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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Contagious Christianity
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Green Mario
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# 18090
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Posted
I've been reading "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond an anthropologist. This discusses what has happened when various cultures and civilisations have met and sets out to answer the question as to why particular civilisations came to dominate rather than other - for instance why didn't Australian Aborigines sail the world and end up colonising Europe.
One of the points thought that has bothered me is that one of the reasons he gives that Eurasian civilisations and particularly Europeans have tended to decimate native cultures when they have reached new places is that the germs they carried were far more deadly than those that the native populations had previously been exposed to (things like small pox, measles, flu etc). Reason being that these have tended to have arisen from mutations of diseases carried by domesticated animals due to close contact with domestic animals plus dense populations to support contagious diseases; a situation that arose in Eurasia over thousands of years but not so much on the other continents.
My question being is how do we make sense of the great commission and the command of Jesus to go into all the world in the light of this.
The disconcerting thought I have is that if the first people to arrive in the Americas and Australia from either the Near East or Europe had been missionaries with a pure desire to proclaim Jesus and fulfil the great commission (rather than any desire to oppress or conquer) it seems this would still have spelled disaster for the local people simply because the missionaries would have carried germs that they would never have been exposed to previously or developed any immunity to.
Was Jesus wrong to send the disciples into "all the world"?
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Palimpsest
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# 16772
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Posted
It's an ongoing problem with uncontacted people
Historically, you also have to face that the problem was not just accidental transmission of disease but intentional theft of property and enslavement with the Church assisting.
I highly recommend the book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus for more details on what was lost in the collision of the old and new worlds.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
Along the same lines, the book "1493", also by Charles Mann, spells out similar plagues throughout the world, with virtually every population, due to contact with diseases to which they had no resistance. I was especially struck by how malaria played a huge role in the existence of slavery in the USA and in the British defeat in the American Revolutionary War.
In any case, Jesus was not wrong. Humanity as a whole has hardly suffered over the long term from the effects of being connected by trade and transportation - at least not numerically.
And Christianity has spread to over half the population of the planet, continuing to grow by the day.
[ 14. August 2014, 18:21: Message edited by: Freddy ]
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
In any case, Jesus was not wrong. Humanity as a whole has hardly suffered over the long term from the effects of being connected by trade and transportation - at least not numerically.
And Christianity has spread to over half the population of the planet, continuing to grow by the day.
Which is great for Christians, not so good for tribes that went extinct or were marginalized into the isolated regions. Of course this has been going on for a long, long time before Christianity. One of the interesting most recent results was finding that Tibetans have some genetic heritage from the Denisovan peoples which helps them survive at extreme altitudes.
[ 14. August 2014, 18:34: Message edited by: Palimpsest ]
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
Imagine if the world was still segmented into all the tiny separate populations that existed in the past.
Oh wait, that would be impossible since all humans descend from the same ancestors. ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
But imagine if people throughout history were respectful of areas inhabited by other populations, or if they did not reach out to contact other groups at all. Or, at least, if they started behaving that way once recorded history began.
In that case would we have massively crowded continents and others virtually empty? Would we have fully developed technological societies on one continent and stone age cultures on others?
It seems impossible that there wouldn't be universal contact sooner or later - with the same results as far as diseases go. But maybe we could have been a little more respectful... ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Bostonman
Shipmate
# 17108
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Green Mario:
Was Jesus wrong to send the disciples into "all the world"?
Basically - yes!
It's an addition to Matthew's gospel which he probably never said.
I don't mean to be snarky, but "all the world" is definitely not what Jesus said, textual criticism aside. Matthew 28:19 reads "πορευθέντες οὖν μαθητεύσατε πάντα τὰ ἔθνη, βαπτίζοντες αὐτοὺς..." This means roughly "Going, therefore, teach/make-disciples-of all the Gentiles/nations, baptizing them [etc.]..."
"The nations" (τὰ ἔθνη) is practically a technical term for non-Israelites. It's the term used in the Septuagint to translate גּוֹיִם (goyim), which has retained its meaning to the present as "non-Jews."
This isn't about spreading Christianity over all the world; it's about expanding the community of the disciples to include Gentiles.
Posts: 424 | From: USA | Registered: May 2012
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Green Mario
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# 18090
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Posted
Palimpsest - the fact that the church did things terribly wrong in reality is less disconcerting for me given that this is the reality of human greed and sin a story that has been repeated over and over again.
The thing that is disconcerting is that even if we had obeyed our founder perfectly it could have been bad news for the people that we had tried to pass the good news onto. (The point about un-contacted tribes today is an interesting one - should missionaries be trying to proclaim the gospel to them or not? My theology says yes, my critical thinking says perhaps better not...)
Freddy - humanity as a whole may have benefited numerically but the understanding I have (and which I am committed to) of Jesus, and the Father that he reveals, is that he cares about every individual and every culture.
The great commission was to "make disciples" of all nations not to replace indigenous peoples/nations wiped out by disease with people from "Christian" nations (I am telescoping history somewhat here but think it is justified).
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Green Mario
Shipmate
# 18090
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Posted
Bostonman - on which basis the great commission is no longer relevant as the community of disciples already contains gentiles and has done since....what....40AD/50AD?
Posts: 121 | Registered: Apr 2014
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
I suspect that Jesus knew full well his disciples were never going to be the first to reach any uncontacted group--well, we aren't and we haven't been, have we? The exploiters always seem to get there first--and therefore the whole issue is a moot one. Historically the most we've been able to do is to leaven the evil of disease and exploitation with the priceless gift of the Gospel. As for the uncontacted tribes who exist today--I have my suspicions they aren't so uncontacted as all of that (given the reactions some are reported as having when they catch sight of a helicopter etc), and yes, I do think we owe them the Gospel. Though always with safety precautions if the germ thing is likely to be an issue. Not that we'll be given the opportunity, but if we were, it would be up to the scientists among us to find a way to prevent the harm while passing on the good.
Coming from a different approach, uncontacted peoples aren't and never have been living in a state of Edenic bliss which ought to remain undisturbed for that reason. My own ancestors, for instance--while they may have been free of smallpox, chicken pox, and the like, they certainly had other diseases, syphilis being the most well known. To insist that a given group of people remain uncontacted and "pristine" is to insist that some among them be allowed to die from eminently curable diseases, from things like malnutrition and poor sanitation, and so forth. Quite apart from leaving them in the dark about the Gospel (since opinions on that will certainly vary), I find it hard to stomach the idea of treating a group of human beings as living exhibits, almost as zoo animals, by making such a decision for them.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
On the question of whether the Great Commission was aimed only at Gentiles or not--
"Ta ethne" does indeed mean nations, and could be taken in a Jewish context to mean "the [other] nations [not Jewish]" as indeed it was in a lot of the OT. But in this context Jesus appears to be giving a universal command--there's no context in which Israel is mentioned first, and then "ta ethne". If we compare Luke/Acts, we have additional evidence for his intention, when he sends them to Jerusalem first, then Samaria and Judea, and then all the world.
So I don't think we can limit this to the Gentiles.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Green Mario:
Was Jesus wrong to send the disciples into "all the world"?
Basically - yes!
It's an addition to Matthew's gospel which he probably never said.
No, it isn't. You are confusing Matthew with Mark. All four gospels plus Acts have some version of the Great Commission. Matthew, Luke, and Acts all have some reference to the entire world.
[ 15. August 2014, 00:47: Message edited by: Beeswax Altar ]
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Green Mario:
Was Jesus wrong to send the disciples into "all the world"?
Basically - yes!
It's an addition to Matthew's gospel which he probably never said.
No, it isn't. You are confusing Matthew with Mark. All four gospels plus Acts have some version of the Great Commission. Matthew, Luke, and Acts all have some reference to the entire world.
Mark? Where? It ends at 16:8
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Green Mario:
Was Jesus wrong to send the disciples into "all the world"?
The problem, I think, is when people go into the all world without being disciples.
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
As for the uncontacted tribes who exist today-- ... yes, I do think we owe them the Gospel.
Why? If nobody ever tells them about it then they will automatically go to Heaven on the grounds that they never had a chance to convert, but if we tell them and they reject it (which is quite likely) they will go to Hell. Why would you do that to them?
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
First, because I'm not sure you are correct in your belief; second, because they are human beings, at least some of them adult, and have a right to make their own decisions. I don't like infantilizing people.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
First, because I'm not sure you are correct in your belief;
It's based on the same principle that says unbaptised babies who die will go to Heaven.
quote:
second, because they are human beings, at least some of them adult, and have a right to make their own decisions. I don't like infantilizing people.
I presume, then, that you would argue in favour of any Christian missionary to such tribes being accompanied by representatives of every other religion that exists in the world, so that the tribespeople can be given as much information as possible about which of us they should become like?
I just can't see it as anything other than a cross-cultural version of those annoying bastard cold-callers who knock the door at 9am on a Saturday to try to convert me to their religion. I wish they would stop doing it to me, and I wish we would stop trying to do it to those few remaining tribes that are still blissfully unaware of our existence.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
I'm with Marvin here. In Brazil, if you so much as get near uncontacted tribes with a Bible, you're taken prisoner and deported from the country. I fully support this policy.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
On the Churchill River, in northern Saskatchewan, there is a lake whose translated name means "dead" due to the entire community dying of small pox in the 1790s. There were no battles nor even hostility. Just fur traders and missionaries. Not being devoid of humour, much later the upstream lake was labelled 'bad fart' or diarhoea lake by the Cree. The Dene being the dead.
(The Churchill has wide parts called lakes joined by waterfalls and rapids, still pristine and a most beautiful and inaccessible part of the world where 17 casts of a fishing rod landed 12 fish last canoe trip. It connects the arctic to Hudson Bay. )
One of the problems I have seen in the north is that Great Commission apparently seldom includes listening, though this has been changing in light of the Indian Residential Schools, Truth and Reconcilliation Commission, which has bankrupted dioceses for combining Jesus with every form of abuse, and the extinguishment of culture. It has become clear that applying European and Middle Eastern cultural practices to the commission brought to Canada has been anti-Christian in many instances. We will be picking up the pieces for centuries.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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ChastMastr
Shipmate
# 716
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Posted
Still agree / With Lamb Chopped / But not with Marvin / Nor LeRoc
But No Prophet / Makes some sense / And that there is my / Own two pence
[ 16. August 2014, 03:19: Message edited by: ChastMastr ]
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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
Posts: 14068 | From: Clearwater, Florida | Registered: Jul 2001
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
So, here's another verb to decline.
People I disagree with aren't disciples.
People I agree with are definitely disciples.
I am a disciple. That person over there isn't.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Green Mario
Shipmate
# 18090
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Posted
A disciple (in the context of the great commiseration) surely has to have done knowledge of the teaching of Jesus and be trying to follow it. I am not sure therefore what point you are making Gamaliel.
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Green Mario
Shipmate
# 18090
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Posted
Typo as posting from phone. Commission not commiseration!
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
My point was in response to Daronmedway's jokey, but to my mind, rather reductionist point further upthread.
He suggested that the problems have arisen that not all those who 'went into all the world' were themselves disciples.
So I was having a dig at his judgementalism.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
There is virtually nothing metaphorically contagiously positive about Christianity unfortunately. It is far more literally a source of contagion as Green Mario OP'd and contagious of the Western corruption that mutated it 1700 years ago. If the Great Commission is of jam tomorrow in Christ, pie-in-the-sky-when-we-die, that was done to death long ago in less than a thousand years in the vast Syriac church in Turkestan, Mongolia, Siberia, China, India, Korea, Japan before it infected South America and Africa.
Preaching, infecting with the gospel that Jesus actually preached, being Jesus, being the gospel, being good news, being the blessing of Abraham despite his having three religions, two billion adherents, being peace, bringing water, food, sight, hearing, encouragement, generosity, shared suffering, martyrdom - witness for righteousness i.e. justice has yet to be tried by Christianity per se on any global scale. The rare exceptions like Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa, Janani Luwum, Oscar Romero cast giant shadows. The men and women who shaped European and American welfare were almost invariably Christian. But Christianity never seems to visibly survive its successes. And its successes all want for it. Evil bursts out in the NHS, in the care system, in our Sodomite government persecuting the poor.
At best the contagion of Christianity is in still, small voices, ripples, person to person. It's about as virulent as leprosy, lower than ebola when it needs to be like conjunctivitis. It is not even keeping up with population growth.
We delay His coming by refusing to be it.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bostonman:
This isn't about spreading Christianity over all the world; it's about expanding the community of the disciples to include Gentiles.
...and they live where?
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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