Photo Credit: Telegraph.Co.Uk
I have an uneasy feeling when it comes to Christian Missionaries. I know that sounds strange coming from a pastor. But anyone who reviews the history of missionaries from the Western, American context will find a deluge of disheartening examples connecting Christian Mission with subjugation, oppression, and the dehumanizing of Indigenous Communities. While all Christian Mission cannot be characterized as such; all too often from antiquity to more modern times, it has had a cozy relationship (if not a partnership) with colonialism, imperialism, slavery, and White Supremacy.
People of Color from virtually all over the world have a chapter somewhere in their history about their engagement with ambassadors from the Western World who often came with Jesus on their lips and ulterior motives in their hearts. I know that is a hard saying, but it’s something that must be said – particularly in the Christian Community today – if we ever are to embrace the whole of our collective human story and learn from it. The reality is that many White people have never faced the fact of their own privilege and therefore have never explored how its poisonous residue permeates the rest of their lives. (That’s why Chris Matthews from MSNBC’s Hardball can listen to President Barack Obama give his first State of the Union address and say, “I forgot he was Black for an hour.” Even in trying to give what he thought was a compliment, he delivered an insult probably because he has never thoroughly explored his own privilege and ingrained perceptions of race. What his comment really did was categorize “Blackness” as deficiency.)
I believe that’s one reason the movie, Avatar, has done so well around the world. The movie gives voice to Indigenous Communities. In a way that lowers psychological defenses, the movie tells the story of what happens when imperial interests locate new land and sense something valuable connected to that land or culture. While Avatar still has problematic themes that are present in many Western movies (such as the “White” man as Saviour motif, the marginalization of Indigenous Manhood, and the disconnection of the Indigenous Man from the Indigenous Woman), there are many lessons that the movie can teach about colonial imperialism. One of the most poignant of which revolves around the possibility of redemption for the colonizer.
However, redemption for the colonizer – or in our case in this article, the Christian Missionary, can only come when the Christian Missionary examines him or herself. Christian Missionaries would do well to explore the impact of language upon their theological construct. What does it mean when you say, “We’re going to ‘WIN‘ souls for Christ?” What does it mean when you characterize foreign communities as “LOST“? Dear Christian Missionary, what do you mean when you visit intentionally impoverished nations with the intent of “SAVING SOULS?” What beliefs are buried beneath your language? How do these beliefs impact not only your language, but your actions?
If I had my way, I would make it mandatory that every Christian Missionary spend significant time examining themselves, studying the history of Christian Mission from the Indigenous Perspective, and engaging in what might feel like very uncomfortable group dialogue to uncover racialized presuppositions related to culture, privilege, and Faith.
Christian Missionaries need to study and reflect on Christian Imperialism and the Transatlantic Slave Trade among other related historical occurrences. And they need to reflect on more modern occurrences which have interplay like how the U.S. Military has been using guns in Iraq and Afghanistan that are inscribed with Christian scriptures. (How does it feel Brother and Sister Christians to know that weapons of MURDER being used to spill blood in your name on foreign soil are inscribed with the words of your Lord & Savior?)
They need to analyze and reflect on the situation with the Idaho-based, Baptist Missionary Group in Haiti right now which has links to the Southern Baptist Convention – a convention with an admitted White Supremacist past and history of female subjugation as well. The Baptist Mission group in Haiti will tell you that they were there to “save” those poor children. It has seemed to become one of the latest phenomenon in the Western World to “save” children of color by adopting and removing them from their culture and community with little regard to how their disconnection from their culture will impact their development as human beings…much less any analysis of the social dynamics that even make it possible for parents to consider giving their children to White Saviors from the United States. It turns out that the more than 30 children who were kidnapped were NOT all orphans. Some of their parents survived the earthquake and for the parents that didn’t survive, who says the next of kin couldn’t have taken the child in? I’m not necessarily questioning the motives of the White Missionaries from Idaho – many people were moved with compassion upon seeing the devastation in Haiti and engaged in remarkable acts of kindness. What I am holding up for scrutiny, however, is the level of arrogance that this group had to possess in order to engage in this action. Reports have surfaced that suggest that Laura Silsby, the leader of this missionary group, “didn’t think about Haitian permission to take the children out of the country.” [SOURCE: The Baptist Press]. (The idiocy of that misstep aside, what levels of White American privilege and arrogance have to be present in order for you to think you can just fly to another country and take other people’s children like they’re tourist trinkets!?)
Sounds familiar doesn’t it? It should.
Those sensitive to the history of Christian Mission from the perspective of the Indigenous Community, remember how Christian Missionaries engaged in aboriginal child separations and removals in Australia in the name of “civilizing” and “christianizing” the indigenous community – in hopes of ultimately destroying their culture and forcing them to assimilate into the dominant culture.
As I said at the outset, this analysis does not suggest that all Christian Mission and all Christian Missionaries are really tools of Western, White imperial plans. (I also don’t want to suggest that only White Missionaries become tripped up in the potholes of the western missionary paradigm. There are “westernized” missionaries of Color as well who propagate unexamined understandings of God and Faith in foreign lands.)
In light of all that I’ve shared, there are many examples as well of Christian Missionaries from the West who have surrendered their privilege and arrogance to follow the leadership of those within Indigenous Communities and probably most importantly have committed themselves to the establishment of real relationship with those in other lands. Relationship with no strings attached. A real “I-Thou” Human Connection that sees the Image of the Divine in the other.
That’s what Brazilian pastor, Claudio Oliver, recommends in this short youtube video. He speaks of the importance of “Friendship Trips” over the traditional “Mission Trips”. Heeding his words and the words of so many others like Lamin Sanneh who speak on these issues, will help prevent Christian Mission from drifting into a dangerously wayward direction that is disconnected from The Way of Jesus. This is a perfect time for Christian Missionaries to hold up the mirror, lay aside every weight and sin that so easily besets us, disconnect from the Western concept of Mission, and explore what it means to first be Friends.
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I'm getting to the point where I think white people think in their minds that they can do anything without impunity. I see it everyday on my job where black females are in charge, but they get constant flack from white males. A lot of money has come from the US to Haiti so that is why the kidnappers were released. Plain and simple. We give a lot of money so we can kidnap those savages. Why stop there?? Why not just forcefully bring them here to work? Sounds familiar? In my mind truly, the white man is the devil. As Malcolm said, don't look at his words…look at his deeds. And for the white people reading this, these are my words, not the host of this site.
Pastor Heber: Amen. The piece about the racist undertones of our language–"winning souls," "saving the lost"–and your argument that every Christian missionary study the history of mission from an Indigenous perspective and engage in deconstructing our own racism and privilege–particularly resonated with me, as a Christian missionary.
I think that it is possible to do just that. During my missionary training with United Methodist Global Ministries in New York City, we spent several days in workshops and seminars examining our privilege–racial, class, U.S.-based, gender, and otherwise–and beginning the long process of working on deconstructing that privilege. It's just a beginning–certainly not a finished process for us, and certainly not enough to make up for the centuries of oppression addressed in your post–but it is not outside of the realm of possibility for mission training to look like what you are suggesting.
I also think that our theologizing about mission can reflect what you are saying. Recently I had the chance to give a Bible study with a group of young Methodist missionaries. I did the study on the book of Jonah. The story of Jonah is often read in a way that echoes exactly the colonial archetype of mission that we need to deconstruct. But as I read the story with these young missionaries, I pointed out to them that Jonah is from a small, oppressed tribe on the occupied outskirts of the violent, conquering Assyrian Empire, and that he is called to go to the capital of that empire and demand that they repent of their violence.
What I told this group is that in our modern world, Christians in the U.S. (esp. White Christians) are not the oppressed, marginalized group. Reading Jonah in New York or Washington, DC, we are the Ninevites. But Jonah got busted in an ICE raid, or we avoid his area of town because it's "the ghetto," or he's in Palestine stuck behind an apartheid Wall. Or we hear him but we say, "Jonah, you're too angry, you won't renounce violence, so we don't need to listen to you when you tell us we have to repent." And that means that we're not saved from destruction.
So our mission as Ninevites isn't to convert Jonah. It's to relocate ourselves, whether physically or mentally, so that we can hear the message of repentance and reconciliation he has for us. God's still going to be working on Jonah's anger and desire for much-deserved revenge (those Assyrians were just as mean as U.S. policy is), but our job is first to listen.
I don't know if that makes sense, but consider it a first try at a theology of "mission as listening and repenting" instead of "mission as forcing and oppressing."
But Common Sense is right to tell me and to tell other white people that if we want to end our racist attitudes and actions, it can't be just through our words–it has to be through our deeds. The Ninevites all put on sackcloth and ashes. We–White Christians–need to figure out what our sackcloth and ashes are going to be.
Wow, David. Such a thoughtful and awesome comment. I am not surprised at all that you have gone through the type of missionary training that I suggest in my article. It's obvious in your language, your actions, and your theology that you've engaged in deep periods of self reflection and examination as it relates to privilege, culture, and race. I appreciate you for being a different kind of missionary.
I also appreciate your "re-theologizing" of Jonah. (I think I just made up a word) Up until maybe 3 or 4 months ago, I still had the Sunday School version of the Jonah Story in my mind. I had never given it critical study and examination. Then I went to the Potter's House in DC and bought Miquel De La Torre's book, Liberating Jonah: Forming an Ethic of Reconciliation. The book was such an eye-opener for me. You are so right.
Jonah is speaking all over the world, but the question becomes are we in a position to listen. I say "we" – because yes, White folks need to listen and find sackcloth suits and ash accessories. (smile) But even for me – a Man of Color who was raised in Western culture; I too need to tune my ears to Jonah. My cultural addiction and Western assumptions sometimes blind me to the call to repentance.
And I think it's a part of our human condition that on any given issue we have the ability to be Jonah or the Ninevites. our social location isn't fixed! However, no matter what role we might fill at the time, the good news for me is that God has a message for us. Whether we are the Ninevites or Jonah, God has something to say to us.
We would all do well to hear God's message of repentance and reconciliation.