Skeeter Wilson - Take Nothing With You

PRAIS E F O R

I have known Skeeter since 1978. He is one of a kind. Having lived in Kenya the first nineteen years of his life, he knows what he is talking about.

At a Searching Together Gathering several years ago in Illinois, Skeeter gave three outstanding sessions: Into Africa, Out of Africa, and The Evils of Colonialism. For years, I had serious reservations of the methods of traditional missions since the 1500s, especially the practice of imposing the missionarys culture on those being evangelized.

This can be seen, for example, in the Presbyterian work among the Alaskan Tlingit Indians in 1877. Sheldon Jackson was the leader of this effort, and his goal was for these backward Indians to ultimately come to the point where their highest ambition [would be] to build American homes, possess American furniture, dress in American clothes, be American citizens, and drop their stunted and dwarfed language for the liberal English. In Take Nothing With You , Skeeter challenges such perverse goals, along with many others.

Take Nothing With You is a needful corrective to 600 years of well-intentioned, but very misguided, mission work. Somehow Jesus words, take nothing with you, have been lost in the shuffle of human traditions and human power structures.

Jon Zens , author of Elusive Community: Why Do We Avoid What We Were Created For?

Skeeter has done what few have had the nerve to do and that is to tackle the sacred cow of Missions in conversion Protestantism.

He, as a missionary kid and then as one well studied in African history is well qualified to bravely peel back the layers of western Christianitys role in missions to reveal the real truth that it is not the true gospel being shared but soft colonialism.

One must persevere through what they may not like to hear to the second half of the book were Skeeter succinctly outlines why missions as we know it shouldnt exist and what should. Whether you agree or not with Skeeter, you will be better for having been challenged by his thoughts in this book.

Anonymous , former missionary who served 30+ years in Africa

Take Nothing With You is an alarming and distressing look into the world of the Western Christian missionary, specifically in Africa.

Skeeter Wilson revealswith a keen, gentle gracethe cruel and frequently brutal conduct of the white missionaries and the roles they have unwittingly played in enforcing the subjugation of Africans through the evangelizing of a whitewashed, Christian God.

Wilson emphasizes how the foundation and structure of the larger missionary movement is flawed, which in itself has resulted in procedures that have damaged not only missionaries themselves and their children but also has ultimately led to the complete breakdown of the cultural psyche of those Africans that they claim to save from hell. Rather than saving the African from hell, the missionaries of Western churches brought hell with them and continued the spinoff of an erroneous Christian culture that does not in any way resemble the teachings found in the Bible.

Take Nothing With You divulges the erroneous hand that these men and women of God have had in hindering the real message of the Christa message that is tender, deeply wise, and very true even today. A message that, unfortunately, almost two hundred years after the colonization and Christianization of Africa, has never really been heard nor shared.

Najar Nyakio Munyinyi , Environmentalist and Afri-Historian Researcher and Writer

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Permission for wider usage of this material can be obtained through Quoir by emailing

Copyright 2020 by Skeeter Wilson.

First Edition

Cover design and layout by Rafael Polendo (polendo.net). Cover image by storyblocks.com .

ISBN 978-1-938480-72-0

Published by Quoir Oak Glen, California

www.quoir.com

T his book is the result of a journey of a lifetime. There are so many who have shed light along my path at perfect moments. I have lost contact with too many, and many have passed on. To name a few: Mama Ruth, Pa Teasdale, Steve, Ruth, Anna, Esther, Yohanna Kamau, Dave Everett, Hassan Karama, Judy King, Steve Purdue, Mike Miller, Jon Zens, Bill Young, John Stringer, Mike Hagen, Jeff Testerman, Dave Roland, the Afterthoughts Writers, Baker Street Writers, Peter Kiarie, Oscar Chege, Trevor OHara, Mbaria wa Mbaria, Mordecai Ogada, Keith Giles, Mick Rineer, and most of all, my wife, Jacque Kae.

Not all are followers of the Way, but all have, in their own way, shown me the meaning and message of my faith. I am eternally grateful.

This book is for and because of them.

T his is an extraordinarily honest book, so in keeping with that theme, I must disclose that the honor of writing this foreword hasnt been bestowed on me due to my expertise in the subject matter. Id like to think that the reason is the authors and my unique mutual understanding of each others baggage.

I am a black African, brought up in a practicing Christian home and partly educated in a church-run institution. I never felt the need to question the church until I enrolled in a church-run institution for my undergraduate studies. It was compulsory to take one or two credits in religious courses, which were taught with refreshing honesty, while being subject to pretty fundamentalist rules and regulations, which were enforced with missionary zeal. I saw black administrators aggressively enforcing white rules against various forms of adornment and culture, like the wearing of beads, the braiding of hair, and the playing of drums to accompany music. It was never expressly stated, but white was right.

Maybe the most disconcerting thing I saw was the spectacle of theology students (pastors in training) spending hours listening to audio recordings of American preachers as they strove to develop the same diction and accent. After graduation in zoology and completion of my advanced degrees in wildlife ecology, I met a familiar white- is-right tone in the conservation sector, which led to many battles that made me suffer terrible self-doubt because my professional field totally accepted so many conservation injustices that I personally considered anathema.

A conservation writer, Gatu Mbaria, and I met in 2015 and decided to pen a book about these issues, and after over a year of consistent rejection of our ideas, we virtually met Skeeter and sent him our manuscript. I wasnt optimistic. Our blunt portrayal of racial prejudice in conservation had been rejected by all the black Africans we shared it with. What were the odds that a white man would see our point? He saw it instantly and took it up.

When we finally met in person, we instantly became old friends. Im always moved by Skeeters relentless focus on truth and unwillingness to accept prevailing dogma, be it social, religious, or political. This resonated deeply in my life where I saw the influence of white is right all around me. Christianity and the gospel was brought to my country (Kenya) by missionaries, and it is accepted to be the good news of the Kingdom of God.