Western missionaries tended to assume that their consciences were advanced beyond that of local peoples, who they felt had little if any sense of right and wrong. They took on themselves the task of teaching moral scruples, all too often imposing new cultural (rather than biblical) values and belittling or trampling on local values in the process. To understand the cultural forms of conscience is of critical importance in missionary work. It carries implications for elenctics (the conviction of sin) as well as cross-cultural ethics. When we feel that another does not have a proper conscience,
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western arrogance
