20th century

From Missiopedia

Overview: History - Epochs - Turnings - Centuries BC - Centuries AD - Future Millenniums: 1st millennium - 2nd millennium - 3rd millennium Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century Decades: 1900s - 1910s - 1920s - 1930s - 1940s - 1950s - 1960s - 1970s - 1980s - 1990s

What should be included on this page: Any notable events (given below, of global significance); the creation/dissolution of any global or multiregional entity (e.g. one of the International Organizations or a major multiregional network); major conferences or councils; any new work in a country which has not had work in either this century or the last; any notable act of persecution with global repercussions; notable books or resources with global or multiregional impact. Additional detail may be entered on the decadal pages.

[edit] Of Note

• Notable conflicts: World War I, World War II, Vietnam War, Korean War, Gulf War I, Gulf War II, War on Terror
• Notable controveries:
• Notable empires:
• Notable peoples:
• Notable individuals:
• Notable missionary movements: Student Volunteer Movement, AD 2000 & Beyond Movement
• Notable Christian traditions: Pentecostal
• Notable Christians:

[edit] Events

• 1900 - American Friends open work in Cuba
• 1900 - Ecumenical Missionary Conference in Carnegie Hall, New York (162 mission boards represented); 189 missionaries and their children killed in Boxer Rebellion in China
• 1900 - South African Andrew Murray writes The Key to the Missionary Problem in which he challenges the church to hold weeks of prayer for the world
• 1901 - Nazarene John Diaz goes to Cape Verde Islands; Maude Cary sails for Morocco; Disciples of Christ open work in northern Luzon (Philippines);
• 1901 - Oriental Missionary Society founded by Charles Cowman (his wife is the compiler of popular devotional book Streams in the Desert)
• 1901 - Missionary James Chalmers killed and eaten by cannibals in Papua New Guinea
• 1902 - Swiss members of the Plymouth Brethren Christian Missions in Many Lands (CMML) enter Laos
• 1902 - California Yearly Meeting of Friends opens work in Guatemala
• 1903 - Church of the Nazarene enters Mexico
• 1904 - Premillennialist theologian William Eugene Blackstone begins teaching that the world has already been evangelized, citing Acts 2:5, 8:4, Mark 16:20 and Colossians 1:23
• 1905 - Gunnerius Tollefsen is converted at a Salvation Army meeting under the preaching of Samuel Logan Brengle. Later he would become a missionary to the Belgian Congo and then first mission secretary of the Norwegian Pentecostal movement.
• 1905 - Hudson Taylor dies in Changsha, China June 3.
• 1906 - The Evangelical Alliance Mission (TEAM) opens work in Venezuela with T. J. Bach and John Christiansen
• 1907 - The outbreak of the Pyongyang Great Revival, Korea on 14 January ; Harmon Schmelzenbach sails for Africa; Presbyterians and Methodists open Union Theological Seminary in Manila, Philippines; Bolivian Indian Mission founded by George Allen
• 1908 - Gospel Missionary Union opens work in Colombia with Charles Chapman and John Funk; Assemblies of God enter Rome and southern Italy
• 1909 - Pentecostal movement organized in Chile; Nazarenes enter Argentina
• 1910 - World Missionary Conference Edinburgh 1910 held in Scotland, presided over by John Mott, beginning modern ecumenical cooperation in missions, gave birth to the International Missionary Council.
• 1911 - Christian & Missionary Alliance enters Vietnam
• 1911 - Italy occupies Tripoli and Libya after a successful war.
• 1912 - Conference of British Missionary Societies formed
• 1913 - C.T. Studd establishes Heart of Africa Mission (now called WEC International); African-American Eliza George sails from New York for Liberia; William Whiting Borden dies in Egypt while preparing to take the gospel to the Muslims in China
• 1914 - Large-scale revival movement in Uganda
• 1914 - By roughly 1914, whole of Africa ceases to be independent with the exception of Ethiopia, which repelled the Italian forces.
• 1915 - Founded in 1913 in Nanjing, China as a women's Christian college, Ginling College officially opens with eight students and six teachers. It was supported by four missions: the Northern Baptists, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the Methodists, and the Presbyterians.
• 1916 - Rhenish missionaries are forced to leave Ondjiva in southern Angola under pressure from the Portuguese authorities and Chief Mandume of the Kwanyama. By then, four congregations existed with a confessing membership of 800.
• 1917 - Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association (IFMA) founded
• 1918 - James L. Barton, head of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, asked missionaries who had served in the Ottoman Empire for detailed reports of the horrors they had witnessed of the Armenian Genocide
• 1919 - The Union Version of Chinese Bible translation is published; Nazarenes enter South Africa
• 1920 - Baptist Mid-Missions formed;Church of the Nazarene enters Syria
• 1921 - Founding of International Missionary Council (IMC); Norwegian Mission Council formed
• 1922 - Nazarenes enter Mozambique
• 1923 - Scottish missionaries begin work in British Togoland
• 1924 - Bible Churchman's Missionary Society opens work in Upper Burma; Baptist Mid-Missions begins work in Venezuela
• 1925 - E. Stanley Jones, Methodist missionary to India, writes The Christ of the Indian Road
• 1926 - Dawson Trotman, founder of the Navigators, is converted through Bible verses he had memorized
• 1927 - Near East Christian Council established
• 1928 - Cuba Bible Institute (West Indies Mission) opens; Jerusalem Conference of IMC
• 1929 - Christian & Missionary Alliance enters East Borneo (Indonesia)
• 1930 - Christian & Missionary Alliance starts work among Baouli tribe in the Côte d'Ivoire
• 1931 - HCJB radio station started in Quito, Ecuador by Clarence Jones; Baptist Mid-Missions enters Liberia
• 1932 - Assemblies of God open mission work in Colombia; Laymen's Missionary Inquiry report published
• 1933 - Gladys Aylward (subject of movie "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness") arrives in China
• 1933 - All but a few Uyghur Christians were martyred in 1933 however, by Muslim persecutors "doing their duty."
• 1934 - William Cameron Townsend begins the Summer Institute of Linguistics
• 1935 - Frank C. Laubach, American missionary to the Philippines, perfects the "Each one teach one" literacy program, which has been used worldwide to teach 60 million people to read.
• 1936 - With the outbreak of civil war in Spain, missionaries are forced to leave that country.
• 1937 - After expulsion of missionaries from Ethiopia by Italian invaders, widespread revival erupts among Protestant (SIM) churches in south
• 1938 - West Indies Mission enters Dominican Republic; Church Missionary Society forced out of Egypt; Madras World Missionary Conference held; Dr. Orpha Speicher oversees construction of Reynolds Memorial Hospital in central India
• 1939 - A sick missionary, Joy Ridderhof, makes a recording of gospel songs and a message and sends it into the mountains of Honduras. It is the beginning of Gospel Recordings
• 1940 - Marianna Slocum begins translation work in Mexico; Military police in Japan arrest the executive officers of the Salvation Army
• 1941 - The steamship Zamzam, sailing from New York with 140 missionaries bound for various mission fields in Africa, is sunk by the Germans. All the missionary passengers would be saved.
• 1942 - William Cameron Townsend founds Wycliffe Bible Translators; New Tribes mission founded with a vision to reach the tribal peoples of Bolivia
• 1943 - World Gospel Mission (National Holiness Missionary Society) enters Honduras; 5 missionaries with New Tribes Mission martyred; Nazarenes enter Virgin Islands; 11 American Baptist missionaries beheaded in the Philippines by Japanese soldiers
• 1944 - Missionaries return to Suki, Papua New Guinea after withdrawal of the Japanese military
• 1945 - Mission Aviation Fellowship formed; Far East Broadcasting Company (FEBC) founded; Evangelical Foreign Missions Association formed by denominational mission boards; Nazarenes enter Australia, Bolivia, Guyana and the Philippines
• 1946 - First Inter-Varsity missionary convention (now called "Urbana"); United Bible Societies formed; Albania: A People's Republic is proclaimed. During the next four decades the country was ruled by a dictatorship by Enver Hoxha in almost complete isolation.
• 1947 - Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society begins work among the Senufo people in the Côte d'Ivoire
• 1948 - Alfredo del Rosso merges his Italian Holiness Mission with the Church of the Nazarene, thus opening Nazarene work on the European continent; Don Owens opens work for the Church of the Nazarene in Korea; Southern Baptist Convention adopts program calling for the tripling of the number of missionaries (achieved by 1964)
• 1949 - Southern Baptist Mission board opens work in Venezuela

[edit] 1950 to 1999

• 1950 - Paul Orjala arrives in Haiti; radio station 4VEH, owned by East and West Indies Bible Mission, starts broadcasting from near Cap Haitien, Haiti
• 1951 - World Evangelical Alliance organized; Bill and Vonette Bright create Campus Crusade for Christ at UCLA
• 1952 - Church of the Nazarene enters New Zealand; Trans World Radio founded
• 1953 - Walter Trobisch, who would publish I loved a girl in 1962, begins pioneer missionary work in northern Cameroon; Nazarenes enter Panama ; The last of the members of the China Inland Mission complete their "reluctant exodus out of China and re-deploy in East Asia.
• 1954 - Mennonite Board of Missions and Charities opens work in Cuba; Argentina Revival breaks out during Tommy Hicks crusade
• 1955 - Donald McGavran publishes Bridges of God; Dutch missionary "Brother Andrew" makes first of many Bible smuggling trips into Communist Eastern Europe; Sydney and Wanda Knox go to Papua New Guinea as Nazarene missionaries
• 1956 - U.S. missionaries Jim Elliot, Peter Fleming, Edward McCully, Nate Saint, and Roger Youderian die at the hands of the Huaorani on the Curaray River in Ecuador ; Assemblies of God open work in Senegal
• 1957 - Nazarenes enter Malawi, In 1957 George Verwer with his friends gave up their summer holiday to distribute Gospels and other Christian literature in Mexico, this was the beginning of Operation Mobilization.
• 1958 - Rochunga Pudaite completes translation of Bible into Hmar language (India) and was appointed the leader of the Indo-Burma Pioneer Mission; Nazarenes enter Brazil and Germany. Officially the movement of Operation Mobilization was registered in New Jersey under the name Send the Light. Send the Light is still the literature arm of Operation Mobilization.
• 1959 - Radio Lumiere founded in Haiti by West Indies Mission (now World Team); Josephine Makil becomes the first African-American to join Wycliffe Bible Translators.
• 1960 - Kenneth Strachan starts Evangelism-in-Depth in Central America; 18,000 people in Morocco reply to newspaper ad by Gospel Missionary Union offering free correspondence course on Christianity; Loren Cunningham founds Youth with a MissionThe Asia Evangelistic Fellowship (AEF) one of the largest Asian indigenous missionary organisations was launched by Dr G. D. James in Singapore www.aefi.org.au]
• 1961 - Nazarenes enter Zambia
• 1962 - Don Richardson goes to Sawi tribe in Papua New Guinea; Operation Mobilisation founded in Mexico by George Verwer
• 1963 - Theological Education by Extension movement launched in Guatemala by Ralph Winter and James Emery
• 1964 - In separate incidents, rebels in the Congo kill missionaries Paul Carlson and Irene Ferrel as well as brutalizing missionary doctor Helen Roseveare; Carlson is featured on December 4 TIME magazine cover; Hans von Staden of the Dorothea Mission proposes to Patrick Johnstone that he write the book now titled Operation World.
• 1965 - Evangelist Juliet Ndzimandze is ordained in Swaziland, the first woman in Africa to be ordained by the Church of the Nazarene
• 1966 - Red Guards destroy churches in China; Berlin Congress on Evangelism; Missionaries expelled from Burma; God's Smuggler published; Albania: The Orthodox Church counts 608 churches and 250,000 members.
• 1967 - A million Christians are killed in Biafra civil war; Church of the Nazarene enters the Netherlands; Religion is outlawed in Albania, All churches and religious groups are outlawed and clergy are killed or imprisoned, all places of worship are closed or destroyed. Orthodox Archbishop Damianos of Tirana is sent to prison where he died in 1973, small Protestant presence almost extinguished following the banning of all religious activity.
• 1968 - Wu Yung and others form the Chinese Missions Overseas in order to send out missionaries from Taiwan to do cross-cultural ministry
• 1969 - OMF International begins "industrial evangelism" to Taiwan's factory workers
• 1970 - Frankfurt Declaration on Mission; Operation Mobilisation launches Logos ship
• 1971 - Gustavo Gutierrez publishes A Theology of Liberation
• 1972 - American Society of Missiology founded with journal Missiology; Nazarenes enter Ecuador and St. Lucia
• 1973 - Church of the Nazarene enters Argentina, Indonesia, Namibia, and Portugal; first All-Asa Mission Consultation convenes in Seoul, Korea with 25 delegates from 14 countries; founding of American Society of Missiology; The Institute for Bible Translation (IBT) is a non-profit organization founded in 1973 in Sweden.
• 1974 - Missiologist Ralph Winter talks about "hidden" or unreached peoples at Lausanne Congress of World Evangelism. Lausanne Covenant is written and ratified; Guatemala Las Verapaces becomes first "regular" Nazarene district on a mission field
• 1975 - Missionaries Armand Doll and Hugh Friberg imprisoned in Mozambique after communist takeover of government
• 1976 - U.S. Center for World Mission founded in Pasadena, California; 1600 Chinese assemble in Hong Kong for the Chinese Congress on World Evangelization; Islamic World Congress calls for withdrawal of Christian missionaries; Peace Child appears in Reader's Digest.
• 1977 - Evangelical Fellowship of India sponsors the All-India Congress on Mission and Evangelization
• 1978 - Nazarenes enter Switzerland; LCWE Consultation on Gospel and Culture in Willowbank, Bermuda
• 1979 - Production of JESUS film commissioned by Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for Christ; PIONEERS is founded, the first missionary agency with a sole focus on the "unreached people groups" paradigm
• 1980 - Philippine Congress on Discipling a Whole Nation; Lausanne Congress on World Evangelism Conference (Lausanne Covenant) in Pattaya
• 1981 - Colombian terrorists kidnap and kill Wycliffe Bible Translator Chet Bitterman; Project Pearl: one million Bibles are delivered in a single night to thousands of waiting believers in China
• 1982 - Third World Theologians Consultation in Seoul; story on "The New Missionary" makes December 27 cover of TIME magazine; Andes Evangelical Mission (formerly Bolivian Indian Mission) merges into SIM (formerly Sudan Interior Mission)
• 1983 - Nazarenes start work on St. Kitts-Nevis
• 1984 - Founding of The Mission Society for United Methodists, a voluntary missionary sending agency within the United Methodist Church; rebranded in 2006 to The Mission Society; Founding of STEM (Short Term Evangelical Mission teams) ministry by Roger Petersen signals the rising importance of Short-term missions groups
• 1985 - Nazarenes start work in Cyprus
• 1986 - Entire Bible published in Haitian Creole language; Nazarenes enter Egypt and Guadeloupe; The Chernobyl catastrophe in 1986 occurred in the Ukraine, but affected Belorussia most severely. Twenty-five percent of the land area is uninhabitable. Radiation-related health problems still occur at 80 times the global average.
• 1987 - Second International Conference on Missionary Kids (MKs) held in Quito, Ecuador
• 1988 - Wycliffe Bible Translators complete their 300th New Testament translation (Cotabato Manobo language of the Philippines); Nazarenes start work in French Guiana, Senegal, and Uganda
• 1989 - Adventures In Missions (AIM) Short-term missions agency founded by Seth Barnes; Lausanne II (Lausanne Covenant), a world missions conference; concept of 10/40 Window emerges; "Ee-Taow" video released by New Tribes Mission; Nazarenes enter Thailand
• 1990 - Church of the Nazarene enters Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Liberia, Rwanda and Tanzania
• 1991 - The Marxist government of Ethiopia is overthrown and missionaries are able to return to that country; Regions Beyond Missionary Union is dissolved; Albanian government lifts ban on religion, following lifting of ban on religion, Evangelical missionaries arrive. Open evangelisation and distribution of New Testaments.
• 1992 - Nazarenes start work in Angola, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Romania, Russia, Solomon Islands and Ukraine
• 1993 - Church of the Nazarene enters Albania, Eritrea, Lesotho, Madagascar; Albania: Over 200 foreign missionaries serve an estimated 50 churches, Albanian Evangelical Alliance founded.
• 1994 - Liibaan Ibraahim Hassan, a convert to Christianity in Somalia, is martyred by Islamic militants in the capital city of Mogadishu; Church of the Nazarene enters Bulgaria and St. Martin
• 1995 - Nazarene missionary Don Cox abducted in Quito, Ecuador; Church of the Nazarene starts work in Fiji and Palau
• 1996 - Nazarenes enter Hungary, Kazakhstan, Pakistan
• 1997 - Foreign Mission Board and Home Mission Board of Southern Baptist Convention become the International Mission Board and North American Mission Board with ten thousand missionaries; Albania: Civil crisis leads to evacuation of many foreign nationals, including missionaries.
• 1998 - Nazarenes enter Benin, Nepal and Togo; Albania: The Evangelical communty counts around 3,000 members in 160 churches of all denominations, including Baptist, Brethren, Lutheran.
• 1999 - Trans World Radio goes on the air from Grigoriopol (Moldova) using a 1-million-watt AM transmitter.
• 1999 - Veteran Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons are martyrs, burned alive by Hindu extremists while sleeping in a car in eastern India.
• 1999 - Christian Vegetarian Association, non-denominational ministry to vegetarians, founded