Moral Behavior in Short Term Missions

Miriam Adeney in “Shalom Tourist:Loving Your Neighbor While Using Her” proposes that Christians should begin a discussion on the ethics of tourism.  She points out the importance for this discourse in multiple areas but of importance to me was the appropriation of short-term missions (STM) as a form of tourism.  However, she also goes beyond the previous point by framing STM in the context of the Christian practice of pilgrimage.

The following is a reduction of the moral questions she explores:

1. The main question for Adney is: “How shall we travel to the glory of God?”

2. She explores the previous question in three ways:

………..a. We must consider the physical encounter: Who gains and who loses?

………..b. We must consider the cultural encounter: How much of their soul must people sell?

………..c. We must consider the spiritual encounter: What can we learn? What can we share?