On Missions, Missionaries, and Wicker Men

While housesitting for some friends, I spent some time enjoying their very elaborate selection of movies on demand by watching the Cult Horror flick: “The Wicker Man.” I had seen the modern version starring Nicholas Cage and didn’t think much of it so I thought I’d check out the original. The movie is about a police officer named Neil Howie who travels to a remote island searching for a missing girl. The island, called Summerisle, is home to a community that practices a form of Celtic paganism and it is this theme that runs through the suspenseful plot of the film. After watching this movie, I am convinced of two things: some movies should never be remade and Neil Howie would’ve made a very bad missionary. This is because the character showed a great deal of disgust and disdain toward the overtly non-Christan practices of the Summerisle residents. For example, he becomes greatly disturbed when he sees that the Summerisle residents have turned the local chapel into an alter to a Pagan god, so much much he pushes the Pagan religious items off and places upon it a makeshift cross made with two boards. Any sort of explanation of their beliefs by the residents is usually met with his indignation for being so Un-Christian, it almost makes you feel less sorry for him when you find out the community of Summerisle has plans to sacrifice him.
Like film, missions and missionaries have come a long way throughout Christianity’s history and so I’d like to take some time to discuss how (if at all) missionaries fit in to the liberal form of Christianity that is my specific focus.
When we talk about “Missions” and “Missionaries” it usually conjures up several images, not all of them good. After all, during the colonization of the New World most missionaries had an army to back them up and conversion was usually forced upon indigenous peoples of North and South America. Even up to the earlier part of the 20th century, many missionaries not only wanted to convert people to Christianity but also to assimilate them to Western Culture. This is, of course, no longer the case and the standard training for missionaries these days involves in depth study and respect of a population’s culture and language before going into the field. Still, to many people, the word missionary tends to evoke images of a coercive influence on unsuspecting innocents. In college, I attended a talk by two missionaries who traveled to Indonesia to spread Christianity. Someone who also attended the talk was very put off by them and said they were forcing their beliefs on other people. However, they were in the most populous Muslim country in the world, they had entered into the country under somewhat false pretenses, and (if found out) they may have faced serious legal repercussions since Indonesia is not very tolerant of foreign missionaries. Therefore, it seemed to me that they were not in the position to force anything on anyone. However, the basic premise behind being a missionary is to convert someone from their beliefs onto your own, something we in liberal Christianity balk at since it suggests “My God is better than your God.”
In searching for Biblical passages to add to the discussion, I was kind of at a loss. Most people consider Jesus’ instructions to the disciples in Matthew 10 to be the basic instructions to evangelists and missionaries, but one of his specific instructions is to NOT enter Gentile or Samaritan towns and only focus on the House of Israel. In Acts, the story of Paul and Barnabas, they preach to a crowd of Gentiles, but only because their message was rejected by the Jews (kind of making the Gentiles their plan B, not really a statement of respect). Therefore, I draw from the story of the Woman at the Well in John 4, specifically looking at what happened after the Woman and Jesus ended their conversation. Afterwards, she gathers up the town saying that some man told her everything about herself and he may very well be the Christ. They follow her and Jesus preaches to them, afterwards they tell the woman: “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves and we know that this really is the Savior of the world.”
To me, this story really brings into focus the true purpose of missionary work, the people missionaries serve. Most people arguing for missions to convert nonbelievers by force because they don’t know any better or people who say missions shouldn’t exist because they force their beliefs on others. Both sides of that argument are forgetting that the people missionaries preach to are people just like you and me and are capable of making up their own minds about what to believe and what not to. Therefore, people who feel people should be forced into religion are ignoring the fact that people should be able to make up their own minds. Furthermore, people who feel any type of evangelism is coercion also forget that a group missionaries serve are able to decide whether or not Christianity is right for them. The other Samaritans didn’t take the woman’s word for it that Jesus was the Messiah, they heard him speak and decided for themselves.
Back in 2007, the "Christian Science Monitor" ran a series on the growth of Pentecostal Christian groups in Latin America. On of their pieces looked at Brazil and how people involved in “gang life” no longer wait to be preached to other Pentecostals but make the decision to convert on their own. In the slums of Brazil--where poverty, violence, and drug dealing are rampant--people see conversion as the only way out of the gang life. People who have researched this issue may argue they are being coerced into conversion because there is no other way to remove themselves from their violent past or they point out that converts backsliding into their past lives is frequent. However, the fact remains that many gang members and drug dealers see this choice as a way out and choose to take it. I think this case study, as well, as the story of the Samaritans listening to Jesus puts the focus not on the missionary but those (s)he is working with. These people, like ourselves, have their own reasons for believing or not to and (like us) I’m sure they’d like their reasons to be respected.