Why mission work is a profoundly human activity that need not be coercive or oppressive.

Not long ago I found myself in an extended correspondence with a beloved uncle who left the church many years ago but has begun reading up on the faith that he jettisoned in college. My uncle, who is an accomplished scientist and loves to read history, admitted that reading history has allowed him to appreciate the good that the Christian church has accomplished in the world—quite an admission, given how many years he spent trying to put distance between himself and the faith of his youth.

But there was still a sticking point. In a frank and sincere email message he finally put forward the question that continues to bother him: “How do Christians justify missionary work?” he wrote. “In modern times, when we are supposed to respect each other and tolerate other viewpoints, what right do we have to tell anyone that their religion is wrong and Christianity is right?”

It’s easy to see the logic in my uncle’s question, which is really more like a complaint. In fact, I suspect his question/complaint is widely shared by people outside the church and even some educated folks within the church. Who do these missionaries think they are, telling others what to believe? Wouldn’t the church be better off without missionaries?

Of course, it’s not just missionaries that bother folks like my uncle. Evangelical Christianity (including the Anabaptist variety) comes under special scrutiny here. For these are the people supporting the missionaries—“enablers” we might call them—and, just as damning, evangelical Christians often act like missionaries in their own context, or at least they aspire to. If you were brought up in an evangelical Christian context, you probably remember the song from Sunday school: “Beeeee a missionary every day. Telllll the world that Jesus is the way.”

In a world that values individual freedom and personal quests for truth, what could possibly be more tone deaf and off-putting than these folks who “tell others how to believe”?

My uncle’s question pushed me to do some reflection of my own.

Why do missionaries bug moderns so? Why do some Christians (and, I suspect, more than a few Mennonites) feel embarrassed about supporting mission boards and missionaries? The flagship Mennonite mission organization, Mennonite Mission Network, has seen its contributions decline during the past decade. Are we becoming afraid or embarrassed of our missionaries?

There are at least two key complaints behind the typical criticism of missions and missionaries …

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