Adoniram Judson, Benjamin P. Brown, and Judson University

Separated by 200 years and 8,000 miles, yet joined by a common Baptist belief and a willingness to trust God, missionary Adoniram Judson and educator Benjamin Browne demonstrate what people called by God can achieve when others think it impossible.

Here, in a unique comparison, Professor Stuart Ryder looks at both men and their labors—Judson as a pioneering missionary and linguist and Brown as the determined founder of a college named for Judson. Their lives have great parallels, with both inspiration and strugges each experienced during their ministries. 

The result is not a strictly chronological account of either Judson’s life or of the college’s founding. Instead, it is an impressionistic selection from both histories, which then draws a comparison between the life of Judson and that of contemporary Christian students. 

So, whether you are interested in missions or in Christian higher education or just wish to be inspired by men of faith, here are stories to build your insisght and understanding.

Why this book

Foreword

Why am I sitting down to write this tribute to Adoniram Judson and Benjamin P. Browne, respectively the spiritual and intellectual forefather and the institutional founder of Judson University? I could not have imagined, when I first set foot on a much different campus in November, 1968, to interview for a faculty position, that the rest of my life would be centered there. I had never heard of Adoniram Judson, even though I had been raised and baptized within an American Baptist congregation. I was unaware that the college was barely five years old and not accredited, and still less that some of the original trustees were proposing to close it down. I was no better informed until the 1970s, after I began teaching. But, in the words of John Wesley, “My heart was strangely warmed within me” that day. I don’t believe that any of this would have changed my decision, made before I left, to accept the offer that would be made.

Thus, I came to Judson College with virtually no sense of why or how it existed. But year after year at the Founder ‘s Day Ceremonv, I would hear the story of how Ben Browne was able in 1963 to purchase the Deuterman property with only five dollars in his pocket. The congregation heard little about what led up to that event or what happened between 1963 and 1969, when I arrived. We would also be reminded of Adoniram Judson, our college’s namesake, as the missionary who laid the groundwork for Christianity in Burma, a nation of which he knew virtually nothing; but we would hear little about the man himself. Even then it did occur to me that like him, I had come to serve in what in many ways was an unknown land.

What prompted me to write this tribute is that as years passed I noticed that the story of Ben Browne and his purchase no longer a part of the Founders’ Day services. Paradoxically, for the first time this stimulated my curiosity to know more, and perhaps to write for others what I discovered. That meant going to original documents prior to or during the founding years, 1963-1969. This relatively brief book is the result. My decision to include an extended essay on Adoniram Judson arose naturally from this research. Why should there have been a Judson College? Was that an appropriate name? As I then proceeded to discover more about Judson I came to see his name as more than honorific, and began even to see some parallels between his (problematic) ministry and Ben Browne’s vision of an evangelical Christian college in the Midwest, and between the struggles against obstacles raised by well-meaning supporters that threatened each man’s success. I found I could easily identify with the stubbornness of these men in their conviction that they were right and the others wrong.

Adventures in Faith is not a formal biography of either Adoniram Judson or Benjamin Browne, nor is it a formal account of their ministries. Whereas, with the exception of an extended excerpt of Dr. Browne’s 1970 history of Judson’s founding years, the reader will not always encounter a chronological narrative of the subject’s life and work, usually highlighting major events of his life and evaluating his achievements. The style can better be described as impressionistic as I selected incidents and writings from each man that seemed to create an impression of his personality.

Beyond that, I decided to include occasional comments from contemporary students and friends of the college. This would, first, identify similarities and dissimilarities between themselves and the young Adoniram Judson. Second, it would indicate how Dr. Browne’s vision was realized in the students who would later attend Judson College. Finally, I have sometimes placed events in their historical context.

I hope the discerning reader will recognize the author’s personal appreciation of, and even affection toward his two subjects.