Were Missionaries Like Psychiatrists?

To the Editor:

People have misunderstood and maligned Christians for two millennia, but goodness, must Dr. Szasz compare us to coercive quacks? He writes in The Freeman’s July/August 2007 issue: “Consider this parallel between psychiatry and missionary Christianity. The heathen savage does not suffer from lack of insight into the divinity of Jesus, does not lack theological help, and does not seek the services of missionaries. . . . the missionary tends to have contempt for the heathen . . . both [missionaries and psychiatrists] conceal their true sentiments behind a façade of caring and compassion. Each meddler believes that he is in possession of the ‘truth,’ . . .”

Such gross and gratuitous generalizations from a scholar of Dr. Szasz’s insight are surprising. And the analogy is bizarre since his article proves that much of psychiatry relies on force; by contrast, Christianity insists that repentance and belief must come freely, without compulsion. This doesn’t mean that all Christians always shun force, just as all libertarians don’t perfectly uphold freedom. Both philosophies are also cursed with hypocrites who espouse our tenets for political or material gain. But just as we don’t allow the Arnold Schwarzeneggers of the world to dissuade us from our devotion to freedom, so we realize that coercive “Christians” aren’t what they claim to be, either. Christ Himself warned that “By their fruits, ye shall know them.”

Meanwhile, Dr. Szasz’s portrait of “missionary Christianity” is factually incorrect. Many “heathen savages” did indeed “suffer from lack of insight in the divinity of Jesus”: without the Gospel and its condemnation of Satanic force, they hunted each other’s heads, literally had their neighbors for dinner, sacrificed their children to assorted gods, enslaved the weak, and indulged in other atrocities that even the most libertine libertarian must disapprove. Folks all over the world are alive today because Christian “meddlers” took the Gospel to their forebears, persuading them to stop torturing and killing one another. Others flourish because they or their ancestors accepted all the “services” missionaries offered and then some: medical treatments, education in literacy and improved agricultural techniques, etc. Missionaries helped during famines and other emergencies, too. In fact, “heathen savages” so avidly “seek the services of missionaries” that there’s a term for it: “rice Christians,” i.e., people who pretend an interest in Christ when they want free food or assistance.

Far from holding “the heathen” in contempt, Christians are called to love all men everywhere as Christ did. That means following the Golden Rule while confessing that God’s grace, and not our own merit, enables us to believe the Gospel. Thousands of Christian missionaries over the centuries have humbly loved their fellowman enough to die in his service. Dr. Szasz no doubt remembers one famous example: the murders of Jim Elliot and four friends at the hands of Ecuador’s Auca Indians in 1956. These martyrs find their parallel in heroes like Nathan Hale, John Wilkes, and countless others, friends of freedom who also spoke truth to people who didn’t want to hear it, who were imprisoned, exiled, and even executed for their message. Do we dismiss their courage and conviction as “meddling,” too?

It is ironic that anyone affiliated with FEE would denigrate Christian proselytizing when that is precisely what FEE does on behalf of liberty. May God bless both Christian and libertarian missionaries as they enlighten this dark world.

Becky Akers

New York N.Y.

Thomas Szasz replies:

I regret that Ms. Akers was offended by my column in the July/August issue of The Freeman. However, the offense she complains about was due to her misreading my essay as if it had been titled “Defining Christianity,” instead of “Defining Psychiatry.” She writes: “People have misunderstood and maligned Christians for two millennia, but goodness, must Dr. Szasz compare us to coercive quacks?”

I do not refer to, much less malign, Christians qua Christians. I compare coercive Christian missionaries (and, implicitly, all coercive missionaries) with coercive psychiatrists (not all psychiatrists). Nevertheless, throughout her letter Ms. Akers systematically replaces my references to “coercive Christian missionaries” with “Christians.” Furthermore, when she does recognize the existence of “coercive ‘Christians,’ ” she declares them to be not (good?) Christians: “But just as we don’t allow the Arnold Schwarzeneggers of the world to dissuade us from our devotion to freedom, so we realize that coercive ‘Christians’ aren’t what they claim to be, either.”

That some (most) psychiatrists use coercion is a fact, acknowledged by psychiatrists. That some Christian missionaries used coercion is also a fact. Observing that “Missionaries helped during famines and other emergencies, too” is hardly a fair response to my carefully drafted essay.

Religion has always been and is still a sensitive subject. Doing evil in the name of religion is a supersensitive issue. Some recent remarks by Professor Charles Kimball, a respected historian and student of religion, are strikingly relevant to Ms. Akers’s letter. Kimball is professor of religion in the department of religion and professor of comparative religion in the divinity school at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C.; holds the M. Div. degree from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; is an ordained Baptist minister; and has received his Th.D. from Harvard University in comparative religion. In his essay, “The Special Challenge for Missionary Religions: Can Missionary Efforts Be Pursued in Healthy, Constructive, and Noncoercive Ways?”

Kimball writes:

It is no accident that the world’s two largest and most widespread religions include a missionary imperative. Unlike faithful Hindus, Jews, Taoists, and practitioners of Shinto, Christians and Muslims are expected to carry the Good News and the Islamic call to faith, respectively, to the far corners of the world. Although they disagree on the precise nature of God’s revelation and the paths to the ultimate goal, adherents in both traditions agree that their faith incorporates a missionary mandate. Far too often in both traditions, however, a narrow understanding of mission has combined with cultural imperialism and military power in ways that destroyed any witness to God’s love and mercy. Examples of missionary-related abuses abound. . . . When missionary zeal is informed by absolute truth claims defining who is “saved” and what is acceptable, the propagation of religion frequently includes sinister dimensions.

Can anyone observing the present alliance of the Church of Psychiatry with the Therapeutic State doubt that Kimball’s “missionary zeal” is the sentiment that motivates the modern missionary mental-health movement, the subject of my column?

Does Inflation Have Only One Cause?

I appreciated and concurred with Howard Baetjer’s article, “Something Besides Money Growth Causes Inflation?” (July–August). However, when he writes that “a few economic phenomena have one and only one root origin. . . . One of these is inflation,” it seems somewhat absolute.

Allow me to employ a thought experiment, as he does. Suppose in a country half of its goods were destroyed (say, by a natural or manmade disaster). The populace would then have the same amount of money as before, but it would only purchase half as many goods. Consequently, the consumer would experience his loss as though there were inflation. That is, the price per average item would tend to double.

This is not to counter the sound points he makes, but only to question that they are absolute.

—ALLEN WEINGARTEN

Monroe Township N.J.

Howard Baetjer replies:

I applaud Mr. Weingarten’s skepticism. My statement that there is only one cause of inflation is absolute, and I, too, am skeptical of single-cause explanations.

In this case I stand by it, however. Milton Friedman’s famous dictum that “inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon” refers to inflation as defined in the textbooks—a continuing rise in the price level, not a one-shot rise.

In the thought experiment, the price level would tend to double right after the disaster, as Mr. Weingarten says, but then it would stop rising. Such a sudden, discrete increase in the price level is not inflation as normally understood. In order for the price level to rise continuously, I can imagine no explanation other than a continuous increase in the money supply. Can you?