You are confusing proselytizing, the traditional door to door activity in the US with what is actual mission work in a third world country. Like the former Mormon missionary. Mormon church is only interested in converting people who are wealthy enough to tithe Religion is mostly business. An outreach is kind of like inviting new people to your place of worship to keep the business going Actual mission work in a 3rd world country is wildly different |
|
Our church sends mostly medical missionaries of doctors and RN's.
They always have lines of people to treat. Some have walked for two days for treatment. They perform a lot of surgeries and also do a lot of womens' reproductive care. For many people around the world this is the only medical care they have access to. |
Which religion? |
The disgusting part is thinking that your beliefs and ways are inherently better than traditional beliefs and ways. Forcing yourself on them is somehow ok because they are poor. So vile. |
| I think the OP is talking about those who come to her part of the world to "convert us." I don't thinks she's talking about the ones who just duig wells, provide medical services and, you know, spread the love. So to stay on topic the responses should be about those missionaries who try to spread the word, tell the people how to obtain eternal salvation and so forth. |
Read the above. Those apologists who say we just dig wells and provide medical services are not the topic of OP's objection. Those comments are non-responsive. I agree with OP. Keep your bible to yourself. It's highly disrespectful to pretend you know the real truth and that people in these countries do not. |
Does “spreading the love” mean encouraging indigenous people to “let go” of traditional beliefs? |
you should ask the person who said that. I don't think anyone really believes that's all missionaries do. |
Is that ok for any missionaries to do? |
It depends on what you believe I guess. The missionaries in Hawaii got the females to cover up their toplessness because the Bible (from the midd-east) deemed it immoral. Is that ok with you? |
The missionaries shouldn’t have been there in the first place. They certainly shouldn’t have have forced any changes to local traditions & customs & religion. |
At the same time, some local traditions would have prevented them from catching up to the modern times. They needed to learn to read and write, do away with the custom of walking topless and the taboo of men and women eating together. A new century was on their doorstep and they needed the skills to navigate it in order to survive as a people |
Are you being facetious? (i think you are ). Why not just leave them alone? It was none of the missionaries' business how they lived (which was a paradise btw). This is exactly the kind of meddlesome behavior that OP and many others here are objecting to.
|
Right. So entitled narcissists. With a serious case of white savior syndrome. |
“Local traditions” in the Hawaiian culture included the abandonment/exposure of infants deemed “defective.” Also the maintenance of a caste system that included a slave caste others considered disgusting. Incestuous marriages among the elite, death penalty inflicted at whim by the ruling class, and human sacrifice were also traditional practices. In other parts of the world, “traditional practices” to this day include “honor killings,” forcible concubinage, involuntary servitude, and the murder of homosexuals, among other things. The notion that “traditional practices” represent some sort of divine Eden that must never be interfered with is juvenile and ill-informed at best. |