Customer Reviews

Missions and Money: Affluence As a Western Missionary Problem (American Society of Missiology Series)

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If you think that English-speaking missionaries are basically doing things alright, and if you're willing to entertain the possibility that they're not, read this one. If you're not willing to entertain that possibility, save yourself the trouble and find another book.

Bonk launches attacks on the practices of Western Protestant missionaries, noting that they've always got one foot on the plane back to the States. In contrast, he holds up historical Catholic missions in which a celibate missionary commits his whole life to a location and indigenous tribal missionaries, who become members of the tribe to whom they're ministering, raising their children as part of their new tribe and never planning on leaving. He critiques Western schools exclusively for missionary children, scholarships to denominational colleges for the same, and the vast gap in wealth between those who, according to our story, need to hear about the one who said "Blessed are the poor" and those who, according to the same story, haven't heard it yet.

Taking Bonk's book seriously would mean a radical restructuring of missions as Americans do them now. I'm not holding my breath.