Neil Darragh, University of Auckland, New Zealand.
E-mail:
n.darragh@auckland.ac.nz
Abstract
Hazardous Missions and Shifting Frameworks
It has commonly been accepted that missionary activity may be hazardous for
missionaries. A more recent concern for integrity in mission focuses on how
missionaries themselves may be hazardous for the recipients of their mission and
for the Christian message itself. This paper uses the framework of a shift in
the missionary emphasis from cross-cultural to intra-cultural mission, from
first generation to second generation mission, and from human-centred to
Earth-centred mission to address the issue of hazardous missions.
Given that Christian missions do intend to change people and cultures, just how hazardous for a fragile culture, e.g. a just developing migrant culture, or an indigenous culture under threat, is a Christian mission prepared to be? The helpful or harmful characteristics of missionaries are not just personal but also structural, i.e. are inherent in the culture from which the missionary originates. This paper suggests that the three related shifts in missionary emphasis noted above reduce the hazards of Christian mission, but in turn introduce some new hazards. The paper invites responses on the degree to which these shifts of emphasis should be promoted and whether they are integral to some localities rather than others.