VIRULENT -- FRAUGHT WITH RISKS: Fundamentalist Christian missionaries often convey regressive and dangerous-to-others views in Third World countries

¨One hears a lot — and rightly — about evangelical churches doing works of mercy and healing in Third World countries.

Some of these enterprises, which raise huge sums of money through emotionally charged TV ads exploiting the misery and despair of pitiful children in some of the world’s darkest corners, do have boots on the ground. They really care.

They don’t all make “coming to Jesus” the first condition of delivering genuine assistance and relief — though some still do.

However, the kind of values and underlying philosophy being exported in the name of Christianity is not all sweetness and light. In many cases, for example, the understanding of the Bible being imparted to these largely illiterate masses is the crudest form of fundamentalism rampant today.

The missionaries often are conveying an outdated, regressive view of everything from creation, to the role of women, to sexual morality. What may in some ways seemlike true Christian love in action can be simultaneously a not-so-subtle propaganda campaign to regain overseas much of the ground lost to the devil of “liberalism” or secularism in the United States, Canada or other First World countries.

Nowhere is this phenomenon more virulent or fraught with risks than where homosexuality has become an issue. There has been a vigorous and potentially deadly shift in the cultures of many countries where gay people and gay rights are concerned. At a time when most western countries are moving toward full acceptance of sexual differences — France recently became the 14th country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage — in places such as Uganda and Ethiopia a disaster is pending...¨  please read it all

http://www.lfpress.com/
2013/05/31/harpur-christian-aid-can-be-root-of-great-harm

Thanks to Three Rivers Episcopal, sidebar

Thanks to Tom Harper