Two Missions Agencies I Respect Face Off

After blasting Western missionaries in its most recent issue and in a book, Christian Aid Mission (CAM) became the blastee, as the US Center for World Mission (USCWM) spent half of its most recent issue responding to CAM’s points. I subscribe to both agencies, both literally and figuratively, so my head is spinning and I’m left with more questions than answers and more issues to crunch on than resolution to stand on.

To get you up to the present: CAM’s stand is that most Western missions activity (say, a Canadian Presbyterian church sending a family to be missionaries in Peru) is inferior to indigenous activity (say, a Peruvian who comes to America, becomes a Christian, and then returns to Peru to start churches and spread the gospel). This is because the Peruvian knows the language and culture better, and costs a lot less money to support. Not only does CAM consider Western missions activity to be inferior, though, it finds it counter-productive. As in, it’s not OK to say, “Well, we can have both, even if one is more effective than the other.” And that’s because Westerners coming into poorer countries cause all sorts of problem, whether it be suspicion of alterior motives, subconscious patronizing of the locals, great discrepancies in notions of standard of living, or the outright impossibility of entering a country because it is legally closed to missionaries.

USCWM does not itself send missionaries but is on the cutting edge of thought, training, and support for those who do send missionaries, mostly to what are considered unreached people groups (i.e. places where no one who speaks the language or is indigenous to the culture is currently a Christian). So it feels it can criticize without looking like it’s just trying to protect its business model. Their main points in disagreeing with CAM are: 1) missionaries, by definition, are ministering outside their culture, for if you are ministering inside your culture, that work is considered evangelism; 2) sometimes faraway missionaries are more effective than those next door, because those next door might not know the language either and might be more poorly received because of various ethnic conflicts; 3) why would Christian Aid be so harsh in rejecting an entire category of people and groups that are seeking to preach the gospel, except that it is a fundraising tactic to get more people to send money their way.

Again, I have a lot to think about, but here are some initial impressions:

* The lead guy at USCWM starts his Page One letter by telling a story of a Western missionary couple who arrived in China and were able to make an impression on a little girl whose parents had warned her not to associate with those Christians. Instead, she disobeys her parents, visits the missionaries’ house, sees the husband and wife treat each other with respect, and decides that Christianity is for her. She ends up converting, and her grandson is a prominent believer in China. I have a problem with this story. While I am all for the gospel speaking into things like gender roles and oppression, and I do believe God does use situations like this to model to people how Christian people ought to act, it strikes a nerve with me because it equates acts of marital love familiar to Westerners (opening doors, for example) and makes it look like the girl’s parents were brutish and unloving. I think this is one of CAM’s points, that Chinese people would know better how to model a redeemed, Chinese marriage to unredeemed Chinese couples than a Western couple loving each other in Western ways. Maybe I’m being overly sensitive and cold-hearted, but again, these are first impressions, and after reading this initial story on Page One, that was my first impression.

* Even though these two organizations disagree fundamentally, I think I can still agree with them both without diluting eithers’ message. CAM saves its strongest words for Western groups that send missionaries to places where a strong native presence is in place, and in fact those are the places where Western missionaries would be most inferior and most detrimental. USCWM is focused more on places where not only is there not a strong native presence, but no native Christian presence at all. They talk about two stages of reaching a culture, and focus on the first stage (missions in its purest sense) and acknowledge that CAM makes good points about how the second stage (evangelism, see above) can be best done.

* Both go to the New Testament to validate their positions. CAM says there is no account of a true cross-cultural missionary; all are either people from various countries coming to Jerusalem, getting saved, and then going back to their native cultures, or people like Paul who are bi-cultural and able to effectively communicate the gospel to their own people. USCWM counters that all those who were coming to Jerusalem were Jews, scattered by various persecutions, who by their diligence to the Law gained adherents in their adopted countries. Thus, they were all, in a sense, cross-cultural missionaries, these pre-Christians (at the time, the people they converted were known as “God-fearers,” and were usually the ones who received the gospel most easily once Paul and others came around).

* While I am a huge fan of Christian Aid Mission and know they mean well and made their criticisms with great reluctance, it is dangerous to bash people who are preaching Jesus. Their founder also admits in a response to a draft of the USCWM issue that sometimes he plays up the effectiveness of native missionaries and downplays the effectiveness of foreign ones (i.e. Westerners in non-Western countries). Nevertheless, if you believe that a certain way that a large group of people is doing something as important as missions is not only inferior but counterproductive, you should criticize and you should be vehement about it.

That’s all I got for now. Maybe my wife, with whom I got into a heated discussion as I was processing through these issues, will post something, too, to contribute to the conversation. Amy?