John Chau's Death on Northern Sentinel Island: Martyr or "American Dickhead"?
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This is a very interesting article, and it appears as though his move was sanctioned by multiple Evangelical groups in the United States, all failing to comprehend the potential ramifications of this action.
Martyr or “American Dickhead”?
Earlier this month, a 26-year-old Christian missionary named John Allen Chau was killed on a remote Indian island in strikingly similar circumstances as the men in Ecuador. Chau dreamed of converting the members of an isolated tribe on the North Sentinel Island, who are known to aggressively resist contact from outsiders. He attempted to prepare to do so, but he didn’t speak the language. At one point, he wrote to his mother, he approached a group of North Sentinelese from the water and “hollered: ‘My name is John, I love you and Jesus loves you.’ ” Chau was killed, apparently by bows and arrows, the next day on the beach.
The public reaction to Chau’s death has been much different than the response to the men in Ecuador 60 years ago. Mainstream media outlets have published opinion pieces accusing Chau of “cultural imperialism and insane arrogance,” for example; on social media, he’s been called an “asshole,” a “failed colonizer,” and an “American dickhead.” Many critics pointed out that Chau’s expedition was a violation of Indian law, which forbids outsiders to even approach the island. It was also an epidemiological risk to the North Sentinelese, who have not built up immunity to many common illnesses including the flu. And even if the North Sentinelese were not harmed by new germs, contact with outsiders could irreparably alter their lives and culture.
In traveling to an “unreached” people group, Chau was acting out one of evangelical Christianity’s highest imperatives—and most cherished narratives. “There’s a sense in evangelical and missionary circles that one of the highest things you can do is take the Gospel to a group who has never heard it,” said historian Kathryn Long, the author of a forthcoming book about the 1956 mission in Ecuador. For many evangelicals, this is the most dramatic version of fulfilling Jesus’ “Great Commission,” in which he told his followers to “go and make disciples of all nations.”
Intriguingly, however, even Christians have not hailed Chau as a clear-cut hero of the faith. “Chau’s stunt not only had absolutely no chance of success, it also stood to bring sickness and death to this tribe,” the conservative Christian writer Rod Dreher wrote last week. “How could any Christian justify this?” Dreher was among those pointing out that Chau’s death has prompted a regional backlash that could make life harder for the minority population of Christians in India, not to mention Christian aid workers and long-term missionaries there.
Hop over and read this article, and see why there is even Christian backlash. It's quite interesting.
https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/12/john-allen-chau-missionary-death-christian-north-sentinel-island.html
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= new reply since forum marked as read
Can't have that.
had actually instituted a limited permit system for visitors. Chau did not have one, and it seems unlikely the locals would have honored it anyway. The wisdom and morality of allowing permit access for tourists is being questioned. 
Only 26, barely out of adolescence. The last years of adolescence are apparently the most dangerous, when a larger number who don't survive adolescence fail.
Perhaps he could have matured to be a more respectful and responsible man, if not a wise one. He apparently hasn't reproduced.
Police are reportedly looking for 2 other American evangelicals he met with who may have encouraged him to break the law. They've apparently already left India, but police have cell phone records.
RIP.
In my DYSFUNCTIONAL family, we had the great religion wars, my entire childhood... we had xtians, jewish, catholic, JWs and now muslims. I don't buy into any of it after what I had to endure, coercion to "accept" one of them. How I saw it was that they all claim to be the chosen ones and everybody else is wrong so if I don't "accept/comply" with their demands I'll not only had a shitty life here, I get to go to hell afterward where it's worse.
The ones I had most frequent interaction with were the evangelical clan of the xtians who told me that I was a snake and evil because I wasn't pearly white and I would never be forgiven, ever, even if I "accepted" their brand of oppression. But I had to "accept/comply" because at least I could go to heaven when I died so I could be seen as like them after having lived an ugly life here because I wasn't the right shade of white. Don't get me started on the rituals part. But the xtians have this mandate to foist this bullshit onto everybody else. At several points in history they have even wiped out whole populations who would not "accept" their beliefs by either disease or murder...
This is the same freaking thing and this guy got what he deserved for being ignorant and arrogant, totally devoid of concern for anyone else but him and his "level" of holiness in his mind only. What a prick, even if he was a gullible fool. Don't care that his body won't be returned, it is the most justified way of telling his kind to fuck off without becoming part of the modern world.
I'm with the North Sentinelese on this. Let them be.
‘My name is John, I love you and Jesus loves you.’ ” Chau was killed, apparently by bows and arrows, the next day on the beach.
The one true religion...
