Sacred children,white privilege,and mission: The role of historical reflection in moving toward healthier relationships within the global church

Questions of context and content

Buschman states that an accurate understanding of the context is essential in order to avoid misinterpreting historical comments, letters, and events. I agree. In all my research, I strive to interpret primary data within the context in which it was written. Due to space limitations, the 2018 article provided only a broad contextual introduction—citing Catholic–Protestant rivalry, a postwar context of rapid expansion among Protestant missions, and a Central African colonial context in which the enactment of white etiquette contributed to the legitimization of colonial domination. ¹⁴ Much more could have been said. For example, in 1952, the American Mennonite Brethren Mission (AMBM) had only recently gained legal recognition by the colonial government, and it was operating on the margins of far more established Protestant mission societies. Schooling options like The American School of Kinshasa (TASOK) were not yet available. The Civil Rights movement in the USA was not yet in full swing, and it is likely that it only began to shape discussion about missionary children’s schooling among North American Mennonites in Congo in the late 1950s. ¹⁵ The ideal of the “indigenous church” was still a relatively new missiological framework that was being actively promoted in the 1940s by new AMBM board secretary A. E. Janzen, and this discourse had not yet been interrogated by scholars for its potential to mask the necessity of visible, local fellowship across cultural and racial lines as part of the essence of the gospel. ¹⁶ AMBM was one of many Protestant missions that tended to appeal to the importance of evangelism over education in their mission policy. ¹⁷ As Dana Robert has pointed out, such missions tended to downplay the importance of advanced education for local people, while investing in the education of their own children. ¹⁸ The term “natives” was being used by white missionaries in a way that did not necessarily have the pejorative and offensive connotations that it has today. Each of these contextual elements factored into my historical analysis of the AMBM’s engagement with questions of children’s education, and into my reading of the primary sources, even though this was not explicitly stated.

Buschman also claims that I present the issue of land title at Kajiji as the “only factor in the decision to accept government subsidies.” This is inaccurate. On the contrary, I clearly identify other factors that led the AMBM missionaries to consider accepting subsidies, and state that their rivalry with Catholic missions was likely the most significant. To some extent, I agree with Buschman that the question of the missionary children’ school was “tangential” to the question of subsidies. The AMBM missionaries were already beginning to reconsider their position on subsidies prior to the Belle Vue land title crisis, and were receiving pressure from the Home Board to reconsider their 1949 refusal. ¹⁹ The AMBM, along with other hold-out missions, was under tremendous pressure from the Belgian colonial government to accept subsidies, and I believe they would almost certainly have accepted the subsidies eventually, even without the extra push of the Belle Vue land title issue. Nevertheless, the historical record is clear—and, I believe, undisputed by Buschman—that it was the provincial governor’s refusal to grant land title at Belle Vue which concretely pushed the missionaries to accept the subsidies at that particular moment in time. It is also noteworthy that at the time, the AMBM missionaries themselves saw the questions of schooling for Congolese children and missionary children to be closely related, often listing them as sub-points in their meeting minutes under headings such as “the school question” or “the educational program.” ²⁰ My argument was not that the missionaries’ desire to educate their children separately from Congolese children directly led them to accept subsidies in a simplistic relationship of cause and effect. Rather, I sought to show how an accumulation of seemingly small, personal, familial decisions—including the decision about missionary children’s schooling—could, over time, in a context of major transition, lead to a tipping point in missionaries’ understanding of their relationship with the colonial state. My argument was that tracing the interactions between two issues which seem to be related only tangentially can actually provide fascinating insights into the way that white privilege works in a colonial context. In this case, the missionaries’ ability to get title to the Belle Vue land for a school for white children was an example of the kind of white privilege they were not willing to give up in favor of continuing their—already diminishing—opposition to subsidies.

According to Buschman, I suggest that the AMBM missionaries selected Kajiji because of its distance from other stations. When rereading my April 2018 article, I can see how a reader could draw this conclusion. However, I agree with Buschman that the missionaries saw the distance as a disadvantage, and that for the most part they chose Kajiji despite, rather than because of, the distance. They did indeed consider other options—such as Kafumba, Iwungu, Kikwit, and Kipungu—before settling on Kajiji as their preferred choice. ²¹ However, it is important to note that when Kajiji became available, it was undeniably attractive to the missionaries despite the great distance, at least in part because of its potential to serve as a place of white retreat. The petition prepared for signature by all the missionaries in early 1950 was framed in terms of the comfort that Kajiji offered as a place for vacation as well as schooling for the missionary children. It began by briefly listing some of the supposed disadvantages of the site in an initial paragraph—such as its distance from other fields of the AMBM—only to dismiss these as “not insurmountable if the Lord is willing to give us the place.” The rest of the space was devoted to a list of advantages “which cannot be ignored.” ²² The site was seen as suitable for “vacations” and “intermission fellowship” due to its many small cabins. The good soil and climate promised an abundance of fresh vegetables, milk, and meat from the cattle. Equipment was available to electrify the site and to provide running water. Finally, the authors of the petition claimed that no nearer site existed that had all these advantages, and reiterated the great importance of the climate, “both in considering the school children and [as] a place for vacations.” ²³ Just after the move to the Belle Vue site, missionary J. C. Ratzlaff expressed his joy and excitement about the new site in a letter to Board secretary A. E. Janzen, and referred again to the vacation possibilities of the place. Referring to a “swimming pool that we have been building with our tithe money,” he emphasized, “[w]e are seeking to make this place a vacation spot too for our missionaries since such a place is needed. We feel the swimming pool will be an attraction.” ²⁴

I have no doubt that the AMBM missionaries would have preferred that their children be less than 250 km away from their parents. For the most part, I am not claiming that the nice climate and infrastructure of Belle Vue was any more than that—an extra attraction. And yet, I believe it is important to identify the subtle ways in which the desire for an attractive, comfortable place of retreat—even if this was a secondary concern—could contribute to separation between white missionaries and their children on the one hand, and Congolese who did not have access to such privileges on the other.

Buschman is right that I do claim that missionary parents sought to separate their children from Congolese children to some extent, though I did not say, as he claims, that AMBM missionaries had an intentional vision for a racially separate ecclesial identity. Buschman is also right to point out that missionary children had many meaningful friendships with Congolese children, and that they often learned local languages. However, to say that “missionary children were always intimately associated with Congolese children on the mission stations” does not match the evidence provided by Congolese who grew up on the mission stations prior to Independence in 1960. Kikweta Mawa Wabala, a Congolese Mennonite Brethren historian who grew up at Kafumba around the same time as Buschman, described his friendships with missionary children as being frequently circumscribed by efforts of missionary parents to keep them apart. In his view, while white and black children sometimes sought to “break the limits,” life on the station was “a life of two separate races . . . at all levels,” reinforced by the geographical separation between the “separate camps” of white missionaries and Congolese associated with the mission. When a group of Congolese boys sought out the missionary boys on their territory, Kikweta recollected that their games would often be cut short by the missionary parents, or by a worker sent to chase them away. ²⁵ Yongo Antoine, who also grew up at Kafumba between 1940 and 1953, recounted his sharp disappointment at being denied the education available to white missionary children, and his vivid memory of being harshly beaten by one of the white missionary men after he engaged in what he thought was innocent horseplay with a white boy of his own age. ²⁶ While I am not claiming that Buschman’s memories of positive relationships and interactions among white and black children on the mission station are false, it is possible that white and black children interpreted the friendships and relationships they experienced in differing ways. Congolese children were undoubtedly more aware than white children of the limitations on interracial friendship, because they were the ones who experienced the direct effects of any double standards. ²⁷

I agree with Buschman that missionaries were not clamoring for a segregated school for its own sake. However, for a variety of reasons, including the ones Buschman helpfully lists—wanting to prepare children for North American-style education, and wanting to free missionary mothers to contribute to mission responsibilities outside the home—they did conclude that a separate school would be best. We may not ultimately know what J. B. Ratzlaff was thinking when he said children were growing up “too much like natives.” ²⁸ And when William Baerg called for a “separate school” in 1949, he did indeed base this partially on the argument that the missionary mothers’ task would be too heavy if they had to educate their own children while also bearing “the responsibility of other duties as well as education of the pagan children.” ²⁹ However, these were not the only considerations. According to Baerg,

We deeply recognize the unspiritual and tragic impression that the influence of the wicked environment has on our dear children. This has made it urgent to have a separate school where no other such work is done. These are children who are called and appointed of the Lord for further great service. ³⁰

Baerg was not simply promoting an off-station school as a response to the busy life of parents. Rather, he drew an explicit connection between the need for such a school, and both the “wicked environment” and the uncontested privilege of missionary children.

Sacredness, white privilege, and ecclesial identity

Buschman finds my use of the term “sacred” to be “pejorative” when applied to missionary children. Indeed, the term “sacred” inherently invokes controversy. My use of the term “sacred” follows that of sociologist of religion Christian Smith, and refers to something that is untouchable within a particular moral universe. Smith points out that it is a characteristic of human communities to “set apart certain aspects” of ordinary life “as of such importance, power, or worth that they deserve our honor, our devotion, our protection.” These sacred ideas, people, or objects invoke a great sensitivity and passion, with people tending to be prepared to sacrifice for them. ³¹

In my title, I used the term “sacred” in order to call attention to the subtle assumption of the AMBM missionaries that the privilege of their children must remain “untouchable.” I in no way meant to deny that they faced a genuine dilemma. The pain and suffering experienced by North American MKs who went home unprepared was real, and failing out of correspondence class was painful. The trauma of separating North American MKs from their parents was significant, and often had lasting impact. ³² The harm caused to children by parents who put them in second, third, or fourth place is indisputable and regrettable. Missionary parents were heeding the advice of the Apostle Paul when they refused to sacrifice their children in favor of what was supposedly the Lord’s work. ³³ All the alternatives they considered seemed unacceptable. Even the option they finally chose—a boarding school—did not “feel” like privilege but like a painful sacrifice of family togetherness. Ultimately, however, when the hesitation about subsidies bumped up against the privilege of missionary children, the missionary child and her or his privilege had to come first.

In his conclusion, Buschman reflects the same perspective. In the face of the dilemma about how to educate missionary children in order to prepare them for life back home, Buschman admits that the factor of giving children “the best chance . . . to succeed” was the one “that trumped all the other concerns.” Buschman’s statement encapsulates the essence of my argument. He claims that failing to have a separate school would have resulted in “reverse racism,” and that white children’s North American standard of educational opportunity must not be sacrificed for the “political advantage” of “not having a separate school.” The language of reverse racism is highly problematic here. Surely, a sharp distinction must be made between the decades of subjugation experienced by Congolese within a colonial system that was built on attitudes of white supremacy, and the loss of privilege, however painful and harmful, that white MKs in Congo may have experienced by foregoing some advantages of a North American-style education. ³⁴ Buschman also implies that because the option of a missionary boarding school was more successful than other options in integrating children into North American society, there is no point in interrogating the potential, possibly tangential, and yet very tangible and real—at least for Congolese children—results of making that choice. Buschman repeats several times the assertion that North American MKs were “not immigrants” and that, therefore, it was inappropriate to expect them to adapt to the school system of Congo, which was not their ultimate destination. The clash of citizenships here is exactly what is at stake. Citizenship in the Belgian Congo, in Canada or the United States, and in the church as a universal body that transcends political borders, collided painfully at precisely this point.

In my article, and in this response, I am attempting to start from the other end of the stick. I was and am using the term “sacred” to call attention to the subtle double standard in the way that some Western mission theorists, practitioners, and their children tend to narrate the story of the missionary encounter. If we want to tell the story of the global church as a “truly global history,” ³⁵ we must make a serious attempt to look at the ways in which black children were treated differently than white children within the missionary encounter. Surely those of us who are adult MKs can recognize the benefits we have received from a particular education and spiritual formation, without denying that the inequality of these benefits communicates an ecclesial double standard which must be interrogated.

Much of Buschman’s rebuttal focuses on pointing out that the AMBM missionaries had no intention of causing harm to Congolese—they were not trying to be racist. I agree with Buschman that the missionaries were not trying to cause harm. In many cases they were even explicitly trying to distance themselves from the logic of colonization. ³⁶ Certainly, missionaries did not intentionally seek to create or institutionalize “a racially separate ecclesial identity from that of Congolese Christians.” ³⁷ However, even when segregation was not intentional, it was tangible and limiting to Congolese Mennonite Brethren. At worst, it communicated a two-tiered understanding of church which has been harmful to the ecclesial self-conception of both North American and Congolese Mennonites. In analyzing these events, a strong focus on intention can actually detract from the more important task of determining what actually happened, and who was actually empowered or disempowered by particular economic and political decisions.

Conclusion

Buschman claims to be certain that my “racially charged statements” will be used to rehash the past in unhelpful ways by Congolese colleagues. From reading the work of numerous Congolese Mennonite Brethren historians, I have found little evidence that they are interested in dwelling on the past as a way to avoid taking responsibility or moving forward. However, the task of carefully reflecting on the past in order to draw lessons for the future is not limited to North Americans. Matungulu Givule Floribert, a Congolese Mennonite Brethren historian and pastor, wrote an article from which Buschman quotes, in which he reflected on the role of missionary paternalism in contributing to a mentality of dependency in Congolese Mennonite Brethren churches. ³⁸ While Matungulu placed some responsibility on the expatriate missionaries for inculcating a paternalist mindset in the Congolese Mennonite Brethren church, he did not conclude that the missionaries should come back to solve the problems of the Congolese church. On the contrary, he drew the following conclusion about how the Congolese Mennonite Brethren church should move forward in an awareness of the challenges of its past:

It is possible to maintain good relationships with the churches of the North, while taking on our own shoulders the responsibility for sustaining certain activities in our churches by ourselves as Congolese. What is needed at this time is that the Mennonite churches of Congo go beyond the system of dependency to relationships of partnership and interdependence, where each party brings its contribution according to its possibilities . . . Each Congolese Mennonite Christian has the responsibility and the great privilege of taking part in this work. ³⁹

To call Matungulu’s work an instance of “blaming the AMBM missionaries for current problems in the church” and so detracting from “true problem-solving efforts” misrepresents the thrust of his argument.

Kikweta found himself sharply criticized by North American missionaries in the 1970s after he dared to compare the pre-Independence segregation of Mennonite Brethren mission stations in Congo with “apartheid.” ⁴⁰ In 2018, he had the following to say about the importance of revisiting even painful aspects of the missionary encounter:

Today, my position is simple. In missionary work, very good things have been accomplished. We have had positive results. But there have also been some things that we must be able to look at with a slightly critical eye, not in order to be destructive, but so that we can learn lessons in order to be constructive and/or to educate those who will later follow, or those who want to embrace this career in the future. To tell them, well, look, in the light of X or Y, you should perhaps avoid this, that, or the other obstacle that could compromise your . . . work. But one cannot reach this conclusion until one has analyzed the past. ⁴¹

Kikweta and Matungulu have inspired me to interrogate the missionary encounter from within a clear commitment to the global church. ⁴² As I continue my research about the Mennonite and Mennonite Brethren missionary encounter in Congo, I will continue to focus on the intersections of race and power in a colonial context. I will continue to try to write empathetically about the motives and intentions of expatriate missionaries, which I believe were mostly unselfish and loving, without shying away from an exploration of how their actions could have painful consequences for Congolese brothers and sisters. Ultimately, it is through the boundary-crossing missionary efforts of the North American missionaries, among others, that Congolese and North American Mennonites entered into relationship in the first place, and I am committed to contributing to the deepening of this relationship where I can—even if this means confronting painful aspects of our shared past.