100 MILLION WITHOUT THE BIBLE

Those of us who have a Bible for every room of our houses and in several translations may have difficulty realizing that100 million people in this world are without even a sampling of the scriptures. And that is a conservative figure, for some estimates go as high as nearly 200 million. There are millions more who have but one book of the New Testament or a portion thereof.

This problem is compounded by the fact that many of these people, tucked away in such places as South America, Africa, and India, do not even have an alphabet with which translators can work in giving them the scriptures. No one knows just how many languages there are in the world, with and without alphabets, but estimates run from 4,000 to 5,000. Of these about 1,500 now have the scriptures at least in part.

And this represents a great deal of dedicated work on the part of missionary translators who have lived with tribal groups for years in order to learn languages that have never been in written form. It takes from two to five years to render a single book of the scriptures into one of these languages, and for the entire New Testament a team of scholars must labor for upwards of 15 years. Most of us are vaguely aware that the Wycliffe translators have been busy in this area, but we probably do not know that they are presently the largest missionary organization in the world, supporting hundreds of translators in the remote corners of the earth. And they can properly lay claim to being non-sectarian, for they are not a church and their work is the translation of the Bible.

But the work of giving the Bible to every man in his own tongue continually lags behind, for as one language is conquered for the Lord another one is discovered. There are now upwards of 3,000 languages, some of them spoken by but a handful of people, that do not have God’s word even in part. In this era of technology this should stand as one of the greatest challenges of an enlightened and affluent church.

When we gather in a home prayer circle or a Sunday School where as many as eight or ten translations are represented, we should be reminded that there is still much of the world that is not so blessed. There are more than 400 languages in Latin America alone, many of which have never been written down. We may think of Mexico as Spanish speaking, but there are 150 other languages in that country. And who would believe that there are 500 to 700 different tribal tongues in New Guinea alone? And over 300 in Indonesia and other islands of the South Pacific. India has innumerable languages, and so far over 100 have been found that are unwritten. Siberia may be known to us as a cold concentration camp for recalcitrant Russians, but it is also the home of scores of tribes that have no written language, including the word of God.

These facts are disturbing enough, but it really becomes uncomfortable to learn that 96% of the funds of all churches go to support the gospel for the 9% who speak English, while only 4% is used to take the gospel to the other 91% of the world’s population. And these masses are not only deprived of the Bible, but they are without education and culture.

I am informed of all this by a new task force that has been formed for the purpose of getting on with the job of translation. It is called F.A.S.T., standing for Final Advance of Scripture Translation, with headquarters right here in Denton, Texas (Address:1740 Westminster Dr. in case you would like to contact them). This group does not itself send out missionaries or do any translating. It is rather a catalyst, motivating more cOI1cern and action among Bible believers and urging more support and cooperative efforts for those already engaged in this work. There is a sense of urgency to their work, and it should encourage all of us to know that there are people so dedicated to a task completely nonsectarian in nature. After all, what is better than handing a person the scriptures in his own vernacular? Some of us seem to think that it is better to send our own brand of missionary along with the Bible to make sure he understands it the way we do!

F.A.S.T. presumes to believe that God loves the jungle tribesman without even an alphabet as much as he loves the affluent American with a stack of Bible translations. They also believe that God expects those who have eternal light to share with those who walk in darkness. This looks like reckless abandon in view of the lackadaisical attitude of the modern church.

But we can rejoice that so much has already been done and continues to be done. The Summer Institute of Linguistics, which has a school in Dallas, has already trained more than 12,000 people in linguistics, preparatory for translating any language on earth. A few of our people of Restoration background have been in this program.

It is unlikely that Churches of Christ are yet ready to make any appreciable contribution to this crying need. We have long been conscious of missions and we now have hundreds of families so engaged, but we have been short of those resources that every missionary must have, save money itself, and so we have had to draw heavily upon other organizations, especially for language preparation. And even here the best that can be expected of us to cooperate in a noncooperative way. Many of our missionaries, however, once in the field experience a kind of “conversion” and discover that the kingdom of God stretches beyond our own group and that some of God’s most dedicated servants are found casting out demons in a name other than ours.

But our folk are rapidly moving from sect to denominational status, and with this comes a more realistic view of the Christian world. Once we had no seminaries per se, albeit we had our clerical order nonetheless. But now we have at least two, even if called by other names. A missionary society has now begun to emerge, and this out of necessity, for what else can a denomination do that has a far flung missionary program that suffers from a great deal of lost motion and duplication of effort? We will not of course call it a missionary society for the simple reason that we don’t like to admit having been wrong, or it may be that people who want to get things done learn that a rose smells just as sweet when you call it by another name.

In any event the ingredients for a missionary society are now at work. John Scott, a professor at Harding Graduate School of Religion and an elder for the White Station Church of Christ in Memphis, wrote recently in Action that his church wants to do something about the fact that there is now “no practical methods available for putting churches in touch with potential missionaries.” So the White Station church would like to set up a program that will do much of the leg work that missionary societies do, perhaps in cooperation with the Mission Center at Abilene Christian College. Dr. Scott chooses to call this an “information service,” and he makes it clear that they do not desire to dictate mission policy or serve as a screening agency. Such functions will of course come in time and in all good faith, for the “information service” will determine what candidates and churches get together. It would not likely, for instance, forward to a sponsoring church a dossier on a person known to be a nonconformist. Besides, missionary agencies, just like clerical training institutions, have to develop over many years.

The Freetown Church of Christ in Dallas has come up with a similar idea and a good name to go with it, the World Mission Information Bank. This will be “a real comprehensive information center from which to draw material” for missionary efforts. Another important step toward a responsible centralized missionary effort, naming it what you will.

We can be hopeful that these developments indicate a growing concern for such problems as scripture translation, and that we will one day be in a position to cooperate with such agencies as the Wycliffe translators, the American Bible Society, and F.A.S.T. This may call for us being truly nonsectarian, a lesson we are slow in learning (for example, in the material sent out by the Freetown Road congregation the statistics are indeed dismal, for in a mythical community of 1,000 people only one is a Christian, meaning of course a Church of Christ kind of Christian!), but one that we will eventually learn, more or less, as any maturing religious body learns, more or less.

In the meantime our people can do what we have long shown an uncanny ability to do: generate a great deal of concern and action on an individual basis, leaving the institutional church tagging along behind. Many of us will want to help these agencies that are dedicated to making the scriptures available in every language known to man. What a glorious task! And more of our youth might well choose to work through such organizations.

A young brother from our ranks visited in my home recently who has now finished his work with the Summer Institute of Linguistics. He will soon be taking his new wife to the Philippines where they will together move among tribal people, learning their dialect, and finally reducing one more language to writing in the form of God’s word.

And there will be more. And we can hope. And pray. And give. And be concerned. —the Editor