Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa has a very old but very good joke about
expatriate missionaries from Europe and North America.  “When they first came”
he says, “they had the Bible and we [Africans] had the land.  They said, ‘Close
your eyes, and let us pray.’  When we opened our eyes, they had the land and we
had the Bible.”  But there is a sting in the tail in the way he uses the story;
the Bible, Tutu points out, can be a very radical document and a powerful
weapon, and the drama of his own part in the struggle against apartheid in South
Africa is there to prove the point.  In the end, Africa got the better end of
the bargain.