VIII WEEKEND TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, MAY 7,1988

BOOKS . 0 Graham Greene hails a study of America's Third World missionaries by Norman Lewis. . . who himself examines an account

At God's mercy T HERE IS something a little

absurd in the habit among journalists of dividing our cen- tury into literary decades, as though books went out of date like women's clothes.

No critic in the 19th century would have referred to Trollope a s a writer of the '60s or the '70s, and I have no hesitation in call- ing Norman Lewis one of the best writers, not of any particu- lar decade, but of our century. His work, I hope, will be fully apprecia ted dur ing t h e '90s which already cast a shadow.

Of his latest book, The Mis- sionaries, my only criticism is of the title, which I would have pre- ferred to be more precise, The Evangelists, for it deals almost ent i re ly with t h e horr-ifying activities of the American evan- gelists in the Third World where they are destroying native cul- tures, not in the service of any genuine faith, but in the service of American capi ta l i sm and sometimes in that of the CIA.

My criticism of the title comes from my own experiences, which have all been with very different missionaries - like the Fathers in a leper colony in the Congo w h e r e t h e h e a l t h of t h e i r patients was their main concern, not their faith or even their mor- als; or that solitary priest whom I encountered outside the camp of Dien Bien Phu living alone in a h u t , w i thou t a p a r i s h or a

The Missionaries. By Norman Lewis. Seeker. £10-95

He had been tortured by the Japanese and bore the scar of a Vietminh wound. His business was not conversion- there were few Chris t ians i n Laos. H e o f fe red on ly m e d i c i n e a n d friendship to anyone who passed his way.

In recent years we have found i t easy to laugh a t the American television evangelists and their sexual adventures and the odd names of their various so-called sects ( I once counted 63 of them in the Panama Zone telephone directory, including one called Coco-Sola, if I remember cor- rectly), but until I read Mr Lew- is's remarkable book I had no idea of the danger to human life which they represent.

Twenty years ago Mr Lewis wrote an article on much the same subject called "Genocide: Brazil" which led to changes in the Brazilian law. One can only hope that this more extensive study will drive even some of the d ic ta tors , whom t h e United Sta tes government has been happy to support, into a t least mitigating action.

for the spiritual benefit of the Ach6s in Paraguay. Donald (Mr Lewis's photographer) "strolled off towards two buts" on the out- skirts of the Mission. ' A smiling young missionary over-

took them and barred the entrance to the first of the huts, saying there was nothing there. Donald pushed himaside, went in and came back to call me. I followed him into the hut and saw two old ladies lying on some rags on the ground in the last stages of emaciation and clearly on the verge of death. One was uncon- scious, the second in what was evi- dently a state of catalepsy, because although her eyes were wide open she did not move them to follow my hand as I moved it from side to side close to her face. The fingers on her left hand were covered with the black mud scrabbled from the floor. There was no food or water in sight.

In the second hut lay another woman, also in a desperate condi- tion with untreated wounds on her legs. A small, naked, tearful boy, sat at her side. Mr Stolz's son, happy to help with the tripods and handing up spare lenses, gave us a matter of fact account of what had happened. The three women and the boy had been taken in a recent forest round-up, the third woman having been shot in the side while attempting to escape. Mr Stolz was supported by the

g o v e r n m e n t of P r e s i d e n t Stroessner who is trusted by the White House a s a strong oppo- nent of a non-existent Commu- nist menace. Here are Mr Stolz's spiritual views:

Noble savages: South American Indians, four days' walk from the nearest mission but as yet 'unreached by the Gospel", in a photograph taken last year by Dominic Turner

"for those who cannot be reached: believed by all the Bolivians- Reading Mr Lewis's book, my The Book tells us that there are only whom Mr Lewis met to be run- thoughts could not help return- two places in the hereafter: heaven ning a base for CIA operations a s ing to that very different Mission and he". is where well as ensuring the spiritual sal- in the Congo where the priests be reached spend vation of the Indians. His theol- looked after the body and left the eternity." ogv was in agreement with the souls of their oatients. and them- - ~ - ~ - ~A An eai -i!y w e l l supported doctrinal statement of the New selves, t o the mercy of a God in- mis s ion i n Bolivia h a s t h e Tribes Mission: "We believe in which the evangelists show little