You seldom see the sight these days of pairs of crew-cut white males in pressed white shirts and ties pedaling around cities in Japan. The sight is from a bygone age, largely relegated to history: The white man with a burden to educate and enlighten the natives, in this case about the one true religion, Christianity.
For many of us in the 21st century, the missionary mentality of seeking to "save" the locals by spreading your own truth has been discredited. For whatever good the missionaries did — teaching English for free or helping the poor — underneath it was the inherent ethnocentrism of "we know better."
But how much has changed? Sure, Mormon missions might be on the decline here, but the same notion that "we foreigners know best and should enlighten Japanese" appears in other guises.