Positions on Missionaries
 

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? :blushing: Probably a bit too sarcastic, but.... Often not we tourist are in focus of these mentioned cases...

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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 doh.

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.)

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.

I have a suspicion that some of the 'you're too radical' rejects may have ended up teaching at my school. :rofl: 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.

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

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). :nono:

Mezo.

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

Wow. This thread esculated quickly.

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.

I once visited a small, remote settlement in an African country. The guy who sold cigarettes , canned food and beer had a solar panel, so that's where people paid to charge their phones and watched football. The school was run down and closed anyway, because teachers hadn't been paid for more than a year. The health station, where people came to give birth, consisted of three mud huts and a shed, with no electricity (but an amazing health worker). The water pump was the only clean drinking water for several kilometers.

The church and the the priest's house looked like they were teleported directly from Western suburbia.

Priorities. They show what people are really made of.

It's noticeable that with the established churches influence waning and congregations dropping in the west that the clergy no longer have the biggest house in the community. In fact I have no idea where the local vicar lives - all I know is that it's not in the vicarage.

Its been much the same story with those other pillars of the community, the family doctors. In the small town where I live one of the most impressive houses in the old part has been known since before WW2 as 'the doctors house'. Post war doctors lived in nice but slightly more modest accommodation, our generation downsized yet again to various detached house and the current medics live in starter homes on new estates like everyone else.

Times are hard in the professions.

Personally, I think the money spent on the church would have been more useful in getting the health station electricity and a refrigerator for medicines. Or maybe on paying the teachers so that people could get out of poverty. But hey, the faster people die, and the more of their limited time on Earth they spend praying, the faster they get to Heaven I guess.

My experience of small communities in remote areas - be they in Africa or anywhere else - is that God in whatever local form he happens to take plays a far bigger role in their lives than he does these days in the countries we tend to hail from. I'm not sure many of them would regard a fridge as a reasonable swap for a religious leader. I once spent some time with a Peace Corps volunteer from Mali who'd turned to alcohol to deal with his frustration over his inability to get past the 'God will provide' attitude in the village he was working in.

Wow... what an awful post
 

It made me very sad to read your post/thoughts Surfy
It is very difficult to apply the old Indian adage:
'Do not judge another until you have walked a mile in her moccasins,' unless you get out of your own moccasins first...

Please read this thread in detail

Specially:
https://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hu...726#post618532

https://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hu...726#post618541

It is NOT about the person itself. It is about that we think we can help. Think they need help. Think we are able to help. Did we help? Did we help also if we dont harm others directly?

Surfy

Do not criticize someone until you have walked a mile in their shoes.

Then, if you still want to criticize them, you are a mile away and you've got their shoes.

Missionary
 

Made I larf!

Missionary on a mission
 

I tend to agree with the posters who are sceptical of missionaries, in fact the whole concept of missionaries is a gross invasion of other peoples lives and culture.

Norway has a tradition of missionary projects, some are really beneficial to the community, but they all demand a payback. Stayed in Guesthouse at Lodwar Lutheren Hospital in Tanzania, run and funded by Norwegian fundamentalist Christians and our gov. Aid money. Really well run and efficient, an enormous benefit to the community, but they still demand "their pound of flesh". The "righteousness" was overpowering, the contempt for Afrika and "heathens" was a given in any conversation.

Not all bad - there was a project to build a walled refuge for Albinos, in Afrika it is a problem that people cut bits off them to use in Traditional Medicine charms and potions. An earlobe here, a fingertip there, some body parts are more potent than others. The Norwegians try to stop this by protecting the Albinos. You can't argue against that by saying it is traditional culture being destroyed!

You can question their motivation and methods. Too many times there is uncovered sexual and psychological abuse in religious communities for that to be an unfortunate coincidence. Politically they tend to be far-right, which has consequences for their attitude to local politics and politicians.

Following this thread with interest

Ride safe

Peter in Oslo

The one I'm talking about was financed by evangelical churches in the US. They made a choice what to spend their money on. And being told that God wants them to give money to build a church makes them sleep well at night, not even considering if their money would be better spent making a real difference in the life of poor people.

The thing that really hit me was how religion was divisive political force, that churches openly bought influence from politicians making sure they were able to grow their institutional and (even more important) personal wealth. Since being religious is the norm, nobody dares to question religious authority. And I know better than to put locals in a position where they have to choose between being nice to the stranger or defend their way of life.

This thread has drifted way off the travel aspects.

Its a tough call, keep Africa as a museum where death from medieval circumstances are just what happens, or send Westerners (possibly they could wear red uniforms and do Welsh male voice singing? ) to sort them out? Strikes me as none of my business what Africans do on their own continent and the only way is to lead by example if I'm ever there again.

Travel wise I say away from the highly religious anyway. I did once end up on a Christian Fundamentalist stag night. It had its moments like the old boy trying to convince a lap dancer to give up her wicked ways at £10 a minute while staring down what little top she was wearing :rofl:

Andy

I do agree to Peter`s view.

The history has shown that missionaries always used seculary strategies and professional technical competence to sell their "god argument of a good life" to the people. In the time of classical colonialism e.g. in Africa that mentioned white missionars were talking to white christian people about black and non-cristian people. These missionars only loved the black people as recipients of their efforts in point of religion and civilisation. They didn`t love and respected the black people as believers of their own gods and culture.

In today times only a few call it still colonialism. Today it`s better known as globalisation and the faith of religion got replaced through common known capitalistic economical principles. But religious and cultural behaviors in the "west" have changed too and newly developed - the quality rating of this depends only in the different views of you, the reader.

Meanwhile the distance of development in non cristinal cultures or non west-cultures e.g. in africa have grown much bigger compared to the times of classical colonialism. That was caused and forced through the developement of the rich west world who from the beginning on had advantages in form of high education levels and financial power.

Because of their history I am very sceptical if missionaries are a good future-proof tool to enable development aid. For sure they can build and bring a safe water supply to some, for sure they can provide knowledge in agriculture, for sure they can seal particular basic leaks in education, for sure they can help with a basic medical aid in some places. But I don`t see them as a catalysator for economical development, for creating a stable, modern and area-wide health system or for driving educational systems in these countries.

Don`t get me wrong, I appreciate all these little actions missionaries are doing but in my opinion this century isn`t anymore the one for missionaries. Only because of the religion deal they are doing.

If we want to make "the world better" e.g. for african countries we need other powerful mechanisms driven through other states. I think it`s also clear that a lot of cultures will disappear or change in a way we cannot foresee in this process. I am aware that this subject is a highly complex one and that it is driving the world since centuries but in my conclusion it is time to accept and to review that history and present still shows that a religion driven transformation is not the right way to do this.
I belief that you as an active christ will tolerate and forgive me for my nonbeliever view of life. :wink2:

For some people the various flavours that religion comes in all taste like vanilla (or chicken - pyo analogy). I once went to a wedding at a Greek Orthodox church in West London where one of the ushers (+ his wife) didn't turn up for the ceremony. It turned out they'd gone to the synagogue down the road by mistake, sat through the wedding they'd also been having and wondered why they didn't recognise anyone. They didn't work out they'd gone to the wrong place until they got to the reception ... :rofl:

My missionary position is occasionally one I like to fall back on.

Later in your life you will like to lean back more :rofl:

My simple reply would be- it is about the person itself-
one individual can make a difference.
If you don't believe that, try spending One night with just ONE mosquito... :pinch:

Most, probably, on this site enjoy travelling as it does (for some) widen their understanding and experience a different world to their own
As countries are crossed, (and if the traveller is open to learning) he or she realizes how lucky they are to afford to travel. Some may become more aware of all the many other benefits they have/have had in their lives such as medical care, education etc. compared to many of those, sadly a hugely disproportionate amount, whose life is, more or less, down to daily survival.

So Surfy you ask 'did we help'? I do not to whom this ‘we’ refers to but I have noticed the repetition of that word many a time without understanding whom these ‘we’ you refer to are. Without wishing to pry, I would pose the question to anyone to try to answer it:
Did you help and if so, how, where, what motivated you and why? Such specific questions can be uncomfortable but do call for specific replies. It is possible that, should answers be offered, ways and means ‘how to’ could motivate others to step up. It is, of course, a question of personal choice whether an individual wishes to get involved – or not-

Whatever each of us believes in (or not) , some individuals are driven to get off their gluteus maximus and actually use their knowledge and abilities to step out of their safe and comfortable lives and environments and actually DO something to help. It isn’t rocket science to do so and probably anyone can do this but it does requires the will to do so, the determination to stay the distance and that then engenders personal sacrifice and often, alas, risk.
It is totally about achieving a result for strangers whose suffering you could relieve. I would describe any personal or group effort as grains of sand- mostly insignificant individually in the vastness of our world but collectively will build a massive dune.

There are, as of today, 71,973 userson the HUBB. Imagine the amount of knowledge and abilities held by those plus, should each give £10, the price of a couple of pints soon forgotten, the amount generated would be three quarters of a million pounds. I know what that could build and do for those who are in need.

Every journey has start somewhere if someone wishes to help others. Some people, missionairies or others may wish to 'tag’ a label such as an organisation or Faith describing their motivation- so be it- at least they had the courage to get out there and do something.

Bottom line on all this? and what really (IMHO) matters is the poles apart difference between actually ‘doing’ and just 'talking’ about it.
Who does it, who they are, where they are from, what language they speak, whatever the colour of their skin, how tall or short they are, what bike, 4x4, truck (donkey?) they drive (ride) or what their religion is, consider this:
we ALL bleed red and suffering knows no frontiers Surely this pandemic alone would have taught us this by now.
My 2 pence- Stay safe out there
- and-
if you be of mind to lend a hand wherever you go, please do. For me, there is no greater reward on earth than in seeing that look of gratitude in a stangers' eye, his or her smile or that handshake when you do so.
Be gentle with others and yourself.

You think you can help with that cash?

Our first world gouverments did spent billions as development aid in the third world. Did they did help?

If I had to spent 1 Mio $ to help others. What would be helpful at the end?

Probably I would be able to help at switzerland, in a culture and environment I did understand.

Our helping organisations did show in africa, what they was able to do. Many villages without a drinking fountain, then you meet a village where are 5 pieces side by side. From red cross germany, swiss red cross some eu branded helping organisations. Ok maybe wrong planning... BUT..

They did too want to do something good, or? Does it really help this villages in africa, to build drinking fountains?

Would you build also drinking foutains to make a difference?

Everything is stick together. Optaining more water out of the ground, change the groundwater level, let stop working these drinking foutains they did by themself in villages nearby. Let the plants to die slowly. Now also these villages need help, who did was able to help themself before.

So building drinking fountains did change something in the nature - I didnt calculated before.

What did my "help" did too. Was there s a social structure before? Did the locals did use water more economical as it was rare? Was it a job of a family to obtain water? What else happens unexpected, with build there drinking fountains? Did the population start to grow faster than before?

Also with "I want to do something good", with making a difference, I can do a lot of shi***t.

Even going for planting trees in the desert (like other candidates did rom the hostage thread) could change the local environment unexpected.

Surfy

Still no idea who the 'we' are!
Here is something to think about

We = the western world

Surfy

My head says I agree, but my heart says there's another dimension to this.

Take cancer research. Every summer tens, hundreds, of thousands of people take on sponsored charity events - runs, walks, cycle rides, anything you can think of, with the intent of raising money for cancer research. I know because I've run in them and I've worked at the events and I see them, puffing their way round the course with photographs of loved ones who have suffered from the disease attached to their T shirts. And does the money raised make a difference? Compared to what governments round the world put into the research programmes it hardly registers. But most of the participants know that. It's not that they've made a difference that matters to them, it's that they've made an effort. The main function is to keep the subject in the public eye. As with cancer charity events so with foreign aid charities. I've worked with a number of businesses who fundraise for them and they know the money is a drop in the ocean. They still do it though.

How about this concept?
 

Forget the 'we' s
Forget the governments
Forget organisations
Forget endless debates about the rights and wrongs of what others have done.

And consider this:
What each of us can do to reach out, without any judgement, to lend a hand to those less fortunate than we are.
That's all,
That's everything.
A tiny stitch in the fabric of our planet perhaps but it would make it a better place to be.

If you still think to plant trees in the desert is helpful, do it, or support it.

That a tree could be exactly that what kills the natural balance in the desert, who need to much water on a given location, that is a maybe.

That providing enough clean water in remote villages in Mali, could have a unwanted impact, is reasonable.

But we do have some NGO, some aid organizations workers which did feel a lot better than before, when adding 5 drinking fountains in one village. And some donors did feel better too. The employees of these foundations just want to do something good, that is true.....

Personally as someone who did worked partly for foundations in my life too, I dont think they are able to do something useful, more than use 20% of the funds for themself.

If you like to be different, to help, do it where you can hope to get a result you would like at least partly.. Help homeless people at example. Help them there where you can know, that your help doenst harm.

Surfy