John Perkins and my DSC-P72

Genre photos! Media cliches! They're all around us! Have you noticed? This month it seems that every time I turn around I am assaulted by photo sets of empathetically-(tearfully?)-smiling Christian white kids surrounded by a small crowd of black street urchins (who they appear to have just befriended).

What are the photos saying about us?

If the digital point-and-shoot camera is apt to become the poor man's creativity crutch, the digital SLR can easily become the rich man's "Art" crutch. But neither device is merely for art, it also has the potential for documentary, which gives it street cred and accessibility. And relevance!

Who is this strange beast, the Christian Day-Tripper? He/she parades around the (third) world, building little cinderblock houses and capturing an obscene number of confused little black children inside of a camera, eventually returning home to broadcast this evidence of association across all forms of digital image technology in order to share the experience of their poverty in some small way. In some small way indeed, since we viewers are not really capable of experiencing their poverty at all. For that matter, are we really even capable of experiencing “the other half” when we travel abroad for a week, a month, a year?

The likely, terrifying possibility is that there may be a whole lot of personal pleasure getting mixed in to something that was supposed to be service. Who’s really getting served? Might it be the one who stops in to visit, who documents their association with the poor, and who steps off the plane on the return to their comfortable hometown deafened by a moral fanfare?

I’ve never been on a real mission trip, but the only thing I ever hear is “Well, you know, I gave up so much to do this, but in return I received far more than I gave.” Well maybe this is actually true, maybe we Christians are actually receiving more than we're giving. Maybe our mission trips are really gathering trips. Maybe we are really stealing from the poor a second time over, this time of the authenticity implied by the poverty we imparted to them.

I've got a hypothesis about the commodity, the new treasure that we’re digitally mining out of the third world: It’s that new, post-modern, coveted value known as “The Grime Factor.” Just as fashion has progressed from plastic-slick, technology-fetish costumes of the 80s into faux-ripped Abercrombie & Fitch authenticity, the rest of our interests are quickly growing tired of that ever-present, oh-so-commonplace polished, industrial gloss. Enough opaquely computerized keyboard bleeps, give me real drum kits floating in a sea of gentle vinyl pops! Better yet, go ahead and resample old soul records on that new Kanyeyed Peas track—-oops, I mean "record": The sampling's worth at least two points, since vomiting up black music from the 70s exploits “the other” twice over: The second time blaxploitation rolls around we'll call it vintage. And OMG, second-hand shops are so funky-fresh! Forget the orgasmically-minimal international style, we want classic lofts, you know, renovated stone fronts that scream “this building has character!” After all, for all we know poor black folks probably lived in this very building this at some point!

Let's be honest with ourselves: We’re apathetic, alienated, disaffected, over-disinfected rich people, alternately bored of and devastated by the world we've created for ourselves, seeking to associate with another world. We’re bustling around on our kitchen linoleum, which by the way seems to be starting to wear. We’re making calls and placing ads, trying to get rid of the old Mies van der Rohe dining set as quick as possible because the fact that it is horrendously sterile-looking just dawned on us. Unfortunately we just can’t find anything to replace it with, so milking culture from the tiny, chafed teats of the poor man that we keep in a cage in the garage will have to do for now. Better yet, maybe we can find an old loft in to move into, along with the new-vintage couch.

Why should we delude ourselves about the good we're doing on our short-term missions projects? Why should we stroke our overworked little social consciences like this? If we think about it, we may find that we are actually, literally benefiting from our "third-world encounters."

So rather then deny this fact, why don't we start applying Christian ethics to this situation:

In the best-case scenario, we’re taking because we perceive that we are in need. Which is fine for us to admit. But if this is the case, the first thing we should do is to admit this to the people we’re taking from:

“You have something I need: Perhaps it’s spiritual vitality, perhaps it’s a breath of fresh air outside of our pleasantly-stifling sphere of consumption, perhaps it’s a stimulus for deeply-rooted nostalgia about the wholesomely simple pleasures of our agricultural past (we’ll just gloss over those nauseatingly fixed cultural roles that it was built on for now). Let’s trade: I’ll try my best to re-distribute my amassed wealth and privilege, hopefully lessening my drain on the earth’s resources and people I am oppressing, like you. In return you give me a day-to-day life that has more space, is more sane, is less drunk on the quickly souring Kool-aid of industrial progress.”

Absurd? Yes, indeed! but at least it's a start at moving away from the condescension to the “third-world” that is necessitated by the lie that we’re primarily selfless in our efforts. The most significant thing your average youth group short-term missionary is offering the "third world" is the commodification of poor folks’ way of life as an accessory to wealth, as a bullet point alongside a six-figure future income.

In the best-possible-case scenario, we might even find that in attempting to re-access real authenticity and humility, we actually are able to offer our poorer neighbors some resources of value.

And as hesitant as I am to admit it, perhaps short-term missions have a value, perhaps it makes some backwards ethical sense to spoon-feed digital deaths and pre-packaged, frozen, third-world moments to the rich in order to finance this blunt, systematic exchange of resources.

It’s fine if mission trips do have a value, but first, at the very least, it is time to admit that the value is not only passing from the rich man to the poor man, but also vice versa.