Mexican Missiology I: A Historical Glimpse 2/22/10

Missiology: the study of the church's mission to spread the kingdom of God.  At the risk that many reading this would consider it yawn material, a short report on what I've learned concerning Mexican Missiology would be very relevant for me as a potential future missionary to Mexico and may be beneficial to anyone interested in God's work in other places.  My observations are probably naive and incomplete for the time being but I might as well do it now that I have a reliable source at my disposal:  my dad, Samuel P. Hornbrook who grew up in Mexico as a missionary kid and has now spent almost 20 years of his career as a missionary to Mexico.  Don't let any of this technical jargon scare you away; this post should be fascinating and brief and full of pictures!

Mexico.  America's next door neighbor.  A heavily diverse landscape that includes cactus deserts, tropical rain forests, alpine mountains, undeveloped wildernesses, and concrete metropolises.  Rich indigenous culture and colorfully corrupt in its modern government.  And although the country is rampant with fatal misunderstandings of the Bible, it has been mysteriously overlooked when it comes to missionary work.

The Spanish conquistadors came supposedly in the name of missionary work for the Roman Catholic church in the 1500's.  To this day, ninety percent of the population claims to be Roman Catholic.  It wasn't until the late 1800's and early 1900's when Mormon and Southern Baptist missionaries began to trickle into Mexico.  However, independent Baptist missionaries didn't reach Mexico until my grandparents' generation.  In fact, the first generation of independent Baptist missionaries are mostly still alive today and many of them are still on the mission field including my dad's parents.  My dad says that Mexico's evangelical ministry is surprisingly undeveloped.  He's been to other Latin countries such as Peru, Dominican Republic, and Venezuela and says that in those countries (especially Peru) the church seems more developed.

The northern parts of Mexico have become significantly affected by the Good News and even have a Baptist college in Monterey.  I guess those areas are close enough for theologically sound churches from the States to take countless missions trips there and make an impact.  That being said, the rest of Mexico is fairly well evangelized in comparison to beast known as Mexico City.  My dad says that the early missionaries didn't even want to learn Spanish in Mexico City even though the best language schools are there. Missionaries didn't want to live in the belly of the beast until the 1980's when Otis and Beulah Pinkston moved there to plant a church.  In Beulah's autobiographical book In Spite of Ourselves she describes how they had at first resolved to never minister to Mexico City for several reasons including the daunting size and traffic and pollution and crime.  However, they were eventually convinced to brave the metropolis and planted Iglesia Bautista Maranata where my parents served for several years and where I grew up.  It has been difficult for me to find any info or history on missions to Mexico City which leads me to think that the Pinkstons were some of the first evangelical missionaries to Mexico City after the conquistadors.

Perhaps Mexico isn't far away enough to be considered by the great missionaries who left great impacts in Asia and Africa.  Perhaps Mexico City seems like too big of a mountain to move.  Whatever the case, God's hand seems to be changing the mission's landscape in Mexico as we speak.  My parent's generation of missionaries seem to be more interested because my parents have bumped into a bunch of them and even worked with many of them as a team.  However, my parent's generation of missionaries also seems plagued with many leaving the mission field permanently and dividing national pastors and crumbling churches abandoned by the missionaries.  I hope to write on those second generational problems in my next missiological post.