Take Nothing With You: Rethinking the Role of Missionaries

by Skeeter Wilson, Mordecai Ogada (Foreword by)

Overview

For more than a decade, Skeeter Wilson has been interviewing elders in Kenya to better understand them as they see themselves, rather than defined by the missionary culture.

Take Nothing With You does not doubt the sincerity and good intentions of most missionaries worldwide-especially in Africa, where the author grew up. Neither does it question the sincerity that drives them to believe that they are fulfilling a divine calling. What Take Nothing With You does question is how faithfully the missionary movement reflects the teachings and examples of the Christ-the One who is the purported subject of their message. It questions if the message, as delivered in the missionary context, can really be considered "Good News."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781938480706
Publisher:	Quoir
Publication date:	10/13/2020
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.42(d)

Editorial Reviews

"This is a must-read for Christian readers interested in Wilson's topic. A scathing assessment that lands some solid blows." - Kirkus Reviews

"Take Nothing With You is a needful corrective to 600 years of well-intentioned, but very misguided, mission work." - Jon Zens, author of Elusive Community: Why Do We Avoid What We Were Created For?

"Skeeter Wilson reveals-with a keen, gentle grace-the cruel and frequently brutal conduct of the white missionaries and the roles they have unwittingly played in enforcing the subjugation of Africans through the evangelizing of a whitewashed, Christian God." - Najar Nyakio Munyinyi, Environmentalist and Afri-Historian Researcher and Writer

"Skeeter has done what few have had the nerve to do and that is to tackle the sacred cow of 'Missions' in conversion Protestantism...Whether you agree or not with Skeeter, you will be better for having been challenged by his thoughts in this book." - Anonymous, Former Missionary Who Served 30+ Years in Africa

From the Publisher

2020-10-22
A critique of evangelical foreign missions by a former missionary.

As the youngest son of American missionaries in Africa, Wilson grew up in the Kenyan highlands more than 50 years ago, surrounded by beautiful plants and flowers. Despite the surroundings, which he terms “idyllic,” he sensed a “malignancy” of misapplied Christianity—one “filled with anger, [and] ironclad control,” with daily devotions and Bible readings that taught kids not to think for themselves, but to submit to authority. His parents were highly respected among members of their church for the many people whom they “saved,” the ultimate goal of evangelical missionaries, but Wilson became increasingly skeptical of “conversion Protestants” who make up one-third of all Christian missionaries worldwide; he asserts that their obsession with saving souls sets them apart from those who undertake mainline and Catholic mission work, which is more focused on education and humanitarian aid. He left the mission field in adulthood and is now convinced that “regardless of motives and intentions, the best thing that a missionary…can do is to simply go home.” Borrowing from pan-African theories of neocolonialism, Wilson concludes, “We (white people and the Western complex) don’t help by helping.” Missionary ideology, however well intentioned, is built on a history of Western ethnocentrism that assumes Africans need Westerners to “progress,” he notes, and that Western civilization is inherently better than traditional African counterparts. As a result, he maintains, most missionaries do not “feel any obligation” to even learn the histories of the African nations where they live, beyond a few mandatory orientation classes. Overall, this book undertakes its challenge to Protestant doctrine by providing well-reasoned, alternative interpretations of Scripture that call into question core evangelical beliefs on the biblical “calling” of Christians to mission work. Indeed, the author’s dismantling of missionary ideology succeeds by using Christian missionary vocabulary—something that only one who was immersed in that culture could do. He also blends his biblical critique with sophisticated, although uncited, historical analysis. Although it’s occasionally repetitive and a bit scattered in its organization, this is a must-read for Christian readers interested in Wilson’s topic.

A scathing assessment that lands some solid blows.

Kirkus Reviews