Merton on Missions

When I read good writing, I'm inspired to write. I'm reading (again) Thomas Merton's Seven Storey Mountain which certainly qualifies as good writing. Even though I am completely swamped with work and other responsibilities, I'm taking a minute to just retype some of Merton's gold because I'm afraid of what will happen if I don't. I understand the progressive nature of neglect just the same as the progressive nature of sin. Another day of choosing to meet deadlines will be another day of neglecting my talent and another day toward the forgotten life of an American suburban family man whose highest ideal is to make a good living, send the kids to school and watch cable TV on a big screen.

So here's a page from Seven Storey in which Merton (at the time not a believer) is telling about a Hindu monk that he knew called Bramachari (which is actually not a name at all but an Indian word that means monk)...

He was beyond laughing at the noise and violence of American city life and all the obvious lunacies like radio programs and billboard advertising. It was some of the well-meaning idealisms that he came across that struck him as funny. And n eof the things that struck him as funniest f all was the eagerness with which Protestant ministers used to come up and ask him if India was by now nearly converted to Protestantism. He used to tell us how far India was from conversion to Protestantism - or Catholicism for that matter. One of the chief reasons he gave for the failure of any Christian missionaries to really strike deep into the tremendous populations of Asia was the fact that they maintained themselves on a social level that was too far above the natives. The Church of England, indeed, though they would convert the Indians by maintaining a strict separation - white men in one church, natives in a different church: both of them listening to sermons on brotherly love and unity.

But all Christian missionaries, according to him, suffered from this big drawback: they lived too well, too comfortably. They took care of themselves in a way that simply made it impossible for the Hindus to regard them as holy - let alone the fact that they ate meat, which made them repugnant to the natives.

I don't know anything about missionaries: but I am sure that, by our own standards of living, their life is an arduous and difficult one, and certainly not one that could be regarded as comfortable. And by comparison with life in Europe and America it represents a tremendous sacrifice. Yet I suppose it would literally endanger their lives if they tried to subsist on the standard of living with which the vast majority of Asiatics have to be content. It seems hard to expect them to go around barefoot and sleep on mats and live in huts. But one thing is certain: the pagans have their own notions of holiness, and it is one that includes a prominent element of asceticism. According to Bramachari, the prevailing impression among Hindus seems to be that Christians don't know what asceticism means. Of course, he was talking principally f Protestant missionaries, but I suppose it would apply to anyone coming to a tropical climate from one of the so-called "civilized" countries.

For my own part, I see no reason for discouragement. Bramachari was simply saying something that has long since been familiar to readers of the Gospels. Unless the grain of wheat, fallingin the ground, die, itself remaineth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. The Hindus are not looking for us to send them men who will build schools and hospitals, although those things are good and useful in themselves - and perhaps very badly needed in India: they want to know if we have any saints to send them.

This conversatation with Bramachari happened in 1937 and I think our Western methodologies for missions have improved a lot since then. Still, it makes for interesting and not altogether irrelevant reading.