would be here

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Report-Christian-missionary-killed-as-soon-as-he-13411391.php

So he went to a place he was barred from going to where the inhabitants are known to attack visitors with deadly force?

That's where he went? No one's supposed to go there. WTH were they thinking?

But he to wanted preach Christianity!

You don't have to respect other cultures if you are bringing them Jesus (and diseases)!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/21/2018 08:54PM by dagny.

Hey, if Ammon could get through to King Lamoni, why not give it a shot? Your magic underwear will protect you.

I don't think his main objective was to bring Christianity to the Sentinelese people. If he really cared about them he wouldn't have risked exposing them to his deadly germs. He most likely did it so he could brag about it with pictures on Facebook/Instagram (he had an Instagram account). Seems today that what is most important is not the experience but posing during the experience and capturing all on a smart phone with numerous photos, then posting the photos on social media and counting the number of likes. That's what it's all about.

The tribesmen warned him with an arrow shot through his bible. He fled, only to return and be finished off with arrows. It's difficult to feel sorry for someone like that.

His family is reportedly saying: "He loved God, life, helping those in need, and had nothing but love for the Sentinelese people,” the family wrote. “We forgive those reportedly responsible for his death.”

This raises so many questions:

(1) Why did he think the Sentinelese were "in need"? They didn't ask him for his help. He didn't know anything about them. Was he so stupid that he thought that they would even be able to comprehend anything he said about "Jesus"? What would they do with a bible?

(2) Why did he have "nothing but love for the Sentinelese"? He didn't know any of them. Never even had a conversation with a single one of them. Statements like that turn the word "love" into a completely meaningless abstraction. I don't love the Sentinelese. I don't want to have anything to do with them, TBH. They've expressed their hostility to outsiders quite plainly. I don't particularly enjoy the company of illiterate, violent people who can't communicate in any language that I know. Saying that I "love" them is about as meaningful as saying that I love twigs and poison ivy. I don't wish them any harm. But that's not love. I don't want to live like them or among them, as I can imagine that they generally live in a type of squalor that they're well adapted to, but which would probably be nothing but constant misery for me.

(3) The family "forgives those reportedly responsible for his death." What relevance does that have to anything? Sounds like the whole family is a bunch of nonsense-spewing nutters. I guess it's preferable to them getting Rambo'd up and heading to the island with flame-throwers and guns. But, really, what's to "forgive"? John Chau is the person most responsible for his own death. He wasn't going among the Sentinelese for any great cause. He was warned and had every reason to know that doing what he did was on par with jumping into a pit full of venomous snakes or taunting a tiger that's known to bite and attack people.

It's like he wanted to use the Sentinelese as stage props in a drama/narrative in which he is cast as a saintly hero bringing something good to vicious savages--a narrative that is actually contemptuous of the Sentinelese.

Now his family is carrying that same drama/narrative forward. Being saintly and more virtuous than most of humanity, they are graciously "forgiving" the Sentinelese--again promoting a narrative that casts the Sentinelese as vicious, uncivilized creatures who have no more responsibility for their actions than a 3-year-old child. Not really a good start for a "loving" relationship.

I think it’s playing out as a black comedy for all of India, both the Islamic and Hindu sides. Muslims should love the irony of an American killed while attempting to convert the Sentinalese to Christianity. Hindus will believe it’s this guy’s bad karma and he will be reincarnated anyway. The story is really stranger than fiction. Bollywood should make a movie.

The crazy part for me is the warning shot to the Bible. The kid had perfect aim, and John was like “Ha! You missed me”. That’s some deep denial. No wonder he expected to die.

I don't see much tithing upside here.

This is why Mormon mishies aren't sent there.

No indication of any rational thought process having been involved at any step along the way.

Hey, if God Almighty wants those people to change their ways and join a church, he can raise a prophet up among them and send angels to perform mighty miracles and all that stuff. Isn't that the way God Almighty used to do things?

When did God Almighty outsource everything to clueless morons who have no superpowers?

It was only a matter of time before somebody posted this to "prove" Christians are stupid. Would this story be posted on RfM if this was a self-appointed "humanitarian" who was trying to bring medical care to this remote tribe?

My take is that he was a Christian the way Timothy "Grizzly Man" Treadwell was an environmental scientist--mainly, in their own minds. And both suffered gruesome deaths because of it. Worth noting is that at least John Chau went alone. Timothy Treadwell brought his girlfriend, who was also killed by grizzlies.

Note that genuine missionaries are screened carefully, trained, funded, and overseen my denominations, boards or institutions. Chau had none of this. He was simply a tourist adventurer with a self-appointed sense of mission.

The UK Independent has better coverage:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/american-tourist-killed-tribe-sentinel-island-john-allen-chau-death-bow-arrow-a8644196.html

representative of all Christians or even any significant subset. But, depending on the actual facts, I do see him as being representative of a certain type of irrational fanaticism that is not necessarily limited to religion. Political ideologies produce more than their share of foaming-at-the-mouth fanatics ready to kill or die for their cause.

TBH, I would have the same criticism for a "self-appointed 'humanitarian' who was trying to bring medical care to this remote tribe."

If the tribe wants to be left alone, I say leave them alone. If they didn't ask for some officious intermeddler to come and give them medicine, leave them alone. What would be accomplished by a one-time trip? Nothing. And if a dependency is created, that becomes regular trips, more people coming on each trip and...pretty soon...you have a Starbucks and Burger Kings everywhere and the tribe has become globalized out of existence.

I think we've had enough of pathological altruism and telescopic philanthropy. If someone's not invited, they should stay closer to home and fix problems with themselves and people who need help nearby.

I have no idea what his actual motivation was, but there is this

https://www.foxnews.com/world/american-missionary-wrote-god-i-dont-want-to-die-before-being-killed-by-remote-tribe-on-indian-island
“You guys might think I’m crazy in all this but I think it’s worthwhile to declare Jesus to these people,” he wrote in a last note to his family on Nov. 16, shortly before he left the safety of the fishing boat to meet the tribesmen on the island. “God, I don’t want to die."

and
“I hollered, ‘My name is John, I love you and Jesus loves you,’” Chau wrote, adding that a child shot at him with an arrow that missed and pierced his waterproof Bible.

It’s the cans, they hate the cans.

+1

Concerning this guy, well, Darwin in action. Not that I'm happy he's dead, but I'm not surprised. Consensus in my office earlier today was they've done fine for who knows how many years, the last thing they needed was some jerk to tell them how wrong they are about everything.

Concerning the worst mission call, it's been several years, but I still feel bad for the missionaries I saw at the Twin Falls Target once. I wish they could have gotten to go somewhere more interesting, and then to blow off their mission as much as possible and have fun and learn about where they were. Somehow I don't see much of that happening in Twin.

So they immediately kill anyone who steps across their border?

Trump must be so jealous.

Alternatively, they could allow themselves to be overrun and cease to exist as a distinct group. It is a difficult choice. But they seem to be making it instinctively.

This jackass got just what he deserved.

Going to an Island he knew was off limits - so he could try to change the belief of those who live there was stupid. Typical of the religious types - mainly Jesus and Mohammed style groups. Both with a long history of "convert or die" - they whine and piss and moan when their methods are used against them.

The jerk got just what he deserved.