Are missionaries taking advantage of poorer countries?

[PathDiagnosis]

Are missionaries taking advantage of poorer countries, especially when they preach their religions (Catholic, non-Catholic, etc) to relatively uneducated people. For example, dwellers in villages in the “under developed” world may not have access to complex works like Summa Theologica, etc. I mean, if they convert to a religion, it’s most likely going to be the one professed by local missionaries or whatever native traditions they have.

Is anyone at all bothered by this? I mean, religious people from a distant rich country coming over and spreading their faith…

Thoughts please.

Thanks.

 

[bz5]

Interesting. What do you suppose the missionaries’ goal is? Apparently not wordly riches - sending out missionaries to the poor must be a financial drain rather than a boon.

Do you think it’s more of an intrusion when foreign governments send out reps. to poor countries (Peace Corps, maybe?) to tell them a better way to live, with little or no knowledge/care for what local customs and ways are? Do you think it fosters a spirit of dependence?

I’m not trying to bash you - I’m aggravated, frankly, when aggressive proselytizers go into strongly Catholic countries.

 

[Tony888]

Wow, and the schools and orphanages they establish are just terrible!

Are missionaries taking advantage of poorer countries, especially when they preach their religions (Catholic, non-Catholic, etc) to relatively uneducated people. For example, dwellers in villages in the “under developed” world may not have access to complex works like Summa Theologica, etc. I mean, if they convert to a religion, it’s most likely going to be the one professed by local missionaries or whatever native traditions they have.

Is anyone at all bothered by this? I mean, religious people from a distant rich country coming over and spreading their faith…

Thoughts please.

Thanks.

 

[PathDiagnosis]

I wasn’t implying anything negative. Clearly, non-religious groups (Planned Parenthood, etc) can do damage in these countries.

I know religious missionaries do good things.

However, are uneducated (relatively) people more amenable to religious conversion, and thus increasing the census counts of particular religions? That’s my point.

 

[purplesunshine]

If a missionary is saying “bow to the Cross for food” then that is wrong.

However, our actions are not done in a vaccumn. We put ourselves into a bad, undiserable situation and depend on our faith to help others becuase they are also children of God. The most sucessful missionaries didn’t preach, they simply did. The best examiples would be St. Damien and Bl. Mother Teresa. Many were converted, but few were preached to.

 

[PathDiagnosis]

If a missionary is saying “bow to the Cross for food” then that is wrong.

However, our actions are not done in a vaccumn. We put ourselves into a bad, undiserable situation and depend on our faith to help others becuase they are also children of God. The most sucessful missionaries didn’t preach, they simply did. The best examiples would be St. Damien and Bl. Mother Teresa. Many were converted, but few were preached to.

Indeed. St. Francis de Sales was my favorite, especially because he refuted Protestantism, mostly Cavlin’s version thereof.

 

[Telstar]

If a missionary is saying “bow to the Cross for food” then that is wrong.

However, our actions are not done in a vaccumn. We put ourselves into a bad, undiserable situation and depend on our faith to help others becuase they are also children of God. The most sucessful missionaries didn’t preach, they simply did. The best examiples would be St. Damien and Bl. Mother Teresa. Many were converted, but few were preached to.

Indeed. St. Francis de Sales was my favorite, especially because he refuted Protestantism, mostly Cavlin’s version thereof.

Exactly. Their intentions were to serve the poor by helping them with their daily needs of food, shelter and medicine. They were not as concerned with converting anyone, that some people seem to believe. I think that’s the problem that I see with some other missionaries that are more concerned with preaching their version of ‘faith’ (including PP, PC and other secular ‘missionaries’) than they are in actually helping those people to survive and live a better life. Catholic missionaries tend to lead by their example. They might share their faith when those people ask about it, but it’s not meant to be their main focus in being there. The conversions will come as a result of the example that those missionaries give to the people that they serve. The best way for anyone to evangelize is by showing others a good example of our way of life, while respecting what those others might already believe.

 

[Izdaari]

Are missionaries taking advantage of poorer countries, especially when they preach their religions (Catholic, non-Catholic, etc) to relatively uneducated people. For example, dwellers in villages in the “under developed” world may not have access to complex works like Summa Theologica, etc. I mean, if they convert to a religion, it’s most likely going to be the one professed by local missionaries or whatever native traditions they have.

Is anyone at all bothered by this? I mean, religious people from a distant rich country coming over and spreading their faith…

Thoughts please.

Thanks.

Well… if people are uneducated, do they have less need to hear the Gospel than the educated? Jesus never seemed to discriminate in that regard: He called the learned and the unlearned alike: Peter, the simple fisherman, and Paul, the scholarly student of a famous rabbi, who argued law with Roman governors and philosophy in Athens with Greek philosophers, and never lost. He meets us wherever we are. Which is not to say that Christian missionaries couldn’t learn to be less culturally imperialistic. We come to make followers of Christ, not followers of Western Civilization.

 

[Earnest_Bunbury]

What is true exploiting is sending in a film crew to do a series with tribes and not offer what was given to us by God, that which we are to find ourselves and then spread to the world. This is based on the good of God’s religion that we cooperate with and give to them but seems to be “exploitative” to those with no religion because they themselves don’t know the good of religion.

Even these naked tribes are made in the image of God and the Gospel of the Lord gives to them the union with the Holy Spirit and the true humanity based on God’s Law. Keeping them ignorant of God and Jesus and having them display their “culture” of polygamy, polytheism, and superstitions for the entertainment of this inane “facebook” culture of ours is what true exploitation is about.

 

[ChrisB103]

Are missionaries taking advantage of poorer countries, especially when they preach their religions (Catholic, non-Catholic, etc) to relatively uneducated people. For example, dwellers in villages in the “under developed” world may not have access to complex works like Summa Theologica, etc. I mean, if they convert to a religion, it’s most likely going to be the one professed by local missionaries or whatever native traditions they have.

Is anyone at all bothered by this? I mean, religious people from a distant rich country coming over and spreading their faith…

Thoughts please.

Thanks.

Interesting question. I’ve wondered about this one before myself. I agree that, at least from a certain angle, it can come off the wrong way. Kind of like you said, it could come off as people from higher classes coming and “civilizing” people, or something to that extent.

I agree with the other posters here. It’s important to see that there are certainly different styles of missionaries. Being Catholic, I am very partial to the missionaries who go and immerse themselves in the culture for long periods of time and work with the people to improve their living circumstances. One of my great aunts, for instance, is a nun working and living outside of Lima, Peru. She has worked tirelessly for over ten years now, and brings in different health professionals (doctors, dentists, etc) to help the people. She also runs an orphanage with the nuns down there. So I think that especially this style of mission is incredibly noble.

Keep in mind also that because these people aren’t as exposed to the level of education other parts of the world are, this also makes them less likely to have heard the Gospel. As Christians, we of course believe it’s of utmost importance to spread the Gospel. People in better educated countries will have likely already heard the Gospel (although it might not always be in a thorough, pure manner).

 

[KathleenGee]

Authentic missionaries are sent by Christ…a special calling from God Himself.

It is God Himself Who hears their cries, their sufferings.

I was called, and went to work with Italian priests…prior, all of us felt like strangers in our own land. When I got on the plane to leave, after much stripping of attachments, I finally felt free and truly ‘my self’.

I have maintained friendship with these foreign missionaries for over 35 years. The priest I worked with stayed, and endured persecution, house arrest, tending to the starving and the orphans to the point he almost had a breakdown, his sicknesses attributed to the climate, the constant work.

Like they said at meetings…it is like a sickness they are there as they don’t have any worldly benefits being there.

I was worried about being accepted by the natives.

Contrary to Hollywood, biased literature, etc., I was told that the natives actually have great respect for the missionaries because there is no exploitation, but Christ’s servants truly laying down their lives for Christ present in these people.

We loved those people. There were compound hospitals, schools, technical schools built for the natives, training in agriculture…and we did not give them hand outs because that would cripple them. My priest developed their grammar book in their native tongue. He researched their customs that they hold dear and accepted them. We used their own original music for Mass…

In relation to the colonialists who came to exploit them, the catechist composed this haunting song, 'Why do you persecute us? Why do you treat us this way?..their inner being knew they were equal to those who exploited them.
Instead, we focused on their inherent value as made in the image of God, did not prosletyize but if they asked why we were there, we would always reference the truth: It is because of Christ.

We taught them hygiene, literacy, human rights, and helped them develop a nation of their own. There is great work now in getting the rest of the world to cooperate with Africa to draw on their own contributions to the world, but they do need ongoing assistance in fields of health and medicine.

If it were God’s will, I would go back in a heart beat. When you come back, this modern world is not appealing as before…the only thing to compensate was having a family of my own. And then the emptiness returns when kids leave home.

Check out John Paul II’s ‘Redemptoris Missio’, – ‘Mission of the Redeemer’…and it speaks of the special missionary calling where every breath you take, every step you take is not yours alone but Christ with you.

The greatest ‘preaching’ I did that brought in converts was sitting on the nearest log and just listening to them.

 

[KathleenGee]

The other thing we avoided was not to knock down other forms of Christianity or religions such as Hinduism and Islam, also present in that region in the Zambezi Valley.

 

[Sufjon]

Are missionaries taking advantage of poorer countries, especially when they preach their religions (Catholic, non-Catholic, etc) to relatively uneducated people. For example, dwellers in villages in the “under developed” world may not have access to complex works like Summa Theologica, etc. I mean, if they convert to a religion, it’s most likely going to be the one professed by local missionaries or whatever native traditions they have.

Is anyone at all bothered by this? I mean, religious people from a distant rich country coming over and spreading their faith…

Thoughts please.

Thanks.

It is my understanding that at least some Christians feel that they have an obligation to save the masses of uncouth swains about the planet from eternal damnation and lead them into salvation. Therefore to be slack in one’s appointed duties in regards to sharing what you know with those who don’t know is inexcusable. Based on this, it is my assumption that it would be considered unchristian to assist other cultures in worldly ways without properly schooling them on the deficiencies of the natural state into which they were born, and then pointing them in the right direction. So I suppose
the question is superfluous as to whether or not it bothers anyone.

Your friend
Sufjon

 

[puzzleannie]

Are missionaries taking advantage of poorer countries, especially when they preach their religions (Catholic, non-Catholic, etc) to relatively uneducated people. For example, dwellers in villages in the “under developed” world may not have access to complex works like Summa Theologica, etc. I .

90 % of Catholics throughout history have not had access to the Summa, other Church documents or even the bible. Many of not most of them until relatively recently were illiterate. That is no barrier to hearing and responding to the good news of the Gospel.

Do you really mean to imply that Catholic missionaries are taking advantage of third world people by offering them education, material assitance of all kinds, job skills and training, medical care and education, AIDS care and education, as well as telling them God loves them, Jesus died for them, and they share in the dignity of God’s children?

And what does any of this have to do with “destroying their local traditions”. Unless those traditions are contrary to universal moral law the Church usually does not touch them (like Aztecs throwing live children on the fire to appease their gods). Do a search on this forum and find all the threads that accuse the Catholic Church of the opposite tactice regarding popular culture and customs, by “baptizing” those customs by showing the people how they can relate to their new life as Christians, what they reveal about the truth of relationships among humans and of humans with the divine.

Do you not think the attitude that third world peoples, particularly poor people, do not share human dignity and do not have souls deserving to be saved is more damaging, more insulting and more immoral in the long run? To say a person or group of people, simply because of the conditions under which they live, are not deserving of knowing and loving Christ is to deny their human dignity. Shocking.

 

[KathleenGee]

People should study or if possible, attend African Masses and listen to their music.

We find the African form of the Kyrie Eleison quite invigorating a long side the profound Gregorian chant.

We welcome the rich traditions of faith that are emerging from Third World countries…

Anyone recall the papal visits by John Paul II to third world countries? He greatly affirmed their faith and cultures.

 

[CopticChristian]

Are missionaries taking advantage of poorer countries, especially when they preach their religions (Catholic, non-Catholic, etc) to relatively uneducated people. For example, dwellers in villages in the “under developed” world may not have access to complex works like Summa Theologica, etc. I mean, if they convert to a religion, it’s most likely going to be the one professed by local missionaries or whatever native traditions they have.

Is anyone at all bothered by this? I mean, religious people from a distant rich country coming over and spreading their faith…

Thoughts please.

Thanks.

This would depend on what you mean by missionaries. I have been on many missions. They have been medical missions. Operation Smile, Operation Rainbow, Interplast, COAD in San Diego have afforded me the opportunity to go to the People’s Republic, Phillipines, Mexico, Honduras, Mexico and do nothing but bring medical aid. We preached nothing but good will.

The missions in California were missionaries that came to the people with vows of chastity, poverty and obedience and through that brought Christianity to the people there.

The Faith is not spread by the Summa…The wealth of information available is available to all and at whatever level they can access it.

We are all called to evangelize and missionaries are dedicated to parts of the world where the Faith has not been spread.

Protestants have used peoples misfortunes to spread their beliefs. Jonathan Bernis goes to Ethiopia and sets up a clinic, hands out tickets to the natives, these tickets are exchanged for health care and as part of the process they have to meet with a Protestant missionary…Pat Robertson does the same thing with “Operation Blessing”…

I believe that Billy Graham’s son brings aid and only aid without any urgency to delivering a message. I believe his ministry is simple Charity. I may be wrong. I have seen some of what is done and all that I see being done is Charity. This would be the way it should be done for when someone sees such Charity they would then ask about the reasons for doing it…thus the evangelization…

Ireland is the only country in the world converted to Christianity by missionaries. Measure what you say by this…consider the tragedy of what Protestanism has done for that country.

 

[KathleenGee]

What is preached is Jesus died and resurrected for each one of us, and entering into Him brings us new freedom and life in abundance, no matter how rich or poor.

 

[PathDiagnosis]

What is preached is Jesus died and resurrected for each one of us, and entering into Him brings us new freedom and life in abundance, no matter how rich or poor.

But aren’t the relatively poor and uneducated more amenable to religious conversion?
Is it easier to convert them than say, non-religious educated people at some elite Ivy League/MIT type school? BTW, this is just for comparison.

 

[Telstar]

But aren’t the relatively poor and uneducated more amenable to religious conversion?
Is it easier to convert them than say, non-religious educated people at some elite Ivy League/MIT type school? BTW, this is just for comparison.

Probably so, but are you saying that more churches should be sending their missionaries to preach to the atheists, that tend to walk the halls of the Ivy League? Not that there’s anything wrong with that, mind you.

 

[bz5]

But aren’t the relatively poor and uneducated more amenable to religious conversion?
Is it easier to convert them than say, non-religious educated people at some elite Ivy League/MIT type school? BTW, this is just for comparison.

You really seem to keep implying that it’s mainly the ignorant, if not outright dumb, who would tend to be religious