We like to help the poor in the majority world. Nowadays we receive reports that when we try to help them we create dependency. Some people tell us not to give. Others say generosity is still the best option. This all sounds very contradictory and confusing. How should we be responding to the poor in the world around us?
Ways of thinking or living may be mutually comprehensible, or they may function across a
disconnect. This can be illustrated by considering training for games or sports. Does football (i.e. soccer) training enable someone to be a good tennis player? One could argue that attributes such as bodily fitness are common to both. One would also have to acknowledge that time spent training for tennis will reduce the time available for practice of skills specifically associated with football. Also concentrating on perfecting one's serve in tennis is an inefficient means of training one's legs to dribble with a football; and so on.1
What has the above got to do with the creation and perpetuation of dependency in the majority world? Ways of life, some say worldviews, are very different from one part of the world to another. Perhaps they are as different as is football from tennis? As offering football training to tennis players may be of limited advantage to tennis players, so bringing Western aid to Africa could be of limited advantage to Africans. The theory is (or was); that the tennis players (African people) would, in response to aid, cease to play tennis (i.e. would abandon their culture) and would begin to play football (behave just like Westerners). That has not happened. They continue to play tennis - i.e. African people have not been able to raise their hands and say "our traditions are finished" and simply behave 'properly' like Europeans. Constant enticements into football training, i.e. financial inducements into following Western ways of life, have made African people less proficient in their own ways of life (tennis). At the same time the fact that they keep on with their own ways of life (tennis) has prevented African people from fully grasping what football is about or certainly from excelling in football - i.e. Western ways of life.
This is where dependency has been created. One reason African people are no longer fully proficient at tennis (their own ways of life), is because material incentives are constantly used to seduce them into football training. At the same time they cannot get very proficient at football because they insist on attending endless tennis tournaments. It could be added - that tennis is overall materially less lucrative than football. Many people are very ready to say that they'll leave tennis to play football, if only for that reason. Fortunately or unfortunately however, it is in practice almost impossible to leave tennis (i.e. African traditions) behind, as they are so deep a part of who people are.
"a lot of Western aid to Africa is encouraging people into areas in which they are less competent, ... it pushes African people into dependency"
This analogy can be stretched a little further. It is very difficult for people who are deeply habituated to football to be good tennis coaches. Their language is of football; off-side, goal keeper and penalty kick etc. that makes little sense in the game of tennis. Even the things they have to offer; footballs, studded shoes, and Manchester United shirts, are of little direct relevance to tennis. If they give money they want to see it spent on footballs and studded shoes, not tennis balls and nets that make no sense to them. Because a lot of Western aid to Africa is encouraging people into areas in which they are less competent, football as against tennis (from excelling in what they know to excelling in what they do not know), it pushes African people into dependency. Because the language in which aid is extended is Western (i.e. of football), it really cannot help African people to better do what they were already doing.
We could turn to another debate, and ask ourselves: which is better - football or tennis? We could get a cacophony of voices to contribute to that debate: Football is better for developing a team spirit. Tennis is preferable is warm weather as it requires less running. The evidence in favour of football seems to be enormous - it seems to be the global leader in preferred spectator sports. Tennis, on the other hand, has the advantage of being more easily played by older people, and it also requires less space....
I think it is important for us as Christians to realise that; there are no ultimates outside of God. Football cannot in any ultimate terms be considered a 'better' sport than tennis. Neither is tennis in any ultimate way 'better' than football. The same can be said for a comparison between Western and African ways of life. While they are very different; how can we say that one is better than the other? If we say that Western life is better than is African life because life-expectancy is higher in the West, we run across the immediate difficulty that the founder of Christianity himself, whom Christians emulate, gave up his life at aged 33 years! On what ultimate basis can one say that a long but perhaps miserable life is 'better' than a short joyous one? Perhaps someone who lives a long life ends up in hell, but the person who lives a short life ends up in heaven? The ultimate question is not how can we live longer but how does God want me (us) to live! While we make decisions all the time in our own communities about what ought to be better and what might be worse in life, our criterion may well not make sense to people who have a different view of God.
Allow me to emphasise that today's problem of dependency does not arise as a result of talking. We do not need to have an embargo (or moratorium 2) on Westerners expressing their heartfelt thoughts to Africans. Yet perhaps we do need to blow a whistle or to raise a flag on the practice by foreigners who remain relatively ignorant of African ways of life (tennis) of forcing their under-informed (football) wisdom using foreign funds. Similarly, perhaps Westerners (footballers) who are intent on helping African people do their own thing (i.e. that which is sustainable for them - in our example tennis) should use the appropriate language? I have discussed the problem of outside aid in more detail elsewhere 3 and also the language issue in various articles. 4 I would like to advocate what we are calling Vulnerable Mission. That is, that some (more) Western missionaries engage in their key ministries in the majority world using locally available languages and resources.
Unlike unbelievers, Christians do have a basis for declaring ultimate truth. Christians believe that God and his revelation especially through his Son Jesus Christ is ultimately true. The Scriptures command us to boldly proclaim God's Word so as to make disciples (Matthew 28:19). That command is not rooted in a particular culture or sport! It is not a command like "do not touch the ball with your hands" (football) or even "do or do not circumcise" (a common cultural issue in Africa). This command is of a different order - Christians believe it comes from God himself.
"missionaries ... need to start where people are"
We are these days finding an increasing number of people from diverse cultures joining the Christian church. Let us imagine that we have tennis players, croquet players, rugby players, monopoly players and long distant runners (I am considering each of these to represent a different worldview or culture) coming to Christ. The fact that these people are not good at playing football, i.e. are not good at Western ways of life, does not make them wrong. Because missionaries to such a people are not there either to force them to become Christian or to seduce them into becoming Western, they need to start where those people are. That is, they should use the local people's own language, and locally available resources in vital ministries. Such practice would render the issue of dependency null and void.
Let us briefly consider the ministry of Jesus. Similar things could be said of the ministry of Paul and the other Apostles. None of the apostles or Jesus himself are ever reported as going on fundraising trips to support their ministries. The collection Paul made was for Jerusalem, for the poor (i.e. the Apostles). It was given to his opponents (on issues of the relationship between Judaism and Christianity), not to those who followed him most closely. Perhaps we could argue that Paul would have fund raised had he been able to? Jesus of course could have fundraised if he wanted to, but he chose not to. Jesus, God himself, chose to incarnate himself and to suffer at the hands of his accusers, rather than to stand aside and to send aid. 5 He made no fund raising appeals to Caesar that we are aware of, or any fund raising trips to Rome, or even Jerusalem. Jesus' healing was as a result of prayer and miracle, not drugs purchased from a dispensary. Linguistically speaking, Jesus did not face the dilemma many missionaries face today; he merely related to his own people in the common language that he shared with them. Paul did not set about teaching a language in order to subsequently preach to people in it. The Scripture gives just a few clear instances in which preaching was to those of other languages. In Acts 2:4 the Holy Spirit was the interpreter. In Lystra Paul and Silas' lack of language acumen seemed to make a mess (Acts 14:8-20).
Missionary Bill went to Africa to engage with people in English with a healthy budget behind him. Not understanding their languages, he kept making errors in the way he related. The African people were afraid to tell him of his errors through fear that he might take his money elsewhere. Bill later realised that almost all of people's interest in him arose from the money in his pocket. He left the field discouraged. (Please note that what I describe here for Bill also happens to people who engage in inter-cultural partnerships from their homes in the West through occasional visits, phone calls, email etc., although these people can be slower than Bill to become aware of what is going on.) Bill had almost certainly succeeded in making yet more people dependent on donations from the West.
Our world is very uneven. The old colonial powers enjoy deeply ingrained advantages in almost everything they do. This slant does not disappear when one engages in charitable work or in discipleship or evangelism.
Cultural differences between Western nations and others are very real. Their mutual incompatibility resembles that of different sports. Training for and the language of one sport is of relatively little advantage in the practice of another sport, i.e. lifestyle or worldview. That is to say that foreign education can be of limited advantage in helping people to develop their own economies and societies, without creating enormous dependency. Forcing people to appropriate training in the language of one sport (i.e. culture or worldview) for the purposes of another can be severely debilitating. In so far as they accept it, it creates dependency.
There aren't better or worse traditions or cultures outside of God's will. The authority we have to go to others and to advocate change for them is entirely rooted in our understanding of who God is and what he wants of us. God has not commanded us to use our money to force other people to share in our supposedly superior ways of life. Biblically speaking he has called us to reach people where they are with his Word using their language and their resources. Such process avoids creating unhealthy dependency.
1 For more discussion on such a relationship between sports see:
http://ojs.globalmissiology.org/index.php/english/article/view/585
2 www.religion-online.org
3 Harries, Jim. 2011. 'The Immorality of Aid to the "Third World" (Africa).' 23-40 In: Harries, Jim, 2011. Vulnerable Mission; insights into Christian Mission to Africa from a position of vulnerability. Pasadena: William Carey Library.
4 See articles here: www.jim-mission.org.uk/articles-promote.pdf
5 Jesus is in Luke 4:3-4 tempted to be a donor. He refuses the temptation. He chose to give his own blood (Hebrews 9:12).
