Oct 01 2008
Is it time to rehabilitate “missionary”?
by David Dawson*
This article appeared in the The Presbyterian Outlook on September 8, 2008, and was re-printed in the Presbyterian Cross-Cultural Mission Newsletter Email Group Posting #23 – October 2008 with the permission of the author and The Presbyterian Outlook. www.pres-outlook.org There are footnote references in the article indicated by parentheses ( ).
You may be surprised that missionary could be in need of rehabilitating, but some readers will have a visceral aversion to hearing this word. It is time to reconsider what we call those who represent the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in international cross-cultural mission. The recent General Assembly unanimously approved the Dallas Invitation (Expanding Partnership in God’s Mission) and affirmed the General Assembly Council’s proposal to reverse the half-century decline (from 2,000 to 200) in the number of mission co-workers serving internationally. These are very significant defining moments for the PC(USA) and they provide us an important opportunity to review our beliefs and actions regarding mission.
Many readers will be surprised that using “missionary” is a no-no for some in the PC(USA).(1) Officially we have preferred “fraternal worker” (1960’s – 1970’s) and “mission co-worker” since then. Presbyterians are far more influenced in their thinking about missionaries by James Michener’s Hawaii and Barbara Kingsolver’s Poisonwood Bible than they are by mission education provided by the PC(USA). In addition to popular literature this bias is also deeply influenced by western scholars.(2) It seems that some in the PC(USA) defer to popular literature and academic writers for a critical understanding of missionaries. Maybe we should listen to international partners such as world-renowned missiologist Lamin Sanneh who twenty years ago labeled this lack of nerve “the western missionary guilt complex.”(3)
Have missionaries been paternalistic? Have they cooperated with imperialism and economic colonialism? Have they imposed western theological and Biblical understandings as normative Christian expression? Yes (with emphasis) to all of the above! However, missionaries are no better at sinning than the rest of us. They just get to do it cross-culturally in a foreign language more carefully scrutinized than most of us have had to endure. Robert D. Woodberry (among many other serious mission historians) reminds us that the knee-jerk, emotional, negative reaction to “missionary” is ill-founded. Woodberry writes: Continue Reading »
