Gordon, Adoniram Judson (1836-1895)

Pastor, author, poet, hymn writer, educator, social reformer, and missions leader

Born in New Hampton, New Hampshire, Gordon graduated from Brown University (1860) and Newton Theological Institution (1863). From 1869 to 1895 he was pastor of the Clarendon Street Baptist Church of Boston, Massachusetts, where he promoted the cause of foreign missions. On the executive committee of the American Baptist Missionary Union (ABMU) from 1871, and chair after 1888, Gordon stimulated Baptist Missions expansion. One of the most influential evangelical leaders of his era, he made an impact on missions well beyond Baptist circles through his writing and speaking. In 1884 he negotiated the ABMU takeover of the Congo River Livingstone Inland Mission, founded in 1878 by H. Gratten Guinness. In 1886 he addressed Dwight L. Moody‘s Northfield Conference when the initial 100 student volunteers launched what became the Student Volunteer Movement. At the 1888 London Centenary Conference on the Protestant Missions of the World, Gordon emerged as an international apologist for missions and toured Scotland to advance the cause. In 1889 he founded the Boston Missionary Training Institute, one of America’s first Bible schools, which graduated fifty missionaries in its initial decade and later evolved into Gordon College and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

Gordon’s mission theory, largely premillenial in emphasis, was expounded in his books, including The Ship Jesus (c. 1884) and The Holy Spirit in Missions (c. 1893), and in articles in his journal The Watchword, and in Missionary Review of the World, of which he was associate editor after 1890. Rejecting optimistic, civilizing colonialist theories popular in the imperial era of missions, Gordon separated Christianity and culture and questioned the efficacy of Western colonialism. To hasten the Second Coming of Christ, he advocated worldwide evangelization and indigenous church planting over against incremental institutional approaches. Though a loyal denominationalist, he viewed the decentralization of missions and the rise of “faith mission” as efficient ways to enlist the human and financial resources of local congregations. An outspoken advocate of women in ministry, he welcomed females and minorities to his training school and to the larger mission enterprise.

Thomas A. Askew, “Gordon, Adoniram Judson,” in Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, ed. Gerald H. Anderson (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 1998), 251.

This article is reprinted from Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, Macmillan Reference USA, copyright © 1998 Gerald H. Anderson, by permission of Macmillan Reference USA, New York, NY. All rights reserved.

Portrait

“Adoniram Judson Gordon.” In Gordon, Ernest B. Adoniram Judson Gordon: A Biography. New York & London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1984.