by Gregory D. Mathias
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
Dr. George Braswell and his wife Joan were appointed missionaries to the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention on August 17, 1967.[1] Dr. and Mrs. Braswell served as the first Southern Baptist missionaries to Iran from 1968 through 1974. After returning from Iran, Braswell served as a professor of missions at SEBTS from 1974–2004, and then at Campbell University from 2004–2016. He has authored eleven books including To Ride a Magic Carpet, which gives a more detailed account of his experience in Iran.[2]
He and his wife now reside in Wake Forest, North Carolina, where they are members of Wake Forest Baptist Church. Throughout their lives, George and Joan Braswell have exhibited a tenacious trust in the Lord and a fervent missionary spirit. They take every opportunity to inspire people towards missions in general and Iran in particular.
Below is an edited excerpt from an extended interview conducted with Dr. Braswell in June of 2018.
---------------
Tell Us About How God Called You And Your Wife Into Missions.
Our journey into missions started in many places, among many peoples, with many prayers. Let me give you a little background of where I grew up and then tell you about my wife and me together. I grew up in Emporia, Virginia. It was a rural agrarian town: cotton, peanuts, and tobacco. I grew up in the ’40s and ’50s, a much different time and culture than now. The reason I say that is because in the 1940s World War II ended. My father and grandfather were builders and I would work with them in the summers, but I also knew that I would be the first one in my whole family to go to college.
Growing up I had two families in a sense—my immediate family and my Christian family. My immediate family did not regularly attend church, but I did. I went to Sunday school and worshipped. In those days we also had Baptist Training Union on Sunday evenings. In a real sense, the church became my second family. Main Street Baptist Church in Emporia, Virginia, nurtured me along. I remember Sunday School lessons when we studied the Old Testament and figures like King Cyrus, King Artaxerxes, Esther, and Daniel. All of these figures were associated with Persia—modern day Iran—and that excited me. I think God was speaking to my youthful mind through these teachers. My church would regularly invite a foreign missionary to come and be with us for the whole week and preach revival services. Later in life who could have guessed that George Braswell would become the first Southern Baptist Missionary to Persia, to Iran. These early days at church were formative.
I graduated from high school and felt a call to the ministry. At this point I did not necessarily feel called to missions. So, I came to a little town called Wake Forest, where Wake Forest College was located in North Carolina. Now I’m a native Virginian, so traveling a hundred miles from my home was a big adventure for me. I’m thankful for this adventure because during my sophomore year I met my wife to be. We were both sophomores on campus and we began to date. Wake Forest College relocated to Winston-Salem in 1956 and was renamed Wake Forest University. Joan and I graduated from Wake Forest University and were encouraged to pursue master’s degree work at Yale University Divinity School in New Haven, Connecticut. In fact, my former professors at Wake Forest helped secure a three-year full scholarship for me so that I could attend Yale. While there, I majored in missions. The course that changed everything for me was World Religions. The professor spent his sabbatical in Iran and he lectured to us about the worldview and religion of the Magi. I said, “Oh me! My Sunday school teacher, Miss Margaret, way back when I was 8 or 9 years old mentioned the Magi. Now, here I am at Yale University studying under a man who’s been to Iran and met the Magi.” So, I majored in Christian missions and cemented my love for the people of Iran.
Towards the end of my time at Yale, Joan and I were asking the question, “What should we do with our lives?” In the midst of struggling through that question, I was reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship. That book influenced me as I graduated from Yale. We still were not quite sure what God wanted to do with us, but I then became pastor of Cullowhee Baptist Church in Cullowhee, North Carolina. Since Western Carolina University is located in Cullowhee, this was a university church. One of my practices during this time was to take my youth group to the Ridgecrest Baptist Assembly. In the 1960s and 1970s Ridgecrest was a meeting ground for Southern Baptists. Every year they dedicated one week as their Foreign Mission Week. During this week, they would have hundreds of missionaries from around the world come, wear their national dress, and share about their experiences. Dr. Baker James Cauthen, President of the SBC Foreign Mission Board from 1954–1979, preached throughout the week’s events. The continuous call was for people to give their life to foreign missions. While I thought perhaps some of our students would consider foreign missions, you know who walked down the aisle? Joan and me. My wife and I walked down the halls of Ridgecrest in the summer of 1966, and we gave our lives to foreign missions. That is how God called both of us into missions.
Iran Is Regularly In Our News Cycle, But Most Americans Do Not Really Know Much About Iran. Why Did You Go As A Missionary To Iran?
As I stated earlier, we walked that aisle at Ridgecrest and gave our lives to foreign missions. Now it’s referred to as international missions, but then it was foreign missions. So, we wrote to the FMB that day and said we’re ready to give our lives to foreign missions. They wrote us back and said, well, Mr. Braswell, fill out this form. Within a week, we received a response from the Personnel Committee letting us know that due to us not attending a Southern Baptist Seminary they could not accept us. Maybe the Lord was leading me to be more of a maverick, I don’t know, but I wrote back to the FMB in Richmond. In my letter, I thanked them and went on to remind them that I attended Yale University Divinity School. I spent my three years there studying under Richard Niebuhr, who wrote Christ and Culture; Brevard Childs, who taught me Old Testament; Dr. Roland Bainton, who wrote the book on Luther, Here I Stand; and Dr. Kenneth Scott Latourette. If you are questioning my commitment to missions or Baptist life, then perhaps there are other mission boards that might be interested in helping Joan and I answer the call to missions. The letter was bold, and I shouldn’t have said or written all of that, but I received a response within a week. In this letter they asked us to continue in the process with the FMB, so we did.
By the summer of 1967 we were part of a group of one hundred who were commissioned as missionaries with the FMB. We were then part of the first class of guinea pigs to live at Ridgecrest for sixteen weeks of orientation. At the end of that time, we received a visa to go to Iran and we packed up. They gave us 120 pounds of air freight. That was for me, Joan, and our three children. We left for Iran in January of 1968, departing from New York City on a ship.
We made our way across the Atlantic and joined some other missionaries in Rome. From there we flew over to Beirut, but once there they let us know they loved us, but that we were on our own in Iran. There were no Baptists there to meet us. So, we went on to Iran on our own and with a sense of calling. The Foreign Mission Board provided us a great opportunity, but nobody with the FMB had ever been to Iran. We said, yes Lord, we will go to Iran.
What Are Three Lessons That You Learned During Your Time Serving In The Iran?
Let me set the stage a bit. Before leaving for Iran, the Foreign Mission Board gave us opportunity to study Farsi. They recommended two places, Princeton or University of Texas at Arlington, where they would send our family for one year. We prayed about that and decided the best place for us to learn Farsi was in Tehran, if we could obtain a visa. Well, we did receive a visa and so went to Iran. We were thankful for the opportunity to get to Iran in order to study the language and not to spend another year in the States.
The first thing we learned was the tremendous hospitality of Iranian people. Iran was at that time around 98 percent Shi’ite Muslim. That’s overwhelming. But, we learned that they loved Americans. We found that if we were kind, loving, and outgoing then they would return in kind.
The second thing I learned is how God gives kairos moments in history. These are special times in history where God acts, and if we trust Him and act, He will do incredible things. Remember, this was a 98 percent Shi’ite Muslim culture. We initially had three months on our visa to stay in Iran, but I desperately needed a work permit. If I didn’t get a working residence permit, the whole family would have to leave. While there were no Baptists in Iran at the time, there was a Presbyterian mission. One of the Presbyterian missionaries there wanted to introduce me to the dean of the Muslim Seminary of the University of Tehran. It is called The Faculty of Islamic Theology of the University of Tehran. This faculty awards masters degrees and PhDs to Muslim clerics.
I learned that there were 600 students studying for masters and PhD degrees at the university. We went to meet the dean, and there was a line at the office; this line consisted of about twenty chairs with what looked to be Ayatollahs sitting in almost every chair. We proceeded to sit in the last chair since that was the Iranian way. My friend had called ahead and made an appointment. In a few minutes the dean raised his head and saw us and motioned us to come to the front of the line. I said, “Thank You Lord.” The dean was fluent in English, so the conversation started: “Who are you? Where’d you go to school?” I said, “I went to Wake Forest University,” which he had never heard of. I then said, “I went to Yale University.” He replied, “Oh that’s like Harvard?” Our conversation proceeded and ultimately, he liked me. Through the work of the Holy Spirit and my connection with Yale, the dean gave me a position and work residence permit for me to teach at The Faculty of Islamic Theology of the University of Tehran. I was the only Christian professor at a Muslim seminary. Only God could orchestrate this incredible event.
The third thing that stands out to me is when I met a Muslim man who lived next to the Caspian Sea and he wanted to know Christ. His family was Iranian, and his father was a Communist, while his mother was a practicing Muslim. This man had obtained a Bible and through reading it wanted to know more. I was able to help lead him to Christ. I call him Cyrus. To see God move in this man’s life and in so many other Iranian lives was a wonderful gift. Continue to pray for Iranians like Cyrus.
What Advice Would You Give Someone Who’s Considering Either Going Directly Overseas As A Missionary Or Getting Some Seminary Training And Then Heading Overseas?
You need to be very open to everything around you regarding missions and opportunities. Just be inquisitive, learning everything you can about global missions. Do a lot of reading. Read missionary biographies. Read about William Carey, Adoniram Judson, Lottie Moon, and many others. Be available to what God is teaching you and the Holy Spirit is leading you to do. Remember, the missionary life is a tremendous calling but also it can be a very rigorous life. I would also advise you to talk to missionaries, seek them out. Get in a place where you can drink some coffee and tea with them and have honest conversation. The missionary life is not an easy life.
In summary, study, pray, and talk to missionaries. Get to know actual missionaries and talk with them. God will use your time in your church and at seminary to inspire and equip you to go to the nations.
What Is Your Prayer For Iran And Persian Peoples Today?
William McElwee Miller, a Presbyterian evangelist in the early 1900s, started some amazing indigenous work in Iran. The Iranian evangelical church, small as it was, came out of those roots. I pray for that work continuously because I witnessed some of that work when I was there. They have persevered. It is hard, but I understand now that there’s a lot of gospel movement in Iran. There are many Iranian Muslims coming to Christ. I am glad for that and continue praying for that. I’m pleased that Southeastern has the Persian Initiative. As far as I know, it is the only initiative like this in the world. I believe that the day is coming when Iran will be more open to the gospel message. I also personally believe, having taught at the University of Tehran, and meeting a lot of young people, that the youth are key to the future of Iran. We have to be prepared for this time. I’m an old man but I am hopeful and prayerful that this day will come soon. In my day, we so desperately wanted students to come and minister with us. There were over 25,000 students studying at the University of Tehran and there were openings for more missionaries to come, but nobody did. I pray that never happens again.
My prayer for Iran and Persian people is as it’s always been. It is for the Christians there to remain faithful, and for Christians here to pray for their Iranian brothers and sisters.
George Braswell has ministered and taught for over fifty years. His love for Iranians is evident even if one spends only a few minutes with him. His hope is for the gospel to continue going forth among the Iranian people. It seems appropriate to conclude this interview with Braswell’s concluding anecdote in To Ride a Magic Carpet:
There is a mystery to the mazeway of the beats of life in Iran. On a hot summer’s afternoon deep in the bazaar of Tehran, I ran across a silk carpeted tapestry, startling in its composition. The portraits of the Shahenshah and his Empress had been woven on the right and left sides of the carpet, and in between them there was the figure of a man with long, flowing hair. My first thought was that someone must be out of his mind to put anyone between the Shah and his consort. And then I looked for a Qur’an which would identify the face with the prophet Mohammed, and there was not one. I glanced for a sword which would say that he was Ali. But to no avail! I thought all along that it was a portrait of Jesus Christ. But that would be impossible! So I asked the owner of the shop and he confirmed that it was Jesus Christ, and would give no further details except to say, “let it be!” And the beat goes on.[3]
Notes
- In 1997 the Southern Baptist Convention voted to change the name of the Foreign Mission Board (FMB) to the International Mission Board (IMB).
- George W. Braswell Jr., To Ride a Magic Carpet: How One American’s Fascination with Old Persia Leads to Genuine Communication with Modern Iranians (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1977).
- Braswell, To Ride a Magic Carpet, 140.
No comments:
Post a Comment