An article in The New York Times explains how in 1929, the Church of Scotland began a campaign in Kenya to eradicate the practice of female circumcision. The church had a successful missionary relationship with the Kenyans, but once they tried to get them to stop the practice, many of the church goers left. In fact, it became a political statement by one Kenyan political organization to deepen the cultural practice, and it became an even more entrenched norm.
In contrast, the article talks about a campaign made by Christian missionaries and targeted to China, encouraging them to stop binding women's feet. This campaign eventually had success, and the given explanation is a two-fold theory:
"First, begin with a dialogue of mutual respect, free of self-congratulation. Second, when you have a core of converts, organize a program of public commitment to new practices, which takes into account the traditions of the community. To end one practice, as the anti-foot-binding campaigners grasped, you need to start another."
In this campaign, the campaigners insisted on respecting the culture, and tried to get cultural authorities to follow their idea by reaching the elite with newspapers and article evidence. Then, once there was a trusted group, this group spread the message that foot-binding should not be practiced anymore, and it eventually caught fire.
Should missionaries, no matter their religion, even try to change cultural practices to begin with? In these cases, I say yes. I think that these practices by the Kenyans and the Chinese, with respect to women's health, are wrong and harmful. They were (and maybe still are?) manipulating the body in ways that are painful, but more significantly, unnatural.
This could easily be a religious issue, but in many ways it is a human rights issue as well. I think that the missionary's convictions had more to do with preventing suffering than with having an agenda heard. It seems to me that they were trying to love and care for the people they were ministering to.
