In Reply to: Re: Changing lives in India? posted by sawyer on April 12, 2009 at 18:35:57:
I do think there is room for genuine charity work in the world, but I am believing less and less in proselytization and more in simply BEing yourself, and waiting till your asked about your faith; then sharing your journey as a fellow human being, on an equal plane. If someone is not curious enough, intelligent enough or old enough to ask about it, then there isn't a natural spiritual process working (and maybe you haven't proven yourself to be that outstanding an example of your faith). And when it isn't a natural process, it is contrived, forced.
To travel across the world and assume that you can or should tell anyone what to believe is quite arrogant to me. The closer I look at the process of conversion the more jaded and unable to believe in religion/proselytization I become. Where do you draw the line between "outreach" and neo-colonialization or cultural-supremacist thinking?
There is just something about a missionary from a richer country going on a short-term trip to a poorer country with simple folk, telling them what to believe, that really rubs me the wrong way. If proselytization is the main aim in this scenario, something about the missionaries' priorities as a human being are askew. This is no different than an adventure tour to me, with poor Indians/Africans as your backdrop. There is something akin to abuse of position and privilege, an unbalance, an inequality. The missionaries' religion will for all intents and purposes be quite inseparable from their wealth and status, especially to simple poor folk. Convertees will consciousy or unconsciously be joining the club of their converter in order to become like or to win the friendship, approval and favor of someone so "successful" in life, hoping their own lot will be improved through this merger.
I think this is what NMMillan was expressing: "telling them that their lives would change if they [accepted Christ]. The truth is, their lives were nowhere close to changing."