Mission to the Third World
Missionaries from my church are, once again, embarking on a mission trip to Haiti. They often go to Haiti and other parts of South and Central America, the Caribbean, Africa, and India. This seems to be the typical itinerary for missionary groups in many churches in the United States. In fact, two of my students went to Southern Africa last year with their respective church groups. American churches – whether denominational or non-denominational – regularly send eager Christians to these destinations as long or short-term missionaries.
I know that these “new millennium missionaries” usually take food, clothing, and other valuable supplies with them on their mission trips, and this is a blessing to the poor people they meet on the mission fields.
Yet, whenever I hear that groups are going on a mission trip to these parts of the world, I grow pensive. I keep thinking about the primary goal of a missionary – to share the Christian gospel. If this is so, why don’t American missionaries go to Western Europe with the same amount of dedication and consistency? I’ve heard that there are huge, beautiful churches and cathedrals in Europe that are quite empty. A friend went to Germany and told me about how attendance is rather low there – and that most of the congregants are immigrants. But I never hear of a group of missionaries heading to Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, or any of the other developed Western European countries.
Conversely, the people of Africa and the Americas have been spiritual and religious and faithful – whatever you want to call it – for centuries. Missionaries brought the gospel to Africans before colonization (See Things Fall Apart). Today the largest Catholic and Non-Denominational churches can be found in Africa and South America.
So what is it that pulls all these American churches to the so-called “Third World” if the goal is to spread the good news? Is it because these Western Christians feel they would have done their “Christian duty” by going to the perpetually poor world? Why not go to the developed world where the good news seems to have been discarded? Perhaps it is too much of a challenge to change the Western paternalistic mindset from a focus on the third world to a focus on the developed world. This might give the impression that “the first world” is in some way vulnerable and not so powerful after all. God forbid!
Christianity is founded on a myriad and bevy of stories and “fables” involving Christ’s pursuit of spreading the good news to those who were less fortunate than he was. There are dozens of examples provided in the King James Version of the Bible that chronicle Christ’s pursuit to impoverished and destitute areas where he would heal and preach the gospel of his father, and because of that and Christinanity’s primary goal of striving to be Christ-like, the concept of missionary work is always focused on those who are perceived to be less fortunate than you.
Jesus was shunned by his own people because of the very reason he was received by those who weren’t. He was offering a message which was one on equality, no respect for class or socioeconomic standing, and overall acceptance regarding of anything–including sinners and the mortally sick. This message wasn’t received by the typical Jews and Pharisees of his day because it was non-discriminant, and if the individuals who are being preached to are discriminative, there’s no possible way they can receive such a polarizing message to what their ideology and “instincts” tell them, so they disregard the message, and in turn, Christ never tried to overcome such rejections.
Simply put, Christ–much like missionaries–pursue the path of least resistance. The concpet of missionary work is to allegedly spread the good news wherever it can be, but in reality, the outcome of missionary work is simply to go where people will openly and lovingly receive and embrace it, and in places where resources and fundamental aspects of life are in short supply, it’s easy to commission a willing and grateful audience in exchange for those highly sought after and needed resources, so the equation is a simple one for missionaries.
Every missionary considers her or himself to be a messenger for Christ, but never wants to be the one who was shot as a result of that message. Thus, it is the typical Christian missionaries main goal to avoid hostile, resistant or ungrateful audiences, which is why Europe and even parts of the US are less enticing or inviting for them.
Simply put, Christian missionaries aren’t missionaries at all, they’re simply people who want to feel a sense of empowerment and confirmation by helping those who are less fortunate than them, and since the Bible commends such behavior, it makes it resoundingly easy for the missionaries to seek out the place which is easiest to comply with such nonsense.
The true missionaries aren’t affilliated with traditional Christianity or religion at all, they call them Jehovah’s Witnesses, and are regarded as pariahs and worse than telemarketers and homeless people in many US citizens’ eyes and perspectives.
Whoa Mario!!!!!! I don’t want to get into a religious argument..Lord knows i don’t, but this comment…
“Christianity is founded on a myriad and bevy of stories and “fables” involving Christ’s pursuit of spreading the good news to those who were less fortunate than he was. ”
….just doesn’t sit well with me. I refuse to let you discard and mock Christ as a mere character in a storybook, my God is real. Moving on, the mission of Christ was not to just spread the gospel to people who were less fortunate than him (if you read, Jesus’ father was a carpenter and was not a very rich man..he did not live an extravagant lifestyle, he was very much like the people) but Christ was to spread the word to ALL in order for them to be saved and make it to heaven.
To make Jesus seem cowardly as if he only went to the people who weren’t as fortunate as him is false and I wont get into the many accounts in the bible where he and MANY OTHERS faced people in much higher positions to spread the word.
A reason that these missionaries may go to these perceived less fortunate/religious places is that they feel the need to spread the gospel to those who may not get it otherwise. I say perceived because as Dr. Shonekan puts it..these people are already some form of Christianity.
What is not true is that this does not happen in developed countries. I will say that what goes in the US is more like evangelism than missionary but its the same goal…get the people to christ, help those in need. All of these homeless and outreach programs in developed countries are the same thing as the missionary programs overseas…I will retire typing because Im tired of trying to prove my point, believe as you will
After a lifetime of being force-fed Christianity via the Pentecostal faith–a familiarity with the actions of Christ in his King James approved biblical excursions is inevitable, so while I applaud you for standing up for something you feel to be inaccurate, the actual text in discussion is the most valuable resource as it relates to the topic.
It is a fact that in more than 80% of Christ’s interactions with people and the parables he told, the individuals he was teaching and prophesizing to were of lesser socio-economic status (not in comparison to Christ himself, but in the overall social class and economic system which was in place at the time). It is a fact that the Apostles who actually advanced the idea of Christianity (I.E. Paul, John, Luke, etc.) and were the initial missionaries, interacted with 90% of individuals from lesser socio-economic backgrounds. Thus, although there definitely were instances when Christ and his disciples interacted with individuals of higher socio-economic statuses (e.g. in the temple when he turned over tables, his several interactions with the Pharisees, and his renowned conversion of the tax collector) the majority or more than three-fourths of the interaction existed between Christ and more disadvantaged individuals, whether it was physical, mental, emotional, but most frequently, economically or financially.
Now that’s not to discount what the individual accomplished–and as the scripture says, Hebrew 11:1 Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen–however, as the historic and academic discussion goes, Jesus worked primarily with individuals who were in need of assistance or healing, which made for an especially easy sell of the “good news.”
I’m not questioning who or what you believe in, in anyway (and my apologies if you perceive or construe it as such) but when you look at the facts of the matter, as Professor Shonekan has pointed out, there is very little missionary work going on in Europe, and it’s not simply limited to Europe, there are similarly dismal percentages of missionaries headed to Asia and Australia, which can be directly attributed to the results of surveys and studies done concerning missionary work and the lack of success in conversion rates which result in a lesser enthusiasm about venturing to those regions (this article titled Transnational Structures and Geopolitical Mappings from the Journal of Religion & Society by Robbie Goh articulates several of the reasons why (http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2004/2004-15.html).
Now, like I mentioned earlier, growing up in a C.O.G.I.C. setting– which is very dismissive of healthy and logical reasoning as it pertains to the Bible–I’m more than aware and comfortable with an individual’s “faith” as the answer for why missionaries venture to Africa as opposed to other places around the world. Faith is that component of religion which can not be rationalized, and is either what someone does or doesn’t have. It is clear from my aforementioned discourse, that I don’t have faith, and specifically not in a text that is incompletely assembled, and consisting of the words which were approved by a corrupt European politician (i.e. King James).
However, in strictly analyzing the facts: historical, biblical and contemporary, the reality of the situation is, missionaries who according to dictionary.com are defined as: 1. a person sent by a church into an area to carry on evangelism or other activities, as educational or hospital work. 2. a person strongly in favor of a program, set of principles, etc., who attempts to persuade or convert others. 3. a person who is sent on a mission, are supposed to convert and minister to others.
Thus, the message should be equally distributed in theory, but as the fact exists, Christians have a less than 4% missionary concentration in European and Asian countries. Now, you can take my insight concerning Christianity and dismiss it as heresy or heathenism (which wouldn’t be the first or last time it will be considered as such) but when you look at the facts and the reality of the situation, Christian Missionaries simply don’t go to more developed countries, and there has to be some amount of validity attributed to the fact that it’s simply not as easy of a ground to hoe as excursions to the lesser developed parts of the world.
I must applaud you for giving me many resources backing up your argument, I must say your journalistic side rears its head often. I, on the other hand am too lazy to prove you wrong and will not be going on dictionary.com and looking up maps and materials in an argument in which we will never completely see eye to eye.
I can admit that in some ways you are correct about missionaries but I cannot completely agree. As a human being I would go to a place where its easier to get the people too. Thats like an atheist going into a church service trying to convince the people not to believe..its not going to happen. So Ill leave the others to go to the Buddhist temples to try and convert, its a waste of breath to me. If they have an ear to hear then tell them, why cry out upon deaf ears.
Am I right? no lol… Christian missionaries SHOULD be willing to go into those place where they are not accepted to preach the gospel and more often than not, they are. The reason more are going to the places with no resources is simple: to help, to give. I would rather the Christian missionaries go to feed them my blind faith than for someone else.
Now, I must go along in my blind faith, proudly proclaiming my absolute love for a sovereign God…I am smart enough not to argue with someone set on not believing, which was not my aim anyway. I just like to argue