An ammendment to my missionary post:

I have no problem with missionaries who go over to other countries ONLY with the object of secular ministry - that is, missionaries concerned with human rights stuff and NOT specific Christian objectives. These CAN be Christian missionaries; in this context, "secular" does not refer to the missionary's personal religious affiliation. Rather, it's a reference to the goal of the mission itself.

Missionaries do a lot of wonderful things. They feed starving people, educate uneducated children and adults, and distribute health information. Unfortunately, there are very few purely secular missionaries. Jesus generally gets tossed into the mix somewhere along the line. Even if it's not a forced conversion, and even if religion is not a main focus of the work being done, it's a subtle suggestion that Christianity is the "right" way and that any other values/beliefs/religions are "wrong" and "inferior" and "silly."

It's one thing when missionaries go down to Alabama to help poor people build houses and entirely another when they go to Mongolia or Afghanistan or anywhere else, with the aim of converting the filthy heathens, thereby causing people to abandon their own perfectly legitimate religions.

As a scholar of religion, I *HAVE* to be opposed to the systematic destruction of systems of belief. As an academic rather than as an adherent to any religious tradition, I am willing to say that no one religion is "better" than any other religion. I am willing to claim that all systems of belief are vaild, and that they ought to be treated equally. Requesting that a person abandon his or her beliefs in favor of another set of beliefs (however subtly it's done) violates both of these principles. It says, "Your God sucks...mine is better, so you should believe in mine." Aaagh.

All the religions that I've studed have meritable qualities, Christianity included. At the same time, all of the religions have major flaws. One of Christianity's flaws, both now and throughout history, has been its need to missionize and stamp out other systems of belief. I understand that this is because it's built into the Christian holy book as an integral part of the faith - Jesus won't come again until everyone in the world has heard his Good News - but, from my scholarly viewpoint, it's tragic that in fulfilling their own religion Christianity prescribes the obliteration of other faiths.

The Christians don't like it too much with the zealot Muslims (an unbelievably small minority, I might add) trash Christianity and claim that Allah is superior and whatnot. It's a personal insult and it demonizes Islam as a whole. But a lot of the Christians don't have any trouble doing the same damn thing to people practicing indigenous religions. Aaagh. Hypocrisy. Gotta love it.


"You can ask yourself, 'What happened when Native Americans came into contact with Christianity?' Or when ANYONE comes into contanct with Christianity, for that matter..." -Steve Spina, my Religion in America prof.