The Kingdom of Character: The Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions (1886-1926).

Parker, Mike

By Michael Parker. Lanham, Maryland: American Society of Missiology and University Press of America, 1998. Pp. 250. $57.00; paperback $32.50.

In the summer of 1886, one hundred college men at a Bible conference pledged themselves to foreign missionary service. The "Mount Herman 100" became the nucleus of the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions (SVM), which by 1906 had produced about one-third of the European and American Protestant missionaries then serving. Led by missionary giants John Mott, Robert Speer, Robert Wilder, and Sherwood Eddy, the SVM dominated young people's organizations for missions until the 1920s when it began to decline in influence.

The Student Volunteer Movement ranks with the Haile pietists and Loyola's early Jesuits as one of the great student missionary movements in history. Scholars and general missions enthusiasts will therefore welcome two recent books on the SVM by Michael Parker and Nathan Showalter. Both books began as doctoral dissertations and are published in scholarly series: Showalter's in the ATLA Monograph Series, and Parker's in the new ASM dissertation series. Parker's is the broader of the two because it gives the general history of the movement from its founding until the beginning of the decline. Showalter's monograph treats in depth the impact of World War I on the SVM. The books offer compatible interpretations of the movement, as they both perceive a change from belief in the importance of individual conversion and leadership to the promotion of social Christianity by student volunteers after World War I. Parker situates the changes in the context of a general decline in Victorian values, in particular the notion of "character," that began in the 1910s. Showalter paints a darker picture of the impact of war, attributing the splintering of the movement to student cynicism and disillusionment. He also portrays the leadership of the SVM as out-of-touch and ineffectual proponents of a naive American optimism. Of the two studies, Parker's is friendlier to the movement itself, perhaps because he also examines the earlier period before changing global realities undercut its effectiveness.

Parker uses the notion of "character" as an organizing concept for the SVM, illustrating how it promoted middle-class virtues, manliness, and a balance between piety and practical efficiency. His thematic coverage is thorough and insightful, with balanced attention paid to the spiritual grounding of the movement, women and minorities, the ephemeral records (including applications and pamphlets), and analysis of the SVM quadrennial conventions. A few weaknesses mar this otherwise well-written and argued dissertation, e.g., spelling errors (Haile not Hale, Vadstena not Valstena, Kyoto not Kyto). Most scholars would disagree with Parker's interpretation that holiness piety was male-dominated and subordinated women (p. 36). He assumes that the SVM should have had little appeal for women since there was already a women's missionary movement (p. 50). In fact, the women's missionary movement both fed the SVM (look at Wilder's and Mott's mothers and sisters, for example) and provided opportunities for female volunteers to serve in all-women mission societies. After all, the SVM did not send its own missionaries; rather, it organized missionary interest and then connected volunteers to pre-existing missionary societies. Also, mission leader and future president of the American Baptist Convention Helen B. Montgomery was not a "one-time missionary to India" (p. 57).

Showalter's study relies on a close reading of SVM conference records and articles in student and missions periodicals. He judges the "crusading" aspect of the SVM and finds it wanting - judged both by the war and by the inability of the movement to provide an organizational basis for its later focus on global peace and justice. The most interesting aspect of Showalter's book is its depiction of how the different SVM leaders dealt with the changes of the 1920s, ranging from Eddy's attempt to integrate the social with the personal gospel, to Wilder's quiet support of the more conservative Inter-Varsity Fellowship. The book is repetitive and interprets the SVM's breakdown narrowly as a combination of internal failures plus World War I. But Showalter deals more thoroughly with the ecumenical, theological and social agendas of the 1920s than does Parker.

These two fine books add a lot to our understanding of the SVM. Parker's book might be fruitfully used in the classroom, while Showalter's will appeal to the specialist.

Dana L. Robert, a contributing editor, is Professor of International Mission at the Boston University School of Theology.