Roland Allen: Misunderstood Prophet

Roland Allen (taken from J. D. Payne, ed., *Roland Allen’s The Ministry of Expansion*)

Today marks the death of one of the most influential missionary thinkers of the 20th century: Anglican priest, Roland Allen. Missiological giants such as Lesslie Newbigin and Donald McGavran drank deeply from Allen’s well. Allen served for a few years in China and lived through the Boxer Uprising. He later wrote highly influential works such as Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours? (1912) and The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church and the Causes which Hinder It (1927). Allen died on June 9, 1947.

Allen was asked by his grandson if he could read his grandfather’s writings. Allen responded by saying he could but “You will not understand them. No one will understand them until I’ve been dead ten years.” It was not a full decade before others started paying attention to Allen’s writings. But it was close.

Roland Allen was a misunderstood prophet.

I was first introduced to Allen’s work as a seminary student in the late 1990s. My 2001 Ph.D. dissertation evaluated contemporary North American church planting activities in view of Allen’s concept known as the spontaneous expansion of the Church. I took portions from my work and published Roland Allen: Pioneer of Spontaneous Expansion in 2012.

Since that time, I have attempted to introduce others to the numerous writings of Allen. In honor of the 100th anniversary of the publication of Missionary Methods, Craig Ott and I edited Missionary Methods: Research, Reflections, and Realities, a collection of papers related to Allen that were presented at the 2012 Evangelical Missiological Society.

One of the most exciting opportunities came when Allen’s grandson, Hubert Allen, contacted me about editing and publishing Roland Allen’s unpublished manuscript of The Ministry of Expansion: The Priesthood of the Laity. This circa 1938 work rested at an Oxford library for decades. In 2017, William Carey Library published it as Roland Allen’s The Ministry of Expansion. The rare picture of Allen above is taken from that book.

Seventy-two years after Allen’s death, I want to encourage you to check out the books linked above. And linked below, are several previous Roland Allen-related podcasts, posts, and miscellaneous resources:

FROM STRIKE THE MATCH:

Steve Rutt on Roland Allen’s Life and Work

Roland Allen–Life and Journey, Part 1

Roland Allen–Missiology, Part 2

FROM MISSIOLOGICALLY THINKING

You Might be a Roland Allen Fan If…

Very Rare Early Reference to Roland Allen

Roland Allen: Part 1, The Man

Roland Allen: Part 2, His Missiology

MISC:

Here is a video of a lecture on Roland Allen given at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

Cha rles Henry Long and Anne Rowthorn, “Legacy of Roland Allen,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research, April 1989.