Since the earliest days, the church has worked to fulfil the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations. The work of mission continued throughout the centuries. The Eastern Orthodox church centred at Constantinople missionised its neighbours over many centuries, including Goths, Arabs, Persians, Bulgars, Slavs, Mongols and Lithuanians. The western Catholic church was even more prolific, converting the Franks, Irish, Angles and Saxons, continental Germanic peoples, Norsemen, Slavs and eventually the peoples of the Baltic. The last pagans in Europe were the Lithuanians who converted in 1386. Even during the 1300s when the Western Catholic church was in disarray, there were bold missions in Central Asia, to the Mongols and Chinese, and across the Mediterranean to Muslim places in North Africa. The missionary work of the Church of the East and the West Syrian Jacobites (Monophysites) was likewise huge, although many gains waned by the 1300s.
Nevertheless, the Age of Discovery which began in the 1400s with Portugal and Spain, and arguably earlier in the case of what would become Russia, heralded a new phase in the history of Christian mission. As European countries travelled and traded and colonised, there was a simultaneous movement of mission to bring the Christian gospel to Siberia, Africa, the Americas, India, the Far East and the Pacific. Pioneers included Russian Orthodox missionary Stephen of Perm (1300s) and Roman Catholic missionary Francis Xavier (1500s). From the 1600s onwards, the missionary work of the Roman Catholic church was coordinated by an organisation headquartered in Rome called "the Propaganda". The various monastic orders, such as the Jesuits and Dominicans had large numbers of missionaries. By the late 1700s, conflicts between rival monastic orders and also forces which led to the French Revolution led to a temporary demise of Roman Catholic missions (this would recover during the 1800s).
Protestant missionary interest had begun on a small scale in the 1500s with the Lapps (Lutherans) and a failed plan to colonise Brazil (Reformed). However, it was the Dutch colonies in what is now Malaysia and Indonesia that arguably marked the start of Protestant missionary work in the early 1600s. Around 1610, Englishman John Eliot reached out to the American Indians with the gospel. The German Pietists began their work in Danish colonies in India and also in Zanzibar. In each case, there was some limited success but also huge challenges.
When a second phase of Evangelical Revival brought life to the Particular Baptist churches in the late 1700s, William Carey wrote The Enquiry, researching the state of the Great Commission in his day and chronicling the work already been done. His efforts led to the creation of a raft of missionary societies which ventured out to India, the Americas and the Pacific. Mission from the newly formed United States was pioneered by people such as Adoniram Judson in Burma. There were also Protestant missionary societies based in Germany, Switzerland and France. Church historian La Tourette describes the long nineteenth century (1789-1914) as the "Great Century". Work was underway in many places. China reopened for the gospel in the 1840s. Japan reopened slightly later in 1868. Subsaharan Africa was initially known as a "graveyard for missionaries" but during the latter half of the 1800s was increasingly reached for the gospel.
During this time, Roman Catholic missions resumed, for example in places such as Indochina (Vietnam) and also China and Subsaharan Africa. While most of the Orthodox world remained under Muslim domination, the Russian church was very active in missions - reaching areas colonised as far east as the Pacific and Alaska, and also the Empire of Japan (Nikolai of Japan).
In 1910, a landmark conference was held in Edinburgh to consolidate gains made and looking towards completion of the Great Commission.
It was some of these newly won lands which have become the heartlands of Christianity worldwide: the Americas, the Caribbean, parts of South East Asia and the Pacific.
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