John Allen Chau: Do missionaries help or harm?

[Eugene]

Source: BBC

John Allen Chau: Do missionaries help or harm?

By Toby Luckhurst
BBC News

28 November 2018

-snip-

While he was not himself a missionary, Chau did say that his aim was to bring the gospel to the tribe.

And his attempts to do so have brought into focus the hundreds of thousands of Christians around the world spreading their faith.

But who are these missionaries? What do they hope to achieve? And are they a positive force around the world, or an unwelcome presence?

What is a missionary?

While other religions have sent missionaries around the world, none are more widespread or well-known than Christian missionaries.

Missionaries of all Christian creeds cite a passage in the Bible, the most famous of which appears in the Book of Matthew, in which Jesus asks his followers to "make disciples of all nations".

-snip-

Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-46336355

[dawg day]

1. Those missionaries bring disease as well as "the Bible"

And Chau seemed to be more of a narcissist, wanting to be important. I suspect he thought it would make him famous or something to "conquer" the tribe.

There's a real arrogance in the attitude that everyone has to believe your way. Anyway, if "missionaries" really wanted to gain some souls, they'd do better to work in their own countries. There are far more "unbelievers" here in the United States, for example.

[handmade34]

2. harm.

great harm.

[Act_of_Reparation]

3. Why are we even having this discussion?

I mean, is there a shred of doubt?

[Thomas Hurt]

4. The arrogance, the hubris, the presumption is amazing isn't it.

[Major Nikon]

5. The case of Chau is an excellent example of boundless stupidity of missionary work

...and not because of the monumental stupidity of getting himself killed. Such isolated tribes are incredibly robust for having survived in isolation so long, but are still incredibly fragile to exposure to the outside world.

Even if Chau's monumentally stupid stunt hadn't resulted in his proof of Darwinism, it still would have been devastating to the tribe just like it was to native people all over the world.

Keep your white man's burden to yourself. It's never a good idea and it always causes harm.

[RockRaven]

6. Harm.

Everything related to their attempts to convert people to Christianity is an unmitigated harm. Duping desperate (or merely curious but ignorant) people into believing a load of bunk is clearly a waste of their time and energy. Encouraging them to give money to those who already have more than they do is abominable. Training people not to think critically/rationally has a range of collateral damage associated with it.

There's no charity work which missionaries sometimes do as a way of insinuating themselves into a community which could not be done by a secular charity. So even when they do good things, it comes unnecessarily attached to a big streaming pile of nonsense.

And then we have disease, disruption of family and community structures, loss of languages and cultures, etc.

[pandr32]

7. Harm. Missionaries have a sense of religious entitlement from the get-go

They have already dismissed the importance of the identity and the culture of the targeted group and have hoisted themselves into undeserved righteousness.
It is so sad that this continues after all the lessons history has for us to learn from.

[MineralMan]

8. What they bring is change. Whether that is beneficial or harmful

depends on whether change is desired or needed. In most cases, the existing culture and religion were doing OK. The missionaries and their hangers-on bring trinkets, new diseases, and an alien religion with them. All too often, the disruption caused by those new things ends up destroying the existing culture over time.

In sum, typically it is a negative exchange. When the Spanish Catholics came to the Americas, it only took a couple hundred years for the existing cultures to be completely wiped out. They brought soldiers with them, enslaved the indigenous peoples, converted them to Christianity by force, changed their diets, their way of life, gave them European diseases, and then discarded those peoples.

The same things happened almost everywhere Christianity came through missionaries. The missionaries were the first intruders, but were followed by the exploiters, who quickly forced the indigenous people to give them whatever natural resources they had. Slavery, murder, genocide, and displacement were the rewards for those people.

So, I can't see any benefit to missionaries, really. Their promises were false, but their exploitation of indigenous peoples were very effective, typically wiping out entire cultures and so allowing their fellow countrymen to come in and steal their lands.

Ugly crap all around.

[Major Nikon]

10. ...

[MineralMan]

11. Exactly. They promise to save your soul.

Then they kill you.

[3catwoman3]

9. Proselytizing is presumptuous and arrogant.

When it comes to spiritual matters, a MYOB approach is the way to go, IMO.

In other words, butt out!

[guillaumeb]

12. Can they not do both?

The answer is yes.

[MineralMan]

13. Please provide examples of good results.

Thank you.

[guillaumeb]

14. You are welcome...

to read a bit of history.

[MineralMan]

15. I see. I did provide examples from history.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1218&pid=298624

Let's see yours. Show me examples where missionary efforts benefited those who received the proselytizing over the long run.

I'll wait here.

[Major Nikon]

16. You mean like the history of the US?

How about Central and South America?

Canada?

Africa?

Australia?

Every indigenously inhabited island in the Pacific?

Virtually the entire Far East?

Ever read any of that history and how well it turned out for indigenous populations? I get you think their immortal souls are better off, but do you really think that's fair compensation for genocide? Because it's sounds like that's what you are suggesting.

[MineralMan]

19. Perhaps Guy is not familiar with history.

[Act_of_Reparation]

17. As are you.

[MineralMan]

18. Too much bother, I expect.

Besides, finding a positive example of missionaries is going to be a tough search. Finding negative examples is a breeze, of course. Odd, that.

[Act_of_Reparation]

20. Shouldn't be too difficult.

I mean, missionaries teach people to read. That's cool. So the recently converted can enjoy a good book while they're dying of the fucking flu.