American Missionary efforts have always included political views and social views with religion, in essence they've been exporting American culture with American religion.

Missionaries , at least since Columbus, always worked hand in hand with troops and government officials (with a few rare exceptions, like Bartolomé de Las Casas and the Spanish).  They served to help enforce the dominance of the invaders/exploiters in those early years and afterward.

In Africa, they brought the Market Economy* and combined with European/American pressure, turned countries who used to export food into countries dependent on imports for survival (and guess who profits from the importing).  That's both political and economic.  They were with the slave traders, and tried to stamp out the beliefs of the Africans who were being sold, while teaching a version of Christianity that reinforced subservience and obedience to White people.  That continued in the American South until after the Civil War, and that sort of preaching (obedience/subservience to one's betters) can still be heard.  It's very conservative and obedience theology is gaining ground, at least in this area - and I've heard it's also being taught elsewhere.

In South America, they introduced things like flashlights and metal tools to groups that didn't have them, and used those items to make the people dependent on them (and then on white society).  They introduced full coverage clothing to people who didn't used to wear it, and tried to change the culture into something more resembling Eurocentric cultures.  A more liberal attitude would have taken local conditions and thinking into account, and not been so dogmatic about forcing the locals to be more European in dress and thinking.

Dogemperor has spoken about the mission efforts of the Assemblies of God and how they were political... and how they tried to exterminate the Miskito Indians.  This was decades ago.  I know and would testify that the Assemblies of God have been clearly as much political as cult-religious back in the late 70s, and from what I've read, they've almost always been that way.

Among Native Americans, they've continuously pushed conservative thinking and ideology, especially their "poverty is caused by sin!" bull (very powerful when combined with sneaky things like selling bad grain to farmers and telling them their poor crops were because they didn't accept White Christianity).  They reinforced stereotypes and beat down the people.  They worked and colluded with government officials to coerce and beat down the people (still do).  

This goes back at least into the 1800s and I think historians could argue much earlier.   Zane Gray, a fiction writer, often wrote of the exploitative and political nature of missionaries.  His book "The Vanishing American" was an attempt to get people to see what their missionaries were doing, but he was forced to change the ending because American society wouldn't tolerate a white heroine marrying a Native American (his son returned the story to the original).  I've read somewhere that he sometimes caught a lot of hostility because people thought the missionaries were doing the "right thing" and you weren't supposed to criticize religion.  The stories I've heard from my people (especially from more western individuals) regarding the past and present exploits of missionaries are horrific.

Whenever you have a culture (American Christianity is as much a culture as religious in nature) believing that it is superior to others and must export its beliefs, then you're going to have these problems.  The impetus to liberal thinking is present, granted.  But it's always been a minority viewpoint and often gets translated from "Let's help those people because they don't have good medical care or enough food" to "Let's teach them to be like us and coerce them if necessary".  Sometimes even the liberal viewpoint is even a problem - in Florida, a liberal Episcopal Churchwomen thought that the tourist traps who employed Seminoles as curiosities were exploiting them (I could accept that) and denigrating their culture (the exotic Other), so she got laws passed banning the tourist traps from employing the Seminoles, and put a majority of the tribe out of work.

I guess what I'm trying to say that even the mainstream churches have a horrific history when it comes to dealing with the Other, and that the more fundamentalist/dominionist churches are an extension and magnification of the attitudes and values that we (the Others) have experienced.  I think that American Culture (and believe me, there is a distinct American Culture) has generally convoluted culture with Christianity and those we struggle against are taking that to extremes.  It could be likened to focusing the sun's rays through a lens... the worst aspects made that much stronger.  It wouldn't be so much of a problem if the control and manipulation were internal, but when they start thinking that they have to force it on the world around them (dominion-ist), then they're following in the footsteps of the missionaries before them AND taking away the rights of the people in general.

*- this comes from a mixture of ethnographic accounts of nations being turned from subsistence (best described as needs-plus, growing enough food to feed one's family plus extra for trading/selling, to a capitalistic system where the land is used to make profit and out of those profits people buy the food they need), combined with African missionary accounts I've read in the past and knowledge of how they were among my own people.


by ArchaeoBob on Fri Feb 17, 2012 at 12:03:01 PM EST

Meanwhile, even though the discussion has drifted far beyond the topic of Chip's post, let's try to remember that Chip and Jean Hardisty have published an important essay drawing on their many decades of knowledge and experience that merits our serious consideration.  

In the meantime, I cannot help but toss in an off topic perspective about missionaries of my own, as long as this has played out so far.  I interviewed British comedy writer and would-be foreign correspondent Jane Bussmann a few years ago. Her book "Worst Date Ever" offered some of the most hilarious and moving reporting on missionaries I have read.  Here is a taste from our interview:

Clarkson:  Actor Ashton Kutcher told you he has met "some really great priests." You aver (although not to Kutcher) that you don't like priests, and not because you are an atheist. And yet some of the real heroes in the book are priests like Father Carlos, and of course, Sister Rachele. Has your thinking evolved since then?

Bussmann:  The biggest shock to me was that the priests came out the heroes of the book! I had great fun mocking myself as events led inexorably to the conclusion that priests were saving the day. I decided it would be fun to lure the most skeptical reader in with a barrage of anti-religion abuse and then have them follow me as I met people like Father Carlos Rodriguez, a deep-thinking, kind, mild-mannered Spanish man with no concern for his own safety. He went into the bush armed with nothing but his Bible to rescue 17 children from the LRA. No bullets fired. But when the priest went back to get more kids--and how often can you say that in a positive context--he was sabotaged, and not by Kony, but by the Ugandan government army.

Until I went to Uganda, I thought missionaries were shady types who couldn't make it back at home, so they bailed to sunnier climes where they could strip the joy out of human existence unchallenged. But then I met the Combonis [a Catholic order of priests and nuns]--these people risk their own lives fighting for human rights. I met nuns who had been beaten up. Sister Rachele still bursts into tears 14 years after trying to save her girls from Kony...   And Father Carlos may have saved my life. An author with more dignity wouldn't have put it in their memoir, as it was a deeply humiliating incident involving a safety pin and a hospital with no doctors, but I couldn't resist it as the logical, almost divine conclusion to an adventure that began with my saying I didn't like priests.

by Frederick Clarkson on Mon Feb 20, 2012 at 03:08:24 PM EST