Missionaries should be banned

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another example of missionaries preying on vulnerable is facilitating adoptions for Haitian children (and other countries). These children are the most vulnerable. They are powerless and not given a choice to be removed from their home/culture/language and taken to be raised in a whole different country/religion. Sometimes they are even kidnapped by these religious groups - literally a captive audience:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Life_Children%27s_Refuge_case
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zo%C3%A9%27s_Ark

I did volunteer work—not missionary work—in Haiti. I actually worked with a group that helped feed Haitian orphans. I speak some Haitian Creole.

You have no clue. There are tons of orphans in Haiti, especially after the earthquakes. The word “orphan” in creole often extends to kids with a single parent who have been displaced by natural disasters. These kids are either on their own, or they’re with relatives who told us they can’t support them, so we fed the kids and they wandered the streets during the day instead of going to school.

Have you ever seen the effect of starvation? It looks like reddish hair and an extended belly. We had those kids show up.

One Haitian actually offered me a kid to take back to the US. I declined. I’ve always wondered if I did the right thing. Did I?

Church groups are a godsend down there. Hundreds or thousands of religious people are working with Haitians to feed kids, run schools, and rebuild. I can’t condone kidnapping, but from your link it looks like the charge was reduced to illegally transporting kids to an orphanage in the DR. Put that way, it’s hard to know what happened.

You also need to know that a U.S. education is highly coveted in Haiti. I know a couple where the husband is in Haiti while the wife cleans houses (illegally) in Boston so their kid can go to US public schools.

But sure, wave that glass of Chardonnay around from the comfort of your sofa and tell these desperate or ambitious Haitians they’re wrong and you’re cutting it all off.

Maybe you've been hitting the Chardonnay a bit too hard. Sorry, I'm just getting thirsty reading your posts. Chablis, Nebbiolo, Vinho Verde and now Chardonnay. And I've probably left a couple out. You must have one heckuva wine rack.

In fact I think I have about one bottle around here right now. But I do know my way around wine

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Service is a very real part of many religions. Pp may think writing a check is the universal answer, but for many religions it’s important to serve other people directly. There’s a reason ministers wash the feet of their congregants.

But they can “serve” via secular organizations.

But given the way missionaries work today—little pressure—what’s the difference? What is your problem with mission work today?

There should be zero pressure. Service work done independent of proselytizing.

The doctors in the earlier example should be happy to serve in a secular capacity too, right? No strings attached to their care?

Jesus healed the sick, fed the hungry. Why shouldn't missionaries if nobody else steps up to do it.

They can do it via secular organizations.

Can vs. do. Can doesn't accomplish anything. It's hypothetical. In jammies in DC.

So only justification for missionaries is that there aren’t enough secular organizations at the moment?

Secular orgs and check-writing are no substitute. Missionaries/some religious people seek to perform charity/service to real people as part of their faith. And they seek to testify through example (not coercion). None of this is available through secular organizations. And writing a check from DC doesn’t accomplish any of this.

If you ban mission work in foreign countries under some misapprehension that it’s still coercive, these religious people will focus exclusively on Appalachia and inner cities in the USA. No, they aren’t giving up service, they’d just have to refocus it domestically. And total aid abroad will decline massively.

You sit on your restoration hardware sofa in your jammies and wave your glass of Nebbiolo around, as you talk about taking away services to people in developing countries.

Believers could still perform charity work through secular organizations.

They aren't just giving out of the kindness of their heart? They need to have strings attached to their aid?

What strings? You’ve been asked for examples of missionaries today who turn away nonbelievers from food or medical care, and you haven’t given a single example.

Your only objection seems to be that the organization itself is religious. And you haven’t explained why that’s bad.

I’ve explained multiple times. When you push your beliefs on a vulnerable population it’s abusing a power imbalance.

So, by definition, you think poor people are too stupid to listen to new ideas and determine which religion is most meaningful to them? I think it is more likely that they are smart enough to accept charitable aid and continue to believe whatever they want.

This. Also, pp’s whole premise is flawed. For almost 30 pages, posters have asked repeatedly for examples of 21st century missionaries “pushing” their religion on anybody—or foisting it or making their aid conditional in any way. Nobody can give examples, because that’s not how missionary aid works today. All we’ve seen are almost 30 pages of middle school-level invective.

I don't think anyone has claimed that missionaries explicitly make their aid conditional. Please share a timestamp if I missed a post.

Again, the unethical aspect of mixing service and religion with vulnerable people is the power imbalance and implicit expectation of conversion. When someone is giving someone critical medical care while preaching, they are exploiting the situation. It's not that anyone is stupid, they are just vulnerable.

Here is an example:
Mongolians parents basically held in captivity to get medical care for their children. The power imbalance here is insane - providing a surgery they couldn't get in their (non-Christian) home country. They were living with these people preaching to them 24x7 for months.
https://video.samaritanspurse.org/new-hearts/

Here they admit that they are intentionally focusing on Hindu and Muslims "who are hurting and those who are in need" because "people's souls would be ripe to hear the gospel truth":
https://video.samaritanspurse.org/critical-care-center-in-bangladesh-opens/

There are a bunch of these videos showing them proudly setting up "platforms" to convert vulnerable people.

Your links wiped out my data plan for the month so I couldn’t watch them all.

But I saw enough to see that by “held in captivity” you mean “flown to another country for open heart surgery that isn’t available in their neck of Mongolia.” And there was no evidence of “24/7” proselytizing even from this overtly Christian channel.

Are you kidding us?

Watch the whole video. It's <3 minutes.

These families were in the middle of a huge health crisis with no other treatment available. They left their homes/families/support and lived with these host families who called them "part of the family". They ended stuck with them for an extra 5+ months because of the pandemic which the SP people said was positive because they had more time to "hear more about Jesus Christ".

They were exploiting the vulnerable position of these families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another example of missionaries preying on vulnerable is facilitating adoptions for Haitian children (and other countries). These children are the most vulnerable. They are powerless and not given a choice to be removed from their home/culture/language and taken to be raised in a whole different country/religion. Sometimes they are even kidnapped by these religious groups - literally a captive audience:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Life_Children%27s_Refuge_case
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zo%C3%A9%27s_Ark

I did volunteer work—not missionary work—in Haiti. I actually worked with a group that helped feed Haitian orphans. I speak some Haitian Creole.

You have no clue. There are tons of orphans in Haiti, especially after the earthquakes. The word “orphan” in creole often extends to kids with a single parent who have been displaced by natural disasters. These kids are either on their own, or they’re with relatives who told us they can’t support them, so we fed the kids and they wandered the streets during the day instead of going to school.

Have you ever seen the effect of starvation? It looks like reddish hair and an extended belly. We had those kids show up.

One Haitian actually offered me a kid to take back to the US. I declined. I’ve always wondered if I did the right thing. Did I?

Church groups are a godsend down there. Hundreds or thousands of religious people are working with Haitians to feed kids, run schools, and rebuild. I can’t condone kidnapping, but from your link it looks like the charge was reduced to illegally transporting kids to an orphanage in the DR. Put that way, it’s hard to know what happened.

You also need to know that a U.S. education is highly coveted in Haiti. I know a couple where the husband is in Haiti while the wife cleans houses (illegally) in Boston so their kid can go to US public schools.

But sure, wave that glass of Chardonnay around from the comfort of your sofa and tell these desperate or ambitious Haitians they’re wrong and you’re cutting it all off.

I should have mentioned, secular groups, although many are great, are not up to the task on their own. An aid worker wrote a book about how badly the UN performed in Port au Prince after the earthquake. In the remote town where I worked, and where a lot of refugees from Port au Prince streamed, the UN had some trailer where they did “reconciliation” work. The people who were rolling up their sleeves and actually doing something were us, the missionaries, and the religiously-affiliated volunteers.

Why can't they help people without proselytizing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is the Bangladesh video where they say that their goal is to set up "platforms" to convert people while they are vulnerable:
"people's souls would be ripe to hear the gospel truth"

So much good that they're doing -- and then they have to go and admit that while the patients are recovering, flat on their back, they tell them the "Truth" of Jesus Christ. It seems very disrespectful to me to do that in a Hindu and Muslim nation.

Exactly. They come right out and say that they picked that location because of the proximity to people are are Hindu and Muslim.

They actually think that they are "saving" people from a Hindu or Muslim life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another example of missionaries preying on vulnerable is facilitating adoptions for Haitian children (and other countries). These children are the most vulnerable. They are powerless and not given a choice to be removed from their home/culture/language and taken to be raised in a whole different country/religion. Sometimes they are even kidnapped by these religious groups - literally a captive audience:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Life_Children%27s_Refuge_case
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zo%C3%A9%27s_Ark

I did volunteer work—not missionary work—in Haiti. I actually worked with a group that helped feed Haitian orphans. I speak some Haitian Creole.

You have no clue. There are tons of orphans in Haiti, especially after the earthquakes. The word “orphan” in creole often extends to kids with a single parent who have been displaced by natural disasters. These kids are either on their own, or they’re with relatives who told us they can’t support them, so we fed the kids and they wandered the streets during the day instead of going to school.

Have you ever seen the effect of starvation? It looks like reddish hair and an extended belly. We had those kids show up.

One Haitian actually offered me a kid to take back to the US. I declined. I’ve always wondered if I did the right thing. Did I?

Church groups are a godsend down there. Hundreds or thousands of religious people are working with Haitians to feed kids, run schools, and rebuild. I can’t condone kidnapping, but from your link it looks like the charge was reduced to illegally transporting kids to an orphanage in the DR. Put that way, it’s hard to know what happened.

You also need to know that a U.S. education is highly coveted in Haiti. I know a couple where the husband is in Haiti while the wife cleans houses (illegally) in Boston so their kid can go to US public schools.

But sure, wave that glass of Chardonnay around from the comfort of your sofa and tell these desperate or ambitious Haitians they’re wrong and you’re cutting it all off.

I should have mentioned, secular groups, although many are great, are not up to the task on their own. An aid worker wrote a book about how badly the UN performed in Port au Prince after the earthquake. In the remote town where I worked, and where a lot of refugees from Port au Prince streamed, the UN had some trailer where they did “reconciliation” work. The people who were rolling up their sleeves and actually doing something were us, the missionaries, and the religiously-affiliated volunteers.

Why can't they help people without proselytizing?

Probably for the same reason(s) you come here to proselytize your views, albeit without helping anybody.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another example of missionaries preying on vulnerable is facilitating adoptions for Haitian children (and other countries). These children are the most vulnerable. They are powerless and not given a choice to be removed from their home/culture/language and taken to be raised in a whole different country/religion. Sometimes they are even kidnapped by these religious groups - literally a captive audience:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Life_Children%27s_Refuge_case
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zo%C3%A9%27s_Ark

I did volunteer work—not missionary work—in Haiti. I actually worked with a group that helped feed Haitian orphans. I speak some Haitian Creole.

You have no clue. There are tons of orphans in Haiti, especially after the earthquakes. The word “orphan” in creole often extends to kids with a single parent who have been displaced by natural disasters. These kids are either on their own, or they’re with relatives who told us they can’t support them, so we fed the kids and they wandered the streets during the day instead of going to school.

Have you ever seen the effect of starvation? It looks like reddish hair and an extended belly. We had those kids show up.

One Haitian actually offered me a kid to take back to the US. I declined. I’ve always wondered if I did the right thing. Did I?

Church groups are a godsend down there. Hundreds or thousands of religious people are working with Haitians to feed kids, run schools, and rebuild. I can’t condone kidnapping, but from your link it looks like the charge was reduced to illegally transporting kids to an orphanage in the DR. Put that way, it’s hard to know what happened.

You also need to know that a U.S. education is highly coveted in Haiti. I know a couple where the husband is in Haiti while the wife cleans houses (illegally) in Boston so their kid can go to US public schools.

But sure, wave that glass of Chardonnay around from the comfort of your sofa and tell these desperate or ambitious Haitians they’re wrong and you’re cutting it all off.

I should have mentioned, secular groups, although many are great, are not up to the task on their own. An aid worker wrote a book about how badly the UN performed in Port au Prince after the earthquake. In the remote town where I worked, and where a lot of refugees from Port au Prince streamed, the UN had some trailer where they did “reconciliation” work. The people who were rolling up their sleeves and actually doing something were us, the missionaries, and the religiously-affiliated volunteers.

Why can't they help people without proselytizing?

Probably for the same reason(s) you come here to proselytize your views, albeit without helping anybody.

They are calling out unethical behavior?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another example of missionaries preying on vulnerable is facilitating adoptions for Haitian children (and other countries). These children are the most vulnerable. They are powerless and not given a choice to be removed from their home/culture/language and taken to be raised in a whole different country/religion. Sometimes they are even kidnapped by these religious groups - literally a captive audience:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Life_Children%27s_Refuge_case
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zo%C3%A9%27s_Ark

I did volunteer work—not missionary work—in Haiti. I actually worked with a group that helped feed Haitian orphans. I speak some Haitian Creole.

You have no clue. There are tons of orphans in Haiti, especially after the earthquakes. The word “orphan” in creole often extends to kids with a single parent who have been displaced by natural disasters. These kids are either on their own, or they’re with relatives who told us they can’t support them, so we fed the kids and they wandered the streets during the day instead of going to school.

Have you ever seen the effect of starvation? It looks like reddish hair and an extended belly. We had those kids show up.

One Haitian actually offered me a kid to take back to the US. I declined. I’ve always wondered if I did the right thing. Did I?

Church groups are a godsend down there. Hundreds or thousands of religious people are working with Haitians to feed kids, run schools, and rebuild. I can’t condone kidnapping, but from your link it looks like the charge was reduced to illegally transporting kids to an orphanage in the DR. Put that way, it’s hard to know what happened.

You also need to know that a U.S. education is highly coveted in Haiti. I know a couple where the husband is in Haiti while the wife cleans houses (illegally) in Boston so their kid can go to US public schools.

But sure, wave that glass of Chardonnay around from the comfort of your sofa and tell these desperate or ambitious Haitians they’re wrong and you’re cutting it all off.

I should have mentioned, secular groups, although many are great, are not up to the task on their own. An aid worker wrote a book about how badly the UN performed in Port au Prince after the earthquake. In the remote town where I worked, and where a lot of refugees from Port au Prince streamed, the UN had some trailer where they did “reconciliation” work. The people who were rolling up their sleeves and actually doing something were us, the missionaries, and the religiously-affiliated volunteers.

Why can't they help people without proselytizing?

I thought the same thing. If you're religious and want to help others, great, but please don't teach/preach/convert to these people. It's insulting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Service is a very real part of many religions. Pp may think writing a check is the universal answer, but for many religions it’s important to serve other people directly. There’s a reason ministers wash the feet of their congregants.

But they can “serve” via secular organizations.

But given the way missionaries work today—little pressure—what’s the difference? What is your problem with mission work today?

There should be zero pressure. Service work done independent of proselytizing.

The doctors in the earlier example should be happy to serve in a secular capacity too, right? No strings attached to their care?

Jesus healed the sick, fed the hungry. Why shouldn't missionaries if nobody else steps up to do it.

They can do it via secular organizations.

Can vs. do. Can doesn't accomplish anything. It's hypothetical. In jammies in DC.

So only justification for missionaries is that there aren’t enough secular organizations at the moment?

Secular orgs and check-writing are no substitute. Missionaries/some religious people seek to perform charity/service to real people as part of their faith. And they seek to testify through example (not coercion). None of this is available through secular organizations. And writing a check from DC doesn’t accomplish any of this.

If you ban mission work in foreign countries under some misapprehension that it’s still coercive, these religious people will focus exclusively on Appalachia and inner cities in the USA. No, they aren’t giving up service, they’d just have to refocus it domestically. And total aid abroad will decline massively.

You sit on your restoration hardware sofa in your jammies and wave your glass of Nebbiolo around, as you talk about taking away services to people in developing countries.

Believers could still perform charity work through secular organizations.

They aren't just giving out of the kindness of their heart? They need to have strings attached to their aid?

What strings? You’ve been asked for examples of missionaries today who turn away nonbelievers from food or medical care, and you haven’t given a single example.

Your only objection seems to be that the organization itself is religious. And you haven’t explained why that’s bad.

I’ve explained multiple times. When you push your beliefs on a vulnerable population it’s abusing a power imbalance.

So, by definition, you think poor people are too stupid to listen to new ideas and determine which religion is most meaningful to them? I think it is more likely that they are smart enough to accept charitable aid and continue to believe whatever they want.

This. Also, pp’s whole premise is flawed. For almost 30 pages, posters have asked repeatedly for examples of 21st century missionaries “pushing” their religion on anybody—or foisting it or making their aid conditional in any way. Nobody can give examples, because that’s not how missionary aid works today. All we’ve seen are almost 30 pages of middle school-level invective.

I don't think anyone has claimed that missionaries explicitly make their aid conditional. Please share a timestamp if I missed a post.

Again, the unethical aspect of mixing service and religion with vulnerable people is the power imbalance and implicit expectation of conversion. When someone is giving someone critical medical care while preaching, they are exploiting the situation. It's not that anyone is stupid, they are just vulnerable.

Here is an example:
Mongolians parents basically held in captivity to get medical care for their children. The power imbalance here is insane - providing a surgery they couldn't get in their (non-Christian) home country. They were living with these people preaching to them 24x7 for months.
https://video.samaritanspurse.org/new-hearts/

Here they admit that they are intentionally focusing on Hindu and Muslims "who are hurting and those who are in need" because "people's souls would be ripe to hear the gospel truth":
https://video.samaritanspurse.org/critical-care-center-in-bangladesh-opens/

There are a bunch of these videos showing them proudly setting up "platforms" to convert vulnerable people.

Your links wiped out my data plan for the month so I couldn’t watch them all.

But I saw enough to see that by “held in captivity” you mean “flown to another country for open heart surgery that isn’t available in their neck of Mongolia.” And there was no evidence of “24/7” proselytizing even from this overtly Christian channel.

Are you kidding us?

Watch the whole video. It's <3 minutes.

These families were in the middle of a huge health crisis with no other treatment available. They left their homes/families/support and lived with these host families who called them "part of the family". They ended stuck with them for an extra 5+ months because of the pandemic which the SP people said was positive because they had more time to "hear more about Jesus Christ".

They were exploiting the vulnerable position of these families.

People may have different perspectives on this, but requiring somebody move near a hospital that can perform needed heart surgery seems pretty logical. You want the doctors to do the surgery in a yurt? Similarly, providing a “host family” who treats them like “part of the family” doesn’t exactly sound nefarious, quite the opposite. You think the kids should have traveled alone to the city, far from their families, and their parents should have found a way to pay for a hotel? Similarly, the fact that COVID interrupted their return home isn’t anybody’s fault.

You haven’t shown anybody was denied surgery because they wouldn’t attend services or convert. And once again, you show your scorn for poor peoples’ ability to make their own choices.

Methinks you doth protest too much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another example of missionaries preying on vulnerable is facilitating adoptions for Haitian children (and other countries). These children are the most vulnerable. They are powerless and not given a choice to be removed from their home/culture/language and taken to be raised in a whole different country/religion. Sometimes they are even kidnapped by these religious groups - literally a captive audience:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Life_Children%27s_Refuge_case
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zo%C3%A9%27s_Ark

I did volunteer work—not missionary work—in Haiti. I actually worked with a group that helped feed Haitian orphans. I speak some Haitian Creole.

You have no clue. There are tons of orphans in Haiti, especially after the earthquakes. The word “orphan” in creole often extends to kids with a single parent who have been displaced by natural disasters. These kids are either on their own, or they’re with relatives who told us they can’t support them, so we fed the kids and they wandered the streets during the day instead of going to school.

Have you ever seen the effect of starvation? It looks like reddish hair and an extended belly. We had those kids show up.

One Haitian actually offered me a kid to take back to the US. I declined. I’ve always wondered if I did the right thing. Did I?

Church groups are a godsend down there. Hundreds or thousands of religious people are working with Haitians to feed kids, run schools, and rebuild. I can’t condone kidnapping, but from your link it looks like the charge was reduced to illegally transporting kids to an orphanage in the DR. Put that way, it’s hard to know what happened.

You also need to know that a U.S. education is highly coveted in Haiti. I know a couple where the husband is in Haiti while the wife cleans houses (illegally) in Boston so their kid can go to US public schools.

But sure, wave that glass of Chardonnay around from the comfort of your sofa and tell these desperate or ambitious Haitians they’re wrong and you’re cutting it all off.

I should have mentioned, secular groups, although many are great, are not up to the task on their own. An aid worker wrote a book about how badly the UN performed in Port au Prince after the earthquake. In the remote town where I worked, and where a lot of refugees from Port au Prince streamed, the UN had some trailer where they did “reconciliation” work. The people who were rolling up their sleeves and actually doing something were us, the missionaries, and the religiously-affiliated volunteers.

Why can't they help people without proselytizing?

I thought the same thing. If you're religious and want to help others, great, but please don't teach/preach/convert to these people. It's insulting.

PP who was in Haiti here. Some proselytized and some didn’t. The proselytizing was limited to materials or a cross on the wall or maybe a big, syrupy smile and a mention of Jesus. Possibly although not always an invitation to a service.

Nobody, nobody, nobody was denied help because they kept their own faith. Although most Haitians are Catholic or Protestant Christian anyway, so I’m wondering if you’re equally outraged about work by religious groups (missions or not) in Appalachia.

This is what you guys just refuse to accept, why? And then you go on to act like the recipients of the food or healthcare have no independent faculties to choose what they want to believe. You’re so very patronizing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Service is a very real part of many religions. Pp may think writing a check is the universal answer, but for many religions it’s important to serve other people directly. There’s a reason ministers wash the feet of their congregants.

But they can “serve” via secular organizations.

But given the way missionaries work today—little pressure—what’s the difference? What is your problem with mission work today?

There should be zero pressure. Service work done independent of proselytizing.

The doctors in the earlier example should be happy to serve in a secular capacity too, right? No strings attached to their care?

Jesus healed the sick, fed the hungry. Why shouldn't missionaries if nobody else steps up to do it.

They can do it via secular organizations.

Can vs. do. Can doesn't accomplish anything. It's hypothetical. In jammies in DC.

So only justification for missionaries is that there aren’t enough secular organizations at the moment?

Secular orgs and check-writing are no substitute. Missionaries/some religious people seek to perform charity/service to real people as part of their faith. And they seek to testify through example (not coercion). None of this is available through secular organizations. And writing a check from DC doesn’t accomplish any of this.

If you ban mission work in foreign countries under some misapprehension that it’s still coercive, these religious people will focus exclusively on Appalachia and inner cities in the USA. No, they aren’t giving up service, they’d just have to refocus it domestically. And total aid abroad will decline massively.

You sit on your restoration hardware sofa in your jammies and wave your glass of Nebbiolo around, as you talk about taking away services to people in developing countries.

Believers could still perform charity work through secular organizations.

They aren't just giving out of the kindness of their heart? They need to have strings attached to their aid?

What strings? You’ve been asked for examples of missionaries today who turn away nonbelievers from food or medical care, and you haven’t given a single example.

Your only objection seems to be that the organization itself is religious. And you haven’t explained why that’s bad.

I’ve explained multiple times. When you push your beliefs on a vulnerable population it’s abusing a power imbalance.

So, by definition, you think poor people are too stupid to listen to new ideas and determine which religion is most meaningful to them? I think it is more likely that they are smart enough to accept charitable aid and continue to believe whatever they want.

This. Also, pp’s whole premise is flawed. For almost 30 pages, posters have asked repeatedly for examples of 21st century missionaries “pushing” their religion on anybody—or foisting it or making their aid conditional in any way. Nobody can give examples, because that’s not how missionary aid works today. All we’ve seen are almost 30 pages of middle school-level invective.

I don't think anyone has claimed that missionaries explicitly make their aid conditional. Please share a timestamp if I missed a post.

Again, the unethical aspect of mixing service and religion with vulnerable people is the power imbalance and implicit expectation of conversion. When someone is giving someone critical medical care while preaching, they are exploiting the situation. It's not that anyone is stupid, they are just vulnerable.

Here is an example:
Mongolians parents basically held in captivity to get medical care for their children. The power imbalance here is insane - providing a surgery they couldn't get in their (non-Christian) home country. They were living with these people preaching to them 24x7 for months.
https://video.samaritanspurse.org/new-hearts/

Here they admit that they are intentionally focusing on Hindu and Muslims "who are hurting and those who are in need" because "people's souls would be ripe to hear the gospel truth":
https://video.samaritanspurse.org/critical-care-center-in-bangladesh-opens/

There are a bunch of these videos showing them proudly setting up "platforms" to convert vulnerable people.

Your links wiped out my data plan for the month so I couldn’t watch them all.

But I saw enough to see that by “held in captivity” you mean “flown to another country for open heart surgery that isn’t available in their neck of Mongolia.” And there was no evidence of “24/7” proselytizing even from this overtly Christian channel.

Are you kidding us?

Watch the whole video. It's <3 minutes.

These families were in the middle of a huge health crisis with no other treatment available. They left their homes/families/support and lived with these host families who called them "part of the family". They ended stuck with them for an extra 5+ months because of the pandemic which the SP people said was positive because they had more time to "hear more about Jesus Christ".

They were exploiting the vulnerable position of these families.

People may have different perspectives on this, but requiring somebody move near a hospital that can perform needed heart surgery seems pretty logical. You want the doctors to do the surgery in a yurt? Similarly, providing a “host family” who treats them like “part of the family” doesn’t exactly sound nefarious, quite the opposite. You think the kids should have traveled alone to the city, far from their families, and their parents should have found a way to pay for a hotel? Similarly, the fact that COVID interrupted their return home isn’t anybody’s fault.

You haven’t shown anybody was denied surgery because they wouldn’t attend services or convert. And once again, you show your scorn for poor peoples’ ability to make their own choices.

Methinks you doth protest too much.

No one on this thread - including me - has made this claim. Not sure why you keep pushing that strawman.

The issue isn't that they provided critical healthcare for the kids or even found compassionate host families for them. The issue is that while those moms were in such a vulnerable position they pushed religion in an attempt to convert them.

It is unethical to seek out people in vulnerable situations with the intent to convert them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Another example of missionaries preying on vulnerable is facilitating adoptions for Haitian children (and other countries). These children are the most vulnerable. They are powerless and not given a choice to be removed from their home/culture/language and taken to be raised in a whole different country/religion. Sometimes they are even kidnapped by these religious groups - literally a captive audience:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Life_Children%27s_Refuge_case
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zo%C3%A9%27s_Ark

I did volunteer work—not missionary work—in Haiti. I actually worked with a group that helped feed Haitian orphans. I speak some Haitian Creole.

You have no clue. There are tons of orphans in Haiti, especially after the earthquakes. The word “orphan” in creole often extends to kids with a single parent who have been displaced by natural disasters. These kids are either on their own, or they’re with relatives who told us they can’t support them, so we fed the kids and they wandered the streets during the day instead of going to school.

Have you ever seen the effect of starvation? It looks like reddish hair and an extended belly. We had those kids show up.

One Haitian actually offered me a kid to take back to the US. I declined. I’ve always wondered if I did the right thing. Did I?

Church groups are a godsend down there. Hundreds or thousands of religious people are working with Haitians to feed kids, run schools, and rebuild. I can’t condone kidnapping, but from your link it looks like the charge was reduced to illegally transporting kids to an orphanage in the DR. Put that way, it’s hard to know what happened.

You also need to know that a U.S. education is highly coveted in Haiti. I know a couple where the husband is in Haiti while the wife cleans houses (illegally) in Boston so their kid can go to US public schools.

But sure, wave that glass of Chardonnay around from the comfort of your sofa and tell these desperate or ambitious Haitians they’re wrong and you’re cutting it all off.

I should have mentioned, secular groups, although many are great, are not up to the task on their own. An aid worker wrote a book about how badly the UN performed in Port au Prince after the earthquake. In the remote town where I worked, and where a lot of refugees from Port au Prince streamed, the UN had some trailer where they did “reconciliation” work. The people who were rolling up their sleeves and actually doing something were us, the missionaries, and the religiously-affiliated volunteers.

Why can't they help people without proselytizing?

Probably for the same reason(s) you come here to proselytize your views, albeit without helping anybody.

Posting here is quite different. It's completely voluntary and not relating to any pressing health need. People here can come and go as they like

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another example of missionaries preying on vulnerable is facilitating adoptions for Haitian children (and other countries). These children are the most vulnerable. They are powerless and not given a choice to be removed from their home/culture/language and taken to be raised in a whole different country/religion. Sometimes they are even kidnapped by these religious groups - literally a captive audience:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Life_Children%27s_Refuge_case
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zo%C3%A9%27s_Ark

I did volunteer work—not missionary work—in Haiti. I actually worked with a group that helped feed Haitian orphans. I speak some Haitian Creole.

You have no clue. There are tons of orphans in Haiti, especially after the earthquakes. The word “orphan” in creole often extends to kids with a single parent who have been displaced by natural disasters. These kids are either on their own, or they’re with relatives who told us they can’t support them, so we fed the kids and they wandered the streets during the day instead of going to school.

Have you ever seen the effect of starvation? It looks like reddish hair and an extended belly. We had those kids show up.

One Haitian actually offered me a kid to take back to the US. I declined. I’ve always wondered if I did the right thing. Did I?

Church groups are a godsend down there. Hundreds or thousands of religious people are working with Haitians to feed kids, run schools, and rebuild. I can’t condone kidnapping, but from your link it looks like the charge was reduced to illegally transporting kids to an orphanage in the DR. Put that way, it’s hard to know what happened.

You also need to know that a U.S. education is highly coveted in Haiti. I know a couple where the husband is in Haiti while the wife cleans houses (illegally) in Boston so their kid can go to US public schools.

But sure, wave that glass of Chardonnay around from the comfort of your sofa and tell these desperate or ambitious Haitians they’re wrong and you’re cutting it all off.

I should have mentioned, secular groups, although many are great, are not up to the task on their own. An aid worker wrote a book about how badly the UN performed in Port au Prince after the earthquake. In the remote town where I worked, and where a lot of refugees from Port au Prince streamed, the UN had some trailer where they did “reconciliation” work. The people who were rolling up their sleeves and actually doing something were us, the missionaries, and the religiously-affiliated volunteers.

Why can't they help people without proselytizing?

I thought the same thing. If you're religious and want to help others, great, but please don't teach/preach/convert to these people. It's insulting.

PP who was in Haiti here. Some proselytized and some didn’t. The proselytizing was limited to materials or a cross on the wall or maybe a big, syrupy smile and a mention of Jesus. Possibly although not always an invitation to a service.

Nobody, nobody, nobody was denied help because they kept their own faith. Although most Haitians are Catholic or Protestant Christian anyway, so I’m wondering if you’re equally outraged about work by religious groups (missions or not) in Appalachia.

This is what you guys just refuse to accept, why? And then you go on to act like the recipients of the food or healthcare have no independent faculties to choose what they want to believe. You’re so very patronizing.

Nobody has made this claim.

The whole point is that it's unethical to try to convert/influence people while they are in a vulnerable position. Anywhere in the world.

Most Haitians are Catholic - not evangelical.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Service is a very real part of many religions. Pp may think writing a check is the universal answer, but for many religions it’s important to serve other people directly. There’s a reason ministers wash the feet of their congregants.

But they can “serve” via secular organizations.

But given the way missionaries work today—little pressure—what’s the difference? What is your problem with mission work today?

There should be zero pressure. Service work done independent of proselytizing.

The doctors in the earlier example should be happy to serve in a secular capacity too, right? No strings attached to their care?

Jesus healed the sick, fed the hungry. Why shouldn't missionaries if nobody else steps up to do it.

They can do it via secular organizations.

Can vs. do. Can doesn't accomplish anything. It's hypothetical. In jammies in DC.

So only justification for missionaries is that there aren’t enough secular organizations at the moment?

Secular orgs and check-writing are no substitute. Missionaries/some religious people seek to perform charity/service to real people as part of their faith. And they seek to testify through example (not coercion). None of this is available through secular organizations. And writing a check from DC doesn’t accomplish any of this.

If you ban mission work in foreign countries under some misapprehension that it’s still coercive, these religious people will focus exclusively on Appalachia and inner cities in the USA. No, they aren’t giving up service, they’d just have to refocus it domestically. And total aid abroad will decline massively.

You sit on your restoration hardware sofa in your jammies and wave your glass of Nebbiolo around, as you talk about taking away services to people in developing countries.

Believers could still perform charity work through secular organizations.

They aren't just giving out of the kindness of their heart? They need to have strings attached to their aid?

What strings? You’ve been asked for examples of missionaries today who turn away nonbelievers from food or medical care, and you haven’t given a single example.

Your only objection seems to be that the organization itself is religious. And you haven’t explained why that’s bad.

I’ve explained multiple times. When you push your beliefs on a vulnerable population it’s abusing a power imbalance.

So, by definition, you think poor people are too stupid to listen to new ideas and determine which religion is most meaningful to them? I think it is more likely that they are smart enough to accept charitable aid and continue to believe whatever they want.

This. Also, pp’s whole premise is flawed. For almost 30 pages, posters have asked repeatedly for examples of 21st century missionaries “pushing” their religion on anybody—or foisting it or making their aid conditional in any way. Nobody can give examples, because that’s not how missionary aid works today. All we’ve seen are almost 30 pages of middle school-level invective.

I don't think anyone has claimed that missionaries explicitly make their aid conditional. Please share a timestamp if I missed a post.

Again, the unethical aspect of mixing service and religion with vulnerable people is the power imbalance and implicit expectation of conversion. When someone is giving someone critical medical care while preaching, they are exploiting the situation. It's not that anyone is stupid, they are just vulnerable.

Here is an example:
Mongolians parents basically held in captivity to get medical care for their children. The power imbalance here is insane - providing a surgery they couldn't get in their (non-Christian) home country. They were living with these people preaching to them 24x7 for months.
https://video.samaritanspurse.org/new-hearts/

Here they admit that they are intentionally focusing on Hindu and Muslims "who are hurting and those who are in need" because "people's souls would be ripe to hear the gospel truth":
https://video.samaritanspurse.org/critical-care-center-in-bangladesh-opens/

There are a bunch of these videos showing them proudly setting up "platforms" to convert vulnerable people.

Your links wiped out my data plan for the month so I couldn’t watch them all.

But I saw enough to see that by “held in captivity” you mean “flown to another country for open heart surgery that isn’t available in their neck of Mongolia.” And there was no evidence of “24/7” proselytizing even from this overtly Christian channel.

Are you kidding us?

Watch the whole video. It's <3 minutes.

These families were in the middle of a huge health crisis with no other treatment available. They left their homes/families/support and lived with these host families who called them "part of the family". They ended stuck with them for an extra 5+ months because of the pandemic which the SP people said was positive because they had more time to "hear more about Jesus Christ".

They were exploiting the vulnerable position of these families.

People may have different perspectives on this, but requiring somebody move near a hospital that can perform needed heart surgery seems pretty logical. You want the doctors to do the surgery in a yurt? Similarly, providing a “host family” who treats them like “part of the family” doesn’t exactly sound nefarious, quite the opposite. You think the kids should have traveled alone to the city, far from their families, and their parents should have found a way to pay for a hotel? Similarly, the fact that COVID interrupted their return home isn’t anybody’s fault.

You haven’t shown anybody was denied surgery because they wouldn’t attend services or convert. And once again, you show your scorn for poor peoples’ ability to make their own choices.

Methinks you doth protest too much.

No one on this thread - including me - has made this claim. Not sure why you keep pushing that strawman.

The issue isn't that they provided critical healthcare for the kids or even found compassionate host families for them. The issue is that while those moms were in such a vulnerable position they pushed religion in an attempt to convert them.

It is unethical to seek out people in vulnerable situations with the intent to convert them.

It has been said on this thread, but I don’t have the interest to go through 30 pages to dig it out.

Again, you keep talking about “pushing religion” but you can’t say what that means. As others have told you (including a Muslim a while back on this thread), modelling their religion’s values is the way most go about it these days. And maybe there’s a cross or crescent on the wall, or a Bible or Quran lying on a table.

Take another sip of carmenere (my personal favorite, although I’ve been holding back because it’s not well recognized or easy to find around here), roll up the sleeves of your spa robe with the microfiber lining, and tell us why this is so objectionable to you. And while you’re at it, explain why you think poor people are incapable of making their own choices so this type of aid should be banned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

It has been said on this thread, but I don’t have the interest to go through 30 pages to dig it out.

Again, you keep talking about “pushing religion” but you can’t say what that means. As others have told you (including a Muslim a while back on this thread), modelling their religion’s values is the way most go about it these days. And maybe there’s a cross or crescent on the wall, or a Bible or Quran lying on a table.

Take another sip of carmenere (my personal favorite, although I’ve been holding back because it’s not well recognized or easy to find around here), roll up the sleeves of your spa robe with the microfiber lining, and tell us why this is so objectionable to you. And while you’re at it, explain why you think poor people are incapable of making their own choices so this type of aid should be banned.

PP who worked in Haiti here. This is what I saw. The health clinic in the small town where I worked was on the bottom floor of a priest’s house (the church was a few blocks away). There was a cross on the wall and that was it. Healthcare was very professional—people came in, got diagnosed and treated, and were sent on their way. No proselytizing except they had to look at that cross on the wall or avert their eyes. The Haitian government had zero presence, so thank goodness for these religious workers.

Some of you are so separated from reality, and are coming at this from 10,000 feet, and your outrage looks a little ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Pp who worked in Haiti, here again. I should clarify that I’m the same poster with the wine recommendations. I just wanted to separate my points and avoid a super-long post.

My larger point is, some of you have no clue what missionary or religious volunteer work actually looks like on the ground today. You also have no clue about how it’s filling huge gaps that secular orgs and governments/NGOs can’t fill alone. And yet you’re so gosh-darn arrogant that you think this work should be banned because poor people can’t make their own choices.