I thought that that idea of missionaries as shock-troops of colonialism or imperialism, is a fairly standard one. I suppose it is left-wing.
I don't know that it's left-wing or anything else. It's a pretty standard narrative (says she who has been dealing with the fall-out from it for lo, these thirty years). But an unbiased look at history (ha. As if we're going to get that) would suggest that the anti-missionary thing is horrifically simple-minded. Ask yourself, if you know world history: Would the world truly have been a better place if Christianity had never spread past Jerusalem? Because that's what the anti-missionary bias leads to, logically. All that social reform and art and medicine and hospitals and schools and higher education and music and care for the poor and support to democracy, disappeared. Never existing. For that matter, a helluva lot of history going unrecorded--and the folklore and culture that Colin Smith treasures. Who did the recording, do you think? For that matter, who reduced the local language to a written form capable of recording stuff--and incidentally, aiding the economic and etc. wellbeing of the people using said writing? And then taught the ability to read and write?
In a huge number of cases, the answer is "missionaries."
How quaint that you find other people living in terror to be colorful, and to be disappointed when they are freed from it. For values of quaint equaling sick.
That occurred to me, too. But then if one finds oneself supremely important, and value is only found in the aesthetic, then...
(Coincidentally, the man who now owns the house my Mum grew up in turns out to be an archaeologist, and has done a bit of a study to show that bits of the place were medieval. There are all sorts of witch-proof marks on some of the roof timbers, dating from a rebuild in the 16th c. The people who put that together must have been permanently shitting themselves. And in case anyone thinks I am hiding a hereditary peerage, this was a tied estate house in which most of the tenants lived, in today's terms, in poverty).
And the more I observe, the more I try to discern, the more I doubt that God exists. How to choose between our contradictory experiences?
You don't have his experience, and he doesn't have yours. You can only make choices based on your own experience. Granted, when you read what someone else tells you about their experience, your reading is part of your experience. But what they experienced is not. At which point you have to decide how much credence to give their experience. And that decision will, again, be part of your experience.
It's much easier than it sounds because we all do it all the time very day. But my point is you never make any decisions based on someone else's experience, only based on your own.
It depends how the missionaries were doing it. In western Canada, they made deals with the Canadian gov't to replace their languages with English, suppress their culture, to forceably seize their children and place them in Indian Residential Schools, and later, to seize children and give them to white families for adoption. The latter is called "The 60's Scoop" because most of the adoptions occurred in that decade.
What'd be interesting to know is how many missions and how many missionaries went to listen and learn and did not boldly think they had all the answers. I think the count is low, if there is a count. Because Christians then and now did and do not have all the answers. Christianity which demands that other traditions abandon their cultures and the religious beliefs and replace them with Christianity is destructive and wrong. And has caused huge amounts of suffering.
And the more I observe, the more I try to discern, the more I doubt that God exists. How to choose between our contradictory experiences?
I guess this is one of the morsels of faith which continue to feed atheists, @KarlLB, as no two religious people can describe the same experiences, and as God is greater than anyone can imagine or see fully, the snatches we are occasionally given are all too brief, or seemingly non-existent.
As we don't hear or see or touch God with our physical senses, or think God into existence in our heads, spiritual matters can't be discerned in the same way as other matters.
The 'heart' in us resounds with the truth, and dulls without it.
Can you explain what you meant by the bit I've put in bold.
Personally, I'm not an atheist because I have considered the Christian faith and rejected it. I'm an atheist because atheism is what I hold to be true.
Are you a Christian because you considered and rejected Buddhism?
Your last question (clumsy imo) indicates that you are not interested in finding out the answers to your questions, otherwise you would have listened to what I said in my previous post.
I suspect that you are interested only in arguing against whatever is said.
Ask yourself, if you know world history: Would the world truly have been a better place if Christianity had never spread past Jerusalem? Because that's what the anti-missionary bias leads to, logically. All that social reform and art and medicine and hospitals and schools and higher education and music and care for the poor and support to democracy, disappeared. Never existing.
That's presuming a lot. For example, non-Christians have been known to make art, some of it so good that it's a source of international disputes millennia after its creation. I'm not convinced that Michaelangelo wouldn't have been just as happy sculpting Bacchus as he was surprisingly uncircumcised David. Absent Christianity people would likely have made other, different artistic works rather than abandoning the whole notion of art entirely.
Plus I'll note that missionary support for democracy (neither a Christian invention nor something traditionally promoted by Christianity) has been a lot less enthusiastic than their support of colonialism and imperialism. It may not be entirely coincidental that colonialism and imperialism allow missionaries access to their intended proselytes. It's always reassuring to know you've got the support of the guys with the guns, and even more so if your audience knows it too.
For that matter, a helluva lot of history going unrecorded--and the folklore and culture that Colin Smith treasures. Who did the recording, do you think? For that matter, who reduced the local language to a written form capable of recording stuff--and incidentally, aiding the economic and etc. wellbeing of the people using said writing? And then taught the ability to read and write?
In a huge number of cases, the answer is "missionaries."
Given the amount of syncretism involved in such efforts, "recording" may be a stronger term than is deserved. And you have to balance that against cases where missionaries deliberately suppressed written or spoken languages.
[A]s part of his campaign to eradicate pagan rites, Bishop Diego de Landa ordered the collection and destruction of written Maya works, and a sizable number of Maya codices were destroyed.
The Maya script has only recently (late 20th century) become accessible to scholars again, and only partially so.
In Korea, Christians, most of them probably converted by missionaries, played a pivotal role in the resistance to Japanese colonialism. This was at least partly a result of their refusal to participate in state-sponsored worship at Shinto shrines.
And I distinguish between the indiginous Christians and the foreign missionaries, because many of the latter were much less supportive of the resistance than their converts were, as the missionaries, many of them American, were still beholden to their home government's endorsement of Japanese rule.
Christians, at least the protestant variety, did make numerous modifications to traditional religious practice, most notably abolishing the worship of ancestors, and restricting the ceremonial bow to living elders. I'd imagine this caused a lot of consternation back in the day, but nowadays most families just do whatever they want.
I do know one woman who just recently moved out of her parents' home because she is a Christian, but her parents were engaged in indiginous practices.
In Korea, Christians, most of them probably converted by missionaries, played a pivotal role in the resistance to Japanese colonialism.
Korean Christians are fairly proud of the fact that Christianity was brought to Korea not by foreign missionaries but by Koreans who converted to the faith. A diplomatic mission to Beijing encountered some Jesuits and brought the faith (but not the Jesuits) back with them in the early seventeenth century.
Ask yourself, if you know world history: Would the world truly have been a better place if Christianity had never spread past Jerusalem? Because that's what the anti-missionary bias leads to, logically. All that social reform and art and medicine and hospitals and schools and higher education and music and care for the poor and support to democracy, disappeared. Never existing.
That's presuming a lot. For example, non-Christians have been known to make art, some of it so good that it's a source of international disputes millennia after its creation. I'm not convinced that Michaelangelo wouldn't have been just as happy sculpting Bacchus as he was surprisingly uncircumcised David. Absent Christianity people would likely have made other, different artistic works rather than abandoning the whole notion of art entirely.
Western sculpture, such as Michaelangelo, owes its style to the Greeks and they to the Egyptians. Two layers of heathens deep!
Not to mention rating Christian era artwork higher is in large part a bias towards western art and neglects the fact that the Christian era coincides with modernisation.
In Korea, Christians, most of them probably converted by missionaries, played a pivotal role in the resistance to Japanese colonialism.
Korean Christians are fairly proud of the fact that Christianity was brought to Korea not by foreign missionaries but by Koreans who converted to the faith. A diplomatic mission to Beijing encountered some Jesuits and brought the faith (but not the Jesuits) back with them in the early seventeenth century.
Well, when I was discussing Christians, I basically meant protestants, who are the majority of Xtians. And yes, there was considerable protestant missionary activity in the early days of the C20. To this day, protestant-run schools are called "mission schools". (Catholic schools are called "Salesio", after the order.)
And for the record, when Koreans say "Christian", they typically mean protestant. When I used to have to fill out immigration forms listing my religion, "Catholic" was a separate category from "Christian".
In my expetience, Korean Catholics are more laidback about tolerating traditional customs in their family ceremonies.
I thought that that idea of missionaries as shock-troops of colonialism or imperialism, is a fairly standard one. I suppose it is left-wing.
It is because it is true.
How helpful. Another blanket statement.
Dude. History.
Besides, Crœsos gave a good start, I added one thing to his repsonse, but we could certainly add more historical evidence of Christian malfeasance missionary if you want.
When I was doing my masters in counseling, my advisor was and Adlerian and an atheist. But nearly all the religious students, though, had him as their advisor. In many ways, I think we liked him because, well, he was the most theological. He used to say we all had to find our own private logic in order to make sense of the chaotic world. Believing in God is my private logic, I admit.
While there were indeed errors of missionaries in the past, I have to say that, at least for my denomination, we are not going out to convert the masses now as much as we are there to help indigenous Synods in their own ministries. I have gotten to know one of the bishops from Tanzania in the past year--I was his driver when he visited my synod. My synod has provided financial support for the building of an all-girls school in his synod. He has given me a standing invitation to visit his synod anytime. I had hoped to do this in the summer; but, given what is happening now with the pandemic, I will have to defer the visit to a later time.
When I was doing my masters in counseling, my advisor was and Adlerian and an atheist. But nearly all the religious students, though, had him as their advisor. In many ways, I think we liked him because, well, he was the most theological. He used to say we all had to find our own private logic in order to make sense of the chaotic world. Believing in God is my private logic, I admit.
Your adviser sounds like a (William) Jamesian, philosophically speaking, whether he knew it or not.
(And possibly he did know it, because James was a big deal in psychology as well.)
It depends how the missionaries were doing it. In western Canada, they made deals with the Canadian gov't to replace their languages with English, suppress their culture, to forceably seize their children and place them in Indian Residential Schools, and later, to seize children and give them to white families for adoption. The latter is called "The 60's Scoop" because most of the adoptions occurred in that decade.
What'd be interesting to know is how many missions and how many missionaries went to listen and learn and did not boldly think they had all the answers. I think the count is low, if there is a count. Because Christians then and now did and do not have all the answers. Christianity which demands that other traditions abandon their cultures and the religious beliefs and replace them with Christianity is destructive and wrong. And has caused huge amounts of suffering.
Well said, and I certainly agree. This is of course with hindsight, but since that assessment has been available for a long time now, it should be clear that to try and convert other people to a particular religion, particularly when the missionary cannot produce one item of independent evidence to support it, is, I think, unjustified and wrong, and that's not just in my personal opinion, but the opinion of many..
I add a comment here to LC: Can you give me one good reason why conversion to a belief in Christianity is better than showing them how humans have evolved and giving them access to up-to-date science, which does not need the unnecessary diversion of a total faith belief ?
[I add a comment here to LC: Can you give me one good reason why conversion to a belief in Christianity is better than showing them how humans have evolved and giving them access to up-to-date science, which does not need the unnecessary diversion of a total faith belief ?
With all respect, SusanDoris, that’s like asking why it’s better to like apples than oranges. You continue with the tiresome and wrong assumption that science and religion, whether Christianity or some other religion, are alternatives to each other. They are not, as missionaries (or mission co-workers, as we now tend to call them in my church) and other religious people I know who are scientists can attest.
Religion and science are sort of alternatives to each other.
Yes, it is perfectly possible to be both devoutly religious and accept science. But it is not a coincidence that growth in Christianity is in the Evangelical end and eroding in the more mainstream as science progresses.
For the bulk of human development, religion and science were not separable things because life was not separated. Religion was part of the exploration of how we came to be because it was part of everything.
Science answers the questions for many people without need of spiritual. Religion no longer needs to be part of everything and religion often butts up directly against progress in social acceptance. Not that these things need to conflict, but that takes more effort and there is a lot of baggage to be left on the platform for that train to keep moving.
None of this means that religion needs to be in opposition to science, however it is not outrageous to see them as such.
[I add a comment here to LC: Can you give me one good reason why conversion to a belief in Christianity is better than showing them how humans have evolved and giving them access to up-to-date science, which does not need the unnecessary diversion of a total faith belief ?
With all respect, SusanDoris, that’s like asking why it’s better to like apples than oranges. You continue with the tiresome and wrong assumption that science and religion, whether Christianity or some other religion, are alternatives to each other.
I most certainly do not see them as alternatives, but in view of the worrying time we are all experiencing, I will not follow that up here.
They are not, as missionaries (or mission co-workers, as we now tend to call them in my church) and other religious people I know who are scientists can attest.
A question - again for another occasion - is how do they justify that.
@SusanDoris, you say you do not see religion and science as alternatives, but then you turn around and ask how missionaries and other religious people who are also scientists “justify that.”
The reality, I’m afraid, is that you have a long history of posts that that contradict your assertion that you don’t see science and religion as alternatives.
Hence my previous question as to why atheists are bothering to 'engage' in these discussions...not that they don't have a perfect right to do so, if they wish.
I now scroll past certain posters' posts. Doubtless they scroll past mine, but hey...
@SusanDoris, you say you do not see religion and science as alternatives, but then you turn around and ask how missionaries and other religious people who are also scientists “justify that.”
The reality, I’m afraid, is that you have a long history of posts that that contradict your assertion that you don’t see science and religion as alternatives.
Well, obviously I cannot stop you thinking that, but I see them both as parts of life and very interesting subjects to think and talk about. Of course, many people can be both believers and scientists, they do not have to be one or the other. I am not one or the other, I am simply a human being interested inhow people think and why, and always on the look-out for new points on varying aspects of both subjects. To think of them as alternatives would be to automatically divide everyone into either one or the other. If I did that, I could justifiably be called as having a closed mindand if that were the case, I'd be long gone from here!
Hence my previous question as to why atheists are bothering to 'engage' in these discussions...not that they don't have a perfect right to do so, if they wish.
In part because questions like "Is this disease a divine punishment or a viral infection?" can have a lot of implications for how such situations are approached. Those of us who remember Ye Olden Days (a.k.a. the 1980s) recall a lot of folks saying that AIDS was God's wrath righteously smiting the heathen Sodomites. Because of the influence of such voices AIDS research was considered politically controversial (and possibly blasphemous), as were any measures taken to mitigate the damage.
YOu know, folks, I'm not going to try to change your minds about missionaries. Consider us all agents of the devil, those who want to. I'm too tired and frankly not feeling that well. So from here on out, I'm responding only to little things that interest me.
I add a comment here to LC: Can you give me one good reason why conversion to a belief in Christianity is better than showing them how humans have evolved and giving them access to up-to-date science, which does not need the unnecessary diversion of a total faith belief ?
Think for a moment, please. How precisely are you going to graft the fruit of 2000+ years of learning, knowledge, hard work, and the like on to a culture which doesn't yet have the foundation for it--which has no footings poured, which cannot sustain that towering edifice?
Take a culture where every death is assumed to be the result of malicious witchcraft (yes, they do exist, and are endless misery for the people wrongly accused). How will you explain the coronavirus to them--an object they can neither see nor touch? And don't say "a microscope"--why would they regard that as anything but a magical instrument? One which perhaps shows YOU to be the real sorcerer, and possibly the source of the outbreak. Witchcraft they understand, or think they do. Some of them actually practice it, though in secret. But none of them has ever seen a virus, and you will appear to be telling them tales for children if you talk about it.
That's just one small example of what you propose to do. And it isn't unintelligence that causes people to resist new ideas. Poor Semmelweiss had a hell of a time convincing doctors to wash their hands between patients, because they didn't see the point and wouldn't accept germ theory.
Now as to your idea that I am proposing conversion to a belief in Christianity AS OPPOSED to scientific access--you're doing apples and oranges here. Normal missionaries teach. They set up hospitals. They lead efforts to block in water sources so that Guinea Worm disease gets no chance to spread by people wading. It's a rare missionary in my experience who does NOT try to share everything good they can with the people they are trying to reach.
What human being with a heart could walk past obvious need and ignore it, all the while being possessed of skills, understanding, information, and resources that could fix it? Or at least ameliorate it. Most people -- all of them, that I have ever met--go into missions because they want to help. They come from the same personality types as doctors and nurses. In fact, many of them ARE doctors and nurses.
Because really, if you aren't motivated by love and concern, there isn't much in the mission field to make it worth your while living there. Low pay, uncomfortable living conditions, constant concern. Ridiculous situations, like becoming the go-to person for women in labor, because their husbands can't get time off work and so you end up taking them in to have their babies--and being mistaken for the father. Frustrating situations, because you WILL become everybody's first choice for a servant and slave, and will spend ages trying to set appropriate boundaries with people who think love is the same thing as doing whatever they tell you, whenever they tell you. Grievous situations, like comforting a ten-year-old rape survivor on the scene of her mother's attempted suicide. Dangerous situations, like yesterday when Mr. Lamb had to sit in a hospital emergency room for hours with a woman who had no transport or English--and of course there are COVID patients all around him. Did I mention that he is an unpaid missionary and has been so for 13 years? And the salary wasn't any great shakes before then.
And Mr. Lamb is just one of literally dozens of missionaries I know, all of whom encounter the same issues and serve with the same heart. I have never yet met a missionary who was otherwise, though I accept that some must exist, or we'd not hear so much about them! But not in my experience.
You need to revise your ideas of what missionaries are and do.
I know they're now a long way back now, but @Lamb Chopped thank you for both your posts, the long one and the short one too.
And @quetzalcoatl I think the reason why people aren't frightened any more of leprechauns or dryads, why they're just quaint, is because nobody really believes they exist. Following on from that @Colin Smith, have you wondered how you can be angry with someone that you don't believe might exist?
Thank you!
About leprechauns etc.--
I've lived for 30 some years among people who do in fact have a living believe in spirits etc. and the overwhelming emotion they raise is fear. People do shit like shaving off their hair (of 30 years' growth) because they want to be so ugly the evil spirits of sickness won't recognize them and come back. They name their children words like "Trash" and "Unwanted" so the evil spirits don't recognize their value and kill them off. They dress boys as girls (sorry, folks) because in their culture the boys are considered of higher value, and evil spirits etc. etc. etc. People propitiate their ancestors (in my experience) because they might do something bad to them, even though in life the person was a sweetheart and would never dream of it.
Give me the Christian God any time, over this dreadful slavery. (It's been interesting helping new believers adjust to living in freedom.)
Fascinating @Lamb Chopped, the Hmong, if I may ask? I'm reading Congo Journey by Redmond O'Hanlon. It's the same. The same as Hesiod nearly 3000 years ago who got it from another 1000 year Babylonian source. Although they are one step 'up' from animism with their theogonic pantheons, whilst keeping the animism.
YOu know, folks, I'm not going to try to change your minds about missionaries. Consider us all agents of the devil, those who want to. I'm too tired and frankly not feeling that well. So from here on out, I'm responding only to little things that interest me.
I add a comment here to LC: Can you give me one good reason why conversion to a belief in Christianity is better than showing them how humans have evolved and giving them access to up-to-date science, which does not need the unnecessary diversion of a total faith belief ?
Think for a moment, please. How precisely are you going to graft the fruit of 2000+ years of learning, knowledge, hard work, and the like on to a culture which doesn't yet have the foundation for it--which has no footings poured, which cannot sustain that towering edifice?
Take a culture where every death is assumed to be the result of malicious witchcraft (yes, they do exist, and are endless misery for the people wrongly accused). How will you explain the coronavirus to them--an object they can neither see nor touch? And don't say "a microscope"--why would they regard that as anything but a magical instrument? One which perhaps shows YOU to be the real sorcerer, and possibly the source of the outbreak. Witchcraft they understand, or think they do. Some of them actually practice it, though in secret. But none of them has ever seen a virus, and you will appear to be telling them tales for children if you talk about it.
That's just one small example of what you propose to do. And it isn't unintelligence that causes people to resist new ideas. Poor Semmelweiss had a hell of a time convincing doctors to wash their hands between patients, because they didn't see the point and wouldn't accept germ theory.
Now as to your idea that I am proposing conversion to a belief in Christianity AS OPPOSED to scientific access--you're doing apples and oranges here. Normal missionaries teach. They set up hospitals. They lead efforts to block in water sources so that Guinea Worm disease gets no chance to spread by people wading. It's a rare missionary in my experience who does NOT try to share everything good they can with the people they are trying to reach.
What human being with a heart could walk past obvious need and ignore it, all the while being possessed of skills, understanding, information, and resources that could fix it? Or at least ameliorate it. Most people -- all of them, that I have ever met--go into missions because they want to help. They come from the same personality types as doctors and nurses. In fact, many of them ARE doctors and nurses.
Because really, if you aren't motivated by love and concern, there isn't much in the mission field to make it worth your while living there. Low pay, uncomfortable living conditions, constant concern. Ridiculous situations, like becoming the go-to person for women in labor, because their husbands can't get time off work and so you end up taking them in to have their babies--and being mistaken for the father. Frustrating situations, because you WILL become everybody's first choice for a servant and slave, and will spend ages trying to set appropriate boundaries with people who think love is the same thing as doing whatever they tell you, whenever they tell you. Grievous situations, like comforting a ten-year-old rape survivor on the scene of her mother's attempted suicide. Dangerous situations, like yesterday when Mr. Lamb had to sit in a hospital emergency room for hours with a woman who had no transport or English--and of course there are COVID patients all around him. Did I mention that he is an unpaid missionary and has been so for 13 years? And the salary wasn't any great shakes before then.
And Mr. Lamb is just one of literally dozens of missionaries I know, all of whom encounter the same issues and serve with the same heart. I have never yet met a missionary who was otherwise, though I accept that some must exist, or we'd not hear so much about them! But not in my experience.
You need to revise your ideas of what missionaries are and do.
God bless all those who serve others with sacrificial love.
YOu know, folks, I'm not going to try to change your minds about missionaries. Consider us all agents of the devil, those who want to. I'm too tired and frankly not feeling that well. So from here on out, I'm responding only to little things that interest me.
I add a comment here to LC: Can you give me one good reason why conversion to a belief in Christianity is better than showing them how humans have evolved and giving them access to up-to-date science, which does not need the unnecessary diversion of a total faith belief ?
Think for a moment, please. How precisely are you going to graft the fruit of 2000+ years of learning, knowledge, hard work, and the like on to a culture which doesn't yet have the foundation for it--which has no footings poured, which cannot sustain that towering edifice?
Take a culture where every death is assumed to be the result of malicious witchcraft (yes, they do exist, and are endless misery for the people wrongly accused). How will you explain the coronavirus to them--an object they can neither see nor touch? And don't say "a microscope"--why would they regard that as anything but a magical instrument? One which perhaps shows YOU to be the real sorcerer, and possibly the source of the outbreak. Witchcraft they understand, or think they do. Some of them actually practice it, though in secret. But none of them has ever seen a virus, and you will appear to be telling them tales for children if you talk about it.
That's just one small example of what you propose to do. And it isn't unintelligence that causes people to resist new ideas. Poor Semmelweiss had a hell of a time convincing doctors to wash their hands between patients, because they didn't see the point and wouldn't accept germ theory.
Now as to your idea that I am proposing conversion to a belief in Christianity AS OPPOSED to scientific access--you're doing apples and oranges here. Normal missionaries teach. They set up hospitals. They lead efforts to block in water sources so that Guinea Worm disease gets no chance to spread by people wading. It's a rare missionary in my experience who does NOT try to share everything good they can with the people they are trying to reach.
What human being with a heart could walk past obvious need and ignore it, all the while being possessed of skills, understanding, information, and resources that could fix it? Or at least ameliorate it. Most people -- all of them, that I have ever met--go into missions because they want to help. They come from the same personality types as doctors and nurses. In fact, many of them ARE doctors and nurses.
Because really, if you aren't motivated by love and concern, there isn't much in the mission field to make it worth your while living there. Low pay, uncomfortable living conditions, constant concern. Ridiculous situations, like becoming the go-to person for women in labor, because their husbands can't get time off work and so you end up taking them in to have their babies--and being mistaken for the father. Frustrating situations, because you WILL become everybody's first choice for a servant and slave, and will spend ages trying to set appropriate boundaries with people who think love is the same thing as doing whatever they tell you, whenever they tell you. Grievous situations, like comforting a ten-year-old rape survivor on the scene of her mother's attempted suicide. Dangerous situations, like yesterday when Mr. Lamb had to sit in a hospital emergency room for hours with a woman who had no transport or English--and of course there are COVID patients all around him. Did I mention that he is an unpaid missionary and has been so for 13 years? And the salary wasn't any great shakes before then.
And Mr. Lamb is just one of literally dozens of missionaries I know, all of whom encounter the same issues and serve with the same heart. I have never yet met a missionary who was otherwise, though I accept that some must exist, or we'd not hear so much about them! But not in my experience.
You need to revise your ideas of what missionaries are and do.
God bless all those who serve others with sacrificial love.
I am slightly puzzled. I have written and, I thought, posted a long response to LC's post. Anybody know why it has not appeared?
@SusanDoris - check your Drafts box, in case it (or part of it) is there.
thank you - it is not there, but I typed it on a doc and saved it.
Before I re-post it, I hope one of the Hosts will post to say whether they have delayed it for some reason.
I did not, as far as I know, breach any guidelines; LC's post was such an interesting one, that's the last thing I'd want to do.
I know they're now a long way back now, but @Lamb Chopped thank you for both your posts, the long one and the short one too.
And @quetzalcoatl I think the reason why people aren't frightened any more of leprechauns or dryads, why they're just quaint, is because nobody really believes they exist. Following on from that @Colin Smith, have you wondered how you can be angry with someone that you don't believe might exist?
Thank you!
About leprechauns etc.--
I've lived for 30 some years among people who do in fact have a living believe in spirits etc. and the overwhelming emotion they raise is fear. People do shit like shaving off their hair (of 30 years' growth) because they want to be so ugly the evil spirits of sickness won't recognize them and come back. They name their children words like "Trash" and "Unwanted" so the evil spirits don't recognize their value and kill them off. They dress boys as girls (sorry, folks) because in their culture the boys are considered of higher value, and evil spirits etc. etc. etc. People propitiate their ancestors (in my experience) because they might do something bad to them, even though in life the person was a sweetheart and would never dream of it.
Give me the Christian God any time, over this dreadful slavery. (It's been interesting helping new believers adjust to living in freedom.)
Fascinating @Lamb Chopped, the Hmong, if I may ask? I'm reading Congo Journey by Redmond O'Hanlon. It's the same. The same as Hesiod nearly 3000 years ago who got it from another 1000 year Babylonian source. Although they are one step 'up' from animism with their theogonic pantheons, whilst keeping the animism.
I know they're now a long way back now, but @Lamb Chopped thank you for both your posts, the long one and the short one too.
And @quetzalcoatl I think the reason why people aren't frightened any more of leprechauns or dryads, why they're just quaint, is because nobody really believes they exist. Following on from that @Colin Smith, have you wondered how you can be angry with someone that you don't believe might exist?
Thank you!
About leprechauns etc.--
I've lived for 30 some years among people who do in fact have a living believe in spirits etc. and the overwhelming emotion they raise is fear. People do shit like shaving off their hair (of 30 years' growth) because they want to be so ugly the evil spirits of sickness won't recognize them and come back. They name their children words like "Trash" and "Unwanted" so the evil spirits don't recognize their value and kill them off. They dress boys as girls (sorry, folks) because in their culture the boys are considered of higher value, and evil spirits etc. etc. etc. People propitiate their ancestors (in my experience) because they might do something bad to them, even though in life the person was a sweetheart and would never dream of it.
Give me the Christian God any time, over this dreadful slavery. (It's been interesting helping new believers adjust to living in freedom.)
Fascinating @Lamb Chopped, the Hmong, if I may ask? I'm reading Congo Journey by Redmond O'Hanlon. It's the same. The same as Hesiod nearly 3000 years ago who got it from another 1000 year Babylonian source. Although they are one step 'up' from animism with their theogonic pantheons, whilst keeping the animism.
The Vietnamese--Kinh ethnic group, actually. But this kind of thing is probably pretty common across cultures.
Edited to reduce length. This means I have snipped many of your words for which I am sorry, but wonder whether the length prevented my posting it earlier.
LC, I know you and I will probably never agree on the benefits etc or disadvantages of a faith belief, but I always admire the strength and passion of the way you express your views, so I hope you will accept my strong views as expressed below in the spirit of discussion. It is rather long, but thank you for the opportunity to write it.
Think for a moment, please. How precisely are you going to graft the fruit of 2000+ years of learning, knowledge, hard work, and the like on to a culture which doesn't yet have the foundation for it--which has no footings poured, which cannot sustain that towering edifice?
Yes, that point is certainly one that needs a deal of thinking! If modern missionaries hear and know about such peoples, then their first action surely would be to ensure that there are aspects of the government of the country in which they live which should and must protect them from invasion of any sort – physical attack, brutality, and oppression. No missionary of any religious faith has the right to try in any way to replace one faith belief with another.
Remote groups are, as far as I know, small an do not have or want or need to try and convince others outside of their area to convert to their beliefs. And of course, the idea that anyone should try to teach them about 2,000 years of one particular aspect of history etc in order to lay a foundation for their faith belief makes no sense as far as I can see. However, the more they can learn about their own physical make-up the better, and where to start? Well, I do not know except to say that from the starting point of, or via, a faith belief is not it.
Take a culture where every death is assumed to be the result of malicious witchcraft (yes, they do exist, and are endless misery for the people wrongly accused). How will you explain the coronavirus to them--an object they can neither see nor touch? And don't say "a microscope"--why would they regard that as anything but a magical instrument? One which perhaps shows YOU to be the real sorcerer, and possibly the source of the outbreak.
In the book I finished recently, ‘The Serengeti Rules’ by Sean Carroll, he details the story of the eradication of smallpox. The prime mover was a Methodist missionary/doctor, whose medical and organisational skills –. not his Religious beliefs, were used to devise courses of action which some or many of the locals opposed but which were clearly and evidently beneficial in the results. The long-term enterprise was backed by the WHO and it worked. Polio could also have been eradicated if it had not been for a few pockets of stupidity. Whether these involved a religious aspect, I do not know, but in any case such individuals are beyond reason.
I think that no-one should ever try to change anyone’s faith belief to another faith belief, but demonstrate, little by little, the advantages of education, i.e. the three Rs, of being able to hear, via radio (and there was, many years ago, that story about the clockwork radio which was invented and distributed free). Of course missionaries do that basic education, but why ally it to a faith belief?
Witchcraft they understand, or think they do. Some of them actually practice it, though in secret. But none of them has ever seen a virus, and you will appear to be telling them tales for children if you talk about it.
That's just one small example of what you propose to do. And it isn't unintelligence that causes people to resist new ideas.
I think my last comment covers this.
Poor Semmelweiss had a hell of a time convincing doctors to wash their hands between patients, because they didn't see the point and wouldn't accept germ theory.
Again, it was by practical evidence and results that this practice too was eradicated.
Now as to your idea that I am proposing conversion to a belief in Christianity AS OPPOSED to scientific access--you're doing apples and oranges here.
I posted something yesterday about the fact that I do not consider them as direct alternatives.
Normal missionaries teach. They set up hospitals. They lead efforts to block in water sources so that Guinea Worm disease gets no chance to spread by people wading. It's a rare missionary in my experience who does NOT try to share everything good they can with the people they are trying to reach.
But they are also adding in a faith belief for which they can provide no direct results, let alone objective evidence for. Do you think that a non-believer would not do all those good things to benefit the people they are with? Would you claim that it is only with a faith belief that people’s lives can be improved? And, no, I do not think you would claim that, but I pose the question in the context of this exchange.
What human being with a heart could walk past obvious need and ignore it, all the while being possessed of skills, understanding, information, and resources that could fix it? Or at least ameliorate it. Most people -- all of them, that I have ever met--go into missions because they want to help. They come from the same personality types as doctors and nurses. In fact, many of them ARE doctors and nurses.
Yes, that is a fact, but there needs to be back-up. Yes, of course I accept absolutely what you say, that they are doing the best they can, with the genuine desire to help people which deserves admiration and respect, but there are those who do likewise who do not need to add in the faithbelief. Yes, it is vital for as many people as possible to learn about and understand as best they can, the history of our human species.
Because really, if you aren't motivated by love and concern, there isn't much in the mission field to make it worth your while living there
<snip>
Did I mention that he is an unpaid missionary and has been so for 13 years? And the salary wasn't any great shakes before then.And Mr. Lamb is just one of literally dozens of missionaries I know, all of whom encounter the same issues and serve with the same heart. I have never yet met a missionary who was otherwise, though I accept that some must exist, or we'd not hear so much about them! But not in my experience.
Do you think, and if so, why, it is necessary to have a faith belief, specifically a Christian faith belief, to do any of those things?
You need to revise your ideas of what missionaries are and do.
No, I am well aware of what they do I think and respect is due for all those things they do which improve the daily and long-term life of the people they are helping, but inprinciple I cannot accept the idea that a faith belief is best for anyone, or actually needed. It is understanding of history and how people came about and think and live that is necessary.
And at the end of all that, I will also state firmly that, if there really has to be a religious belief and that seems to be an aspect of human need, then I’ll back Protestant Christianity over most others I think, and I do not say that flippantly, but as a result of having thought about it a lot over the years.
Think for a moment, please. How precisely are you going to graft the fruit of 2000+ years of learning, knowledge, hard work, and the like on to a culture which doesn't yet have the foundation for it--which has no footings poured, which cannot sustain that towering edifice?
I'm not a big fan of the idea that Western culture, or any of its aspects, is such a "towering edifice" that it's incomprehensible to any of the benighted savages outside its reach and the only way any of it will make sense is to adopt all of it while simultaneously abandoning any other cultural referrents. I'm put in mind of Saul Bellow's question:
Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulu?
To which Ralph Wiley responded:
Tolstoy is the Tolstoy of the Zulus. Unless you find a profit in fencing off universal properties of mankind into exclusive tribal ownership
Think for a moment, please. How precisely are you going to graft the fruit of 2000+ years of learning, knowledge, hard work, and the like on to a culture which doesn't yet have the foundation for it--which has no footings poured, which cannot sustain that towering edifice?
I'm not a big fan of the idea that Western culture, or any of its aspects, is such a "towering edifice" that it's incomprehensible to any of the benighted savages outside its reach and the only way any of it will make sense is to adopt all of it while simultaneously abandoning any other cultural referrents. I'm put in mind of Saul Bellow's question:
Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulu?
To which Ralph Wiley responded:
Tolstoy is the Tolstoy of the Zulus. Unless you find a profit in fencing off universal properties of mankind into exclusive tribal ownership
Croesos, you've misunderstood me. I was referring (as you'll see from the example of coronavirus) to the whole scientific edifice of knowledge which SusanDoris thinks would be good to hand over sans any faith component to every culture, and I was explaining (via medicine) why that is not as easy as it sounds.
And the "towering edifice-ory" of science is a reference not to its magnificence or glory, but rather to the fact that it is built in layers of understanding and presuppositions. Current precautions against coronavirus involve washing hands, which presuppose both an understanding of what a virus is (tiny invisible beastie which makes you sick) and how it transfers from person to person. The concept of "virus" involves a pre-existing understanding that people can and do get sick from what we may call "natural causes," quite apart from intentional human malice (which, in the culture discussed, was believed to be the sole reason for illness and death). My point, then, was that you can rarely just graft the top layers of scientific understanding onto a culture in which the groundwork does not exist. I won't say "never." You could, for example, attempt to persuade the culture-under-discussion that washing one's hands provided magical protection against witchcraft. The action would still work, though the grounds upon which it was undertaken would be little more than a lie. But these are some of the considerations that run through a teacher/parent/missionary's mind when attempting to pass on information that cannot, in the current state of play, be fully understood by the other person in the conversation.
To be sure, nobody with a grain of sense or decency wants to keep people deprived of the full glory of science, or anything else, longer than needs be. But that's my point. It takes time to lay those foundations, time to get through the intricacies of a truth-system (science) which so often requires faith of its learners. And that foundation-laying, too, is going to cause massive cultural change for the formerly-witchcraft based culture--which Colin will regret. In fact, I suspect it will cause far more cultural change, all things considered, than Christianity would. And yet it must be done--unless
a) we want to remain in a patronizing parental relationship to people of that culture, handing them out cures (or worse, denying them!) but never letting them understand why.
b) we prefer that their effective first contact with the modern world be with loggers, oil diggers, slavers, etc. and their incredibly philanthropical behavior.
c) we cherish the illlusion that we can leave whole cultures untouched, as in safe little petri dishes, forever (see a for an ethics issue, b for the practical problem).
SusanDoris: I'm going to grab bits of your post which are not already covered in my reply to Croesos and answer them here, in the hopes of avoiding an ever-growing nest of quotes-upon-quotes.
You say:
If modern missionaries hear and know about such peoples, then their first action surely would be to ensure that there are aspects of the government of the country in which they live which should and must protect them from invasion of any sort – physical attack, brutality, and oppression. No missionary of any religious faith has the right to try in any way to replace one faith belief with another.
I beg your pardon, but you have confused me. It is not clear who you means by "such peoples." By the rest of your quote it appears you are thinking of people wholly untouched by the modern world, but these are extremely few and far between, and in my opinion constitute so tiny a fraction of the people missionaries ever encounter (if they do!) that it is not worth talking about. Missionaries by and large go to people who have contact with the modern world, and even with the West in some way, both to their benefit and their detriment. Being a traditional culture (yes, even one with witchcraft as a prominent feature) does not prevent people from riding motorcycles, having cellphones, or even being immunized. I am personally aware of one traditional family who chose to escape the power of evil spirits using a U-Haul truck.
Coming at a slightly different angle, I will point out that there are actually missionaries TO the West, and some of them are sent by what used to be considered missionary-receiving countries, e.g. Asian and African countries. For example, I believe a number of Korean churches have sent missionaries to the United States, and good on them. God knows we need all the help we can get.
You go on to say a number of things which I answered in my reply to Croesos, above. I won't repeat them here.
You also say:
I think that no-one should ever try to change anyone’s faith belief to another faith belief, but demonstrate, little by little, the advantages of education, i.e. the three Rs, of being able to hear, via radio (and there was, many years ago, that story about the clockwork radio which was invented and distributed free). Of course missionaries do that basic education, but why ally it to a faith belief?
The problem here is that you've missed the point of why missionaries go altogether. There is nothing wrong with a person who chooses to join the Peace Corps or other such organization and do good under a wholly secular agenda. That's great. But those who become missionaries as opposed to Peace Corps volunteers do so specifically because they believe that, of all the gifts they have to offer, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the greatest. We believe that this is the best thing we have ever received ourselves, and we believe and truly feel that we would be criminally negligent if we kept it to ourselves and did not share it with anyone who wanted to hear it. We feel about the Gospel much the way you might feel about a rope ladder in a burning building. Whyever would you keep it to yourself?
If you can use your imagination to understand that viewpoint, then you will see why we go (or stay, in the case of people, like us, who work in their home countries). Like doctors, nurses, and social workers, we want to help. It drives us. As Paul says, "The love of Christ constrains us." It would drive us batty to sit home and do crap-all when there are people in need.
And once we are among those people in need, are we going to withhold from them anything, whether it's the best gift we have (the Gospel) or the lowliest (which might mean better pit toilet building technology)? Of course not! We will give them everything. Our own personal ministry has involved everything from baptism and preaching all the way down to installing literal toilet seats and yelling at slum-lords. We have washed bodies, we have taken the homeless into our homes, we have scared the shit out of home invaders, we have fought with bribe-taking politicians. Anything we have is at the need of the people we were sent to serve. THAT is what it means to be a missionary. It means to be at Christ's disposal--and therefore, at the disposal of his people's need. (Which sometimes sucks at 3 a.m.)
The problem here is that you've missed the point of why missionaries go altogether. There is nothing wrong with a person who chooses to join the Peace Corps or other such organization and do good under a wholly secular agenda. That's great. But those who become missionaries as opposed to Peace Corps volunteers do so specifically because they believe that, of all the gifts they have to offer, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the greatest. We believe that this is the best thing we have ever received ourselves, and we believe and truly feel that we would be criminally negligent if we kept it to ourselves and did not share it with anyone who wanted to hear it. We feel about the Gospel much the way you might feel about a rope ladder in a burning building. Whyever would you keep it to yourself?
If you can use your imagination to understand that viewpoint, then you will see why we go (or stay, in the case of people, like us, who work in their home countries). Like doctors, nurses, and social workers, we want to help. It drives us. As Paul says, "The love of Christ constrains us." It would drive us batty to sit home and do crap-all when there are people in need.
And once we are among those people in need, are we going to withhold from them anything, whether it's the best gift we have (the Gospel) or the lowliest (which might mean better pit toilet building technology)? Of course not! We will give them everything. Our own personal ministry has involved everything from baptism and preaching all the way down to installing literal toilet seats and yelling at slum-lords. We have washed bodies, we have taken the homeless into our homes, we have scared the shit out of home invaders, we have fought with bribe-taking politicians. Anything we have is at the need of the people we were sent to serve. THAT is what it means to be a missionary. It means to be at Christ's disposal--and therefore, at the disposal of his people's need. (Which sometimes sucks at 3 a.m.)
It's not a gift! This is in many ways a continuation of the argument regarding the teaching of religion to children so let me, reiterate: That the Gospel is special to you is irrelevant to its applicability to others.
To put it another way: I don't think my atheism is in any way superior to your beliefs; it just happens to be that atheism suits me. But you make it clear as a bell that you believe your beliefs are superior to atheism and superior to every other belief on this planet. Can you not see why that would (expletive deleted) people off?
Croesos, you've misunderstood me. I was referring (as you'll see from the example of coronavirus) to the whole scientific edifice of knowledge which SusanDoris thinks would be good to hand over sans any faith component to every culture, and I was explaining (via medicine) why that is not as easy as it sounds.
I disagree with your underlying premise that most Westerners are intimately familiar with “the whole scientific edifice of knowledge” or that their willingness to follow guidelines established by the CDC (or equivalent local agency) is the result of widespread scientific literacy. The flourishing of quack nostrums (e.g. blow a hair dryer up your nostrils) undermines this idea of widespread scientific literacy, and yet most people are willing to follow guidelines despite being neither scientists nor historians of science themselves.
Well, it's an I/thou situation, but not in a nice way. It's nice that something is good for you, whether the gospel or anything, but that doesn't mean it is for me. Why is there this conflation between self and other? I enjoy advaita stuff, but I am not going to feed it you.
I disagree with your underlying premise that most Westerners are intimately familiar with “the whole scientific edifice of knowledge” or that their willingness to follow guidelines established by the CDC (or equivalent local agency) is the result of widespread scientific literacy. The flourishing of quack nostrums (e.g. blow a hair dryer up your nostrils) undermines this idea of widespread scientific literacy, and yet most people are willing to follow guidelines despite being neither scientists nor historians of science themselves.
I agree with you. I doubt whether the majority of Westerners understand the difference between a virus and a bacterium, or are interested in finding out, but they know to go to the doctor when they're ill.
I disagree with your underlying premise that most Westerners are intimately familiar with “the whole scientific edifice of knowledge” or that their willingness to follow guidelines established by the CDC (or equivalent local agency) is the result of widespread scientific literacy. The flourishing of quack nostrums (e.g. blow a hair dryer up your nostrils) undermines this idea of widespread scientific literacy, and yet most people are willing to follow guidelines despite being neither scientists nor historians of science themselves.
I agree with you. I doubt whether the majority of Westerners understand the difference between a virus and a bacterium, or are interested in finding out, but they know to go to the doctor when they're ill.
The placebo effect is pretty strong evidence that going to the doctor in the west is as much about belief as reality.
The problem here is that you've missed the point of why missionaries go altogether. There is nothing wrong with a person who chooses to join the Peace Corps or other such organization and do good under a wholly secular agenda. That's great. But those who become missionaries as opposed to Peace Corps volunteers do so specifically because they believe that, of all the gifts they have to offer, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the greatest. We believe that this is the best thing we have ever received ourselves, and we believe and truly feel that we would be criminally negligent if we kept it to ourselves and did not share it with anyone who wanted to hear it. We feel about the Gospel much the way you might feel about a rope ladder in a burning building. Whyever would you keep it to yourself?
If you can use your imagination to understand that viewpoint, then you will see why we go (or stay, in the case of people, like us, who work in their home countries). Like doctors, nurses, and social workers, we want to help. It drives us. As Paul says, "The love of Christ constrains us." It would drive us batty to sit home and do crap-all when there are people in need.
And once we are among those people in need, are we going to withhold from them anything, whether it's the best gift we have (the Gospel) or the lowliest (which might mean better pit toilet building technology)? Of course not! We will give them everything. Our own personal ministry has involved everything from baptism and preaching all the way down to installing literal toilet seats and yelling at slum-lords. We have washed bodies, we have taken the homeless into our homes, we have scared the shit out of home invaders, we have fought with bribe-taking politicians. Anything we have is at the need of the people we were sent to serve. THAT is what it means to be a missionary. It means to be at Christ's disposal--and therefore, at the disposal of his people's need. (Which sometimes sucks at 3 a.m.)
It's not a gift! This is in many ways a continuation of the argument regarding the teaching of religion to children so let me, reiterate: That the Gospel is special to you is irrelevant to its applicability to others.
To put it another way: I don't think my atheism is in any way superior to your beliefs; it just happens to be that atheism suits me. But you make it clear as a bell that you believe your beliefs are superior to atheism and superior to every other belief on this planet. Can you not see why that would (expletive deleted) people off?
Yes, of course. What you fail to realize is that your belief that all truth is relative, and your insistence on enforcing that belief on every single one of us out here, puts you in exactly the same boat.
Frankly, I don't understand why you fail to see this. You are perfectly willing to let us keep our Christian delusion, or Muslim delusion, or what have you, as long as we admit that your belief (everything is relative) is superior. In fact, you have the truth about truth, and we have delusion.
Now, I'm perfectly happy to tolerate this belief of yours, and feel no need at all to force you to admit the superiority of Christianity. Continue as you are, by all means. Preach, if you want (and you do.)
But you are not willing to allow me to continue in the belief that Christianity is in fact objectively true. You would in fact prevent me from speaking of it to others (who are rational human beings, and have minds capable of saying yes or no, just as you do).
Where's the equality here? (And frankly, why do you care so much? You have only to ignore me.)
@Colin Smith is happy to share his belief with us, while denying us the moral right to share our beliefs with others. I wish he would explain that to us.
@Colin Smith is happy to share his belief with us, while denying us the moral right to share our beliefs with others. I wish he would explain that to us.
I am not responding for Colin Smith of course, but pausing here for a moment because, reading through, I see that LC has mentioned the word 'objective' with regard to Christianity. And that's where an invisible line is crossed. No believer, teacher, missionary etc can provide an objective back-up to their faith belief.
ETA Ah, ( didn't realise your post was the latest new one!
Comments
I don't know that it's left-wing or anything else. It's a pretty standard narrative (says she who has been dealing with the fall-out from it for lo, these thirty years). But an unbiased look at history (ha. As if we're going to get that) would suggest that the anti-missionary thing is horrifically simple-minded. Ask yourself, if you know world history: Would the world truly have been a better place if Christianity had never spread past Jerusalem? Because that's what the anti-missionary bias leads to, logically. All that social reform and art and medicine and hospitals and schools and higher education and music and care for the poor and support to democracy, disappeared. Never existing. For that matter, a helluva lot of history going unrecorded--and the folklore and culture that Colin Smith treasures. Who did the recording, do you think? For that matter, who reduced the local language to a written form capable of recording stuff--and incidentally, aiding the economic and etc. wellbeing of the people using said writing? And then taught the ability to read and write?
In a huge number of cases, the answer is "missionaries."
Should I shut up now?
That occurred to me, too. But then if one finds oneself supremely important, and value is only found in the aesthetic, then...
(Coincidentally, the man who now owns the house my Mum grew up in turns out to be an archaeologist, and has done a bit of a study to show that bits of the place were medieval. There are all sorts of witch-proof marks on some of the roof timbers, dating from a rebuild in the 16th c. The people who put that together must have been permanently shitting themselves. And in case anyone thinks I am hiding a hereditary peerage, this was a tied estate house in which most of the tenants lived, in today's terms, in poverty).
But there have been plenty who have.
You don't have his experience, and he doesn't have yours. You can only make choices based on your own experience. Granted, when you read what someone else tells you about their experience, your reading is part of your experience. But what they experienced is not. At which point you have to decide how much credence to give their experience. And that decision will, again, be part of your experience.
It's much easier than it sounds because we all do it all the time very day. But my point is you never make any decisions based on someone else's experience, only based on your own.
What'd be interesting to know is how many missions and how many missionaries went to listen and learn and did not boldly think they had all the answers. I think the count is low, if there is a count. Because Christians then and now did and do not have all the answers. Christianity which demands that other traditions abandon their cultures and the religious beliefs and replace them with Christianity is destructive and wrong. And has caused huge amounts of suffering.
Your last question (clumsy imo) indicates that you are not interested in finding out the answers to your questions, otherwise you would have listened to what I said in my previous post.
I suspect that you are interested only in arguing against whatever is said.
I am out of here.
That's presuming a lot. For example, non-Christians have been known to make art, some of it so good that it's a source of international disputes millennia after its creation. I'm not convinced that Michaelangelo wouldn't have been just as happy sculpting Bacchus as he was surprisingly uncircumcised David. Absent Christianity people would likely have made other, different artistic works rather than abandoning the whole notion of art entirely.
Plus I'll note that missionary support for democracy (neither a Christian invention nor something traditionally promoted by Christianity) has been a lot less enthusiastic than their support of colonialism and imperialism. It may not be entirely coincidental that colonialism and imperialism allow missionaries access to their intended proselytes. It's always reassuring to know you've got the support of the guys with the guns, and even more so if your audience knows it too.
Given the amount of syncretism involved in such efforts, "recording" may be a stronger term than is deserved. And you have to balance that against cases where missionaries deliberately suppressed written or spoken languages.
The Maya script has only recently (late 20th century) become accessible to scholars again, and only partially so.
And I distinguish between the indiginous Christians and the foreign missionaries, because many of the latter were much less supportive of the resistance than their converts were, as the missionaries, many of them American, were still beholden to their home government's endorsement of Japanese rule.
Christians, at least the protestant variety, did make numerous modifications to traditional religious practice, most notably abolishing the worship of ancestors, and restricting the ceremonial bow to living elders. I'd imagine this caused a lot of consternation back in the day, but nowadays most families just do whatever they want.
I do know one woman who just recently moved out of her parents' home because she is a Christian, but her parents were engaged in indiginous practices.
Korean Christians are fairly proud of the fact that Christianity was brought to Korea not by foreign missionaries but by Koreans who converted to the faith. A diplomatic mission to Beijing encountered some Jesuits and brought the faith (but not the Jesuits) back with them in the early seventeenth century.
Not to mention rating Christian era artwork higher is in large part a bias towards western art and neglects the fact that the Christian era coincides with modernisation.
Well, when I was discussing Christians, I basically meant protestants, who are the majority of Xtians. And yes, there was considerable protestant missionary activity in the early days of the C20. To this day, protestant-run schools are called "mission schools". (Catholic schools are called "Salesio", after the order.)
And for the record, when Koreans say "Christian", they typically mean protestant. When I used to have to fill out immigration forms listing my religion, "Catholic" was a separate category from "Christian".
In my expetience, Korean Catholics are more laidback about tolerating traditional customs in their family ceremonies.
How helpful. Another blanket statement.
Besides, Crœsos gave a good start, I added one thing to his repsonse, but we could certainly add more historical evidence of Christian malfeasance missionary if you want.
Otherwise it is the opposite of a blanket statement.
While there were indeed errors of missionaries in the past, I have to say that, at least for my denomination, we are not going out to convert the masses now as much as we are there to help indigenous Synods in their own ministries. I have gotten to know one of the bishops from Tanzania in the past year--I was his driver when he visited my synod. My synod has provided financial support for the building of an all-girls school in his synod. He has given me a standing invitation to visit his synod anytime. I had hoped to do this in the summer; but, given what is happening now with the pandemic, I will have to defer the visit to a later time.
Your adviser sounds like a (William) Jamesian, philosophically speaking, whether he knew it or not.
(And possibly he did know it, because James was a big deal in psychology as well.)
Fixed quoting code. BroJames Purgatory Host
Sorted that. BroJames Purgatory Host
I add a comment here to LC: Can you give me one good reason why conversion to a belief in Christianity is better than showing them how humans have evolved and giving them access to up-to-date science, which does not need the unnecessary diversion of a total faith belief ?
Yes, it is perfectly possible to be both devoutly religious and accept science. But it is not a coincidence that growth in Christianity is in the Evangelical end and eroding in the more mainstream as science progresses.
For the bulk of human development, religion and science were not separable things because life was not separated. Religion was part of the exploration of how we came to be because it was part of everything.
Science answers the questions for many people without need of spiritual. Religion no longer needs to be part of everything and religion often butts up directly against progress in social acceptance. Not that these things need to conflict, but that takes more effort and there is a lot of baggage to be left on the platform for that train to keep moving.
None of this means that religion needs to be in opposition to science, however it is not outrageous to see them as such.
The reality, I’m afraid, is that you have a long history of posts that that contradict your assertion that you don’t see science and religion as alternatives.
I now scroll past certain posters' posts. Doubtless they scroll past mine, but hey...
In part because questions like "Is this disease a divine punishment or a viral infection?" can have a lot of implications for how such situations are approached. Those of us who remember Ye Olden Days (a.k.a. the 1980s) recall a lot of folks saying that AIDS was God's wrath righteously smiting the heathen Sodomites. Because of the influence of such voices AIDS research was considered politically controversial (and possibly blasphemous), as were any measures taken to mitigate the damage.
Think for a moment, please. How precisely are you going to graft the fruit of 2000+ years of learning, knowledge, hard work, and the like on to a culture which doesn't yet have the foundation for it--which has no footings poured, which cannot sustain that towering edifice?
Take a culture where every death is assumed to be the result of malicious witchcraft (yes, they do exist, and are endless misery for the people wrongly accused). How will you explain the coronavirus to them--an object they can neither see nor touch? And don't say "a microscope"--why would they regard that as anything but a magical instrument? One which perhaps shows YOU to be the real sorcerer, and possibly the source of the outbreak. Witchcraft they understand, or think they do. Some of them actually practice it, though in secret. But none of them has ever seen a virus, and you will appear to be telling them tales for children if you talk about it.
That's just one small example of what you propose to do. And it isn't unintelligence that causes people to resist new ideas. Poor Semmelweiss had a hell of a time convincing doctors to wash their hands between patients, because they didn't see the point and wouldn't accept germ theory.
Now as to your idea that I am proposing conversion to a belief in Christianity AS OPPOSED to scientific access--you're doing apples and oranges here. Normal missionaries teach. They set up hospitals. They lead efforts to block in water sources so that Guinea Worm disease gets no chance to spread by people wading. It's a rare missionary in my experience who does NOT try to share everything good they can with the people they are trying to reach.
What human being with a heart could walk past obvious need and ignore it, all the while being possessed of skills, understanding, information, and resources that could fix it? Or at least ameliorate it. Most people -- all of them, that I have ever met--go into missions because they want to help. They come from the same personality types as doctors and nurses. In fact, many of them ARE doctors and nurses.
Because really, if you aren't motivated by love and concern, there isn't much in the mission field to make it worth your while living there. Low pay, uncomfortable living conditions, constant concern. Ridiculous situations, like becoming the go-to person for women in labor, because their husbands can't get time off work and so you end up taking them in to have their babies--and being mistaken for the father. Frustrating situations, because you WILL become everybody's first choice for a servant and slave, and will spend ages trying to set appropriate boundaries with people who think love is the same thing as doing whatever they tell you, whenever they tell you. Grievous situations, like comforting a ten-year-old rape survivor on the scene of her mother's attempted suicide. Dangerous situations, like yesterday when Mr. Lamb had to sit in a hospital emergency room for hours with a woman who had no transport or English--and of course there are COVID patients all around him. Did I mention that he is an unpaid missionary and has been so for 13 years? And the salary wasn't any great shakes before then.
And Mr. Lamb is just one of literally dozens of missionaries I know, all of whom encounter the same issues and serve with the same heart. I have never yet met a missionary who was otherwise, though I accept that some must exist, or we'd not hear so much about them! But not in my experience.
You need to revise your ideas of what missionaries are and do.
thank you for your post - much appreciated and very interesting. I will respond to it properly tomorrow.
Fascinating @Lamb Chopped, the Hmong, if I may ask? I'm reading Congo Journey by Redmond O'Hanlon. It's the same. The same as Hesiod nearly 3000 years ago who got it from another 1000 year Babylonian source. Although they are one step 'up' from animism with their theogonic pantheons, whilst keeping the animism.
God bless all those who serve others with sacrificial love.
Seconded. Thank you all.
@SusanDoris - check your Drafts box, in case it (or part of it) is there.
Before I re-post it, I hope one of the Hosts will post to say whether they have delayed it for some reason.
I did not, as far as I know, breach any guidelines; LC's post was such an interesting one, that's the last thing I'd want to do.
Or are these Haitians in LA is it? Or SF?
The Vietnamese--Kinh ethnic group, actually. But this kind of thing is probably pretty common across cultures.
LC, I know you and I will probably never agree on the benefits etc or disadvantages of a faith belief, but I always admire the strength and passion of the way you express your views, so I hope you will accept my strong views as expressed below in the spirit of discussion. It is rather long, but thank you for the opportunity to write it. Yes, that point is certainly one that needs a deal of thinking! If modern missionaries hear and know about such peoples, then their first action surely would be to ensure that there are aspects of the government of the country in which they live which should and must protect them from invasion of any sort – physical attack, brutality, and oppression. No missionary of any religious faith has the right to try in any way to replace one faith belief with another.
Remote groups are, as far as I know, small an do not have or want or need to try and convince others outside of their area to convert to their beliefs. And of course, the idea that anyone should try to teach them about 2,000 years of one particular aspect of history etc in order to lay a foundation for their faith belief makes no sense as far as I can see. However, the more they can learn about their own physical make-up the better, and where to start? Well, I do not know except to say that from the starting point of, or via, a faith belief is not it. In the book I finished recently, ‘The Serengeti Rules’ by Sean Carroll, he details the story of the eradication of smallpox. The prime mover was a Methodist missionary/doctor, whose medical and organisational skills –. not his Religious beliefs, were used to devise courses of action which some or many of the locals opposed but which were clearly and evidently beneficial in the results. The long-term enterprise was backed by the WHO and it worked. Polio could also have been eradicated if it had not been for a few pockets of stupidity. Whether these involved a religious aspect, I do not know, but in any case such individuals are beyond reason.
I think that no-one should ever try to change anyone’s faith belief to another faith belief, but demonstrate, little by little, the advantages of education, i.e. the three Rs, of being able to hear, via radio (and there was, many years ago, that story about the clockwork radio which was invented and distributed free). Of course missionaries do that basic education, but why ally it to a faith belief? I think my last comment covers this. Again, it was by practical evidence and results that this practice too was eradicated. I posted something yesterday about the fact that I do not consider them as direct alternatives. But they are also adding in a faith belief for which they can provide no direct results, let alone objective evidence for. Do you think that a non-believer would not do all those good things to benefit the people they are with? Would you claim that it is only with a faith belief that people’s lives can be improved? And, no, I do not think you would claim that, but I pose the question in the context of this exchange. Yes, that is a fact, but there needs to be back-up. Yes, of course I accept absolutely what you say, that they are doing the best they can, with the genuine desire to help people which deserves admiration and respect, but there are those who do likewise who do not need to add in the faithbelief. Yes, it is vital for as many people as possible to learn about and understand as best they can, the history of our human species. Do you think, and if so, why, it is necessary to have a faith belief, specifically a Christian faith belief, to do any of those things? No, I am well aware of what they do I think and respect is due for all those things they do which improve the daily and long-term life of the people they are helping, but inprinciple I cannot accept the idea that a faith belief is best for anyone, or actually needed. It is understanding of history and how people came about and think and live that is necessary.
And at the end of all that, I will also state firmly that, if there really has to be a religious belief and that seems to be an aspect of human need, then I’ll back Protestant Christianity over most others I think, and I do not say that flippantly, but as a result of having thought about it a lot over the years.
I'm not a big fan of the idea that Western culture, or any of its aspects, is such a "towering edifice" that it's incomprehensible to any of the benighted savages outside its reach and the only way any of it will make sense is to adopt all of it while simultaneously abandoning any other cultural referrents. I'm put in mind of Saul Bellow's question:
To which Ralph Wiley responded:
Croesos, you've misunderstood me. I was referring (as you'll see from the example of coronavirus) to the whole scientific edifice of knowledge which SusanDoris thinks would be good to hand over sans any faith component to every culture, and I was explaining (via medicine) why that is not as easy as it sounds.
And the "towering edifice-ory" of science is a reference not to its magnificence or glory, but rather to the fact that it is built in layers of understanding and presuppositions. Current precautions against coronavirus involve washing hands, which presuppose both an understanding of what a virus is (tiny invisible beastie which makes you sick) and how it transfers from person to person. The concept of "virus" involves a pre-existing understanding that people can and do get sick from what we may call "natural causes," quite apart from intentional human malice (which, in the culture discussed, was believed to be the sole reason for illness and death). My point, then, was that you can rarely just graft the top layers of scientific understanding onto a culture in which the groundwork does not exist. I won't say "never." You could, for example, attempt to persuade the culture-under-discussion that washing one's hands provided magical protection against witchcraft. The action would still work, though the grounds upon which it was undertaken would be little more than a lie. But these are some of the considerations that run through a teacher/parent/missionary's mind when attempting to pass on information that cannot, in the current state of play, be fully understood by the other person in the conversation.
To be sure, nobody with a grain of sense or decency wants to keep people deprived of the full glory of science, or anything else, longer than needs be. But that's my point. It takes time to lay those foundations, time to get through the intricacies of a truth-system (science) which so often requires faith of its learners. And that foundation-laying, too, is going to cause massive cultural change for the formerly-witchcraft based culture--which Colin will regret. In fact, I suspect it will cause far more cultural change, all things considered, than Christianity would. And yet it must be done--unless
a) we want to remain in a patronizing parental relationship to people of that culture, handing them out cures (or worse, denying them!) but never letting them understand why.
b) we prefer that their effective first contact with the modern world be with loggers, oil diggers, slavers, etc. and their incredibly philanthropical behavior.
c) we cherish the illlusion that we can leave whole cultures untouched, as in safe little petri dishes, forever (see a for an ethics issue, b for the practical problem).
SusanDoris: I'm going to grab bits of your post which are not already covered in my reply to Croesos and answer them here, in the hopes of avoiding an ever-growing nest of quotes-upon-quotes.
You say:
I beg your pardon, but you have confused me. It is not clear who you means by "such peoples." By the rest of your quote it appears you are thinking of people wholly untouched by the modern world, but these are extremely few and far between, and in my opinion constitute so tiny a fraction of the people missionaries ever encounter (if they do!) that it is not worth talking about. Missionaries by and large go to people who have contact with the modern world, and even with the West in some way, both to their benefit and their detriment. Being a traditional culture (yes, even one with witchcraft as a prominent feature) does not prevent people from riding motorcycles, having cellphones, or even being immunized. I am personally aware of one traditional family who chose to escape the power of evil spirits using a U-Haul truck.
Coming at a slightly different angle, I will point out that there are actually missionaries TO the West, and some of them are sent by what used to be considered missionary-receiving countries, e.g. Asian and African countries. For example, I believe a number of Korean churches have sent missionaries to the United States, and good on them. God knows we need all the help we can get.
You go on to say a number of things which I answered in my reply to Croesos, above. I won't repeat them here.
You also say:
The problem here is that you've missed the point of why missionaries go altogether. There is nothing wrong with a person who chooses to join the Peace Corps or other such organization and do good under a wholly secular agenda. That's great. But those who become missionaries as opposed to Peace Corps volunteers do so specifically because they believe that, of all the gifts they have to offer, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the greatest. We believe that this is the best thing we have ever received ourselves, and we believe and truly feel that we would be criminally negligent if we kept it to ourselves and did not share it with anyone who wanted to hear it. We feel about the Gospel much the way you might feel about a rope ladder in a burning building. Whyever would you keep it to yourself?
If you can use your imagination to understand that viewpoint, then you will see why we go (or stay, in the case of people, like us, who work in their home countries). Like doctors, nurses, and social workers, we want to help. It drives us. As Paul says, "The love of Christ constrains us." It would drive us batty to sit home and do crap-all when there are people in need.
And once we are among those people in need, are we going to withhold from them anything, whether it's the best gift we have (the Gospel) or the lowliest (which might mean better pit toilet building technology)? Of course not! We will give them everything. Our own personal ministry has involved everything from baptism and preaching all the way down to installing literal toilet seats and yelling at slum-lords. We have washed bodies, we have taken the homeless into our homes, we have scared the shit out of home invaders, we have fought with bribe-taking politicians. Anything we have is at the need of the people we were sent to serve. THAT is what it means to be a missionary. It means to be at Christ's disposal--and therefore, at the disposal of his people's need. (Which sometimes sucks at 3 a.m.)
It's not a gift! This is in many ways a continuation of the argument regarding the teaching of religion to children so let me, reiterate: That the Gospel is special to you is irrelevant to its applicability to others.
To put it another way: I don't think my atheism is in any way superior to your beliefs; it just happens to be that atheism suits me. But you make it clear as a bell that you believe your beliefs are superior to atheism and superior to every other belief on this planet. Can you not see why that would (expletive deleted) people off?
I disagree with your underlying premise that most Westerners are intimately familiar with “the whole scientific edifice of knowledge” or that their willingness to follow guidelines established by the CDC (or equivalent local agency) is the result of widespread scientific literacy. The flourishing of quack nostrums (e.g. blow a hair dryer up your nostrils) undermines this idea of widespread scientific literacy, and yet most people are willing to follow guidelines despite being neither scientists nor historians of science themselves.
I agree with you. I doubt whether the majority of Westerners understand the difference between a virus and a bacterium, or are interested in finding out, but they know to go to the doctor when they're ill.
Sez you.
Yes, of course. What you fail to realize is that your belief that all truth is relative, and your insistence on enforcing that belief on every single one of us out here, puts you in exactly the same boat.
Frankly, I don't understand why you fail to see this. You are perfectly willing to let us keep our Christian delusion, or Muslim delusion, or what have you, as long as we admit that your belief (everything is relative) is superior. In fact, you have the truth about truth, and we have delusion.
Now, I'm perfectly happy to tolerate this belief of yours, and feel no need at all to force you to admit the superiority of Christianity. Continue as you are, by all means. Preach, if you want (and you do.)
But you are not willing to allow me to continue in the belief that Christianity is in fact objectively true. You would in fact prevent me from speaking of it to others (who are rational human beings, and have minds capable of saying yes or no, just as you do).
Where's the equality here? (And frankly, why do you care so much? You have only to ignore me.)
ETA Ah, ( didn't realise your post was the latest new one!