The 18th-century missionary David Brainerd was a man who had a brief life but an astonishing influence.
Brainerd was born in 1718 to a prosperous local administrator in a New England still influenced by the Puritans. Orphaned early and lacking any relationship with God, Brainerd decided to enter the newly created Yale College. In 1739, after an intense spiritual search, he underwent a conversion to Christ.
Intending to be a minister in the Presbyterian Church Brainerd found his plans frustrated. First, his studies were delayed by the tuberculosis that was ultimately to kill him, and then he was frustrated by a bitter theological debate. In the 1730s and 40s the rather formal world of New England Christianity was shaken by the ‘First Great Awakening’; a great episode of revival where preaching was greeted by outbreaks of weeping, crying aloud and physical convulsions. Church leaders were divided over whether these were genuine ‘works of God’ and if they should be encouraged or prohibited. Many of the leaders at Yale College disapproved of this ‘enthusiasm’ and were criticised by Brainerd, who supported the revivals. His words were overheard and he was expelled from Yale which, because church ministers had to have degrees, hindered his future. Brainerd became an itinerant preacher but was soon asked if he might consider taking the gospel to the Native Americans. He accepted and in 1743 began work as a missionary amongst ‘the Indians’, a people whose lives and culture had been devastated by the European settlers who had taken their lands and brought them fatal diseases.
Brainerd began preaching to the Native Americans, sticking to concepts his audiences could identify and using a translator. He brought an extraordinary and prayerful passion to his preaching, writing in his diary: ‘I care not where I go, or how I live, or what I endure so that I may save souls. When I sleep I dream of them; when I awake they are first in my thoughts – no amount of scholastic attainment, of able and profound exposition, of brilliant and stirring eloquence can atone for the absence of a deep impassioned sympathetic love for human souls.’
Brainerd’s preaching soon began to have remarkable effects with spontaneous, enthusiastic and emotional responses. He wrote: ‘They soon came in, one after another; with tears in their eyes, to know, what they should do to be saved. . . It was an amazing season of power among them, and seemed as if God had bowed the heavens and come down.’ In part, Brainerd’s impact was because of his transparent love for his hearers but there was clearly, too, an extraordinary working of the Spirit. Brainerd, who applied the highest standards to both himself and his hearers, was delighted that the converts soon demonstrated through transformed behaviour that their conversion was not merely emotional.
Brainerd’s zeal for mission meant he ignored his own welfare. With worsening tuberculosis and weakened by a shortage of food, Brainerd’s health failed and he had to leave the mission field. He eventually found himself at the house of Jonathan Edwards, New England’s most distinguished theologian and preacher, where he was nursed through the last phases of tuberculosis by Edwards’ family. There, in 1747, at the age of 29, Brainerd died.
In his life, David Brainerd achieved very little of obvious consequence and his ministry was so overlooked. However, what he achieved after his death was a very different matter. Jonathan Edwards soon wrote The Life and Diary of David Brainerd based on his friendship with the missionary and access to his diaries, and it sold in extraordinary numbers. On the other side of the Atlantic, John Wesley wrote another Life of Brainerd from a different theological perspective. The result was that, as the global missionary movement gathered pace, Brainerd became its inspirational figure; almost its ‘patron saint’. Many missionary heroes – for example William Carey, Henry Martyn, Adoniram Judson and, in the 20th century, Jim Elliot – were deeply inspired by Brainerd’s life and ministry.
Brainerd’s diary is considered a spiritual classic and continues to lead many into a deeper prayer life and greater evangelistic commitment.
Let me suggest four things about David Brainerd that make him a hero.
First, Brainerd knew the spiritual character of evangelism. One of the perils of our age is to treat evangelism or mission work as projects requiring nothing more than putting the right people in the right place with the right product. Brainerd, with his passion and prayerful focus on God, reminds us that evangelism is a spiritual activity.
Second, Brainerd knew the supreme calling of evangelism. He was always aware of the awesome truth that only God’s grace in Christ can save men and women from an appalling eternal destiny. For Brainerd, evangelism was no optional add-on to the Christian life but an urgent, essential priority of our existence.
Third, Brainerd knew the sacrificial cost of evangelism. He realised the lesson, clear in the New Testament, that sharing the gospel requires an unconditional commitment. Brainerd, who rejected several invitations to pastor comfortable churches, chose to pay that price.
Finally, Brainerd knew the need for the Spirit’s control of evangelism. Aware not just of the difficulties of preaching through translation to a very different culture but his own frailty, he simply threw himself on God and sought his power to preach. And God answered him.
For over two and a half centuries the church has found the life of David Brainerd to be both a reassuring encouragement and an uncomfortable challenge. I suspect it always will.
J.John
Reverend Canon
