Global Missions: Ethical or Not?

This article is part two of a three-part series adapted from Is the Commission Still Great?

Read part one.

Missionaries once enjoyed some measure of secular public support, but times have changed. Missions is now often associated with imperialism, exploitation and racism. As followers of Jesus, the idea that we might be destroying cultures should give us pause. Our passion is to honor God and be good stewards of the world He created, including the diversity of human cultures. Have we really spent centuries coercing people into a Western value system instead?

Are we destroying cultures?

The question is more than theoretical to me. I grew up in Papua, Indonesia, among a tribal people called the Sawi. In many ways, my family represented the stereotypical foreign missionaries arriving in a previously isolated Stone Age tribe and introducing new information, technology and values. It wasn’t long before the Sawi abandoned their traditional soaring tree houses in favor of homes closer to the ground. They began using imported fishhooks, razor blades, knives and matches instead of natural materials. Did my parents destroy Sawi culture?

Before we grow too embarrassed by our missionary predecessors, let’s consider some key questions. The assumptions underlying the idea that missions has been—and still is—predominantly destructive are not robust as they first appear.

Are all cultures, religions and worldviews equally valid?

This is the first and most important question for Christians. If we believe that the death and resurrection of Jesus supplied the only way to be reconciled with God, we need not shy away from influencing people accordingly. That message is the gospel, which is, literally, “good news” for everyone.

If God created the world and redeemed humanity, then His authority supersedes all cultures, and He has the right to command His Church to spread His message and His glory. If the Bible is true and relevant, then we must obey the clear command to “go into all the world” and influence other cultures.

Is it right to preserve cultures as they are?

While cultural preservation sounds noble, the truth is that cultures are always changing, with or without missionaries. People love to advance and innovate and create. To say that some cultures should be preserved without foreign influence while others are free to pursue rapid change creates a double standard.

Shouldn’t they have the right to change?

What if, given the choice, the Sawi preferred using matches to start fires, mosquito nets to reduce malarial deaths and Vermox to rid themselves of intestinal parasites? What if they wanted to be free from fear of evil spirits and generational cycles of revenge killings?

And watch out. They might politely suggest that our efforts to keep them in quarantine are little more than repackaged cultural imperialism. Trying to turn someone else’s culture into a living fossil is neither realistic nor respectful.

The sad reality is that isolated peoples are not all living in bliss, grass skirts rustling in the wind as they sip fresh coconut milk beneath a palm tree. Whether remote or otherwise, all cultures are afflicted with physical and social ills like disease, corruption, poverty, illiteracy, human trafficking, wars and political and religious persecution. Infanticide, widow-burning, female genital mutilation and cannibalism are all ancient cultural practices. Do we really believe they should be preserved?

Trying to turn someone else’s culture into a living fossil is neither realistic nor respectful.

Fortunately, culture doesn’t come as a package deal. The Holy Spirit can help us discern between positive and destructive elements, preserving the good and redeeming the corrupted. God gave us the Great Commission precisely because He loves the peoples of the world too much to preserve them as they are.

Do missionaries spread a Western religion?

Christianity originated in the Middle East before spreading to Europe, Africa and Asia. And it isn’t the only religion to spread to foreign lands. If we view Christianity as a sort of invasive species, we must say the same for Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and other religious persuasions. After all, missionaries advocate for the beliefs and teachings of a 4,000-year-old nomadic tribe.

The church has sent out tens of thousands of missionaries from many countries over many centuries. While work among animistic tribal groups continues, a growing number of missionaries today serve in major cities. And missionaries are now coming from other countries to minister in the U.S. The concern that missionaries are destroying cultures feels rather antiquated in a globalized world.

Missionaries are best friends to people and cultures around the world to the extent that they are guided by the Holy Spirit and the love of God as revealed in His Word. They have been enthusiastic advocates for indigenous cultures—speaking their languages, treating the sick, caring for the needy and assisting in their inevitable transition to modernity. Their legacy is hundreds of millions of faithful disciples of the Lord Jesus.

Has the impact of missions been mostly negative?

The sad reality is that terrible things have been done in the name of missions, the Church and Christ Himself. However, those injustices were not carried out by gospel-loving, Spirit-filled people. Governments, businesses and unbelievers used religion as an alibi or cudgel. The impact of gospel-centered missionaries on the world has been carefully documented and measured. Contrary to popular opinion, they had an overwhelmingly positive effect by social, economic and human rights standards, even without considering the eternal benefit for people who had little hope of ever knowing Jesus.

In my experience, tribal peoples around the world love the missionaries who live among them. It’s the non-missionary outsiders they generally have trouble with—the traders, crocodile hunters, loggers, government officials and sundry exploiters. The notion of the “ugly missionary” is, for the most part, a red herring.

Eye-witnesses to transformation

Fifty years after my parents brought the gospel to the Sawi people, my father and I returned to the village where I grew up. The first change I noticed is that they took more pictures of us than we took of them! Even more amazingly, the village was full of children. Fifty years earlier, most children didn’t survive past the age of five. Elderly people also used to be rare. Accidents, disease and a culture of pervasive violence all contributed to the early death of most Sawi people. They were constantly at war with one another and with the surrounding tribes.

As a child, I almost never saw a Sawi man or woman with gray hair. Now, coming “home” after so long, I was surprised to see joy radiating from the faces of healthy people of every age.

And it wasn’t just the Sawi who gathered. They invited four other tribes—former enemies and the victims of their brutal cannibal rituals—to celebrate with them. These tribes now socialize, worship and intermarry in peace. They don’t bother to build homes high in the treetops anymore because they no longer live in terror of their neighbors.

The gospel has broken through the resentments and cycles of vengeance that once divided and ravaged their communities. Together, the Five Tribes, as they call themselves, have formed an alliance committed to spreading the gospel message even farther afield. A Sawi friend from childhood, now a senior elder in the church, summed it up well: “We’re going to stay faithful to the gospel as long as we live. It’s everything to us.”

Read more in Is the Commission Still Great? 8 Myths about Missions & What They Mean for the Church, by Steve Richardson.

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