All this talk about evangelical Christians working, for better or for worse, in Muslim countries reminds me a lot about this thought I posted a few months back.
I said it before and I'll say it again... Christian agencies should just lay low for the time being, given the sensitivities in that part of the world, and the potential for future work to be impacted negatively. If people want to do their own aid work and share their faith individually, that's great, but it should be done under a totally secular organization, like the Peace Corps or something.
I (and it seems, the authors of the Time article) don't have anything inherently against "tentmaking" per se or even working with the support of a "Christian" organization, but the litmus test for me has always been -- do you have the mentality that you're here just for "evangelism" and that your "work" is just a "means to get in"? To think of it another way, are you doing a substandard job in terms of performance and justifying it with the excuse that "it's not what I'm really there for?" As I contemplate some possibilities for myself, I know that I can't and mustn't fall into that trap myself.
And I totally agree with John about the need for non-Western looking or acting missionaries. Isn't why there are so many Koreans these days in the Central Asian countries, right? Because they don't have the stigma of a white American. Sometimes I wish I could get dual citizenship of some other country quickly, because these days, in many parts of the world I'm interested in, that blue American passport is a handicap rather than a help.
Hmmm -- now I hear Hong Kong categorically grants citizenship to those who legally reside in that country 7 years for whatever reason...