Holly Berkley Fletcher on Missionary Kids, White Evangelicalism, and the Myths of Calling

In this episode of Faithful Politics, Will and Josh speak with Holly Berkley Fletcher, historian, essayist, former CIA Africa analyst, and author of The Missionary Kids: Unmasking the Myths of White Evangelicalism. Drawing from her childhood in Kenya as an MK and years of research on the American missionary movement, Holly explores how missionary culture has shaped white evangelical identity, race narratives, and U.S. religious politics for more than a century.

She discusses the history of American missions, the deep roots of evangelical “calling,” the romanticized myth of the missionary saint, and why missionary children often carry the hidden costs of their parents’ spiritual ambitions. The conversation dives into race, colonial influence, trauma, American exceptionalism, Christian nationalism, global evangelicalism, and how missions became both a mirror and mask for white American Christianity. Holly also shares personal stories—from boarding school trauma to growing up surrounded by stark inequality—that illuminate the insider/outsider vantage point MKs uniquely bring.

If you care about global Christianity, American evangelical culture, deconstruction, mission work, or the complicated intersection of faith and identity, this episode offers an honest, challenging, and deeply human lens.

Buy: The Missionary Kids: Unmasking the Myths of White Evangelicalism https://bookshop.org/a/112456/9798889832034

Guest Bio 
Holly Berkley Fletcher is a historian, essayist, and former Africa analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency, where she spent nearly two decades focusing on political, cultural, and security trends across the continent. Raised in Kenya as a missionary kid, she later earned a PhD in American History, giving her a unique insider/outsider perspective on evangelical culture. Her book, The Missionary Kids: Unmasking the Myths of White Evangelicalism, blends memoir and research to examine the American missions movement, the psychology of calling, racial narratives, and the long-term impact on children raised in missionary families. Her work explores faith, identity, trauma, and glob

Transcript

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Hey, welcome back, Faithful Politics listeners and watchers. If you're watching us on our YouTube channel, we are so glad to have you. I'm your political host, Will Wright, and I'm joined by your faithful host, Pastor Josh Bertram. What's going on, Josh? Hey Will, good to see ya. Yeah, it's good to be seen. And today we have with us Holly Berkley Fletcher, is a historian and essayist who grew up in Kenya as a missionary kid. earned her PhD in American history, later spent nearly two decades as an Africa analyst at the CIA. And her new book, The Missionary Kids, draws on her personal story and deep research to unpack what MKs, missionary kids, reveal about evangelicalism. So welcome to the show, Holly. Thank you so much, happy to be here. Yeah, you are the third CIA person we have had on our show. We've had Abigail Spanberger and Paul Miller. I think he was CIA. He wrote a book about Christian nationalism. uh he CIA? I didn't know he was CIA. Maybe briefly. maybe under I know he was under Bush and Obama and he worked in the intelligence and I don't know. Yeah, one of those letters. you know what? And another guy we had a a professor. Gosh, didn't get if I had a memory. Bob something. He's a professor up D.C. somewhere and he was the general counsel for Michael Hayden. uh it Weiss or Weiss or something like that? It might have been, but funny guy, hilarious. Interesting. don't know him, I know, well, I don't, he wouldn't know me, but I've, I know General Hayden, who's just the most wonderful person. I mean, he's fantastic. So. That's awesome. Well, well, you wrote a book um called The Missionary Kids with a subtitle that um I don't have on my notes right now, but it does white evangelicalism. So tell us what the book is called, complete with subtitles. And um and why did you write the book? The subtitle is Unmasking the Myths of White Evangelicalism. And I wrote the book because um just from starting grappling with my own story, um And then talking to my cohorts over the years, I decided I wanted to, yeah, sort of present, not, can't capture, you can't tell a missionary kid's story, but try to draw out some of the themes in our experiences and what it says about this culture that frankly worships our parents. em And to present a lot of the history of the American missionary movement. um and connect kind of what we grew up with. um And I interviewed people of all ages, so people much older than me. I'm sort of the midpoint and then people much younger than me and how that connects with uh past experiences. And yeah, just operating on the premise that missions has been so central to white evangelical uh identity from the beginning. We certainly grew up with this with the idea that our parents were super important to this religious culture. to try to get behind a lot of the sort of mythology that's been built up around uh missions that is, you know, frankly, a lot of it is, you know, creating us a narrative that reflects a positive image of white evangelicals back to themselves. So that's, uh I thought that was an important uh message um at this time when I think, yeah, I think the white evangelical narrative about themselves has fed into some of the problems that we're seeing now. Number one, I didn't realize MK... is like a, it's like an acronym for missionary kids. So like, I mean, I learned a lot from your book, but like, that was just sort of like a one little data point, because I'm married to a PK. And before I married a PK, I didn't know what a PK was. when, because I wasn't a Christian when I, when I met my wife. um So, so I'm curious though, just about mission life, because number one, like for, for listeners that may not even know what the heck a mission is or a missionary. I mean, I think people probably understand what a missionary is, but like, do people go to other countries um kind of on the premise that they are going to help, you know, some sort of disadvantaged uh community? Like, what is it about sort of Christians that makes them think that that's something we should be doing? Yeah, so I go back in the history too, because the American missionary movement uh is really the sort of dominant one within uh modern Christianity and actually of Protestantism. There weren't actually, there wasn't a sizable Protestant missions movement until the Anglo-American movement coming out of the Great Awakening started in the very, very late, but really more into the 19th century. um And in my book, even though I've kind of gone on a theological journey myself, I take evangelicals at their word and at their sort of core belief that they believe that people that don't accept Jesus and not just any Christianity, but their sort of version of Christianity, that people who don't accept that uh brand of Christianity and that vision of Jesus, version of Jesus, are literally going to hell and so they are um trying to get out there and save as many souls as they can. And it's sometimes mingled with, um you know, more or less in with sort of humanitarian aid. That's certainly an element of it. But for evangelicals, it's really about winning converts. um And the humanitarian impulse is sort of a conduit for that versus the main, you know, sort of the main event. Evangelical groups do a lot of great humanitarian work. Yeah, I grew up in church. I'm a pastor. My dad's a pastor. grew up in St. Louis-A-Gaia, which is an evangelical Pentecostal. Oh, huge. Yeah. My aunt was a... a missionary in the Assemblies of God. So my cousins grew up as missionary kids as well. And I knew many uh missionaries, no missionaries, you the Assemblies has a really well established missions program and training and all this stuff and even missiology departments and all that in there. And some of their seminaries, I believe, at least least courses and teachers. And so I yeah, I understand the of impetus behind uh evangelicals wanting to bring this gospel and I would love to get a deeper view because I essentially grew up thinking missionaries were you know basically heroes. m Yeah that was a big that was a really big they were heroes they they They're worth investment especially. And there's an enormous amount of investment that has been given. um And I would just love to hear what is it about missionary kids stories and the way that you're bringing it out in your book. Why does this reveal? Why is it a revealing lens into white um America and... Yeah, and why is it a revealing, what, I guess like, yeah, just tell us why. That was the second part of the question and it's kind of escaping me, so. Yeah, no, I think. I think missionary kids, I think the insider-outsider perspective is often a really valuable one, whatever endeavor you're looking at. So they're deep inside, that's part of their sort day-to-day lives, but they're not the ones that have personally invested in it, they haven't chosen to be there. then they're often the victims of its, em I don't know if excesses is the right word, but it's They're often the ones that bear the burden of its failings. So they have a very different perspective than their parents. And then in a broader sense, too, they have an outsider perspective on uh America and the American church, because again, we are raised by American families and certainly uh in a white, even white American little evangelical bubble in whatever country that we're grow up in, but we're very much uh raised in that world. But at the same time, are, you know, we become emotionally attached to a different country and um sometimes different, different friends. And that becomes part of uh something that we carry with us, too. And and often I don't fully identify with being an American or certainly don't have the emotional attachment to to that. So so um So this sort of being in between worlds, I think, is a valuable perspective where we know what we're critiquing, but we can see it in a different light than maybe people that are fully in it can do. Yeah, I really love that because. In a former life, I used to travel quite a bit. whenever I would travel abroad, would never feel as much like an American as I would when I go to a different country. It's like the weirdest thing. Because you get there, and going to another country as a Black person as well, sometimes I'm like, should I just not say anything so people don't know that I'm not American? tell anyway just by the way you're dressed or what have you. Yeah, yeah. Not a lot of black people I know wear shirts that say, let's talk about Jesus, you know? ah So you're right. might because that's kind of one of the fallacies. know, all these evangelicals still like beat a path to sub-Saharan Africa when sub-Saharan Africa is way, way more not just Christian, but evangelical Christian than the United States at this point. But they're still like, that's where you go for the mission trips, you know? So there's some racial oh assumptions in there, I think. I want to read an excerpt from your book that really kind of caught me. And it's in regards to John Piper and his comment about kids. in your book, you write, Piper goes on to claim that there are worse risks for our children than death. This is simple Bible reality, not easy, just simple. It is not complex or hard to grasp. There are things vastly worse than death. Wasting your life is worse than losing it. He goes on, life not given to great things is not worth living. You risk your life and the life of your children to be part of greatness. So my question is, what? Yeah, that quote is actually... deeply wounding for me to read. And when I came across it, it kind of took my breath away because it really sort of confirmed, I realized John Piper is not the Pope of evangelicalism or the spokesperson, but what it does is it articulates, it kind of tells the truth about what we all feel very much em implicitly, which is that there's something more important than us as children. You're sort of secondary to this calling, this faith, this religion, this sort of dogma, you're less important than that. um then in many cases, we are sent to boarding school, certainly in the past that was more common. And so then that just adds uh another layer of um feeling abandoned, not important, um deprioritized. um So that quote is really... I am not myself, but I interviewed people who literally were put in danger and suffered abuse um and suffered real consequences of their parents, frankly, foolish and arrogant uh sense of calling and um and pursuit of greatness. I think that that word's really telling. Is it really is it really about the work of God or is it about your own sense of greatness? um And I think that that quote is very telling on a number of levels. you know these children that grew that were put through that they suffer the the after effects em of that their whole entire lives. um And it's it has a deep deep effect on people's lives and I personally don't believe that God um calls us. I think if you choose to become a parent, that that automatically becomes your main calling is to shape and love uh new human beings and prepare them for a life of love and nurturing of other human beings after that because generational trauma is. you that's not something you want to mess with. That ends up can be really damaging, not just to your children, but then future. Many other people in the world, it reverberates beyond what we can know. So I believe if that's your, you know, I tell people, I'm like, you know, Jesus and Paul, neither one of them, had they both understood that ministry and family don't always go together. And they both had a sense of calling and did not have families. But if you a family, then that has to be a factor in your sense of calling. Yeah, it's interesting because that sense of calling has almost this like sacred aura behind it, right? And this is one of the things that you bring out and you call it the myth of calling. Now, this is really interesting to me because so much of my life has been driven by a sense of call, including coming and planting this church, starting this podcast, playing this church. I planted a church in Richmond and then starting this podcast and em even going into ministry, things like that. All of that. absolutely. part of this sense of deep calling that I had and I and you know you can't put calling in like a laboratory, right, to experiment it and to say, hey, did this really come from God, right? Or we're gonna, if I put this chemical in, it changes color to this and I know my calling is thus here. It doesn't work like that. It's always this mixture of intuition, spirituality. And of course, a lot of it depends on your assumptions about. calling in general, if it's even possible, if God would even do that kind of thing, if there's even a God. And I know all that to say, like, it can get kind of complicated. How did you, like, what was your, like, how did you approach this in terms of, like, the method that you're using to try to figure out, calling? Like, how do we determine, or even like, maybe that's not even something that you were thinking about and more of like, this effect of this idea on all these different kids. guess I would love for you to unpack this myth of calling more, really. Yeah, go ahead. the book and they just see that they think that I'm saying that there's no such thing as calling, which is totally not what I believe. I've certainly I've certainly felt a sense of calling in my own life, even in writing this book, actually, just the way things came together and the opportunities that, you know, just I just definitely felt called to write this book. Now, people who don't agree with the book may may question my sense of calling. Right. But that's kind of that's that's the whole thing. Right. You can't prove it one way the other. So so I guess what I'm and I won't I'm not a theologian. I'm very clear about that. So I would not. em Sure. I would not sort of get into the theology of calling. And I think even people who are of a secular mindset have a similar sense of wanting to feel like, they may use different terms, but there's a sense of calling that a lot of us have. I think I talk about the book, Living in a Society Where There's So Much Choice, we have so much freedom and choice compared to many other societies, most other societies actually, that I think a sense of sort of destiny or calling or like some sort of divinely ordained path that finding that it's a comforting thing for us. Like it's something that like, oh, now I know, you of all these paths that I could take, like I found the right one. that feels, you know, that makes me feel sort of comforted in the midst of all of these decisions that we have to make in our life. So I think calling is a real thing that people certainly gravitate to. guess the myth of calling is that, like you can whatever you, you know, whatever sense that you have, that it's always good, that it's always, it never can be questioned, that has to, everything else has to be subsumed underneath that. And that's usually what you find in evangelical culture is, again, if someone claims a calling, it's like, oh, you know, back, that's it. Like you back off. You can't question that. And I think it's It's really, I mean, by unscrupulous individuals, it's really abused. I have a relative who ended up in an abusive marriage because a man claimed that God was telling him that she was to be his wife. Well, he ended up, he was an abuser and she ended up in an abusive situation because of his sense of calling. And then the other thing I see on where this goes awry on the mission field is there's this idea that, if you have a calling is always healthy and it's like, no, if you're not a healthy person, your sense of calling can actually come from a really wounded place, a place that really you need help. You don't need to go be a hero somewhere. You need to be... uh You don't need to minister to others. You need to be ministered to, know, before you can be equipped. Maybe that is a real calling, but it's also, you know, can function as an escape. And in the book, I talk about this actually on a sort of national grand cultural level of how the missionary endeavor writ large uh really became an escape for the white church in America. And they could sort of, you know, at the same time that white evangelicals were, you know, at the beginning holding slaves, but then afterwards, uh you know, sometimes participating if not just doing nothing about terrible racial violence and oppression at the same time that they're sending missionaries to Africa and other places and it became an escape from and a way of sort of uh writing their own narrative of race uh in which they weren't the bad guys. So I think uh nation's sense of calling can come from an unhealthy place, can be escapist, can be uh a deflection and a projection. There's a lot of unhealthy things that can get uh packed up in that notion of calling. So the myth of calling is not that there is no such thing as calling. It's just that it's not automatically something you can't question, something that's automatically good and from a good place. I'm curious if I'm... people that go on mission trips that are Christian, like, is there ever any like training on stuff like manifest destiny, you know, like, like history stuff like, because I'd imagine Christians going into a country, especially if no other missionaries have been there before. And that country happens to know a thing or two about the manifest destiny and Christians coming, you know, like, like, like I'd be asking for papers like to the Queen tell you, you know, like, like, like, tell me why in my country, you know? uh So I'm just curious because I don't understand how or why, like, number one, Africa is like the chosen place. So maybe you can... Yeah, can you just unpack that, like, the manifest destiny thing and then why Africa? absolutely. Yeah, so it's interesting that you say you wonder if there's training about that. So. And since this, you know, since the civil rights movement and sort of the more enlightened period of uh white American Christianity, where they've sort of, there's been some level of, you know, repentance from the racial past, although I would argue it's pretty shallow. um You know, there's definitely been more sort of multiculturalism brought into uh missionary training, where you sort of, uh you know, there's conversations about, you know, in the past, you missionaries came and they demanded all sorts of cultural, uh you know. conversions in addition to any sort of religious conversion. And there's an awareness of like, well, that's not necessarily the case. Like there's a lot of cultural uh things that can be, that are congruous with small orthodox uh Christian belief. um And that those, to sort of make allowance for that. So there's a lot more sort of multiculturalism. But I think actually, you asking, this really, it really dawns on me that I don't think there is any real integration of missions with the history of missions. And I think that's actually a really important point, because if you look at the full history of missions, there's no question, um not only that it was tied up with uh a sense of nationalism and Christian nationalism that goes back, you know, the early some of the early missionaries were the crusaders who literally went like you convert or die. But in the American movement, it was tied up with a sense of American exceptionalism and yes, manifest destiny um and sort of converting non-white. heathen, lesser people, not only to Christianity, but to various ways of life. uh I think in the uh modern, in the more modern era where there's not, there is more multiculturalism, there's still a sense that uh white American evangelical Christianity is the correct one. And the sense that, uh so again, sending missionaries into other countries where they have long Christian traditions, that's of no matter. They're just considered heathen from the get-go and you want to convert them to your Christianity. And there is also a um sort of a continued hoarding of power, money, and control in the American missions, even while there's more and more global Christians who are going as missionaries or who want to go as missionaries. I think the number of American missionaries, America is still the number one missionary sending country, but by the numbers, over half of the missionaries around the world are not American at this point. But the American movement continues to dominate the money and hold the poor strings and dominate the missiology and the theology and all of those things. a lot of uh control that's exercised uh there. uh yeah, and then there's just a kind of lack, again, lack of awareness, I think, on the part of white evangelicals of how the missionary movement has functioned, not necessarily overseas, but here in America and how it has functioned as, again, a bit of an escapist. em element of self-glorification uh technique or sort of strategy. uh I just see a real, it's just when you look at the racial history of America and you look at the development of the missionary movement, the parallel sort of tracks are just so striking. They're investing all of this time and money and energy in going overseas at the same time that they're just really digging in on uh and doing nothing to address race really. here in the United States. And the Africa thing, you alluded that it's political. No, so I just think again, I think it's very, very much tied up with em our sense of race and our racial history here in America. The idea that Africans racially are the most different than we white American Christians. And so therefore they must also be the most heathen and the most, and at one time maybe there were very few African Christians, but at this point the amount of attention that Africa gets continues to get in the missionary movement is really absurd because there is sub-Saharan Africa. I go and I travel a lot on the continent, it is just like gobsmacking how evangelical, from the names of the buses to the politicians to the t-shirts people wear to just how people talk in their everyday lives. It is a very evangelical place and it's kind of bizarre to see Americans still um idolizing Africa as the ultimate mission field. So are you saying that like in Africa, like it looks like like little America, like do they have like little? So I think it's hard to parse out influence. That's a difficult thing to measure. I certainly see uh African Christian, and I've had other African theologians tell me this, that African Christianity, African theology, African churches, they're all sort of little disciples of white evangelicals. It's been going so long that now it's even a of a boomerang effect to when they're they're sending the missionaries sending to America are sometimes, you know, they're more white evangelical than even American, you know, Christians. So it's really funny, but the theology is very much influenced by American theology. You know, it's not just the missionaries, but since the 1970s in particular, it's all of the, you know, the publications and the media, the mass media. And now, of course, it's, you know, YouTube videos and influencers and so on and so forth. American culture is ubiquitous generally around the world, American movies and books and thought and just culturally America looms so large and that's definitely true in global evangelicalism. I think the Catholic Church is truly a global church. evangelicalism in its beginnings was an Anglo-American movement and it's still very very much an American uh influence movement even as it spreads all over the world. Yeah, and I think something you said before really helps or alluded to before really helps, I think explain this. The money is in America, right? So much of the money is in America. Europe isn't sending very many missionaries in terms of, don't think, right? From Europe to other places. Yeah. No, please. quickly, don't lose your point, like I grew up em with em some European missionary kids, evangelical missionaries who would leave Europe, which is so secular, you know, as you know, and they would come to sub-Saharan Africa as missionaries and it just always made me laugh because it's like, yeah. I mean, yeah, I mean, I totally, I totally understand. It's funny because it's like missions trips. We would go on missions trips and we'd basically go there. And I have some funny stories from these trips, but essentially it was going and hanging out with a bunch of teenagers, getting ourselves into like precarious, potentially precarious situations. Not, you know, not really, but you know, I mean, sometimes, yeah, I was walking with a group of kids and freaking like in the back, like these back streets of uh and like uh Panama City. And like we were supposed to be inviting people to this, you know, rally and nobody ended up coming. And then there was a dog that literally killed a chicken right in front of us as we were like, I'm not even kidding. Yeah, dude, we were trying to, and there's nobody in the audience except like some family that just showed up there that had no idea what we were doing. uh And you know, you see these stories and you saw all this money spent and And really it was like this logic started to shift. was like this sense of like, wow, we're not really helping them, but it's really helping us. It's really helping, yeah, the spirituality of the students. And so the justification kind of shifts as you're going and it becomes this massive like incentivized system for who's gonna get who's gonna be best at fundraising, who's gonna be able to get, you have to have the best missions trips so you can have people sponsor you and fundraise for you so you need to be able to put on churches and bring them out and all this stuff. I can see and I know some of it, not the inner workings of it. um but I know enough of it to see those trends and to see that happen. And I wanted to point out just a couple of the pieces of evidence that you're bringing that I thought were absolutely like mind blowing to me. For instance, that 53 % of your survey, if this is correct, correct me if I'm wrong, reported trauma. 80 % saying there's higher living standards than the locals, which I'm not really surprised about. necessarily. And so maybe you can go into that, like, was there a negative aspect of that connected with that? um But yeah, so I would love for you to kind of go into that, like, this is surprising, especially trauma, like, what's going on behind this with the missionary kids? um And what were they, what were they saying? Well, know, some of it's linked. you go of what your those two points are somewhat linked. So when you go as a missionary um as an American, usually white, most most American missionaries are white. I think only one percent is uh certainly black. And then there's, know, there's more partnerships with Korean and Brazilian missionaries and Americans. So there's some of those, you know, on the mission field. But most American, the overwhelming number of American missionaries are white. So you're going as a white sort of American. and into a culture, most of the, there are missionaries that go to Europe, but mostly you're going to places that are non-white and uh very poor, okay? So you stand out like a sore thumb and you basically have a massive dollar sign on you. So you become, um you you become a target. If there's insecurity and poor rule of law, you can be a target. Your security can be, uh you know, uh an issue. um And so what happens a lot of times is you and and so you're you're basically it's hard for you to really integrate as a peer into the community. So for racial socio all of those things are tied together. um And so you sort of create they end up creating whether you want to or not you live in a in kind of a bubble um where you're not really part of the community. And then even with the bubble you're often, again, stick out like a sore thumb and in some places that becomes a security issue. um So the two are kind of linked, the massive economic disparity and then the trauma because a lot of the trauma that is experienced is, know, run-ins with crime, terrorism, know, war, um living in places that are very insecure. m So those two things are kind of linked. Well, we haven't really got into it uh much, but I'd love to hear, like, what was your missionary experience like? And, you know, talk to us about what it was like living in the places you've lived, how long you've done it. I think you mentioned in the book something about your family moved, like, all your stuff to include, like, a beige couch or so. family was weird. yeah, my dad was had a full 21 career in the army. uh And they had children late in life compared to other people of their generation. they were in there when by the time he retired and they became missionaries. You know, I was only eight years old. My sister, I was seven years old when he retired. So I was seven. My sister was 10. So for for he had a full career and yet pretty still pretty young children. Well, when You know, so therefore his missionary career was basically a second career. so unlike most missionaries, they had, first of all, a good financial cushion in the fact that he had a pension, a military pension. They were also Southern Baptist missionaries, which are more financially secure compared to everyone else because the Southern Baptist, uh their mission organization is basically a huge corporation and pays their people, you know, salaries and benefits and all that. ghost missionaries don't live like that. uh and then the other thing is they were uh when you retire from the military, the the government, US government will give you one last move to wherever you want to go. And there's no limit on how much stuff and where. And and they said, can you can can we literally move anywhere? And they're like, yeah, you can literally. And there's so they tell the army that, we're moving to Kenya. And so um very foolish of them, frankly, I don't I I can say this I don't know if they would say this but they literally brought every last thing we owned to Kenya other than my dad had some weaponry from his career that you couldn't that was not legal so that was you know stay behind and things like my mother's wedding dress and some keepsake items they had like a cedar chest one cedar chest in my Grandparents house the things that they left behind but other than that they literally took every last thing that they had so here we were in small town, know Kenya and the house we lived in was not necessarily that nice. It had some serious structural problems for one thing. So it wasn't like the house itself wasn't that nice. But old were you? was eight when we arrived, yeah. But they brought, but it was filled with just all kinds of like fancy crap. Like my mother had a full, had a china cabinet with silver and china. And like, you know, our housework would like polish the silver and like, it was just crazy. And like, and you know, we had rugs and bookshelves and tons of books. And you know, most families had a severe limit on how much you could bring and just brought the bare basics in their houses. tended to be kind of spare and basic. And so even missionaries would come into our house and be like, what is this? uh And as a child, I was actually mortified by it. I had a very strong sense of... as a child of the inequality um and it really bothered me. Sometimes I would feel kind of puffed up about it because you're a stupid kid, you know, but mostly I felt just mortified and horrified and just like it really bothered me. That has stayed with me my whole life is this just, I just agree for inequality, you know, like uh if socialism worked, which it does not, would be a socialist because I just would love everyone to be the same, you know, and to just have the same things and I would, you know, I just hated feeling so high above everyone. um But other than, you know, other than things like that, my childhood was pretty happy. You know, I had the main trauma was I went to boarding school young, I was 10 and that has... um That was definitely traumatic the first year or so. And that has definitely had a lasting impact on me and my family relationships for sure. But overall, I love Kenya. I have a deep emotional attachment to Kenya. I go back quite a lot and worked on Africa at the Central Intelligence Agency. that love, I wouldn't trade it. for anything even though it's you know love and grief are two sides of a coin and the you know the grief of not really belonging and I call it an unrequited love um and that's kind of the best way I can describe describe that and I've that I still carry that with me as well the grief and the love. That's really uh beautiful. I appreciate you saying that. I have had connections again with other missionary kids and have heard similar um things. I just appreciate that. I would love to think about the idea of the myth of the saints for a little bit. um This idea where there's this aura of sainthood almost around. uh missionaries and almost making them invulnerable to critique potentially. What is the myth of saints and how has this been fleshed out? How do you deal with it in the book? Yeah, well, unfortunately, that section of the book was pretty tough because I didn't I had, you know, I was aware of some abuse at some pretty serious situations, not involving me personally, but that I witnessed in the missionary community where I knew, you know, I had a very clear sense that they weren't saints, you know, since we had a murderer in our community that I talk about in the book. um So I was aware of that, but I was not directly abused. um But then doing the research of the book, realized how I heard many stories and I realized how prevalent it is. So there's a lot of things that go into the reason why abuse can be prevalent on the mission field. First of all, in evangelicalism in particular, think white evangelicalism, you see this domestically as well with the different sex abuse crises. You know, when you have this, when at the core of your identity and your spiritual identity is this sense of rightness that you're the one It's your theology that's correct. Everybody else is wrong. know, like your beliefs are certain. There's no room for doubt. There's no room for, you you're the sort of, you're the ones that have everything right. It doesn't exactly create a great climate for uh accountability and uh self-reflection, right? So when something bad happens in these cultures and environments, you know, the instinct is, you know, sweep it under the rug because uh letting it out will turn both our image of ourselves, but also the image we project to the outside world. em It's us versus them and we have to sort of circle the wagons. So there's that element of things on the mission field as well. em And it's sort of elevated because missionaries are elevated in evangelical culture. They're seen as sort of the cream of the crop. But then compounding that is just the structural realities of overseas existence, the fact that missionaries, there's a lot of legal sort of no man's land. Before 2003, there was no, you know, if someone committed abuse overseas and then, you know, if they weren't prosecuted in country and that's, it's hard enough to prosecute such crimes in the United States in countries where there's poor rule of law and where there's a lot of privilege with being a foreigner and where even child abuse is not a well- articulated idea, women's rights are not what they are in the United States. uh So if they weren't prosecuted in the country where they're living, there was no way for the American law to reach them either, and so they usually slip through the cracks. 2003, um a law was passed giving federal jurisdiction over Americans who commit child abuse overseas. uh And that has been. really important. I think that's probably the main reason why a lot of mission boards and missionary boarding schools for the first time implemented and devised sort of child protection strategies. I don't think it was out of the goodness of their heart. I think it was because they knew the law em was coming for them. And subsequent laws uh removed the statute of limitations for civil suits, which was another thing that protected a lot of these boards. So that's been really important, but it's still very hard know, forensically, um you know, just the logistics. Like I said, it's hard enough to prosecute sex crimes in particular um here in the United States. um And when you add the distance and all of the different... um the different hurdles that an international jurisdiction um involves, then it becomes even that much harder. So there are some structural problems um on the mission field. know, human beings, I don't care who they are, human beings are gonna human. without accountability, abuse can thrive in any culture where there's no accountability. I don't care how... religious or and in fact, I think religion sometimes often makes it worse because again, it creates this false sense of uh Righteousness that you know a sense of like this doesn't happen with us and that's just not true Is there like a diplomatic angle to missions work? if so, how does that work, I guess, exists in this environment where, you know, USAID is like no longer a PEPFAR, you know, it's no longer like a viable thing for the world. Yeah, so there's not really in the past, the far, further distant past 50s or so, there was... More interface between US government em and missionaries including CIA actually uh But in the recent years the US government certainly CIA has pretty much prohibited contact with um missionaries for their own sort of safety em And there's not much of a connected connection between the diplomatic community and the missionary community. So it's a pretty pretty there's there's not much interaction at all except when you know, like there's a security issue obviously the embassy is a of what Americans are in the country and a lot of times those are missionaries. And so there might be some interface on security matters and stuff like that. But on policy, no. I will say USAID, uh missionary organizations, m you know, did get a lot of USAID contracts over the years. know, anybody, any NGO can apply for, or could back when USAID existed, could apply for um for contracts where you would, you know, have to submit a lot of paperwork and there's a lot of accountability involved, but you could submit sort of a plan of action and get sort of USAID funding. So there was that sort of connectivity. And then, you know, in different um realms, particularly with USAID, there might be more interaction and interface. But generally, the missionary community and the US government community doesn't sort of get involved. uh I will say, and this is a bit of a pet peeve of mine, missionaries like what happened, it happened again a couple of weeks ago, missionaries who go into or live in very insecure areas that they shouldn't be in, frankly. And they think they're being sort of heroes slash martyrs. But what happens is when they get, when they get kidnapped, as one was a couple of weeks ago, it is. Again, it's so irresponsible. The whole US government is then bound to basically make them the number one priority. And it becomes, um it can endanger lives of American military personnel. It certainly uh takes up a lot of funds. So I don't, when people see these, get from the US government perspective, because I worked in, I saw these cases from the inside. And I see American churches sort of celebrating, oh, so and so. kidnapped by jihadists what a mission what a hero you know what here and I just think what an idiot please like I always say God speaks through the State Department travel warnings please listen to the State Department travel warnings so That's funny, I love that. You just gave me my sermon for this weekend. God speaks to the State Department travel warnings. Dude, that'll preach no matter where you are. I wanna kind of focus in on the challenge you make to American missionaries not being the central character in global evangelicalism. We've talked about this, but of course I grew up thinking, yes, it's American missionaries. I also grew up hearing, other countries are sending missionaries to America now. This is why, essentially, we need to make Macca, make America Christian again. uh kind of like all this stuff is being said, right? There's missionaries coming from other countries. They're doing what only we are supposed to do, or maybe that's the critique or the caricature of that kind of uh understanding that we would critique. And I guess I want to slightly push back on it and ask the question. um What, when you're looking at this, is this like, and maybe it's just a clarification, is this systematic of the entire system, the things that you're bringing out, or is it more like these are human organizations that are, you know, and it's an issue like. they've failed to keep accountability. They lost the balance of powers within an organization or whatever it was and things got um overseen. there's, I'm sure, many, many positive cases of things that have happened, things that people have done. And I'm not saying you aren't saying that. I think you acknowledge that. But I'm just wondering, for someone who's listening to this and maybe they're skeptical, they're like, I don't know. I think about all the good that was done. Think about all, you know, this and maybe, hey, if someone wants to go die for their faith, go ahead and die. Now, of course, you're saying they're taking their children and they don't have a choice. And so that's where the morally um questionable part comes in. Anyway, talk about that, yeah. That, yes, that's true. They're going to be a martyr for Jesus and when they get caught, hey, can you come get me guys? I'm an American citizen. is, I think the US government frankly should issue the warnings and basically designate some countries as like you on your own. Like we're not coming after you. But anyway, we don't do that as Americans. there's that. Anyway, that's kind of my little pet peeve. I'll leave that to the side. yeah, so I think Obviously all human endeavors are human and therefore there's fallibility. think when things become systemic is when things are routinely not... there's routinely not appropriate accountability. And then that becomes a systemic thing. And then you see, and I certainly saw this, em when it's not just the one bad person doing it, but then it becomes an organizational coverup, where they are ushered home and allowed to continue on with no repercussions. There's a lot of people that were involved in cases that em I've been privy to. in that, then that becomes systemic. The other thing I would say, and I think this is clear in the book, just to make it clear, is I'm less concerned, certainly on the ground in these countries where missions is taking place, you know, There can be harm, there can be good, there can, a lot of it's probably just uh benign or sort of neutral at this point. I think in history there's certainly been some cases, but even historically I think sometimes the sort of left version of the missionary as sort of colonial power or whatever and all the harm of, you know, cultural annihilation, um often that's also overblown. So I just kind of leave that to the side because I think it's a mixed bag. What I'm concerned with is how missionary endeavor has inflated American Christians' sense of self and kept them from really, you know... learning and growing from this experience because I do think that there are opportunities to learn and grow. Certainly for the missionaries themselves, you know, the, in that's been the case in many instances, although not always the case. um But they're not really given, they don't, the incentive structure isn't there for them to then be teachers and prophets for the church based on what the wider aperture that they've maybe acquired because they have to raise funds from the same people. want just want to hear their cool stories in which they're the heroes you know I think American Christians in missions and in many other endeavors center themselves to a great degree um And I think that that is creates just a real myopia that is damaging on every level on a spiritual level I think on a national level here in America It's been a it's been a big part of the arrogance in our own culture and how we deal with our history and in our current politics um And so I would just love it if American Christians would de-center themselves. Like it's not all about you. Actually, know, America was not founded until 1776 as a country. What do people think God was doing for 1700 years? know, since the Jesus time. Like what do you think Jesus was doing? Just sitting around waiting for America to be born? And if America goes by the wayside, Jesus has his own agenda that may or may not involve us. And Jesus is doing things all over the world at all times. And it doesn't... need to involve you and it doesn't involve you in many cases. And so I just, um yeah, I would just love to see American Christians realize that it's not all about them. Jeez, yeah, that, I mean, that should be your message, Josh, this weekend. You know, my last question for you, Holly, so if... um A family came to you that you're close with, said, hey, Holly, I've got this itch. I want to go do what God's calling me to do. He's telling me I need to go to another country, do missions work, me and my family. What would you tell them? Like, would you discourage them, encourage them, have them sort of think deeper about why they're going? then, so the follow-up question is, would your advice change um if the country is another country, like not Africa or continent, I should say? So like, would your advice change depending on the country that they want to go to? I it's a country, I think if they have children, do, they first of all need to think about the well-being of the children. um Maybe God is calling them to go somewhere, but maybe not when they have their children. Their children can be grown and they can go later. It depends on a lot of things. What are their children's particular needs? A lot of countries, like if you have children with special needs, there's no care for them and there's no, what kind of schooling is your children? What kind of socialization? children have, the safety. There's a lot of questions just on that that they would need to think about. But more broadly, think that, um you know, I think people act out their wounds through missions a lot of times, so I would... want them to go to therapy first, you know, and get through whatever trauma they might be acting out of. Maybe it's there, maybe it's not. And then I would just want them to read about history and see what the history of this movement is and how, if they do go, you know, how can they break cycles? How can they de-center themselves in the endeavor? How can they make, you know, are you going to be the heroes in this story or who are the heroes of the story gonna be? You know, that's a big question. And whatever it is you're doing, like, who are the heroes in the, who are you going to make the heroes of the story? Is it you? Or is it maybe, and also, like, what do you, what is the ultimate goal and can it be accomplished another way? Because I think that a lot of, American Christians are more invested in what they get to do than what is being done. and how it's being done. So all these mission trips, for instance, I mean, let's just be honest. And I'm not opposed to mission trips if we're honest about what the purpose is, which the purpose is for you to have a spiritual experience, basically. You're looking for some sort of self-actualized, actualization, spiritual experience, maybe some education. But again, most of the people that go on these mission trips go without ever even picking up a book about the country. without ever cracking, not even reading a whole book, without even cracking, they have no idea the politics, they know nothing about the country, so they've literally learned nothing, they really don't have any interest in learning. um so the main reason is for them to have an experience, okay, fine, but don't then create this narrative in which you're somehow a hero. um and all the money spent on short-term missions. Like if the point is to build a church, just send the money and have the local community send the money to the church and let them hire people who need money. for like a fraction of the cost. So there's just a lot of inefficiencies in the missionary movement um that to me I come away with um thinking that the overall point is um some sort of American hero fantasy camp in many cases. um if that's the case, like just be honest, like I'm going to be a Christian hero and that's an experience I want to have. Just be honest about it. Yeah. Well, there you go. You heard it here, folks. I love it. am definitely challenged by this conversation. I'm sympathetic to a lot of stuff you're saying, because I've experienced it, I've seen it. um I know... what drives people to want to be able to do this, want to be able to go on these trips, want to be able to feel like you're doing something, making a difference, all this stuff and you want to be able to go do it. Yeah, of course, of course, but it does... it too, by the way. it's not a justification. Yes, it is. It's not a justification for the kinds of inefficiencies and abuse and things like that, obviously, that you've been pointing out in some of your research and writing. And I just appreciate your work. Thanks for doing this. Is there a preferred vendor that you have for the book? And how can people connect with you and what you guys are doing? Yes. wherever books are sold, you know, if you can support a local bookstore, I think that's great. I'm a big fan of local bookstores or bookshop. I think it's called bookshop.org is a online distributor that works with local bookstores, but really anywhere, know, audio, it's on audio, it's on, you know, ebook, Kindle, your library, a lot of libraries have it or get, you can ask your library to get it. And then I am, I have a sub stack called a zebra without stripes. um that you can check out as well. Well thank you so much again for coming on here. Really appreciate you spending some time with us Holly. It's been a great conversation. Yeah absolutely. Thank you for tuning in and to our viewers and listeners guys thanks for tuning in to this. Make sure that you are liking subscribing doing all that stuff that gets this engine continuing to roll as we're going and trying to get great content out to you guys. Make sure again that you're sharing this with someone who needs it. Check out the notes. the description and until next time guys keep your conversations not right or left but up and we'll see you next time