What are missions accomplishing?

I recently picked up a copy of Edward White's book, The Theory of Missions A Scriptural Inquiry into the Destiny of the Heathen. pub date 1855. Mr. White rightly brings up the question concerning future punishment and the love of God. He asserts that the theory of missions is often flawed since the motivation is based on a concern that all of the unconverted peoples will go to a burning hell. He claims that a gospel based on a positive assesment of God's character is a more effective basis on which to preach about Christ to those who know nothing about Christianity.

Even though Mr White is heading on the right track, he falls short of answering his own question. To be fair to Mr. White he did at a later date admit the possibility of future probation for those who never hear the gospel. See the publications by Nisbett in c. 1887-8 titled "Future Probation A Clerical Symposium" and "Immortality a Clerical Symposium". He removed the negative attribution about eternal hell but does not clearly say why his approach is that much better. I say that since his doctrine still did not solve the problem of how many are lost. There has been a manifest failure of Christian missions over the centuries since Christ. During most of the past 2000 years the majority of people have never even heard of Christ, much less had a good witness concerning him and the gospel. So they can only fail to respond to Christianity positively and are therefore lost anyway. And let's face it, even death that results in dissolution and non-existence is still a terrible fate. Those evangelicals who pretend that annihilation is the easy way out compared to eternal torment are simply suffering from an exaggerated need for extreme wrath and senseless torture and violence throughout all time.

Even the conditionalist position that Mr White advocated was considered soft of sin due to what I just mentioned above. In response I would only mention that the motivation to religion and the Christian message can be just as negative and motivating in either sphere of belief. A case in point is the Jehovah's Witnesses, who adhere to a strongly conditionalist position, but are able to emphasize the fear of "simple" death as extinction of being and terrorize people with the fear of second death. The rate of mental illness and side effects of this fear is legendary. The Watchtower organization isn't any worse than the churches who advocate eternal torment, they are simply more effective in getting the message across. I'd suggest that those who believe in eternal torment for all unbelievers aren't being very responsible to their fellow humans, since few even try to reach out to the unconverted "heathen".

My last point is, all of the missions spawned over the past 200 years have garnered some converts, but overall Christianity is losing the numbers race to Islam and other non Jewish and non Christian religions. I therefore conclude that the present age is not the time for converting the nations (or for pronouncing eternal damnation either). That's going to happen in the time of the kingdom of God and the resurection of the just and the unjust.