Presenters at a forum on the work, mission and legacy of George Liele at the Baptist World Alliance� Annual Gathering declared him the first Baptist missionary. Liele, a freed slave from the United States, planted the first Baptist church in Jamaica in 1783.
Noel Erskine, professor at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta in the United States, said that “With his migration to Jamaica in 1783, Liele became America’s first missionary, 33 years before Adoniram Judson sailed for Burma and 10 years before William Carey of England sailed for India.”
Лиле, который был рукоположен в 1775 году, также считается первым чернокожим человеком в США, получившим сан баптистского пастора, и, вероятно, первым чернокожим баптистским пастором в мире. Он основал церкви в Саванне, штат Джорджия.
His ministry in the US influenced others who went on to found significant Baptist work, including David George, baptized by Liele and who left Savannah �for the Canadian Province of Nova Scotia and then later to Sierra Leone in Africa, where he started Baptist churches in both countries.� Others included Jesse Peters in South Carolina, Hannah Williams in England and Andrew Bryan in Savannah.
Moses Baker, another freed slave from the US who was converted under Liele’s ministry in Jamaica, was instrumental in starting Baptist work in the western part of the island. Liele had concentrated his work in the capital Kingston and surrounding areas in the east.
According to Horace Russell, retired professor of historical theology at Palmer Theological Seminary near Philadelphia in the US, aspects of Liele’s model for ministry were adopted by the British missionaries. Missionaries from Britain started arriving in Jamaica early in the 19th century in response to appeals for assistance with the growing Baptist work on the island.
Сессия, посвященная наследию Джорджа Лиле, была одним из нескольких вопросов, рассмотренных более чем 400 баптистскими лидерами, теологами, учителями, пасторами и другими людьми из 40 стран в ходе ежегодного собрания БВА, проходившего с 1 по 6 июля в Очо Риос, Ямайка.
Baptist World Alliance�
� July 5, 2013