Is the name familiar to you?
If you’ve been following the news …well, the news outside of whatever latest lunacy Donald Trump’s been involved in… John Allen Chau is the Christian missionary who earlier this month went to a remote Indian island with the intent of converting an isolated tribe there to Christianity.
He was killed by the remote islanders, who are isolated and have had no outside contact with “civilization” and thus know nothing about Christianity or current events and, no doubt, came to view Mr. Chau as a threat to themselves.
Over on Slate.com I found this fascinating article by Ruth Graham titled…
Christian missionaries entering potential “hostile” territories is nothing new. Part of their mission (they are “missionaries”!) is to convert people to the Christian cause, and no doubt Mr. Chau viewed his outreach as trying to spread the word of God to those who needed it.
The article is most fascinating in the early paragraphs, where the author offers the following history:
In January 1956, five young American missionaries decided to make contact with a small tribe of natives in eastern Ecuador, with the purpose of converting them to Christianity. Instead, just a few days after their first direct contact with the group, they were speared to death on a secluded beach. News of the missionaries’ deaths spread quickly in the United States. Life magazine devoted a 10-page spread to the story of “five devout men who sought to bring the word of God to a fierce tribe of Stone Age savages.” The reverence for the missionaries went even deeper in Christian circles, where believers saw the men as martyrs killed for their faith.
Back in 1956, the author goes on to note, the killing of these missionaries was viewed as a repugnant act by a “savage” people.
Today, as you can tell by the link/title of the article presented above, society’s views of missionaries has changed. While Christians no doubt view Mr. Chau’s death with sympathy and outrage, clearly there is a large segment of people out there that view his actions as the height of hubris/arrogance.
In other words, he got what was coming to him.
Now, I view his death as a tragedy. Then again, I feel anyone with a sliver of a pulse should view the death of any young person by such violence as a tragedy.
But another part of me completely agrees that he was a well-intentioned but supremely arrogant man who walked into a very dangerous situation and -surprise, surprise- met his end because of that arrogance.
I can’t help but think of the longer history, though, well beyond 1956 and the way Christianity in general has spread throughout the world. The Crusades, for instance. The initial forays into the “New World” and the way the Native Americans in South and Central America were treated and at times violently forced to convert. Hell, our own U.S. history and the way we’ve treated Indians.
What fascinates me the most about this article is that it shows a societal/world view certain shift in perspective. The “civilized world” no longer automatically sides with the zealous missionary and his holy crusade.
We have developed the capacity, maybe several hundred years too late, to realize that our world view shouldn’t be imposed upon others, that a rarity like the remote tribe in that Indian island should be allowed to live their lives in peace, as they have for generations, and we have no right to impose upon them.
A fascinating shift, for sure.