The Sudan Interior Mission (SIM) in Ethiopia (1928-1970)

Abstract

movement was a loose, diverse, and changing federation of cobelligerents, united in their fierce opposition to attempts to bring Christianity into line with modern thought. 1 New discoveries in the field of natural science, rapid industrial growth, and urbanization had led to the secularization of public culture, and emerging fundamentalist faiths found their expectations characterized as incompatible with contemporary views of social reform and religious thought. Evangelical Christian groups who in one way or another were associated with the fundamentalists legitimated their worldview by adhering strictly to biblical truth and defending their beliefs against modernist thought. The SIM was influenced by these ideological undercurrents of fundamentalist evangelicalism, which emphasized, among other things, the inerrancy of the Bible; Gospel proclamation, as distinct from Christian service, which was the main concern of liberal mission institutions; individual conversion, resulting from genuine repentance and an admission of one's sins; radical behavioral change as evidence of regeneration; and the formation of new communities as the inevitable consequence of spiritual regeneration. The SIM can also be identified with the new faith mission agencies of the time, such as Hudson Taylor's China Inland Mission, which were not attached to a single church or denomination for financial support and base of recruit-