Introduction
“As William Carey was
the father of modern missions, Adoniram Judson was the father of American
missions.”
This paper sketches out the extraordinary work of Adoniram Judson among the
Burmans in the early 19
th century. The paper is categorized into
five parts: birth and family background, education background, Judson’s
conversion, the missionary Judson, and his methods in mission. It emphasizes
particularly on the life and work of Adoniram Judson, paying attention to his
mission methods.
1. Birth and Family Background
IN MEMORIAM
Rev. Adoniram Judson
Born August 9, 1788
Died April 12, 1850
Malden, his birthplace
The Ocean, his sepulcher
Converted Burmans, and
The Burman Bible,
His monument.
The above inscription was inscribed on a marble tablet in the Baptist
meeting-house in Malden, Massachusetts, where a young Adoniram Judson was born
on August 9, 1788 to a Congregational minister, Adoniram Judson, Sr. and a
devout Christian woman, Abigail Brown. Judson had a younger sister and brother.
His father was from Woodbury, Connecticut and his mother from Tiverton, Rhode
Island,
a graduate of Yale in 1775, and his mother was a quiet woman who had a deep
interest in rearing her children. She taught her son to read the Bible at the
age of three.
At the age of eight, Judson was already able to solve riddles. His father
expected him to be a great man. He proudly told young Judson, “You are a very
acute boy, Adoniram, and I expect you to become a great man.”
He could see that the future of his son was bright and hopeful.
As the son of a minister, Judson moved one place to another across the
east coast. Most of his time was spent in Plymouth where he grew up. His father
was always traveling for preaching, yet he was a disciplined minister who took
care of his family well. They were a decent and middle class family, fully
dedicated in the service of God.
2. Education Background
The young Judson was deeply interested in reading and studying,
especially arithmetic. At the age of ten, he studied navigation and also Greek
and Latin.
When he turned into sixteen, he entered to Providence College (now Brown
University), New York, in the sophomore class and graduated as the
valedictorian with B.A. degree in 1807.
Judson opened a private Academy in Plymouth (Plymouth Independent Academy) the
year he graduated in which he taught for nearly a year. He also published two
text-books for elementary school during this time. The text-books are
The Elements of English Grammar and
The Young Lady’s Arithmetic.
What a bright and successful young Judson!
Judson might have felt a good deal of satisfaction as he considered his
academic accomplishments. Nevertheless, he was dissatisfied. His whole mind was
occupied by something else, other than what his father taught. In other words,
he was not convinced by his father’s simple Christian faith; yet, he dutifully
took part in family worship and faithfully attended church. He was living a lie.
Deep in his mind, he felt that he needed something, yet he did not know what he
really needed.
3: Judson’s Conversion
On his twentieth birthday, August 9, 1808, Judson decided to leave home
and went to New York, where he would become acquainted with the wider world.
The lament of his parents clearly shows that his decision was a big blow to
them. “What was wrong,” his mother asked, “with the pleasant family circle in
Plymouth?” “Why,” demanded his father, “had suddenly decided to interrupt a
promising career?”
His mother’s earnest prayer seemed to have no impact on Judson’s life. Things
got worse when Judson revealed that he did not believe in the God of his
parents,
openly declared that he was atheistic.
He became a young deistic.
His parents were outraged!
Realizing that his brilliant son was inconvincible, his father gave him
a horse for his journey. Judson set out his adventure, heading toward
Sheffield, Connecticut, where his uncle Ephraim was pastor and went on to New
York, roaming around for a few days. “[He] had expected to find a freer world .
. . brilliant thought and companionship. But the world he
did find was a tawdry world of bombast and fustian.”
He then realized that he misunderstood his father. More importantly, his
meeting with a young pastor, who replaced his uncle, gave him a sense of warmth
and solemn earnestness.
More existential questions came in his mind.
Moreover, the experience of the death of his own friend (Jacob Eames)
at a local inn, who also happened to be atheistic, made Judson think seriously
about future life. At this point, he came to realize what his father used to
teach about the reality of death.
Was his father’s God, the
real God?
Was salvation necessary? Was Christ the Way? Could he be saved? Most of his
deistic philosophy had faded away with the death of his friend.
Now, “one single thought occupied his mind, and the words, dead! lost! lost!
were continually ringing in his ears. He knew the religion of the Bible to be
true.”
Hence, he decided to head back home in order to reconcile with his parents.
Judson’s experience of a few days in New York, his conversation with a young
pastor, and the death of his friend changed his life forever.
4. The Missionary Judson
The constant and earnest prayer of Judson’s mother was
about to become a reality when he decided to enroll at Andover Theological Seminary (now Andover Newton
Theological School) in 1808. While at Andover, Judson came across a copy of a mission
sermon, “The Star in the East” written by Dr. Claudius Buchanan, a chaplain for
East India Company, which aroused his interest in mission. Together with his
three other friends at Andover, Samuel Nott, Samuel J. Mills, and Samuel
Newell, Judson dedicated himself to foreign missionary work.
The young atheistic Judson would become a faithful apostle for Christ to the
far Eastern people, called the Burmans.
Judson was married to
Ann Hasseltine, a young and devout Christian, a teacher and the daughter of a
Congregational pastor, on February 5, 1812. The next day, Judson and his
friends received solemn ordination at Salem, Massachusetts. After two weeks, on
February 19, 1812, Judson and his beloved wife sailed for India as
missionaries, together with their friends. “They were the first Americans ever
to leave their own country as Protestant missionaries.”
Upon thorough reading of the New Testament in Greek on their way to India, the
Judsons were convinced to believe the
emersion
of baptism. They were baptized by Jonathan Ward as they arrived in
Calcutta, and they changed their denomination to Baptist.
It was a big blow to Congregational churches and a great joy for Baptists in
America.
Scarcely a month had passed after their arrival in Serampore, the East
India Company ordered them to return to America. As an alternative, however,
they were allowed to sail for Port Louis, but no mission work was opened. After
much study and prayer, they determined to go to Penang (Malaysia), but no
single ship was scheduled during the monsoon season. “The only one they found
due to sail was the schooner,
Georgiana,
bound for Rangoon in Burma.” The Judsons embarked June 22, 1813, on the
Georgiana and arrived in Burma on July
13, 1813, where they were to spend the rest of their lives.
Hence, they began their historic mission among the Burmans in the heavy rains
of July, 1813.
5. Mission Work among the Burmans
The Judsons were not the first Christian missionaries in Burma. A
number of Portuguese Catholic missionaries had already been in Burma since as
early as sixteenth century. The English Baptist mission also was already in
operation under the leadership of Felix Carey,
the son of William Carey. But no significant success was evident. The Judsons’
arrival was the turning point of the history of Christianity in Burma.
Judson’s mission strategy can be categorized into three phases. The
first phase was a period of learning the local language and preparation for
future mission. After having acquired the local language, Judson began his
translation and Christian literature work in the second phase. As he gradually
gained trust from the local people, Judson began to preach the gospel among the
Burmans, in the third phase. In the process, he was encountering with the
Burman kings and educated Buddhist scholars as he launched his mission. It is
worth looking into Judson’s mission strategy and how he managed his mission
amidst untold hardships under the Burman kings and well established Buddhism in
Burma.
5.1: Learning
Local Language
Realizing the fact that it was impossible to do any mission work
without understanding the local language, the Judsons hired a “very learned man
who had formerly been a priest at the court of Ava,” the capital. From him and
other Burmese teachers, Judson studied the Burmese language, as well as
Pali, the learned language of the
country.
Ann Judson did not waste her time, but she also studied Burmese besides her
household management. She made friendships with local women and developed her
own teaching ministry.
With the aid of the Burmese teacher, U Aung Min, Judson undertook the
project of a
Pali-Burmese Dictionary,
as well as a Burmese-English Dictionary and completed it in 1816, three years
after their arrival. In the same year, Judson began the work of translation and
other Christian literatures. He began to translate the New Testament in a local
Burmese language.
Hence, Judson was ready to launch his second phase of mission work.
5.2: Writing
and Translating
Judson strongly believed that translation and Christian literature work
were the most important and effective means to spread the gospel. He,
therefore, invested most of his efforts in learning language, translating the
Bible, and writing tracts. In August 1816, Judson wrote the progress of his
work:
[A] tract
is ready for publication which will give the Burmans their first ideas of a
Saviour and the way of salvation; a grammar is finished . . . and a dictionary
of the language is in a very forward state; and the way is now prepared, as
soon as health permits, to proceed slowly in the translation of the New
Testament.
The arrival of a printing press from Serampore was a big progress for
the mission work. In early 1817, Judson published the first two pamphlets in
local Burmese, entitled
A View of the
Christian Religion and
Catechism.
The former included the “doctrines and duties of the Christian faith,” and the
latter was questions and answers for the “essential Christian belief.” Besides,
he also published the gospel of Matthew for the first time in Burmese.
It was a big significant in the second phase of Judson’s mission work, and he
realized that people were gradually attracted to the gospel he preached to
them.
5.3: Preaching
the Gospel
Judson was ready to
preach the gospel as his translating work of the Bible as other literature work
continued. Interestingly, he chose a Burman way of public interaction as a
strategy that he built a
zayat,
after the Burman fashion. The Judsons tried to learn about the Burman
congregations by attending at a Buddhist service in a neighboring
zayat. He held the first service there
on Sunday, April 4, 1819 with an audience consisted of some adults whom he
could collect in the neighborhood.
Most of them attended the service out of curiosity, not necessarily for their
interest of the gospel.
The whole basis of Judson’s approach was person-to-person teaching in
an informal atmosphere in which the person was perfectly free to express
his/her views as well as to hear his.
In this way, he had conversations with local people as well as some Buddhist
monks and educated people. Judson also distributed Christian tracts, which
served two purposes: “they stirred up interest in the new religious teacher and
brought many people to the
zayat to
hear more.”
Slowly but gradually, his
zayat-approach
of mission began to attract more local Burmans to the gospel.
The year 1819 was a
remarkable year as Judson excitingly recorded about the conversion of a Burman
young man, whose name was Maung Nau. He described his excitement:
It seems
almost too much to believe that God has begun to manifest his grace to the
Burmans; but this day I could not resist the delightful conviction that this is
really the case. PRAISE AND GLORY BE TO HIS NAME FOREEVERMORE. Amen.
The Judsons got one convert after toiling so hard for six consecutive
years. Interestingly, Judson never encouraged a forced conversion. Even for the
case of Maung Nau, Judson baptized him only after receiving a petition letter
from Maung Nau to be baptized.
After Maung Nau’s baptism, more people were attracted to Christ, and there were
more converts into Christianity among the Burmans.
In the mean time,
Judson was challenged by a number of highly educated Burmans, after Maung Nau’s
conversion. This educated group was led by U Shwe Ngong who was a half deist
and a half skeptic. But since Judson himself had gone through the stage of
deistic belief, he was well prepared to encounter with Shwe Ngong. Most of Shwe
Ngong’s friends, after having several debates with Judson, accepted the gospel
and became active Christian leaders. Shwe Ngong’s confession letter to Judson
is worth mentioning:
I have
been trusting in my own reason, not in the word of god. This day is different
from all other days on which I have visited you; I now believe the crucifixion
of Christ because it is contained in the Scripture. . . . I love Jesus Christ;
no one who really knows him can help loving him.
With the help of those educated converts, Judson could enter into the
king’s palace, and he could even gain significant respect from the king
although it did not last long enough as the first Anglo-Burmese War broke out
in 1824.
As more converts were
added to the Christian community, the Judsons had to encounter with harsh
challenges and even oppressions from the authorities. Moreover, Judson had gone
through untold difficulties in his mission work. He was imprisoned in Ava.
His wife died on October 24, 1826 while Judson visited Ava for the last time.
She had been buried a month before he had known she was died, leaving her baby
daughter, Maria. Though he had gone through many hardships after his beloved
wife had died, Judson continued his God-given mission without delay. More
missionaries joined him and the Baptist mission work among the Burmans began to
grow and new churches were established even among the ethnic people.
As Judson continued his Bible translation work, a complete version of
his New Testament was ready to be published in 1832, and the whole Burmese
Bible was completed in 1834.
He finished his English-Burmese Dictionary in 1849, just before he died, but he
could not finalized his Burmese-English Dictionary. As his health did not allow
him to stay any longer in Burma, he was carried on a ship, the
Aristide Marie, leaving his critically
ill wife.
Unfortunately, he could never make it to his birthplace, America; he died on
April 12, 1850 and was buried at the Andaman Sea.
Conclusion
The Judsons started their mission with education and literature work
(writings and translations) besides preaching and teaching the gospel to the
Burmans. Many Baptist missionaries who joined the Judsons included medical
doctors as well as agricultural experts. Even the first American Baptist
medical missionary couples, Dr. and Mrs. Jonathan Price, were warmly welcome by
the Burman king as early as 1820s. Based on this general observation, the
mission method of Judson can be identified as the threefold ministry of Jesus such
as preaching, teaching, and healing. Judson fully embraced the holistic mission
of Jesus Christ, which is explicitly evident especially in the gospels.
There is no explicit description about what missional approach Judson
followed. Yet, what we know for sure is that he never forced the local Burmans
to accept his religion. Rather, he gave respect to the practice of Buddhism and
its culture in such a way that he chose to have a deeper interaction with the
local people both from religious and social aspects. He was not hesitant to
attend at the local Buddhist worship service in order that he could learn
something from their religious rites and practices. It was one of the reasons
that a number of Burman educated and Buddhist monks were attracted to the new
religion the Judsons introduced to them. It is obvious that Judson’s preaching
was a “combination of the truth and the rationality of the Christian faith.” He
always tried to make Christianity “relevant to the Burmans mind without
violating the integrity of Christian truth.” He preached the gospel, but not
anti-Buddhism
whether it was effective or not in the mind of the local people.
Looking back Judson’s
mission work among the Burmans, it is fair to say that he was relatively
successful in terms of translation and other important Christian literature
work. Through education and Christian literatures, Judson could attract a
number of educated people, even some members of the king’s officials, among the
Burmans. Yet, no records of converts from the Burman royal families are
identified except for a certain level of interest in Christian religion. One
can imagine that the history of Christianity in Asia would have been totally
different if Judson could persuade one of the royal families into Christianity.
Later, the Baptist missionaries changed their direction toward the ethnic
minority groups where Christianity began to grow in number. But it was (still
it is) unlikely possible for the ethnic minority groups to convince the Burman
ethnic majority to be converted into Christian religion. I wonder whether there
were better mission approaches for the Judsons and Baptist missionaries in
Burma in order to be able to persuade the Burman Buddhists into
Christianity. Or, is it necessary to
persuade our Buddhist friends and people of other religions to be converted
into Christianity?
Ibid., 6. “Felix Carey was married to an
Anglo-Burmese woman, the daughter of Portuguese father and a Burmese mother,
and had two children. Ava, the capital, had offered Carey a position in the
government service as a physician as well as a negotiator with the English in
India. Therefore, he finally gave up his missionary career and entered the
service of king Bodawpaya. He moved out of the mission house in Yangon and left
for the then capital, Ava, in August 1814. With the departure of Carey, the
English Baptist Mission work was terminated with no visible success, and was
handed down to the American Baptist Mission.” See Pa Yaw, “History of Christian
Mission in Burma” (Unpublished M.Div. Thesis, Myanmar Institute of Theology,
Myanmar, 2004), 25.
