ABSTRACT
Like other missionaries of the past, Christian English teachers with hidden evangelistic goals (CETHEG) have been accused of being agents of imperial power and morality-in this case, American. In this chapter I will propose that a source of this critique derives from some CETHEG’s practice of exploiting the social ethics of Constantine, championed by American Civil Religion, to justify their mission. If she weren’t a spy, Sidney Bristow would’ve been an English teacher. On the ABC series Alias, she leads a dizzying double life. Recruited on a college campus, she spends her “public” life as a bank employee and literature student, a life that quickly unravels. In her “private” life she works for the CIA “behind enemy lines” glamorously saving the world from evil terrorist cells and religious fanatics. Perhaps some Christian English teachers (CET) also have a fascination with the covert life. Secret strategies, underground connections, anonymous couriers, and, of course, aliases, have a certain mystique. However, CET fill numerous teaching positions around the world and cannot be neatly classified. They may work for a church, or they may work at a business office. They may teach in a Christian setting, another religious setting, or a secular setting. They may teach in a public/private school/university. They may teach in their homeland, or they may teach as a foreign guest. Many view their vocation as English teachers and their Christian identity as overlapping: they would still be an English teacher if they weren’t a Christian, and they would still be a Christian if they weren’t an English teacher. Nonetheless, one subgroup has received particular attention, Christian English teachers with hidden evangelistic goals (CETHEG). While it is possible for CETHEG to work in most of the situations described above, many end up working in countries/contexts that are closed to traditional missionary evangelists, and a thriving “sending agency” industry has emerged to support CETHEG activity in “the 10/40 window.”1 Most agencies sending CETHEG openly state their Christian identity; what remains concealed is their goal/agenda of evangelism.2 Plumb (1997, p. 116, italics mine) writes,
As young people, housewives and businessmen continue to search for real meaning in their lives, they often come knocking at the door of an English school. We have the opportunity to first meet their felt need of learning
English and then to work to gently [sic] meet their real need by introducing them to their Creator. Our goal as English teachers overseas is not to lead all our students to Christ. That is our prayer.
