The
Berlin Missionary Society
(BMS) or
Society for the Advancement of evangelistic Missions amongst the Heathen
(German:
Berliner Missionsgesellschaft
or
Gesellschaft zur Beforderung der evangelischen Missionen unter den Heiden
) was a
German
Protestant
(
Lutheran
)
Christian
missionary
society that was constituted on 29 February 1824 by a group of pious laymen from the
Prussian nobility
.
[1]
[2]
It was a successor organisation, in
Berlin
, to the missionary training efforts of Pastor
Johannes Jaenicke
[
de
]
(of the
Bohemian
-
Lutheran
congregation in Berlin) which had prepared missionaries since 1800 for work with other missionary societies including the
London Missionary Society
.
[3]
The BMS began the training of its first missionaries in 1829, with assistance from missionary societies in
Pomerania
and
East Prussia
.
An important director was
Hermann Theodor Wangemann
, who directed the Society from 1865 until his death in 1894. He first traveled to South Africa shortly after becoming director and went a second time in 1884. He wrote a system of regulations addressing fundamental questions of missionary work, the 1881
Missionsordnung der Gesellschaft zur Beforderung der Evangelischen Missionen unter den Heiden zu Berlin
.
[4]
The Society supported work in
South Africa
,
China
and
East Africa
.
South Africa
[
edit
]
The Berlin Missionary Society was one of four German Protestant mission societies active in South Africa before 1914. It emerged from the German tradition of Pietism after 1815 and sent its first missionaries to South Africa in 1834.
[3]
There were few positive reports in the early years, but it was especially active 1859?1914. It was especially strong in the
Boer Republics
.
World War I
cut off contact with Germany, but the missions continued at a reduced pace. After 1945 the missionaries had to deal with the
decolonisation of Africa
and especially with the
apartheid
government. At all times the BMS emphasized spiritual inwardness, and puritanical values such as morality, hard work and self-discipline. It proved unable to speak and act decisively against injustice and racial discrimination and was disbanded in 1972.
[5]
Free State and Northern Cape
[
edit
]
The BMS sent its first missionaries to South Africa in 1833. Missionaries with ties to Berlin had been working there with the
London Missionary Society
and
Rhenish Missionary Society
, making South Africa an obvious choice, with the initial objective being to set up a mission to the
Tswana
. Upon arriving in the southern
Free State
, and on advice from the London Mission Society's
G.A. Kolbe
at
Philippolis
, it was decided instead to establish a mission amongst the
Korana
at a spot on the
Riet River
, which they named
Bethanien
, in September 1834.
[1]
[2]
[6]
From Bethanien missionaries founded a station at
Pniel
on the
Vaal River
in 1845, which would be at the centre of South Africa's diamond discoveries in 1869?70.
Eastern Cape and Natal
[
edit
]
Further missionaries arrived in 1836?7, with
Jacob Ludwig Dohne
setting up BMS stations Bethel and Itemba amongst the
Xhosa
in a part of the
Eastern Cape
then known as
Kaffraria
. Other stations followed but on-going frontier conflict was a constraint. During the Frontier War of 1846 to 1847, these stations were abandoned and the missionaries sought safety in the neighbouring British colony of
Natal
.
[2]
Missionaries
Karl Wilhelm Posselt
and
Wilhelm Guldenpfennig
founded the first BMS station in Natal which they named
Emmaus
, with further stations being established in the years that followed, including the Christianenberg and
Hermannsburg
Missions.
South African Republic/Transvaal
[
edit
]
Missionaries
Alexander Merensky
and
Heinrich Grutzner
started work in the north eastern part of the
South African Republic
in 1860, their first station being at
Gerlachshoop
. There were unsuccessful early attempts to evangelise the
Swazi
and in
Sekhukhuneland
. Merensky sought refuge amongst his Christian converts in the
Middelburg
district and founded the station at
Botshabelo
(“city of refuge”) in 1865 ? which soon became the most important station of the Berlin Society in South Africa. Here were established a school, seminary, workshops, mill and printing press; and from here BMS influence spread throughout the
Transvaal
. In 1880 BMS missionary
Johannes Winter
established a mission station at Thaba Mosego, the vanquished capital of the
Pedi
king,
Sekhukhune
, who had been defeated the year before by an army of British,
Boer
and
Swazi
soldiers. In 1889 a prominent native evangelist, Martinus Sewushane, and around 500 of his followers decided to secede from the Berlin Missionary Society and form the Lutheran Bapedi Church (LBC), asking Winter to join them.
[7]
By 1900 there were more than thirty six stations and nearly 30,000 converts in the region. The Berlin missionaries in South Africa, particularly
Alexander Merensky
,
Knothe
,
Trumpelmann
,
Schwellnus
and
Eiselen
, contributed to the study of
African languages
, producing Bible translations and hymnals.
It was at
Botshabelo
that the missionary
R.F Gustav Trumpelmann
, with the invaluable assistance of his erstwhile student,
Abraham Serote
, translated the Bible into
Sepedi (Northern Sotho)
. The publication in 1904 by the British and Foreign Bible Society of this combined effort was the first complete Bible in an indigenous language. Their work was interrupted by the
Anglo Boer War
, during which BMS missionary
Daniel Heese
was murdered by members of the
Bushveldt Carbineers
, an irregular regiment of the
British Army
.
Both World Wars, when access to funding became severely limited, caused even greater disruption. Moreover, after
World War II
the Society's Berlin headquarters fell within the
Soviet Zone
of
Occupied Germany
. In 1961 the BMS established a branch in
West Berlin
, which remained in contact with its only remaining missionary field, namely in South Africa, for the next 28 years. However, from 1962 it began granting independence to its mission churches which, in time, became amalgamated with other Lutheran mission churches in the region and formed the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa
.
Nationalhelferen
[
edit
]
The BMS focused on providing schooling and bringing the gospel to people in their own language. Hence the Society's missionaries were often at the forefront of publishing Bible translations, dictionaries and grammars in indigenous languages. It was as part of this process that Africans, duly trained and sometimes salaried, were accepted into the Society as teachers, catechists and lay-preachers, the so-called
Nationalhelferen
or national helpers.
[8]
The
Tswana
Catechist
Richard Miles
was an early example of an indigenous person fulfilling this role at the Mission Station at
Bethanie
in the Southern Free State. Miles traveled to the interior with the missionary party in 1835.
[9]
Niklaas Koen, a “
Khoikhoi
”, was sent by the BMS to Germany in 1875 to further his education at a high school at
Ducherow
in
Pomerania
and afterwards to study for the ministry at the Berlin
Missionshaus
, where he adopted a German version of his name,
Klaus Kuhn
. Kuhn qualified as a missionary (he also took lessons as a violinist) and, after becoming engaged to a German woman, Maria Brose, returned to Africa to the mission station Konigsberg in Natal ? where he married his bride in 1878.
[8]
Another gifted African student who had started out with violin lessons and was to follow in Kuhn's footsteps to Ducherow and then the theological seminary in Berlin was one Jan Sekoto. Apparently not adapting well to the Pomeranian climate, however, he returned early to the BMS station at
Botshabelo
as a teacher. Sekoto's son
Gerard Sekoto
, born at
Botshabelo
in 1913, would later emigrate to Europe, obtaining French citizenship and achieving considerable renown as an artist.
[8]
China
[
edit
]
The BMS also sent workers to
China
in 1869 during the late
Qing Dynasty
, but it was not before 1882 that the Society officially declared
Canton
as its mission field, inheriting a station of the
Rhenish Mission
. A second missionary field in China arose after
Germany
declared
Shandong
to be within their sphere of political and colonial influence in 1896.
[1]
Later the BMS in China merged with the German East Asia Mission (
German
: Deutsche Ostasienmission), which in 1972 was integrated into the still existing
Berlin Missionary Endowment
(
German
: Berliner Missionswerk). The latter keeps well established ties with the
Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea
(est. 1953) and the
Presbyterian Church in Taiwan
and co-operates with the
United Church of Christ in Japan
and the
Church of Christ in China
.
[10]
See also
[
edit
]
East Africa
[
edit
]
The
Bethel Mission
had established a missionary presence in
Tanganyika
,
German East Africa
, inviting the BMS in 1903 to take over a number of its stations. These missions declined after
World War I
(when Germany lost all its colonies and German missionaries in such areas were deemed undesirable) and their work was impossible after
World War II
.
[1]
Berlin
[
edit
]
The Berlin Missionary Society is still active today as an integral part of the
Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia (EKBO)
.
[1]
External links
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
The Berlin Missionary Society
- ^
a
b
c
Van der Merwe, Werner
The Berlin Missionary Society
- ^
a
b
Shantz, Douglas H. (6 March 2013).
An Introduction to German Pietism: Protestant Renewal at the Dawn of Modern Europe
. JHU Press. p. 189.
ISBN
9781421408804
.
- ^
H. Lehmann:
150 Jahre Berliner Mission
. Erlangen (1974), pp. 62-87.
ISBN
3-87214-057-4
- ^
Gunther Pakendorf, "A Brief History of the Berlin Mission Society in South Africa,"
History Compass
(2011) 9#2 pp 106-118
- ^
Schoeman, K. 1985.
Die Huis van die Armes: die Berlynse Sendinggenootskap in die OFS, 1834-1869
. Cape Town: Human & Rousseau
- ^
Zollner, Linda (1984).
The Berlin Missionaries in South Africa and their Descendants
. Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council, Institute for Historial Research. p. 466.
{{
cite book
}}
: CS1 maint: date and year (
link
)
- ^
a
b
c
Heese, Hans Friedrich
The Berlin Mission Society and Black Europeans: The cases of Klaus Kuhn, Jan Sekoto and Gerard Sekoto
Archived
2011-07-19 at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
Richard Miles: Motswana preacher "to the native tribes beyond the border
,
- ^
American Presbyterian Mission (1867). Memorials of Protestant Missionaries to the Chinese. Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press. pp v-vi
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