Christian mission

SIR – Your news report (“‘We all sang Amazing Grace ... Then they shot our friend’”, November 25) gives a moving account of British medical missionaries in Nigeria. Their heroic work is part of an unprecedented global movement of missionaries of all nationalities and colours. As a result, there are now more than 120 million practising Christians in China, and half the population of Nigeria is Christian.

Far from being a Victorian throwback, today’s missionaries are at the cutting edge of serving poor and suffering communities on every continent. As a past general secretary of the Church Mission Society, in the early Nineties I was significantly involved in the internationalisation of mission. This included bringing missionaries to Britain to renew our own spiritual and moral vision.

Rt Rev Michael Nazir-ali

London W1