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The rise and fall of the Student Volunteer Movement

1890s: good momentum too late.

The reality is that, by 1891, there was simply too little effort to achieve the goal by 1900. Yet at the time, it wasn’t so evident. Given the time it took for someone to raise their support, get to their destination, settle in, and learn the local language, most of the 50,000 volunteers thought to be required would already have to have been in place. It wasn’t until much later Pierson would give up hope of 1900—but then he, the eternal optimist, passionate about his cause, simply “reset” his generational clock.

In 1895 the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions had 572 missionaries and “a force of native laborers… more than five times that number,” and were “in communication with or responsible for the evangelization of not less than 100,000,000 souls” (New York Times, 10/17/1895). It was a respectable number but much smaller than was needed.

The first SVM Convention was held in 1891 in Cleveland, Ohio. Pierson addressed the conference on (no surprise here) the subject of “The evangelization of the world in this generation.” But halfway through the decade, the SVM was struggling.

In its 1894 report to the Second International Convention of the Student Volunteer Movement, the Executive Committee pointed to five “problems” and five “perils.” The most serious of these was the “wall of separation” between the student volunteers and other students on campuses: student volunteers often pulled away from other students and kept themselves isolated (SVM History). This report suggests the SVM was far too informal to mobilize the kind of numbers that were needed. They seem to have had no consistent standard or curriculum. The one thing they had going for them—the pledge and the college tours—was a lightning rod for controversy.

In 1895, John R. Mott and Karl Fries (of Sweden) were busy broadening out. They organized the World’s Student Christian Federation; Mott as its general secretary began a two-year world tour to organize national student movements in numerous countries.

Pierson published The greatest work in the world: the evangelization of all peoples in the present century, his most concise statement of what could be done by the year 1900. Unfortunately much of what was published in the 1890s appears to have been criticisms, debates, and disagreements rather than substantive progress reports of plans being acted upon. One such scorching criticism of A. T. Pierson and the Missionary Review was sent: “…believes the sole duty of missionaries is to preach, without any reference to conversion or the establishment of the churches… He is opposed to missions having anything to do with education, the development of literature…” Pierson defended himself against the charge, saying that all forms of witness were equally to be used. But by then he had began to emphasize “in this generation” rather than “by 1900.” He saw the inevitability of what would happen; and, in 1896, he wrote, “We are compelled to abandon hope.”

Not tied to any particular overarching goal or specific date, Christian Endeavor continued to strengthen. Commenting on this, “Dick B” (www.dickb.com…) writes:

Christian Endeavor had stayed afloat, grown, gained support in many denominations, spawned similar societies in others, and acquired tens of thousands of identifiable adherents. It had literature, books, periodicals, newspapers, conventions, world conferences, offices, officers and trustees, hymnals, summer schools, training schools, and an ever-increasing support and growth rate. In sum, there was absolutely nothing like Christian Endeavor that was similar in form, content, significance, and size…

The 1892 Christian Endeavor meeting, held in Madison Square Garden, was attended by 30,000. The Montreal meeting in 1893 had 16,500 registrants; at this meeting, once again, founder Francis Clark focused on world evangelization. Its 13th annual convention, in Cleveland in 1894, had 40,000 registrants (18,790 from outside Ohio). At this meeting, it announced:

The Society of Christian Endeavor took up another gigantic enterprise Saturday. This last project is nothing less than the enlistment of the entire society with some of the great denominational missionary boards in a wide reaching and thorough campaign to arouse the missionary spirit among all Christians. It is a missionary extension movement, similar to the plan of the well-known university extension movement. This was decided upon at a conference of the trustees of the society and representatives of the missionary boards, held on a steam yacht on the lake. (Ohio Democrat, July 19).

By 1895, Christian Endeavor had 2.4 million members in 41,229 local societies; at its annual meeting in Boston there were 56,000 participants with tents having seating for 10,000, 25 auditoriums, and 825 meetings during the week. The 1896 meeting was attended by 75,000. The 1897 gathering had 40,000 delegates ride trains from other parts of the country to attend the meetings in San Francisco; the total attendance was about 300,000. The results of the massive youth and student work were clear to Dr. Clark, Founder of Christian Endeavor:

My impression is that our boys’ colleges, at least, were never in so good a condition from the religious standpoint as today. I believe there is less skepticism and more manly, outspoken Christian life among the young men than ever before. The proportion of professing Christians has been found to be nearly 60 per cent of the whole number of students. In the denominational colleges the proportion is doubtless larger still. Compare this with the condition of Yale in the last century, when scarcely one decidedly religious man could be found in the whole university. Now in the Young Men’s Christian Association of Yale there are a thousand members… This improved state of affairs I attribute to the much greater attention paid in these days to Christian nurture. The young people’s movement in our churches affect almost all of our boys and girls before they go to college. (New York Times, 3/7/1898, emphasis added)

In 1897, the Chicago Christian Endeavor invited all Student Volunteers in the city and vicinity to a meeting held by the Christian Endeavor Missionary Institute; as a result, a speaker’s bureau was organized and any church desiring an address on foreign missions was supplied by a Volunteer. Other large cities formed similar bureaus. Thus a direct link between the SVM and Christian Endeavor was formed here, if not earlier; no such link appears to exist with the Epworth League, which seems to have had little interest in missions. From 1898-99 another result of this link was the building up of mission study classes.

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© 2008 Momentum Magazine.
Related: The Mission Manual · Justin Long's Annotated Links and Notes