Christian workers who serve in countries closed to traditional missions outreach should tell the truth — but that doesn't necessarily mean full disclosure, some Christian ethicists and missiologists insist.
“It is not correct to lie about the reason for being there,” said Ebbie Smith, a missions and ethics distinguished fellow with the B.H. Carroll Theological Institute. Still, he added, “We don't have to tell all.”
When it comes to matters of truth-telling or deception, ethicists generally fall into two camps, said Joe Trull, editor of Christian Ethics Today.
RNS Photo/Marcia Davis
Heather Mercer (right) and Dana Curry, Christian aid workers imprisoned by Afghanistan's former ruling Taliban government, speak at a news conference in Waco after their release.
One group insists biblical ethics demands that people always tell the truth. The other group says the ethics of truth-telling or deception depends on the end result.
“This position says deception may be allowable, even if it is not the ideal, if there is some greater good to be served or some lesser evil to be avoided,” said Trull, a former Christian ethics professor at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
Biblical examples cited by Christian ethicists who espouse that position include the Hebrew midwives, who lied to Pharaoh to prevent infanticide, and Rahab the harlot, who lied to protect two Israelite spies in Jericho.
Christians who use a specialized skill — such as medical professionals and agricultural development workers — to enter a country where they can meet genuine needs and share the gospel in the process are in a different category than workers who may claim employment by a business that is nothing more than a front for missions activity, both Smith and Trull agreed.
“Certainly, there is a difference in giving needed services and simply having a cover,” Smith said. “My view would be that when in a country under some cover, the cover should produce something beneficial to the people in the country. It should be more than a cover.”
Practically speaking, missions activity may require “higher or lower ends of deception,” Trull noted. For instance, some Latin American countries officially prohibit missionaries but turn a blind eye to missionary activity. But some Islamic nations strictly enforce bans on proselytizing.
Missions-sending agencies have a special responsibility to consider that violation of a law not only could lead to the imprisonment — or even execution — of missionaries on the field, but also could have a long-range negative impact on any gospel witness in a particular nation, Trull observed.
The role of Christians who engage in illegal activities such as Bible smuggling or violating laws against proselytism claiming their allegiance to a higher law presents a special ethical problem, Smith acknowledged.
“I would be uncomfortable smuggling or actually violating the laws of a country. I might, however, feel that I should do some prohibited things if no other way exists to share the Good News,” he said. “Eternity is too important a matter to fail to do all we can to bring people to faith.”
Mission workers who subscribe to liberation theology — who see part of their role as political involvement to free victims of oppression and advance social justice — face particular dangers, Trull noted.
Likewise, other missionaries who may serve out of nationalistic motives — to advance the interests of the United States and spread democracy around the world — ironically may face some of the same kinds of risks, he added.
“The missionary has to ask: ‘What is my basic calling? If I violate the law, am I willing to face the music? Will what I do help or harm the gospel?'” Trull said.
Missions can be risky business — particularly when mission workers skirt the law. And everyone involved should recognize that reality, Smith noted.
“Both the agency and the people deployed must accept the possibility of serious consequences,” he said. “Part of the idea of defying laws for the sake of the gospel is that the one defying the law must accept the punishment of the action if punishment is given. The agency should not make promises of protection it cannot give.”