The Good, the Bad, and the Somewhere in Between

Our study of missions and church history brings us to an interesting era in the church - one that leaves no easy answers. As the Protestant church was awakened to its need to be on mission, Western nations were busy with a mission of their own: Colonialism. Many missionaries "rode the coattails" of their nations' colonial interests ... and found themselves facing some challenging questions.

There was much good done ... schools and hospitals by the thousands were started out of a genuine desire to help people. As Ralph Winter observes, "Overall, the Christian movement ... brings blessing to all the families of the world." Despite the sometimes selfish interests of their national leaders, the Christians who jumped at the chance to "go" made a positive difference.

And yet, they frequently faced questions of paternalism and nationalism raised by the actions of their home countries. They had to decide whether to be a missionary first, or an American/Briton/Dutchman first. Their decisions weren't always perfect; in the case of the American West, for example, we find many examples of missionaries who failed to treat the American Indian with dignity and respect. The long-term consequences of such actions were devastating for both Native American culture and the Gospel.

Other times, however, the willingness to challenge their own country's assumptions led to significant opportunities to transform their "mission" into a blessing. Some missionaries used their position to bring radical change - William Carey's fight against the practice of widow-burning in India, for example, resonates as one of the high points of the era.

And then there were all those times somewhere between bad and good, those times when missionaries treated the people with love and respect but failed to allow them the chance to develop their own unique worship forms. Their theological or form-based assumptions led to a different type of imperialism, one that communicated, overtly or subtly, that to be Christian was to be Western. The effects of this cannot be overstated; in many of those countries missionaries were later banned and Christians persecuted because they followed a "foreign" religion. Often it took decades for the church to recover - and in some cases, like Japan, it never has.

The lessons from colonialism were learned the hard way, when two world wars led to a dissolution of the empires and the rise of many independent nations. In many ways we still fight that battle today, as nations are becoming far less "nationalistic" and more focused on ethnic distinctions. And yet we have a great opportunity to learn from history. As we go into these nations - sometimes on the heels of our own nation's military or diplomatic successes - we can encourage the development of an indigenous church ... one that might not look like us, but that will have a solid foundation for survival and relevance once we are gone.