The forthrightness with which Rick and Carrie Maples discussed sex appeared to shock Daniel Bergner, but the fact that Christianity would transform a culture and contradict certain cultural practices is part and parcel of the Christian missionary experience. After all, missionary pioneer William Carey, who went to India two centuries before the Mapleses went to Kenya, understood that the embrace of the Christian gospel must mean the end of the Indian practice of suttee (or sati), the ritual burning of a dead man's widow.

What this important article makes clear is that Christian missionaries have been struggling with these questions for at least a generation now, realizing that the Christian gospel will transform every culture, but that the goal of Christian missions is not to replicate Western civilization, but to show the glory of God through the transformation of peoples in accordance with their own cultural diversity.

Writing almost twenty years ago, missions strategist Dale W. Kietzman and William A. Smalley observed: "There cannot be preaching except in cultural terms, and no human being can or should try to escape value judgments. The missionary cannot legitimately force or enforce any culture change. Nor does he have an adequate basis for advocating specific changes in a culture unless he has a profound knowledge of the culture."

They continued: "The missionary does, however, have an extremely important function in the tactful, thoughtful, serious presentation of alternate forms of cultural behavior to the Christians in a society. On the basis of his knowledge of history, his understanding of the church elsewhere, and above all, his knowledge of the tremendously varied ways in which God dealt with men, as recorded in the Scriptures, he can make it clear to them that there are alternative ways of behavior to their own, and help them in prayer and study and experiment to select those cultural forms which would be the best expression for their relationship to God in their culture."

The New York Times Magazine and Daniel Bergner deserve the respect and appreciation of American evangelicals for the careful and objective analysis this article represents. Non-Christians reading the article are likely to gain a new understanding of why evangelical Christians would abandon comfort in order to follow the missionary call. Readers will be assisted in understanding how modern missions has moved into a post-colonial shape, understanding and appreciating the diversity of human cultures.

Christians, on the other hand, should receive this article as an impetus and a reminder of what is at stake in Christian missions and of the challenge that yet remains--reaching hundreds of people groups around the globe who have never heard the Gospel. Beyond this, we now know of a people, the Samburu, for whom we should be praying--praying that they would be open and receptive to the Gospel. Beyond this, this article allows us to meet Rick and Carrie Maples, who along with their daughters are serving the cause of Christ at great sacrifice. If nothing else, we should also remember the commitment to the Gospel of Christ that is represented by a twelve-year-old girl who feels desperately lonely. The Kingdom is visible in such as these.

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R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. For more articles and resources by Dr. Mohler, and for information on The Albert Mohler Program, a daily national radio program broadcast on the Salem Radio Network, go to www.albertmohler.com . For information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to www.sbts.edu . Send feedback to mail@albertmohler.com .

See also the most recent entries on Dr. Mohler's Blog .