1975: panare indians FORCED into christianity with fear..is this true????

[Gato Moteado]

i found numerous versions of this story on the web:
http://www.crusadewatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=232&Itemid=54

does anyone know if this is true? if so, does anyone have any other sources where this technique was used in the recent past to convert indigenous people to christianity?

the panare indians are in venezuela....i found some stories about chavez kicking out the missionary organization responsible for this act.

the reason this interests me is that i am noticing a lot of these missionary organizations from the states coming down to costa rica to supposedly offer medicine and other assistance, but you know they're trying to guilt the indigenous people into converting. at times i'll see groups of dozens of lily white gringos coming into the airport all wearing the same tee-shirts with the insignia and name of their missionary "outreach" program. if they're really offering economic or housing assistance to people that's one thing....but if they're piggy-backing that with proselytizing then that is shameful and it goes against the true spirit of christianity.

does anyone know how i can find out if a certain missionary organization is using deceptive techniques to convert indigenous people? i want to investigate some of these groups down here and expose the bad guys. it'd be nice to tar and feather these ass-wipes and run them outta here.

[meldroc]

1. I've heard of this happening in the wake of the tsunami...

Fundamentalist groups offering aid to locals in Indonesia and other nearby places, but only if they convert.

Absolutely disgusting if you ask me.

[Gato Moteado]

3. are you serious?

i frigging hate fake christians.

[bluerum]

2. Damn. Who wuda thunk xtian fundies wud do sumpin like dat?

[Gato Moteado]

4. yeah, i agree....but as late as 1975?????

sure they're sleazy fucks, but i would think they would be smart enough to be more subtle in this day and age.

[GeorgeGist]

5. Smart fundamentalist...

good one. :rofl:

[malaise]

6. That's been going on for

500 years. You should read some of the stories from Australia.

[Igel]

7. I've read this kind of thing before.

Standard difficulties in translation: do you try to translate word-for-word (or expression-for-expression), or do you try to translate the meaning? Not an easy question to answer, esp. when different backgrounds condition different understandings. Also, when the language is being documented for the first time, so the translators have a limited lexicon to work with.

The sweet potato bit sums up the difficulty neatly. There have been other examples where they alter the text to suit the culture. Ultimately the idea is to bring the background level up to where a more 'authentic' translation can be done. This is a moderately clever one, but it only works if you have no plans to deal with the Old Testament. Then you'd have to have Passover sweet potato and mannah being ground and baked into sweet potato, and that gets silly after a while. Translators of isolated languages come up with all kinds of clever dodges; some are less clever than they should be.

The rest is nearly standard Christian theology, albeit a sort of old-fashioned kind of theology: Christ died for our sins, that we may live; sin is transgressing God's law; had we not sinned, i.e., committed actions contrary to God's law Christ would would not have needed to die. We (collectively) killed Jesus by our actions. (It's the final solution to thinking "the Jews were Christ-killers", reducing it to blaming the knife for somebody's murder, and exculpating the knife-wielder.) This kind of thinking's out of style in some denominations these days.

The Parare anecdote, even if true, is misguided in one respect as far as standard Xian theology goes: it limits the guilt. It should say "the Parare and many others together killed ...".

[Gato Moteado]

9. i disagree with you.....the panare were living in a totally different.....

...world, isolated from anything that was going on anywhere else in the world. they had absolutely nothing to do with the crucifiction of jesus or anything else that happened outside of the range of their isolated community.

furthermore, missionaries have no business going into those regions....they should just leave people alone.

[Igel]

10. You're not disagreeing with me.

You're disagreeing with the usual view of Christian theology. Why that view cares (to anthropomorphize it) about what either of us think about it is a mystery.

But the sweet-potato business still was a fairly clever kludge. Probably came to need serious revision by the '90s, though.

In any event, 'civilization' would eventually get to the people, and their own myths would come in for some serious revision, almost certainly for the second time in the last 500 years (the first, when their numbers were reduced by 80-90% as the result of disease, long before 'white men' ever got to them). I personally don't like the idea of consigning people to living in a museum. Some people prefer it, some don't. Either way, there are usually enough that don't prefer to live the traditional life to make the traditional practices fall to pieces. Again.

[GreenPartyVoter]

8. Happened in Iraq to our own soldiers. A padre would not

give them access to food, water, or showers until they agreed to be baptized. x(