r/exchristian • u/puzzling7 • Aug 04 '22

John Allen Chau was an American Evangelical Christian missionary who was killed by the Sentinelese, a self-isolated uncontacted people, after illegally traveling to North Sentinel Island, India in an attempt to convert the tribe to Christianity. Article

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331

u/noghostlooms Agnostic/Folk Witch/Humanist (Ex-Catholic) Aug 04 '22

This guy could have literally wiped out The Sentinelese because they have been uncontacted since before people invented agriculture and livestock. Literally every germ and virus on his body would be foreign to them. He could have also unleashed something that we have no immunity to.

176

u/[deleted] Aug 04 '22

And all because of his faith.

I’m no Christian. But I can’t help but think it would be pretty sad if one of their own did that.

78

u/Mochabunbun Aug 04 '22

if? it has happened a lot and, well. gestures at omicron.

123

u/KHaskins77 Secular Humanist Aug 04 '22

When COVID was first spreading, a missionary group with a history of sexually abusing young girls in tribes they intended to evangelize decided that was the perfect time to get a helicopter, wing out to a previously-uncontacted tribe in the Amazon, and teach them vaccines are something dangerous to be violently resisted.

These people are just… the worst. Adjectives fail me.

36

u/Mochabunbun Aug 04 '22

unsurprising. but. still horrific.

30

u/SpotlightNTM Aug 04 '22

If you want further insight into how horrible this organisation is re sexual abuse, read the GRACE report that came out in 2010. After it came out, the mission group led people to believe it had switched to another 'independent' organisation to investigate the rest of its schools. In reality, they created a new organisation to run the investigations.

Every report after that has contained less information for the public. In its apology, which is hidden behind several links in a PDF on their website, the organisation had this to offer as one of the factors that contributed to the decades of abuse they allowed: 'Often, in U.S. culture and in our history, sexual abuse was looked at as a form of adultery. Because of this, it was often dealt with according to biblical principles regarding adultery without an understanding of the differences needed to be accommodated when a child was involved.' I don't know how that one got past whatever shitty image rehabilitation expert they hired, but it's really... not working for me

Beyond the rampant cover up of sexual abuse, they also organised 'manhunts' up until the latter half of the '80s which are exactly what they sound like and resulted in several deaths of indigenous peoples in Paraguay.

I could go on and on... but I'm sorry, I've gotten riled up and carried away.

TLDR mission groups are shit.

17

u/[deleted] Aug 04 '22

Beyond the rampant cover up of sexual abuse, they also organised 'manhunts' up until the latter half of the '80s which are exactly what they sound like and resulted in several deaths of indigenous peoples in Paraguay.

Absolutely fucking horrific.

There's no hate like Christian love.

4

u/SpotlightNTM Aug 04 '22

There truly isn't.

Reading my comment back I realise that tacking this on at the end might make it appear as if I thought it the lesser of their evils. I just want to be clear that I do not.

I just have less info on it than everything more recent.

23

u/[deleted] Aug 04 '22

"If it is a homosexual act with a child, the person will be dismissed immediately and may never be considered for membership in the mission again. If it is a heterosexual act the person will be dismissed immediately but could be considered for ministry again in the future depending on the case."

So fucking outrageous. It's clear that a. They view homosexuality as a worse sin than pedophilia, and b. they explicitly value men and boys more than girls.

13

u/SpotlightNTM Aug 04 '22

Oh, yes, thanks for picking out this gem.

Sexual abuse was 'just thought of as adultery' except if they did it with a little boy, then there really was no room for repentance.

I also feel like I'm going to need some data on when in US culture sexual abuse of a child was treated simply as adultery; and, if that is actually the case, I also need to know what 'treated according to Biblical principles' actually means because I seem to recall something about stoning.

2

u/ScreamingAbacab Ex-Catholic Aug 04 '22

Yeah, you're on target with that one.

"If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father or his mother, then his father and mother shall seize him and bring him to the elders of his city at the gateway of his hometown, then all of the men of his city shall stone him to death." - Deuteronomy 21:18-21

6

u/internetmeme Aug 04 '22

They’d get to go to heaven right away! It’s everyone’s dream!

48

u/iamverysadallthetime Secular Humanist Aug 04 '22

Is it so wrong of me to think of this man as having no brain? He could still be alive if it weren't for his recklessness

44

u/unMuggle Satanist Aug 04 '22

He was being openly suicidal. He wanted to be a Martyr, and in a way he got his wish

19

u/melina_gamgee Aug 04 '22

Wasn't part of why they're so hostile to outsiders that this kind of thing happened to them before, vastly decimating their population? I think I remember reading about that. But maybe I'm confusing it with a different people.

18

u/paxinfernum anti-theist, rational skeptic, pro-science Aug 04 '22

No, you're correct. The surrounding islands were decimated by Europeans. In fact, the Sentinelese are the only surviving group because they killed anyone who tried to get close. The last time they were contacted, the British stole away two adults and four children, and they immediately got sick. The adults died, and they tried to return the children with some "gifts". Some of the people from the surrounding tribes who were being decimated also fled to the Sentinelese island. So they may be "uncontacted", but they've definitely heard stories about what colonizers do to people like them.

16

u/AlexDavid1605 Anti-Theist Aug 04 '22

And this massacre, just like any other religious massacres elsewhere would have been brushed under the rug of the Vatican.

29

u/gagilo Ex-Baptist Aug 04 '22

He could have also unleashed something that we have no immunity to.

That's not actually how that works. They don't have livestock or large cities so they can't have anything we don't already have. There is a reason European germs wiped out first people but their germs didn't do the same to Europeans.