Positions on Missionaries

[Surfy]

Originally Posted by Yves

Sadly it seems that Beatrice Stöckli had been mudered about 1 month ago (...)

The woman, who had worked as a missionary in Timbuktu for years, was abducted for the second time in early 2016. She was abducted by Islamists for the first time in April 2012.

I dont know what I should think about, to be honest.

- It is sad that she is dead.

- It was sad what she was doing there

- it was stupid to do it twice

In times where the christ churches at home only rarely get visited and any year less people say that they belong to a church and pay church taxes.

To bring christianity to africa in this (or any-) times, a religion who did force witch burning and did let slavery happen - where the pope speaks against condoms - what a mess.

Only a radically religious Person would do such a job. To do it twice is asking for the darwin award.

Radical people are suspect in my eyes - regardless of religion

Are I`m the only one? Probably a bit too sarcastic, but.... Often not we tourist are in focus of these mentioned cases...

[Ccandelario430]

Originally Posted by Surfy

Only a radically religious Person would do such a job. To do it twice is asking for the darwin award.

Radical people are suspect in my eyes - regardless of religion

Maybe I'm naive, but I always thought missionaries did good things, establishing schools and hospitals in remote areas, teaching people to read and write, generally improving living conditions for the impoverished. And then, sure, in exchange you might have to listen to a few sermons.

Isn't that what missionaries do, or is that just the Hollywood version of it? It seems a bit strange to demonize missionaries the way you have. We're not in the 19th century anymore.

[grumpy geezer]

I don't know any thing about the person involved or what job she was doing. Was she working in a hospital, school, building shelter for the locals, browbeating the locals for their heathen ways, just a tourist passing through? Context is needed before any comments can be made. More info please.

[Threewheelbonnie]

The unfortunate Ladys obituary seems to include mention of evangelical stuff, which one might imagine to be more sermons and fewer schools? Certainly there must be a variation and I certainly cannot tell from brief research very much about this case.

Banging heads with people about such matters has always just seemed rude to me, especially so in their home.

Fact is though you will no more stop them going to Timbuktu than knocking on your door and trying to give you magazines. I will adopt the same approach anywhere, an increasingly direct assertion that I am not interested. I really doubt many people in the world still think all Brits are Christians so in terms of increasing risk I would assume they are mostly a risk to themselves. I think you can say the same of the back packing teens having sex on beaches and bus loads of package holidaymakers taking photographs and making noise like the whole place is Disneyland.

Andy

[GPZ]

I really doubt many people in the world still think all Brits are Christians

Andy

Don't bet on it - in southern Khazakstan some years ago, I was a westerner, therefore a Christian by default and therefore this Muslim police officer's enemy.
I was pinned against the truck with his rifle barrel in my mouth for 20 mins while he vented his rage. I was saved by an Iranian driver whom I had met 5 months earlier, 3000 odd miles away at the Polish/German border

[Flipflop]

Originally Posted by Ccandelario430

Maybe I'm naive, but I always thought missionaries did good things, establishing schools and hospitals in remote areas, teaching people to read and write, generally improving living conditions for the impoverished. And then, sure, in exchange you might have to listen to a few sermons.

Isn't that what missionaries do, or is that just the Hollywood version of it? It seems a bit strange to demonize missionaries the way you have. We're not in the 19th century anymore.

In general, a Hollywood version. That is not to say that most missionaries haven’t got good intentions (double negative). Help comes at a price and that price can be costly.

[Jay_Benson]

My brother was a missionary in Kenya about 30 years ago - he was there for about 15 years and taught at a mission school teaching prospective clergy. He would generally be categorised as an “evangelical” in his outlook. He was there by invitation of the local church - I wouldn’t be surprised if the lady who was murdered was also invited there by the local church in Timbuktu.

One thing that you should remember is that almost all religions prosthelytise - they aim to convert people to their religion - this is certainly true of Christianity and Islam. Essentially there are common roots to Christianity, Judaism and Islam -for instance Islam recognises Jesus as a prophet.

For personal reasons I am not religious - I follow no religion, but I tend to adhere to what could be loosely described as a Christian way of life - as I have 4 brothers two of which are ordained and the other two who are lay preachers there is a certain inevitability to that.

To answer the original question I could not do what she did but I would hardly call my brother a religious radical - there really are some out there who are utter nut jobs, totally intolerant of other religions but these tend to be weeded out by the missionary societies as being unsuitable missionary material.

I would concur that fundamentalists are a concern. This is not restricted to religion as there are those that could be described as gun rights fundamentalists, animal rights fundamentalists, political fundamentalists, abortion fundamentalists etc - to be intolerant of the views and beliefs of others is, IMHO, anathema in a modern society - people need to stop forcing their opinion on others. And anyone disagreeing with me on that I will see outside .

[ridingviking]

I am conflicted on this. While I do realise that some if not most missionaries contribute positively to the world, I struggle with their motivation for doing good. If they are nice to people because they want to convert them, I find that inferior to being nice to people because it is a good thing to be a nice person. It's the same with the Salvation Army. They do an amazing job with the Soup and Soap, so why do they need to force Jesus down people's throats? If their audience is paying for the food by accepting to listen to a message they didn't really want, is it really charity?

In my book, people who do good because doing good is right are good people. People who do good primarily to influence or persuade others are not. And I believe missionaries exist in both categories.

(And adding to that complexity, if you really believe that everyone who is not following your religion is doomed, I guess it is a moral imperative to save them. But as a peaceful and fair global society is demonstrably impossible if people think like that, I believe the personal moral imperative has to take a back seat to values that are common for all mankind.)

[grumpy geezer]

Mother Theresa said her hope was not to make you(Hindu and Muslim) a good Christian, it was to make you a good Hindu or good Muslim. It was part of her attraction, helping lepers without trying to convert them. And then there are a lot of others who won't help you if you don't go to chapel services. Motive is important.

[backofbeyond]

Originally Posted by Jay_Benson

To answer the original question I could not do what she did but I would hardly call my brother a religious radical - there really are some out there who are utter nut jobs, totally intolerant of other religions but these tend to be weeded out by the missionary societies as being unsuitable missionary material.

I have a suspicion that some of the 'you're too radical' rejects may have ended up teaching at my school. I was brought up Catholic in the 50's /60's in a primary school run by nuns and a secondary school run by Jesuit priests. Their (collective) take on religion was that Roman Catholicism was the one and only true faith and that all other Christian 'sects' were not just wrong but somehow morally wrong. Even to enter a Church of England church was regarded as blasphemous. And as for non Christian religions, followers of them were so far from the path of God fearing' righteousness that they were indistinguishable from the 'beasts of the forest'.

As an adult that sounds so bigoted as to be laughable but children are far more pliable and if you're taught all of that at a young and vulnerable age you're going to need some fairly strong 'deconditioning' later on to see it for what it is. The old Aristotelian maxim of 'give me the child until he is seven and I'll give you the man' was certainly taken on board by the Jesuits that taught me (it's often attributed to Ignatius Loyola) and I suspect they're not alone. If you do make it to adulthood with those beliefs unchallenged what kind of adult are you going to become? Education tends to be the route out of it and we're lucky to live in a secular enough society that agnosticism is a acceptable alternative. For me the rejection of that kind of radicalism has taken the form of 'a plague on all their houses' (ask me what I think of the Mormons if you want to learn some new expletives!) but from what I saw in Ireland especially in the 50's not everybody has the capacity, the opportunity, the circumstances or even the desire to follow suit.

[Surfy]

Puhh, my statement is now pretty prominent taken out of the thread "islamist-activity-sahara-relation-travel"

Usually I dont like if a thread gets appart. But maybe it was worth to discuss it seperately this time.

Yes, these christians arent bringing just help. But I want to discuss also something else.

As you may know, I "eat" any travel blog about africa. I do maintain a list of blogging travellers on the west since 2011.

Some of these traveller did really search for "safe spots" at churches during their journey. I did always wonder about - because - it dont looks safer than any other spot - and too the history of the church in africa, the work of the church can be discussed very different.

They still fight against the rest of the old culture and religion in afria, also if they can be viewed as "vanished". I think we did have loose a lot of culture, a lot of what we did never understand.

That our capitalism and "education for all (but only in our culture style)" is more about helping us to be able to get cheap workers and this also kills the local culture is well known.

You can see in any poor country of the world and see how it works. Those NGOs did had the cash to visit even the most remote village in Laos as example. Bring them monoculure (chili) who kills the ground (not so) slowly.

Brings them basic education, show them the advantage of our culture (smartphones as example) without showing them what cultural issues we had to fight (drug abuse, burnouts, suicide). Not everything is wrong, but it is too not so shiny...

They had a simple life, but had their culture, had their way of life. What is happening now? Those jounger people with basic education what do they do?

They leave for the capitals and are welcome as cheap workers (basic educations). They dont want to stay in the remote villages anymore. Did we really help there? They did live balanced with the nature before. They was free.

Now they had to work hard just to optain chilis (pretty monotone job I guess), to be able to buy the weedkiller and fertilizer from the big US and EU Companys. Ohh, often they didnt pass theyr targets - and those NGOs are happy to be able to "help" repeating. These guys at the NGOs are happy to have "work" for another year.

Very often, even if "we" try to help, we did the opposite.

Too our development aid in africa, has probably to be revieved after decades of failures?

Surfy

[Mezo]

Originally Posted by ridingviking

In my book, people who do good because doing good is right are good people. People who do good primarily to influence or persuade others are not.

And I believe missionaries exist in both categories.

I don`t, i think missionaries are radical Christians with one object in life to convert people in to Christianity, and they prey on poor people in third world countries.

Evil people, child abusers (brainwashing children).

Mezo.

[Surfy]

These "help" from missionaries has not even to be done with a bad mind set or direct really bad actions. What did they do to to local culture and religion?

That many of these missionaries are completely insane and fanatic is well documented also today:

At 2020 some try to kill the last area of near untouched local culture - at these indigenous peoples of the Amazon:

https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/panor...ikale-100.html

https://www.ncronline.org/news/earth...spite-pandemic

It is not a thing of the past - it is happens today.

What they do in remote villages all over the world, where there is no protection - just can be guessed.

Surfy

[edwardbgill]

Wow. This thread esculated quickly.

[Tomkat]

Missionaries, double edged sword IMHO. Don't forget they are sent out by their church and the prime reason for that is to convert people to their religion. Thus has it ever been, from the first Christians who came to the British Isles in the 7th century to today's Christians out in Africa and S America. Not only Christians of course, and the modus operandi remains the same. Bring education but make sure there are strings attached. Missionaries of various types have spread a lot of knowledge and education across the world and compete to set a world view. This has always come with a price for those involved, it's one they have historically accepted as a risk of their mission and it's their choice.