The Church Mission Society (CMS), formerly known as the Church Missionary Society,[1] is a British Anglicanmission society working with Christians around the world. Founded in 1799,[2][3] CMS has attracted over nine thousand men and women to serve as mission partners during its 200-year history. The society has also given its name "CMS" to a number of daughter organisations around the world, including Australia and New Zealand, which have now become independent.
The first missionaries went out in 1804. They came from the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Württemberg and had trained at the Berlin Seminary. The name Church Missionary Society began to be used and in 1812 the society was renamed The Church Missionary Society.[4]
In 1829, the CMS began to send medical personnel as missionaries. Initially to care for the mission staff, these missionaries could also care for the physical well-being of local populations. Dr. Henry Graham was the first CMS Medical missionary when he was sent to Sierra Leone and shifted the focus from care of the mission staff to assistance for local people.[10][11]
Missions
In 1802 Josiah Pratt was appointed secretary, a position he held until 1824, becoming an early driving force in the CMS. The principal missions, the founding missionaries, and the dates of the establishment of the missions are:[12]
West Indies (1813): The CMS started work in Antigua and expanded to other islands. By 1838 the CMS had congregations of 8,000, with 13 ordained missionaries, 23 lay teachers and 70 schools. In about 1848 a shortage of funds resulted in the CMS withdrawing from the West Indies.[13]
New Zealand (1814): Samuel Marsden[15] became the chaplain of the penal colony at Parramatta, Australia in 1774.[16] Samuel Marsden attempted to establish a mission in New Zealand in 1809, however it was not until 1814 that the CMS mission in New Zealand was established when Marsden officiated at its first service on Christmas Day in 1814, at Oihi Bay in the Bay of Islands.[16]
Middle East (1815): William Jowett was appointed to commence the Mediterranean Mission, however the mission was only intermittently able to establish missions in Ottoman Turkey in 1819–21 as the result of resistance to the Christian faith by the Turkish authorities;[13] an attempt in 1862 to open a mission station in Constantinople also failed.[18]
Sri Lanka (Ceylon) (1817): Four CMS missionaries were sent to Ceylon in 1817 and in the following 5 years mission stations were established at Kandy, Baddegama, Kotte (Cotta) and Jaffna. In 1850 a mission station was established at Colombo.[13][19]
Egypt (1825) and Ethiopia (1827): Five missionaries were sent to Egypt in 1825. The CMS concentrated the Mediterranean Mission on the Coptic Church and in 1830 to its daughter Ethiopian Church, which included the creation of a translation of the Bible in Amharic at the instigation of William Jowett, as well as the posting of two missionaries to Ethiopia (Abyssinia), Samuel Gobat (later the Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem)[26] and Christian Kugler arrived in that country in 1827.[13][27] Charles Isenberg (1806–64) joined the Abyssinian mission in 1835, followed by Johann Ludwig Krapf (1810–81) in 1837.[28] The missionaries were expelled from Abyssinia in 1844.[18] The Egyptian Mission was abandoned by the CMS in 1862.[13] The Egyptian Mission was revived in 1882 by Frederick Augustus Klein.[18]Francis John Harpur established CMS hospitals and clinics around Egypt in 1889 including a hospital in Old Cairo and the Harpur Memorial Hospital in Menouf(1910).
Australia (1825): William Watson and Johann Simon Christian Handt arrived to establish the Wellington Valley Mission near to Wellington, New South Wales. However, because of drought and the lack of success of the mission, the CMS withdrew. In 1892 CMS Associations were set up in New South Wales and Victoria.[13] In 1916 the Church Missionary Association of Australia was formed, which was later renamed the Church Missionary Society of Australia. By 1927 the CMS Australia was active in the Northern Territory, Australia, including in communities along the Roper River in the Katherine region.[29]
South Africa (1837): Captain Allen Francis Gardiner R.N. obtained the permission of Dingaan, a Zulu chief, to establish a CMS mission. Francis Owen arriving in August 1837, followed by W. Hewetson and a surgeon, R. Philips. However, following an armed conflict between the Zulus and the newly arrived Voortrekkers (Boers), the CMS abandoned the mission.[13]
East Africa (1844): Johann Ludwig Krapf was in Abyssinia, however when the missionaries were forced out he moved to Mombasa. CMS missionaries, such as Krapf and Johannes Rebmann, explored East and Central Africa, with Rebmann being the first European to reach Mount Kilimanjaro (1848) and Krapf was the first to reach Mount Kenya (1849).[14] The East Africa Mission was revived in 1874 and extended to inland, Uganda (1877) and Tanganyika (1878).[13][12][14]
Ruanda-Urundi (1916–1919): The Ruanda Mission stations were later established in Ruanda-Urundi as medical missions by Drs. Algernon Stanley Smith and Leonard Sharp. This later became the independent Mid-Africa Ministry but was reincorporated into CMS in 1999. The Ruanda mission was divided into missions for Rwanda (1919) and Burundi (1934) with 1962 independence of each country.[13][32]
Palestine (1851): Frederick Augustus Klein arrived in Nazareth in 1851 where he lived for 5–6 years, then he moved to Jerusalem until 1877. In 1855 John Zeller was sent to Nablus. In 1857, he moved to Nazareth, where he stayed for the next 20 years, then he moved to Jerusalem.[13][18]Edith Eleanor Newton began a mission in 1887 and served as the Sister Head of the Medical Mission Hospital. In 1892, she became owner and operator of the Jaffa Mission Hospital. Bishop Samuel Gobat established a school in 1847, later called the Bishop Gobat School and led by Hanna Dimishky. The school in 1962 consolidated and became the Anglican International School Jerusalem.[35] The original school campus is now the location of Jerusalem University College.[36]
Mauritius (1854): Bishop Vincent W Ryan was appointed the bishop of Mauritius in 1854 and the same year David Fenn established a mission station.[37]
Madagascar (1863): Two CMS missionaries operated a mission station from 1863 until their deaths in 1864.[40]
Tanzania (1864): The Universities' Mission to Central Africa and the Church Missionary Society began work in 1864 and 1878 at Mpwapwa. The Province was inaugurated in 1970 following the division of the Province of East Africa into the Province of Kenya and the Province of Tanzania.[41]
Japan (1868): George Ensor established a mission station at Nagasaki and in 1874 he was replaced by H Burnside. The same year the mission was expanded to include C. F. Warren at Osaka, Philip Fyson at Yokohama, J. Piper at Tokyo (Yedo), H. Evington at Niigata and W. Dening at Hokkaido.[42][43][44][45] H. Maundrell joined the Japan mission in 1875 and served at Nagasaki.[46]John Batchelor was a missionary to the Ainu people of Hokkaido from 1877 to 1941. Hannah Riddell arrived in Kumamoto, Kyūshū in 1891. She worked to establish the Kaishun Hospital (known in English as the Kumamoto Hospital of the Resurrection of Hope) for the treatment of Leprosy, with the hospital opening on 12 November 1895. Hannah Riddell left the CMS in 1900 to run the hospital.
Iran (Persia) (1869): Henry Martyn visited Persia in 1811, however the Persian Mission was not established until 1869 when Robert Bruce established a mission station at Julfa in Ispahan.[47][48] The mission in Persia expanded to include Kerman, Yezd (1893) and Shiraz (1900).[13] After Bishop Edward Stuart resigned as the Bishop of Waiapu in New Zealand, he then served as a missionary in Julfa from 1894 to 1911.[49]Donald William Carr was a prominent medical missionary in the Julfa and Shiraz areas, establishing Isa Bin Maryam Hospital[fa] and Shiraz Christian Missionary Hospital in 1894 and 1924, respectively.[50]
Iraq (1883): the CMS started work in Baghdad in 1883 and expanded to Mosul in 1901.[13]
Up to 1886 the Society had entered 103 women, unmarried or widows, on its list, and the Annual Report for 1886–87 showed twenty-two then on its staff, the majority being widows or daughters of missionaries.[51] From the beginning of the organisation until 1894 the total number of CMS missionaries amounted to 1,335 (men) and 317 (women). During this period the indigenous clergy ordained by the branch missions totalled 496 and about 5,000 lay teachers had been trained by the branch missions.[12] In 1894 the active members of the CMS totalled: 344 ordained missionaries, 304 indigenous clergy (ordained by the branch missions) and 93 lay members of the CMS. As of 1894, in addition to the missionary work, the CMS operated about 2,016 schools, with about 84,725 students.[12]
In the first 25 years of the CMS nearly half the missionaries were Germans trained in Berlin and later from the Basel Seminary.[12] The Church Missionary Society College, Islington opened in 1825 and trained about 600 missionaries; about 300 joined the CMS from universities and about 300 came from other sources.[12] 30 CMS missionaries were appointed to the episcopate, serving as bishops.[12]
The CMS published The Church Missionary Gleaner, from April 1841 to September 1857.[52] From 1813 to 1855 the society published The Missionary Register, "containing an abstract of the principal missionary and bible societies throughout the world". From 1816, "containing the principal transactions of the various institutions for propagating the gospel with the proceedings at large of the Church Missionary Society".[53]
Training
During the late 19th and early 20th century, the CMS maintained a training program for women at Kennaway Hall at the former "Willows" estate where the training program started.[54] Kennaway Hall was the Church Missionary Society training center for female missionaries.[55] The training center was called "The Willows", under the Mildmay Trustees, until having been bought by the Church Missionary Society in 1891.[56][57]Elizabeth Mary Wells took over the presidency in 1918 of Kennaway Hall.[58]
20th century
During the early 20th century, the society's theology moved in a more liberal direction under the leadership of Eugene Stock.[59] There was considerable debate over the possible introduction of a doctrinal test for missionaries, which advocates claimed would restore the society's original evangelical theology. In 1922, the society split, with the liberal evangelicals remaining in control of CMS headquarters, whilst conservative evangelicals established the Bible Churchmen's Missionary Society (BCMS, now Crosslinks).
In 1995 the name was changed to the Church Mission Society.
At the end of the 20th century there was a significant swing back to the Evangelical position, probably in part due to a review in 1999 at the anniversary and also due to the re-integration of Mid Africa Ministry (formerly the Ruanda Mission). The position of CMS is now that of an ecumenical Evangelical society.
21st century
In 2004 CMS was instrumental in bringing together a number of Anglican and, later, some Protestant mission agencies to form Faith2Share, an international network of mission agencies.
In June 2007, CMS in Britain moved the administrative office out of London for the first time. It is now based in east Oxford.
In 2008, CMS was acknowledged as a mission community by the Advisory Council on the Relations of Bishops and Religious Communities of the Church of England. It currently has approximately 2,800 members who commit to seven promises, aspiring to live a lifestyle shaped by mission.
In 2010 Church Mission Society launched the Pioneer Mission Leadership Training programme, providing leadership training for both lay people and those preparing for ordination as pioneer ministers. It is accredited by Durham University as part of the Church of England's Common Awards. In 2015 there were 70 students on the course, studying at certificate, diploma and MA level.
In October 2012, Philip Mounstephen became the Executive Leader of the Church Mission Society.[60]
On 31 January 2016 Church Mission Society had 151 mission partners in 30 countries and 62 local partners in 26 countries (this programme supports local mission leaders in Asia, Africa and South America in "pioneer settings"[61]) serving in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. In addition, 127 mission associates (affiliated to Church Mission Society but not employed or financially supported through CMS) and 16 short-termers. In 2015–16, Church Mission Society had a budget of £6.8 million, drawn primarily from donations by individuals and parishes, supplemented by historic investments.[61]
The Church Mission Society Archive is housed at the University of Birmingham Special Collections.
In Australia, the society operates on two levels: firstly, at a national/federal level as 'CMS Australia', training and supporting various missionaries; and secondly, at a state level with 6 Branches, recruiting missionaries and liaising with supporters and support churches.[62]
↑ Gobat, Samuel (2001). Journal of a Three Years' Residence in Abyssinia, in Furtherance of the Objects of the Church Missionary Society. Adamant Media Corporation (Elibron Classics) facsimile reprint of a 1834 edition by Hatchard & Son; Seeley & Sons, London. ISBN1421253496.
↑ Donald Crummey, Priests and Politicians, 1972, Oxford University Press (reprinted Hollywood: Tsehai, 2007), pp. 12, 29f. For an account of the society's Amharic translation, see Edward Ullendorff, Ethiopia and the Bible (Oxford: University Press for the British Academy, 1968), pp. 62–67 and the sources cited there.
↑ Charles William Isenberg; Johann Ludwig Krapf; James MacQueen (2011). Journals of the Rev. Messrs Isenberg and Krapf, Missionaries of the Church Missionary Society (Detailing their Proceedings in the Kingdom of Shoa, and Journeys in Other Parts of Abyssinia, in the Years 1839, 1840, 1841, and 1842). Cambridge University Press. ISBN9781108034173.
↑ Stock 1923. The more liberal CMS position may be compared with the attitude expressed in the preface to its 1904 English–Kikuyu Vocabulary, whose author, CMS member A. W. McGregor, complained of the difficulty in obtaining information about Kikuyu from "very unwilling and unintelligent natives" (McGregor 1904, p.iii).
Hewitt, Gordon, The Problems of Success, A History of the Church Missionary Society 1910–1942, Vol I (1971) In Tropical Africa. The Middle East. At HomeISBN0-334-00252-4; Vol II (1977)Asia Overseas PartnersISBN0-334-01313-5
Murray, Jocelyn (1985). Proclaim the Good News. A Short History of the Church Missionary Society. London: Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN0-340-34501-2..
Stock, Eugene (1899–1916). The History of the Church Missionary Society: Its Environment, Its Men, and Its Work. Vol.1–4. London: CMS..
Stock, Eugene (1923). The Recent Controversy in the C.M.S. (Reprinted from the Church Missionary Reviewed.). London: CMS..
Ward, Kevin, and Brian Stanley, eds. The Church Mission Society and World Christianity, 1799-1999 (Eerdmans, 2000). excerpt
Missionary Register; containing an abstract of the principal missionary and bible societies throughout the world. From 1816, containing the principal transactions of the various institutions for propagating the gospel with the proceedings at large of the Church Missionary Society. They were published from 1813 to 1855 by L. B. Seeley & Sons, London
Samuel Gobat was a Swiss Calvinist who became an Anglican missionary in Africa and was the Protestant Bishop of Jerusalem from 1846 until his death.
Te Waimate Mission was the fourth mission station established in New Zealand and the first settlement inland from the Bay of Islands. The members of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) appointed to establish Te (the) Waimate Mission at Waimate North were the Rev. William Yate and lay members Richard Davis, George Clarke and James Hamlin.
Octavius Hadfield was Archdeacon of Kāpiti, Bishop of Wellington from 1870 to 1893 and Primate of New Zealand from 1890 to 1893. He was a member of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) for thirty years. He was recognised as an authority on Māori customs and language. His views on Māori rights, expressed in several books strongly criticised the actions of the New Zealand Government. Hadfield married Catherine (Kate) Williams a daughter of the Rev. Henry Williams and Marianne Williams.
Protestants in Japan constitute a religious minority of about 0.45% of total population or 600,000 people in 2020.
The Diocese of Iran is one of the four dioceses of the Anglican Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East. The diocese was established in 1912 as the Diocese of Persia and was incorporated into the Jerusalem Archbishopric in 1957. The most recent bishop was Azad Marshall, until 2016. His title is Bishop in Iran, rather than the often expected Bishop of Iran.
John Zeller (1830–1902), also known by his German name Johannes Zeller, was a 19th-century Protestant missionary in Ottoman Israel. Zeller's four decades left a lasting impact in the areas of Protestant Christianity, scholarship, and education.
Frederick Augustus Klein (1827–1903), or F. A. Klein as he is called in much of the literature, was a Church Missionary Society (CMS) missionary in the Middle East. He is remembered for his 1868 discovery of the Moabite Stone, which dates from about 840 B.C. It gives qualified confirmation of some events mentioned in the biblical Book of Kings.
The New Zealand Church Missionary Society (NZCMS) is a mission society working within the Anglican Communion and Protestant, Evangelical Anglicanism. The parent organisation was founded in England in 1799. The Church Missionary Society (CMS) sent missionaries to settle in New Zealand. The Rev. Samuel Marsden, the Society's Agent and the Senior Chaplain to the New South Wales government, officiated at its first service on Christmas Day in 1814, at Oihi Bay in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand.
James Settee, was of Swampy Cree descent. He was given the name James Settee when he was baptized in 1827. He was the second Native American ordained an Anglican priest; following Henry Budd. He married Sarah (Sally) Cook in 1835. He was ordained an Anglican priest and spent his career ministering to First Nations people of Canada. He was fluent in English, Cree and Ojibwe.
The Church Missionary Society in the Middle East and North Africa, operated through branch organisations, such as the Mediterranean Mission, with the mission extending to Palestine, Iran (Persia), Iraq, Egypt, Ethiopia (Abyssinia) and the Sudan. The missions were financed by the CMS with the local organisation of a mission usually being under the oversight of the Bishop of the Anglican diocese in which the CMS mission operated. The CMS made an important contribution to the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East.
The Church Missionary Society in India was a branch organisation established by the Church Missionary Society (CMS), which was founded in Britain in 1799 under the name the Society for Missions to Africa and the East, as a mission society working with the Anglican Communion, other Protestants, and Orthodox Christians around the world. In 1812, the British organization was renamed the Church Missionary Society.
The Church Missionary Society in China was a branch organisation established by the Church Missionary Society (CMS), which was founded in Britain in 1799 under the name the Society for Missions to Africa and the East; as a mission society working with the Anglican Communion, Protestant, and Orthodox Christians around the world. In 1812, the organization was renamed the Church Missionary Society. The missions were financed by the CMS with the local organisation of a mission usually being under the oversight of the Bishop of the Anglican diocese in which the CMS mission operated.
John Edward Church, commonly referred to as Joe Church, was a British missionary who served with Church Mission Society (CMS). Dr. Church served primarily in Rwanda and Uganda. He left England in 1927 and served as a missionary for 44 years, alternating between medical and evangelistic missions. He is widely known for playing a key role in the East African Revival. Additionally he served as a doctor in Rwanda for over a decade and constructed hospitals and a church. He has been recognized for his work by governments in East Africa and Europe.
Benjamin Yate Ashwell was an Anglican missionary and a member of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) mission in New Zealand in the 19th century. He was missionary to the Māori in the western Waikato region. In 1839 he was sent to Kaitotehe, near Mount Taupiri, where he established the Kaitotehe Mission, with branch missions at Te Awamutu and Otawhao in the valley of the Waipā River.
Emmeline Stuart (1866–1946) was the first female doctor with an official medical degree to join the Church Missionary Society's Persia Mission. Working primarily in Julfa, Isfahan, and Shiraz, she is known primarily for spearheading the development and day-to-day operations of a prominent women's hospital and regional dispensary. She was among the first wave of women physicians and also of single women who undertook this rigorous, and sometimes dangerous, work, and her reports and correspondence are important primary sources for scholars of the era.
Gaskoin Richard Morden Wright was an English surgeon and missionary who founded the St Luke's Hospital of Nablus while he served with the Church Mission Society (CMS). St. Lukes Hospital remains the only charitable hospital in Nablus, Palestine as of 2022. Wright attended Surrey County School and St. Bartholomew's Teaching Hospital. He also published on the use of turpentine in gallstone disease. He was registered as a surgeon and physician in 1883. In 1890 he was accepted by the CMS working initially in Uganda. In October 1893, Wright went to Palestine, where he had his largest impact. Wright died in 1923 in Metheringham, Lincolnshire, England.
Leopold George Hill was an English medical missionary who worked as a member of the Church Mission Society (CMS) treating leprosy patients in Pakhoi, China. Hill was motivated to join missionary work by his religious upbringing and intended to treat his patients to not only recover physically but also gain a sense of religious purpose. He worked alongside his wife, Emma Amelia Hill, as well as with other fellow missionaries to continue the work of Dr. Edward Horder's establishment of the Pakhoi leper colony. After retiring from missionary service, Hill continued his contributions to CMS through administrative work as a Physician to the Society.
Elizabeth Mary Wells (1863–1918), also known as Elizabeth Hooper, was a Roman Catholic British physician and medical missionary. She worked for the Church Missionary Society in Equatorial East Africa, especially in Kahuhia and Jilore. In Kahuhia, she was instrumental in the long-lasting success of the hospital and served as the President at Kennaway Hall, leading the only training center for female missionaries at the time as well as leading two branch dispensaries. While in Jilore and Kahuhia, she dealt with a variety of medical conditions, primarily rheumatic gout, dysentery, and pneumonia.
Frederick Oakley Lasbrey was an English physician associated with the Church Mission Society (CMS). He worked as medical superintendent at the CMS's Old Cairo Mission Hospital and was superintendent and secretary of the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society. He published on hook worm disease or bilharzia. His death was recognized in the British Medical Journal in 1968.
Harold Gilbee Anderson (1896–1977) was an English medical missionary who worked in western China. Anderson served as Medical Superintendent to the Church Missionary Society (CMS) from 1948-1959. Anderson based his mission around Evangelism, claiming that the goal of medical missions is to help men to find their "wholeness" in life.
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