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The rise and fall of the Student Volunteer Movement
1885: sparks a fly
An event brought a spark to this growing missions fuel: seven young Cambridge graduates determined that they would go to China as missionaries. Among them was C. T. Studd, the famous cricket player, who would go out with CIM and eventually found WEC International. Huge crowds came to hear their testimony. “No other event of the century, in my judgment, has had so powerful an influence in quickening the missionary spirit,” said Dr. Eugene Stock (LMS) in an address on “A Century of Mission Work” given at Carnegie Hall.
That summer, J. E. K. Studd, the older brother of C. T. Studd, “took the fervor of the Cambridge Seven with him to America.” Studd was respected by D. L. Moody, the Billy Graham of his day, who invited Studd to his annual month-long summer Bible Camp (which would come to be known as Northfield 1885).
At this, the third such annual conference, Moody’s friend A. T. Pierson was asked to speak on the theme of missions at the evening meeting. His impassioned call for world evangelization by 1900 “so impelled Moody” that he formed a committee of six on the spot, who produced “An Appeal to Disciples Everywhere.” The committee among others included Pierson, Studd, and Miss E. Dryer of Chicago Avenue Church. Studd was then commissioned from the conference to stump US colleges for missionary candidates; he was responsible for recruiting John R. Mott from Cornell and bringing him back to Northfield 1886.
During 1885 and 1886 the Southern Baptist women finally temporarily settled the question of a women’s organization by deciding each state convention would appoint a central committee of women to oversee the women’s work (mainly missions mobilization) in that state. States that opposed women’s organizations (like Virginia) didn’t appoint the committee.
Most states did, and the work of organizing women for the cause of missions began immediately and in earnest: “[Between 1885 and 1886], the state central committees were being appointed, the women’s societies were being grouped by states under the leadership of the central committees, and a corporate consciousness was being developed. The Heathen Helper, edited by Miss Agnes Osborn, Louisville, furnished a medium of communication among the societies throughout the South, and served as a voice to express the developing consciousness.”
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Justin, thank you for a well researched SVM article. Over the past 30 years I have had an enduring interest in this history, as a scholar, practitioner and mobilizer. http://www.jaygary.com/students.shtml
But now I think the student generation following World War I also made good choices regarding the gospel. While Robert Wilder chose fundamentalism, Sherwood Eddy embraced both the gospel and social justice, and rallied the church to work with marginalized urban youth. As 21st century Christian leaders, we must not let this divide between evangelism and social action divide us any longer. Even as evangelicals, both WEA and Lausanne have dealt with this both theologically and practically for 30 years now. There are new paradigms of global engagement emerging. We must not be frozen in the 19th century, but open to our own paradigms becoming more biblical and integral.
Second, whatever calls to come to a new generation, their watchword must deal substantially, in a post-Bosch world, on how the gospel must change both the evangelized and the unevangelized. Jesus linked both the rich man and Lazarus in his parable. We must link our overconsumption with the destitution of the developing world, and consider ways to create sustainable enterprises that are culturally relevant, environmentally appropriate and wealth generating among the bottom of the pyramid. See the work of Stuart Hart in this, his book _Capitalism at the Crossroads_ http://www.stuartlhart.com/frameworks%20and%20t...
I am encouraged by your work from Asia. May God continue to give you strength to sound the trumpet.
–Jay, Program Director, M.A. in Strategic Foresight, http://www.regent.edu/global/msf
Assistant Professor, School of Global Leadership & Entrepreneurship, Regent University