This is my position on missionaries. You might call it Ling's Missionary Position.

I can't stand them. There are exceptions, but overall, I can't stand them. I don't mean just Christian missionaries, though my experience has been limited to these. I'm sure Muslim missionaries are not any better. But I can't think of any other world religions that are so active in trying to spread themselves, and too often it has been done in deeply offensive or fatal ways.

The whole idea bothers me. People in some place have non-Christian beliefs, and maybe live in a considerably less developed country compared with the West. (Less developed in terms of infrastructure and science and economics. Maybe far better developed in terms of spiritual and community values, and knowing what makes sense in life.) So missionaries come to win souls for Jesus, basically by convincing local people that their belief system .. something their culture has held for ages .. is wrong. That's what it boils down to. And who wins as a result? The Christians are happy because they've spread their religion a little bit farther and they've saved (in their own minds) some souls. Are the local people better off by replacing age old religious beliefs with Christianity? If they become Catholics they aren't supposed to use contraceptives. This has got to be one of the most damaging influences of Christianity in the modern world: the Catholic Church's tremendous influence in population issues, in places where population is a big problem.

It wouldn't be so bad if the missionaries were always really up front and honest about what they were doing. But so often they're sneaky about it. They lay a trap or set some bait to get people in for something else, then switch to the real agenda. English lessons, soup kitchens, health care.... In Toronto a friend even went to a free "introductory" workshop on meditation, where the meditation part lasted about 10 minutes, and the rest of the time was a lecture on eastern traditions that became more and more about how they fit in with god, and ended up telling people how they had to love god etc. The Christian god I mean. The workshop was put on by some "Canadian Meditation Institute" or something like that, I see their flyers around. So they are really just a bullshit organization selling god. Their purpose was to try to get people interested in New Age spirituality back into the Christian fold.

This is far from being an isolated incident. Problems with missionaries passing themselves off as something else are great in many countries, so much so that trying to get work as an English teacher or trying to start up a small NGO there are looked upon by the authorities with deep suspicion, because too many "english teachers" are really missionaries, and too many small NGOs saying they will help work in villages are actually mostly about missionary work too. I've encountered this in Laos and Mongolia and Burma. Ever heard of the religious group "Jews for Jesus" which pretends to be for Jewish people who want to take an interest in the common traditions of Judaism and Christianity? Well it is run by a Baptist organization and is really all about converting Jews to Christianity.

I have German relatives who are Mormons. Fortunately they gave up trying to convert us a long time ago. Young Mormon men usually do two years of missionary work. Those are the ones you see wearing crisp white shirts, black pants, a black plastic name badge and maybe carrying a briefcase or a neat little backpack. They always come in pairs. I've seen them dressed that way in the heat of Bangkok and standing out from a mile away in downtown Ulaan Baatar, the capital of Mongolia .. but also in Khovd or Bayan-Olgii in far western Mongolia. I've seen them dressed the same way in Canada. My cousin in Hamburg was so eager to go out on mission for his church. He wanted to go to Russia, and learned good Russian, to help convert the post-Communist masses. Instead the Mormon church posted him to East Berlin to try to get other Christians to switch sect to the Mormon religion.

It's not even necessary to bring up the worst excesses of the Christians and Muslims from the past: the tremendous killing in the name of religion, the hiding of absolute power grabs by both religious and temporal leaders under a cloak of religious motives.

When I hear about a missionary being killed in a place with extremely strong religious beliefs, frankly I have no sympathy whatsoever. They were really asking for it. When I was there I heard about Christians actively proselytizing in Pakistan and having the crap beaten out of them from time to time, and they were asking for it. No, violence is not an acceptable way to respond to the missionaries in my view, but it is also extremely understandable. What the missionaries are doing is deeply offensive, suggesting to the Muslims that they are wrong and the Christians are right. It's a bit of a joke actually, both religions have an awful lot in common. It is even funnier and more pathetic when one group of Christians is trying to convert a group of Christians from a different sect, for example Baptists trying to convert Catholics away from Catholicism. (This goes on regularly.)

OK, there are exceptions. Many missionaries are very good natured people, but they don't realize how offensive the implication of their message is, they're just being insensitive and stupid. Other missionaries really are angels. These are the ones who are not interested in preaching about Jesus, but instead in doing good works, and in doing good works genuinely without them being a bait to get people in for preaching. Mother Theresa for example. These people can show what's good about their religion without speaking much about it: they convey it through truly unselfish actions. If as a result they convert people to Christianity, then I say fine, those are converts they have come by very honestly and with great integrity. But it's my experience travelling extensively in the underdeveloped parts of Asia that these genuinely selfless, good missionaries are rare.

So, that's my Missionary Position. Next week's sermon: Woman on Top - Why women should be allowed to become Priests. Week after next's sermon: Religion Doggy-style - Why animals have souls too.

Satan rules at TF!

Amen, god bless you.. Liing

(did you drink the whole bottle i sent for you and atomic?)

hmm...this is what i tried to imply in my latest entry.

buddhism teachs ppl to think and try to understand...

others try to make ppl believe..

when they have different believes, the fight against each other.

while buddhism rarely have religious wars (although there have been a lot of fake monks but those are not part of buddhistic thoughth).

Wow Ling, is it off your chest yet? There is so much I could say here about what you have written. I will only say that this is your journal and I enjoyed your writing alot my friend. Thank you.

After getting your comments in my journal on computers, I thought I would check out yours... I guess we agree on more than just the frustrations of technology. I agree with you completely on this. I do find it a bit reprehensibile to "help" and proselytize at the same time..help is help, but offering help for listening to "teachings" sounds like an early form of a time share pitch. Anyways, look forward to your next entry...