Through Gates of Splendor

Through Gates of Splendor is a 1957 nonfiction book by Elisabeth Elliot that tells the story of a team of young Christian missionaries who attempt to contact the Huaorani, an Indigenous people group in Ecuador. In the process of making that attempt, all five men on the mission team were killed, a sacrifice depicted as the ultimate act of commitment to their faith. Elisabeth Elliot, whose husband Jim was among the five men who died, tells their story from her own experience as well as from the men’s diaries, letters, and recorded speeches. The materials for the book were compiled and published shortly after the events they describe, and later editions of the book include epilogues describing Elisabeth Elliot’s subsequent mission work with the Huaorani (a story told more fully in her 1960 book, The Savage My Kinsman). After her missionary career in Ecuador, Elliot went on to become a notable author and speaker in evangelical Christian circles, widely respected for her devotional writings as much as for her mission-oriented books.

The story of the five missionaries’ deaths in Ecuador, especially as disseminated through the publication of Through Gates of Splendor, had an inspirational effect on many evangelical Christians in the mid-to-late 20th century, and it is often credited with expanding the evangelical missionary presence around the world. Some modern critics, however, have questioned both the ethics of unsolicited contact with Indigenous people groups and the methods used by the five men. Through Gates of Splendor inspired several documentary films: Through Gates of Splendor (1967), Beyond the Gates of Splendor (2002), and End of the Spear (2005).

This study guide uses the 1996 edition produced by Tyndale House Publishers.

Content Warning: Through Gates of Splendor includes portrayals of Indigenous people that may be seen as stereotypical or demeaning: depictions of the Huaorani as “savages” in need of salvation; strong Christian evangelism perspectives that may be alienating to some readers; and depictions of violent deaths. Please note that the text of the book uses the term “Auca” to denote the Huaorani people, but since “Auca” is now considered a pejorative exonym, this study guide refers to them by their preferred name, Huaorani (except when the word appears in quotes and titles).

Summary

Through Gates of Splendor tells the story of five young missionary men—Jim Elliot, Pete Fleming, Nate Saint, Ed McCully, and Roger Youderian—and their attempt to reach the isolated Huaorani tribe of Ecuador with the message of the Christian gospel. Together with their wives (including Elisabeth Elliot, the book’s author), each of the five men discerned a call to serve as a missionary and train for cross-cultural ministry among the Indigenous tribes who lived in Ecuador’s eastern rainforest. The book begins by tracing out each family’s backstory, with a focus on the men’s journey of discernment, faith, and calling. Jim Elliot and Pete Fleming are treated first, as they arrive together (still as single men) in Ecuador in 1952, training both in Spanish and in the Quichua language. It was Jim who first caught the vision of trying to reach the Huaorani, having been told of them by a veteran missionary even before leaving the US. The book then tells the story of Nate Saint, a pilot who came to Ecuador in 1948 to serve in flying missionaries and supplies to distant outposts and workstations. Ed McCully arrived in Ecuador late in 1952 to team up with Jim Elliot and Pete Fleming, having known and partnered with Elliot in the past. The fifth man was Roger Youderian, who arrived in Ecuador with the intention of joining an established mission to the Jivaro people and a related group, the Atshuaras.

After the opening chapters, the early section of the book depicts the missionaries’ work among the Indigenous groups of eastern Ecuador. By 1955, all five of the men were married, and together with their wives and young children, they carried out evangelistic, educational, and medical work among the Quichua, Jivaro, and Atshuara, all while seeking to gain more information about the Huaorani, of which little was known. The Huaorani were referred to as “Aucas” (“savages”) by outsiders and had a grim reputation for belligerence, to the point of using fatal violence without warning against any who approached them. Nonetheless, the mission team was convinced that it was God’s will that the Huaorani should have access to the gospel message, and out of a sense of concern for the Huaorani’s spiritual welfare, the missionaries began seeking ways to make contact. Jim Elliot, Ed McCully, and Nate Saint were at the forefront of making plans to reach the Huaorani, and when Nate Saint happened to stumble across the likely location of a Huaorani settlement during a flight, those plans gained an added sense of encouragement and urgency.

In the fall of 1955, the missionaries settled on pressing forward with a plan they dubbed “Operation Auca.” They began conducting flyovers of Huaorani settlements, dropping gifts of food, clothing, and tools. The responses from the Huaorani people on the ground appeared to be enthusiastic, and this encouraged the missionaries to continue. Eventually, they found a landing strip—a run of sand along the Curaray River—where they could land and set up a spot for a face-to-face contact. By the climax of the plan, Pete Fleming and Roger Youderian had signed on with the original three. The landing in Huaorani territory, at a place they called Palm Beach, happened on January 3, 1956. Three days later, they had their first encounter with the Huaorani, as three Indigenous people came out to them on the beach and spent the day with them. The missionaries anticipated a larger meeting to follow, hopefully with an invitation to come to a Huaorani settlement, and their spirits were high when they spotted a party of Huaorani men heading their way on January 8, 1956. At that point, however, their radio contact with the outside world went silent.

The final chapters narrate the missionary wives’ attempts to find out what happened to their husbands. Search and rescue teams were organized by other local missionaries and by US military personnel in the area, eventually coming back with the news that all five missionaries had been speared to death. Their deaths at the hands of the Huaorani did not end the outreach attempts, however—other missionary pilots continued doing gift-drops to the Huaorani, and the story of the five men’s death at Palm Beach inspired a generational wave of new missionaries to consider God’s call on their lives. The book ends with two epilogues, the first of which relates a surprising turn of events that led to Elisabeth Elliot receiving an invitation to go and live with the Huaorani, undertaking missionary outreach to the men who had killed her husband. The second epilogue, appended some 40 years later, describes both the continued positive effects of the five men’s story, as well as some of the unanswered questions that remain.