Since your observer is free of any official representative association with a foreign mission enterprise, many people talk freely with him about their past association with these organizations. Many of the comments reveal a deep dislike for foreign control. So deep, in fact, that many of these people will not attend any church or associate with any person representing a foreign religious interest. Many, if not all, still claim the faith they received through association with the mission.
They say, and it is quite true: "We are quite capable of doing everything you are doing, thank you. But if you continue to control all our actions and dictate our decisions we will never have a chance to use our capabilities. It's hopeless, I'm leaving."
The historian Lewis Mumford (The Conduct of Life, p236) had this comment about the result of foreign intervention in colonial times:
If it is true the religious missionary patronizingly gave without taking, the trader and colonizer rapaciously took without giving: in the very act of spreading the real goods of Western civilization, these representatives contrived to make even its virtues odious.
At the same time, most of those who dislike foreign control will wholeheartedly agree with this simple Christian doctrinal statement.
Control is part of the colonial mentality of many foreign mission organizations. When modern missions began, the home countries of many missionaries were engaged in colonialization. The home countries held a certain geographic area for political, strategic and economic advantage. To maintain and exploit a people for political, strategic and economic advantages is colonialism. There are many examples from history. The United States held the territories of Alaska and Hiawii as colonies. England held India, many countries were holding areas of Africa. The colonized people experience an inferior political and economic status.
The people we talk to know colonialism when they see it. And many see colonialism in the practice and policy of the typical mission organization in their country. Most have experience in a colony. Most US missionaries have never lived in a colony.
Unfortunately, the proclamation and the reception of the Gospel is affected in negative ways. A mission branded as "foreign" or "colonial" is not something the average person wants to get involved in. "Are you a paid agent of a foreign organization? Go away, I don't want to talk with you." The door closes.
Is there any way to separate the foreign cultural implications from the simple Gospel message? Why of course! A beginning would be to eliminate colonialism from the policy and practice of the mission enterprise. Make the main task the proclamation of the Gospel. Don't worry so much about control, about strategic and economic advantage. Let the local people make decisions. Let them handle the funds, the property. Let them function as people of God in their own church organizations. To say it another way, no missionary should ever do anything the local Christians can do for themselves.
As one person said, "They [the missionaries] think we are children." Another commented to this observer: "We won't have a real Lutheran Church of our own until the last missionary leaves." And we even heard this: "I prayed that God would take the missionaries away."
When I worked for a USA mission organization I rarely heard such comments, now, a mere observer, I do.