The tragedy of the murdered missionaries

They were killed by Haitian gangs. And a religious culture that has long idolized missions.

I am reluctant to post this piece. It’s harsh, maybe mean. I’ve gone back and forth on whether to put it out there. If you’re offended, I concede that I may be off base and my heart may not be in the right place. But I’d also ask that you at least think about what I’m trying to say.

I’ve been meaning to write something about the evangelical missionaries who were murdered in Haiti a few weeks ago. Let me say, right up front, that this is a horrible tragedy, and I’m so very sorry for their heartbroken families.

But then I must ask—What in the holy hell were they doing there?

And then I must answer my own question by looking directly at a religious culture so drunk on its own spiritual heroism, it literally gets people killed and hurts many more. After hearing from hundreds of missionary kids for my book, I find it hard to avoid this conclusion. By convincing those in its midst that God wants—no, NEEDS—them to put themselves, and their children (thankfully, this couple had none), in traumatic and dangerous situations.

Let’s start with the State Department warning for Haiti:

Do not travel to Haiti due to kidnapping, crime, civil unrest, and poor health care infrastructure. On July 27, 2023, the Department of State ordered the departure of family members of U.S. government employees and non-emergency U.S. government employees. U.S. citizens in Haiti should depart Haiti as soon as possible by commercial or other privately available transportation options, in light of the current security situation and infrastructure challenges. U.S. citizens wishing to depart Port-au-Prince should monitor local news and only do so when considered safe.

It goes on to describe complete lawlessness, gang warfare, pervasive violent crime, and mob justice. In other words, this country is NOT safe. AT ALL. No bones about it.

But that is what this young couple walked into. They went in 2022, but it was already very bad there (a group of American missionaries—with several children—were kidnapped in Haiti in 2021). Haiti has been one of the world’s most dangerous, desperate places for a long time. This couple went because they wanted to help people, specifically children, in a desperately poor and unstable country. The husband was a missionary kid who grew up in Haiti (many missionaries are themselves missionary kids), and I have no doubt he had a deep love for the Haitian people based on his upbringing. And ultimately they went to spread their faith, which they believed would save people from hell. Again, having grown up in this world, I don’t doubt their sincere faith and good hearts. That’s (almost) always at the core of missionaries’ personal motivations.

But I also understand the why beneath the why of their choice. Because I have seen how American Christians idolize missions as the pinnacle of the Christian life. There's a long tradition of valorizing missionaries as heroes and those who die in service as martyrs.¹ That’s what I grew up with. My parents were literally introduced at one of the many churches where I heard them speak as “Super Christians.” It’s a vivid memory that has never left my mind. It made me ill, even at the time, even as much of a true believer as I was. “Super Christian” is an oxymoronic concept that runs counter to the gospel’s central message.

After a lot of research and thought, I have also come to understand the psychological function of missions for the American church. The missionary narrative has always been key to white evangelicals’ view of themselves. Their very high view of themselves. It’s the self-reinforcing outpouring of an unquestioning faith, the proof in and of the pudding.

Missions have been part and parcel of white American evangelicals’ sense of greatness for over two centuries now, even when—especially when—missions have coexisted with, helped justify, and distracted from slavery and virulent racism and racial violence. And more recently abuse. It’s the same sense of greatness, resting on absolute theological certainty, that now feeds into a claim to America itself. In its most pernicious form, this claim leads believers to reject democracy and resort to violence. We have the truth, we are God’s chosen, we know what is best for you, for the country, for the world. It is our mission to save you, for your own good. For God.

And so when a young couple, with genuine personal faith that was nonetheless steeped in these ideas, believes God needs them to save Haiti, no one stops them. In fact, everyone celebrates them. With their deaths, the church has new martyr-heroes.

And it’s a damn, unnecessary, wasteful shame.

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Leaving the religious dimensions for a minute, let’s consider some more worldly matters involved in a risky missionary sojourn that likewise underscores its folly.

This couple’s organization, according to its website, helps house, feed, and educate Haitian children. Which is wonderful. Person-to-person, I’m sure they are making a difference. But on a broader, more systemic level, their presence as conspicuous Americans feeds into bigger problematic dynamics.

The State Department warning for Haiti includes this:

Kidnapping is widespread, and victims regularly include U.S. citizens. Kidnappers may use sophisticated planning or take advantage of unplanned opportunities, and even convoys have been attacked. Kidnapping cases often involve ransom negotiations and U.S. citizen victims have been physically harmed during kidnappings. Victim’s families have paid thousands of dollars to rescue their family members.

In other words, Americans in this situation, and in most lawless, dangerous situations, are a TARGET. They stick out like a sore thumb. They are like chum in shark-infested waters. They are money. They are believed to have money, but also, they can themselves be monetized, which creates an entirely new problem and an entirely new source of lawlessness. And, yes, they can endanger the locals with whom they associate and live, too.

They also risk American lives. Because guess what happens when an American is kidnapped? or maybe jailed by a rogue regime? The United States government tries to rescue them.

Yes, dear Americans, your amazing government, your military, will move heaven and earth to save you if you get into trouble overseas. That is a core American value. You will occupy hours and hours of many federal workers and political and military leaders’ time. They will expend large amounts of government resources on your case. And if they can figure out where you are, they will send American special forces into harms way to get you. They are highly trained and very skilled, but sometimes it costs them their lives.

If you are held by a foreign government, getting you back will become a diplomatic headache that compromises national security. The US government may end up releasing some bad guys it holds or making some other concession to an adversarial government to see you home safely. If you are killed, your government will work to get your remains back to your family. Sometimes your death will spawn further military action or alter foreign policy.

Your government will do this even when it has tried its best to warn you to stay the hell away. The travel warnings aren’t only for your own safety. They are for the safety of your fellow Americans. They are for the good use of American resources and for the crafting of unencumbered foreign policy.

Travel warnings are also intended to facilitate other, better-equipped, large-scale organizations and efforts to help the most possible local people and maybe even negotiate an end to a conflict or find solutions to underlying problems. It’s incredibly hard for the UN, USAID, Doctors without Borders, and other major organizations to get humanitarian aid into a war zone to help people who can’t get out without having additional people who have no business being there coming in. In Haiti, the Kenyan government, on behalf of the international community, is about to send a contingent of security forces to try to help the Haitian police achieve some kind of security. The very, very last thing any of these people need is some American do-gooders complicating things.

So when the State Department tells you to stay the F out, maybe THAT is God speaking to you.

Look, I don’t know what would have happened to the Haitian kids this ministry served without those Americans on the ground, and I don’t know what will now happen to them now that they are gone. Probably not good things. Ultimately, though, Haiti has bigger problems. Huge, structural, systemic problems that go back centuries and have destroyed millions of lives.

And it’s important to also ask if there are better ways to help. Ways that don’t involve inserting our messy, expensive, naive American bodies into perilous situations. Ways that require less American control and fewer heroics. Missions boosters have been talking about “partnership” with locals since the late 19th century, yet I’m told by people like Harvey Kwiyani that there’s still an unwillingness to let go of pursestrings, methods, and theology. There’s an assumption that we know best, and we do things the best way. We think we need to be there, in the middle of the action.

American Christians like to believe that they are essential to God’s work. As if he did nothing in the world until 1776. Sometimes I wonder how Christianity became a global faith without the United States?

But the truth is—God doesn’t need Americans, and he doesn’t need Super Christian Heroes. God needs us to, first of all, stay alive if we can. And then he needs us to live faithfully and generously with the people in our midst. With the needy, sure, but also with our peers. People who need nothing from us, who can see right through us, and who regularly call us out on our bullsh*t. God needs us to love not just people who hail us for our good deeds but who keep us accountable for our bad ones. That is sacred work, too.

Is there a place for missions? Or even secular international charity? Of course. I know for a fact that a lot of good is done out there in contexts that are reasonably safe and constructive. It’s less the work of most missions with which I have a problem than how they are positioned in the American Christian mind. How they have helped American Christians let themselves off the hook.

But in fact, there are missions all around us. Perhaps we need to stop worshipping the exotic and heroic and discover the beauty and challenge of the ordinary (by the way, this goes for a lot of non-religious people and contexts, too). Maybe we need to stop escaping the truth of ourselves and our cultures through over-the-top good deeds far away. Maybe we need to stop rocking ourselves to sleep with the “seductive reduction of other people’s problems,” and work to address a few of our own. Maybe white American Christians need to hear hard truths from Black people here at home as much if not more than they need to help grateful Black people somewhere else.

Mostly we need to be humble. And looking around at American Christians, binge eating our Oreos double-stuffed with American exceptionalism AND evangelical Christian exclusivity, I don’t see much humility out there. I see people utterly, completely, unflinchingly convinced of their own virtue. And that is a dangerous place to be. Or even to be around.

It was for that young couple. They gave their lives sincerely believing that going as missionaries into a war zone was what they should be doing.

But most American evangelicals are frankly not doing sh*t, not in war zones, not in their back yards. They are sitting comfortably in pews, resting in their own righteousness, egging on the more earnest in their midst towards greater sacrifice, bathing in its reflected glory, while they themselves remain safe from any self-reflection, challenge, or cognitive dissonance.

Their politics show it. White evangelicals hold the most negative views of refugees, immigrants, the poor, foreign aid.² White evangelicals—including the father of one of the slain, a Missouri state representative—spend more time banning books, going after drag queens, and addressing imaginary voter fraud than they do trying to understand the roots of conflict and poverty at home or around the world or supporting policies that might alleviate it.

For them, missions are a product to consume. Missions are the cake that’s eaten and had. Missions are the pancake-makeup that hides all blemishes. American evangelicals will send young missionaries to die in Haiti, then vote for politicians pledging to cut foreign aid, restrict legal immigration, and end the refugee program.³

Make no mistake, Haitian gangs murdered those young people. But there’s at least a few drops on blood on our soft, white, American Christian hands.

1. See, for instance, Melani McAlister’s book, The Kingdom of God has no Borders.

2. I have data on this. I am too lazy to input it.

3. All of this is in Project 2025, the blueprint for Trump’s second terms as drafted by the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation.