ABSTRACT
I was part of the problem. That seems like the best place to start. I’ve participated in overseas short-term Christian missions for over a decade-as a “language tutor” in the Middle East, ESL director for a large Christian missionary organization, and trainer/supervisor of missionary teachers in Southeast Asia and Central Europe. Although I now teach in a Christian university, I studied and taught in secular environments where I was on the receiving end of religious intolerance and stereotyping against Christians. In this chapter I first examine the negative consequences of the market-driven church and its resulting pedagogical dilemmas. I then ask secular critics to consider their own ignorance of religious belief as well as their undervaluing the agency of students in making decisions regarding faith. It is my hope that by looking at our own respective faults (i.e., “removing the log from our own eye” to paraphrase Jesus), we can facilitate discussion between missionary agencies and their secular critics to encourage more professionalism and healthier pedagogy in our field.
