Steven desJardins (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} stevendj) wrote,@ 2007-12-22 01:48:00 |
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The Chauvinism of Missionaries
I'm currently proofing the account by a missionary of his time in India. It's fairly interesting when religion isn't the subject, tolerable when discussing Christianity in isolation, and infuriatingly bigoted when contrasting Christianity to native religions or discussing native religions without reference to Christianity.
I just came to a passage which is a mild, but otherwise typical, example.
To me, it sounds more the other way around. The poor man has a thoughtful conception of sin, while the lad taught in school merely parrots what he's been told. But the missionary sees any deviation for Christian thought as mere error, so a sophisticated philosophy which differs from his own is interpreted as amusing ignorance. If he's typical of missionaries of the period, it's no wonder they had (by his own account) virtually no success in making converts, despite decades of effort.
I'm currently proofing the account by a missionary of his time in India. It's fairly interesting when religion isn't the subject, tolerable when discussing Christianity in isolation, and infuriatingly bigoted when contrasting Christianity to native religions or discussing native religions without reference to Christianity.
I just came to a passage which is a mild, but otherwise typical, example.
Once, when thirty miles away from Ranee
Khet, I met a lad whom I recognized as an old pupil.
I asked him if he remembered what he had been taught.
He said he did. He went to a house close at hand,
brought a copy of St. Luke's Gospel, read at my request
the fifteenth chapter, and explained its meaning with an
accuracy which surprised me. At the same place I
met a man of a different order. He told me he was
going to a mela, to which I was also proceeding. I asked
him what he was to do there. He said he was to bathe,
to wash away his sins. I asked him what was the sin
which oppressed him. He said, "I am a husbandman.
In ploughing my fields I destroy much life, which is a
great sin. This is the worst thing with which I am
chargeable." The lad taught in the school knew something
of what sin was, as the poor man did not.
To me, it sounds more the other way around. The poor man has a thoughtful conception of sin, while the lad taught in school merely parrots what he's been told. But the missionary sees any deviation for Christian thought as mere error, so a sophisticated philosophy which differs from his own is interpreted as amusing ignorance. If he's typical of missionaries of the period, it's no wonder they had (by his own account) virtually no success in making converts, despite decades of effort.
