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Lore & Background

The precursor to the BMS, the Gesellschaft zur Beförderung der Evangelischen Missionen unter den Heiden, was founded on 29 February 1824. It was a successor to the Berliner Missionsschule, started in 1800 by Pastor Johannes Jaenicke. The BMS began training its first missionaries in 1829. The first five missionaries—August Gebel, Johann Schmidt, Reinhold Gregorowski, Gustav Kraut, and August F. Lange—were sent to South Africa in 1883 to establish the first BMS mission station, Bethanien, in the Orange Free State. Missionaries Alexander Merensky and Heinrich Grützner started work in the northeastern part of the South African Republic in 1860, their first station being at Gerlachshoop. Merensky founded the station at Botshabelo in 1865, which soon became the most important station of the Berlin Society in South Africa. The BMS also sent workers to China in 1869, officially declaring Canton as its mission field in 1882. The Bethel Mission invited the BMS in 1903 to take over a number of its stations in Tanganyika, German East Africa.

In Their Own Story

The BMS emphasized spiritual inwardness and puritanical values such as morality, hard work, and self-discipline. It proved unable to speak and act decisively against injustice and racial discrimination. In 1889, a prominent native evangelist, Martinus Sewushane, and around 500 of his followers seceded from the BMS to form the Lutheran Bapedi Church. During the Anglo Boer War, BMS missionary Daniel Heese was murdered by members of the Bushveldt Carbineers. Both World Wars caused great disruption, and after World War II, the Society's Berlin headquarters fell within the Soviet Zone of Occupied Germany. In 1961, the BMS established a branch in West Berlin. From 1962, it began granting independence to its mission churches, which eventually formed the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa. The BMS was disbanded in 1972.

Reader's Guide

The BMS focused on providing schooling and bringing the gospel to people in their own language. Missionaries were often at the forefront of publishing Bible translations, dictionaries, and grammars in indigenous languages. Africans, duly trained and sometimes salaried, were accepted into the Society as teachers, catechists, and lay-preachers, the so-called Nationalhelferen. The Tswana Catechist Richard Miles was an early example. Niklaas Koen, a 'Khoikhoi', was sent by the BMS to Germany in 1875 to further his education and study for the ministry at the Berlin Missionshaus. He qualified as a missionary and returned to Africa. Jan Sekoto, another gifted African student, studied at Ducherow and the theological seminary in Berlin but returned early to the BMS station at Botshabelo as a teacher. His son Gerard Sekoto, born at Botshabelo in 1913, later achieved considerable renown as an artist. Hermann Theodor Wangemann directed the Society from 1865 until his death in 1894. He wrote the 1881 Missionsordnung der Gesellschaft zur Beförderung der Evangelischen Missionen unter den Heiden zu Berlin.

Did You Know?

• The Berlin Missionary Society was founded on 29 February 1824 by eleven pious laymen from the Prussian nobility.
• The first complete Bible in an indigenous language (Sepedi/Northern Sotho) was published in 1904, translated by BMS missionary Gustav Trümpelmann with the assistance of Abraham Serote.
• BMS missionary Daniel Heese was murdered by members of the Bushveldt Carbineers during the Anglo Boer War.
• The BMS sent its first five missionaries to South Africa in 1883, not 1834 as the initial mission activity began.
• The BMS merged with various other societies in 1972 to become today's Berliner Missionswerk.