Are American Evangelical Missionaries Spreading ‘the Gospel’ or Colonization?
Commentary by Mackenzie Draper
With the United Kingdom’s heightened assault on transgender rights, more people than ever are looking at so-called “first world” countries’ stances on human rights. It isn’t just the richest nations, though — Iran’s revolution has also sparked many TikTok videos, blog posts and real-life conversations, though many have pointed out there are fewer news articles than there perhaps should be.
There is, of course, no nation on earth free from the effects of colonization, and no nation on earth who hasn’t in one capacity or another colonized another. Some modern-day issues, like LGBTQ rights, women’s rights and minority rights being infringed upon can be traced directly back to European colonization. After reflecting on the harm done by colonization during Black History Month, I started to think of my own involvement in the process.
Of course, I wasn’t involved in any of the “original” colonization efforts that began over 600 years ago. However, many theologians and former missionaries have spoken about the echoes of colonization that occur on Christian mission trips and the continued harm they put upon the peoples who are being “evangelized.”
I am a missionary kid, commonly referred to by the acronym “MK,” which I used to put next to the other acronym in which I identified my self-worth — “PK,” or pastor’s kid.
My parents felt called to be missionaries since at least college, and when I was around 10 years old, that dream was finally realized. We packed up and moved first to Mostar, Bosnia, then to Novi Sad, Serbia, for over three years.
Our presence in Bosnia was simply to learn the language first, as Serbia was our primary goal; when we moved to the “promised land,” full of what I believed to be lost souls and godless humans, I was sure we were going to do incredible things — tent revivals, converting orphans and widows, planting churches, starting ministries. Instead, it felt like we simply lived our lives in Novi Sad, attending church weekly and then plodding through our homeschool curriculum.
Now, the reality of our situation probably doesn’t fit under the definition of colonialism. However, the ideal of what I believed would happen when we arrived does: the wholesale adoption of American Evangelical practices and beliefs, wiping out any practices and beliefs that were there in the first place. When I look back on it, this is incredibly absurd.
First, while no official national religion exists, most Serbs identify with a branch of Eastern Orthodoxy appropriately named Serbian Orthodox. (Of course, this issue becomes much more complex the more one investigates. For instance, in Serbia, as elsewhere in the Balkans, ethnicity and religious identity are intertwined to the point that crossing national borders also includes crossing religious borders. It is also a part of the horrific genocide that took place in the 90s in the former Yugoslavia.)
Second, while my ideas and grand desires of tent revivals and planting churches were rooted in the successes found in America, they would most certainly not have worked in Serbia. American culture bred the Dwight L. Moody’s and Billy Graham’s who sparked spiritual revivals and made way for their work, not the other way around.
As I said, reality and imagination were incredibly different in my case. However, for some missionaries, this was not true. Hundreds of missionaries from various denominations travel every year from the U.S. to countries in Africa, South America, Asia and the Middle East. Their goals range from feeding widows and orphans to providing medicine and education to “unreached” peoples; however, their driving force is always the Gospel.
When I was a child, I internalized the Assemblies of God World Missions “mission statement,” which came from Philippians — “every knee shall bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord.” And Matthew, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
I asked my dad why it seems like there are missionaries going out from America to every other country in the world, and why it seems like there are no missionaries from other parts of the world coming to America. My dad assured me that there are missionaries from other parts of the world in America, I just don’t see it. That, and America already has Christianity, so we have the obligation to bring Christianity to other parts of the world that don’t have it.
To state the obvious conclusion of those theological beliefs perpetuated by not only the Assemblies of God denomination, but by hundreds of other denominations nationwide: global religious and cultural homogeneity via ethnocide is the goal.
This may seem blunt. This may seem a cruel overstatement, and readers may dismiss me as a cynical former missionary kid who is trying to paint the system with a broad brush. It is not my intent to be cruel, or harsh or cynical, and, to the best of my ability, I have written this article free from those intentions.
Instead, my wish is for American Evangelicals to think critically about how missions work affect people in the countries being evangelized.
