A new vision for missions: William Cameron Townsend in Guatemala and Mexico, 1917--1945

William Cameron Townsend achieved his greatest notoriety as the visionary founder of the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) and the Wycliffe Bible Translators (WBT). SIL/WBT is now the largest Protestant mission organization in the world. This dissertation is a study of Townsend's first thirty years on the mission field, in which he first tested his vision within the confines of established faith mission culture during his fifteen years with the Central American Mission, and finally realized it in the 1930s when he founded his own mission in Mexico.;Townsend's life presents the historian with an immediately intriguing set of anomalies. At a time when most missionaries insisted that the Indians learn Spanish, or even English, arguing that it was a waste of missionary time and effort to learn indigenous languages and adapt themselves to the vast number of indigenous groups, Townsend insisted that the first and most vital step any missionary could take was to live intimately in Indian communities and learn their language. At a time when faith missions insisted on a highly spiritualized approach to missionary endeavor, Townsend turned his focus to science and education. His linguistic schools raised the accepted standards for missionary recruitment and influenced missionary endeavor around the world. Townsend's scientific approach placed him in close association with a wide range of Christian and secular organizations and individuals, which in turn led to a radically nonsectarian methodology out of step with his primarily fundamentalist supporters. Townsend's alliances with foreign governments, academic organizations, Pentecostals, Catholics, atheists, socialists, even communists, caused him problems at home, even as they forced his recruits into relationships the like of which would not be realized in the United States for decades, and eventually laid the foundation for his tremendous influence. Townsend's methods accelerated the perhaps inevitable interaction of faith mission with the modern world, which in turn brought about a confrontation with faith principles, until today the WBT missionary, along with most of the modern evangelical missionary force, bears little resemblance to the fundamentalist faith missionary of the first part of this century.