. That is to say the monasteries were tion and renewal which overflowed into the
uniformly the source and the real focal papacy and created the reform movements
point of new energy and vitality which which blessed diocesan Christianity from
flowed into the diocesan side of the Chris- time to time. The most significant instance of
tian movement. We think of the momentous this is the accession to the papal throne of
Cluny reform, then the Cistercians, then the Hildebrand (Gregory VII), who brought the
Friars, and finally the Jesuits—all of them ideals, commitment and discipline of the mo-
strictly sodalities, but sodalities which con- nastic movement right into the Vatican itself.
tributed massively to the building and the In this sense are not then the papacy, the Col-
rebuilding of the Corpus Cristianum, the net- lege of Cardinals, the diocese, and the parish
work of dioceses, which Protestants often structure of the Roman Church in some re-
identify as “the” Christian movement. spects a secondary element, a derivation
from the monastic tradition rather than vice
versa? In any case it seems appropriate that
In failing to exploit the power of the priests of the monastic tradition are called
regular priests, while the priests of the diocese
the sodality, the Protestants had
and parish are called secular priests. The
no mechanism for missions for former are voluntarily bound by a regula,
while the latter as a group were other than,
almost 300 years.
outside of (“cut off”) or somehow less than,
At many points there was rivalry between the second-decision communities bound by a
these two structures, between bishop and ab- demanding way of life, a regula. Whenever a
bot, diocese and monastery, modality and so- house or project or parish run by the regular
dality, but the great achievement of the Medi- clergy is brought under the domination of the
eval period is the ultimate synthesis, secular clergy, this is a form of the “secular-
delicately achieved, whereby Catholic orders ization” of that entity. In the lengthy “Investi-
were able to function along with Catholic ture Controversy,” the regular clergy finally
parishes and dioceses without the two struc- gained clear authority for at least semi-au-
tures conflicting with each other to the point tonomous operation, and the secularization
of a setback to the movement. The harmony of the orders was averted.
between the modality and the sodality The same structural danger of secularization
achieved by the Roman Church is perhaps exists today whenever the special concerns of
the most significant characteristic of this an elite mission sodality fall under the com-
phase of the world Christian movement and plete domination (e.g. administration not just
continues to be Rome’s greatest organiza- regulation) of an ecclesiastical government,
tional advantage to this day. since the Christian modalities (congregations)
226 Chapter 35 TWO STRUCTURES

inevitably represent the much broader and, no happened in the city of Rome is merely the
doubt, mainly inward concerns of a large tip of the iceberg at best, and represents a
body of all kinds of Christians, who, as “first- rather superficial and political level. It is
decision” members, are generally less select. quite a contrast to the foundational well-
Their democratic majority tends to move springs of Biblical study and radical obedi-
away from the high-discipline of the mission ence represented by the various sodalities of
structures, and denominational mission bud- this momentous millennium, which almost
gets tend to get smaller across the decades as always arose somewhere else, and were often
the church membership “broadens.” opposed by the Roman hierarchy.
We cannot leave the Medieval period
without referring to the many unofficial and The Protestant Recovery
often persecuted movements which also of the Sodality
mark the era. In all of this, the Bible itself The Protestant movement started out by at-
seems always the ultimate prime mover, as tempting to do without any kind of sodality
we see in the case of Peter Waldo. His work structure. Martin Luther had been discon-
stands as a powerful demonstration of the tented with the apparent polarization be-
simple power of a vernacular translation of tween the vitality he eventually discovered in
the Bible where the people were unable to his own order and the very nominal parish
appreciate either Jerome’s classical transla- life of his time. Being dissatisfied with this
tion or the celebration of the Mass in Latin. A contrast, he abandoned the sodality (in
large number of groups referred to as which, nevertheless, he was introduced to the
“Anabaptists” are to be found in many parts Bible, to the Pauline epistles and to teaching
of Europe. One of the chief characteristics of on “justification by faith,”) and took advan-
these renewal movements is that they did not tage of the political forces of his time to
attempt to elicit merely celibate participation, launch a full-scale renewal movement on the
although this was one of their traits on occa- general level of church life. At first, he even
sion, but often simply developed whole “new tried to do without the characteristically Ro-
communities” of believers and their families, man diocesan structure, but eventually the
attempting by biological and cultural trans- Lutheran movement produced a Lutheran di-
mission to preserve a high and enlightened ocesan structure which to a considerable ex-
form of Christianity. These groups usually tent represented the readoption of the Roman
faced such strong opposition and grave limi- diocesan tradition. But the Lutheran move-
tations that it would be very unfair to judge ment did not in a comparable sense readopt
their virility by their progress. It is important the sodalities, the Catholic orders, that had
to note, however, that the average Mennonite been so prominent in the Roman tradition.
or Salvation Army community, where whole This omission, in my evaluation, represents
families are members, typified the desire for the greatest error of the Reformation and the
a “pure” church, or what is often called a greatest weakness of the resulting Protestant
“believers” church, and constitutes a most tradition. Had it not been for the so-called Pi-
significant experiment in Christian structure. etist movement, the Protestants would have
Such a structure stands, in a certain sense, been totally devoid of any organized renew-
midway between a modality and a sodality, ing structures within their tradition. The Pi-
since it has the constituency of the modality etist tradition, in every new emergence of its
(involving full families) and yet, in its earlier force, was very definitely a sodality, inasmuch
years, may have the vitality and selectivity of as it was a case of adults meeting together and
a sodality. We will return to this phenomenon committing themselves to new beginnings
in the next section. and higher goals as Christians without con-
We have space here only to point out that flicting with the stated meetings of the exist-
in terms of the durability and quality of the ing church. This phenomenon of sodality
Christian faith, the 1000-year Medieval pe- nourishing modality is prominent in the case
riod is virtually impossible to account for of the early work of John Wesley. He abso-
apart from the role of the sodalities. What lutely prohibited any abandonment of the par-
 RALPH D. WINTER 227

ish churches. A contemporary example is the building on the unprecedented world expan-
widely influential so-called East African Re- sion of the West, caught up with 18 centuries
vival, which has now involved a million of earlier mission efforts. There is simply no
people but has very carefully avoided any question that what was done in this century
clash with the functioning of local churches. moved the Protestant stream from a self-con-
The churches that have not fought against this tained, impotent European backwater into a
movement have been greatly blessed by it. world force in Christianity. Looking back
However, the Pietist movement, along from where we stand today, of course, it is
with the Anabaptist new communities, even- hard to believe how recently the Protestant
tually dropped back to the level of biological movement has become prominent.
growth; it reverted to the ordinary pattern of Organizationally, however, the vehicle
congregational life. It reverted from the level that allowed the Protestant movement to be-
of the sodality to the level of the modality, come vital was the structural development
and in most cases, rather soon became inef- of the sodality, which harvested the vital
fective either as a mission structure or as a re- “voluntarism” latent in Protestantism, and
newing force. surfaced in new mission agencies of all
What interests us most is the fact that in kinds, both at home and overseas. Wave af-
failing to exploit the power of the sodality, ter wave of evangelical initiatives trans-
the Protestants had no mechanism for mis- formed the entire map of Christianity, espe-
sions for almost three hundred years, until cially in the United States, but also in
William Carey’s famous book, An Enquiry, England, in Scandinavia and on the Conti-
proposed “the use of means for the conver- nent. By 1840, the phenomenon of mission
sion of the heathen.” His key word means sodalities was so prominent in the United
refers specifically to the need for a sodality, States that the phrase the “Evangelical Em-
for the organized but non-ecclesiastical ini- pire” and other equivalent phrases were
tiative of the warmhearted. Thus, the result- used to refer to it, and now began a trickle
ing Baptist Missionary Society is one of the of ecclesiastical opposition to this bright
most significant organizational develop- new emergence of the second structure. This
ments in the Protestant tradition. Although brings us to our next point.
not the earliest such society, reinforced as it
was by the later stages of the powerful The Contemporary Misunder-
“Evangelical Awakening” and by the print- standing of the Mission Sodality
ing of Carey’s book, it set off a rush to the Almost all mission efforts in the 19th
use of this kind of “means” for the conver- Century, whether sponsored by interdenomi-
sion of the heathen, and we find in the next national or denominational boards, were sub-
few years a number of societies forming stantially the work of initiatives independent
along similar lines—12 societies in 32 of the related ecclesiastical structures. To-
years.9 Once this method of operation was ward the latter half of the 19th Century, there
clearly understood by the Protestants, 300 seemed increasingly to be two separate
years of latent energies burst forth in what structural traditions.
became, in Latourette’s phrase, “The Great On the one hand, there were men like
Century.” By helping to tap the immense Henry Venn and Rufus Anderson, who were
spiritual energies of the Reformation, the strategic thinkers at the helm of older so-
Carey’s book has probably contributed cieties—the Church Missionary Society
more to global mission than any other book (CMS) in England and American Board of
in history other than the Bible itself! Commissioners for Foreign Missions
The 19th Century is thus the first century (ABCFM), respectively. These men champi-
in which Protestants were actively engaged oned the semi-autonomous mission sodality,
in missions. For reasons which we have not and they voiced an attitude which was not
space here to explain, it was also the century at first contradicted by any significant part
of the lowest ebb of Catholic mission energy. of the leaders of the ecclesiastical structures.
Amazingly, in this one century Protestants, On the other hand, there was the centraliz-
228 Chapter 35 TWO STRUCTURES

ing perspective of denominational leaders, though centralized church control of mission

principally the Presbyterians, which gained efforts is the only proper pattern.
ground almost without reversal throughout As a result, by the Second World War, a
the latter two-thirds of the 19th Century, so very nearly complete transmutation had taken
that by the early part of the 20th Century the place in the case of almost all mission efforts
once-independent structures which had related to denominational structures. That is,
been merely related to the denominations almost all older denominational boards,
gradually became dominated by the churches, though once semi-autonomous or very nearly
that is administered, not merely regulated. independent, had by this time become part of
Partially as a result, toward the end of the unified budget provisions. At the same time,
19th Century, there was a new burst of to- and partially as a result, a whole host of new
tally separate mission sodalities called the independent mission structures burst forth
Faith Missions, with Hudson Taylor’s China again, especially after the Second World War.
Inland Mission (CIM) taking the lead. It is As in the case of the earlier emergence of the
not widely recognized that this pattern was Faith Missions, these tended to pay little atten-
mainly a recrudescence of the pattern estab- tion to denominational leaders and their aspi-
lished earlier in the century, prior to the rations for church-centered mission. The An-
trend toward denominational boards. glican church with its CMS, USPG, etc.,
displays the
Medieval syn-
Among Protestants, there continues to be deep confusion thesis, and so,
almost uncon-
about the legitimacy and proper relationship of the two
sciously, does
structures that have manifested themselves throughout the American
CBA with its
the history of the Christian movement.
associated
All of these changes took place very CBFMS (now CBI), CBHMS (now MTTA)
gradually. Attitudes at any point are hard to structures. Thus, to this day, among Protes-
pin down, but it does seem clear that Protes- tants, there continues to be deep confusion
tants were always a bit unsure about the le- about the legitimacy and proper relationship
gitimacy of the sodality. The Anabaptist tra- of the two structures that have manifested
dition consistently emphasized the concept of themselves throughout the history of the
a pure community of believers and thus was Christian movement.
uninterested in a voluntarism involving only To make matters worse, Protestant blindness
part of the believing community. The same is about the need for mission sodalities has had a
true of Alexander Campbell’s “Restoration” very tragic influence on mission fields. Protes-
tradition and the Plymouth Brethren. The tant missions, being modality-minded, have
more recent sprinkling of independent tended to assume that merely modalities, e.g.,
“Charismatic Centers,” with all their exuber- churches, need to be established. In most cases
ance locally, tend to send out their own mis- where mission work is being pursued by essen-
sionaries, and have not learned the lesson of tially semi-autonomous mission sodalities, it is
the Pentecostal groups before them who em- the planting of modalities, not sodalities, that is
ploy mission agencies with great effect. the only goal. Mission agencies (even those
U.S. denominations, lacking tax support as completely independent from denominations
on the Continent, have been generally a more back home) have tended in their mission work
selective and vital fellowship than the Euro- to set up churches and not to plant, in addition,
pean state churches, and, at least in their mission sodalities in the so-called mission
youthful exuberance, have felt quite capable lands.10 The marvelous “Third World Mission”
as denominations of providing all of the movement has sprung up from these mission
necessary initiative for overseas mission. It is field churches, but with embarrassingly little
for this latter reason that many new denomi- encouragement from the Western mission soci-
nations of the U.S. have tended to act as eties, as sad and surprising as that may seem.
 RALPH D. WINTER 229

It is astonishing that most Protestant mis- people to reach out in vital initiatives in mis-
sionaries, working with (mission) structures sion, especially cross-cultural mission. There
that did not exist in the Protestant tradition are already some hopeful signs that this tragic
for hundreds of years, and without whose ex- delay will not continue. We see, for example,
istence there would have been no mission ini- the outstanding work of the Melanesian
tiative, have nevertheless been blind to the Brotherhood in the Solomon Islands.
significance of the very structure within
which they have worked. In this blindness Conclusion
they have merely planted churches and have This article has been in no sense an attempt
not effectively concerned themselves to make to decry or to criticize the organized church.
sure that the kind of mission structure within It has assumed both the necessity and the im-
which they operate also be set up on the portance of the parish structure, the diocesan
field. Many of the mission agencies founded structure, the denominational structure, the
after World War II, out of extreme deference ecclesiastical structure. The modality struc-
to existing church movements already estab- ture in the view of this article is a significant
lished in foreign lands, have not even tried to and absolutely essential structure. All that is
set up churches, and have worked for many attempted here is to explore some of the his-
years merely as auxiliary agencies in various torical patterns which make clear that God,
service capacities helping the churches that through His Holy Spirit, has clearly and con-
were already there. sistently used a structure other than (and
The question we must ask is how long it sometimes instead of) the modality structure.
will be before the younger churches of the so- It is our attempt here to help church leaders
called mission territories of the non-Western and others to understand the legitimacy of
world come to that epochal conclusion (to both structures, and the necessity for both
which the Protestant movement in Europe structures not only to exist but to work to-
only tardily came), namely, that there need to gether harmoniously for the fulfillment of the
be sodality structures, such as William Great Commission and for the fulfillment of
Carey’s “use of means,” in order for church all that God desires for our time.

End Notes
1. One can hardly conceive of more providentially supplied means for the Christian mission to
reach the Gentile community. Wherever the community of Christ went, it found at hand the tools
needed to reach the nations: a people living under covenant promise and a responsible election,
and the Scriptures, God’s revelation to all men. The open synagogue was the place where all
these things converged. In the synagogue, the Christians were offered an inviting door of access
to every Jewish community. It was in the synagogue that the first Gentile converts declared their
faith in Jesus. Richard F. DeRidder, The Dispersion of the People of God (Netherlands: J.H. Kok,
N.V. Kampen, 1971), p. 87.
2. In Paul’s day Asia meant what we today call Asia Minor, or present-day Turkey. In those days no
one dreamed how far the term would later be extended.
3. That Christians in Jerusalem organized themselves for worship on the synagogue pattern is evi-
dent from the appointment of elders and the adoption of the service of prayer. The provision of a
daily dole for widows and the needy reflected the current synagogue practice (Acts 2:42, 6:1). It
is possible that the epistle of James reflected the prevailing Jerusalem situation: in James 2:2 refer-
ence is made to a wealthy man coming “into your assembly.” The term translated “assembly’”is
literally “synagogue,” not the more usual word “church.” Glenn W. Barker, William L. Lane and J.
Ramsey Michaels, The New Testament Speaks (New York: Harper and Row Co., 1969), pp. 126-
27.
4. “Dynamic Equivalence Churches,” Missiology: An International Review , 1, no. 1 (1973), p. 39ff.
5. Christians, it said, resorted to formation of “burial clubs,” which were legal, as one vehicle of fel-
lowship and worship.
230 Chapter 35 TWO STRUCTURES

6. Latourette, Kenneth Scott, A History of Christianity (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1953), pp. 181,
221-34.
7. Latourette, Kenneth Scott, A History of the Expansion of Christianity , vol. 2, The Thousand Years
of Uncertainty (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1938), pp. 379-80.
8. Winter, Ralph D., “The Warp and the Woof of the Christian Movement,” in his and R. Pierce
Beaver’s, The Warp and Woof: Organizing for Christian Mission (South Pasadena, CA.: William
Carey Library, 1970), pp. 52-62.
9. The London Missionary Society (LMS) and the Netherlands Missionary Society (NMS ) in 1795,
the Church Missionary Society (CMS) in 1799, the CFBS in 1804, the American Board of Com-
missioners for Foreign Mission (ABCFM) in 1810, the American Baptist Missionary Board (ABMB)
in 1814, the Glasgow Missionary Society (GMS) in 1815, the Danish Missionary Society (DMS) in
1821, the FEM in 1822, and the Berlin Mission (BM )in 1824.
10. Winter, Ralph D., “The Planting of Younger Missions,” in Church/Mission Tensions Today, ed. by
C. Peter Wagner (Chicago: Moody Press, 1972).

Study Questions
1. Define the terms “modality” and “sodality,” and give present-day and historic examples of each.

2. Do you agree with Winter’s thesis that sodality structures within the church are both legitimate and
necessary? What practical significance does your answer suggest?

3. What does Winter claim was “the greatest error of the Reformation and the greatest weakness of
the resulting Protestant tradition”?