How Empire and Colonialism Perverted Missions — Ep. 174

So whenever on Anabaptist Perspectives, uh, we talk about missions, or we talk about helping people cross-culturally, uh, even if it's relief work, uh, there's a persistent question, uh, that comes up from our audience, uh, which is a really good one. And that is, if Western Christians are traveling around the world for these kinds of reasons, um, don't you just end up, uh, kind of furthering some of the evils, uh, coming from colonialism, or at the very least, you know, you're just kind of participating in the Western power structure? And so how do you think about missions?

So for this episode of Anabaptist Perspectives, I'm here with, um, Kai Steinman. Uh, Kai is a deacon at Maribone Christian Brotherhood and happened to have a business trip lined up, uh, that brought him right through our area. So he's in the studio with me and also joined by Rebecca Mouy, who is not in the studio with me, is halfway around the world, um, but we are thankful for remote technology that allows us to do this. So Rebecca is a scholar, um, on things like colonialism. Um, also we'll be talking just a little bit from her family history. And you might know her also as one of the very prolific writers on the Kingdom Outpost. Uh, this whole thing kicked off from a letter that, um, Kai sent to us after a previous Anabaptist Perspectives episode and told us we were too flippant about the dangers of missionaries.

So, um, Kai, one of the things, uh, you said in that statement was, and I'm quoting, uh, from you, "Historically, missions and politics have been inextricably woven together." Uh, if you want to start, just unpack that a little bit. I think this reality is, is, has been true of all times, um, throughout history, of all religions and, and of all kingdoms. Um, and there's been one radical exception all through history. And, and, uh, Jesus was confronted in, uh, Matthew, uh, with the most difficult question two opposing groups of enemies could come up with.

And, and we're all familiar with the story of they brought a coin and, and asked, or if asked if they should pay taxes. And, and Jesus made the statement, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." And, and we view that as, as such a simple answer, um, because we are used to a separation of kingdoms.

But all through history, that, that has not been true. Um, government and religion has always gone hand in hand. And, and one of the defining points of, of true Christianity is a separation of, of loyalty and patriotism to the Kingdom of God that is overriding the earthly kingdom that we're a part of. And, and so looking through history, that's, that's true all through history. Um, you know, you can look at the Old Testament nation of Israel and how their spirituality as a nation rose and fell with the spirituality of the kings, how they were commanded to drive out their enemies, lest their gods influence them. Um, you have Constantine in this sign, "You shall conquer," as he went to battle.

And, and you know, he conquered new lands. And, and as he did that, it was clearly adding to the empire and to the church. You know, we can ask the question, were the crusades, were they mission programs, or were they empire-building, um, crusades? As we move into more recent history, there's, uh, Christopher Columbus, and the, the popular dialogue is that he was looking for trade routes to the east. But his, his voyages, if you dig into them, were also highly religiously motivated. And, um, you know, the, the first island he landed on, he named Holy Savior San Salvador. Every island that, that Columbus explored, we're told that he, he put a large wooden cross on the island, um, that he was on.

But if you look into, um, some of the things that he wrote, and I'm gonna, I got a couple little quotes here. But after he returned from his, his first voyage, um, he sent a messenger ahead back to Ferdinand and Isabella after he returned on his first voyage. And, and I quote, "Our Redeemer has given us this triumph. For all of this Christendom shall feel joyful and make great celebrations and give solemn thanks to the Holy Trinity." And then this is the part I really want to emphasize, "For the great exaltation which it will have in the salvation of so many people to our holy faith." You know, it's, it's astounding. I mean, it's, it's a missionary statement that, that this will be the salvation of many people to our holy faith.

Between the first and the second voyage, he asked, uh, Ferdinand and Isabella to set aside 1% of all the gold taken from the islands for establishing churches and sending monks. And, and they in turn instructed him to win over the people of the said islands and mainlands by all ways and means to the Holy Catholic Church. And, and there you see just clear, this is empire-building in, in the name of Christ. He took religious workers on his second voyage, and, and even in his will, he provided a trust, uh, to support, um, theology professors, uh, to convert the Indians.

But then, uh, coming into very recent American history, um, in, uh, 125 years ago in the late 1800s, the, the history of the, the Spanish-American War and the, the, the annexation of the Philippines, uh, by the Americans. And, and you look at some of the language, um, you look at some of the language that's used there. And, and so the doctrine of manifest destiny, which is empire-building at its best, um, but we're not going to go into that, but manifest destiny was empire-building in the, the name of divine providence. And so now manifest destiny by the end of the 1800s has taken us all the way to the West Coast. It's led to the takeover of both Puerto Rico and Hawaii.

And, and, and now there's an interest in the American empire continuing to grow. And you start seeing this language that, that American, uh, commercialism and, and business and liberty is, is the salvation that the rest of the world, um, needs. And, and, and so there was a, a big focus on commercial growth and, and, and, and empire-building, but there was this underlying, always present language of mission as well. President McKinley speaking, defending his, um, the, the, the Spanish-American War. And he talked about all the different things they had tried. And, and then he said, "There was nothing left for us to do but to take them all and educate the Filipinos and uplift, civilize, and Christianize them."

Um, there's, there's empire-building mission statements there. You know, there's nothing left but to civilize and Christianize them. And, and you know, then if you look at some of the, the less known, uh, political figures of the day, you, you really start to see sort of the hyperbolic language of, of politics and mission. And, uh, one, one interesting example is a senator from Indiana, uh, his name was Albert Beveridge.

And in 1898, um, he gave a speech explaining why the U.S. should keep the Philippine missions. And again, I quote, "It is the tide of God's great purposes made manifest in the instincts of our race." And, and racialism often goes along, or racism often goes along with, uh, empire-building. "But it is the tide of great God's great purposes made manifest in the instincts of our race, whose present phase is our personal profit, but whose far-off end is the redemption of the world and the Christianization of mankind." And I just wince, uh, when I, when I read that statement. Yeah. Wow. Because, yeah, you started off with your very direct, you know, statement of, I think what most of us as Kingdom Christians would say is Christianity is separate from empire.

And then you just plunged right into that history of how these things have been so intertwined. And Rebecca, maybe that's a good place for you to, um, speak into it a little bit. And I guess I'm especially interested in that, that very disconnect between what we hold as ideals and what we see when we look at history.

Yeah. Um, I feel the issue of empire and the issue of Christendom are, are really very much tied together. So when we're looking at it from a two-kingdom perspective, um, one, clearly we have the Kingdom of Christ, and then we have, in history, we have the Christendom system, which I think Stuart Murray, uh, describes really well. It's like a political system, a religious system, cultural. Everything was intertwined in Christendom. And then from this base Christendom, we have, um, expansion throughout the entire world. Um, for, you know, 84% of the landmass of the, uh, landmass of the world was colonized, um, around like 75% of people. And almost every country was impacted in some way, even if they weren't under direct political control.

Listening to those quotes, it's really, um, I think, you know, it's, it's really good that we, we discuss and we face this history in Christianity, and then we use the tools of, you know, a kingdom-centered theology to think about it. From my own experience, like for example, here, um, in Malaysia, the very first Christians that came were the Portuguese. And they, the first thing they did was to build a fort, and they conquered the city of Melaka.

They built a fort, and they built the very first church in the region right inside that fort, and it's still there today. And then the, you know, the Portuguese, uh, were replaced by the Dutch. They did the exact same thing. They built a colonial fortress, uh, right next to it. They built a church. And then when the Dutch left and the British came, uh, they changed it from a Dutch Reformed Church to an Anglican Church and used the same buildings. So it was always, you know, Christianity in this region has always been intertwined. But then in that very same place was where they translated the very first, uh, Chinese Bible, I think it was. And of course, they took that Bible and they laid it at the throne of King George IV and said, you know, this is, this is part of our work there as well, along with all the other things that they're doing.

Um, I had this book here, and that was a very interesting, um, quote. It's very, very similar to what, uh, Pastor Kai was describing, where they were saying things like, um, the missionaries, uh, going to China. In this case, it was China. Uh, this is, uh, the China Mirage by James Bradley, and it describes mission, the missionaries writing about how, like, China is a, a rotten wood that cannot be carved, that it has to be purified, that it has to be completely made new, um, and that it has to be reformed, like, permanently by a Christian civilization. And there's a quote from one, uh, minister to China who wrote, like, "Missionaries are the pioneers of trade and commerce.

Civilization, learning, and instruction breed new ones, which commerce supplies." And then most, uh, terrifyingly, he writes, "The educated Chinaman who speaks English becomes a new man. He commences to think." So, you know, they were writing about expanding their interests, expanding commerce in the region, as well as, like, teaching people to be, you know, teaching people like me, like, to be civilized or how to think. And that, uh, that was kind of the reality of it. But then, as I think about it, for the most part, uh, if, if, uh, if we had not had missions to China, we would not have had the Chinese Bible. We would not have had, uh, the churches that still remain to this day.

The house church tradition kind of dates back to that, the missionaries that came, and they, you know, they not only, uh, brought the gospel, they also trained local missionaries who, who planted churches, who really made a big difference. And I would say that for the most part, like my family, we were definitely blessed by having the missionaries come and bring the gospel. And, uh, we were, we became Christians. And I, you know, I don't regret that. But at the same time, this kind of history of it is a kind of difficult question to consider. It's a, it's a big question that actually, uh, post-colonial, uh, Christians in post-colonial countries all are, you know, considering and working through.

Uh, Christianity is growing in the majority world. It's, um, it's really taking root, and soon there'll be more Christians outside of the West than there are in the West. And so it's the, all these questions are coming up that the history, and yet at the same time, we wholly want to embrace Christ and the gospel and work past some of that history.

I think God is really good at, at, uh, redeeming situations and creating beauty for ashes. But I, I don't think that the beauty is justification for the ashes. And, and, and I found it really interesting, your, your statement on missionaries being the, the precursor or the opening for, for trade, because in Senator Beveridge's statement, he said the, the present phase is our personal profit, but whose far-off end is the redemption of the world. And, and that's typical of empire-building missions is that personal profit comes first, and then it's followed far off by the redemption of the world. And it's, it's just, it's a clear statement of, of priority. You know, first we make our money and we profit, and, and then we'll redeem the world while we're there.

I mean, another thing that caught my attention there is how much of this stemmed from, well, civilization and the gospel being put together. And by civilization, they meant very specifically European-style civilization, because of course, there have been many other civilizations of, of with a lot of variety, uh, in the course of history. Um, and yeah, to what extent has that, uh, been a driver in colonialism and just, you know, affected a view of the church is just basically equating first the gospel with civilization, but then making civilization very specifically Western society.

Um, I don't know if you have comments on that. I, I think there is an underlying racism that goes with empire-building. And, and until we acknowledge that, that, that we are racist because we feel we're better than, than someone else. And it's just the antithesis of, of true Christianity who prefers others before us. But, but there is an underlying racism that is, that is constantly there in empire-building. And so we shouldn't be surprised when we have our president saying, you know, we're going to go civilize them and Christianize them, um, because there is an underlying, um, feeling that, that we are better than they are.

And it's anti-Christian. Yeah, I'd like to respond to that. Um, there was a really good quote by Guy Hershberger, and he essentially says in his book, The Way of the Cross in, um, Human Relations, he says that, like, imperialism was the source of all these attitudes of discrimination. And, and then he says, love and non-resistance are what overcomes the egoisms of nation or race. And then, you know, it's replaced by brotherhood, human solidarity, he says. And then significantly, uh, quote, to refuse participation in warfare demands that the Christian likewise rise above attitudes of condescension and practices of discrimination.

And I think that's really powerful because studying, um, the kingdom and non-violence, I've kind of come to the conclusion that it's more than just what we don't do. It's not just a list of things that Anabaptists have traditionally abstained from, like taking oaths and taking up the sword. It has to be, um, a kind of, it, it has to be something that you take up, and it's an approach to looking at, uh, the world and what's happening. It's like the kingdom is leaven that transforms the world. And whatever situation we find ourselves in, whether it's racism or empire, whatever is happening in the world, we have to be the leaven for that. The kingdom is that leaven.

So it's more than just a fixed, um, model of what these are the things that non-resistance or non-violence are. It really is, there's so much more. There's, there's this huge potential to it. And the way that I think Hershberger saw it was that he started looking at, um, the world, at economics, at racism and issues in the 1950s. And then he looked at it through the Way of the Cross and, you know, what potential effect could, uh, non-violence and the kingdom have on the world of his day. And that's, that's very impactful. I found that so meaningful to me personally. So I feel like the kingdom way is a way of looking at all these questions and issues that are brought up, not just in the world at large, but also in our neighborhoods, like the issue of racism and the wider world, imperialism.

It's, it's the same issue, and it boils down to empire and the system of the world, which is to, uh, to marginalize people who are not like us, to oppress them, to abuse any power, like military power or other kinds of power we have over them. It's to do violence, it's to exploit. And all these things are found in so many different forms. But then maybe that's, that's the way of, of sin. And so that's what the gospel, you know, that's the answer that the gospel of the kingdom brings. Yeah, thank you, Rebecca. And yeah, I think that you're wrapping this up, um, with a good way of bringing us back to, okay, so it's sin, empire is a manifestation of sin.

Um, and the kingdom of heaven is like leaven. And I think we should do our next episode, uh, with the three of us, a conversation. We can, uh, maybe jump off from that. Um, the kingdom of heaven is like leaven. Use that to think about both missions and how the great commission, um, can be done, how we can try to do the great commission, um, without being imperialists, um, but also what that means a little bit closer to home within our own societies. Um, so yeah, thank you both for joining me in this conversation. Thank you for joining us for this episode, and thanks to our donors and partners for making this possible. For more episodes, please subscribe or visit our website at anabaptistperspectives.org.

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