What a World We are in!

When we go to a foreign country to proclaim the Good News of the Gospel, we go as American missionaries. Neither of those appellations should be considered a big asset in many places.
We are proud to be Americans, but in many parts of the world, being an American may be envied but not liked. It used to be that we had to worry about being the “ugly American.” That still is a concern, but perhaps a greater concern is that being an American under any circumstances may be considered being “ugly.” There are people who look at our invasion of Iraq as some sort of colonial type maneuvers. We know that the motives of our government were not to entrap a people into our nets, but to free a people from the tyranny that surrounded their lives for many years.
It does not matter how pure the motives of our government have been. What matters is the perception that many have. They may envy Americans while not really liking them. While in South Africa I had some friends who spoke freely of their bad feelings about the apartheid sanctions promoted by the US. I think they liked the result of the sanctions without liking the sanctions.
How do we stay on the side of the people we are working with while being identified with the government they resent. It is not easy. If it is at all possible it is preferable to try and not defend policies that bring resentment in the hearts of the good people with whom we are working.
We not only go as Americans, but we also go as missionaries. In that we represent the King of Kings and all of His policies rather than the policies of our earthly government. In this it is important that we don’t allow the American nature of our lives and background to override the development of a work within a foreign culture.
It concerned me when we were in the Philippines that we saw churches that were duplicates of the churches of the missionaries who had brought the Gospel to the people there. The things that were distinctive to those churches may have been fine, but there were many things that should have been left in the States.
I remember reading a book by a Chinese missionary who was describing how there was a comity agreement between Southern and what was then Northern Baptists in their ministries in China. He said that the Northern Baptists agreed to work in the south and the Southern Baptist agreed to work in the north. This meant that the churches in the south were called northern Baptist churches and the churches in the north were called Southern Baptist churches. The Americans understood why but the Chinese people didn’t understand why.
We can do many things like that which are unfortunate. We carry concepts and procedures with us and most of them should really be left at home. There was a conversation I had with a missionary who felt that the races should not be mixed in a church. He was working in France where that concept was foreign to the people. He should have left his prejudices at home.
We probably have trouble knowing what it is that makes a church a church that is not encumbered with cultural prejudices. It would be nice if we could just say to the people, “Here is the Bible. Go ahead and build a church that is consistent with all the biblical teaching. It is hard to sit back and let that happen.
It is a great privilege to carry the good news of the Gospel to another people. We should pray that we don’t do anything to stand in the way of the work in that new area being hindered in any way by our prejudices. It is possible that we are afraid to let the Holy Spirit work in the hearts of people and allow them to become the very best Christian they can be in their own land. God is able to do that.