MetaFilter posts tagged with missionaries

Keeping it real

fcummins — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 14:38:19 -0800

Linguists and Missionaries often find themselves in similar situations. The Jesus Film Project. Sample video The sample video has voice over in Kilega. If you want any recordings or texts in Kilega, they are more than likely from missionaries. Is this a pernicious effect of religion on language, or should we see it as a simple fact, that languages spread through religious channels?

Saving Sin City

zarq — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 11:50:46 -0800

Two Christian ministries, Hookers for Jesus and JC's Girls aim to "save" Las Vegas sex workers from their professions by introducing them to Christianity. Their founders, Annie Lobert and Heather Veitch (respectively,) both ex-sex workers, have been the focus of various interviews & documentaries, and have produced an outreach video series on YouTube: "Saving Sex City: 1, 2, 3, 4. (The series has a MySpace page, as well.) Also see XXXChurch, which targets porn addiction and has been featured previously on MeFi. Lobert recently participated in a rather surreal ABC Nightline "Faceoff" debate regarding the existence of Satan. Predictably, not everyone is thrilled with the groups' names or methods.

Gays: Vibrating Gatekeepers to Another World

pinothefrog — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 11:21:11 -0800

"You take the gatekeeper and you confuse his mind. You threaten him and you throw him in the middle of nowhere. Then nobody knows where the gate is. As soon as you lose the whereabouts of the gate, then you have a culture going downhill. What keeps a village together is a handful of "gays and lesbians," as they call them in the modern world. In my village, lesbians are called witches, and gay men are known as the gatekeepers." The Dagara people of Burkina Faso. "Christianity has separated spirit from body and spirit from Earth. And earlier you talked to us about Christianity suppressing your culture. So there’s a suggestion here that suppression of homosexuality would be the way for the Christians to shut down the gateways, shut down the spirit, and shut down our connection with the Earth." Unsurprisingly, the Dagara are popular with Christian missionaries. As well as NGOs. The Dagara Cosmology. Shamanism in the gay community.

Planting the future

specialk420 — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 12:34:44 -0800

Wangari Maathai discusses saving the environment in Nigeria
and how religion influenced its destruction and subesquent efforts at saving it. A beautiful portrait of a beautiful determined woman doing her part to help save the planet.

Repent and you'll get the supplies everyone pitched in for.

skallas — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 23:13:16 -0800

Is this what they are doing with my tsunami relief donations? From the article: "Jubilant at seeing the relief trucks loaded with food, clothes and the much-needed medicines the villagers, many of who have not had a square meal in days, were shocked when the nuns asked them to convert before distributing biscuits and water." Christopher Hitchens also exposes similiar actions in India by Christian missionaries in his book critical of Mother Theresa.

Failed Missionaries

plep — Tue, 23 Nov 2004 08:02:51 -0800

The Wellington Valley Project. The history of a failed Christian mission in colonial Australia.

Evangelism in Sri Lanka

homunculus — Mon, 05 Jan 2004 14:11:13 -0800

Globalized fundamentalism versus tradition. This report for the Society for International Development describes the efforts of foreign funded Christian evangelists to gain converts in Sri Lanka, which the author views as an assault on traditional Sri Lankan culture. There is a backlash, which some say is leading to the suppression of religious freedom and state sponsorship of Buddhism. [Via Plastic.]

the missionaries

thedailygrowl — Sun, 30 Mar 2003 11:25:44 -0800

Plans Under Way for Christianizing the Enemy. "Two leading evangelical Christian missionary organizations said Tuesday that they have teams of workers poised to enter Iraq to address the physical and spiritual needs of a large Muslim population." (from Buzzflash) God please save me from your followers!

rushmc — Tue, 22 May 2001 11:41:27 -0800

Missionaries are frank imperialists. But because they operate in the spiritual realm, they continue to enjoy a fuzzy kind of permission to conduct a kind of business that is largely impossible in other less ethereal spheres of life.

dnash — Tue, 20 Mar 2001 08:52:51 -0800

Priests and missionaries sexually abusing nuns. I'm thinking it's long past time the Catholic church re-thought the whole "celibacy" thing.