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The lives of David Brainerd

Manipulating the man

THE LIVES OF DAVID BRAINERD
The Making of an American Evangelical Icon
By John A. Grigg
Oxford University Press
276 pages. £40.00
ISBN 978-0-19537-237-3

Few men have had the extensive posthumous influence of David Brainerd.

John Grigg, in this doctoral thesis, has sought first to set Brainerd in the context of 18th-century American life and then to examine the accounts that have been written of his life. I thought when I saw the title that it would be iconoclastic, but I ended with a great respect for Brainerd and scepticism towards those who have retold his life story to further their own interests. Edwards, as the first chronicler, left out Brainerd’s visions and other enthusiasms as he sought to present him as the ideal Christian example for the standards he wanted to see in his congregation. Wesley removed as much of his Calvinism as he could. Later writers exaggerated his work and claimed for him, among other things, the solution of the Indian problem in American life as well as inventing a romance between him and Edwards’s daughter. This section of the book is a great warning to those whose homiletical purposes overwhelm accurate storytelling.

The first three chapters are not easy reading as the author seeks to recount Brainerd’s position in the various disputes of his period in American religious life, but here one does meet the real Brainerd with his flaws as well as his virtues. Grigg also introduces us to Tatamy, the Indian convert who was Brainerd’s interpreter, under whose preaching many Indians came to faith. Grigg is an historian, and the book is printed in the OUP Religion in America Series, so that missiological issues are not his prime focus. However, there is much material here to examine from that perspective to form an appreciation both of Brainerd’s methods in evangelising Indians as well as the clear sovereign working of God in their salvation.

Brainerd’s story, however much corrupted in the telling, has been used of God in setting a pattern for the missionary careers of Carey, Martyn, Jim Elliott and many others. This book is an academic text which may appeal to few, but much of the material here presented would be a contribution to a new accurate retelling of Brainerd’s life that we might learn more of what it means to be sacrificial servants of Jesus Christ in cross-cultural mission.

Ray Porter,
member of OMF International and Director of World Mission Studies at Oak Hill Theological College, London