Evangelizing remote tribes

  • Thread starter Thread starter KevinK
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Roseeurekacross said:
He broke the law of India. This is the last pre-neolithic tribe left, and is under the protection of India since the 1940s. They want to be left alone. They don’t tolerate anyone coming to the island. They survived a tsunami and then shot arrows at anyone trying to get close enough to see if they were ok.

Basically he was illegally on their soil. And they reacted in a way appropriate to their ways.
Click to expand...
Interesting response. From a Catholic point of view they are simply pagans who are waiting for the word of God to be spread to them. Salvation is more important than any law.
It’s not like they are an ancient building or artefact. They’re people and Jesus commanded us to make desciples of all nations. He didn’t make an exception for remote tribes.

Beyond that though, why would we leave these tribes in the darkness, rather than attempting to bring them into the modern world.
 
Roguish said:
I pray to High Heaven that it will.
Click to expand...
Why? How does it benefit these people to be stuck in the past when they could benefit from modern technology and healthcare?

It’s nonsense to suggest that their culture is more important than their souls, or even the possibility of them living as the rest of us.
What right do we have to “protect” them? They have the right to be a part of the larger human family. They’re not endangered animals.
 
Last edited:
AdamP88 said:
What right do we have to “protect” them?
Click to expand...
I love this question because it flips the issue upside down.

My feeling is mixed on this issue.
But Jesus did say to “shake the dust” of a town that wouldn’t accept His disciples.
At the same time, not evangelizing “now” is not the same as not evangelizing “ever”.

Maybe the time isn’t right at the present moment.
 
I’m not just talking about evangelising though.
This is part of the modern “all cultures are equal” tripe.
We should be attempting to begin an ongoing dialogue between these remote tribes and the wider world.
 
AdamP88 said:
40.png
Roseeurekacross:
He broke the law of India. This is the last pre-neolithic tribe left, and is under the protection of India since the 1940s. They want to be left alone. They don’t tolerate anyone coming to the island. They survived a tsunami and then shot arrows at anyone trying to get close enough to see if they were ok.

Basically he was illegally on their soil. And they reacted in a way appropriate to their ways.
Click to expand...
Interesting response. From a Catholic point of view they are simply pagans who are waiting for the word of God to be spread to them. Salvation is more important than any law.
It’s not like they are an ancient building or artefact. They’re people and Jesus commanded us to make desciples of all nations. He didn’t make an exception for remote tribes.

Beyond that though, why would we leave these tribes in the darkness, rather than attempting to bring them into the modern world.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I don’t know. Looking around at the “modern world” I am left with the impression that there might be more natural light in their world than in the modern world. They take up weapons against perceived threats, but to outdo the modern world in the darkness factor, they would have to engage in the wholesale killing their unborn, abandoning their natural moral responsibilities, and inculcating their children in all manner of mindless nonsense.

On the other hand, the eternal light of Christ is a different matter. That light isn’t the same thing as the artificial or LED light which illumines the “modern world,” giving it a shallow and ghoulish pall.
 
0Scarlett_nidiyilii said:
That being said, we also have to be realistic about the dangers of spreading illnesses to people who don’t have immunity to our germs,
Click to expand...
Not to mention the dangers of visiting an island out in the middle of nowhere, whose inhabitants carry bows and arrows with every intention of using them on you!!!
 
I agree that if we were protecting them from the outside world just to have a pre-Neolithic tribe to study, without considering their good or their wishes, that would be wrong.

But they have made it clear over hundreds of years and many generations that they don’t want anything to do with the outside world. They don’t travel, they don’t trade, they don’t accept visitors or gifts. Their language appears unrelated even to those of nearby islands, and no outsider has been able to learn it, or get a handle on their culture, or even be sure how many of them there are.

Given that, to bring them into the wider human family would mean forcing ourselves on them, very much against their will. That is not going to go well even if we mean ultimately to help them. On top of that, remember that these people (and many generations of their ancestors) have been isolated like that for something like 55,000 years. Agriculture, metalworking, all of that passed them by. You’re talking about introducing modern medicine, but do you understand just how alien the very concept would be? The amount of context you’d have to provide (while they are hiding from you or shooting at you, based on past behavior) even to make the offer and receive anything that could meaningfully be called consent? That’s the same reason I don’t think much of Mr. Chau’s evangelization attempts: if he was intending anything more meaningful than “Here’s a picture of Jesus. Can you say ‘Jesus’? I’m gonna dunk you in this water now,” it would have been a project way too big for one guy faced with a lethally hostile audience.
 
Honestly, I would say, at this moment in time, to lift up this tribe in prayer, they know “we” are out here, and if such a time comes that they reach out to us, then we respond in charity and prudence.
 
TheAmazingGrace said:
They have to be able to understand what you’re talking about. You can’t effectively communicate a concept if you know nothing about your audience.
Click to expand...
So when the Spanish evangelised the Aztecs and the other tribes in what is now Mexico did those tribes have a frame of reference? And did the Spanish priests who arrived to evangelise them know their audience?
 
Brendan_64 said:
So when the Spanish evangelised the Aztecs and the other tribes in what is now Mexico did those tribes have a frame of reference? And did the Spanish priests who arrived to evangelise them know their audience?
Click to expand...
Given how Spanish-Aztec relations played out, I wouldn’t exactly consider that a model of missionary work.
 
Last edited:
There is a very high possibility that he transmitted disease to them. Even with brief contact, he could have killed them because they have no immunity to our diseases, even a common cold.
 
When evangelizing, it’s always a good idea to consider the reality that the person I am evangelizing may be closer to God than I am. This consideration applies to those I might consider ignorant. Evangelization is never a one way street.
 
goout said:
When evangelizing, it’s always a good idea to consider the reality that the person I am evangelizing may be closer to God than I am.
Click to expand...
Well then what’s the point?

That’s simply a rehash of the modern idea that all cultures are equally good.
 
AdamP88 said:
40.png
goout:
When evangelizing, it’s always a good idea to consider the reality that the person I am evangelizing may be closer to God than I am.
Click to expand...
Well then what’s the point?

That’s simply a rehash of the modern idea that all cultures are equally good.
Click to expand...
How do you figure that?
What do you mean by equal? I don’t place much value in “equal” in terms of culture. People have equal rights before God and the law, but cultures are unique, and qualitative comparisons frequently fail.
 
Last edited:
TheAmazingGrace said:
Given how Spanish-Aztec relations played out, I wouldn’t exactly consider that a model of missionary work.
Click to expand...
The many millions converted to the Catholic faith, thanks to Our Lady.

Would you rather the Aztecs had continued their industrial scale of human sacrifice? Should the Spanish have just respected their religious beliefs and culture and let them carry on with this?
 
Last edited:
KevinK said:
What does that mean?
Click to expand...
Our Lady of Guadalupe’s appearance and the image left of St Juan Diego’s tilma. The Catholic faith spread at an incredible rate after this with many millions converting.
 
Last edited:
goout said:
All you have to do is look at modern western culture to see the problem with this line of thinking.
Click to expand...
What point are you making? That the Aztec practice of ongoing large scale human sacrifice ought to have been respected by the Spanish?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top