There’s Never Been A More Critical Time Than Now To Turn To Jesus And Bring His Word To The World

There’s Never Been A More Critical Time Than Now To Turn To Jesus And Bring His Word To The World By Don Boys, Ph.D. for All News Pipeline

– Should Western Nations Send Missionaries to Backward Nations Seeking To Change Their Values?

Captain Cook discovered Hawaii in 1778, and on his third trip in 1779, he was killed during a brawl on the beach. A few years later, the Second Great Awakening began, and there was great interest by Christian enthusiasts from Yale who were concerned for the Hawaiian people.

On one of my visits to Hawaii, I heard the famous quip, “American missionaries came to Hawaii to do good and ended up doing well—very well.” No, they ended up changing a pagan, savage people into a lawful, Christian society. King Kamehameha died just before the first missionaries arrived. His wife, Kaʻahumanu, and his son, Liholiho (King Kamehameha II), abolished the pagan religion with its kapu rules or code of conduct. To break even a minor rule meant immediate death. They also practiced human sacrifice. The islanders were ready for a new code, and the timing was perfect as 14 New England missionaries sailed into the harbor in 1820 after a 164-day journey.

They produced a written language for the islanders, and other missionaries established education, an organized government, medical assistance, and forms of entrepreneurship. They solidified the culture away from human sacrifice, drunkenness, and prostitution to a stable government under the queen. After a time of teaching, the queen and six leading chiefs professed faith in Christ and requested baptism.

The Hawaiian Constitution of 1840 reflects a new culture: “God hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the earth (Acts 17:26), in unity and blessedness…God must be our aid, for it is His province alone to give perfect protection and prosperity…All men of every religion shall be protected in worshiping Jehovah, and serving Him, according to their own understanding, but no man shall ever be punished for neglect of God unless he injures his neighbor, of (sic) brings evil on the kingdom.” Would any honest person suggest that the missionaries’ arrival did not make a significant improvement in the natives’ lives?

The Daily Caller reported that archaeologists in Mexico discovered the first pre-Hispanic temple devoted to “The Flayed Lord,” a fertility god whose priests skinned fallen combatants and wore their skins for a while then stored them. Did those Indians in about A.D. 1000 have the right to strut around wearing the skin of their victims? It is admirable, not reprehensible, that people with a superior ethic or culture would want to take those people a philosophy or theology that would stop such repugnant activity.

The missionaries, risking their lives, and often living in poverty, have even higher motives than physical. They wanted to expose people to the Gospel of Christ, knowing that it would change every area of their lives and prepare them for eternity.

It is not wrong to change cultures as some second-rate, biased anthropologists have charged (think, Margaret Mead and her farcical book on the Samoans). Instead of respecting dedicated missionaries who leave their home for distant foreign lands to live among strange, often dangerous people, the missionaries have been characterized as bigots who presume to have better and higher standards for benighted natives to follow.

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