It has become quite common and convenient to extol the virtues of great men and women in history, write eulogies for them and idolize them, while overlooking the concerns and commitments that many of them valued. In these times when the church has been turned into an institution which is used for once self-aggrandizement, to talk of Bishop Benjamin and many others of his generation is to recover that church which once dedicated itself to serve the poor and the downtrodden.
Bishop Benjamin and other members of his family, of the same generation, embodied that which was laudable about the missionary tradition founded by missionary societies such as the CMS, that which we today would understand as the authentic identity of the church. For them, our calling as a community of Jesus Christ was essentially for mission and that too, for preaching the good news to the poor. Hence, church was not an institution that would live for itself but for others, especially those who are marginalized and poor.
