The real meaning of missionaries is Christians getting rid of their most zealous, problematic members by telling them, "go into the middle of nowhere where you will have no reach and no influence and preach the gospel, brother!"
Honestly orgs should learn from this. It's actually a brilliant move. It's always the crazies who fuck things up for everyone else, and banishing them to furthest nowhere and telling them to build a satellite org is a great way to get rid of them. If they succeed, great! If not, great too. Welcome them home after 30 years and give sympathy for how they didn't accomplish anything because the savages didn't read theory. It's win-win!
The Christians were doing this 1500 years ago. And it worked.
They got rid of their weirdos and gained a ton of satellite orgs. Too many people reflexively dismiss anything the Christians did because muh atheism. But it's actually a power move to appropriate their time-tested tactics and make them work for a positive outcome.
That's really not what it is or why they do it. It's almost always been a means of cultural infiltration either coinciding with or in advance of colonial invasion and occupation. Missionaries played an important role in enforcing colonial control over colonized people by indoctrinating them in European religious beliefs and European notions of their inferiority.
It also serves an important cultural role for the sect doing the proselytizing as it serves as a form of rite of passage for youth, and a way for the community to re-affirm and justify it's own beliefs by doing "Good works" or "Saving souls" or however they conceptualize it. Most Western missionaries in the modern day are poverty tourists with religious delusions and will return to their community after a few months or a few years at most.
It's also a great excuse to step up your imperialism game if you send some missionaries that get killed and now you just have to go and teach someone a lesson. Your hands are tied, some of our people were attacked I totally swear bro just one more punitive expedition and they'll see the light of progress
The real meaning of missionaries is Christians getting rid of their most zealous, problematic members by telling them, "go into the middle of nowhere where you will have no reach and no influence and preach the gospel, brother!"
Honestly orgs should learn from this. It's actually a brilliant move. It's always the crazies who fuck things up for everyone else, and banishing them to furthest nowhere and telling them to build a satellite org is a great way to get rid of them. If they succeed, great! If not, great too. Welcome them home after 30 years and give sympathy for how they didn't accomplish anything because the savages didn't read theory. It's win-win!
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The Christians were doing this 1500 years ago. And it worked.
They got rid of their weirdos and gained a ton of satellite orgs. Too many people reflexively dismiss anything the Christians did because muh atheism. But it's actually a power move to appropriate their time-tested tactics and make them work for a positive outcome.
That's really not what it is or why they do it. It's almost always been a means of cultural infiltration either coinciding with or in advance of colonial invasion and occupation. Missionaries played an important role in enforcing colonial control over colonized people by indoctrinating them in European religious beliefs and European notions of their inferiority.
It also serves an important cultural role for the sect doing the proselytizing as it serves as a form of rite of passage for youth, and a way for the community to re-affirm and justify it's own beliefs by doing "Good works" or "Saving souls" or however they conceptualize it. Most Western missionaries in the modern day are poverty tourists with religious delusions and will return to their community after a few months or a few years at most.
It's also a great excuse to step up your imperialism game if you send some missionaries that get killed and now you just have to go and teach someone a lesson. Your hands are tied, some of our people were attacked I totally swear bro just one more punitive expedition and they'll see the light of progress