WESTERN CONTEMPT OF THE CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY

One common charge made against Christian missionaries is that they had imposed western values upon native cultures which had undermined these cultures. However, historian/sociologist Rodney Stark disagrees:

• Admittedly, the English may have committed an abomination when they converted so many colonials to the game of cricket, and the worldwide popularity of Coca-Cola may not have made the world a better place. But to embrace the fundamental message of cultural imperialism requires that one be comfortable with such crimes against women as foot binding, female circumcision, the custom of Sati (which caused widows to be burned to death, tied to their husbands’ funeral pyres), and the stoning to death of rape victims on grounds of their adultery. (“How the West Won”)

This raises the all important question: “Preserving native culture at what cost?” From this perspective, it seems that the critics have conveniently overlooked the fact that some aspects of all cultures can costly and require intervention. Stark adds that, rather than undermining local culture, the missionaries often protected them from colonial abuse:

• Protestant missionaries frequently became involved in bitter conflicts with commercial and colonial leaders in support of local populations, particularly in India and Africa.

The critics also fail to distinguish between the Missionaries and the colonial exploiters. Stark cites the extensive research of Robert Woodberry showing that the more Protestant missionaries the better the prospects of the nations they served:

• The missionary effect is far greater than that of fifty other pertinent control variables, including gross domestic product (GDP) and whether or not a nation was a British colony. Woodberry not only identified this missionary effect but also gained important insights into why it occurred. Missionaries, he showed, contributed to the rise of stable democracies because they sponsored mass education, local printing and newspapers, and local voluntary organizations, including those having a nationalist and anticolonial orientation.

Stark claims that the results of Woodberry’s massive studies are so detailed, well-documented, and far-reaching that they earned the attention and even praise of many skeptical sociologists:

• Less recognized are the lasting benefits of the missionary commitment to medicine and health. American and British Protestant missionaries made incredible investments in medical facilities in non-Western nations. As of 1910 they had established 111 medical schools, more than 1,000 dispensaries, and 576 hospitals. To sustain these massive efforts, the missionaries recruited and trained local doctors and nurses, who soon greatly outnumbered the Western missionaries. These efforts made a great difference in places that otherwise would have lacked access to modern medicine. And the benefits have lived on.

It seems that the benefits of having missionaries produced across-the-board benefits:

• His study showed that the higher the number of Protestant missionaries per one thousand population in a nation in 1923, the lower that nation’s infant-mortality rate in 2000—an effect more than nine times as large as the effect of current GDP per capita. Similarly, the 1923 missionary rate was strongly positively correlated with a nation’s life expectancy in 2000. (Stark)

Stark concluded that, “If these effects constitute ‘cultural imperialism,’ so be it.”

Although Woodberry’s findings had startled his field, they shouldn’t have! It is an open fact that the Christian faith has brought renewal where it has trod. Interestingly, as the Christian influence has become more marginalized, the West has increasingly lost its edge. Woodberry’s research seems to suggest that its edge will further be dulled.