Finally, something must be said about efforts to depict Christian missionaries as servants of colonial capitalism. This is a very old refrain. In his play Man of Destiny (1897), George Bernard Shaw had Napoleon say that when an Englishman "wants a new market for his adulterated Manchester goods, he sends a missionary to teach the natives the Gospel." Of course, not only was Shaw a dedicated atheist and socialist, he also worked hard at "offending" the conventional public, much as did Mark Twain (1901), who made similar charges about ties to imperialism in several nasty essays about missionaries. Anyone who believes the notion of missionaries of Western imperialism has probably never met missionaries or read an informed account of missions (eg Neil, 1986), and has certainly not read any sampling of the letters, diaries or autobiographies of missionaries. Four themes dominate these materials. Love of God. Loneliness for family and friends. The satisfactions of forming attachments to those to whom they have been sent, and the resentment the missionary feels toward all Westerners or local rulers who exploit or impose on the people It was not at all unusual for missionaries to become deeply involved in bitter conflicts with commercial and colonial leaders in support of the local populations (Hiney, 2000).
Rodney Stark, One True God, p104-5
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