Mongolia: a lesson to learn

John Gibbens has given the following moving account of the progress of the gospel in Mongolia, underlining the need for careful translation of the Scriptures.

Mongolia, under Genghis Khan, became the world’s greatest empire, stretching from China and Korea to Central Europe. Mongolians have a history of atheism, with strong Shamanist and Tibetan Buddhist superstitions. Marco Polo noted in the 13th century that Mongolians revere any religion, saying it is the best when it is to their advantage. Mongolia also has influences from Manichaeism, Zoroastrianism and Chinese philosophy. Mongolians comprise what is said to be a people group numbering some ten million people over Mongolia, China and Russia.

God’s call

In 1968 God spoke to me through Romans 15.20: ‘It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known… Those who were not told about him will see, and those who have not heard will understand.’

God reminded me of a state secondary school teacher who said Mongolia had never been evangelised. 1971 saw me studying Mongolian at university and studying Bible translation at Wycliffe Bible Translators. I went to Mongolia for the first time in 1972. I did not find one believer in the whole land or one copy of the Scriptures. Even the name ‘Jesus Christ’ was almost completely unknown.

New Testament

It was in 1990 that God enabled the publication of the New Testament, just 13 days after the first free election. The Communist party had been re-elected, but things had changed. In the early 1990s God moved in power through preaching in halls, on the streets and squares, with hundreds gathered. The term for God that we use is found in Mongolian dictionaries and also in such as Zechariah 4.14. ‘Lord of all the earth’ is a clear term. It is used all over the country and in newspapers. People, when asked, ‘Are you a Christian?’ would truthfully answer ‘not yet’, meaning they were thinking deeply. That movement of God ended swiftly.

Religion and money?

A missionary bandwagon rush came from the West and later from Korea. Not knowing Mongolian, they hired unemployed, poorly schooled youths who had picked up a smattering of broken English. The youths arranged visas, imports of personal effects, somewhere to live and a telephone. It was the first time Western currency had flowed plentifully in Mongolia! It was new. Christianity became the rage! It was all about money. It was the religion that had made the West rich! Meeting missionaries was the way to get visas to the West, work, money or even a foreign spouse as that guaranteed a meal ticket for life. The youths would do anything to keep their jobs.

Asked by the evangelising missionaries, ‘Do you believe in burhan?’, the answer would be ‘yes!’ (The missionaries meant ‘God’, but they picked this word up from the youths. ‘Burhan’s religion’ is the proper noun for ‘Buddhism’.)

They would then ask: ‘Do you want to believe in Jesus burhan?’ ‘Oh yes!’

With no other job and maybe a family to support, what else would one expect those ignorant, impoverished people to say? They knew no different, and had little idea of what the missionary really meant by the English word ‘God’. These youths became the protegees of the missionary, the ‘Christian leaders’. The rise of these poorly educated youths signalled the mass exodus from meetings of the intelligentsia who had formed the bulk of those seriously interested. They never returned.

‘Burhan’ is the term used to refer to Buddha in Marco Polo’s book. This word, with that meaning, existed in this land long before the Mongols rose to power in the 13th century. Vast confusion occurs when evangelical missions call God ‘burhan’. Total unbelievers say how weird such a mix is. Buddhist priests write articles saying that burhan is not a deity and does not fit with the Bible!

The youths were paid to ‘translate’ the Bible from English. It is not surprising that this translation calls God ‘burhan’. Mongols say the Mongolian in it is virtually incomprehensible. Today in Mongolia many thousands attend Christian ‘burhan’ meetings. Mongolians talk of the way the ‘pastors’ are in it just for money. They mention their lies, hatred, and drinking. Does it pay? Once someone tried to report their church leaders’ corruption to the police, but as the leaders were friends with the police, the report got nowhere. Mongolians nicknamed that church the ‘Mafia Church’ due to the accounts of very large sums of money getting ‘lost’. Just last year, a ‘pastor’ died in his early 40s. He had the reputation of being used by missions to get churches set up legally. He then left the churches after embezzling funds. After his death he left behind him 150 million US dollars. A US missionary talks of ‘pastors’ who receive as much as 2,000 dollars a month through advertising for gifts on the internet.

Swapping congregations

Missionaries report such a group with 500 attendees changing its entire congregation several times in five years. The only ones who stay are those paid by the group, the remainder attending for an average of two years. An example of such unstable attendees is a person who passed from an evangelical group, where there was not much money being lavished about, to the ‘Assemblies of God’. Not liking this, the person became a Mormon. After hearing of about ten of their leaders embezzling several tens of thousands of dollars, that person now goes nowhere at all.

Missionaries only stay on average for about three years. One missionary said, ‘The people in my church show by their lives they are not members of Christ. They are after money.’ Another person said, ‘They are Christians. They believe in Jesus.’ When this missionary was asked, ‘Did the Holy Spirit convict them of sin, the righteousness of Christ and judgement and bring them to true repentance?’ he replied, ‘I understand that. It happened to me. They have not had that at all, but they are genuine believers.’

Mongolians talk of missionaries often being at enmity between themselves, striving purely to set up their own sectarian groups, showing no concern for anything beyond that.

Repentance from ‘burhan’

We give Bible exposition, preaching that people stand before ‘the Lord of all the earth’ as sinners, and that God has fixed a day of judgement and that he commands all people to repent. We preach that that includes repentance from ‘burhan’, all false religion, the heart love of money and all else which God condemns. Today, just the smallest handful of Mongolians talk of the convicting power of God in their lives. The rest merely say they go to ‘church’ and are now happy! They know next to nothing about God. Their love is money.

Our work is to finish off the last stages of checking the translation of the Old Testament and revised New Testament against Hebrew and Greek, bringing out a complete Bible in excellent Mongolian. It then needs adaptation into all the dialects spoken throughout the Mongolian-speaking world. We also preach, and do all the rest that ministering involves. We translate and publish a wide range of quality Christian books.

Need for the Holy Spirit

Right now, there is little sign of any real desire for God. People are sick of ‘evangelicalism’ with its false money-loving ‘pastors’. They are sick of the many suicides with people leaving notes saying they are going to Jesus, but within three days will be born back into Mongolia. That is what people now think Christianity is all about. They do not want it. They see it as mentally sick. They want money instead. Pray for a deep move of the Holy Spirit, in convicting people of sin, righteousness and judgement, as only God can do that and lead a person to true repentance. We are much encouraged, as we are certain God has it all in his hands.

John’s wife Altaa (she is Mongolian and holds a State certificate in translating into Mongolian) is the Executive Secretary of the Bible Society of Mongolia. They both work on Bible translation. They have a daughter, aged 20, at university in the UK and a son, aged eight, at school in Mongolia. John is also doing a part-time PhD in theological missiology to help mission in Mongolia and other places. They are supported purely by gifts. The Bible Society of Mongolia is not connected to, or funded by, any entity. Their email address is: shalomodoo@gmail.com

This report first appeared in the March newsletter of the International Fellowship of Reformed Baptists with kind permission of Reformation Today, and is reprinted with permission.