Christian missionaries spread Western culture more effectively than secular ideals do

Evidence

During the last decades of the twentieth century both Islam and Christianity significantly expanded their numbers in Africa, and a major shift toward Christianity occurred in South Korea. In rapidly modernizing societies, if the traditional religion is unable to adapt to the requirements of modernization, the potential exists for the spread of Western Christianity and Islam. In these societies the most successful protagonists of Western culture are not neo-classical economists or crusading democrats or multinational corporation executives. They are and most likely will continue to be Christian missionaries. Neither Adam Smith nor Thomas Jefferson will meet the psychological, emotional, moral, and social needs of urban migrants and first-generation secondary school graduates. Jesus Christ may not meet them either, but He is likely to have a better chance. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 174

Categorization

• SEED: An essay angle: missionaries as the most effective cultural transmission vector in modernizing societies is an under-covered reversal of the usual narrative that economics or democracy spreads Western influence.