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The 19th century missionaries and their immediate successors have been attacked by historians and many Third World leaders for having served as spiritual agents of the colonizing powers, blithely destroying cultures as they sought to impose Western values as well as Christian doctrines on their converts. In a somewhat more muted form, that criticism is still heard today. Argentine Theologian José Miguez-Bonino, a member of the six-person presidency of the World Council of Churches, says, "The missionary enterprise of the past 150 years is interwoven with the expansion of economic, political and cultural influence of the Anglo-Saxon world, whether Catholic or Protestant. We from the Third World call this neocolonialism or imperialism."
Others wonder how long missionaries from the West will still be needed as thriving local churches in the Third World develop strong leadership. By the year 2000, demographers predict, Asia, Africa and Latin America will have three-fifths of the world's Christians, compared with 47% today. Protestant churches in the Third World now send out 15,000 missionaries of their own, including some to Europe and the U.S.
Along with the old disputes about spiritual imperialism or the propriety of seeking converts from other faiths, there is a continuing sharp debate over whether missionaries should be mainly savers of souls or workers trying to improve the daily lives of people. Among Protestants, there has been a shift toward greater involvement with the basic economic and social problems of the people the missionaries are trying to reach. The change is exemplified by the efforts of the Rev. Dan Schellenberg, who is trying to improve the farming techniques of the same Kenya tribes that his father evangelized. Schellenberg, who is with the biggest U.S. mission agency, the Southern Baptist Convention, says, "My father wouldn't approve of what I'm doing," and calls his father's methods of seeking converts "buttonholing for Jesus." Yet the younger Schellenberg remains an evangelist. When a hot day's work is done, he chats with farmer friends about the threat of evil spirits and the opportunity of gaining freedom through Jesus Christ.
The longstanding arguments about social action are now hitting Catholics full force, especially in Latin America. The new Catholic emphasis on service to the poor has its roots in the Second Vatican Council. The Rev. Simon Smith, head of the Jesuit missions sent from the U.S., argues that the sharing of Christian beliefs "has taken second place to being of service to human beings."
For an increasing number of Catholic missionaries, identification with the cause of the poor means advocacy of radical changes in political and economic systems—even if those changes are being spearheaded by Marxist revolutionary movements. Advocates of this so-called liberation theology are most visible in Nicaragua, where five priests, contrary to the Pope's directive against the clergy holding political office, are members of the Marxist-led Sandinista government.
The belief that missionaries should care as much