John Lincoln Dearing

Background

John Lincoln Dearing was born on December 10, 1858 in Webster, Maine, United States; the son of Joseph Henry and Susan Vinton (Adams) Dearing.

Education

A farmer’s boy, eager for an education, he prepared for Colby College from which, having supported himself throughout his course, he graduated in 1884. For the next two years he was superintendent of schools in Deep River, Connecticut. He then entered Newton Theological Institution, graduating in 1889.

Career

The call to missionary service had come to him in 1888 at a Student Volunteer Convention, and, soon after his graduation, having first been ordained to the Baptist ministry, he sailed for Japan under appointment by the American Baptist Missionary Union.

During his entire missionary career his home was at Yokohama. The first years were spent in acquiring the language and in general evangelical work. He was essentially an administrator, however, and in 1894 he became president of Yokohama Baptist Theological Seminary, and professor of theology and ethics.

This office he held for fourteen years, during which time the institution improved greatly in both buildings and equipment as well as in the character of its instruction. He also prepared and published in Japanese, Outline of Theology (1895), His advanced ideas regarding missionary organization and administration, moreover, had a marked influence on Baptist activities throughout the empire.

From 1908 to 1911 he was general missionary superintendent of the American Baptist Missionary Union for Japan, China, and the Philippines. When this plan of field administration was discontinued he instituted at Yokohama a work for Japanese business and professional men, centering in a night school and dormitory combined. During the last years of his life he was prominent in the advancement of union missionary enterprises, serving them in various capacities, notably as secretary of Federated Missions in Japan and as editor of its annual publication, The Christian Movement in the Japanese Empire, both of which offices he held at his death.

Returning to America on a furlough in May 1916, he was conducting the annual course of lectures on Missions at Colgate Theological Seminary when, in November, he suffered an attack of spinal meningitis from which he died at the Clifton Springs Sanitarium on the 20th of the following month.

Achievements

• Dearing served as president of Yokohama Baptist Theological Seminary; general missionary superintendent of the American Baptist Missionary Union for Japan, China, and the Philippines; secretary of Federated Missions in Japan and as editor of its annual publication, The Christian Movement in the Japanese Empire.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Christian Movement in the Japanese Empire, Including Korea and Formosa: A Year Book for 1916; Fourteenth Annual Issue (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from The Christian Movement in the Japanese Empir...)

Connections

Returning in 1891 Dearing married, July 27, Mary Lyon Hinckley of Lynn, Massachusetts, daughter of Rev. Henry L. Hinckley.

Father:

Joseph Henry

Mother:

Susan Vinton (Adams) Dearing

Wife:

Mary Lyon Hinckley