This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Missionary article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
This page is not a forum for general discussion about personal beliefs, nor for engaging in Apologetics/ Polemics. Any such comments may be removed or refactored. Please limit discussion to improvement of this article. You may wish to ask factual questions about personal beliefs, nor for engaging in Apologetics/ Polemics at the Reference desk. |
This
level-5 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
This article links to one or more target anchors that no longer exist.
Please help fix the broken anchors. You can remove this template after fixing the problems. |
Reporting errors |
I'd like to see some discussion of some of the negative aspects of missionaries and they way being sent on some missions is designed to alienate you from the public, not to convert people.
Intensely one-sided. Misionaries are essentially white invaders whose business is religious persecution, the persection of any religion not their own and generally small scale religions. Missionaries have been one of the primary causes of mass deaths among indigenous peoples. 100s of 1000s have died through missionary introduced ignorance and disease and all to swap one superstition for another —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.1.163.65 ( talk) 23:36, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
Christianity is dying in the west. Europe, in particular, are growing more and more atheistic/agnostic over the past decades. The trend is much slower in United States, but it's happening. Christianity needs new ground, fresh believers to survive and keep its momentum. If all missionaries cease to exist, all evangelists cease to work, I don't think Christianity can keep its momentum and will eventually wither. Of course, it may take 2 or 3 generations or more, it's a guess. But what I'm saying really in my original text is that spreading the Gospel cannot be done in an NPOV fashion. In other words, it cannot be done without discrediting other faiths first. Heilme 08:33, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
lol who gives a damn about christianity anyway? Let them have their fun trying to convert people in some generic part in africa. From what I see in the US and Europe, Christians believe quantity is more important than quality. Sure, you can have 2.1 billion christians in the world, but if only 10% practice, whats the point?
This article says: While some of these missions were associated with imperialism and oppression, others (notably Matteo Ricci's Jesuit mission to China) were relatively peaceful and focused on integration rather than cultural imperialism.
I came here specifically for information on the imperialism and economic exploitation arguments. This needs to be expanded upon. In the meantime, I guess I'll have to check the histories. As it sits now, this article is extremely one-sided painting missionary work as entirely charitable with no downsides. What about missionaries that required aid recipients to watch a movie about Jesus or pray before being fed? (Prosylitation through economic exploitation.)Even if all those claims are false (which I doubt), they are still in abundance and out there and need to be addressed somehow.
Cr8zy 22:01, 6 October 2007 (UTC)Cr8zy
Mary Sleser was a missionary to Africa, she was known as "White Ma" by the Indian Tribes.
Mary settled conflicts, and arguments.
"They were successful in obtaining several thousand converts to the faith, but adoption of European culture was slow, retarding acceptance of the new converts as real Christians." Huh? What does European culture have to do with being real Christians? - phma
From a historical point of view -- this article lacks information on the long history of Christian missions, i.e.
Some of this information and other articles relating to missionary work are listed in Mission (Christian) and History of Christian missions. So -- should there be more articles? Should this article be more clearly defined or divided into seperate articles? How about missionary work by other religious traditions, if any? Comments please. WBardwin 22:43, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
I don't really agree with this sentence from the article: "Often, missionaries are fluent in the language they study at the end of the six-week period." From what I understand, LDS missionaries are given a set of common phrases to learn as well as basic syntax for the foreign language, but I don't think they are often fluent in the language by the time they arrive at their destination. Many say they are completely lost for the first few weeks while learning the new language. After they are immersed in it, however, they learn it more quickly. I may be wrong, however, so please correct me if I'm wrong. I served a domestic mission, so I didn't go through the foreign-language training. — Frecklefoot 15:40, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Cool, thanks for making the change! :-) — Frecklefoot | Talk 18:05, Aug 6, 2004 (UTC)
If this can help, I've met a number of LDS missionaries in France and none of them were "fluent". David.Monniaux 13:10, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I know them in the Czech republic, Czech is a difficult language and they can speak only about their topic - mormon stuff. -- jvano 16:20, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
I was a missionary and received two native USA citizens speaking fluent Spanish in order to train'em, nevertheless, this is more the exception than the rule. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Santiagomarquezd ( talk • contribs) 03:29, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
I was searching for Missions which took me to "ambigous" page about all kinds of "missions"
I clicked on Mission (Christian) [one of the links] and that brought me to a page of the same name. It only contained a short 2 sentence blurb and no links (stub) to something as full as what I found in Missionary! I don't remember how I got to Missionary but that page has everything on it!
I copied the Christian Missions section to "Mission (Christian)" but I didn't want to remove so much from Missionary without some comments from others.
Does this make sence? Strbenjr
Full-time proselyting missionaries are required to adhere to a dress code: for men, dark trousers and suit coats (which are optional in hot climates), white dress shirts, and ties are required;
That, I understand. However, I noticed that, quite often, LDS missionaries preaching in France wear backpacks whose color violently clashes with their suit. I understand that LDS policy is to wear professional, strict attire, but why doesn't this extend to accessories? David.Monniaux 13:12, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Take a look at Missionary#LDS_missionaries. It's more than twice as long as any of the other entries! I'd like to propose that we create a new article just for LDS missionaries and trim the entry in this article. We would, of course, provide a link to the main article from the smaller entry. This would have a number of benefits:
What does everyone else say? — Frecklefoot | Talk
This topic has been dead for a long time. Does anyone else have strong feeling against an LDS Missionary article? If not, I vote we go ahead and create this article. — Frecklefoot | Talk 22:00, Jun 11, 2005 (UTC)
I think we can talk about what should and can be added to the LDS missionary article once we have it. :-) — Frecklefoot | Talk 13:51, July 29, 2005 (UTC)
What are we gonna call it? LDS missionary, Latter-day Saint missionary, Mormon missionary, Those guys in suits riding bikes? I'd like to nail this down before creating the article. I'll bring this up on the project page too. — Frecklefoot | Talk 16:40, July 29, 2005 (UTC)
"Missionary (Latter-day Saint)?" -- would match the current Mission (Christian) format and tie to the home article. If people are currently typing "Missionary" -- and find this article, it would be easy to refer them from the short section on LDS missionaries which would remain here. Why don't we start with a modern article -- it could include a very short history introduction, and real descriptions of the actual mission experience -- MTC, companions, door approaches and all that stuff. Maybe a list of modern mission names and locations too.
I think a history based article(s) on the early missions would also be important, but then I'm a history nut. I've been doing some personal research on the three successive missions to England that brought so many English saints to Nauvoo and to the west. And the RLDS had missionaries too, although I've never actually met a modern one. "Missions of the Latter Day Saint Movement"? Quite long and cumbersome for a name. WBardwin 17:51, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
I'm going to go with Mormon missionary since it is the most widely used. We can change it later or move it if we find it is not the optimal name. — Frecklefoot | Talk 20:29, July 29, 2005 (UTC)
Cor Unum 11:27, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
I just made accommodating edits of an anons POV contributions. Tom Haws 23:04, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
Since this page is about Missionaries (people), I wonder how relevant it is to talk about Missions (organisations) here. Shouldn't this page only be about Missionaries, historical figures, stereotypes, and so on? The stuff about Missions should be moved to another page -- Ritchy 16 August 2005
Children of missionaries who grew up overseas are often called missionary kids. We could work this into the article somehow. Ingoolemo talk 20:01, 2005 September 6 (UTC)
The external links to individual missionaries doesn't seem appropriate here. I suppose it could have value as an "example" of what missionaries are like, but it also could just be something to tag on somebody's "friend from church." Worth keeping? Deadsalmon 23:30, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
As of 4 January 2006, I've removed the Individual Missionaries section. It added little to the article and was exclusively Protestant (mostly Assemblies of God). The websites provided should suffice as "example sites," and the article's purpose isn't to be a directory for every missionary with a website. Deadsalmon 10:50, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
Isn't that how Buddhism originally expanded. (Missions to Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka, Japan, Korea, China, Tibet, etc.) 12.220.47.145 01:08, 4 November 2005 (UTC).
How come there isn't a Criticism section in this article? How come it isn't mentioned that converting tribes to Christianity opens them up to the outside world and destroys their culture? Let me know if there is some criticism in this article somewhere and I missed it. -- Khoikhoi 23:14, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
The Mormons and the Jehovah's witnesses are considered cults by virtually every other prodistant denomination. Why on earth are they even under "protestant," and why aren't there any other denominations in "protestant missions"? Thanatosimii 17:29, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
I trained in a modern Catholic missionary college- so I at least have a grasp of modern (ecumenical) theory of missions. I'm working through the article to knock it into better shape. Might take a couple of weeks to reference it properly.
I don't think we should get too distracted by the JW + Mormon argument either. If they are classified as "other" (as I have done) this neither declares them to be non-Christian (which offends LDS believers) nor riles Catholics, Anglicans and other mainline Protestants.
I've now added and wiki'd the LMS and CMS (both very significant organisations the article had missed.
cheers Cor Unum 12:11, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
I've deleted some of the half-thought through stuff in this article, trying to make it more from an NPOV. Trying to make it more complete. I'm going to take some of the the Jehovah's Witness stuff (there's too much detail here) and move it onto the JW organisational page. After looking at the JW organisational page, this stuff only repeats what on there, so I have removed it and left the link to the main JW article.
Cor Unum 04:31, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
I've added one obvious omission now and referenced it to other articles. Cor Unum 05:49, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
I've made heading changes other might have a dfifferent view on- but here are my reasons. I have changed "Evangelical Missions" to Evangelical church missions". This is becuase the prior heading implied that Roman Catholic, Orthodox and other groups were not "Evangelical" (literally Gospel driven); but they do consider themselves to be so. The other change I have made is to put JW's and LDS's into "Other groups that identify as Christian" (their own heading). There is hot dispute among mainline churches as to whether these groups are legitimately to be identified as Christian - owing to key doctrinal disagreements concerning the Trinity and Revelation. I am trying to leave the heading open enough, but not too open (since both groups consider themselves Christian, and indeed churches) while, for example, the Orthodox, Anglicans, Lutherans, Baptists and the Catholics see them as (absolutely) outside the boundaries of normative Christian doctrine. But then again, the Catholics, technicially, do not consider members of the Salvation Army as fully Christian because they are not baptized (the Sallies are bemused by this view - if not somewhat offended). How should wiki deal with issues like this? Should any group who self-identifies as Christian simply be accorded the name? Is this a matter of referencing and footnoting?
I'm interested in comments on this- particularly from LDS or JW scholars. How should wiki deal with these sorts of major disagreements in a neutral and appropriate way?
cheers Cor Unum 00:38, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure it's fair to call the Dalai Lama a missionary, as he's advocating against the changing of ones religion in his autobiography (weather it be Christian missionaries converting Buddhists in Mongolia, or western Christians converting themselves into Buddhism). He suggests sticking with the religion you grew up with as suddenly "switching" cause confusion for the person, and the different religions are just roads to the same goal anyway. (don't have the book at hand so possibly not qouting very well) The Dalai Lama is interested in teaching people about Tibetan religion and culture (to preserve what is vanishing quickly after 1959), but as far as I can tell he does not want to "make" people change into his religion in the way that is characteristic for missionaries.
Including "Missionary Position" in "See Also" seems to me to be unnecessary. It is unlikely people will be visiting the "Missionary" page to find out about sex positions. Also, surely it is a slang term only used by a certain sub-section of society... if a person was seriously interested in studying it there would probably be a more technical term that would be used.
The term "Missionary position" is also loaded ideologically, in that it is an attempt to sideline what is normal as if it were only used be a certain fundemantalist, or even extreme group in society. It is likely there is no term necessary for this normative position, and it would only be deviations that would require distinctive terms.
Thoughts? User:A.J.Chesswas 11:49, 18 August 2006 (NZST)
agreed. It should'nt be there. --
The Fear 21:10, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Since most of the "Jewish missions" section is about how Judaism does not have missions, shouldn't the title be renamed? Mo-Al 17:36, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
The section as written, states without equivocation, that Judaism is institutionally against seeking converts. While it is true that some, perhaps even a majority, of Jewish Rabbinical leaders encourage a skeptical attitute towards potential converts, this is not universally the case. I am aware of a number of Jewish outreach organizations that specifically seek to welcome new converts - most of these are operating in Africa. Many of these organizations approach the issue as "seeking a return of lost tribes", but they welcom new proselytes as well, and some simply facilitate conversion. [1], [2], [3], [4].
The article seems to convey one point of few only; I would suggest that it be modified to permit the readers to draw their own conclusions.
Moreover, a link to a conversion-oriented blog was removed. If that is against policy, fine. But why do I see conversion-oriented blogs from other religions on Wiki? Respectfully,( DHMalik 17:33, 5 March 2007 (UTC))
The subcategory about missionaries & Judaism says that proselytizing is mostly taboo. However, it leaves out that there is one area where Jews sort of believe in proselytizing to Gentiles, in that they believe that Gentiles should obey the Seven Laws of Noah. They call this Noahidism.-- Splashen ( talk) 05:24, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
The sub-topic about Jehovah's Witnesses is somewhat misleading and confusing. The description section at the top of the page describes a missionary as someone who goes outside of their community to preach their religious beliefs. However, the section on Jehovah's Witnesses describes activity they do within their own communities.
Jehovah's Witnesses do have an extensive missionary and missionary training program that has been around for at least 50 years and sends people all over the world. Unfortunately, this program is not cited either on this page or on the linked page to "Jehovah's Witnesses Organizational Structure."
Please see for more detail: [ [5]]
This article has way too many external links. I'm removing some. If some of them are actually of importance and qualify under WP:EL, feel free to re-add. -- Anaraug 08:37, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
all this article talks about is the different types of missionaries and their histories. it doesnt talk about the social/anthropological effect whats so ever. there needs to be a "criticism" section which talks about how countless cultures have been destroyed by evangelical white missionaries. cultural imperialism if you like.
-- Greg.loutsenko 03:18, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
To the individual that edited the Christian response to the two articles in "Controversy": The paragraph you deleted does not miss the point. It is only rambling if you are unfamiliar with the scholarly conversation that has taken place regarding this assumption of cultural imperialism. It can only be called disrespect for one's culture if there is no culture that is better. The sources I cited would assert that there isn't a modern disrespect of indigenous cultures. There is an assertion that Christ is the way to salvation. Accept the message of Christ within the framework of your own culture. In either case, whether or not you as an editor accept the Christian response as relevant, it still needs to be represented.
I'm deleting the article from burningcross. It is assertion under the guise of citation. I am tempted to delete the superfluous amount of book references. There should be references that represent the response to the charge of cultural imperialism. Again, to allow the charge and not the Christian response to the charge is patently not objective. If you want to claim that Christianity destroys cultures, cite authorities and their arguments....from a respectable sociological and historical source. To Khoi above in "Criticism?" and to the above individual: it is only wrong to believe one's religion is superior if all religions are equal. This is a philosophical assumption that does not belong in a neutral article. It is a viewpoint that can be represented, and if it is then so should Christianity's developed response.( Irishbrutha 05:50, 18 January 2007 (UTC))
66.14.116.114 22:50, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
You say that "Without force, there is simply no weight to the charge of culturecide". What do you call threats of hellfire if the people don't convert. These are peoples which may not have had any idea that the God would be capable of such a thing. Read this sentence from the link I provide above from Papua New Guinea "Missionaries are actually in essence terrorists. Why? They come to us and say, "If you don't do as we say, you are going to hell! You will die! You will be judged! You are not part of us! You are children of the Satan!" etc.etc. Aren't these sentences terrorising? [8]. What innocent person would not convert under such fearful threats? I call that force. You said "Let's just all be honest and recognize that we all have a belief about the superiority of our values", yes but unlike Christians I have the enough respect in your right to believe what you want to not be trying to convert you to my beliefs.
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Irishbrutha ( talk • contribs) 07:19, 19 January 2007 (UTC).
If you look at the bottom of one of the links I provided [9] you will find citations. Christian missionaries may not be conciously trying to change other cultures, but they are nonetheless. And it's sad. 4.246.207.57 19:13, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I've added the POV tag to the controversy section because the text itself — I'm not talking about the stuff from the anti-missionary sites, which should be included and which we expect to be POV — appears to be taking a strongly anti-missionary stand. Let's not have a section that attacks missionaries in its own text, especially as seen in the last few paragraphs. Nyttend 19:28, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Someone has placed a tag recommending the merging of the Missionary page with a page titled "Missional". I'm not sure if this is a good idea as it might make this page harder to find. Perhaps if they simply add a definition of "Missional" on the Missionary page? 72.29.170.201 20:00, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
I have restored an older version of the controversy section which has had some moderation(the most recently restored version was full of uncited assertion). I still don't think it is up to scratch- but if other editors think it should be present- then let's work on producing an NPOV as well as citing references. cheers Cor Unum 11:46, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
verifiable information. 4.246.202.199 02:45, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
If you have references, then cite them appropriately. Use it or lose it is the general policy. I'm sorry to say I have already had the baptism by fire on wiki- and even when I knew what I was writing was correct (or what others had said was erroneous), if it was not referenced appropriately, invariably someone who disgreed removed it. Go have a look at the article on Martin Luther. It is well referenced. Cor Unum 11:40, 27 March 2007 (UTC). ANd to 4.246.202.199 - please get a username and user page so we know who you are.
Using two different names which are very dissimilar is using a "sock puppet" Wikipedia:Sock puppetry. And there is a reason that using a username is not mandatory. It's also funny that Njamesdebien|Cor Unum says that he is a journalist yet he has repeatedly changed quoted conversation. Very odd behaviour for someone who should know better. About the quotes not being clear they were italisized and indented with the link at the bottom. It was pretty clear to me and I'd guess clear to everyone else as well. About the "anti-Da'wah or anti-Buddhist sites" maybe YOU should add those. I also noticed that since you were caught changing quoted conversation that your "solution" was simply to remove everything from the entire "Burning Cross" site. And for someone's whose supposedly a disinterested party, funny that you should use the christian term "baptism by fire". Dude you're pretty transparently a partisan here. 75.15.151.191 16:15, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
So where is this missing controversy section?
I've had another go at improving the NPOV on this article- despite numerpous reversions by editors without usernames. Cor Unum 07:08, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
Now that (hopefully) the recent vandalism of the article is over, I am repairing the article re: First, in the interest of balance I am reinstituting a pro-missionary paragraph of Irishbrutha's which had valid cites. I moved an anti-missionary paragraph out of the "Christian counter-claims" section and put it at the bottom of the first section with the rest. I also placed the controversy section at the bottom of the section on Christian missionaries (below the Jehovah's Witness and Mormon sections) and removed the "Other religious missionary movements" subheading since Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons consider themselves Christian as well. 4.246.207.64 15:36, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
4.246.207.64 - while I might agree with your general approach- please identify yourself and give us a chance of knowing your bona-fides. I am not in favour of unidentified edits (and neither is wikipedia). I accept the criticism that I confused some identities in a previous post, and I agree with Irisbruthas changes (though I confused Irishbrutha with someone else -sorry Irishbrutha). My issue is that editors should identify themselves. I say again, I have only one name on wiki (I use Cor Unum as a nickname, but my name is Noel Debien). It is acknowledged on wiki that the majority of people (like me) use a nickname. I am a journalist (google me if you like and you will see), and my speciality is religious reporting from a non-polemical viewpoint. I work for a public broadcaster, and our editorial policy insists on impartiality. My issue with this article are not that there is an assertion of negative impact from missionary work (demonstrably this has been the case in many places)- but I do not consider that attacks on Chrisatian missionaries alone are balanced. The facts of the matter are more complex, and my view is that asserting on wiki that websites like "China agression" of "tThe Burnning Cross" should be treated as "information" rather than "polemics" is just silly. They are polemical sites, and do not belong in the body of the article in lengthy quotes as if they should be treated as fact. The links are sufficient, not lengthy quotes. I will continue to remove unidentified editor contributions (my acerbic reference to 7 of 9 refers to editors with numbers only and not names) until a wiki administrator says otherwise. I don't think this will happen as far as I understand wikipedia. By the way- "Cor Unum " is a quote from Augustine of Hippo that I like. I am not in holy orders (not a servite), nor am I a polemicist. I just like facts to be supported and I don't like axe-grinding on wiki. Cor Unum 11:10, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
Three seemingly different users, Brian0324, Richardshusr and ArielGold are suddenly deleting block quotes from the article they apparently don't like and without prior discussion. Brian0324 placed tags stating that there too many quotations and that "The tone or style" of one is not "appropriate for Wikipedia". I see nothing wrong with the tone, there are no obscene words or phrases. It is merely the writing of an individual from a target country for western Christian missionaryism who relates the way many in the third world feel and as such is appropriate. Wikipedia is not a PC encyclopedia nor a propagandizing tool for western thought. Two other editors, Richardshusr and ArielGold, are repeatedly deleting the entire references and replacing with links. Reasons for deleting so far are, 'too many quotes', 'quotes too long', 'the "tone or style" of the quote is not appropriate', the quotes 'are not NPOV' (quotes don't have to be), Just because someone doesn't like what the information is saying is not a reason to simply delete it. In the interests of compromise I shortened the long quote quite a bit which is archived here. Note: block quotes (quotes that are "4 or more lines in length") are allowable in Wikipedia [12]. The sudden convergence of these three editors and their instantaneous deletions makes me wonder if they might be the same person or perhaps working from a central location. 4.246.202.170 14:42, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
I have received a private message from ArielGold, with advice on how to edit. Be assured that I know how to edit and have contributed to many an article without incident. ArielGold tells me that I, must remain neutral, with no preference for a point of view. Your edits to Missionary were not neutral, and introduced many external links, not considered reliable, as well as removed many valid references. (1) Quotations do not have to be neutral. (2) In what way are the links "not considered reliable"? In addition to the above you also say (as I notice you've repeatedly added in those same sections, removing others, however,) What valid references have I removed? It seems to me that YOU are the one doing the removing. (3) You also claim Not all quotations you included are relevant to the article. I beg to differ, they are quite relevant. Again, just because you don't like certain information is not a valid reason to simply remove it. That smacks of bias and censorship. 4.246.202.170 15:08, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
My apologies to Richard for the deletion of work done on his citeweb. I had restored them by simply comparing both versions and copying that information from Richard. After I clicked savepage though it halted since you apparently got to it before me. But again the quotes do not have to be NPOV. They belong in the article not in the references. You are also removing work done by others. 4.246.202.170 15:43, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
I noticed that the text on Christian missionaries dominates this article and was going to propose spinning off much of that text to a separate article. However, I just noticed that a separate article ( Mission (Christian)) already exists which contains much of the content in this article on Christian missionaries. The two articles are thus content forks of each other.
I would suggest that most of the text in this article about Christian missions and missionaries be moved to Mission (Christian) with only a summary left here in this article. That would restore the balance between Christian missionaries and those of other religions in this article while allowing Mission (Christian) to focus on the content which is specifically about Christian missions and missionaries.
-- Richard 16:33, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
I think that this is a good suggestion. I had not seen that article before. I'd just C&P the info here and replace what is there in the controversy section. 4.246.205.142 16:46, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
User Clintmath has added several several paragraphs to the controversy section disputing the native accounts. These paragraphs reproduce that which is found in the 'Christian counter-claims' section (e.g. Graham Staines). Additionally several claims are made for which there are no citations. If there is anything new please add it to the counter-claims' section. 4.246.200.2 17:18, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
It is obvious from the discussion above that much effort has been put into reworking this article. Yet on reading it for the first time, I still find it very unbalanced. It seems to take the starting point that missionary activity is desirable, and the only reference to its negative aspects is a link to another article. That article in turn only focuses on current controversy and does not cover the blood-spattered history of missionary activity during the period of aggressive European imperialism, when the church marched in step with the conquistadors. I do not deny the good work done by many individual missionaries (of varying faiths), but we need a more balanced historical perspective on missionary activity as a whole.
Perhaps the article should also assess the effectiveness of such activity; there is a term used in China - "rice Christians" - to describe those who convert to gain the material benefits offered by western missionaries, but without true belief in their heart. The most visible missionaries - the LDS and Jehovah's Witnesses - do not always attract many followers. Why do some faiths grow rapidly and others stagnate at a small number of members? There are lots of relevant questions unanswered here. Rodparkes 01:32, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
Clintmath 15:37, 17 August 2007 (UTC)ONE-SIDED and UNBIASED
Clintmath 15:37, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
I find this article very one-sided and biased (especially the Controversy and Christian missionaries section). I am a Christian from India who has personally observed and known of Christians being persecuted and ill-treated for their Christian faith or converting to Christianity by the RSS/BJP/Shiv-Sena led extremist governments. In India, I have personally contributed to the on-going dialogue on this issue. In order to provide a more balanced picture I had added this content on August 13, 2007. However it was unnecessarily deleted without any reason. I therefore do not think this paragraph should be maintained without an unbiased response from the other side:
In order to provide a more balanced picture I had added this content on August 13, 2007. However it was unnecessarily deleted without any reason You are either being sloppy or dishonest here. Read the above comments again as to why they were removed:
It appears from your additions that you did not even read the "Counter Claims" section which contain much the same material. Again, the fact that you have a different point of view is not a valid reason to remove those of others. Another point, the fact that you claim to be from India with first hand information validating your POV is immaterial. Whether true or not, it does not invalidate the fact that others, I'd say even the majority from India, have an opposing POV that deserves to be heard and not to be continually censored. This continual censorship, in my POV, only validates their words about the intolerance of the Christian missionaries there. 4.246.204.27 03:58, 18 August 2007 (UTC==)
References
In any article- but especially in a controversial one like this- it is important to properly site all sources. Please include author, title, location, publishing house/scholarly press/journal, and year. Rudy Breteler ( talk) 01:31, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Is there nothing on criticism of proselytization? Surely there's plenty on this? Lihaas ( talk) 20:54, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
I've tidied the criticism section introduction to match the citations. However, this probably no longer meets the intentions of those who provided the information. I think assertions that 'missionaries cause extinction of isolated tribes' need actual citations, preferably from studies rather than newspaper articles. In any case, the citations still present did not argue this case. I suspect that this article has been modified without checking the source material. Also, the article should clarify when an accusation is against Europeans and when it is against missionaries. The cited article on Brazil was actually about an engineer and economic activity Martin Turner ( talk) 07:53, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
I've done a further tidy on this, checking references. If you are doing PR for Survival International, please at least include a citation which refers to your organisation. It's possible this may have been a victim of someone inadvertently removing references, but, if so, please only reinstate if you have the actual citation. Martin Turner ( talk) 09:59, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
I've done some further checking. I think it is important to distinguish in this section between criticism raised by indigenous peoples (ideally stating who was speaking and what their credentials were) and criticism raised by Western groups claiming that they represent the peoples. http://www.akha.org appears to be the work of just one or two individuals, speaking for the Akha but without any apparent permission to do so from the Akha themselves. If I've been too heavy-handed, please nuance, but I think it's important not to claim 'the Akha people say' (as the previous text stated) when no actual member of the Akha appears to have been involved. Martin Turner ( talk) 22:25, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
World Mission Day is a feast day in the Roman Catholic Church, which could be mentioned if a sufficent amount of infirmation were gathered. ADM ( talk) 14:24, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
This article reads like an advert for the work of missionaries. It's written from the standpoint that religious belief has a "natural" right to exist and to be foisted upon others.
No mention is made that what is being "sold" is only belief. Concepts that have absolutely no more weight, value or substance than the ones they are trying to replace.
I draw your attention to the allegory of the cave. This article assumes the legitimacy of "missionary" when none has been forthcoming. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.162.194.204 ( talk) 10:03, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
From what I've read from the Christian Bible, They do not Evangelize other just to get more followers. Here is a metaphor for what they believe. Everyone lives on one big island. On the island is a large volcano, that, despite popular belief is about to explode. So, them, being the ones who are "enlightened" have the task of going around and trying to persuade anyone they can to get on a boat that they have. Technically it is THE boat, as there is supposedly no other boat on the the island that is actually worth sailing. So they tell others that a volcano is going to explode and destroy the whole island, but the good news is that they have a boat that can carry anyone who is willing to leave there homes and the island, and seek shelter from the volcano on the boat. If that's the case they are not trying to just go around and control the world, they, according to them are trying to save it. I know that beliefs are beliefs, but I have to admit, If I were a Christian and believed this, there would be no way on earth that you could stop me from evangelizing, other than killing me. Because they don't look at it as a bad thing to try and get others to believe the same way they do. They see it as a bad thing to "Keep the boat to themselves"
Trust me. It won't matter how many times you tell them they are wrong, (Which technically there is no way of proving either way) you wont be able to get them to shut up about their faith.
I'm gonna laugh if Christianity is ever outlawed, because I know alot of people who would rather go to jail than not be Christian.-- 75.104.19.118 ( talk) 01:24, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Islamic_missions cite note 26 -- 89.176.227.251 ( talk) 11:51, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
This section appears to be intrisically incomplete. I suggest deleting the whole section and replacing with a link to list of Christian missionaries and perhaps List of Da'is and one or two other lists from other faiths if they exist. Existing info can be transferred to that list. Thoughts? WotherspoonSmith ( talk) 13:10, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
I support this proposal. Martin Turner ( talk) 10:01, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to 2 external links on
Missionary. Please take a moment to review
my edit. If necessary, add {{
cbignore}}
after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{
nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}}
to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers. — cyberbot II Talk to my owner:Online 11:21, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Missionary/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.
Needs reference citations. Badbilltucker 16:18, 4 January 2007 (UTC) |
Last edited at 16:18, 4 January 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 00:12, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 8 external links on Missionary. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 11:14, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 3 external links on Missionary. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 16:53, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
Special:Contributions/41.47.200.65, you have been trying to add that missionary work is just another form of colonialism. There is some discussion already in the body about criticism of the connection between missionaries during the colonial period and the overall issues of colonialism. But your edit, which puts a blunt and poorly sourced statement in the lead, is not a constructive addition to Wikipedia. I urge you to self-revert your edit, as you are now susceptible to a block for edit warring. Firefangledfeathers ( talk) 20:42, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
I just tagged the article as POV, for precisely these reasons: the long list of "positive effects", which are positive only from a very specific point of view, suggests the beneficial effects of mission, when the colonizing effects (which are obvious, and can easily be documented) are seriously underplayed. Of course mission and conquest go hand in hand; see Saxon Wars, to name one of a thousand examples. Drmies ( talk) 12:23, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
Plz 117.223.87.102 ( talk) 05:25, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
This is an inappropriate article for Wikipedia, the the extent that it should be considered for deletion. Missionaries export religion and culture, which by no means is innately venerable conduct; rather, it is devastating, and homogenizing. This entire article — barring some sparse mention — omits critical review, and instead narcissistically extols the supposed virtues of "bringing Christianity to brown people." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Commando303 ( talk • contribs) 16:30, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Missionary article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
This page is not a forum for general discussion about personal beliefs, nor for engaging in Apologetics/ Polemics. Any such comments may be removed or refactored. Please limit discussion to improvement of this article. You may wish to ask factual questions about personal beliefs, nor for engaging in Apologetics/ Polemics at the Reference desk. |
This
level-5 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
This article links to one or more target anchors that no longer exist.
Please help fix the broken anchors. You can remove this template after fixing the problems. |
Reporting errors |
I'd like to see some discussion of some of the negative aspects of missionaries and they way being sent on some missions is designed to alienate you from the public, not to convert people.
Intensely one-sided. Misionaries are essentially white invaders whose business is religious persecution, the persection of any religion not their own and generally small scale religions. Missionaries have been one of the primary causes of mass deaths among indigenous peoples. 100s of 1000s have died through missionary introduced ignorance and disease and all to swap one superstition for another —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.1.163.65 ( talk) 23:36, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
Christianity is dying in the west. Europe, in particular, are growing more and more atheistic/agnostic over the past decades. The trend is much slower in United States, but it's happening. Christianity needs new ground, fresh believers to survive and keep its momentum. If all missionaries cease to exist, all evangelists cease to work, I don't think Christianity can keep its momentum and will eventually wither. Of course, it may take 2 or 3 generations or more, it's a guess. But what I'm saying really in my original text is that spreading the Gospel cannot be done in an NPOV fashion. In other words, it cannot be done without discrediting other faiths first. Heilme 08:33, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
lol who gives a damn about christianity anyway? Let them have their fun trying to convert people in some generic part in africa. From what I see in the US and Europe, Christians believe quantity is more important than quality. Sure, you can have 2.1 billion christians in the world, but if only 10% practice, whats the point?
This article says: While some of these missions were associated with imperialism and oppression, others (notably Matteo Ricci's Jesuit mission to China) were relatively peaceful and focused on integration rather than cultural imperialism.
I came here specifically for information on the imperialism and economic exploitation arguments. This needs to be expanded upon. In the meantime, I guess I'll have to check the histories. As it sits now, this article is extremely one-sided painting missionary work as entirely charitable with no downsides. What about missionaries that required aid recipients to watch a movie about Jesus or pray before being fed? (Prosylitation through economic exploitation.)Even if all those claims are false (which I doubt), they are still in abundance and out there and need to be addressed somehow.
Cr8zy 22:01, 6 October 2007 (UTC)Cr8zy
Mary Sleser was a missionary to Africa, she was known as "White Ma" by the Indian Tribes.
Mary settled conflicts, and arguments.
"They were successful in obtaining several thousand converts to the faith, but adoption of European culture was slow, retarding acceptance of the new converts as real Christians." Huh? What does European culture have to do with being real Christians? - phma
From a historical point of view -- this article lacks information on the long history of Christian missions, i.e.
Some of this information and other articles relating to missionary work are listed in Mission (Christian) and History of Christian missions. So -- should there be more articles? Should this article be more clearly defined or divided into seperate articles? How about missionary work by other religious traditions, if any? Comments please. WBardwin 22:43, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
I don't really agree with this sentence from the article: "Often, missionaries are fluent in the language they study at the end of the six-week period." From what I understand, LDS missionaries are given a set of common phrases to learn as well as basic syntax for the foreign language, but I don't think they are often fluent in the language by the time they arrive at their destination. Many say they are completely lost for the first few weeks while learning the new language. After they are immersed in it, however, they learn it more quickly. I may be wrong, however, so please correct me if I'm wrong. I served a domestic mission, so I didn't go through the foreign-language training. — Frecklefoot 15:40, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Cool, thanks for making the change! :-) — Frecklefoot | Talk 18:05, Aug 6, 2004 (UTC)
If this can help, I've met a number of LDS missionaries in France and none of them were "fluent". David.Monniaux 13:10, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I know them in the Czech republic, Czech is a difficult language and they can speak only about their topic - mormon stuff. -- jvano 16:20, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
I was a missionary and received two native USA citizens speaking fluent Spanish in order to train'em, nevertheless, this is more the exception than the rule. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Santiagomarquezd ( talk • contribs) 03:29, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
I was searching for Missions which took me to "ambigous" page about all kinds of "missions"
I clicked on Mission (Christian) [one of the links] and that brought me to a page of the same name. It only contained a short 2 sentence blurb and no links (stub) to something as full as what I found in Missionary! I don't remember how I got to Missionary but that page has everything on it!
I copied the Christian Missions section to "Mission (Christian)" but I didn't want to remove so much from Missionary without some comments from others.
Does this make sence? Strbenjr
Full-time proselyting missionaries are required to adhere to a dress code: for men, dark trousers and suit coats (which are optional in hot climates), white dress shirts, and ties are required;
That, I understand. However, I noticed that, quite often, LDS missionaries preaching in France wear backpacks whose color violently clashes with their suit. I understand that LDS policy is to wear professional, strict attire, but why doesn't this extend to accessories? David.Monniaux 13:12, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Take a look at Missionary#LDS_missionaries. It's more than twice as long as any of the other entries! I'd like to propose that we create a new article just for LDS missionaries and trim the entry in this article. We would, of course, provide a link to the main article from the smaller entry. This would have a number of benefits:
What does everyone else say? — Frecklefoot | Talk
This topic has been dead for a long time. Does anyone else have strong feeling against an LDS Missionary article? If not, I vote we go ahead and create this article. — Frecklefoot | Talk 22:00, Jun 11, 2005 (UTC)
I think we can talk about what should and can be added to the LDS missionary article once we have it. :-) — Frecklefoot | Talk 13:51, July 29, 2005 (UTC)
What are we gonna call it? LDS missionary, Latter-day Saint missionary, Mormon missionary, Those guys in suits riding bikes? I'd like to nail this down before creating the article. I'll bring this up on the project page too. — Frecklefoot | Talk 16:40, July 29, 2005 (UTC)
"Missionary (Latter-day Saint)?" -- would match the current Mission (Christian) format and tie to the home article. If people are currently typing "Missionary" -- and find this article, it would be easy to refer them from the short section on LDS missionaries which would remain here. Why don't we start with a modern article -- it could include a very short history introduction, and real descriptions of the actual mission experience -- MTC, companions, door approaches and all that stuff. Maybe a list of modern mission names and locations too.
I think a history based article(s) on the early missions would also be important, but then I'm a history nut. I've been doing some personal research on the three successive missions to England that brought so many English saints to Nauvoo and to the west. And the RLDS had missionaries too, although I've never actually met a modern one. "Missions of the Latter Day Saint Movement"? Quite long and cumbersome for a name. WBardwin 17:51, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
I'm going to go with Mormon missionary since it is the most widely used. We can change it later or move it if we find it is not the optimal name. — Frecklefoot | Talk 20:29, July 29, 2005 (UTC)
Cor Unum 11:27, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
I just made accommodating edits of an anons POV contributions. Tom Haws 23:04, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
Since this page is about Missionaries (people), I wonder how relevant it is to talk about Missions (organisations) here. Shouldn't this page only be about Missionaries, historical figures, stereotypes, and so on? The stuff about Missions should be moved to another page -- Ritchy 16 August 2005
Children of missionaries who grew up overseas are often called missionary kids. We could work this into the article somehow. Ingoolemo talk 20:01, 2005 September 6 (UTC)
The external links to individual missionaries doesn't seem appropriate here. I suppose it could have value as an "example" of what missionaries are like, but it also could just be something to tag on somebody's "friend from church." Worth keeping? Deadsalmon 23:30, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
As of 4 January 2006, I've removed the Individual Missionaries section. It added little to the article and was exclusively Protestant (mostly Assemblies of God). The websites provided should suffice as "example sites," and the article's purpose isn't to be a directory for every missionary with a website. Deadsalmon 10:50, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
Isn't that how Buddhism originally expanded. (Missions to Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka, Japan, Korea, China, Tibet, etc.) 12.220.47.145 01:08, 4 November 2005 (UTC).
How come there isn't a Criticism section in this article? How come it isn't mentioned that converting tribes to Christianity opens them up to the outside world and destroys their culture? Let me know if there is some criticism in this article somewhere and I missed it. -- Khoikhoi 23:14, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
The Mormons and the Jehovah's witnesses are considered cults by virtually every other prodistant denomination. Why on earth are they even under "protestant," and why aren't there any other denominations in "protestant missions"? Thanatosimii 17:29, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
I trained in a modern Catholic missionary college- so I at least have a grasp of modern (ecumenical) theory of missions. I'm working through the article to knock it into better shape. Might take a couple of weeks to reference it properly.
I don't think we should get too distracted by the JW + Mormon argument either. If they are classified as "other" (as I have done) this neither declares them to be non-Christian (which offends LDS believers) nor riles Catholics, Anglicans and other mainline Protestants.
I've now added and wiki'd the LMS and CMS (both very significant organisations the article had missed.
cheers Cor Unum 12:11, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
I've deleted some of the half-thought through stuff in this article, trying to make it more from an NPOV. Trying to make it more complete. I'm going to take some of the the Jehovah's Witness stuff (there's too much detail here) and move it onto the JW organisational page. After looking at the JW organisational page, this stuff only repeats what on there, so I have removed it and left the link to the main JW article.
Cor Unum 04:31, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
I've added one obvious omission now and referenced it to other articles. Cor Unum 05:49, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
I've made heading changes other might have a dfifferent view on- but here are my reasons. I have changed "Evangelical Missions" to Evangelical church missions". This is becuase the prior heading implied that Roman Catholic, Orthodox and other groups were not "Evangelical" (literally Gospel driven); but they do consider themselves to be so. The other change I have made is to put JW's and LDS's into "Other groups that identify as Christian" (their own heading). There is hot dispute among mainline churches as to whether these groups are legitimately to be identified as Christian - owing to key doctrinal disagreements concerning the Trinity and Revelation. I am trying to leave the heading open enough, but not too open (since both groups consider themselves Christian, and indeed churches) while, for example, the Orthodox, Anglicans, Lutherans, Baptists and the Catholics see them as (absolutely) outside the boundaries of normative Christian doctrine. But then again, the Catholics, technicially, do not consider members of the Salvation Army as fully Christian because they are not baptized (the Sallies are bemused by this view - if not somewhat offended). How should wiki deal with issues like this? Should any group who self-identifies as Christian simply be accorded the name? Is this a matter of referencing and footnoting?
I'm interested in comments on this- particularly from LDS or JW scholars. How should wiki deal with these sorts of major disagreements in a neutral and appropriate way?
cheers Cor Unum 00:38, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure it's fair to call the Dalai Lama a missionary, as he's advocating against the changing of ones religion in his autobiography (weather it be Christian missionaries converting Buddhists in Mongolia, or western Christians converting themselves into Buddhism). He suggests sticking with the religion you grew up with as suddenly "switching" cause confusion for the person, and the different religions are just roads to the same goal anyway. (don't have the book at hand so possibly not qouting very well) The Dalai Lama is interested in teaching people about Tibetan religion and culture (to preserve what is vanishing quickly after 1959), but as far as I can tell he does not want to "make" people change into his religion in the way that is characteristic for missionaries.
Including "Missionary Position" in "See Also" seems to me to be unnecessary. It is unlikely people will be visiting the "Missionary" page to find out about sex positions. Also, surely it is a slang term only used by a certain sub-section of society... if a person was seriously interested in studying it there would probably be a more technical term that would be used.
The term "Missionary position" is also loaded ideologically, in that it is an attempt to sideline what is normal as if it were only used be a certain fundemantalist, or even extreme group in society. It is likely there is no term necessary for this normative position, and it would only be deviations that would require distinctive terms.
Thoughts? User:A.J.Chesswas 11:49, 18 August 2006 (NZST)
agreed. It should'nt be there. --
The Fear 21:10, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Since most of the "Jewish missions" section is about how Judaism does not have missions, shouldn't the title be renamed? Mo-Al 17:36, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
The section as written, states without equivocation, that Judaism is institutionally against seeking converts. While it is true that some, perhaps even a majority, of Jewish Rabbinical leaders encourage a skeptical attitute towards potential converts, this is not universally the case. I am aware of a number of Jewish outreach organizations that specifically seek to welcome new converts - most of these are operating in Africa. Many of these organizations approach the issue as "seeking a return of lost tribes", but they welcom new proselytes as well, and some simply facilitate conversion. [1], [2], [3], [4].
The article seems to convey one point of few only; I would suggest that it be modified to permit the readers to draw their own conclusions.
Moreover, a link to a conversion-oriented blog was removed. If that is against policy, fine. But why do I see conversion-oriented blogs from other religions on Wiki? Respectfully,( DHMalik 17:33, 5 March 2007 (UTC))
The subcategory about missionaries & Judaism says that proselytizing is mostly taboo. However, it leaves out that there is one area where Jews sort of believe in proselytizing to Gentiles, in that they believe that Gentiles should obey the Seven Laws of Noah. They call this Noahidism.-- Splashen ( talk) 05:24, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
The sub-topic about Jehovah's Witnesses is somewhat misleading and confusing. The description section at the top of the page describes a missionary as someone who goes outside of their community to preach their religious beliefs. However, the section on Jehovah's Witnesses describes activity they do within their own communities.
Jehovah's Witnesses do have an extensive missionary and missionary training program that has been around for at least 50 years and sends people all over the world. Unfortunately, this program is not cited either on this page or on the linked page to "Jehovah's Witnesses Organizational Structure."
Please see for more detail: [ [5]]
This article has way too many external links. I'm removing some. If some of them are actually of importance and qualify under WP:EL, feel free to re-add. -- Anaraug 08:37, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
all this article talks about is the different types of missionaries and their histories. it doesnt talk about the social/anthropological effect whats so ever. there needs to be a "criticism" section which talks about how countless cultures have been destroyed by evangelical white missionaries. cultural imperialism if you like.
-- Greg.loutsenko 03:18, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
To the individual that edited the Christian response to the two articles in "Controversy": The paragraph you deleted does not miss the point. It is only rambling if you are unfamiliar with the scholarly conversation that has taken place regarding this assumption of cultural imperialism. It can only be called disrespect for one's culture if there is no culture that is better. The sources I cited would assert that there isn't a modern disrespect of indigenous cultures. There is an assertion that Christ is the way to salvation. Accept the message of Christ within the framework of your own culture. In either case, whether or not you as an editor accept the Christian response as relevant, it still needs to be represented.
I'm deleting the article from burningcross. It is assertion under the guise of citation. I am tempted to delete the superfluous amount of book references. There should be references that represent the response to the charge of cultural imperialism. Again, to allow the charge and not the Christian response to the charge is patently not objective. If you want to claim that Christianity destroys cultures, cite authorities and their arguments....from a respectable sociological and historical source. To Khoi above in "Criticism?" and to the above individual: it is only wrong to believe one's religion is superior if all religions are equal. This is a philosophical assumption that does not belong in a neutral article. It is a viewpoint that can be represented, and if it is then so should Christianity's developed response.( Irishbrutha 05:50, 18 January 2007 (UTC))
66.14.116.114 22:50, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
You say that "Without force, there is simply no weight to the charge of culturecide". What do you call threats of hellfire if the people don't convert. These are peoples which may not have had any idea that the God would be capable of such a thing. Read this sentence from the link I provide above from Papua New Guinea "Missionaries are actually in essence terrorists. Why? They come to us and say, "If you don't do as we say, you are going to hell! You will die! You will be judged! You are not part of us! You are children of the Satan!" etc.etc. Aren't these sentences terrorising? [8]. What innocent person would not convert under such fearful threats? I call that force. You said "Let's just all be honest and recognize that we all have a belief about the superiority of our values", yes but unlike Christians I have the enough respect in your right to believe what you want to not be trying to convert you to my beliefs.
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Irishbrutha ( talk • contribs) 07:19, 19 January 2007 (UTC).
If you look at the bottom of one of the links I provided [9] you will find citations. Christian missionaries may not be conciously trying to change other cultures, but they are nonetheless. And it's sad. 4.246.207.57 19:13, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I've added the POV tag to the controversy section because the text itself — I'm not talking about the stuff from the anti-missionary sites, which should be included and which we expect to be POV — appears to be taking a strongly anti-missionary stand. Let's not have a section that attacks missionaries in its own text, especially as seen in the last few paragraphs. Nyttend 19:28, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Someone has placed a tag recommending the merging of the Missionary page with a page titled "Missional". I'm not sure if this is a good idea as it might make this page harder to find. Perhaps if they simply add a definition of "Missional" on the Missionary page? 72.29.170.201 20:00, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
I have restored an older version of the controversy section which has had some moderation(the most recently restored version was full of uncited assertion). I still don't think it is up to scratch- but if other editors think it should be present- then let's work on producing an NPOV as well as citing references. cheers Cor Unum 11:46, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
verifiable information. 4.246.202.199 02:45, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
If you have references, then cite them appropriately. Use it or lose it is the general policy. I'm sorry to say I have already had the baptism by fire on wiki- and even when I knew what I was writing was correct (or what others had said was erroneous), if it was not referenced appropriately, invariably someone who disgreed removed it. Go have a look at the article on Martin Luther. It is well referenced. Cor Unum 11:40, 27 March 2007 (UTC). ANd to 4.246.202.199 - please get a username and user page so we know who you are.
Using two different names which are very dissimilar is using a "sock puppet" Wikipedia:Sock puppetry. And there is a reason that using a username is not mandatory. It's also funny that Njamesdebien|Cor Unum says that he is a journalist yet he has repeatedly changed quoted conversation. Very odd behaviour for someone who should know better. About the quotes not being clear they were italisized and indented with the link at the bottom. It was pretty clear to me and I'd guess clear to everyone else as well. About the "anti-Da'wah or anti-Buddhist sites" maybe YOU should add those. I also noticed that since you were caught changing quoted conversation that your "solution" was simply to remove everything from the entire "Burning Cross" site. And for someone's whose supposedly a disinterested party, funny that you should use the christian term "baptism by fire". Dude you're pretty transparently a partisan here. 75.15.151.191 16:15, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
So where is this missing controversy section?
I've had another go at improving the NPOV on this article- despite numerpous reversions by editors without usernames. Cor Unum 07:08, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
Now that (hopefully) the recent vandalism of the article is over, I am repairing the article re: First, in the interest of balance I am reinstituting a pro-missionary paragraph of Irishbrutha's which had valid cites. I moved an anti-missionary paragraph out of the "Christian counter-claims" section and put it at the bottom of the first section with the rest. I also placed the controversy section at the bottom of the section on Christian missionaries (below the Jehovah's Witness and Mormon sections) and removed the "Other religious missionary movements" subheading since Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons consider themselves Christian as well. 4.246.207.64 15:36, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
4.246.207.64 - while I might agree with your general approach- please identify yourself and give us a chance of knowing your bona-fides. I am not in favour of unidentified edits (and neither is wikipedia). I accept the criticism that I confused some identities in a previous post, and I agree with Irisbruthas changes (though I confused Irishbrutha with someone else -sorry Irishbrutha). My issue is that editors should identify themselves. I say again, I have only one name on wiki (I use Cor Unum as a nickname, but my name is Noel Debien). It is acknowledged on wiki that the majority of people (like me) use a nickname. I am a journalist (google me if you like and you will see), and my speciality is religious reporting from a non-polemical viewpoint. I work for a public broadcaster, and our editorial policy insists on impartiality. My issue with this article are not that there is an assertion of negative impact from missionary work (demonstrably this has been the case in many places)- but I do not consider that attacks on Chrisatian missionaries alone are balanced. The facts of the matter are more complex, and my view is that asserting on wiki that websites like "China agression" of "tThe Burnning Cross" should be treated as "information" rather than "polemics" is just silly. They are polemical sites, and do not belong in the body of the article in lengthy quotes as if they should be treated as fact. The links are sufficient, not lengthy quotes. I will continue to remove unidentified editor contributions (my acerbic reference to 7 of 9 refers to editors with numbers only and not names) until a wiki administrator says otherwise. I don't think this will happen as far as I understand wikipedia. By the way- "Cor Unum " is a quote from Augustine of Hippo that I like. I am not in holy orders (not a servite), nor am I a polemicist. I just like facts to be supported and I don't like axe-grinding on wiki. Cor Unum 11:10, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
Three seemingly different users, Brian0324, Richardshusr and ArielGold are suddenly deleting block quotes from the article they apparently don't like and without prior discussion. Brian0324 placed tags stating that there too many quotations and that "The tone or style" of one is not "appropriate for Wikipedia". I see nothing wrong with the tone, there are no obscene words or phrases. It is merely the writing of an individual from a target country for western Christian missionaryism who relates the way many in the third world feel and as such is appropriate. Wikipedia is not a PC encyclopedia nor a propagandizing tool for western thought. Two other editors, Richardshusr and ArielGold, are repeatedly deleting the entire references and replacing with links. Reasons for deleting so far are, 'too many quotes', 'quotes too long', 'the "tone or style" of the quote is not appropriate', the quotes 'are not NPOV' (quotes don't have to be), Just because someone doesn't like what the information is saying is not a reason to simply delete it. In the interests of compromise I shortened the long quote quite a bit which is archived here. Note: block quotes (quotes that are "4 or more lines in length") are allowable in Wikipedia [12]. The sudden convergence of these three editors and their instantaneous deletions makes me wonder if they might be the same person or perhaps working from a central location. 4.246.202.170 14:42, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
I have received a private message from ArielGold, with advice on how to edit. Be assured that I know how to edit and have contributed to many an article without incident. ArielGold tells me that I, must remain neutral, with no preference for a point of view. Your edits to Missionary were not neutral, and introduced many external links, not considered reliable, as well as removed many valid references. (1) Quotations do not have to be neutral. (2) In what way are the links "not considered reliable"? In addition to the above you also say (as I notice you've repeatedly added in those same sections, removing others, however,) What valid references have I removed? It seems to me that YOU are the one doing the removing. (3) You also claim Not all quotations you included are relevant to the article. I beg to differ, they are quite relevant. Again, just because you don't like certain information is not a valid reason to simply remove it. That smacks of bias and censorship. 4.246.202.170 15:08, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
My apologies to Richard for the deletion of work done on his citeweb. I had restored them by simply comparing both versions and copying that information from Richard. After I clicked savepage though it halted since you apparently got to it before me. But again the quotes do not have to be NPOV. They belong in the article not in the references. You are also removing work done by others. 4.246.202.170 15:43, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
I noticed that the text on Christian missionaries dominates this article and was going to propose spinning off much of that text to a separate article. However, I just noticed that a separate article ( Mission (Christian)) already exists which contains much of the content in this article on Christian missionaries. The two articles are thus content forks of each other.
I would suggest that most of the text in this article about Christian missions and missionaries be moved to Mission (Christian) with only a summary left here in this article. That would restore the balance between Christian missionaries and those of other religions in this article while allowing Mission (Christian) to focus on the content which is specifically about Christian missions and missionaries.
-- Richard 16:33, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
I think that this is a good suggestion. I had not seen that article before. I'd just C&P the info here and replace what is there in the controversy section. 4.246.205.142 16:46, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
User Clintmath has added several several paragraphs to the controversy section disputing the native accounts. These paragraphs reproduce that which is found in the 'Christian counter-claims' section (e.g. Graham Staines). Additionally several claims are made for which there are no citations. If there is anything new please add it to the counter-claims' section. 4.246.200.2 17:18, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
It is obvious from the discussion above that much effort has been put into reworking this article. Yet on reading it for the first time, I still find it very unbalanced. It seems to take the starting point that missionary activity is desirable, and the only reference to its negative aspects is a link to another article. That article in turn only focuses on current controversy and does not cover the blood-spattered history of missionary activity during the period of aggressive European imperialism, when the church marched in step with the conquistadors. I do not deny the good work done by many individual missionaries (of varying faiths), but we need a more balanced historical perspective on missionary activity as a whole.
Perhaps the article should also assess the effectiveness of such activity; there is a term used in China - "rice Christians" - to describe those who convert to gain the material benefits offered by western missionaries, but without true belief in their heart. The most visible missionaries - the LDS and Jehovah's Witnesses - do not always attract many followers. Why do some faiths grow rapidly and others stagnate at a small number of members? There are lots of relevant questions unanswered here. Rodparkes 01:32, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
Clintmath 15:37, 17 August 2007 (UTC)ONE-SIDED and UNBIASED
Clintmath 15:37, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
I find this article very one-sided and biased (especially the Controversy and Christian missionaries section). I am a Christian from India who has personally observed and known of Christians being persecuted and ill-treated for their Christian faith or converting to Christianity by the RSS/BJP/Shiv-Sena led extremist governments. In India, I have personally contributed to the on-going dialogue on this issue. In order to provide a more balanced picture I had added this content on August 13, 2007. However it was unnecessarily deleted without any reason. I therefore do not think this paragraph should be maintained without an unbiased response from the other side:
In order to provide a more balanced picture I had added this content on August 13, 2007. However it was unnecessarily deleted without any reason You are either being sloppy or dishonest here. Read the above comments again as to why they were removed:
It appears from your additions that you did not even read the "Counter Claims" section which contain much the same material. Again, the fact that you have a different point of view is not a valid reason to remove those of others. Another point, the fact that you claim to be from India with first hand information validating your POV is immaterial. Whether true or not, it does not invalidate the fact that others, I'd say even the majority from India, have an opposing POV that deserves to be heard and not to be continually censored. This continual censorship, in my POV, only validates their words about the intolerance of the Christian missionaries there. 4.246.204.27 03:58, 18 August 2007 (UTC==)
References
In any article- but especially in a controversial one like this- it is important to properly site all sources. Please include author, title, location, publishing house/scholarly press/journal, and year. Rudy Breteler ( talk) 01:31, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Is there nothing on criticism of proselytization? Surely there's plenty on this? Lihaas ( talk) 20:54, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
I've tidied the criticism section introduction to match the citations. However, this probably no longer meets the intentions of those who provided the information. I think assertions that 'missionaries cause extinction of isolated tribes' need actual citations, preferably from studies rather than newspaper articles. In any case, the citations still present did not argue this case. I suspect that this article has been modified without checking the source material. Also, the article should clarify when an accusation is against Europeans and when it is against missionaries. The cited article on Brazil was actually about an engineer and economic activity Martin Turner ( talk) 07:53, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
I've done a further tidy on this, checking references. If you are doing PR for Survival International, please at least include a citation which refers to your organisation. It's possible this may have been a victim of someone inadvertently removing references, but, if so, please only reinstate if you have the actual citation. Martin Turner ( talk) 09:59, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
I've done some further checking. I think it is important to distinguish in this section between criticism raised by indigenous peoples (ideally stating who was speaking and what their credentials were) and criticism raised by Western groups claiming that they represent the peoples. http://www.akha.org appears to be the work of just one or two individuals, speaking for the Akha but without any apparent permission to do so from the Akha themselves. If I've been too heavy-handed, please nuance, but I think it's important not to claim 'the Akha people say' (as the previous text stated) when no actual member of the Akha appears to have been involved. Martin Turner ( talk) 22:25, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
World Mission Day is a feast day in the Roman Catholic Church, which could be mentioned if a sufficent amount of infirmation were gathered. ADM ( talk) 14:24, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
This article reads like an advert for the work of missionaries. It's written from the standpoint that religious belief has a "natural" right to exist and to be foisted upon others.
No mention is made that what is being "sold" is only belief. Concepts that have absolutely no more weight, value or substance than the ones they are trying to replace.
I draw your attention to the allegory of the cave. This article assumes the legitimacy of "missionary" when none has been forthcoming. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.162.194.204 ( talk) 10:03, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
From what I've read from the Christian Bible, They do not Evangelize other just to get more followers. Here is a metaphor for what they believe. Everyone lives on one big island. On the island is a large volcano, that, despite popular belief is about to explode. So, them, being the ones who are "enlightened" have the task of going around and trying to persuade anyone they can to get on a boat that they have. Technically it is THE boat, as there is supposedly no other boat on the the island that is actually worth sailing. So they tell others that a volcano is going to explode and destroy the whole island, but the good news is that they have a boat that can carry anyone who is willing to leave there homes and the island, and seek shelter from the volcano on the boat. If that's the case they are not trying to just go around and control the world, they, according to them are trying to save it. I know that beliefs are beliefs, but I have to admit, If I were a Christian and believed this, there would be no way on earth that you could stop me from evangelizing, other than killing me. Because they don't look at it as a bad thing to try and get others to believe the same way they do. They see it as a bad thing to "Keep the boat to themselves"
Trust me. It won't matter how many times you tell them they are wrong, (Which technically there is no way of proving either way) you wont be able to get them to shut up about their faith.
I'm gonna laugh if Christianity is ever outlawed, because I know alot of people who would rather go to jail than not be Christian.-- 75.104.19.118 ( talk) 01:24, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Islamic_missions cite note 26 -- 89.176.227.251 ( talk) 11:51, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
This section appears to be intrisically incomplete. I suggest deleting the whole section and replacing with a link to list of Christian missionaries and perhaps List of Da'is and one or two other lists from other faiths if they exist. Existing info can be transferred to that list. Thoughts? WotherspoonSmith ( talk) 13:10, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
I support this proposal. Martin Turner ( talk) 10:01, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to 2 external links on
Missionary. Please take a moment to review
my edit. If necessary, add {{
cbignore}}
after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{
nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}}
to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers. — cyberbot II Talk to my owner:Online 11:21, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Missionary/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.
Needs reference citations. Badbilltucker 16:18, 4 January 2007 (UTC) |
Last edited at 16:18, 4 January 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 00:12, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 8 external links on Missionary. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 11:14, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 3 external links on Missionary. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 16:53, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
Special:Contributions/41.47.200.65, you have been trying to add that missionary work is just another form of colonialism. There is some discussion already in the body about criticism of the connection between missionaries during the colonial period and the overall issues of colonialism. But your edit, which puts a blunt and poorly sourced statement in the lead, is not a constructive addition to Wikipedia. I urge you to self-revert your edit, as you are now susceptible to a block for edit warring. Firefangledfeathers ( talk) 20:42, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
I just tagged the article as POV, for precisely these reasons: the long list of "positive effects", which are positive only from a very specific point of view, suggests the beneficial effects of mission, when the colonizing effects (which are obvious, and can easily be documented) are seriously underplayed. Of course mission and conquest go hand in hand; see Saxon Wars, to name one of a thousand examples. Drmies ( talk) 12:23, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
Plz 117.223.87.102 ( talk) 05:25, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
This is an inappropriate article for Wikipedia, the the extent that it should be considered for deletion. Missionaries export religion and culture, which by no means is innately venerable conduct; rather, it is devastating, and homogenizing. This entire article — barring some sparse mention — omits critical review, and instead narcissistically extols the supposed virtues of "bringing Christianity to brown people." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Commando303 ( talk • contribs) 16:30, 16 April 2022 (UTC)