The three-self formula and PRCA foreign missions (2)
This article examines the historical application of the three-self formula (self-governing, self-supporting, self-propagating churches) in Protestant Reformed foreign missions, specifically focusing on the Reformed Church in America's mission work in India beginning in the 1820s. Smit argues that Reformed missionaries demonstrated conscious foresight in applying these principles long before they were formally articulated by missiologists in the late 1800s, ultimately achieving their goal of establishing independent Reformed churches in India by 1947.
We look now at a selective overview of the history of the embrace and use of the three-self formula in Reformed foreign missions. The first example is the mission work of the Reformed Church in America (RCA) in its Arcot mission field in India, which began in the 1820s.1 This date is significant because it pre-dates the influence of Venn, Anderson, Nevius, and Allen in Protestant foreign missions in the late 1800s and early 1900s, which indicates that some sense of the three-self formula...
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