Today on the Calendar of Saints, we find Roland Allen (1868-1947, an Anglican priest and missionary to China and Africa. who worked to establish local, self-generating churches instead of ones supported by colonial missions. He was the author of the influential book Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours?
Allen believed that indigenous peoples should be given control of their own churches- including control of finances – and responsibility for supporting their own churches. In a 1902 report he wrote:
The continued presence of a foreigner seems to me to produce an evil effect. The native genius is cramped by his presence and cannot work with him. The Christians tend to sit still and let him do everything for them, denying all responsibility …. I should feel disposed to group all foreigners together in one place to avoid having them reside in more places than can be helped. A visit of two or three months stirs up the Church. Long continued residence stifles it.
He also proposed that local churches raise up their own spiritual leaders and present them to the bishop for ordination. Their devotion and commitment to the Christian Gospel and the support of their friends and neighbors should be the primary qualification for ordination. Allen wanted most clergy to earn their incomes from secular work, the tentmaker model St. Paul followed in the New Testament. In Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours?, published in 1913, and in other works, he was a tireless promoter for the autonomous self-funded, self-directed, locally-led church.
The Episcopal Church’s General Convention of 2009 added this commemoration to our calendar. A prayer for remembrance of Roland Allen is found in the Daily Prayer section of our website.