Rev. Fr.

Eumer Pascual
M. Div.

Very Rev. Eleuterio J. Revollido S.Th.D.

Course Handler
Major paper on Asian Church History

THE PROTESTANT REFORMATIONS IN ASIA: A BLESSING OR A CURSE?

HISTORICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND MISSIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES
Peter C. Phan

Summary
In author’s essay entitled Protestant Reformation in Asia: A blessing or a curse. Peter C.
Phan states here the historiography of the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century. Peter
highlighted the surprising multiplicity of its actors, localities, theologies, and institutional forms
as well as the various reforms undertaken. Scholarly focus is also turned on the lesser-known
Radical Reformers in addition with Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, and John Calvin. These
Radical Reformers as stated by the author had their own different theologies and practices which
opposes to the Magisterial Protestant Reformation and within, and later found expression in
various institutions classified under the umbrella term of “Pietism.”
In current scholarship the geography of the Reformation is seen to have extended beyond
the countries of western and central Europe. The acknowledgement of diversity and multiplicity
of the Protestant Reformation being an imperative of historical scholarship, serves as an essential
vantage point that can evaluate the Reformation’s five-century-old global impact and to shape its
legacy for the future of Christianity. The fact that the Protestant Reformers’ opposing theologies,
methods, and their means to achieve reform agenda which unfortunately led to violence and war
and to still-ongoing divisions among the Christian churches is a serious challenge. So that the
role and impact in Asia Christian missions of the diversity and multiplicity of the Protestant
Reformation and its difference to the Roman Catholic need to be understand as the division of
Christianity continue to exist. To have a clearer answer to the question is Protestant Reformation
in Asia: a blessing or a curse, Peter intend to give some ideas that depends on how Protestant

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missions, past and present, in Asian countries are viewed just to gain a fair and balanced picture
of their missions.
In author’s essay, he gives an idea that the first Protestant Reformers in the fifteenth
century doesn’t have any intention in doing mission outside Europe. Some reason had been
stated that it is because of their need to unite their churches within their own countries, their
belief that the apostles had completed the work of evangelization and that the end of the world
was forthcoming.
Historically, Peter says that in the seventeenth century the first Protestant is not a
missionaries but Dutch trader whose only intention is to trade and not to evangelize. Radical
Reformers who belongs to the Pietist movement has the main part in organizing mission in
seventeenth century. Peitist is the term that refers to Philip Jacob Spener’s follower who lies in
their personal sanctification, interior experience and devotion, and Bible study and prayer,
especially in small groups or conventicles. Germany is where the Pietist movement come from
and the center of Pietism is at University of Halle a place where Pietism inspired activities such
as theological training, orphanages, educational work, Bible societies and care of Christians
outside was organized. Their mission outside the Europe particularly in Asia is one of the most
interested activities done by the Pietist which became the reason of the spreading of
Protestantism. Herrnhut is another center of Pietist missionary, here the belief to witness Christ
to non-Christians rather than establishing new churches in places that are already Christianized is
their main task. Moravian missionaries constituted the first large-scale and officially organized
Protestant missionary movement. Within three decades since its founding, the Moravian Church
sent hundreds of missionaries worldwide, including the Caribbean, North and South America,
Labrador, Greenland, South Africa, and (Central) Asia.
The Great Century of the Protestant mission has been called in nineteenth century but
actually began before 1800 according to Peter. The Society for promoting Christian Knowledge
(SPCK 1698), The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG 1701), The
London Missionary Society (LMS 1785) and The Church Missionary Society (CMS 1799)
carried out wide-spread missionary work in Asia during this what they called Great Century. An
English Baptist named William Carley is known as being the Father of the modern Protestant
missionary movement. He led the leaders of the Northampton Baptist Association to establish in

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1792 a “society for propagating the gospel among the heathen,” the Baptist Missionary Society
(BMS) and engaged in some activities such as translating the Bible, education and social reform.
The Protestant missions were also extended to China in the first half of nineteenth
century. American missionaries to China, work in the medical field. Protestant missionaries
entered other Asian countries.LMS were the first Protestants to enter Siam (Thailand). Followed
by the missionaries of the ABCFM, the Presbyterians (the Presbyterian Board of Foreign
Missions), and the American Baptists. Health care and education is the main focus of their
mission. Protestant missions in Thailand did not convert many, except a few in the northeast
(Chiang Mai). The main reason why they fail is that most Thais being identify as Thai with being
Buddhist. After ABCFM sent two missionaries, in the year 1883 to work among the Bataks in
Sumatra. They were killed tragically by the natives, but their efforts brought about the largest
single Protestant denomination in the islands, the Batak Christian Protestant Church.
As the nineteenth century was drawing to a close, Peter stated that by the help of Queen
Victoria Protestant missions made rapid advance in India. Many are converted to Protestant
Christianity. The rebirth of Protestant mission in China also witnessed in the closing decades of
the nineteenth century. The schools from elementary and high school to university were also
created by the Protestant missionaries. Through the participation of the Japanese in evangelism
and church leadership the Protestant mission in Japan became success in early year.
Protestantism brought also in Korea by their own selves. By the use of medicine and education,
Methodist and Presbyterian became the two main denomination of Protestant in Korea. These
two missionaries had been alienated in Manila and the rest of Luzon.
Beginning twentieth century, World Missionary Conference noticed a historical
beginning for Protestant mission. This conference was prevented on employing its Missionary
science but in spite of its boundaries this conference was used in evaluating Protestant missions
in Asia. There were three issues discussed by the WMC that are of great significance: first, the
indigenization of Christianity; second, interreligious dialogue; and third, the emergence of the
world church.
With regards to indigenization of Christianity, WMC formed a powerful voice pressing
for what is referred to as inculturation. One way to achieve the indigenization of Christianity in
Asia, which was strongly endorsed by the Edinburgh conference, would be implementing a
movement urging that mission churches be self-governing, self-supporting, self-propagating, and

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self-theologizing. These self movements eventually became as an ecclesiological principle or
became useful as a missionary method for Asian Christianity.
Asian bishops and theologians have repeatedly urged that Christian mission in Asia be
carried out in the mode of dialogue: dialogue with the Asian poor (liberation), dialogue with the
Asian cultures (inculturation), and dialogue with the Asian religions (interreligious dialogue).
Concerning inculturation, it is vigorously stressed that it must be carried out in all dimensions of
Christian life, from worship and liturgy to personal prayer, popular devotions, spirituality, ethics,
church organization, and theology. Nothing in the church must be left untouched by this process
of inculturation so that Christianity can truly become of Asia. One distinctive feature of Asia is
that its cultures cannot be separated from its religions and vice versa. This brings the
interreligious dialogue. The Edinburgh conference already took this task into serious
consideration. With regards to the emergence of the world church, the East Asia became the
special sphere of Christian mission and has introduced a radically new perspective on Christian
mission.

During the twentieth century all the countries in Southeast Asia, where Christianity had a
significant presence such as the Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia, underwent violent struggles
for independence from colonial powers, and engaged in the arduous task of nation-building, and
Christian churches were unavoidably implicated in these political and economic processes.
Given the strong anti-colonial sentiments, foreign missionaries, both Catholic and Protestant,
were perceived as agents of Western domination while in Myanmar and Vietnam, they were
expelled. Some native Christians called for a mission moratorium. The situation has changed
significantly for the better in the last decades of the twentieth century. The Protestant Reformers
have been doing extremely well in Southeast Asia in the last century and their number has been
increased tremendously.
In the year 1910 and 2010 the growth of Protestant in Asia was 2.68 percent. Another
important fact is that in 1910 the majority of Christians in Asia were Roman Catholic and
Orthodox and in 2010, it has shifted to the Independent and Marginal churches, especially in
China. The fastest current growth rates are found in East Asia, especially China, and in South-
Central Asia. In 2010 as stated, the Asian countries with the largest numbers of Christians are:
China, Philippines, Indonesia, South Korea, Vietnam, Myanmar, and Japan.

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 Another important fact is that in 1910 the majority of Christians in Asia were Roman
Catholic and Orthodox; in 2010, it has shifted to the Independent and Marginal churches,
especially in China. The fastest current growth rates are found in East Asia, especially China,
and in South-Central Asia. In 2010, the Asian countries with the largest numbers of Christians
are, in descending order: China, the Philippines, Indonesia, South Korea, Vietnam, Myanmar,
and Japan. Even though the statistic information does not tell the whole story it is clear that the
last hundred years the descendants of Reformation mainly Protestant has been grown.
Ecumenically, there has been a movement toward church union for collaboration on
national and international levels. Through liturgical reforms and introduction of new worship
styles it gives people to have rich source of spirituality. Vibrant development of contextualized
theology, especially in dialogue with other religions, in particular Buddhism, Hinduism, and
Islam, and for the liberation of the oppressed (e.g. Dalit theology), has brought new insights to
the understanding and practice of the Christian faith. Churches have engaged extensively in the
traditional fields of healthcare and education, especially for the outcasts and the tribals. Indian
churches have organized missionary societies and an independent evangelical mission-
networking organization that links various conservative-evangelical missionary agencies. This is
the most important things on indigenizing Christianity to the South Asian context. The last
decades of the twentieth century has improved extensively. In 2010, there were 27,184,000
Protestants up from 705,000 from 1910.
Evidently, in the last century, the Protestant Reformations have been doing tremendously
well in Southeast Asia. Thailand was just the country in East Asia that was not converted into
Protestant. Likewise, through health care and education Protestant mission convert more. The
China represents also an extremely compound case of its own. The Protestant mission that
continues with great potency marked the Golden Age of Protestant missions in China. Protestant
missionaries increased again the year 1900 and 1925 from 2,000 to 8,000 at the same time they
began such movement toward building an indigenous church, through the “Three-Self”
movement, that is, self-administration, self-financing, and self-evangelization.
In 1980, an organization in China called the China Christian Council was made for all
Protestant churches that aimed to promote activities for the life of their church like Bible
translation, theological education, worship, and church order. Through the CCC, Protestant
churches join the World Council of Churches. Chinese Protestant did religious services in homes

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of believer without government consent. The house churches give a huge benefit for
Protestantism, highlighting historical and doctrinal connections with former Western
missionaries and conservative Chinese pastors and adopting a literalist interpretation of the
Bible, or charismatic, with emphasis on personal religious experiences and the gifts of the Spirit,
particularly miraculous healing and speaking in tongues. The growth of Chinese Protestantism
continues from rural areas to cities. At the same time, there was a group made up of intellectuals,
university professors, and upper-class elites who have a great sympathy for Christianity as a
system of cultural, moral, and religious principles, which they consider helpful for China’s
cultural and moral reconstruction.
The idea of a “Chinese Church” that is confessionally, ecclesiastically, and institutionally
a single church, was taken up at the National Christian Conference of the China Continuation
Committee of the World Missionary Conference, of which Cheng Jingyi was chairman, in
Shanghai in 1922. It is also where two organizations were created: the National Christian
Council and the Church of Christ in China, wherein the leadership are mostly Chinese. It is also
during the first decades of the twentieth century that an extremely significant phenomenon took
place, namely, the rise of Independent Chinese Christianity, without any foreign leadership
though the founders were influenced by foreign missionaries.
However, when the Communist Party won over the Nationalist Party in 1949, the Golden
Age of Protestant missions in China, were lost. Missionaries were expelled, the church properties
nationalized; and religious leaders forced to undergo reeducation, imprisoned, condemned to
hard labor, or killed. Ironically, the dream of one unified and nondenominational (Protestant)
Chinese Church, long pursued by the National Chinese Council and the Church of Christ in
China, and fiercely resisted by the more conservative groups, was realized in 1954. Eventually,
all religions came under the control of the government Religious Affairs Bureau, now called the
State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA).
Further, Phan stated that the Protestant Reformation in China partly in many ways
exemplifies both the challenges and the opportunities facing the Protestant churches and their
mission in Asia and helps answering the question of whether the Protestant Reformations are a
blessing or a curse for Asia as a whole.
As mention, Protestantism entered Asia except Thailand on the back of Western
colonialism. Wherein several countries, harassment, intimidation, arrest, imprisonment,

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persecution, and even killing of Christians and destruction of church properties are a fact of life
Christians must not return violence for violence, even though pressure must be applied and
measures taken to defend and protect the right to religious freedom, and when absolutely
necessary, must be ready to suffer and even to lose their lives to bear witness to Christ.
Protestant churches must face the extremely complex issue of church-state relations.
Although most if not all Asian countries recognize the right to religious freedom in their
constitutions, the actual practice is fraught with difficulties in many countries such as China,
Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and India and one of the most difficult challenge for Protestant mission
is to indigenize Christianity in all its beliefs and practices. But Catholics have been more willing
to take on this task of enculturation and more successful than Protestants, except in Bible
translation. Another important aspect of enculturation is the adoption of cultural customs and
popular religious practices. In contrast to Catholics, Protestants have tended to look upon them
with suspicion, especially when local customs and practices such as marriage customs, sexual
mores, the veneration of ancestors, and sacrifices to the spirits, seem at first sight contrary to
Christian faith and morality. Regarding evangelization itself, as reported, many Protestant
churches, especially in India, Korea, China, and Japan, have undertaken missions not only
nationally but also internationally, from everywhere to everywhere.
In encountering Asia, the Reformation cannot ignore the fact that Asia, despite the
growing phenomenon of agnosticism, is a religiously plural world, with believers of different
religions living everywhere cheek-by-jowl with one another. Indeed, religious pluralism is
perhaps the greatest challenge facing Christian missions in Asia, especially in the encounter with
Hinduism and Islam. Theologically, it calls for a radical reassessment of the exclusivist theology
of religions that is implied in the thought of the Protestant Reformers, effective in early
Protestant missionaries, and dynamically maintained in many Protestant churches active in Asia
today.
Peter ended that as a human enterprise sustained by God’s grace, it is inescapably that
Reformation theology of simul justus et peccator will have little difficulty to admit. In Asia today
this process of “Christianization” is facing severe challenges without and within. Even it is
highly debatable whether “Christianization,” as intended by the Reformers, is the right term and
goal for Protestant missions in Asia. Protestant missions should go forward and meet all these

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challenges is not an option but an act of obedience to the Lord and a way to consolidate the
legacy of the Reformation.
But what does truly the answer, is the Protestant Reformation a blessing or a curse in
Asia? That’s the question that intended to answer in Peter Phan’s essay. Protestant means, a
member of any several church denominations denying the universal authority of the Pope and
affirming the Reformation principles of justification by faith alone, the priesthood of all
believers, and the primacy of the Bible as the only source of revealed truth. Protestant are also
Christians, but not under the Roman Catholic or Eastern tradition. That’s maybe the reason why
it had been question if it is a blessing or a curse in Asia.
Reflection
As I have read his essay it gives me an idea on how historically the Protestant starts,
missiologically, how they have done their mission in the whole Asian country and theologically,
how God inspires them to do missions in many country. Peter Phan’s essay doesn’t clearly
answer if the Protestantism in Asia is a blessing or a curse. But in my own perspective I can say
that it is a blessing although some statement tells that through their growth and increasing
number, it became the reason of the division between Christian churches and causes violence and
war. Even though at first reformers doesn’t have the idea on doing mission, but in the later part I
saw as stated in this essay what they have done for all the countries in Asia to grow that much
and it can be seen clearly that it was by doing their mission. They’ve done so many activities
such as theological training, orphanages, educational work, Bible societies and care of Christian.
As time flies so fast medical care and educational is what they offers in every Asian countries in
order for them to encourage more converts and even translating the Bible that one of the most
known doings of Protestant continue to perform by them.
On the other hand not all the Asian countries especially Thailand converts many
Protestant as have been mention in this essay. There are times that their mission doesn’t become
successful and for me that are the reality of life. That every time is not all about success but also
the failure that gives an opportunity to do things that makes us achieve what we want. That’s
how I see the relation of Protestantism in some aspect of life and their failure in one of the Asian
country is what struck me the most. The idea of not achieving their goals in a country is what I
just want to look and reflect at first rather than the most obvious part and that is the continues
growth of Protestant in many countries in Asia. The small number of converts in Thailand

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doesn’t totally mean that Protestant failed, instead the number of the main religion of Thailand
which is the Buddhist supersede so that even they perform such things like education and health
care they didn’t convert many. Thus, if you really care for the education and health of the people
you are serving with, it is not necessary for them to be converted first. Though, we know for a
fact that education and health care were just secondary reasons for the missionaries. Conversion
is still the primary reason. Another lesson is that, if there’s only unity among all people of one
nation, it is not impossible for them to prevent colonial power and/or missionaries no matter
what kind of approach they are going to use and no matter how powerful they are. The power of
united people is much stronger than the power of colonizers.
In many years of doing mission, I can also see our church and specifically on my own
doing mission that there such time in some parishes that there are an increasing and decreasing
numbers of the members. I can relate on Peter’s essay on my experience that not all the time
even you are doing your best in the ministry means that you become successful as the way we
expected. Just like the case of the Protestant missionaries in some countries. It is natural that in
doing mission either we grow that fast or fail but rise and stand up again to continue serve the
people. Our church is what I’ve seen as an example of what is Protestant Reformation in Asia. Its
mission is what Christ’s mission and the idea of our church is not to convert but to call out
people in the service. As one of the missionaries of our church I can connect Protestant’s story
on how we also grow and how the number of our beloved members increased and at the same
time decreased. As I’ve been experienced the most important thing is the pastoral ministry where
we need to educate the members and also give them a health care not just physically but
spiritually, psychologically, and emotionally ‘cause that’s how we make not just the number to
grow but also how the members grow in some aspects of life.
Doing mission effectively in connection in the mission of God is the best way to gain
more people who will believe in every church. Leading people by example, doing what we are
preaching, and showing concern to the people even those who are downtrodden, listening to the
cry of the people – spoken or not, these are some way I think are best in doing mission. The
success of Protestant and all the churches in Asia is a blessing even though it causes division I
can call it as a blessing that helps many people to have a great education and receives health care
not just physically but also spiritually. Failing sometimes is not the sole basis of what we will be
in the future.

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 As an adage imparts “Sometimes, we need to be hurt in order to grow, fail in order to
know and lose in order to gain.” We need all of these in order for us to grow, to learn and to
stand again for the fresh beginning. Sometimes failing gives us more reason and opportunities to
do everything and for me Protestant Reformation in Asia is a blessing that will inspire every
church to continue doing mission not just to gain more members but to also help them to be
educated and grew. Just like what others also says that in doing mission there’s always a pain
and suffering that will make us appreciate the outcome of what we are doing. That’s how the
story of the Protestantism in Asia that for me is a nice thing to be studied and get a lesson that
will become useful in doing mission.

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