Lottie Moon
Encyclopedia
Charlotte Digges "Lottie" Moon (December 12, 1840 – December 24, 1912) was a Southern Baptist
missionary
to China
with the Foreign Mission Board
who spent nearly forty years (1873–1912) living and working in China. As a teacher and evangelist she laid a foundation for traditionally solid support for missions among Baptists in America.
plantation
called Viewmont, in Albemarle County, Virginia
. Lottie was fourth in a family of five girls and two boys. Lottie was only thirteen when her father died in a riverboat accident.
The Moon family valued education, and at age fourteen Lottie went to school at the Baptist-affiliated Virginia Female Seminary (high school, later Hollins Institute) and Albemarle Female Institute in Charlottesville, Virginia. In 1861 Moon received one of the first Master of Arts degrees awarded to a woman by a southern institution. She spoke numerous languages: Latin, Greek
, French
, Italian
and Spanish
. She was also fluent in reading Hebrew
. Later, she would become expert at Chinese
.
s on the college campus. Leading the revival service wherein Moon experienced this awakening was John Broadus, one of the founders of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
There were very few opportunities for educated females in the mid-19th century, though her older sister Orianna became a physician and served as a Confederate Army doctor during the American Civil War
. Lottie helped her mother maintain the family estate during the war, and afterward settled into a teaching career. She taught at female academies, first in Danville, Kentucky
, then in Cartersville, Georgia
, where she and her friend, Anna Safford, opened Cartersville Female High School in 1871. There she joined the First Baptist Church and ministered to the poor and impoverished families of Bartow County, Georgia
.
To the family's surprise, Lottie's younger sister Edmonia accepted a call to go to North China as a missionary in 1872. By this time the Southern Baptist Convention
had relaxed its policy against sending single women into the mission field, and Lottie herself soon felt called to follow her sister to China. On July 7, 1873, the Foreign Mission Board officially appointed Lottie as a missionary to China. She was 33 years old.
, and began her ministry by teaching in a boys school. (Edmonia had to return home a short time later for health reasons.) While accompanying some of the seasoned missionary wives on “country visits” to outlying villages, Lottie discovered her passion: direct evangelism. Most mission work at that time was done by married men, but the wives of China missionaries Tarleton Perry Crawford
and Landrum Holmes had discovered an important reality: Only women could reach Chinese women. Lottie soon became frustrated, convinced that her talent was being wasted and could be better put to use in evangelism and church planting. She had come to China to "go out among the millions" as an evangelist, only to find herself relegated to teaching a school of forty "unstudious" children. She felt chained down, and came to view herself as part of an oppressed class - single women missionaries. Her writings were an appeal on behalf of all those who were facing similar situations in their ministries. In an article titled "The Woman's Question Again," published in 1883, Lottie wrote:
Lottie waged a slow but relentless campaign to give women missionaries the freedom to minister and have an equal voice in mission proceedings. A prolific writer, she corresponded frequently with H. A. Tupper, head of the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board, informing him of the realities of mission work and the desperate need for more workers—both women and men.
In 1892, Moon took a much needed furlough in the US, and did so again in 1902. She was very concerned that her fellow missionaries were burning out from lack of rest and renewal and going to early graves. The mindset back home was "go to the mission field, die on the mission field." Many never expected to see their friends and families again. Moon argued that regular furloughs every ten years would extend the lives and effectiveness of seasoned missionaries.
The First Sino-Japanese War
(1894), the Boxer Rebellion
(1900) and the Chinese Nationalist
uprising (which overthrew the Qing Dynasty
in 1911) all profoundly affected mission work. Famine and disease took their toll, as well. When Moon returned from her second furlough in 1904, she was deeply struck by the suffering of the people who were literally starving to death all around her. She pleaded for more money and more resources, but the mission board was heavily in debt and could send nothing. Mission salaries were voluntarily cut. Unknown to her fellow missionaries, Moon shared her personal finances and food with anyone in need around her, severely affecting both her physical and mental health. In 1912, she only weighed 50 pounds. Alarmed, fellow missionaries arranged for her to be sent back home to the United States with a missionary companion. However, Moon died on route, at the age of 72, on December 24, 1912, in the harbor of Kobe
, Japan
Her body was cremated and the remains returned to her family in Crewe, Virginia
, for burial.
, a former teacher who became a controversial figure among Southern Baptists in the late 19th century. Moon first met Toy at the Albemarle Female Institute, founded by Southern Seminary founder John Broadus. Lottie was a capable student in languages, becoming one of the first women in the south to earn a master's degree in the field. Lottie—who previously learned Latin, Greek, French, Italian and Spanish—would learn Hebrew and English grammar under Toy's tutelage. Toy wrote of Moon, "She writes the best English I have ever been privileged to read." While it is rumored that Toy proposed to Moon before the Civil War, there is no concrete evidence of such an event. Instead, Toy became a staunch supporter of the Confederacy
while Moon aided her mother on their Virginia estate.
Following his tenure at Albemarle, Toy was a professor of Old Testament studies at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Toy, however, was dismissed from Southern in 1879 following a series of controversial lectures and publications concerning his doctrine of Scripture, notably influenced by the European higher critics of his milieu. In Moon's 1881 correspondence with FMB secretary H. A. Tupper, she expressed her plans for a spring wedding with Toy, who was now teaching Old Testament and religion at Harvard University
. Toy and Moon's relationship was broken before their marriage plans were realized—citing religious reasons for calling off the wedding. Toy's controversial new beliefs regarding the Bible and Moon's commitment to remain in China doing mission work for Southern Baptists seem to be these reasons. While Moon went on to become the "patron saint" of Southern Baptist Missions, Toy ultimately broke his affiliation with Southern Baptists and became a Unitarian.
on December 22.
Southern Baptist Convention
The Southern Baptist Convention is a United States-based Christian denomination. It is the world's largest Baptist denomination and the largest Protestant body in the United States, with over 16 million members...
missionary
Missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...
to China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
with the Foreign Mission Board
International Mission Board
The International Mission Board is a missionary sending agency affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention which operates in virtually every nation except the United States and Canada...
who spent nearly forty years (1873–1912) living and working in China. As a teacher and evangelist she laid a foundation for traditionally solid support for missions among Baptists in America.
Virginia plantation roots
Moon was born to affluent parents who were staunch Baptists, Anna Maria Barclay and Edward Harris Moon. She grew up (to her full height of 4 in 3 in (1.3 m), according to one account) on the family's ancestral 1500 acres (6.1 km²) slave-labor tobaccoTobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
plantation
Plantation
A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...
called Viewmont, in Albemarle County, Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
. Lottie was fourth in a family of five girls and two boys. Lottie was only thirteen when her father died in a riverboat accident.
The Moon family valued education, and at age fourteen Lottie went to school at the Baptist-affiliated Virginia Female Seminary (high school, later Hollins Institute) and Albemarle Female Institute in Charlottesville, Virginia. In 1861 Moon received one of the first Master of Arts degrees awarded to a woman by a southern institution. She spoke numerous languages: Latin, Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
and Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
. She was also fluent in reading Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
. Later, she would become expert at Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
.
Spiritual awakening
A spirited and outspoken girl, Lottie was indifferent to her Christian upbringing until her early teens (1853). She underwent a spiritual awakening at the age of 18, after a series of revival meetingRevival meeting
A revival meeting is a series of Christian religious services held in order to inspire active members of a church body, to raise funds and to gain new converts...
s on the college campus. Leading the revival service wherein Moon experienced this awakening was John Broadus, one of the founders of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
There were very few opportunities for educated females in the mid-19th century, though her older sister Orianna became a physician and served as a Confederate Army doctor during the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. Lottie helped her mother maintain the family estate during the war, and afterward settled into a teaching career. She taught at female academies, first in Danville, Kentucky
Danville, Kentucky
Danville is a city in and the county seat of Boyle County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 16,218 at the 2010 census.Danville is the principal city of the Danville Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Boyle and Lincoln counties....
, then in Cartersville, Georgia
Cartersville, Georgia
Cartersville is a town in Bartow County, in the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 19,7314. The city is the county seat of Bartow County.-Geography:Cartersville was named for Colonel Farish Carter....
, where she and her friend, Anna Safford, opened Cartersville Female High School in 1871. There she joined the First Baptist Church and ministered to the poor and impoverished families of Bartow County, Georgia
Bartow County, Georgia
Bartow County is a county located in the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2010 census, the population was 100,157. According to the U.S. Census Bureau's July 1, 2009 estimate, the county's explosive growth resulted in a population of 96,217, a 26.5% increase in less than ten years...
.
To the family's surprise, Lottie's younger sister Edmonia accepted a call to go to North China as a missionary in 1872. By this time the Southern Baptist Convention
Southern Baptist Convention
The Southern Baptist Convention is a United States-based Christian denomination. It is the world's largest Baptist denomination and the largest Protestant body in the United States, with over 16 million members...
had relaxed its policy against sending single women into the mission field, and Lottie herself soon felt called to follow her sister to China. On July 7, 1873, the Foreign Mission Board officially appointed Lottie as a missionary to China. She was 33 years old.
Early years in China (1873-1885)
Lottie joined her sister Edmonia at the North China Mission Station in the treaty port of DengzhouDengzhou
Dengzhou , formerly Deng County , is a city in Nanyang, Henan, China. it has an area of 2,294 km² and a population of 1,500,000. The urban area is 35 km², and the urban population is 300,000. The city is located in the southwest of Henan province, adjacent to the borders between Henan,...
, and began her ministry by teaching in a boys school. (Edmonia had to return home a short time later for health reasons.) While accompanying some of the seasoned missionary wives on “country visits” to outlying villages, Lottie discovered her passion: direct evangelism. Most mission work at that time was done by married men, but the wives of China missionaries Tarleton Perry Crawford
Tarleton Perry Crawford
Tarleton Perry Crawford was a Baptist missionary to Shandong, China for 50 years with his wife.-Early life and education:Crawford was born in Warren County, Kentucky. He was the fourth son of John and Lucretia Crawford...
and Landrum Holmes had discovered an important reality: Only women could reach Chinese women. Lottie soon became frustrated, convinced that her talent was being wasted and could be better put to use in evangelism and church planting. She had come to China to "go out among the millions" as an evangelist, only to find herself relegated to teaching a school of forty "unstudious" children. She felt chained down, and came to view herself as part of an oppressed class - single women missionaries. Her writings were an appeal on behalf of all those who were facing similar situations in their ministries. In an article titled "The Woman's Question Again," published in 1883, Lottie wrote:
Lottie waged a slow but relentless campaign to give women missionaries the freedom to minister and have an equal voice in mission proceedings. A prolific writer, she corresponded frequently with H. A. Tupper, head of the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board, informing him of the realities of mission work and the desperate need for more workers—both women and men.
Cultural sensitivity
Raised in a family “of culture and means,” Lottie at first thought of the Chinese as an inferior people, and insisted on wearing American clothes to maintain a degree of distance from the “heathen” people. But gradually she came to realize that the more she shed her westernized trappings and identified with the Chinese people, the more their simple curiosity about foreigners (and sometimes rejection) turned into genuine interest in the Gospel. She began wearing Chinese clothes, adopted Chinese customs, learned to be sensitive to Chinese culture, and came to respect and admire Chinese culture and learning. In turn she gained love and respect from many Chinese people.Expanded work (1885-1894)
In 1885, at the age of 45, Moon gave up teaching and moved into the interior to evangelize full-time in the areas of P'ingtu and Hwangshien. Her converts numbered in the hundreds. Continuing a prolific writing campaign, Moon's letters and articles poignantly described the life of a missionary and pleaded the "desperate need" for more missionaries, which the poorly funded board could not provide. She encouraged Southern Baptist women to organize mission societies in the local churches to help support additional missionary candidates, and to consider coming themselves. Many of her letters appeared as articles in denominational publications. Then, in 1887, Moon wrote to the Foreign Mission Journal and proposed that the week before Christmas be established as a time of giving to foreign missions. Catching her vision, Southern Baptist women organized local Women's Missionary Societies and even Sunbeam Bands for children to promote missions and collect funds to support missions. The Woman's Missionary Union, an auxiliary to the Southern Baptist Convention, was also established. The first "Christmas offering for missions" in 1888 collected over $3,315, enough to send three new missionaries to China.In 1892, Moon took a much needed furlough in the US, and did so again in 1902. She was very concerned that her fellow missionaries were burning out from lack of rest and renewal and going to early graves. The mindset back home was "go to the mission field, die on the mission field." Many never expected to see their friends and families again. Moon argued that regular furloughs every ten years would extend the lives and effectiveness of seasoned missionaries.
War, conflict and scarcity (1894-1912)
Throughout her missionary career, Moon faced plague, famine, revolution, and war.The First Sino-Japanese War
First Sino-Japanese War
The First Sino-Japanese War was fought between Qing Dynasty China and Meiji Japan, primarily over control of Korea...
(1894), the Boxer Rebellion
Boxer Rebellion
The Boxer Rebellion, also called the Boxer Uprising by some historians or the Righteous Harmony Society Movement in northern China, was a proto-nationalist movement by the "Righteous Harmony Society" , or "Righteous Fists of Harmony" or "Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists" , in China between...
(1900) and the Chinese Nationalist
Chinese nationalist
Chinese nationalist can refer to:* Chinese nationalism* Kuomintang - Chinese Nationalist Party in Taiwan....
uprising (which overthrew the Qing Dynasty
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
in 1911) all profoundly affected mission work. Famine and disease took their toll, as well. When Moon returned from her second furlough in 1904, she was deeply struck by the suffering of the people who were literally starving to death all around her. She pleaded for more money and more resources, but the mission board was heavily in debt and could send nothing. Mission salaries were voluntarily cut. Unknown to her fellow missionaries, Moon shared her personal finances and food with anyone in need around her, severely affecting both her physical and mental health. In 1912, she only weighed 50 pounds. Alarmed, fellow missionaries arranged for her to be sent back home to the United States with a missionary companion. However, Moon died on route, at the age of 72, on December 24, 1912, in the harbor of Kobe
Kobe
, pronounced , is the fifth-largest city in Japan and is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture on the southern side of the main island of Honshū, approximately west of Osaka...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
Her body was cremated and the remains returned to her family in Crewe, Virginia
Crewe, Virginia
Crewe is a town in Nottoway County, Virginia, United States. The population was 2,378 at the 2000 census. It was founded in 1888 as a central location to house steam locomotive repair shops for the Norfolk and Western Railroad which has a rail yard there for east-west trains carrying Appalachian...
, for burial.
Relationship with Crawford Howell Toy
Several have suggested that Moon had a romantic relationship with Crawford Howell ToyCrawford Howell Toy
Crawford Howell Toy , American Hebrew scholar, was born in Norfolk, Virginia, on 23 March 1836. He graduated at the University of Virginia in 1856, and studied at the University of Berlin from 1866 to 1868...
, a former teacher who became a controversial figure among Southern Baptists in the late 19th century. Moon first met Toy at the Albemarle Female Institute, founded by Southern Seminary founder John Broadus. Lottie was a capable student in languages, becoming one of the first women in the south to earn a master's degree in the field. Lottie—who previously learned Latin, Greek, French, Italian and Spanish—would learn Hebrew and English grammar under Toy's tutelage. Toy wrote of Moon, "She writes the best English I have ever been privileged to read." While it is rumored that Toy proposed to Moon before the Civil War, there is no concrete evidence of such an event. Instead, Toy became a staunch supporter of the Confederacy
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
while Moon aided her mother on their Virginia estate.
Following his tenure at Albemarle, Toy was a professor of Old Testament studies at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Toy, however, was dismissed from Southern in 1879 following a series of controversial lectures and publications concerning his doctrine of Scripture, notably influenced by the European higher critics of his milieu. In Moon's 1881 correspondence with FMB secretary H. A. Tupper, she expressed her plans for a spring wedding with Toy, who was now teaching Old Testament and religion at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
. Toy and Moon's relationship was broken before their marriage plans were realized—citing religious reasons for calling off the wedding. Toy's controversial new beliefs regarding the Bible and Moon's commitment to remain in China doing mission work for Southern Baptists seem to be these reasons. While Moon went on to become the "patron saint" of Southern Baptist Missions, Toy ultimately broke his affiliation with Southern Baptists and became a Unitarian.
Veneration
Moon is honored together with Henry Budd with a feast day on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA)Calendar of saints (Episcopal Church in the United States of America)
The veneration of saints in the Episcopal Church is a continuation of an ancient tradition from the early Church which honors important people of the Christian faith. The usage of the term "saint" is similar to Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions. Those in the Anglo-Catholic tradition may...
on December 22.
Modern legacy
Lottie Moon has come to personify the missionary spirit for Southern Baptists and many other Christians, as well. The annual Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for Missions has raised a total of $1.5 billion for missions since 1888, and finances half the entire Southern Baptist missions budget every year.See also
- Southern Baptist ConventionSouthern Baptist ConventionThe Southern Baptist Convention is a United States-based Christian denomination. It is the world's largest Baptist denomination and the largest Protestant body in the United States, with over 16 million members...
- List of Southern Baptist Convention affiliated people
- List of American Southern Baptist missionaries in China
- Color Rendering of Lottie Moon
External links
- Dave and Neta Jackson Short Bio
- More Info from Int'l Missionary Board
- Biographical Sketch of Lottie Moon An Audio message by Dr. Tom Nettles.
- Southern Baptist Historical Library & Archives