Paul Woods
Paul Woods has previously worked with doctoral students at the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies and master’s students at Singapore Bible College. Before that, he served as OMF’s language and culture consultant in Singapore and for the Mekong Field based in Chiang Mai. He now has a new role as outward-facing Theological Educator at Large within OMF (UK).
Mission Round Table 20:2 (May-Aug 2025): 4-13
To read articles in this edition, visit this post on Mission Round Table 20:2.
Introduction
In the first five centuries of the Christian era, the Syriac Church of the East covered the largest geographical area of any of the various branches of the church. This church, often known as the Nestorians,[1] had its home in Persia and gradually spread east, partly as a result of persecutions due to doctrinal differences with the mainstream Christianity of Constantinople.[2] The Syriac Church planted churches and monasteries across Central Asia, Mongolia, and China, with significant presences in Samarkand, Kashgar, and Xian.[3] Between the seventh and tenth centuries, Syriac Christianity was known in China as Jingjiao (景教, lit. Luminous Religion). The Church of the East sent its missionaries and exerted influence all over Asia, from Persia in the West to Japan in the East and from Mongolia in the North to the Straits of Malacca in the south.[4] There is evidence its members influenced the Chinese court and the Mongolian emperors; in the latter case, the wives of several important political figures were Syriac Christians.[5]
The doctrinal difference between the Church of the East (abbreviated to COE) and the dominant Greek theological mainstream was subtle and of little consequence for a mission-focused paper. The Syriac Church believed that Christ’s divine and human natures existed within one human being but not according to the hypostasis accepted by the mainstream. In addition, there was a dispute over whether Mary the mother of Christ should be considered Theotokos (bearer of God) or Christotokos (bearer of Christ).[6] These two doctrinal positions, associated with Bishop Nestorius, were deemed heretical at the ecumenical councils of Ephesus (431 AD) and Chalcedon (451 AD). However, in his magnum opus on the mission enterprise of the COE, Stewart suggests that the term “Nestorian” generally refers to the church in “later centuries”[7] and the labelling of Nestorius as heretical may have been unjust.[8]
Orientation to the mission enterprise of the Church of the East
As the Church of the East became more powerful in Persia in the late fifth century, its missionary efforts became stronger and started to include territories around the Persian Gulf.[9] Three centuries later, during the patriarchate of Timothy I, the COE was at its most powerful in the Arab world.[10] Ultimately, the Syriac Church carried out mission work across a vast region stretching from its Persian-influenced homeland all the way to Turfan, already seen as part of the broader Chinese world.[11] The court of Tang China recognised the COE from the middle of the seventh to the middle of the ninth century.[12] Five hundred years later, the influence and mission of the COE in Central and East Asia were in steep decline.[13]
At its height, the COE’s mission work was both well led and well organized.[14] Baumer praises it as “the most successful missionary church in the world.”[15] Their expansion into Central Asia and China was actively supported by senior clergy,[16] although unlike many later western church groups, there was no association with political power, nation, or empire.[17]
Nicolini-Zani describes the missionary dynamism of the Church of the East, linking its inherently pluralistic character with its origin among the scattered and multiethnic Christians of the Antioch church in Acts 13.[18] The church’s original geographical base was Persia, which separated it from the Greek and later Latin/Roman cultural, philosophical, and linguistic influences that determined the theological and missional trajectories of the Western Church.
Having briefly introduced the Church of the East, I now look at various facets of its mission endeavour, summarising each one and then considering the implications for evangelical missions today, while remaining mindful of our separation in time and space.
Elements of the mission approach of the Church of the East
Various aspects of the mission effort of the COE are potentially of interest to modern evangelical mission theorists and practitioners. Stewart’s Nestorian Missionary Enterprise provided a framework for and details of the Syriac church’s gospel work. I then supplemented content from this admittedly rather dated study by reference to a wide range of more modern resources.
It is striking that, writing in 1928, Stewart suggests that the missionary work of the COE has much to teach “the more highly developed organizations of to-day,” particularly with regard to planting self-supporting, self-governing, and self-propagating churches.[19] Reading the accounts of Stewart and many others at the end of the first quarter of the twenty-first century brings a mixture of excitement and caution. Some aspects of the Syriac church’s mission practice are worth studying and reflecting on, yet we cannot simply map from the seventh century to the twenty-first.
The COE functioned and carried out its mission activity in a world very different from our own. Their missionaries and lay preachers were able to move across vast areas of territory with few of the modern constraints of nation states, governments, and visas. At the same time, they probably served in a more dangerous environment than most missionaries today. A significant difference between mission in the two contexts, not evident in the literature, is time—people travelled primarily on foot or on horseback and sometimes by boat. The process of moving eastward, whether as a missionary in the formal sense or as a Christian professional (categories that we will come to see as a little anachronistic), would have taken a long time and this would have been reflected in people’s expectations.
The Syriac Church was a Middle Eastern group with thought processes and organisational logic very different from modern, evangelical mission, whose strongly North Atlantic character and corporate influences have brought us mission and vision statements, strategy, key performance indicators, and a plethora of tools, approaches, and acronyms. In addition, not everything from the Syriac Church is perfect and, despite our own self-directed criticisms and soul-searching, the mission endeavour of the last seventy years or so has much to commend it. In studying the mission record of the COE and considering how it might speak to us, I have looked for points of contact, found resonances, and identified themes that could be adopted, but only if adapted as well.
Bi-vocational missionaries
In the early days of the COE’s missionary effort, it was likely that there was little formal organization. Stewart argues that this proto-mission resembled that of Paul in the Book of Acts, as tentmakers (in the modern parlance) travelled as traders and craftsmen, supporting themselves and sharing the gospel as they went.[20] This basic approach continued as the COE moved into Central and East Asia[21] and people accepted the gospel after hearing the testimony “of Christian merchants and physicians.”[22] Worthing devotes a whole article to the missionary and medical contributions of physicians from the Syriac Church.[23] Other members of the COE helped develop alphabets for peoples in Central Asia and beyond.[24]
COE missionaries (in the broadest sense) shared the gospel in the context of their occupations, having been given a solid understanding of their faith and the cultures of those around them. In the eleventh century, a Kerait king (a group later absorbed into the Mongol empire) decided to become a Christian and had merchants from the COE brought to his camp to explain the gospel to him.[25] Some Syriac Christians even used merchant as a metaphor for mission worker, linking travel for trade purposes with the conversion of people along the way.[26] Sogdian traders were known for their role in transferring ideas from various religions among the people they met. Baumer suggests that, by their diffusion of gospel ideas, Christian Sogdians effectively made way for “subsequent monastic missionaries.”[27]
Others who went east for the purposes of the gospel supported themselves directly through their work or as employees of local rulers.[28] Some COE believers helped administer cities and local districts while others became influential in the royal courts of potentates in Central Asia and Mongolia. In some locations, such learned COE Christians were even seen as a “guild” or society that influenced the caliph.[29] Stewart notes that one Sigatsy, viceroy of Samarkand, became a Christian.[30] Over time, local people who had joined the church served as advisers and viziers in these settings too. In Kublai Khan’s court, there were envoys, advisers, and interpreters who pledged allegiance to Christ and the Church of the East. The missionary Alopen, generally acknowledged as the COE missionary who took the gospel to China in the sixth century, was most likely an official envoy of the Persian state. The devotion to education and scholarship among the COE was such that when Caliph Mamun founded his “House of Knowledge” in Baghdad in the ninth century, this Muslim leader appointed the Syriac Christian Hunain ibn Ishaq as its leader.[31] According to Mingana, the COE was greatly respected by non-Christian rulers in Central Asia, so much so that when they met the Christian patriarch, they would remove their hats and go down on one knee.[32] One is reminded of Daniel in the Old Testament, who combined a love for God with knowledge of his own faith and that of the Babylonians; he also served rulers who did not recognise Yahweh but without compromising his principles.
The last few decades have seen the emergence of various combinations of mission work and professional service: Business as Mission (BAM), missional business, and tentmaking might be considered subtle variants of a basic form of bi-vocational mission work.[33] This is a vast area of missiological research, an adequate treatment of which is beyond this short article. What sometimes seems chosen—almost as a last resort for a CAN context—was widely used in less restrictive contexts in the past. I believe that the Church of the East might ask why we are not doing more Business as Mission kind of ministry in open access countries and even why it is not central to contemporary mission practice and mobilisation. It seems that for the Syriac church doing business or carrying on one’s profession was completely integrated with proclamation and demonstration of the faith. They were two parts of a whole and there was no need to justify tentmaking and apparently no concept of “platforms” for ministry. There are also parallels with the mission approach of the Moravians in the late eighteenth century.[34]
Apart from doing business, part of the COE mission force was skilled tentmakers who earned the trust of political and cultural leaders. It might be difficult to transfer this aspect of Syriac mission into our evangelical mission contexts, yet we do hear of mission personnel with access to governments and policymakers at surprisingly high levels, often in creative access nations. Within their own different cultures and ministry situations, it appears that the COE was engaged in a form of mission akin to modern integral mission.[35] If we researched and identified opportunities and matched these with suitable personnel with a track record of expertise in secular contexts in their own countries, there could be scope to train and sustain highly skilled specialists whose sheer knowledge and integrity make them deeply attractive to government, business, or educational spheres in countries that remain indifferent or resistant to the gospel. In addition, the Great Commission statement of Matthew 28 not only sends us out, but implies that this is a task for all believers, with the aim of making disciples. The building of relationships in specific life and work contexts is essential to the task of discipling. Naturally, an emphasis on tentmaking and integral mission does not deny the importance of gospel proclamation and church planting and there are resonances with the ministry of the linguist and administrator William Carey.[36]
Use of existing trade routes
Jenkins highlights the importance of trade routes in the mission of the Syriac Church,[37] missionary-merchants using roads and settlements established for decades or even centuries to carry on their trading business and diffuse the gospel as they went. It may have been easier to move from one territory to another in ancient times, missionary expansion aided by the lack of formal borders between states.[38] According to Gillman and Klimkeit, this strategy helped make the COE church the most widely spread Christian group in the world in the early middle ages.[39]
Hansen sees the Silk Road itself as an essential element in the relations between and transmission of different faiths. People and cultures all along the trade route were open to interreligious discourse in the atmosphere of great tolerance that existed before the arrival of Islam. The complex cultures and their interactions made the Silk Road a natural channel for faith to move eastwards and westwards,[40] and the diverse background of many Syriac Christians made them well-placed to take advantage of such an established conduit for ideas. In addition, “caravan cities” emerged along the Silk Road that served as centres of influence for the COE.[41] Roland Allen points out that the Apostle Paul also focused on influential commercial centres.[42]
In our modern age of containers and air freight, we might struggle to find anything analogous to the Silk Road. However, well-used routes still connect trading areas and these may be linked to specific kinds of industries or products. Raw materials, foodstuffs, computer parts, and so on, move around the world and across regions, and today’s world also contains routes associated with services such as tourism, medical tourism, education, and the activities of NGOs. Modern mission organisations could learn from the COE by carrying outreach to identify opportunities, target investment, and recruit talented personnel. This would require specialised personnel and good interaction between front-line colleagues and mobilisation staff. It may also need some theological shifts and trust from supporting churches and parachurch groups.
Indigenous worldviews
Another strength of the COE was its willingness to engage with indigenous worldviews. Many in the church embraced forms of Christian mysticism, practices of contemplation, and experiences of spiritual solitude that feel a long way from contemporary evangelicalism.[43] This enabled them to attract and communicate with followers of religions rooted in personal experience and local philosophies. This is a little different from the church in the West, which was shaped by aspects of Greek and later Enlightenment thought related to rationalism and empiricism. Paradoxically perhaps, the COE also borrowed what they deemed useful from the thought of Aristotle, as well as Stoicism and Platonism.[44] In a dialogue with Muslims, one Egyptian monk of the Syriac Church proclaimed that concepts such as the Trinity or God dying on a cross defy reason and are beyond logic, recognising the limitations of rationalism in theology.[45] Others emphasised the senses over the cerebral, celebrating God through sound, icons and images, and incense. Baumer points out that the COE also used pictures in some of their sacred and devotional books and produced platters and other objects decorated with themes from Scripture.[46] Formal liturgy and ritual also played an important role in helping the Syriac believers approach their God. Due to its history and geography, the COE preserved its semitic cultural heritage when its sister churches in western Europe moved away from it.[47] At the same time, the COE was both willing and able to “adapt the forms of their doctrine and devotion” to the cultures they came across.[48] However, the issue of language has remained contentious, some scholars praising the COE for its facility in various regional languages and cultures, but others claiming that its insistence on Syriac as a liturgical language impeded contextualisation in East Asia.[49]
Within a paper of this length, it is impossible to give the issue of indigenous thought the treatment it deserves. Despite centuries of Western influence, many parts of the so-called majority world still function according to what Western people might call non-rational thought. Generally speaking, Western thought, particularly as it manifests in evangelicalism, is strongly logical and analytical, although the rise of the charismatic movement speaks of a dissatisfaction with over-cerebral forms of Christianity. Comparisons of Western and Eastern thought—such labels may sound essentialist but do serve a purpose—by scholars such as Nisbett[50] suggest that cultures categorise differently. Theologian Jose de Mesa claims that Filipinos, Christian and non-Christian alike, have a worldfeel rather than worldview,[51] which results in a contextual apprehension of world and faith. The Church of the East existed in the premodern period before the Renaissance or Reformation, understanding and presenting the faith in accordance with a variety of worldviews while never compromising the essentials of the faith. The Syriac Church had nothing analogous to the Aristotelian theological synthesis of Aquinas or the modernist-inspired theology of twentieth century evangelicalism. Related to this is the COE’s interest in the tangible and the broader senses. Alistair McGrath is a faithful Protestant who wonders if the Christianity that emerged from the Reformation was rationalistic and arid.[52] With the record of the COE in mind, can we imagine slightly different ways of thinking and being Christian that draw on indigenous thought and might even feel Syriac, Roman Catholic, or Orthodox in practice if not theology? To be sure, this controversial agenda would not be for everyone, but the inherent philosophical and cultural nuancing might be useful in some contexts.
Residential presence
Arguably, the Syriac Church’s supreme example of tangible or embodied Christianity was the monastery. These Christian settlements served as not only training institutes but also centres of spiritual presence and discipline, populated by monks. Some monks belonged to communities, while others preferred a life of individual contemplation and pietistic asceticism.[53] Baumer describes the strictness of the monastic life, centred on the study of the Scriptures, the aim of which was to regulate the monks’ lives, avoid unseemly behaviour, and maintain standards of biblical and theological knowledge.[54] Many in the monasteries were gifted theologians and specialists in biblical studies,[55] and monastic life linked tightly academic scholarship, spiritual devotion, and the pastorate,[56] so-called periodeuts preaching in the countryside surrounding the monasteries where they lived.[57] Nicolini-Zani argues that monasteries were central to the work of the COE in China,[58] and Gillman and Klimkeit agree, but note that Central Asia saw a two-pronged approach in which the gospel was advanced by monasteries and the ministry of itinerant, lay Christians,[59] the latter to all intents and purposes self-supporting and independent. Monasteries along trade routes constituted links in a spiritual and educational chain of care connecting the Persian centre with COE groups as far away as Sri Lanka.[60] According to Hage, a main factor in the demise of the COE in East Asia was the breakdown in security following the dissolution of the Mongolian empire, separating remote monasteries and communities from the COE homeland and severing vital spiritual and episcopal connections.[61]
While the monasteries were home to spiritual figures of great wisdom—men and women[62]—they were also centres of broader learning and scholarship.[63] Apart from specifically Christian scholarship, the great monastery at Nisibis (in today’s southeastern Turkey) was a repository of ancient wisdom such as the works of Aristotle. Monasteries also functioned as conduits for wisdom from Central Asia and India, preserving and translating ancient fables and folk stories.[64] Scholar-monks at Nisibis wrote treatises and pamphlets on cosmology and mathematics and engaged in dialogue with Islamic scholars.[65] The Syriac Church engaged with and benefited from various forms of knowledge, but always took Christian thought as central and normative.
It is unlikely that monasteries (or something like them) could be established in today’s creative access nations. However, the concept might be viable for more open countries. In Asia, Buddhist temples and monasteries are often found at the centre of communities, functioning not only as places of worship, but also as social hubs, providers of education, and even places to meet. Churches do sometimes play a similar role, but there is perhaps not the same sense of openness and access for all. Mission organisations often have bases in open access contexts, but these tend to be dedicated to training, equipping, and facilitating ministry reaching out to non-believing locals. Following the example of the COE monasteries, it would be interesting to see Christian presences that function as centres of faith and providers of broader education and arenas for research in local culture, philosophy, and religions. I am reminded of the different flavours of “Monk Chat” in Chiang Mai, in which people can have informal conversations with English-speaking Buddhist monks on pretty much any topic or even attend short retreats at Buddhist monasteries.[66] Such a cross-disciplinary approach to faith, philosophy, and education may seem unusual to many in the evangelical world; some of us know how theological educators struggle to maintain church support when not carrying out evangelism or other front-line ministries. Yet, the mission practice of the Syriac Church contains a precedent for a free-wheeling, organic approach to engaging hearts and minds in the broadest sense.
Interreligious dialogue
The Syriac Church saw it as natural to maintain good relations with followers of other religions and understand their teachings and worldviews. Such sensitivity made the COE “a Christianity of mission and cultural mediation.”[67] Initially, the main dialogue partners of the COE were the Manichaeans and the Zoroastrians,[68] and later they came across Tengrism, Islam, Buddhism, and even Hinduism. Such was the significance of Buddhism for the Church of the East[69] that Gillman and Klimkeit describe the relationship between Christianity and Buddhism in Central Asia as one of “constant interaction.”[70] Yet, for all their willingness to engage positively with the other belief systems around them, they did not see their approach as anything akin to syncretism.
The Syriac Church’s teaching that the body would be raised in a glorified state in the future[71] was a direct counter to the dualism of Buddhism and Manichaeism and their sense that the body was evil and to be abandoned. In Central Asia, COE missionaries built on their knowledge of Tengrism, viewing knowledge of the omnipotent sky-god as a praeparatio evangelica.[72] Morrow explains how Syriac missionaries in China used the concept of the dao (道) or way as a bridge from Chinese belief to Jesus Christ.[73] Scripture itself contains a precedent in the shape of Paul’s appeal to the Greeks in Acts 17. Nicolini-Zani distinguishes between the contextualisation approaches of the Syriac missionaries and of Matteo Ricci centuries later. While the great Catholic missionary’s main thrust was intercultural, the COE successfully engaged in an interreligious endeavour.[74]
Contextualisation
In a paper dedicated to a general exploration and understanding of the mission practice of the Church of the East, it is not possible to look in depth at their efforts at contextualisation. Indeed, we might argue that the whole continuum of indigeneity, contextualisation, and local theologies is anachronistic and contains nuances that would be largely irrelevant to Syriac missionaries.
As they pushed into Central Asia, the COE considered translation of Christian texts very important, but rather than do this mechanically, they engaged with local cultural concepts and made extensive use of vernaculars; this is what Nicolini-Zani terms transformation rather than translation.[75] In Mongolia, the COE composed hymns in Mongolian and there was even one with alternating verses in Syriac and Mongolian.[76] In the Chinese context, the Xian stele, documents from Dunhuang,[77] and the pillar from Luoyang[78] all use Chinese and Buddhist terms to represent and explain Christian concepts. For some, such approaches to what we could call contextualisation today (using the word as an umbrella term) are controversial and have been seen as partially responsible for the eventual disappearance of the COE.[79] However, Wilmshurst urges caution about our attitude to the use of Buddhist or Chinese imagery and terms by Syriac Christians in China, claiming that the presence of lotus flowers next to crosses or the use of the word Fo for God—Fo 佛 is the Chinese word for Buddha, itself a transliteration from Sanskrit—is simply an attempt to communicate a foreign idea in terms comprehensible to local believers.[80] He argues that the Chinese translation of Holy Spirit as liang feng (凉风 cool wind) has not evoked hostile reactions. On the other hand, the section title for Baumer’s discussion of the dialogue between Syriac Christianity, Buddhism, and Daoism is “Between orthodoxy and syncretism.”[81]
The Church of the East in China demonstrated a striking openness to local culture and religion and willingness to use local terms to express Christian concepts. We know that similar things are happening in evangelical missions, but it seems that the Syriac Church was more willing to take risks in borrowing terms from Buddhism and creating new terms. In addition, rather than a niche activity for specialists, it seems to have been part of mainstream practice. Studies of the Xian stele make fascinating reading; this heavily contextualised introduction to the gospel combines a strong commitment to the Christian faith with respect for and familiarity with the local culture and religion into which that faith was being planted. There are always risks with such deep contextualisation, but there are also dangers in presenting a message composed of terms and thought forms that feel very foreign to our non-Christian friends.
The lesson from the COE is that we might be far braver and radical in our attempts to contextualise our presentation and explication of the Christian message and that this can be a central part of our mission practice. In addition to this narrow translation/transformation approach, familiarity with local situations would also promote Christian responses to all manner of indigenous social, cultural, and political issues in the sense in which Shoki Coe originally used the term contextualisation.[82]
The quality and characteristics of the mission personnel
The mission of the Church of the East combined passion for the task, spirituality, and determination.[83] Stewart writes that for many in the Syriac Church, serving Christ and spreading his gospel were a natural response to what he had achieved for them on the cross. They were willing to endure and indeed be glorified in tribulation.[84] As the Syriac Christians moved eastwards from their original homeland, the persecutions they encountered refined the faith of many and propelled them further and further away from their homes towards Central Asia.[85]
While no one would suggest that modern missionary candidates undergo persecution as a prerequisite for service, for many in the COE, it was a powerful motivation. Today’s missionaries might talk about hearing and fulfilling God’s call and there is nothing intrinsically wrong with that. However, in an age of relative comfort and ease, it may be helpful for missionaries to be familiar with Christians, past and present, who have experienced and are shaped by persecution. There are many testimonies of missionaries and indigenous Christians who have suffered in their service for the Lord, yet few people read and are inspired by such accounts. Modern mission personnel could benefit from spending time with God’s people who have been refined by the fire of persecution.
The COE traced its origins to the group of dispersed Christians at Antioch in Acts 13 and Nicolini-Zani describes the inherent pluralism of the church since its inception.[86] Soon after the church began to move to the East, the Christians were forced to reconcile the Semitic and Hellenic elements within their own Christian belief and then deal with the Zoroastrianism that they met in Persia. Jenkins notes that in the seventh century, Merv was ruled by Muslims, but the city itself also contained Buddhists, Manichaeans, and Zoroastronians apart from Christians; the Church of the East was a minority group in a complex and diverse religious community.[87] In addition to this plurality of beliefs, the Syriac believers were able to negotiate the wide range of language and culture in a Central Asian region dominated by autonomous city states[88] that competed for political and trade advantages.
In spite of their affinity for different religions and cultures, or perhaps because of it, the Syriac church believed strongly that the believers needed to be counter-cultural. Stewart’s quotation from Burkitt[89] describes how the COE believers avoided polygamy, promiscuity, and excessively harsh treatment of criminals such as thieves. Today’s mission personnel often face similar challenges to their Christian witness caused by their own heritage as well as the context in which they serve. In a world of nation states and increasingly attitudes, including within the church, we need to be careful with our perception of our own nations and those we serve. Missionaries often minister in nations less affluent than their own and there can be issues over lifestyle, standards of living, and how much we identify with those we are trying to reach. Similar considerations apply to religions we consider untrue but which are followed by people around us. How do we treat those who work with us, in whatever capacity? These facets of life and ministry could affect how local people see us and the God we represent. We would do well to remember the sensitivity and humility shown by the Syriac missionaries to those around them, which brought an openness to listen to the gospel.[90]
Wall painting probably depicting Palm Sunday in Nestorian Temple at Qocho, 683–770 CE, 61 x 67 cm. Photograph by Gryffindor, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
A final theme is the “highest intellectual standards,”[91] which were needed as the Syriac Church negotiated language, culture, and faith in its move east. Engaging with other people’s points of view while defending one’s own would have required them to be intelligent and educated, as would working as administrators and business people. Syriac Christians were highly respected as scholars and medical doctors, for example, in Baghdad.[92] To be sure, mission is not only about intellect, yet the history of evangelicalism has been marked by anti-intellectualism,[93] which has been neither glorifying to God nor facilitative of ministry. Writing more than a hundred years ago, Allen emphasised the importance of education for Paul’s mission work.[94] Today’s world is at least as complex as that in which the Syriac Church carried out its mission endeavour. Evangelical missionaries need to interact with complex and diverse belief systems, often alongside their professional or tentmaking role. We may need wisdom to respond to the suspicion held toward missionaries from powerful far-off lands, whether the traditional North Atlantic mission powerhouses or the newer sending territories of Korea and Singapore.
Training and equipping
After reviewing what we might call “strategy” today and considering basic attributes of the COE missionaries, I turn to training. Although the Syriac Church had committed members who had grown up in multicultural and multifaith environments and were skilled in various professions, it nonetheless maintained a missionary training programme. Wherever it went, the Church of the East established monastic Bible training schools[95] not only to educate the children of their own community, but also to train young people, particularly those committed to mission.
Because the COE grew slowly and moved slowly, Syriac Christians interacted with and even grew up together with followers of other religions. Because today’s missionaries are often foreigners with a very different cultural and religious background from those they hope to reach, they may lack the ability or the openness to absorb and understand non-Christian faiths on their own terms. The example of the Syriac missionaries suggests that respecting and learning the faiths of those around us should occur early in the missionary experience. Courses in comparative religion can be marginal in intercultural studies programmes and may be taught by Christians. We could learn from the COE by sending trainee missionaries to ethnically and religiously diverse communities to understand other religions not from books alone, but also by interacting with their followers. In addition, rather than emphasising the implicit or explicit shortcomings of those religions, why not let those training for ministry learn about other religions in ways that would make sense to their followers? It is one thing to read about the basic tenets of Islam from a textbook written by well-meaning missionaries who have served in the Middle East, but quite another to be among followers of folk Islam who are heavily influenced by their own non-Arabic cultures. Finally, the body of Christ has moved south and east, and many followers of Christ grew up as followers of other religions. Although they may wish to turn their back on their previous faith and emphasise their new life in Christ, they could be a valuable resource for training and even mission itself. To be sure, there are Christian missionaries who are deeply knowledgeable about the faiths of those they are trying to reach, but my experience of mission training and practice and my understanding of the Syriac Church suggest that we could be much more intentional about understanding the religions of those around us.
Stewart tells us that the main subject of the COE training schools was the Bible, but there were also medical training and lectures on business.[96] Some colleges offered courses in accountancy and teaching in music, the latter often to a very high standard.[97] Christians from Eastern Persia travelled to Merv, not only for theological education but also training in the “social sciences.”[98]
By the time of Catholicos (Patriarch) Timotheos I (780–823), Syriac mission was carried out by a combination of “traders and merchants” and “professionally educated missionaries.”[99] Timotheos required his missionaries to study the cultures of the people around them.[100] As well as being an outstanding church leader, the patriarch showed great diplomatic skill in dealing with various local and regional potentates.[101] For Nicolini-Zani, this respect for and knowledge of other cultures and worldviews allowed the COE believers to engage in constructive and evangelistic dialogue with members of the diverse communities around them. It also helped the church to establish its own religious and cultural identity within the pluralism in which it found itself.[102] Part of this was a desire for church members to be “exemplary members of society,”[103] in order to strengthen the faith and commitment of the church members as well as to commend the faith to the non-believers who lived among them. In addition to formal academic training, the monastic system also emphasised strong discipline and character formation.[104] The importance of the monasteries in training is seen in the great standing and authority of their abbots.[105] A powerful comment on the efficacy of the training of the COE comes from the Arab leader Caliph Sulayman, who is reported to have said that the Christian Persians reigned for a thousand years without needing the help of the Muslim Arabs, while the Arabs reigned for one hundred years and needed the Persians every hour.[106]
Many of our seminaries and mission training schools rightly emphasise theology and biblical studies, and we do have courses on comparative religion and missiology. Yet, the example of the Church of the East suggests that professional training, political and cultural awareness, and an ability to read the signs of the times on a local and global level are essential characteristics for missionaries. Mission curricula should include a much broader range of subjects than those traditionally included for ministry in a complex world and further needs to emphasise spiritual formation. Several scholars mention the inherent diversity of the COE and the places in which it grew and ministered. As well as knowing the religions of those around them, the COE missionaries would have understood how people thought, how they approached the world, and how they understood their place within it. There has been good work in contextualisation with regard to building bridges to content of and motifs from other cultures and worldviews, but we are less adept at looking at the Scriptures and doing theology through non-Western eyes and minds. Some of this understanding is more easily caught than taught. In many countries, urban areas manifest very high degrees of diversity, which could serve as a resource to help Christians learn about other religions and familiarise themselves with interreligious dialogue. We could make better use of the resources in the community around us and complement classroom instruction with real-life interaction with our religious and cultural others. To be sure, we live in a time when mission training colleges and seminaries are under pressure, particularly in the West, and when part-time and modular courses are increasingly popular. In an environment where Bible and theological knowledge is not as strong as before, it may be difficult to advance an agenda for a more complex and broader training, possibly including vocational skills. Even so, the COE has shown that a wide and integrated approach to mission training produced powerful results. We may deduce that some of the training provided by monastic centres would be considered on-field or in-service, in today’s parlance. This may well be a way forward.
Certain trades and specialisms were seen as particularly valuable for the mission task in Central Asia and China and the church’s concept of mission and the needs of the community were reflected in the training offered. For modern evangelical missions, whether to open or creative access nations, vocational training in the pre-field equipping stage could have a powerful effect. I remember talking with a young couple from North America who, after arriving in a CAN and evaluating the situation, decided to specialise in tourism as a so-called platform for their life and ministry; they had seen an appropriate niche in the local economy. I wondered why this research was not done before they arrived and they had not worked in tourism in their own country, which would mean not only gaining experience but also establishing a track record in the industry. I once met some missionaries running a water purification and delivery business in another CAN, which proved to be an excellent way to live and work in the country and develop meaningful relationships with local people. I wondered why the same model was not used across the border in an open access nation where evangelical missionaries had been working for years. Could the same company exist on both sides of the border, increasing its credibility and providing economies of scale, while also training local Christians for Business as Mission and involving them in it? The experience of the Syriac Church suggests that close connections between field and training institutes and good knowledge of ministry opportunities could shape the necessary training. Members of the COE would be pleased if they saw young families committed to mission in CANs undertaking professional training and then appropriate apprenticeships alongside their theological equipping.
Thinking of training in a more strategic sense, Stewart affirms—in his study of the mission work of the Church of the East—the three-self principles of Venn and Anderson, arguing that the Christian communities established by mission should be self-supporting and self-governing, and, above all, self-propagating.[107] A great deal of the COE mission work was carried out by itinerant lay workers, but Stewart provides a list of Turkic Christians among whom were indigenous clergy[108] and Gillman and Klimkeit confirm that there were local clergy in the Mongolian context, while noting the relative absence of indigenous Chinese pastors in the COE.[109] According to Latourette, the Syriac communities in India were formed of indigenous people rather than the children of immigrants—either foreign Syriac Christians intermarried with local Indians or the locals were converted in significant numbers, possibly through the efforts of “Christian mercantile communities.”[110] Much has been written about indigenous movements and shadow pastoring, as evangelical mission seeks to equip and empower locals for the ministry. The records of the Church of the East do not give us any particular insights into how local colleagues were identified and equipped, although it was an important element of their mission work. Many of the historic faith missions continue to mobilise foreign missionaries for front-line preaching and church planting, yet the example of the COE might suggest a subtle shift in emphasis from direct evangelism to the equipping of local colleagues. This identification of local workers may have implications for mission mobilisation and funding.
Conclusion
This very brief review of the mission endeavour of the Church of the East has examined aspects of their strategy, personnel, and training in an attempt to bring lessons for us in evangelical missions in a very different era and range of cultural contexts. It is, without apology, a case of a running horse looking at flowers (走马观花) and it was not possible to treat any particular area in depth. That said, I believe that there are various ideas and principles that may be of value to us today, any adopting of which must be accompanied by adapting.
The lessons from the Syriac Church may not be appropriate for every context and some of their ways of working may jar with the theological and missiological convictions of some readers. The article is offered as is, a comparative study whose conclusions may be food for thought and provoke further reflection. In his work on the Church of the East, Jenkins talks about “rediscovering the lost Christian worlds of Africa and Asia.”[111] It is my hope and prayer that this brief article might inspire us to rediscover the lost Christian mission of Asia.
[1] Kenneth Latourette, A History of Christianity. Volume 1: to AD 1500 (New York: Harper and Row, 1975), 322.
[2] Latourette, A History of Christianity, 322.
[3] Rafis Abazov, Culture and Customs of the Central Asian Republics (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2007), 65.
[4] John Stewart, Nestorian Missionary Enterprise: The Story of a Church on Fire (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1928), xxxi.
[5] Stewart, Nestorian Missionary Enterprise, xxxi.
[6] Li Tang, East Syriac Christianity in Mongol-Yuan China (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2011), xii.
[7] Stewart, Nestorian Missionary Enterprise, xxxiv.
[8] Stewart, Nestorian Missionary Enterprise, 324.
[9] Ian Gillman and Hans-Joachim Klimkeit, Christians in Asia before 1500 (London: Routledge, 1999), 81.
[10] Gillman and Klimkeit, Christians in Asia before 1500, 131.
[11] Matteo Nicolini-Zani, The Luminous Way to the East: Texts and History of the First Encounter of Christianity with China (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022), 46.
[12] Kenneth Morrow, “Negotiating Belonging: The Church of the East’s Contested Identity in Tang China” (PhD thesis, University of Texas at Dallas, 2019), vii.
[13] Gillman and Klimkeit, Christians in Asia before 1500, 142.
[14] Christoph Baumer, The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian Christianity (London: IB Tauris, 2016), 5.
[15] Baumer, The Church of the East, 4.
[16] Nicolini-Zani, The Luminous Way to the East, 10.
[17] Wolfgang Hage, Syriac Christianity in the East (Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute, 1988), 38.
[18] Nicolini-Zani, The Luminous Way to the East, 5.
[19] Stewart, Nestorian Missionary Enterprise, 167.
[20] Stewart, Nestorian Missionary Enterprise, 5.
[21] Stewart, Nestorian Missionary Enterprise, 76.
[22] Stewart, Nestorian Missionary Enterprise, 77.
[23] Mark Worthing, “Nestorian Christian Contributions to Medicine in the Golden Age of Islam under the Abassid Caliphs of Baghdad 786–1258 CE,” Acta Medica Martiniana 24, no. 3 (November 2024): 117.
[24] Stewart, Nestorian Missionary Enterprise, 79.
[25] Stewart, Nestorian Missionary Enterprise, 144.
[26] Philip Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), 64.
[27] Baumer, The Church of the East, 176.
[28] Stewart, Nestorian Missionary Enterprise, 17.
[29] Gillman and Klimkeit, Christians in Asia before 1500, 146.
[30] Stewart, Nestorian Missionary Enterprise, 160.
[31] Gillman and Klimkeit, Christians in Asia before 1500, 138.
[32] Alphonse Mingana, The Early Spread of Christianity in Central Asia and the Far East: A New Document (Manchester: The University Press, 1925), 342.
[33] Mats Tunehag, Wayne McGee, Josie Plummer, eds., “Business as Mission,” Lausanne Occasional Paper No. 59, produced for the 2004 Forum for World Evangelization hosted by the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization in Pattaya, Thailand, 29 September to 5 October 2004, https://lausanne.org/occasional-paper/business-mission-lop-59 (accessed 18 August 2025), 13.
[34] Robert Gallagher, “The Integration of Mission Theology and Practice: Zinzendorf and the Early Moravians,” Mission Studies 25 (2008): 193.
[35] For a brief introduction to integral mission, see Micah Network, “Micah Network Declaration on Integral Mission,” Micah Global, 27 September 2001, https://micahglobal.org/storage/2944394 (accessed 18 August 2025).
[36] Christopher Smith, “The Legacy of William Carey,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 16, no. 1 (January 1992): 4.
[37] Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity, 49.
[38] Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity, 50.
[39] Gillman and Klimkeit, Christians in Asia before 1500, 149.
[40] Valerie Hansen, The Silk Road: A New History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 4.
[41] Latourette, A History of Christianity, 323.
[42] Roland Allen, Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours (London: Robert Scott, 1912), 23.
[43] Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity, 74.
[44] Gillman and Klimkeit, Christians in Asia before 1500, 27.
[45] Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity, 76.
[46] Baumer, The Church of the East, 166.
[47] Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity, 83.
[48] Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity, 91.
[49] Nicolini-Zani, The Luminous Way to the East, 80 and 106.
[50] Richard Nisbett, The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently … and Why (New York, NY: Free Press, 2003).
[51] José de Mesa, Why Theology is Never Far from Home (Manila: De La Salle University Press, 2003), 85.
[52] Alister McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), 97.
[53] Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity, 73.
[54] Baumer, The Church of the East, 129.
[55] Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity, 87.
[56] Gillman and Klimkeit, Christians in Asia before 1500, 148.
[57] Gillman and Klimkeit, Christians in Asia before 1500, 231.
[58] Nicolini-Zani, The Luminous Way to the East, 97.
[59] Gillman and Klimkeit, Christians in Asia before 1500, 222.
[60] Gillman and Klimkeit, Christians in Asia before 1500, 150.
[61] Hage, Syriac Christianity in the East, 26.
[62] Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity, 73.
[63] Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity, 77.
[64] Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity, 79.
[65] Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity, 77.
[66] Amazing Thailand, “Experiences: Monk Chats,” https://thailandinsider.com/experience/monk-chats/ (accessed 18 August 2025) and Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University, “Welcome to Monk Chat,” https://www.monkchat.net/web2020/index.php (accessed 18 August 2025).
[67] Camplani, quoted in Nicolini-Zani, The Luminous Way to the East, xiv.
[68] Baumer, The Church of the East, 105.
[69] Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity, 92.
[70] Gillman and Klimkeit, Christians in Asia before 1500, 206.
[71] Baumer, The Church of the East, 178.
[72] Baumer, The Church of the East, 196.
[73] Morrow, “Negotiating Belonging,” 56.
[74] Nicolini-Zani, The Luminous Way to the East, 179.
[75] Nicolini-Zani, The Luminous Way to the East, 182.
[76] Stewart, Nestorian Missionary Enterprise, 57.
[77] Gillman and Klimkeit, Christians in Asia before 1500, 271; Max Deeg, “The Rhetoric of Antiquity: Politico-Religious Propaganda in the Nestorian Stele of Chang’an,” Journal for Late Antique Religion and Culture 1 (2007): 20.
[78] Nicolini-Zani, The Luminous Way to the East, 140.
[79] A nuanced picture of the decline of the COE in Central Asia can be found in Gillman and Klimkeit, Christians in Asia before 1500, 234.
[80] David Wilmshurst, “Beth Sina Ye: A Typical East Syrian Ecclesiastical Province?” in Winds of Jingjiao: Studies on Syriac Christianity in China and Central Asia, ed. Li Tang and Dietmar W. Winkler (Vienna: Lit, 2016), 163.
[81] Baumer, The Church of the East, 187.
[82] Shoki Coe, “In Search of Renewal in Theological Education,” Theological Education 9, no. 4 (1973): 233–43.
[83] Wilmshurst, “Beth Sina Ye,” xix.
[84] Stewart, Nestorian Missionary Enterprise, 78.
[85] Stewart, Nestorian Missionary Enterprise, 16.
[86] Nicolini-Zani, The Luminous Way to the East, 5.
[87] Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity, 46.
[88] Nicolini-Zani, The Luminous Way to the East, 46.
[89] Burkitt, quoted in Stewart, Nestorian Missionary Enterprise, 115, 184.
[90] Stewart, Nestorian Missionary Enterprise, 80.
[91] Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity, 46.
[92] Stewart, Nestorian Missionary Enterprise, 202.
[93] George Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 26.
[94] Allen, Missionary Methods, 21.
[95] Stewart, Nestorian Missionary Enterprise, 36.
[96] Stewart, Nestorian Missionary Enterprise, 39.
[97] Stewart, Nestorian Missionary Enterprise, 41.
[98] Nicolini-Zani, The Luminous Way to the East, 48.
[99] Wilhelm Baum and Dietmar Winkler, The Church of the East: A Concise History (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), 61.
[100] Baum and Winkler, The Church of the East, 62.
[101] Baumer, The Church of the East, 153.
[102] Nicolini-Zani, The Luminous Way to the East, 49.
[103] Andrew Platt, “Changing Mission at Home and Abroad: Catholicos Timothy I and the Church of the East in the Early Abbasid Period,” in Winds of Jingjiao (see footnote 80), 167.
[104] Stewart, Nestorian Missionary Enterprise, 44.
[105] Gillman and Klimkeit, Christians in Asia before 1500, 122.
[106] Gillman and Klimkeit, Christians in Asia before 1500, 130.
[107] Stewart, Nestorian Missionary Enterprise, 165.
[108] Stewart, Nestorian Missionary Enterprise, 206.
[109] Gillman and Klimkeit, Christians in Asia before 1500, 239.
[110] Latourette, A History of Christianity, 324.
[111] Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity, 4.
