History of the intersection of missions, engineering, and culturally sensitive approaches

About History of the intersection of missions, engineering, and culturally sensitive approaches

Abstract

In the past twenty years there has been a renewal of interest in integral mission and in moving service and mission work away from patronizing approaches. In fact, the dangers of cultural imperialism in missions and service has been recognized for over 100 years. It has been a lesson that the church and the engineering community has needed to relearn over and over again. Hudson Taylor, physician and missionary to China in the 1800s, saw the effectiveness of his medical and evangelistic work greatly increase when he traded his English dress for Chinese clothing and hair styles. Starting in the 1800s, incarnational models of missions replaced colonial models in many cases. Not long after the first wave of US Peace Corps volunteers finished their projects in the 1960s and UN funded development was growing, the development community realized that projects needed to have community participation and cultural appropriateness to have sustainable benefit and avoid dependency. By the 1970s, development engineering textbooks were promoting community participation and choice and warned of the pitfalls of short- term project bas ed approaches. At the same time, the appropriate technology movement was emphasizing low-tech, locally funded solutions. Starting in the 1980s, many agencies required that an anthropologist be part of an engineering team undertaking a development project. The past 30 years have seen a refinement of development approaches, moving on from both the imperialistic approaches and some of the more impractical fringes of appropriate technology. The world is also very different than it was 30 years ago, with many of the technology and cost-based separations between the developed and developing world reduced by cheaper and more widely available technology as well as economic growth. Today faith- based organizations emphasize “integral mission”, integrating the spiritual, physical, and social prosperity of the communities. Concern has been raised in the church and in the development community about the shortcomings and dangers of short- term missions and projects. Some have called for the end of project- based approaches all together. What is our role as service- minded engineers? What can we learn from the past?