Good article in the NYT magazine about Americans evangelizing among Kenya's unchristianized peoples. Most of the article is just plain informative, without begging any real argument. The evangelical Americans are likable, stressed out, and working hard. The local Kenyans (as usual, members of a
extremely photogenic tribe) are both admirable (with their waste-not-want-not communalism) and repulsive (with their ritualized ladypart mutilations).

But then toward the end, we get to a real issue of contention: how much help should we give to folks who don't ask for it?

It was almost impossible, as an outsider, not to think about the state of the Samburu women the way Rick and Carrie do. It was almost impossible not to wish for transformation. Yet it was hard for me not to wonder how much change the culture could, or should, bear. For it was hard to miss what the Samburu have. All across Africa, I had heard cries of desperation, cries for Western rescue. But even in a season of drought, with the threat that livestock would start to die, I heard nothing like this from the Samburu.

The [Samburu] people seemed, as much as the people of any culture can, satisfied with their lives.

I won't try to answer the conundrum here. I've read three books trying to answer it and all have lead in circles. It seems unanswerable.

But I will note that the three books I read were about multinational Non-Governmental Organizations--Peace Corps-type groups that are temperamentally opposed to the evangelical groups.

The evangelicals hope Christ will lead the Samburu away from genital mutilation, and the NGOs hope education and financial carrots will. Both sides (properly) wring their hands over what to do.

But neither group likes each other much. NGOs aren't comfortable working with harvesters of souls. Evangelicals aren't comfortable working with UN types who have an ingrained hostility to their goal. The secular NGOs lobby the Democrats, the evangelicals lobby the Republicans, both asking for the US to look beyond its interests.

Now, these differences aren't meaningless. But the two groups' non-cooperation looks so tribal from outside. Each side cares passionately about helping Samburus et al, but each side's efforts are conditional on the inclusion or exclusion of Christ. Without that, the inspiration just drains away.