Rufus Anderson

Rufus Anderson (August 17, 1796 – May 23, 1880) was an American minister who spent several decades organizing overseas missions.

Personal life

Rufus Anderson was born in North Yarmouth, Maine, in 1796. His father, also named Rufus Anderson, was Congregationalist pastor of the church in North Yarmouth. His mother was Hannah Parsons. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1818, and from Andover Theological Seminary in 1822, and was ordained as a minister in 1826. He married Eliza Hill (1804–1880) on January 8, 1827.

Career in missions

He worked at the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) as an assistant while studying at Andover. In 1822 he applied to go to India but was asked to remain at headquarters and later appointed assistant secretary. In 1832 he was given total responsibility for overseas work as a Secretary of the ABCFM. In this capacity, he corresponded with missionaries from around the world.

He traveled in Latin America (1819,1823-1824), the Mediterranean and Near East (1828-1829, 1843–1844), India, Ceylon, Syria, and Turkey (1854-1855), and Hawaii (1863). During the winter of 1843–1844, he visited the ABCFM's mission stations in Turkey.

He resigned as ABCFM secretary in 1866 but continued on the ABCFM Prudential Committee until 1875. From 1867 to 1869 he delivered at Andover seminary lectures on foreign missions. In 1868 Dartmouth college conferred upon him the degree of LL.D., and he was made a fellow of the American Oriental society.

Theology of missions

Anderson believed that "missions are instituted for the spread of a scriptural self-propagating Christianity". Missions were for: