Failed Missionaries

mark46 · Oct 8, 2015

One cannot look at South Korea and the Philippines and conclude that Christianity cannot succeed in Asia because the Christian message is inconsistent with the Asian world view.

I certainly agree that one needs to understand local culture before being a missionary. As Saint Paul taught, we need to meet people where they are.

LoAmmi · Oct 8, 2015

MoonlessNight said:
But it is difficult to tell if you mean only that, or if you mean that which truths are revealed to different cultures in the total discussion of religion should change from culture to culture. That is, if you are saying that a missionary in Asia should not start by establishing God as a personal deity but certainly one should eventually get to that, then I have no issue. But if you are saying that we should not discuss God as a personal deity in Asia at all then I would disagree. I honestly can't tell which position you are advocating for, so I apologize if I seem to be misrepresenting you.

Was it Paul in the New Testament that preaches to the Romans by pointing out their statues to the gods and then pointing to the one dedicated to the unknown one in order to introduce Christianity to them? What you said here reminds me of that story as the starting point wasn't "you're all completely wrong and let me tell you how wrong you are!" which is pretty much a non-starter.

MoonlessNight · Oct 8, 2015

LoAmmi said:
Was it Paul in the New Testament that preaches to the Romans by pointing out their statues to the gods and then pointing to the one dedicated to the unknown one in order to introduce Christianity to them?

That was at Athens, but yes that was an argument that Paul used.

Matteo Ricci, who I linked to in an earlier post, used a similar strategy. He argued that there was a great deal of similarity between the Chinese and the Europeans, and argued that the teachings of the earliest Chinese sages were consistent with Christianity, while their teachings had been corrupted by the time that he lived in. He also argued in forms favored by Chinese scholars.

Even Thomas Aquinas had a strategy of "meet people where they are" in the Summa Contra Gentiles.

LoAmmi said:
What you said here reminds me of that story as the starting point wasn't "you're all completely wrong and let me tell you how wrong you are!" which is pretty much a non-starter.

Certainly we start by arguing from common ground, but it is easy to go too far in the other direction and "evangelize" not by convincing others but by lying and saying that we do not disagree with others at all. And I would say that that is perhaps the bigger danger. If we say that someone is wrong and explain why they are wrong, then we may not be appealing to converts, but at least we won't have lied. If we try to gain converts by distorting Church teaching or by hiding Church teaching then we gain very little.

When people talk about how certain cultures are hostile towards certain ideas it is hard to tell whether they mean that those cultures cannot possibly accept those ideas so we should not bother bringing them up at all, or whether they mean that it is better to start the conversation on a more agreeable topic.

LoAmmi · Oct 8, 2015

MoonlessNight said:
Certainly we start by arguing from common ground, but it is easy to go too far in the other direction and "evangelize" not by convincing others but by lying and saying that we do not disagree with others at all. And I would say that that is perhaps the bigger danger. If we say that someone is wrong and explain why they are wrong, then we may not be appealing to converts, but at least we won't have lied. If we try to gain converts by distorting Church teaching or by hiding Church teaching then we gain very little.

Just from my own experience as a non-Christian, I'll give anybody who wishes to evangelize a bit of advice. Don't ever call the faith of the other person stupid or evil or completely wrong when talking to them. You most likely believe it, but don't say it. Whatever you say after that will simply fail utterly. It's basically a slap in the face and you might as well just turn around and walk away as soon as you start insulting their beliefs.

dzheremi · Oct 8, 2015

You most likely believe it, but don't say it.

I don't know about any of these later people like Mateo Ricci, but traditionally Christians have not believed that, LoAmmi. This isn't a bit of sophistry on my part, just a reminder to all involved that the first generation after the apostles who carried on their teachings such as St. Justin Martyr (AD 100-165) also carried on this idea. St. Justin Martyr, in fact, introduced the term "Spermatikos Logos" (lit. Seeds of the Word) to describe how it is that every belief system existing prior to Christianity has at some basic level these 'seeds of the Word', aspects of their teachings and practices that point to Christ and the unique truth of Christianity. Other ideas which developed later may say many different things, but they're at variance with this earlier teaching from St. Paul, St. Justin Martyr, St. Basil of Caesarea (who in the 4th century even wrote a treatise on the edifying use of pagan literature by Christians; many modern day Christians would no doubt be uncomfortable with this, but that's on them), and others. While it's not very popular in Western forms of Christianity, it bears repeating that in the East, or rather, what we might call the (ecclesiastical) 'Orient', among the native peoples there like the Copts, Syriacs, and Tewahedo Ethiopians and Eritreans, there is a great deal of emphasis placed on the continuity of their old belief systems and practices within their adopted religion of Christianity. For the Copts, they like to point out that their hymns use melodies that they say date back to the Pharaohs, and of course their language itself does too. Among the Syriacs, too, they are proud -- not at all ashamed -- to have such a long and glorious pre-Christian history, and names and imagery connected to their pre-Christian past is common, e.g., men with names like Ashur, Sargon, etc. are common. For the Tewahedo, their affinity to their pre-Christian, supposedly Jewish past goes so far as to include Saturday worship in addition to Sunday as the normative practice, a peculiarity that has been normative for centuries and they say reflects their original practice. They also forbid pork and have some other laws that are similar to Jewish dietary laws (though from what I understand, they do mix milk and meat).

It would be hard to keep these practices and other aspects of the faith and culture alive if they thought they were bad by virtue of not being Christian (originally).

MoonlessNight · Oct 8, 2015

LoAmmi said:
Just from my own experience as a non-Christian, I'll give anybody who wishes to evangelize a bit of advice. Don't ever call the faith of the other person stupid or evil or completely wrong when talking to them. You most likely believe it, but don't say it. Whatever you say after that will simply fail utterly. It's basically a slap in the face and you might as well just turn around and walk away as soon as you start insulting their beliefs.

If I believed that someone was completely wrong in every aspect of his philosophy or religion I would say that to his face.

But the Catholic Church has largely not taught that any religion is completely wrong. Furthermore I am also a student of Aristotle, and Aristotle believed that since philosophies are generally made by honest attempts at solving problems, and since philosophies will be remembered when they seem to solve these problems, that no philosophy is completely wrong (and furthermore, when philosophies are wrong it is generally because they have made a significant, though understandable, mistake from which many other errors followed). So I don't think that I will ever run into someone whose philosophy or religion meets that description.

When there is common ground I will start with the common ground and move from there. I suppose I might admit that there are some significant differences between our views from the start, but in most cases that is obvious. If I am speaking with an atheist, or a Muslim, or a Shintoist, he knows that there are many differences in our religions.

I brought up the example of students not knowing how to expand the binomial (a+b)^2 earlier. Here too I start with the common ground, relating the calculation to multiplication of known numbers, or to algebraic properties like distribution, or to areas. What I specifically talk about depends on the student and what subject he best knows, but I never would say "you are wrong to write (a+b)^2 = a^2+b^2 and so you should be ashamed, and instantly accept that what I claim is right is right."

mark46 · Oct 8, 2015

LoAmmi said:
Just from my own experience as a non-Christian, I'll give anybody who wishes to evangelize a bit of advice. Don't ever call the faith of the other person stupid or evil or completely wrong when talking to them. You most likely believe it, but don't say it. Whatever you say after that will simply fail utterly. It's basically a slap in the face and you might as well just turn around and walk away as soon as you start insulting their beliefs.

IMHO, this board is a bit more harsh in this regard that the millions in the world sharing their faith with others. IMHO, this kind of in-your-face witnessing has rarely worked. As we should have taught, a Christian is to witness always and use words only when absolutely necessary. Of course, we always need to be prepared to answer questions regarding the faith. In fact, that is one of the primary functions of fellowship boards.

There are many, many strategies with regard to evangelization. The most obvious is the teaching of Paul, to meet people where they are (physically, socially and spiritually).

And yes, evangelization must consider that the US is very different than it was when we children. And yes, the way of reaching folks in Japan or India would be much different than in Manila or Miami.

Cos-play · Oct 8, 2015

MoonlessNight said:
But it is difficult to tell if you mean only that, or if you mean that which truths are revealed to different cultures in the total discussion of religion should change from culture to culture. That is, if you are saying that a missionary in Asia should not start by establishing God as a personal deity but certainly one should eventually get to that, then I have no issue. But if you are saying that we should not discuss God as a personal deity in Asia at all then I would disagree. I honestly can't tell which position you are advocating for, so I apologize if I seem to be misrepresenting you.

What do I mean, what do I mean, what do I mean ?

Good Question.

Catholic theology is big, board and seriously codified.

2000 years will do that.

What I'm saying is this:

I've read a lot of Catholic theology that expands, clarifies, explains and otherwise just adds to the body of knowledge that is Christan thought. There IS Catholic mysticism. There exists documentation that explains a "personal" God as all encompassing, all surrounding force. There are narrative that explain Christ's savior grace from any number of spiritual standpoints.

You, (who are you again, let me look) Moonless, probably haven't gotten to the parts of Catholic theology on this stuff and you may not even eventually get there. But why not pick this stuff up and use it to evangelize if this is the kind of thing that clicks with people ? Just because you don't understand it yourself, don't necessary get it and may not even know it exists is no reason not to use it.

Will this mean Catholicism may look a little different in practice in, say, Burma ? Probably.

So what ?

Unless you've got some issue with this depiction of Mother and Child

MoonlessNight · Oct 8, 2015

Certainly there is Catholic mysticism and thank God that there is. I don't know why you think that I'm not familiar with it. I have looked into the works of Saint John of the Cross in particular.

But Christian mysticism is specifically Christian mysticism. I'm not quite sure why it would be more appealing to those of the orient than other techniques. You claimed that they would have difficulty believing a personal God (though I'm not certain I agree with that, seeing that Hinduism, Shintoism and many types of Buddhism have personal Gods, some quite all encompassing), so I addressed those claims.

I also don't have any issues with visually depicting Christ in different ways according to local customs. This has been something done by pretty much every branch of the Church for pretty much the entirety of the history of the Church, so there certainly is extensive tradition justifying such practices. But what mystifies me is why you think I would object to it, since nothing I commented on even got close to touching on these practices.

Do you notice in the last post I made directed at you I explicitly said that I wasn't sure about what your position was, and apologized if I misrepresented you? I did that because I don't know all of your positions and beliefs and so do not make wild guesses about what they might be. When I make educated guesses based on what you have posted I try to show how I arrived at those conclusions from what you said and make clear that I may be mistaken in finding what you meant.

I find that doing all of that generally works out better than assuming that my opponent holds idiotic views that I would disagree with. But maybe that's just me, and your technique works better for you.

stray bullet · Oct 9, 2015

FlaviusAetius said:
My question comes from thinking about the miniscule 1% population of Christians in Japan. How should we view missions that generally can be seen as failures? Did God want Christianity to fail in places like Japan as an example? How should the missionaries be viewed when all their effort lead to shriveled and weak fruit?

Actually, Japan was being rapidly evangelized until politics came into play. Religious orders and various kingdoms warned the Japanese about the "evils" of the people converting his subjects. Japan would actually be a Catholic nation if it weren't for evil men outside Japan.

Fantine · Oct 9, 2015

The Asian bishops have recognized many of the problems mentioned here--from Christianity being associated with cultural imperialism to the Euro-centric way Christianity is promulgated.

Several Asian bishops’ conferences told Rome that it is not the Asian style to challenge other religions but rather to enter into dialogue with them, to search for points of agreement and downplay differences. The Japanese bishops told the Vatican that its thinking had come out of “the traditional Western scholastic tradition with emphasis on distinctions and differences.” The Japanese said they preferred seeking creative harmony.

http://natcath.org/NCR_Online/archives2/1998b/041798/041798g.htm

The interspiritual work of Thomas Merton with Asian monastics--seeking knowledge and understanding through their monastic way of life--was a very positive thing.

It resulted in books such as "Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers" by Thich Nhat Hanh.

Missionaries will never succeed if they don't respect the cultures of the people they are trying to convert.

mark46 · Oct 9, 2015

Fantine said:
The Asian bishops have recognized many of the problems mentioned here--from Christianity being associated with cultural imperialism to the Euro-centric way Christianity is promulgated.

http://natcath.org/NCR_Online/archives2/1998b/041798/041798g.htm

The interspiritual work of Thomas Merton with Asian monastics--seeking knowledge and understanding through their monastic way of life--was a very positive thing.

It resulted in books such as "Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers" by Thich Nhat Hanh.

Missionaries will never succeed if they don't respect the cultures of the people they are trying to convert.

mark46 · Oct 9, 2015

Fantine said:
The Asian bishops have recognized many of the problems mentioned here--from Christianity being associated with cultural imperialism to the Euro-centric way Christianity is promulgated.

http://natcath.org/NCR_Online/archives2/1998b/041798/041798g.htm

The interspiritual work of Thomas Merton with Asian monastics--seeking knowledge and understanding through their monastic way of life--was a very positive thing.

It resulted in books such as "Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers" by Thich Nhat Hanh.

Missionaries will never succeed if they don't respect the cultures of the people they are trying to convert.

Thank you for posting the powerful article about the plight of the Asian bishops.

My favorite by Thich Nhat Hanh is "Living Buddha, Living Christ".

We need to keep his teachings and those of Merton in our hearts. For example

"For Christians, the way to make the holy Spirit in the church is to practice thoroughly what Jesus lived and taught." He added that "It is not only true that Christians need Jesu, but Jesus needs Christians also for His energy to continue in the world."

This reminds me of St Therese when she reminded us that, on this earth, we are the hands and feet of Jesus.

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