Missionary Imposition: Idaho Baptists Charged With Kidnapping

Had the inexperienced Idaho missionaries read so much as Haiti’s wikipedia page they would have learned that the nation has a history of slavery, colonialism and missions that warns against attempts to remove Haitian children from their home. 

via www.religiondispatches.org

It still astounds me that people attempt to do mission work without first understanding the local culture and history.  While I applaud the motivation of the SBC missionaries, if you really want to do mission, you go and live WITH the people you wish to serve, not take them home as what amounts to an evangelical trophy.  

Butler's critique is right on target when she speaks of the problem in Evangelical Christianity between "Me" and "We."  All too often in Evangelical rhetoric, it is up to "Me" to convert this person, up to "Me" to save the world. And if "I' don't do it, this person will not be saved.  It is a symptom of the sin of hubris, where God's kingdom revolves around my actions, rather than the action of Christ on the cross. Of course, this comes more from American individualism than the Gospel.  Paul tells us that we are all different parts of the same body, each with different gifts and tasks.   SOME are evangelists, SOME are teachers.  Some, I would submit, are missionaries and some are not.  Those who are called by the Holy Spirit to be missionaries are the people with the gift of discerning what is Christ-like in another culture and finding a way to proclaim the Gospel within it, transforming it from the inside rather than acting out of  a neo-colonialist agenda.  The rest of us who are members of the body of Christ should support those who are called to this task as we best can according to the gifts we have been given.

I hope that the missionaries can be released after due process, as they obviously did not understand on some level that they were kidnapping children, but that is for the Haitian government to decide.  Considering Haiti's history, I would not be surprised to see them treated with very little leniency.  Consider - if this group had decided to work WITHIN Haiti, how much further the resources of their church would have gone.  They could have affected the lives of far more than 33 children.  But they wanted the "safe" option, the option that did not require them to give up their jobs or home or church in Idaho, the option that would allow them to impose their cultural values on the Haitian children rather than bring their values into conversation with them.  It would allow them to be in control rather than the Holy Spirit.  And that, friends, is why these people are being treated as kidnappers rather than missionaries.

David+ 

Comments

[Mark Bruckner]

As a person who grew up in strict anabaptist teaching I also see the "me" in their teaching. A baptism is considered to have no meaning unless "I" make a decision. Family, church body, clergy have little or no part in it. There is so much guilt placed on the parishoners because if you dont witness enough Gods plan will fall apart. Grace alone is mouthed from the pulpit, but unless "I" decide to go forward, "I" decide to believe, "I" decide to pray the sinners prayer...there is no conversion. There are a lot of "I's in Baptist theology.