The story of Adoniram Judson, the first overseas missionary from the United States of America and the man who founded the church in Burma, is one of the most challenging in Christian history.
Judson was born in Massachusetts in 1788 to a godly Congregational minister. A gifted child, Judson made an early profession of faith in Christ but, to his father’s dismay, soon rejected Christianity. However, shaken by the sudden death of an atheist friend, Judson returned to his childhood faith.
Expected to follow his father into the ministry, Judson instead felt drawn to preach the gospel overseas and specifically in Asia. At this early stage in its history, America had no history of foreign missions and so Judson decided to apply to a British missionary society. In the first of a lifelong series of difficulties, Judson was captured by the French en route to London and was harshly imprisoned before escaping.
Returning across the Atlantic, Judson raised support for missionary work within America and, with his new bride Ann, sailed for Asia in 1812. Judson’s goal was the largely unknown Burma. Arriving in India, the Judsons encountered new problems; not only were there no boats to Burma but the all-powerful British East India Company was opposed to all missionaries, especially American ones.
After a year’s delay, during which Judson’s missionary ministry seemed likely to end before it began, the couple finally sailed for Burma. Trials and tribulations continued: Ann miscarried on the voyage and in Burma a mountain of difficulties emerged. The government was corrupt, hated foreigners and was prone to subjecting people to torture and execution without warning. The population near the coast was firmly Buddhist and seemed to have no interest in the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Burmese language proved to have a unique script, complex grammar and lacked any dictionary. To make matters worse, coastal Burma was unhealthy and the Judsons were frequently ill.
Despite this, Adoniram and Ann persisted. He worked at understanding the language, translated Bible portions and, developing increasing fluency, preached. Ann acquired spoken Burmese, which allowed her to share the gospel with friends and neighbours. The disappointments continued, with the death of a second child and disease or discouragement meaning that few other missionaries lasted long with them. After twelve years Judson had only eighteen converts.
In 1824 a war between Britain and Burma broke out and an indirect result was that, for twenty months, Judson was brutally imprisoned and threatened with death. In 1826, while Adoniram was evangelising in the remote hinterland, Ann died. This, and the subsequent death of his baby girl, plunged Judson into a year-long depression but, in it, he continued with his translation of the entire Bible. Slowly the Burmese church grew, particularly when the animist Karen people of the interior eagerly welcomed the gospel. Finally, in 1835, after twenty-four years of labour, the Burmese Bible was published.
Judson married again, to Sarah, the widow of a fellow missionary. Over the next ten years they had eight children, five of whom were to survive to adulthood. In 1845, Sarah’s health failed and, seeking medical care, the Judsons decided to sail back to the United States. Sadly, Sarah died at sea. Back in the United States for the first time after three decades on the mission field, Judson found himself a celebrated figure. He toured widely, encouraged support for missions and met and married a third wife, Emily. Together they returned to Burma to continue to work with the infant church.
During the 1840s Judson began to develop lung problems. In 1850, at the age of sixty-one, he set sail to try and improve his health but died in the Bay of Bengal and was buried at sea.
Adoniram Judson’s achievements are almost breath-taking. When he arrived in Burma there were no churches and no Bible but, by the time of his death, he had translated the Bible, half completed a mammoth Burmese-English dictionary and there were a hundred churches with over 8,000 believers.
The current state of Christianity in Myanmar (as Burma is officially termed today)? Although the faith is thriving in some regions, Burmese Christians are frequently persecuted.
Let me highlight three truly challenging things about Adoniram Judson.
First, Judson was an extraordinary pioneer. This was a man in a culture with no tradition of overseas missions, with no support for foreign missionaries and with almost no knowledge about Burma. Yet despite that, Judson and his wife set out to proclaim the gospel. Confident in God, he set out on a path into the utterly unknown.
Second, Judson displayed enduring persistence. The standard biography of Judson is an uncomfortable read with its repeated accounts of sickness, brutal suffering and disappointment. Men, women and children appear on one page, only to be dead or departed on the next. Undeterred, for nearly forty years, Judson followed the path God had called him to.
Finally, Judson was a man of exclusive priorities. As one of the few fluent non-native speakers of Burmese, Judson could easily have been side-tracked into education, business or diplomacy. Yet he knew what the church needed: a Bible, tracts and evangelism in Burmese. And with his single-minded and sacrificial determination that’s exactly what he produced.
In an age of comfort, the life of Adoniram Judson continues to challenge all who claim the name of Christian.
J.John
Reverend Canon
