Interrogating the Language of “Self” and “Other” in the History of Modern Christian Mission. Man-Hei Yip
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and also to explain the dominance and acceleration of colonial rule. Such contrastive pairings helped to condemn the other as inferior and also helped to determine the nature of their hold over the people they subjugated. The early missionary hermeneutics which abetted in this enterprise extrapolated this binary view to inject its own biblical values into the private and public lives of the colonized.1
What causes easy dichotomization of us and them upon missionary encounter? Is conflict between civilizations unavoidable?2 Problematizing otherness upon missionary encounter is a common tactic to deal with the other. The problem of othering is closely linked with language use. Prevailing mission discourses and theological conceptions largely operate within the Anglo-European cultural and linguistic frameworks. Whether they effectively use words to influence people or negatively construe and describe people, language becomes a matter of practical concern. The resulting behavior is seemingly external. Language and the Christian missionary movement intersect in complicated ways to objectify the other in cross-cultural situations. The history of Christian mission has long been predicated on the construction of otherness. Simply banning the use of certain words and replacing them by more inclusive language does not address the issue.
There is, however, not much discussion regarding language use in the Christian missionary movement. It always baffles me when the ecumenical circles embrace the principles of mutuality; the respect paid to the other unfortunately functions to fix the problem of the other. It is my desire to contest a certain account of missiological argument, rationality, and deliberation that have been approved to implement divisive practices. Questioning the decision-making process involves an interrogation of epistemology deployed in the study of the other. It means to disrupt the norm of crafting mission discourses in established structures and linguistic traditions. My contention is that rethinking otherness is necessary for every missionary endeavor. Otherness cannot be treated as an end that justifies the means. Otherness is a manifestation of God’s grace and faithfulness to the world. The discourse of otherness as gift becomes a point of departure that subverts the foundational predisposition to see self as better than other.
The task of unearthing otherness opens up a larger question concerning the agency of the other. The issue of full personhood is a serious business. It goes beyond empowering the unfortunate, to recognizing the value of the other. Who are these people? What does it mean to recognize their value? To what extent will the ecumenical body tolerate otherness and allow that to instigate institutional change? I am asking these questions, not because I can give a better answer than anyone else. I am inviting all of us to reflect on this significant topic concerning the intersubjective reality of Christian missionary engagement. Renewing our approach to language can build positive relationships, which will in turn shed light on the discipline of missiology.
A Methodological Problem
In this chapter, I will first examine the problems that arise from overemphasizing achievements of mission agencies and societies. Then I will proceed to the need of a new methodology that attempts to address linguistic issues in relation to the construction of otherness in Christian missionary movement.
Bias in Historical Interpretation: Privatization of Knowledge
and Religion
The study of Christian mission has given prominence to a framework that focuses almost exclusively on the major player whose agenda and decision are shaping mission strategy and missionary work. Traditionally, mission agencies and societies have assumed a role of the agent of God bringing God’s salvation to the ends of the world. They also could effectively amass the most needed resources including monetary means and technological know-how. They are the doer or deliverer of missionary work. When the doer of historical events possesses and presents a better access to knowledge than anybody else, that knowledge embedded in missionary work is perceived as a given. That knowledge provides the underlying basis for why we do what we do in the missionary movement. A methodology that is situated at the agencies’ vantage point easily speaks a language in their best interests. Given the self-centric approach, there is a consequential preservation of bias toward self versus the other.
Receivers of mission are given little space to negotiate their identities in the daily operation of salvation-related programs. They are largely reduced to a homogeneous group, waiting to be empowered. Interestingly, these people came to be known as people of the Third World. The term “Third World” is a modern term popularized in the early 1950s to refer to the countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.3 Images of the Third World were mostly deplorable, as soon as the term came into usage. According to Ernest W. Lefever,
Most Third World states have pluralistic societies made up of several, and sometimes many, racial, ethnic, and religious groups, frequently in rivalry or conflict with one another. Their governments tend to be weak and fragile and are often dominated by a privileged class or ethnic group. Most such regimes are authoritarian, and their leaders, seeking to maintain themselves in power and to modernize simultaneously, guarantee few of the political and civil rights taken for granted in the democratic West.4
What Lefever illustrated is a negative construct of the people who are relative to the West and possibly at odds with the West.5 Problems occur when people interpret history through a single lens, and make universal claims on the basis of their interpretation of the world and the other. That certainty and absoluteness deposited in the belief system also carries a presumption that to be good, someone else must be bad.
One ensuing question that faces us in this inquiry is the authenticity of the story. Whose story is much invested in the his-story of Christian mission? Major texts on the history of Christianity excessively focus on Europe as the epicenter of Christianity. In this narrative, the spread of Christianity began unilaterally from the West to the East or from North to South. Christianity is viewed as a Western religion. That impression seriously hampers the development of Christianity in other parts of the world. It can trigger memories and raise a red flag for new waves of colonial expansion. General knowledge about God, people, and the world is largely authenticated by Western patriarchal values and systems. The authentication of a Western worldview further reinforces genealogical ways of knowledge used for studying people and their cultures.
Knowledge is inevitably attended by power. But when the power fails to lift up insurgent agency or respect valuable critique, that power of knowledge is larger than knowledge per se. This form of power cannot be liberating, but domineering. The episteme that highlights the scientific knowledge constitutes a kind of social control subjugating those outside of the power circles. Thus Edward Said contended that knowledge represents thoroughly a kind of power that dominates the discourse of life at all levels.6 Power over other is more than an opinion, but actively at work in politics, international relations, and economic matters. Even in our everyday life, power takes the form of cultural dominance. Art, music, literature, food, and even language, contain implicit sets of moral values that characterize what civilization is. But those standards can sanction deviance and difference.
In Transforming Mission, David Bosch unhesitatingly questioned the conflation of Christian mission with the naïve epistemological triumphalism ingrained in Enlightenment rationality.7 Bosch realizes that “Our theologies are partial, and they are culturally and socially biased. They may never claim to be absolutes.”8 For Bosch, Western privatization of the missionary movement in Christian history is questionable. While his challenge against Western domineering desires and rejection of Western worldview and philosophy upon missionary encounter are widely known, Bosch’s proposal is limited in various respects. He relied heavily on European and American scholarship. In a sense, his talk of epistemology does not represent a complete break with Western value and tradition. His analysis of the six missionary paradigms only slightly involved the insights and inputs of theologians and missiologists in the South.9 The paradigm shift may take place among Western missiologists and thinkers alike, but the practice of self-examination intrinsic to the change does not revolutionize the shape and makeup of leadership in the field. Mission agendas are frequently set by Western leadership that decides where the money goes. Far from representing a game-changer in Christian missionary movement, Bosch’s proposal of the paradigm shift tends to portray a linear historical development of Christian mission. I do not think Bosch would want to follow the footsteps of