Mission Minded

Written By Jonathan Krogh

Dear Mission-Minded Members:

When I was a kid in church listening to missionary speakers describe peoples on other continents lost in darkened corners of the world, I was enrapt. It was as if the colorful photographs of our National Geographic had come alive. Ours was the task to release their very souls. Through our generosity we could bring light and life to their tragic, primitive ways. Theirs was an exotic but frightful world languishing in the absence of Western bureaucracy and decent footwear; and by our Christianly gifts we could bring them the wondrous jewels of literacy, first aid and, for Christ’s sake, covered breasts.

Now, decades later, the condescending paternalism of our colonial worldview has made such mission work obsolete, embarrassing perhaps. It makes sense now to recognize that the spiritual capacities of other peoples were not infantile, but carried a deep, mature sophistication borne of native context. Before a missionary could preach the Gospel, it became imperative that they understand the culture. Through the years, missionaries learned that perhaps their greatest gift was not speaking, but listening. Anthropology supplanted apologetics as a primary tool for evangelism.

On the other hand, adaptation to context always risks β€œgoing native”. A major split occurred in the 17th and 18th centuries between Jesuit and Dominican priests in Asia. In the 1640s, the Dominicans were scandalized when they arrived in Japan to find that the Jesuits had adopted Buddhist garb to convey their identity as religious leaders. The Dominicans couldn’t wait to return to Rome and tattle on their theological brethren. For the next three centuries, popes dithered as to how much cultural appropriation was too much. By Vatican II in 1965, it appeared the Roman Catholic Church had thrown in the towel, allowing even nuns to kick the habit.   

And yet there is backlash. There is always backlash. In July, Pope Leo the XIV excommunicated members of SSPX (the Society of Saint Pius X) who have ardently defended the orthodoxy of the Latin rite. In his denunciation of the splinter traditionalists, Pope Leo XIV reasserted the Vatican II doctrine of dignitatis humanae (human dignity), which states that freedom of religion is a basic human right. SSPX responded that being in error is not a right, and that β€œ[t]he saints have never hesitated to break idols, destroy their temples, or legislate against pagan or heretical practices” (SSPX District of the USA, 12/03/2012). And while the final straw of excommunication was in response to SSPX’s consecration of bishops in their own image without Rome’s permission, the underlying theological problem is about religious/cultural tolerance.

It is no accident that the rise of SSPX in the United States parallels the growing claims of American Christian nationalists. Deportations may be presented as efforts to enforce the law or protect jobs for citizens, but the deeper anxiety is not legal or economic; it is cultural intolerance. β€œThose people” don’t talk right, they wear strange clothes, they think differently, sing and dance oddly and eat weird foods (maybe even dogs and cats). We’re living in an age of domestic colonialism where preaching, not listening, is once again in fashion. This may account for how a conservative Roman Catholic Vice President is becoming a darling of the evangelical right.

Fascinated by history’s stretch and snapback, I remain,

With Love,
Jonathan Krogh
Your Pastor

Jonathan Krogh
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