Are your kids learning about this is school?

Walter Russell Meade writes at The American Interest,

American missionaries played a crucial role in the rise of Christianity in East and South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, the Pacific Islands and of Protestantism in Central and South America—an epic tale of courage, sacrifice (and occasional follies and missteps) that, for most Americans under 50, is completely unknown and untold. In the 19th and 20th centuries, missionaries opened professional doors to women both here and abroad, helped lead lead the the attack on segregation in the United States upon their return (to say nothing of the anti-slavery movement), and spread ideas about democracy, development, and medical education around the world. Missionaries and their children have also been closely involved with American foreign policy and diplomatic service.

You can spend a lifetime in elite American schools and colleges without knowing that any of this ever happened — or that more than 100,000 Americans are serving abroad in this capacity today. This is one of many ways that Americans are losing touch with some of the important values and movements that shaped and continue to shape this country and the world.

Changes in communication technology, faster travel in an age of jets, and above all the rise of vibrant Christian communities across the global South, are changing the mission of Americans seeking to share their faith overseas, and this change has driven and will drive more changes in the ways missionary agencies work.

But if Americans are going to understand their own history and society, much less the nature of America’s role in world affairs, our colleges and schools are going to have to recover one of the most dramatic and consequential elements of the American story.

Read more here.

In an article in the Wall Street Journal Tamara Audi includes this imgare:

...people in the pews are asking if it still makes sense to send American preachers to foreign countries. “Why would I pay for an American to go to Sri Lanka when I can send an Indian?” he said. “Americans are more expensive.”

Read more here.