John Allen Chau - Preacher or Coloniser?

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fountainhall

John Allen Chau - Preacher or Coloniser?

Post by fountainhall »

The Island chain known as the Andamans lies not far off the western coast of Thailand. Stay in Khao Lak or other western resorts and you can take two- or three-day excursions to enjoy some of the many stunning beaches on the east side of the Andamans.

Lying of the chain’s west coast is a small almost circular island. Named the North Sentinel Island, it was here that 26-year-old American John Allen Chau met his death just 11 days ago. Chau’s mission was one that many have held for two millennia. Although not a missionary, he was a devout Christian. The message of Jesus and the saving of souls for Christ was one of the pillars of his existence.

The tribes of North Sentinel Island are considered as one of the world’s last uncontacted people. No one knows if the islanders number 40 or 500. What is known is they have refused contact with the outside world for many generations.

Several times before his death John Allen Chau had attempted to land on the Island and been rebuffed. Last week he tried again. The note he left prior to his departure makes clear he wanted to bring Christianity to the islanders, this despite a law specifically forbidding outsiders to approach more than 5 kilometres. In an earlier note, Chau had declared he was “doing this to establish the kingdom of Jesus on the island … Do not blame the natives if I am killed”. In his last letter written before that fateful voyage he wrote –
"You guys might think I'm crazy in all this... But I think it's worth it to declare Jesus to these people."
Chau bribed fishermen to smuggle him near the island. He then slipped into a kayak and pushed off. Just as he beached the kayak, there was a hail of arrows from the surrounding trees. He was killed.

Chau has variously been reported as a crazy adventurer, an immature explorer, with one media outlet claiming he was an idiot. And given the example of the Amazon tribes on first meeting westerners, idiot is probably not an inapt description. Who knows what diseases he might have brought these islanders whose immune systems would not have the ability to fight them off?

Chau’s death has led to many articles. There is one on today’s BBC website that is especially interesting in that it explores in some more detail the effect of missionary zeal on our world over centuries.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-46336355

Expanding one example, thousands of missionaries were eventually to land in the crumbling Qing Empire of China from the early years of the 19th century onwards. Christianity had in fact come to China more than two centuries earlier through the Jesuits, one of whom Matteo Ricci was given a place at the Emperor’s Court. The Jesuits “mission” worked largely because they introduced to the Emperor the many advances made in the west in mathematics, astronomy, arts and sciences. The Jesuits in China then succeeded in extending their influence precisely because they adapted their thinking to the ways of the Chinese. But their success was ended somewhat ironically by a pope who had been persuaded by envious Franciscans in Rome that his missionaries in China were straying too far from God’s path. By the end of the 18th century, most had departed. The Protestants now decided it was their turn. They held a firm belief they would succeed in converting millions of souls “for Christ”.

The first from England was John Morrison. He landed in Macau in 1807. Initially his proselytising efforts were confined to that territory and the 13 factories on Shamian Island in Canton where the western firms were permitted to do business with the Chinese for a few months a year. Morrison and those who came soon after knew full well that the British East India Company had persuaded some of the Chinese merchants to accept opium instead of the Company’s dwindling supply of silver in return for the great quantities of tea, porcelain, silks and other Chinese goods the west then craved. And that this opium trade was increasing exponentially.

Morrison and those who later joined him were well aware that by following in the wake of the traders, they were in effect condoning the sale of a drug that would end up killing millions. But then China was a huge country. They may not have liked it but they regarded their godly mission as more important. Without the opium and the subsequent Opium Wars, they would not have gained access to that vast body of souls awaiting conversion.

The Emperor in Beijing could see what was happening. The new missionaries were at first banned under the statute covering “Wizards, Witches and All Superstitions.” But with God behind him, Morrison was not put off. He converted one Chinese, Liang Fa, who began to print and distribute Christian tracts amongst his villagers. Arrested, Liang was ordered to pay a massive fine and severely beaten on the soles of his feet. Liang asked help from Morrison to pay the fine. On principle, Morrison refused, noting that the conversion of multitudes in China required martyrs. Instead, Morrison used his considerable savings to purchase new houses for his family members.

Morrison’s success rate was miserable. After 27 years of missionary effort, he was only able to report to his masters – and presumably to God – that he had converted just 25 souls. Other missionaries, including those joining him from Britain, America and other countries, were no more successful.

This evangelical zeal did have one unforeseen effect, though. Whilst it probably could not have happened if China had a stable government, the fact was that the Empire was in its long death throes – a result of massive corruption, over-taxation of its people, and especially hatred of the Manchus who had invaded and taken over the country two centuries earlier and who treated the Han Chinese with contempt.

One convert to Christianity hailed from a poor mountain village. Hong Xiuquan had even more grievances. Determined to join the civil service and gain the “iron rice bowl” which would set him and his family up for life, he failed the entrance examinations. Reading an old Christian pamphlet he had received from a missionary, he believed that he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ and had been sent to rid China of all its ills. After studying the Bible with an American missionary, he started preaching around southern China. His movement was to become known as the Taiping Rebellion, one that over 14 years would kill up to 15 million of his fellow Chinese before Hong and his rebellion collapsed. I wonder if the missionaries of the day counted these in their journals as 15 million lost!

In the BBC article, one missionary working in Nicaragua, Scott Esposito, states –
"We're constantly just sharing the Gospel," Scott tells the BBC on the phone. [He and his wife Jennifer] intentionally do not count how many they have converted, but estimate they have brought somewhere between 800 and 1,200 people to their faith in the past six years.

"Every soul matters," Scott says. "When you start to count and set goals, say, you want 500, you become so goal-driven and numbers-driven that you pass by that one person who's so important they might take a long time."
So for many missionaries it does seem to be a numbers game! Of John Chau’s mission, Jennifer says –
"From everything I've read he loved the Lord - his sacrifice may bring many to Christ in the future.

"Who know what seeds [have been planted] or what bigger things are going to happen."
Why do I find this way of thinking near idiotic? Because one silly man got killed on a beach? Or is it the old crucifixion thing again? You have to suffer for your beliefs in order to get others to share those beliefs? I can’t help think of the millions throughout recorded time whose lives were cut short because they were so sure that what they had been told and come to believe was right not just for them but for the rest of the planet.

The BBC article has one Facebook article from a former missionary that provides more insight. Caitlin Lowery wrote after Chau’s death –
I used to be a missionary. I would go on short term mission trips to Eastern Europe or Africa for the sole purpose of “earning souls for Christ”. We kept count of the number of people we “saved”. We put on a play or volunteered for a little while to show our love for Jesus. Then after praying with them and adding their soul to the tally marks, we would never see them again.

I thought I was doing God’s work. But if I’m being honest, I was doing work that made me feel good. I would volunteer in an orphanage or help clean out a house, both tasks requiring that the people who lived there had to teach me what to do. This actually took their time away from their family or their work. Yet I believed I was serving them.

Ask me what their names were. I must have worked with and met hundreds of people. Do I remember who they were? Did I even attempt to keep in contact with them or show them that I still care after they’d been added to the notches in my cross? No. Not even once.

I prayed over their houses of worship, that they would repent and see that their faith was dead. Yet I never once sat down and asked to learn what they believed. Why did I assume that my faith was the right faith? Why did I assume that my presence was so precious that it would change their hearts and lives? Why did I assume that they were lost, living their beautiful content lives right where they were? Why did I assume their lives needed changing?

This is white supremacy. This is colonization. White people entering a foreign land under the guise of caring to turn people into followers of the white peoples god and life. Do not pretend colonization doesn’t happen anymore. It just lives under a new name: mission trip.

Do not victimize the missionary that was killed for not following the laws of the tribe he claimed to love. Do not demonize the tribe that simply tried to protect their children from disease and violence. If he cared he would have already known their beliefs and laws and would not have disrespected them. But he didn’t care. They were just going to be another notch on his cross . . .

Colonization needs to end.
This mirrors the view of another article in today's Guardian which ends -
The history of outsiders’ relations with the indigenous people of the Andamans has a clear pattern – colonisation, exploitation and eventual extermination. If we are to learn anything from our past, it is that the Sentinelese should be left alone on North Sentinel Island.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... an-islands
deanagam

Re: John Allen Chau - Preacher or Coloniser?

Post by deanagam »

What a fitting end for a Chinese descendant who had chosen to adopt a false and impotent God.
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