(RNS) Accusations that members of an Idaho-based Baptist missionary group tried to smuggle 33 Haitian children out of the earthquake-ravaged country have attracted wide media attention. The case, still pending in a Haitian court, raises serious legal, ethical and religious questions:

— Are the youngsters (ranging in age from 2 to 12) actually orphans? CNN reported 20 of the children had at least one living parent in Haiti.

— Did the missionaries engage in child kidnapping, intended or otherwise?

— Is removing children, whether orphaned or not, from a poverty-stricken country just another form of religious imperialism?

The missionary leader, Laura Silsby, explained to a Haitian judge that her team was “trying to do what’s best for the children,” but also admitted that the Americans had not asked for permission to move the children to an orphanage in the Dominican Republic.

Missionary activity is not without its risks, or rewards. The New York Times described tensions between missionaries who have been active in Haiti for years and those who only arrived following the Jan. 12 catastrophe that killed more than 200,000 people.

In another sign of religious friction, evangelical Christians have reportedly attacked a Port-au-Prince voodoo memorial service. Max Beauvoir, the country’s voodoo leader, accused evangelicals of trying to “buy souls” with the lure of needed food and medicine. “I would like to see each one of them tied up in ropes and thrown in the sea,” he said.

Although Beauvoir may be an extreme, few people are neutral about missionary activity. For Christians, it is the fulfillment of Jesus’ “Great Commission” to “go and make disciples of all nations.”

To their credit, Christian missionaries throughout the world have established hospitals, colleges and universities, medical clinics, training schools, hospices, orphanages and other institutions. For many Christians, the term “mission” is less about saving souls and more about saving lives.

While recognizing those humanitarian efforts, the term “missionary” triggers resentment, and even rage, among Jews. For nearly 2,000 years, zealous Christians in their quest for converts have assailed Jews with hostile proselytizing campaigns and forced conversions.

There were also humiliating public religious debates in medieval Europe. Such rigged “disputations” sought to prove Christianity’s spiritual superiority over Judaism. In some cases, the so-called debates were sponsored by the Christian ruling authorities who acted as “judges.” There was little doubt Christianity would always win and Judaism would lose, often with dire consequences for the local Jewish community.

In recent years, many Christians have muted or even abandoned active missionary activities, especially those aimed at Jews. The late Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, for one, condemned attempts to convert Jews as theologically unnecessary, incompatible with Christianity and spiritually insulting to Jews.

Before his death two yeas ago, Swedish Bishop Krister Stendahl, who also served as dean of Harvard Divinity School, often spoke about making others “jealous” of one’s own spiritual life and faith. Stendahl promoted the creation of “holy envy” between Christians and Jews to improve the quality of their family lives, personal ethics, social justice concerns, and prayer lives. That, he felt, was the best form of “missionary” activity.

“In the eyes of God, we are all minorities,” he said in a 2003 interview. “That’s a rude awakening for many Christians, who have never come to grips with the pluralism of the world.”

For Niebuhr and Stendahl, there’s a difference between “mission” and “witness.” Mission is frequently an act of insensitivity, even coercion, directed to adherents of another faith community. Witness, meanwhile, is the living out of authentic religious beliefs without attempting to proselytize another person.

In authentic witnessing, there are no hidden agendas, no strong-arming, and certainly no court cases involving alleged kidnapping.

(Rabbi Rudin, the American Jewish Committee’s senior interreligious adviser, is the author of “The Baptizing of America: The Religious Right’s Plans for the Rest of Us.”)