Problem
Ill-considered missionary activity
Other Names:
Missionary alienationInappropriate religious proselytizing by foreign missionaries
Nature:
Religious missions have been divided into 'foreign' and 'home' categories. 'Home' category missionaries deal in particular with the poverty stricken, the homeless, and the social outcasts or misfits.Those in 'foreign' categories mainly deal with indigenous peoples on whom they may impose a totally new moral code to which tribespeople find it very difficult to adapt. Often missionaries tell the people that their customs are primitive and barbaric, and use education and comparison with western ways to embarrass the young people into disowning their cultural values and practices. But having done so, native peoples may find themselves dependent on 'Western' economic and social structures. Because they are inadequately educated and discriminated against on an ethnic basis; and because they have little experience in market economic structures, this dependence renders them easy prey to exploitation, poverty, disease, malnutrition and death.
Incidence:
In 1994 China banned proselytizing by foreign missionaries because of their tendency to engage in destructive, independent and unauthorized activities inspired by culturally insensitive values. Activities by Christian missionaries have provoked riots by China's Muslim minority. Churches there have been accused of harbouring political dissidents. Broader Problems:
MoralismReligious conflict Related Problems:
EvangelismCultural invasion Aggravates:
Forced assimilationCultural corruptionEndangered culturesEthnic disintegrationUnreached peoples Strategies:
Taking missionary action Subject(s):
Medicine → PathologyAction → Action
Society → Foreign
Society → Disadvantaged
Religious Practice → Religion
Religious Practice → Missions
Related UN Sustainable Development Goals:
Problem Type:
F: Fuzzy exceptional problems Date of last update
06.01.2021 – 16:34 CET