Source: OMF USA, June 8, 2020
“No way. That’s crazy!”
I was shocked. I’ve studied missiology. I have an advanced degree in cross-cultural ministry. All the research I could think of said the same thing: Near cultures can reach the unreached with the gospel more effectively and efficiently than far cultures. For someone from a far culture it just makes sense. Near cultures have language, similar cultural values, and a relatively short distance to travel.
But my friends of Southeast Asian heritage were challenging one of the core tenets in my philosophy of missions. When I asked if it would be easier for them to reach a certain people group in Southeast Asia, they said “No way. That’s crazy. It would be much easier for you to reach them than us.”
I’m a white male from Midwestern US. I don’t speak any Asian languages and I know next to nothing about the culture. Both of their families came from a minority people group nearby the majority people group I was praying would be reached.
Here’s what I missed: Racism. Tribalism. Ethnocentrism. Classism. History of oppression. History of power struggles. History of cultural clashes. Generations of stories that passed on prejudice like hand-me-down clothes.
I thought racism was primarily an American problem. Turns out it’s a human problem. And these ingrained prejudices can be bigger barriers to the gospel than language or culture or distance.
As I have watched the American, and particularly the white American church struggle with how to respond to both conscious and unconscious, individual and systemic racial oppression in our country over the past several years, I’ve become convinced that we need to incorporate a gospel-saturated response to racism in our cross-cultural training.
» See also 10 Encouraging Trends of Global Christianity in 2020 (LifeWay) and Missions in a COVID Crisis: Diversity Implications (World Evangelical Alliance).