Chavez deadline for US preachers (New Tribes Mission)

[IndianaGreen]

Last Updated: Sunday, 12 February 2006, 23:58 GMT

Chavez deadline for US preachers

By Greg Morsbach
BBC News, Caracas

The Venezuelan government has given a Christian missionary group from the US until Sunday to leave the country.

<snip>

The missionaries live and work in the remotest areas of the country, including the Amazon rainforest.

Their goal is find tribes untouched by so-called "civilisation" in order to convert them to Christianity.

So far New Tribes representatives have been preaching to 12 different indigenous groups here in Venezuela.

The group says in return for agreeing to adopt the Christian faith, the indigenous people receive basic health care and literacy classes.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4705740.stm

[glaeken777]

1. wow....

Sounds like "The Mission" all over again, only this time, it's not the Spanish or Portuguese as the villains.

Daniel Berrigan would not be amused.

[Judi Lynn]

3. He probably wouldn't approve of people using church work as a cover

for more insideous purposes. If my memory serves me right, he had serious reservations about aggression against other countries.

I've got to be away from this thread, but if you ask questions, maybe some DU'ers will point you in the direction of important research you probably really should be reading. You've got a LOT of reading ahead of you if you actually imagine Hugo Chavez has just pulled this accusation out of his nether reagions.

It's good to know something about the subject you're discussing.

[undergroundpanther]

2. I hate christians

Who care and give only if they can covert people.
Salesmen looking to control minds. They don't give. Their giving comes at a price.

And I hate so called charitable evangelism because It's so damn DISHONEST. Evangelism is never about compassion for human beings as they ARE it's about CONTROL and changing people to become like the evangelist..
I wish AMERICA would have the guts to stop religious exploitation and religious bullies and kick out evangelist "charities" and see through the religious haze and see the control is what these"evangelists" seek through exploiting others needs and desperation.

If you care give.

And EXPECT NOTHING IN RETURN,not even agreement or kindness..THAT is true charity.

But I don't expect bible idolater evangelists to get that one.

[happydreams]

8. "covert" people? Now tell me you didn't mean it.

One of the best Freudian slips I've seen in awhile.

[killbotfactory]

4. good

"The group says in return for agreeing to adopt the Christian faith, the indigenous people receive basic health care and literacy classes."

that's pretty sleazy of them.

[IndianaGreen]

5. They are called "rice bowl Christians"!

The work done by missionaries such as New Tribes Mission is quite different from the selfless work of Albert Schweitzer and the one depicted in the marvelous and moving novel by A.J. Cronin, The Keys of the Kingdom.

[ucmike]

6. Chavez is an A**hole

for sending them back here. we don't want them either. couldn't he send them somewhere else? anywhere else?

[IndianaGreen]

7. How about Iraq?

There is no better place for Xtian missionaries than downtown Fallujah!

[undergroundpanther]

10. Right on

Wish we could ship them ALL overr there armed only with thier bibles and arrogance..Hehehe..

[undergroundpanther]

9. Lock them into a cage with fundie muslims

And let them kill each other.

[Ben Ceremos]

14. You made them,

why shouldn't you have to clean up their mess?America produces these "groups" and allows them to travel the world exploiting their faith and ensnaring indigenous people in the tissue of lies that is at the heart of christian proselytizing. These are made in the USA and the people of the USA have to stop believeing in religion if they ever want to be a free people.
Power to Pres. Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution!!!

[Gregorian]

21. Hahaha! Thanks. I needed a good laugh.

It's so true. Send them to mars.

[mitchum]

11. I also wonder how many spooks are in their ranks

[IndianaGreen]

12. They are not "spooks" in the sense of being on the CIA payroll

but being the religious Freepers that they are, they are doing the CIA's bidding because they think that's what Jesus would want them to do.

[Judi Lynn]

13. I've got to drop off this link.It may seem very interesting to some DU'ers

I've got to leave it and run, will return later, and do some more looking for other links. This one discusses "missionary" groups in Latin America and their agendas which weren't particularly helpful to the native citizens living there. You'll see there is a pattern in place which will reappear once you start doing more research on people like this, and it serves as a very good foundation for a horrendous mistrust of their ilk all over the place:

John Perkins provides an example of the criticism, he notes rumors of SIL perfidy, and cites the Ecudorian president's criticism, he wrote:

Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL), an evangelical missionary group from the United States, of sinister collusion with the oil companies. I was familiar with SIL missionaries from my Peace Corps days. The organization had entered Ecuador under the pretext of studying, recording, and translating indigenous languages.
SIL had been working extensively with the Huaorani tribe in the Amazon basin area, during the early years of oil exploration, when a disturbing pattern emerged. Whenever seismologists reported to corporate headquarters that a certain region had characteristics indicating a high probability of oil beneath the surface, SIL went in and encouraged the indigenous people to move from that land, onto missionary reservations; there they would receive free food, shelter, clothes, medical treatment, and missionary-style education. The condition was that they had to deed their lands to the oil companies.
... Rumors abounded that SIL missionaries used an assortment of underhanded techniques to abandon their homes and move to the missions. A frequently repeated story was that they had donated food heavily laced with laxatives — then offered medicines to cure the diarrhea epidemic. Throughout Huaorani territory, SIL airdropped false-bottomed food baskets containing tiny radio transmitters; receivers at highly sophisticated communications stations, manned by U.S. military personnel at the army base in Shell, tuned into these transmitters. Whenever a member of the tribe was bitten by a poisonous snake or became seriously ill, an SIL representative arrived with antivenom or the proper medicines — often in oil company helicopters." (John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, p.142)
(The president of Ecuador, Jaime Roldós,) openly accused the Summer Institute of Linguistics of colluding with the oil companies, and then, in an extremely bold — perhaps reckless — move, he ordered SIL out of the country. <…> He died in a fiery helicopter crash on May 24, 1981. <…> Osvaldo Hurtado took over as Ecuador’s president. He reinstated the Summer Institute of Linguistics and their oil company sponsors." (op. cit. p.156f.)
(snip/...)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIL#External_links

[ninkasi]

15. Very interesting

And very sad, what has been done to the people who lived in the Americas before Europe, and their Christian priests and preachers arrived to "save" the heathens. As an American of Irish/English/Welsh decent, I feel shame for what my ancestors have done. I'm not one for collective guilt, but the ones who committed the acts are dead, long dead, and long out of reach.

If I am to live in this country, and benefit from living here in any fashion, then I must also accept and acknowledge the sins that my ancestors committed in securing the place I hold now. One of my ancestors was Cherokee. I don't know her name now, but her genes were most assuredly passed to my grandmother, and one of my uncles, and to me. This was long ago, and I would give anything to learn her name, and of her life, but that has been lost to family memory.

[rman]

16. Venezuelan says "They have damaged our spirituality"

"...the New Tribes group, and other Christian evangelical groups, that have entered out lands, we don't need anything from them. They have damaged our spirituality."

Venezuela Day 1:
Kickoff at the World Social Forum
www.truthout.org/multimedia.htm

[Solly Mack]

17. I've heard old-timers talk of a time to come

when people would ask you to "Deny Christ or die"...

but the truth has been more a case of "Accept Christ or die" (throughout history)

If you can't help others without strings attached - don't bother "helping" at all. You do nothing but sow the seeds of resentment otherwise. And resentment ain't love.

[Vidar]

18. Once more applauding Chavez

[Judi Lynn]

20. He's protecting his countrymen and women. Good for him. n/t

[xchrom]

19. bravo chavez!

boot them out!

converting indigenous people with a perfectly good spiritual system of their own should be outlawed.

it's disgusting.