Faith and the Unease of Christian Mission Work

[motheroreily]

I've been thinking a lot about mission work and the idea of converting people from other religions and it makes me feel uncomfortable. I'm not sure why, but something about it doesn’t sit right with me.

Maybe it’s the idea of approaching someone with the assumption that their beliefs are "wrong" or need changing.

Have you ever felt this way? How do you reconcile faith and respecting others' beliefs?

No, I don’t judge anyone. Christ is the Judge. All judgement has been given to Him.

My point is that some people recognise that all scripture is inspired by God and their understanding is informed by this recognition.

Others are content to pick only certain parts of the scriptures, particularly Christ’s teachings and that of the apostles and disregard the rest, therefore making their own version of Christianity as they see fit.

These two positions are diametrically opposed.

Peter, James, John and the other Apostles were colonists? Really?

I agree with you OP and I follow a Christian religion. I think it would be possible to introduce Christianity to non-Christian people by example of love and service to them, and to hope they might follow and ask more. At that point the Christian could offer to explain, but that is all.
Coming to God through Jesus, means through the teachings he gave -that in my opinion is what ‘though me’.

As to the post about the Muslim lady I agree it would have been wrong to push her. My church organises joint meetings of mutual respect with Muslims but not to persuade them to convert ( Muslims recognise Mary ans tge mother of Jesus, and also Jesus as a great prophet). God is God. Muslims (as opposed to Islamist extremists) already follow ideas which Jesus spoke about all be it through a different approach.

Luke said
KJ21
^Neither shall they say, ‘Lo, it is here!’ or ‘Lo, it is there!’ For behold, the Kingdom of God is within you.”

An egregious example of missionaries being harmful, aside from introducing viruses which decimated tribes, is of a missionary group who worked with a tribe of happy, peaceful innocent people, living their own way in spite of the 20th Century - the Panare Indians.

The missionaries told them about Jesus then needed to get them to repent for their sins for which Jesus has died for them, so they ‘translated’ the Bible into their language. Leaving out Judas, the Chief Priests and their followers, and Pontius Pilot who were responsible for the Crucifixion, they had it say that the Panares ancestors had made Jesus be crucified and God said they would burn in the fires of hell unless they became Christian and repented. They became riddled with guilt and terrified. Of course they became ‘Christian’s’.

For me those Panare people were the children of God, the missionaries certainly were not.
(It is easy to look accounts of this up.)

This example is extreme but missionaries should be extremely careful.

But whenever you tell someone their belief/ their interpretation of Christianity is wrong then you are judging them.

Other than that, I'm not sure why you mentioned judgment of the point you were making was about picking and choosing scripture.

Thank you for your thoughtful inspiring words.

This is only one view/interpretation based on particular translations of the bible. If you look back to very early Christianity, several schools of thought believed in Christian Universalism and that all will eventually be saved. It is an idea that has been maintained in the Orthodox church and in my view is as consistent with original scripture as more evangelical views. Some of it depends on exactly how you translate certain passages. There are tricky passages to deal with in either interpretation.

David Bentley Hart's translation of the new testament is a good one to read if you want to see how things are translated in a different way ( though in my view he gets a bit bossy and 'i must be right' in some of his footnotes which is a shame)

If someone states a non-Biblical belief and claims that belief is “Christian” then it is the scriptures that illuminate the error in the person’s thought process.

There are those who believe the scriptures ans their final authority and there are those who do not, whatever name they choose to identify themselves by.

That’s the dichotomy, in terms of belief.

Yes that's right.

I suspect atheists who die in atheism will be really rather embarrassed and apologetic when they find out.

The value in having belief in Jesus and God at all is (a) the joy that can can be experienced right now on earth from that loving relationship and (b) arriving at the Throne of the Lord as a child of heaven who is already giving thanks for the acceptance and forgiveness you already know about. I don't know what the post-death process will actually be for a soul to come to the understanding that they didn't reach during their lifetime, but for someone who died not realising how much in need of forgiveness and redemption they are I imagine it wouldn't be fun. Not in a "punishment" way but in in the sense of that "oh no what have I done" sensation that you get when you realise you have massively fucked up, experienced x1000. It's worth seeking out reconciliation and forgiveness sooner rather than later, certainly.

I've been a Christian for a very long time and was convinced that faith in Jesus is the only way to God. Over the last 15 years or so my focus has shifted. I now wonder how any faith group can be arrogant enough to believe that theirs is the only true religion.

PPs have used Bible quotes to support their viewpoint, but the Bible is just one of many holy texts, so why is it more valid? Any in depth study of the Bible will reveal it is full of contradictions and cultural references which are not relevant to our society. We can't cherry pick only the texts that support our opinion and ignore those that don't fit.

I got collared the other week by Morman missionaries. Despite saying I was a practicing Catholic they still spoke to me like I had no idea who Jesus was. They were lovely, but I thought it was odd.

My old Vicar once invited them in for a drink (his house wasn't near the church and wasn't obviously "the Vicarage"). He then got out books on theology/a bible etc and find all the bits where his belief and theirs differed.
Apparently they didn't stay long and must have put his house on some kind of "do not knock" list because they never came back.

I’m a bit surprised, you seem to be saying that people who focus on Christ’s teachings and that of the apostles are making their own version of Christianity as they see fit.

I would have thought they were the bits of Christianity least open to misinterpretation.

I'm ashamed at how dogmatic I used to be about this; like certain people on this thread.

How arrogant of us to think that we're the right ones and everyone else is wrong.

I was narrow minded, blinkered by the particular Christian church culture I was in. (Which also amongst Christian dominations thought it was the one doing it "properly" and the others weren't "real Christians".)

I see it here when certain people post and it makes me sick to my stomach to be honest.

Once the scales fall from your eyes there's no going back,

I still have a faith but I'm much more progressive now and pluralistic. I've also educated myself on the history of the bible and how it came to be in the form we have today.

Things are not as black and white as some would have you believe.

I'm happy for people if their faith brings them strength and joy and community, but detest it when it moves into judging others and trying to change their viewpoint (aka "spread the good news")

No, apologies if my post was poorly phrased.

What I’m saying is that if we are going to claim Christ as our Lord we need to follow His teachings and those of the apostles- all of them. We dare not advocate making up our own imaginary ‘Jesus’, contrary to the scriptures, to suit our personal tastes.

”But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say?

Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like:

He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock.

But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently; and immediately it fell.
And the ruin of that house was great.”
Luke 6:46-49

I think the scriptures are a human translation of God’s dealings with us.

I don’t know how you can read their history and not recognise the handprint of man all over them.

So I read them reaching for the truth within them, rather than as seeing each word as a command. Few would advocate stoning witches or caning children. Anyone reading them in that way would be countering God’s message of love. So we all pick and choose to an extent I assume.

Sticking with the words of Jesus which seem reliably remembered and translated… let he who is without sin cast the first stone, suffer the little children to come to me and love your neighbour as you love yourself.

When you listen to the heart felt, deeply pondered beliefs of other people, it is not only powerful and moving but also humbling. I have learnt so much about myself from listening to other people’s reaching towards God. How good it is, that He is reaching towards us.

That’s a good question. I’m not sure what I think—I’m still trying to work it out in my head

I’m not going to address the Old Testament in this discussion as I think it will unnecessarily complicate matters.

As far as the teachings of Jesus go, yes I agree these are “reliably remembered and translated”.

My concern is that we who name Him as Lord don’t cherry-pick those of His teachings and commands that fit our own or our culture’s views and ignore those that are more challenging.

We agree that it is good God is reaching (has reached, in Christ) toward us. 👍

Is reaching, has reached, evermore will be reaching…
The eternal, present presence of God.

I find theoretical physics interesting- not in a consistent, studied deep way, but its acknowledgment that we see and experience the world in a very limited way. Our perspective looking out from a single moment in time is such a small slice of the whole.

When we grasp how small we are, and how limited our understanding is of the immensity of what actually is… we realise we’ll never find words that capture the entirety of Truth.

Yes, I also enjoy the wonder of the concept of eternity and the ever present-ness of God.

We surely agree, however, that in the incarnation of His only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, He broke into a “single moment of time” a very unique and purposeful way -

“But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.”
Galatians 4:4-5

We may ponder the nature of truth, as did Pilate, but we also remember that our Lord stated unequivocally that -

“I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father, except through Me”
John 14:6

That would be part of the great reaching out to us, yes. And I think theoretical physics, and indeed theology, would say it is still happening.

I suspect that as the Sistine chapel roof, where God’s finger reaches down to Adam’s is simply a metaphor, represented in terms we can understand, Jesus’ incarnation is similar.

We can’t grasp our divine Trinity. We can’t know the mechanism by which The Word was before creation, is in Jesus and reigns with God, is God and man… and all that. It can’t be accurately crammed into little human words. We come as close as we can, knowing that we are not seeing/sharing/telling the whole story. The patriarchs didn't nail this down. They got as close as they were able.

Pondering all this and exploring the possibilities is part of devotion. Mary stored up all these things and pondered them in her heart. ❤️

“Mary stored up all these things and pondered them in her heart. ❤️”

Indeed, and we too, ponder them in our hearts, and in discussions here and elsewhere.

As the apostle Paul wrote:

”And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness:

God was manifested in the flesh,
Justified in the Spirit,
Seen by angels,
Preached among the Gentiles,
Believed on in the world,
Received up in glory.”
1 Timothy 3:16

and in his second letter to Timothy

”All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness…”
2 Timothy 3:16

We cannot know everything, far from it.

But some things we can know, and the scriptures are a wonderful provision from God in this regard.

I haven't read the whole thread. I feel uncomfortable and also incredibly proud of the missionary work my grandparents did in the 60s in Africa, church school and education. It's an uncomfortable part of my identity I need to explore more with time so im following this thread.