English Teaching As Christian Mission: An Applied Theology

Donald Snow is a missions executive with the Presbyterian Church (USA) and a veteran of Teaching English as a Foreign Language mission trips to other countries. "English Teaching as Christian Mission" is an effort to define and unpack the various vocations an American English teacher in a foreign nation enjoys. Snow additionally shows the reader that particular vocation's importance and gives advice for success.

Snow argues that an American serving as an English teacher overseas wears three basic hats: that of a representative of Western/American culture, that of a Christian, and that of a teacher. This last vocation, Snow argues, is primary and success as a teacher leads to success as a Christian and representative of the West. Should one be diligent, professional, competent, and caring as a teacher, the students (and faculty, etc.) will have a positive view of that teacher. They would thus be willing to hear his views on the Christian faith and thoughts on Western culture. Snow correctly points out that while many conservative Evangelical groups view the English teacher's main goal as conversion of non-Christians and liberal/mainline denominations view the English teacher's main goal as helping the poor and downtrodden an overemphasis on these aspects (although they are important) actually serve to harm the overall effort of the English teacher. People easily pick up on duplicity and condescension.

"English Teaching as Christian Mission" is a highly-organized book. Snow clearly lays out his major thesis and gives sub-theses toward the beginning of every chapter (and often previews how he will defend his thesis). He gives adequate support to his theses in various forms: statistics, anecdotes, the work of other authors, personal experiences, etc., and is confident enough in his thesis to present opposing views. The chapters are divided in such a way as to view the English teacher's vocation from various angles, yet Snow does this while continually keeping the main point of the book in mind.

In all, Snow tackles a large and complex subject in such a way as to appeal to a wide variety of readers: from evangelical to liberal Christians. His writing style is more weighty than I anticipated, yet remains approachable. Recommended.

As a bivocational missionary/English teacher in Brazil, I was anxious to read this book after first hearing about it. The area of Christian English teaching is in serious need of good theory and writing, and this book is an excellent first step in the right direction.

Mr. Snow writes for a broad audience, seeking to identify with liberals, moderates and evangelicals within the pale of Christendom. On this score he does a magnificent job of presenting encouragement and useful ideas to drive along Christian mission within the context of English teaching.

One area in which I would have to disagree would be his insistence that teaching English to the poor in a given nation should not include any type of encouragement to move overseas in pursuit of a better life. He argues that this defeats the purpose of teaching English to help improve a developing nation (though later he admits that this may not always be the case). This may well be true in many nations. However, in Brazil I have found that most Brazilians living overseas send money back to their families. They help build businesses and put fellow family members through school. Often, these Brazilians living overseas return to Brazil with savings to invest in opening their own businesses. Their English skills are also frequently so polished after time in North America or Great Britain that doors are opened for them to become English teachers as well. All this contributes to the development of a nation.

The final chapter of the book deals with building bridges with national churches. Certainly, this chapter is more interesting to liberals and moderates than to evangelicals. Though I considered it an interesting read, I have serious difficulty accepting that all that is called "Christianity" is authentic.

All in all, this is a great book, well worth the price and one that hopefully will be followed by others by different authors in this exciting field of missions.

Recent decades have seen an ever-increasing number of Western Christians going abroad as English teachers. Many of these teachers are going to countries that are not very receptive to other forms of Westermn Christian mission. Some Western Christians view English teaching primarily as a means to gain access to "closed" countries for the purpose of evangelistic outreach. Others see it mainly as a form of social service. Donald B. Snow's well-thought out details of how to bear witness, engage in ministry, serve the poor, contribute to peace, and build bridges of understanding between churches clearly show the special role in Christian mission that Christian English teachers can have.