Missions a destruction of culture?

Missionaries destroy cultures?  Do they go in with legalism and try to convert the locals away from their cultural practices to obey the missionaries’ practices?Missionaries westernize the indigenous peoples—change their dress, dance, diet and other cultural preferences?

Was that true? Is that really the face of missions? Is it just a narcissistic propagation of Western Christianity? Do missionaries really destroy cultures?

Christian missionaries destroy culture

Dormitories and the destruction of Aboriginal culture

From Creative Destruction Toward Creative Transformation: Mission Beyond Critical Contextualization In A Complex Global Era

Missionary responsibility

 While acknowledging that statements about the missionary responsibility of the Church are not credible unless they are backed up by a serious commitment to a new evangelization in the traditionally Christian countries, it does not seem justified to regard as identical the situation of a people which has never known Jesus Christ and that of a people which has known Him, accepted Him and then rejected Him, while continuing to live in a culture which in large part has absorbed gospel principles and values. These are two basically different situations with regard to the faith.

REDEMPTORIS MISSIO

Starting over as the learner

Culture shock is a much misunderstood phenomenon. Workers going on a short-term mission or visit of less than two months are unlikely to experience real culture shock.

The reaction that is often mistaken for real culture shock is what we might call the ‘wow factor’. This is an initial reaction on arriving in the new culture. It is the wide-eyed amazement at just how different everything is. It is essential for agencies to know the difference between the two phenomena and brief their
workers accordingly. Unfortunately many agencies and particularly local churches who send out workers, often fail in this area, sometimes with unfortunate and avoidable results.

The ‘wow factor’ is a confusing reaction that can range from delight to panic. Delight at the warm welcome or the open, smiling reaction of ordinary people to a foreign guest in their country. Fascination at the noise, customs, architecture, food and even the dress of people in their new surroundings.

Panic at the unaccustomed heat, the flies, or participants' reaction to the first time they have to use a ‘long-drop’ pit latrine, or even worse a ‘short-drop’ one!

Real culture shock is a more serious problem. It usually comes on after about six to eight months in the location, and lasts three to six months. During that time the worker may hate the location and everything to do with it. Some things that were novel, interesting and even fun to the short-term worker when they first arrived, can for the medium or long-term worker after six months become a serious source of irritation and contributes to an overall negative attitude. They will crave anything that was remotely to do with their own
culture. Food will be near the top of the list. Fawcett points out that the problem may well be the sense of loss of one's own cultural comforts more than an adverse reaction to the one being currently experienced. This is an interesting observation. It is certainly true that a longing for aspects of the home culture is one of the main symptoms of culture shock. Other symptoms of culture shock: homesickness, loss of interest, irritation, loss of appetite, poor concentration, tiredness, a feeling of guilt, anger, disturbed sleep, a
breakdown in good relationships.

Missionaries, who come from other churches and countries, must immerse themselves in the cultural milieu of those to whom they are sent, moving beyond their own cultural limitations. Hence they must learn the language of the place in which they work, become familiar with the most important expressions of the local culture, and discover its values through direct experience. Only if they have this kind of awareness will they be able to bring to people the knowledge of the hidden mystery (cf. Rom 16:25-27; Eph 3:5) in a credible and fruitful way. It is not of course a matter of missionaries renouncing their own cultural identity, but of understanding, appreciating, fostering and evangelizing the culture of the environment in which they are working, and therefore of equipping themselves to communicate effectively with it, adopting a manner of living which is a sign of gospel witness and of solidarity with the people.

Imitating Christ

"Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.”  John 20:21 RSV 

 The first form of witness is the very life of the missionary, of the Christian family, and of the ecclesial community, which reveal a new way of living. The missionary who, despite all his or her human limitations and defects, lives a simple life, taking Christ as the model, is a sign of God and of transcendent realities. But everyone in the Church, striving to imitate Jesus, can and must bear this kind of witness; in many cases it is the only possible way of being a missionary.

Sometimes even the apostolic desire for a ready passport into secular society and the determination to make oneself acceptable to people and particularly to the youth of today, prompts certain people to lay aside the principles which characterize our faith and to reject the sort of dignity which gives meaning and force to our determination to make contact with others and makes our teaching effective. Is it not, perhaps, true that some of the younger clergy and religious, in their laudable endeavor to come closer to the masses and to particular groups, aim at becoming like them rather than different from them? By this worthless imitation they forfeit the real value and effectiveness of their endeavors.