Dr. Anthony Casey, associate professor of intercultural studies, presented the annual Carey Lecture during chapel on Nov. 29, 2017.
The Carey Lecture is an endowed lecture which has the mission of informing students of the significant role that the university’s namesake played in the modern Christian missionary movement.
Dr. Casey, who joined the Carey faculty this year, holds a Master of Divinity and Ph.D. from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He has worked with refugees and other immigrants in the U.S. and overseas for 15 years, conducted cultural and linguistic research on four continents, and previously served as professor of anthropology at a university in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Dr. Casey is the author of “Church Planting among Immigrants in U.S. Urban Centers: The Where, Why, and How of Diaspora Missiology in Action” in addition to a number of book chapters and journal articles. He has been married to his wife Beth for nearly 12 years and has three very active young boys.
Below is Dr. Casey’s lecture:
CAREY LECTURE
ALL GOD’S PEOPLE GOING TO ALL THE WORLD
Anthony Casey, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Intercultural Studies
William Carey University
November 29, 2017
Introduction and Background1William Carey (1761-1834), was one of several who launched the modern era of missions. Carey was a leatherworker, shoe maker, and pastor. Carey was also a learner. He read accounts of missionaries and trading companies around the world in an effort to be in touch with global realities. He studied the nations and he prayed for the nations. Carey was also a student of Scripture. He worked hard to learn the original languages and it was the fruit of his study that God used to call Carey from his home in England to a life of service in India.
Carey departed England in 1793 and arrived in India where the East India Company dominated coastal commerce. Mission and empire had an uneasy relationship in those days, mainly because the Company didn’t want local backlash from missionary efforts that could hurt commerce.
Carey is one of, if not the most famous missionary from his time period. He was a pioneer in many ways. He certainly wasn’t without his mistakes, but he is someone from whom we can learn. His holistic approach to missions is one to which we need to return today. Historian Stephen Neill has summarized Carey’s methods into a five-pronged approach, and this model forms the outline of my talk today.
1. Widespread Preaching of the Gospel using a Variety of MethodsSome used the extraction model and a compound approach overseas. They created a little London or a Little America right there in their walled compound and then invited locals to leave their home villages and move into the compound to hear the Bible. Sometimes, they were required to learn English before they could hear the gospel. Carey, and others like Hudson Taylor, instead went to the people. The incarnation of Jesus Christ served as his model. Jesus took on flesh and dwelt among his people. He was ethnically Jewish, spoke the local language, and worked a job just like any other Jewish boy would. In like manner, we immerse ourselves in the lives, language, and culture of those to whom we minister.
People need to hear the gospel and we are commanded to preach (Romans 10). There is an evangelism training developed in Indonesia called Any 3 – anyone, anywhere, any time. The point is we need to be prepared to witness at all times and in a variety of means. Today, we have developed Chronological Bible Storying for pre-literate and oral peoples, the Jesus Film, gospel radio, etc. You can be a witness in any field and any job. My roommate from college was a D3 college cross-country and track runner. After college he moved to Kansas City, MO for ministry training. He ended up working at a local furniture making company and developed excellent wood working skills. Later, when he moved to China for ministry, God used those two skills my friend already had for effective ministry. My friend has become a semi-famous trail runner in China, has started local running and coaching groups, and was hired by a university to teach woodworking to ethnic minorities – people that are otherwise extremely difficult in which to contact and build a relationship. The point is that God used my friend’s past experiences and gifs to begin an effective ministry in another context.
One of the reasons I love teaching at William Carey University is the variety of majors we have. Whatever your major, we want to equip you for service to God, and God will use you! The Intercultural Studies program, in which I teach, is designed to pair with any major and give you cross-cultural competency and equipping to make disciples anywhere in the world.
2. Bible TranslationScripture translation is perhaps what Carey is best known for. In thirty years six complete translations of Scripture were produced, with Carey himself working in Bengali, Sanskrit, and Marathi. The New Testament was translated into twenty-three languages and ten other languages had smaller portions of Scripture. Carey did the best he could with what he had. Modern linguistic analysis of the translations shows they were not very good, but hey, what else does a “pioneer” do but pioneer. The first time I try to build something it often takes twice as long and I produce twice as many mistakes!
Carey was experiencing an early instance of what we now call people group theory. A people group is a construct of a shared social and linguistic community. Another way to think about it is how far can the gospel spread without encountering serious cultural or linguistic barriers? Carey realized people need the Bible in their own language, not English or a national language. Cam Townsend, founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators was once asked “If your God is so great, why doesn’t he speak my language?”
Today, the SIL Ethnologue
2 estimates there are 7099 languages spoken on Earth. Around 850 are heard in New York City alone! But out of more than 7,000 languages, there are only 670 complete Bibles. There are another 1,121 sections of Scripture that are partially translated. That leaves many thousands with nothing at all. People have no opportunity to read about the One, True God in their own language. This reality hit home when I was doing linguistic research with Tibetans. I was sitting in a tent with Tibetan nomads recording their language when I realized no Christian on Earth could speak their language. We could not share the gospel with them even if we wanted to. In fact, by the time a Christian learned enough of their language to share the gospel, these men sitting around me would be dead. There is still a great need for Bible translation. Visit Wycliffe’s website and read about how you can adopt a translation project. Your dorm, class, family, or church can partner with these translators and help get the Bible into a new language so someone can hear the gospel for the first time in history.
3. Priority of Church PlantingCarey and his friends immediately organized themselves into a local church upon arrival in India. They then baptized new converts into an existing church. Some centuries earlier, this was Patrick of Ireland’s approach as well. They emphasized community then commitment to Christ. Why a local church? Church planting is not optional because Scripture commands believers be gathered into a local church. Here, they are encouraged and spurred to persevere in their faith. Nearly everyone is tempted to walk away from Jesus at some point in their life. These challenges only intensify in heavily persecuted parts of the world. Local church membership is the answer to these temptations.
You can plant a church anywhere. I have a friend – An Van Pham. Pham was a pastor in Vietnam during the communist takeover. He was arrested and put in communist prison – not a happy place. The first year, Pham was furious at God. “God, why did you do this to me? Why did you take me away from my family and my congregation? I was faithfully serving you. What has happened to my wife and kids? What has happened to my church family?” After about a year in prison, God began working on Pham and helped him see God wanted to work through him right there in prison. Pham began to reach out to fellow inmates and encourage them, care for them, and share the gospel. Many responded to the hope Pham had in Christ. A new congregation was started in the prison. Several months later, the prison guards were tired of Pham’s encouragement and decided to release him. A year before, he would have been the first one to run out the door to freedom. But now, he sensed God wanted him to stay and continue his ministry. Much to the surprise of the guards, he stayed. His congregation wasn’t out in the community anymore, but right there in the prison with him.
Eventually, the city was liberated by the Americans and Pham ended up in Atlanta, Georgia with his family as refugees. He started pastoring a Vietnamese church but realized there were many Hispanic people around with no church. So, this Vietnamese refugee in Atlanta taught himself Spanish and planted two Hispanic churches, just because he saw a need.
The Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20) requires church planting – make disciples and teach them all Jesus commanded. Church planting isn’t just for pastors and missionaries – the church is made up of people from all areas of life and all can have a role in starting new churches. So, whatever your major, would you consider thinking strategically about the world? Maybe you will move somewhere there is a need for new churches. Did you know the Pacific Northwest, much of New England, and the entire state of Utah have fewer than 2% evangelical Christians? There is a great need for churches in these areas. Consider getting a job there and being part of a new church plant.
4. Study of Cultural and Religious Background of the PeopleCarey and his coworkers translated many Indian and Hindu works into English, to much criticism from other missionaries. Carey recognized the all-encompassing Hindu worldview. Everything an Indian did was conditioned by their religious system and culture, and a failure to understand the underlying thinking and worldview would result in preaching and teaching that missed the mark, and churches that were hopelessly syncretized with Hinduism and local animism.
As missiologist David Sills is fond of saying, “You can’t fall off the strawberry truck and preach John 3:16.” Ask the questions: “How do people view God, sin, salvation?” Some religious systems have no concept of a godlike figure. In some places, it’s a sin to plant your crops at the wrong time of the year. The Apostle Paul knew the importance of understanding worldview.
3 To Gentile audiences like those in Athens, Paul bridged from God as creator to Christ as Savior. To those with a Jewish background, he began with the Old Testament lineage of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses and then bridged to Christ. Same gospel, same call to repent and believe, but a different way of delivering the message depending on the cultural background of the audience.
One day in Malaysia I needed to add minutes to my cell phone. The shops there often have a sign above an overhang, which you then walk under and go in the door. I found the sign for the cell phone store, but all the doors and windows were finished as mirrors, so I couldn’t tell which door actually led into the cell phone store. I opened one and walked in – to the gasps of those inside. I had accidentally walked into a Muslim women’s hair salon! One thing Muslim women never want to do is show their hair in public, let alone to a non-Muslim foreigner! Without a knowledge of local cultural norms, you’ll blunder your way through life, offending people left and right and probably being the last to know about it. You don’t want that kind of a reputation and the damage it can do to the gospel.
Unfortunately, some pastors in America don’t know their own communities. A study a few years back revealed that when asked to describe the community surrounding the church building, many pastors detailed a community that existed twenty years ago. They were out of touch with the current realities of their neighborhood. If this is the case, no wonder so many churches in America are declining. Carey did his cultural research, and so should we.
5. Training Indigenous LeadersCarey said, “It is only by means of native preachers we can hope for the universal spread of the Gospel through this immense continent.”
4 It’s not the West is Best, or the West to the Rest. Carey was a forerunner of what we now call the indigenization movement in missions. The term indigenous comes from botany and refers to a plant that grows in its native context. It has the proper soil, nutrients, and climate for it to flourish and multiply. In the same way, we bring the pure seed of the gospel in a cross-cultural context. We leave behind our cultural baggage, cultural church traditions, and foreign components of our communication. The gospel takes root, develops in a natural context, and produces local believers who flourish and multiply. It is imperialistic and arrogant to think that only Western trained, seminary degree holding missionaries can lead local churches around the world. Paul understood this concept and appointed local elders in most of the churches he planted.
Today, we have a global church. In fact, the majority of the world’s Christians are concentrated in what is called the “Global South,” that area south of the equator. The center of global Christianity is no longer in the West – Europe and North America. The church is global, and these global Christians are contributing to global theology. We need their insights into Scripture, coupled with the perspective of the historic church. Reading Scripture through Western eyes alone will skew our perspective. We also need global leadership. God raises up exceptionally capable leadership in every cultural context and we need to let them lead and learn from them.
Additionally, we can welcome those God sends to us here in the U.S. The U.S. is the number one immigrant receiving country in the world, and people are coming here for school and work from some of the most unreached places on the planet. What a joy to welcome them in the name of Jesus, care for them, share the gospel, and train them to share with others! In seminary, I was part of a church plant to reach international students at the University of Louisville. There was a Chinese student in the Ph.D program in the sciences. He was curious about the Bible and began coming to the church to learn more. Soon enough, he became a Christian and received training in how to grow in his faith and start similar works back in China. He told the story of when he was at his doctoral department graduation party. All the recent grads were going around and sharing what they would be doing with their newly minted Ph.D. Some were going to teach, some going into research. It came to my friend, who shared that he would be going back to China and starting a Christian elementary school and ministering to his fellow Chinese. Literally, forks dropped and the air was sucked out of the room as people gasped at his response. “What a waste of your degree and your life. You could make so much more money in academia and research” they said. Was my friend really wasting his life or was he leveraging his gifts for the Kingdom?
ConclusionWhat I’d like to see at WCU is all God’s people, going to all the world, with all the gospel. Whether you are a student, professor, or staff – God has a plan for each of you to join him in his mission to redeem a people from every tribe, tongue, language, and people. You don’t have to become someone you’re not. God will use the gifts, education, and experiences you already have. He made you and has prepared good works for you to walk in (Eph. 2:10). Will you begin to see your studies through God’s eyes – how can you serve him with your major and your career choice? Will you begin to see the world through his eyes – How can he use you?
David Sills prays a prayer every morning of his life: “Lord, what is it that is not being done that ought to be done and that I could do, and if it were done, it would result in greater glory to God and advance of His kingdom?” Will you make that your prayer?
It’s been said we can see further when we stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us. William Carey left a legacy that has not been forgotten. He went as far as he could with what he had in the 19th century. Today, we have far more access to the unreached peoples of the world, and far more opportunity to get to them. So what are you waiting for? As the WCU motto reads: Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God. Go in boldness and in peace, knowing He is with you to the end of the age.
1Stephen Neill, A History of Christian Missions. London: Penguin Books, 1990 reprint, 222-26.
2SIL Ethnologue. https://www.ethnologue.com
3Dean Flemming, Contextualization in the New Testament: Patterns for Theology and Mission. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Press, 2005.
4Neill, A History of Christian Missions, 225.