Missionary work has a bad name within the sociological community, especially when associated with European colonization.
However, Christianity Today has published an article showing that a history of evangelistic Protestant missionaries is overwhelmingly associated with democracy and other positive social outcomes —
“Why did some countries become democratic, while others went the route of theocracy or dictatorship?” asks Daniel Philpott, who teaches political science and peace studies at the University of Notre Dame. “For [Woodberry] to show through devastatingly thorough analysis that conversionary Protestants are crucial to what makes the country democratic today [is] remarkable in many ways. Not only is it another factor—it turns out to be the most important factor. It can’t be anything but startling for scholars of democracy.”
And it’s not that the missionaries showed up with democracy as their intended goal. Rather, they came to preach Jesus, and as people were converted to Christianity, literacy, the rule of law, and such flourished, creating fertile soil for democratic institutions.
It’s a good, encouraging read.
That is an intriguing thesis but I wonder if the impact of Protestant missions can really be measured apart from the impact of the British legal system and British culture on former colonies. Overall former British colonies have probably had a much greater track record of democracy than former French, Spanish and Portuguese colonies. The role of religion in democratic outcomes is open to speculation but is hard to pin down.
It is also interesting to see what type of government was already in place when the missionaries came to these various places.
In America and Canada, the Iroquois and their offspring subordinate tribes like the Cherokee and many others were doing so much of what we have today as far as laws and government setup goes. Much of ours today is sure not original but that is seldom taught in school.
A lot was copied of the existing thinking and rules of law by the early “white fathers” of our country. At the same time, the Indians adopted Christianity as taught by the missionaries. They didn’t know all the story of Jesus, but were already doing most of what he taught to do with your fellow man, and looking upward in worship of God. God has had many names and Jesus is one.
Most countries, including ours, kept on with their dictatorship or whatever they had been doing but adopted Christianity to go along with it. So did we in the USA. We have the best of both worlds.