August 2, 2021
It’s 2021 and I’m still seeing social media pictures of white Christian missionaries surrounded by forty children in an African village.
I figured out that this picture was ridiculous and inappropriate even when I was still a believer. It amazes that me that others still haven’t seen what should be blatantly obvious by now.
I’ve written before about the only mission trip I ever went on as a Christian. I’ve also written about my experience in taking the Perspectives course, which is focused on mission work. However, when my faith deconstruction started, one of the very first areas of my Christian life that I examined was mission trips. It didn’t take me long to realize that they actually don’t make much sense.
Christians love to help people, and while that’s fine, most often the people who go on mission trips aren’t able to effectively help others because they haven’t first invested in themselves. This happens because the makeup of your average group of Christian missionaries are a handful of adults and a swarm of high school or college aged kids.
I also learned a very valuable truth: mission trips ultimately serve the missionary, not the local population. How?
Because though the missionary is ostensibly doing charitable work in the target destination, that charitable work isn’t really doing much to attack the actual root of the problem in the location.
First of all, there’s the weird idea that Christian missionaries shouldn’t have to actually pay to travel to their chosen destination. Instead, they “raise support” which means begging other members of the church to crowd source their travel and expenses. They do this by writing long-winded letters that quote Bible verses and assure the donors that by giving money, they are helping do God’s work.
Once on site, how much does it actually cost for you to be there? Not just money, but food and space. You have to eat, right? How much local food and water are you consuming while you “love on” children in a remote village? Is your big group displacing some local people out of their beds? Are they allowing you to needlessly do this because of some local custom that you’re unaware of?
So you travel very far out of their way to go “love on” children in a remote village somewhere. “Loving on” is Christianese lingo that, aside from sounding gross, really translates into doing absolutely nothing of value. “Loving on” people in a remote village does nothing to improve their condition—assuming they were even looking for their condition to be improved at all.
Christian missionaries often choose their destinations for mission work because they perceive that destination and its local population are somehow in need of their help. Usually, they think they need help because they don’t live a life that looks like their own western standard.
Performing tasks such as building schools, wells, or houses may seem practical on the surface, but wouldn’t it be better to empower local people to do it for their own people? Christian missionaries coming and doing it for free damages the local economy. But Christian missionaries don’t understand this because they usually don’t have a basic grasp on economics, business, and trade. They just drop in and do it because it makes them feel good about themselves.
Plus, in some rare instances (but still too frequent in my opinion) these trips allow some people who really, really shouldn’t be allowed near children to gain access to them. I’ll just leave it at that.
And of course, let’s not forget what the very first missionaries did. They traveled to lands that were not theirs, told the local indigenous people that they were to immediately stop believing their own beliefs, stop performing their rituals and ceremonies, and covert over to the Christian god. Then these missionaries proceeded to steal the land and resources. We still see the ramifications of this today.
Western mission trips to countries such as Uganda have resulted in enterprising scam artists who open illegal orphanages. Often, many of the children in the orphanage aren’t really orphans. Families living in poverty are targeted by the owners of these fake orphanages who promise the family that if they allow their kids to live in the “orphanage” then they’ll receive a “western education.” The children are often mistreated and neglected.
These are the children Bethany Grace meets on her mission trip to further God’s kingdom. When Bethany’s church promises to sponsor the orphanage, the money is pocketed by the owners. These illegal orphanages are regularly investigated and shut down by the Ugandan government. When they do, they often find that these illegal orphanages are receiving money from several churches and organizations in western countries who thought they were legitimate.
But hey, at least Bethany Grace gets an Instagram profile full of pictures of her surrounded by innumerable village children. Her caption—continued in the comments—goes on and on about how much she loves the locals, how she was so blessed to witness the salvation of 2,598 souls, and how she can’t wait to go back (spoiler alert: she never does).
This trip has allowed Bethany Grace to get lots of likes, comments, attention, and accolades for her “servant’s heart.” What did the local population gain from her presence? Nothing. They continue on with their lives much in the same condition as before Bethany Grace arrived.
Many Deconverted Men were heavy into mission work when they were believers. For that reason, after they leave religion, they often feel like they’ve lost their purpose in life. I get it. Both in my book and on this blog, I discuss the importance of finding a new Mission, one that’s chosen by you and for you rather than something handed to you by a church or pastor so that you could “do God’s work” or “bring about God’s kingdom.”
This new Mission, unlike church missions, actually makes the world a better place.