Missions and Missionaries

Missions and missionaries are related terms referring to the organizations (missions) and people (missionaries) who communicate their religion in words and actions across cultural and linguistic boundaries with the aim of encouraging the adoption of the religion by people unfamiliar with it. Missions are the agencies in particular times and places that send out the communicators of religious messages. Missionaries are the ones sent to articulate those messages in words and actions, in the form of witness and embodiment, what is believed to be the universal truth of their religious tradition. Undergirding missionary action is the belief that the religion they represent does indeed have answers to the ontological, physical, and spiritual problems of human beings and, more [Page 801]broadly, that it encompasses and addresses environmental and cosmic disharmonies. Although many scholars of religions commonly classify the “missionary religions” as chiefly Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam, any religious tradition claiming to possess universal truth can function as a missionary religion, since followers of those religious traditions affirm that their religion offers a way—some might say the only way—to alleviate the problems that plague the human condition. Even so-called nonmissionary religions, such as Hinduism or Sikhism, can be missionary in nature as followers of those traditions communicate the universality of their religion with the intent of changing others’ worldviews.

The history of the global expansion of religions is the story of the uneven collusion with, sometimes collision against, missionaries and state power, cultural and social forces, and nation-making schemes. Nowadays, however, the term missions applies broadly to both religious and secular activities, exemplified by the requirement of most businesses, educational institutions, and nongovernmental organizations to have a “mission statement” defining their purpose of existence. Even governments employ the term missions when referring to their military strategies (e.g., “Our [military] mission in X country”). Although missions can be understood in this broad sense of providing a standard vision for diverse groups such as revenue-generating multinational corporations, nonprofit organizations, or cottage industries, the origin of the English term missions has an explicitly religious meaning, originating within Christian circles. And it is crucial to note that there were both missions and missionaries sent out by other religious traditions prior to the emergence of Christianity. Nevertheless, because “missions” and “missionaries” are associated so heavily with Christianity and are themselves English words, we begin with the English origins of the terms.