December 8 The Spectacular Influence of the Christian Faith Abroad

Reason #8 The Spectacular Influence of the Christian Faith Abroad

The facts of history strongly indicate that evangelical Christianity deserves credit for being the true impetus behind the increased levels of fairness and equality that have marked the last two centuries of world history.

At least some of the eye-rolling that was directed at Christians over the past few decades was paused in May of 2012 when the latest edition of the American Political Science Review—the top journal in its field—published the bombshell research of Dr. Robert Woodberry: "The Missionary Roots of Liberal Democracy." Against all the cherished presuppositions of our skeptical generation, Woodberry’s article argued the benefits of Christianity around the world so convincingly that scholars simply had to acknowledge the strength of his data.

That data, rigorously crosschecked to include every imaginable variable, indicates that countries in which proselyting Protestant missionaries had a significant presence in the 1800s are the same ones which enjoy, on average, more liberty, better treatment of women and children, higher literacy and educational attainment, lower infant mortality rates, better health, and stronger economies than similar nations which had no such missionary presence. One commentator offered this summary of Woodberry’s article, “Want a blossoming democracy today? The solution is simple—if you have a time machine: Send a 19th-century missionary.”

Proselyting missionaries came to their fields of service with New Testament ideas that were at first very foreign to their hearers—that all people should be educated to learn to read (so at least they could “search the Scriptures”), and that women and children were equal in importance to men in God’s eyes and should be treated with respect, and that all people should have a say in choosing their leaders. The missionaries also worked against their own countrymen to end the opium trade in China and the barbarism of colonialism in the Belgian Congo, planting the seeds of abolition wherever they went as well. They influenced individuals and governments to abandon the traditions of female infanticide in China and India, the consummation of marriage with young children in India, the practice of footbinding in China, and female genital cutting in North Africa. And the missionaries sponsored the first newspapers that many areas of the world had ever produced in their own language, furthering the ideals of freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

When skeptics suggest that the missionaries were oppressors, Woodberry points out: "We don't have to deny that there were and are racist missionaries. We don't have to deny there were and are missionaries who do self-centered things. But if that were the average effect, we would expect the places where missionaries had influence to be worse than places where missionaries weren't allowed or were restricted in action. We find exactly the opposite on all kinds of outcomes. Even in places where few people converted, [missionaries] had a profound economic and political impact."

Woodberry also points out that Catholic missionaries and the Protestant clergy missionaries who were financed by the state had no comparable positive impact on democracy as the proselyting Protestants had (probably partly because of the ties these other missionaries had with colonial governments).

Daniel Philpott, professor of political science at Notre Dame, referred to Woodberry’s research as “devastatingly thorough,” saying of the missionaries’ role in fostering democracy around the world, “Not only is it another factor—it turns out to be the most important factor.”

The facts of history strongly indicate that evangelical Christianity deserves credit for being the true impetus behind the increased levels of fairness and equality that have marked the last two centuries of world history.