What Thomas tells us saddens me to the core, for I have heard similar things elsewhere, and I am conscious of the cultural alienation that Christian missions – among other agents – have often fostered – even if stories are always partial, multifaceted and contradictory. Missionaries were not the sole responsible; in Taiwan, the ones discarding the skulls were not the Churches, but the Japanese colonial power. Still, "Civilization" and "Faith" were realities unduly equated by most western missionaries; for a long time, they proved to be unable to read the Gospel in a light different from the one provided by their own culture. And yet, what freedom of judgment and action does Jesus bring with him, what power of liberation, what reconciliation of the past with the present can his words and his deeds foster... I feel often torn between my experience of the Gospel's liberating power and my awareness of the way it has been distorted by the Western expansion and modes of thought throughout modern history.
The following is a video of renowned anthropologist Pierre Maranda discussing the devastating impact of new evangelical missionaries on the native culture of the Solomons:
