Mission, Education and Inculturation

 

Missionaries are compulsive teachers. This is no surprise as the Lord Jesus himself spent a good deal of his time teaching and explicitly instructed his followers to do the same (Matthew 28: 20). Teaching is an integral part of mission, along with making disciples and baptizing. That is why Christians have a missionary concern for education.

 

The modern Western missionary movement certainly was a teaching movement. It has led to the establishment of schools and universities all over the formerly colonised world. These institutions have been and often still are Western enclaves in the non-Western world. Even when they are no longer explicitly religious schools, they are still patterned after Western models of education. The choice of subjects, the manner of teaching, the set-up of the classrooms all betray American or European influence.

 

The case of the American University of Beirut

With one such institution I am well acquainted. It is the American University of Beirut (AUB), formerly called the Syrian Protestant College. The story of this university is typical. It was established in 1866 by the American missionaries with the help of funds they rose from Western sponsors. In fact, these missionaries acted against the explicit wish of their sending mission, in particular of its secretary Rufus Anderson, who felt it was not part of the Christian missionary call to establish an institution for general higher learning. However, Anderson did not obstruct the plan of the missionaries and the Syrian Protestant College soon proved a remarkable success. Well into the 1950s, the influence of the Christian missionaries was felt on campus through chapel services and other Christian activities. Today AUB is one of the leading universities in the Middle East, serving as a gateway for Middle Easterners to the West and vice versa.

 

Inculturation is a controversial theme that recurs in the early history of AUB. It crystallized in the discussion on the language of instruction. Should instruction take place in Arabic or in English? In the first decade or so, the American missionaries strongly favoured Arabic as the teaching language. People like Cornelius van Dyck, who is credited for completing an Arabic translation of the Bible, worked hard to translate academic resources into Arabic. With their team of Arab teachers, they trained a promising generation of young people who were instrumental in the Arab cultural Renaissance of the late 19th and early 20th century, the so-called Nahda. These young men and women would also give significant impetus to the new Arab nationalist awareness that would eventually lead to independence movements all over the Arab world. Around the 1890s, however, a new generation of American missionaries less proficient in the Arabic language entered the field. The English language won the day and AUB never again matched that contribution to Arab culture that it had in its first days.

 

Alienating converts from their cultures

The story of mission schools in other places is not different. By 1910 , the Edinburgh conference was keenly aware that the mission schools were unable to shake off their “foreignness”. The members of Commission III, drawing on a vast amount of reports from correspondents in Asia and Africa, identified this as weakness number one of missionary education.

“There has been a tendency, especially in certain lands and districts, to denationalize converts, that is, to alienate them from the life and sympathies of their fellow-countrymen, so as to make it possible to suggest that Christianity is a foreign influence, tending to alienate its converts from the national life. This has been due in part of the large place held by the English language and by British and American methods in missionary education.” (World Missionary Conference, Report of Commission III: Education in Relation to the Christianisation of National Life, Edinburgh and London: Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier, 1910, p. 6)

 

One hundred years later, writing from an Asian perspective, M.P. Joseph affirms this conclusion of the Edinburgh 1910 conference. “Language is the medium of one’s own social reality. Therefore alienation from the social self was the inevitable result of imposing an alien language – English – by means of missionary education.” (M.P. Joseph, “Missionary Education: An Ambiguous Legacy,” in: Kenneth R. Ross and David A. Kerr, Edinburgh 2010: Mission Then and Now, Oxford: Regnum Books and Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 2009, p. 112)

 

Mission and education in an era of world Christianity

Today we are obviously in a new situation. Western churches have lost their grip on educational institutions they once founded. Waves of secularisation and decolonisations have drastically changed the educational landscape everywhere in the world. When schools and universities were not religiously ‘neutered’, as was the case with the American University of Beirut, local churches often took up responsibility for them.

 

This is not to say that there is no longer any missionary, cross-cultural involvement in education. On the contrary. Participation of “foreign” teachers is only increasing, not only in the global South, but also in the Western world. In this sense, Christian education seems to be ahead of the church itself, which often remains culturally segregated. Theological seminaries are often at the forefront when it comes to intercultural exchange of faculty. But also on the elementary and secondary school levels, intercultural exchange is becoming increasingly common, in whatever form.

 

There is a clear shift in the understanding of the relation between mission and education. This is in fact a shift that Commission III hoped for and promoted. Today Christians widely recognise that the primary missionary responsibility with regard to education lies with the local and national church. Local churches may call upon sister churches from elsewhere for assistance. Yet they are the ones who understand their culture and their people best. Therefore they are the ones who are most able to assess what the church’s mission with regard to education is for their context.

 

We should be so honest to admit that this is today’s missiological ideal, but that old patterns of dependency are often perpetuated. Even a secularised institution like the American University of Beirut has been unable and unwilling to overcome Western domination in favour of inculturation. And the same is true for many a Christian school, seminary or university in the non-Western world. Even when the governing authority of the school is completely in local hands, the school’s culture may still reflect more affinity with American or European society than with the culture of the students and teachers.

 

Globalisation or inculturation?

Some thinkers will be quick to point out that this reliance on Western patterns is only natural in a globalised world, in which English is the new Latin. They may propose that, in a globalised context, we cannot be nostalgic about cultural traditions, as globalisation erodes the concept of culture. A focus on inculturation in education is, in their view, not only archaic, but may even debilitate a community as it puts it out of touch with global culture.

 

In spite of such considerations, others continue to stress the importance of inculturation. Their argument is concerned with the remaining uniqueness of each culture. Each culture is unique and inalienable. In spite of globalisation’s overwhelming influence, Christianity still speaks to people in their own unique cultures. If people are going to embrace and live the Christian faith, it has to be a Christian faith tailored to the thought-forms and habits of their own cultures.

 

So whereas the opponents of inculturation point to the global aspect of life, the defenders of inculturation feel that the local has a continuing relevance. I suppose that, as ever, the truth is in the middle. Christian communities cannot afford to neglect either local culture or global involvement. In fact, both aspects are inextricably entangled in 21st century life. Human beings want to feel at home in the world at large, but, as their horizons expand, feel a growing urge to assert their own cultural uniqueness. And as they assert their uniqueness they do so vis-à-vis other cultures. Therefore, in presenting the Christian message, churches ought to be sensitive to both aspects and affirm that Christianity is at the same time a universal and a very particular faith. Christ is at the same time the Lord of the world and my own personal Teacher.

 

It is in Christian education that this mix of global involvement and local ties is most felt. For Christian education helps (young) people understand their tradition, their present identity and their future hopes. It helps them to be responsible: for themselves, for their families, for their communities, for society at large, and even for the world’s future. Christian faith teaches people to exercise that responsibility in the way of Christ, on the local and the global levels, and all those levels in between.

 

This commitment to both global and local contexts means that Christians will resist gradual supplanting of local languages in favour of English or other powerful langauges. On the other hand they will safeguard against parochialism that obstructs international communication.

 

Models of educational inculturation

What remains is the question: how are churches going to give shape to their missionary involvement in education today? The Edinburgh 1910 conference pointed to four models for missionary education. The first was the model of education solely for an evangelistic purpose. In this model, everything the school does stands in the service of engraining Christian faith in the students. According to the second model – the edificatory model – education is established for empowerment of the Christian community in a certain region. Thirdly, the commissioners spoke about the leavening model by which the life of a nation is gradually permeated with the principles of truth. The final model is the model of education for the general welfare of society, education for its own sake. (Report of Commission III, 369-71)

 

Commission III suggests that models 1 and 2 are the most important models. I suspect that most Christians today would rather emphasize models 3 and 4. Yet we cannot discard the first and the second model. Education for evangelism is not necessarily arrogant and aggressive, if evangelism is understood as a peaceful activity that respects human freedom. And education for empowerment of the Christian community is very urgent in places where Christians are marginalised and exploited. Think of communities of Christians who are outcasts or modern slaves. If religious education among these Christians does not focus on empowering them, Christian faith may lose its relevance for them.

 

The extent to which each of these models will be implemented thus depends on the local situation. What is beyond doubt is that, regardless of its context, a missionary church will be committed to education, because it is committed to human life, which is a constant learning process, and because it is committed to Christ, the primary Teacher of the Christian community.