Change the Narrative

Your Countercultural Calling

Historians love to blow holes in people’s stereotypes. There’s a certain fondness in the field for being able to say, “Well, actually . . .,” and follow it up with a different narrative.

Historians also perpetuate a few stereotypes of their own, though few would admit it. They often deconstruct traditional narratives only to replace them with narratives that need a little deconstruction too.

One of those is their take on Christian missionaries who, according to most assessments, were/are cultural imperialists serving the interests of colonial/neocolonial powers. Whether Catholic or Protestant, from the sixteenth century to today, missionaries have allegedly been part of vast programs to assert the West’s political, economic, and/or cultural dominance over the rest of the world.

It’s a lazy trope for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that quite a few Christian missionaries in the last few decades come from non-Western countries.¹ The calling that leads someone to leave their homeland to carry the message of God’s kingdom to another country dates back a couple thousand years, has often been initiated by marginalized people, and, if it’s genuine, has always been motivated primarily by spiritual rather than political, economic, or cultural concerns.