daily java

Daily Java:

Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age. (Mathew 28:18-20).
It’s true that some are preaching out of jealousy and rivalry. But others preach about Christ with pure motives. They preach because they love me, for they know I have been appointed to defend the Good News. (Philippians 1:15-16)

Someone was talking the other day about the atrocities the early missionaries were supposed to have inflicted on the American Indians, making them into slaves and abusing them.

While there may have been isolated cases of this, I do not believe the major part was like that. I think that the reality was much different than what the historians would have us believe. There are several reasons for this.

First is the fact that, as a Christian, I have know personally many missionaries. I have not known one who was mean natured and would do something like this. There is a certain heart, a certain love that makes someone give up his or her life with family to become a missionary. When you become a missionary, you have to give up so much, especially if you are a missionary to primitive cultures like the early missionaries to the Indians were. That can only be done out of love, because desire to control people can only be maintained so long. And people will not be willingly dominated like that for only so long before they rebel.

Second is that historians are writing histories from their own perspectives and their own biases. Many historians, especially modern ones, are haters of our culture and are trying to figure out how to make us the bad guy. Read many history books today and all of our wars become imperialist aggressions, all of our foreign aid become blood money, all of our reaching out becomes guilt motivated of our “past sins.”

Look at what President Obama did when he came in office. The first thing he did was to go throughout the world and apologize for America. That same idea is common in most histories. And it is also portrayed in movies. Dances with Wolves (a good movie in many ways) and Avatar (not as good) are two recent movies that portrayed the Indian as wonderful, kind, decent human beings who were being oppressed by American soldiers, all of which were either stupid, brutish or greedy. Having been a soldier trying my best to be a good one, I resent the portrayal and consider it false.

The third is that it doesn’t take too much inspection of the Indian culture to see that these were people who were filthy, cruel and whose honor consisted of how many horses they could steal or how well they could endure torture. They had almost no sense of modesty or morality.

One could say, “Well, they just didn’t have what you consider modesty and morality.” And that is true. But what I consider modesty and morality is what I get from the Bible, so I will admit that I am somewhat biased.

It is also curious that this emphasis on the “bad American” has not come up until lately in our history. Much of it stems from the oikaphobia (hatred of oneself or people like you) that is so prevalent in the American liberal philosophy. Having heard so many talk about how good it would be if we had lost the Gulf War that we engaged in in the early 2000’s, it became apparent that many in this country do not like this country and wish it to fail. And one way they can do that is to rewrite the history books and make movies about how bad our soldiers and our missionaries are.

Yes there are times when our soldiers have not been their best. But those were the exception, not the rule. And to make one’s portrayal of soldiers based on the exception is wrong. That would be the same as saying all liberals are dirty, freeloading hippies because that was a picture given back in the 1960’s.

Missionaries had to have a certain heart, one of service, sacrifice and love, to do what they did in the first place. And those who write the histories do not like Christianity in the first place. But we have the mandate, whether others like it or not, of bringing the gospel to others. We do not do anyone a disservice by telling them about Jesus and his grace. If we do, the Bible is false and Christianity is worthless.

I suppose that is the main sticking point. These people do not want the gospel brought so they will do anything they can to impugn those who bring it. To them, it is as 2 Corinthians 2:16 says: To those who are perishing, we are a dreadful smell of death and doom. But to those who are being saved, we are a life-giving perfume. And who is adequate for such a task as this?

And we do the Lord and the memory of that huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith (Hebrews 12:1) a great disservice when we buy into this inaccurate portrayal of missionaries.