Are missionaries truly doing good work without strings attached?

Question

Are religious missionaries doing their work and helping people learn how to survive in desperate areas of the world just to preach their religion? If those they were helping refused to listen to them about their religion, would they still be there to help them?

Answer 1

Missionaries have done more evil to this world and in the next then any other single concept since the beginning.

May the missionaries find peace once those they have sinned find it in them to forgive.

Answer 2

As individuals, many of them do go there and offer help witihout forcing others to listen to their preaching. As a group, however, there assistance is a lot more questionable than the assistance of non-religious charitable groups is. When Doctors without Borders (a secular, apolitical charity that provides medical services in worn-torn countries) offers help, it does so unconditionally. And while certain religious groups also offer help unconditionally, they simultaneously offer "advice" that actually worsens the situation.

For example, in Africa, Christian missionaries may offer food, supplies, medication, and assistance to poor AIDS victims and their families. But then they turn around 5 minutes later and advise these people to "remain abstinent" so they don't spread the disease. That isn't going to help the 12 year old girl whose parents have died and who ends up being sold into the human slave market and becoming a prostitute. It's not going to help the 9 year old virgin who is forced to have sex with an old man with AIDS because it is believed that sex with a virgin has healing powers, either. And it certainly isn't going to help the 29-year old pregnant mother whose husband regularly visits a local prostitute with AIDS and then returns home and insists his wife has sex with him as well.

When people such as these African women have no control over the timing, place, or in some cases, partner with whom they have sex, it is downright immoral to just keep screaming about abstinence rather than to give then condoms. In that respect, missionaries do more harm than good.

Answer 3

Missionaries really need to humble themselves to at least the point where they can begin to accept that fact that there are other beliefs and religions out there. Ignorance is knowing that you are correct and having the will to push others to your side. I respect aid from organizations such as UNICEF, who work hard to help people WITHOUT also throwing the bible in their faces. Community service should not come with a price...especially for those in need.

Answer 4

Yes -- at least the good missionaries.

Really, understand it's not a walk in the park to be a missionary in some countries. It's a big shift to leave your home country behind, especially if it is one as comfortable and technologically advanced as the United States. (Um, kiss Starbucks goodbye.)

Sometimes you go places where there is not much water or food, not much access to medicine, no television or computer, no Internet... and probably not much time for those things anyway.

You sometimes don't know the language and have to learn to communicate all over again. You are the outsider, sometimes because of skin color -- and often because you aren't understandable because of your lack of language and your cultural background.

And if you actually like people, you end up heartbroken to see kids dying of malnutrition, or people mistreating each other, or violence in the streets, or alcohol issues (in the Russian countries), or poverty, and so forth.

You might be starry-eyed for a few months, but the practical reality of what you have done will quickly become apparent. Coupled with the fact that missionaries have to constantly be raising their own financial support (so you're asking people for money back home, in their comfortable churches) and you have to somehow JUSTIFY people giving you money to live... well, it's no walk in the park, and you certainly do not get rich off it.

And if you're a decent missionary, you will be living like the natives, accepting their burdens on yourself, grieving when they grieve, eating their food, spending lots of time with them. No one except those who firmly believe in what they are doing would bother.

My sister was a missionary in Lithuania for six years. Her experience was rough, but not nearly as bad as my best friend's -- he was a missionary in Haiti for a few years after graduation in the 1990's, and got kicked out of the country when the political uprising happened in 95/96 (?). He never got to go back, and lost everything he had down there (including his dog -- and he really loves dogs.)

His whole outlook on God changed in Haiti, due to the violence and poverty and senseless of the suffering. He was consternated by the missionaries there, most of whom could not speak Creole and remained isolated in their little school instead of mixing with the people as he did. He was also a white guy on a black island, so he stuck out like a sore thumb. He and another guy interacted with local people constantly, including the abandoned of society (such as the prostitutes). He saw dead bodies. He questioned what God was doing.

I would dare say Haiti changed him more than he changed it. Yet he still believes, despite the doubt and pain he experienced there -- and perhaps because of it.

I know another family over in Africa where the mother was in a bicycle accident while in the mission field and is now paralyzed from the waist down. They're still there. They still believe in what they're doing. They still live with the community they are serving. That's commitment -- she could have used the medical care here but they didn't feel it was time to return.

You will hear horror stories, sure, and it's easily to philosophically see how people witness to each other in the States -- where they argue, and fight, and politically attack each other, and aren't willing to suffer any inconvenience for someone else, and try to justify their bad treatment of people, and so forth.

But seriously, in the mission field, you don't last very long unless you really love the people you are taking care of, nor will your message get through if you do not learn how to see things from other people's perspectives as well as care about them and respect them as complete human beings -- religious belief aside.

Answer 5

I think missionaries have always done a great job. There shouldn't be any strings attached when helping others.

Answer 6

I think it depends...some go to preach and convert, others go to help others-that itself could be 'with strings attached' if helping others makes them feel better about themselves; besides that, some may just go to have a trip to another country; I guess everyone gets something out of it...unless they're not happy with the # of converts, but, deep down, my vote would be that they do go with 'strings attached' but the majority with noble reasoning, even if it irritates others-I don't think they understand how annoying it is for those who know better

Answer 7

My church is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and we have alot of missionaries in the chruch. To answer your question, our church goes so far as to send aid to countries where missionaries don't go, just to help, where the objective is not to preach, but to serve. In fact the terms we use when we are asked to go on missions is "to serve a full time mission." We serve are fellow man, not subject them.

Answer 8

I was a Mormon missionary in Brasil from 1994-1996. I lived in the state of Minas Gerais. I loved the people of Belo Horizonte and I never gave up on those who I taught. I also never loved them less or abandoned them because I was getting transferred or if they lost interest in the religion, I still invited them to church activities and my companions and I still did service projects for them. I helped build 14 different homes, I helped build 4 roofs (they build them out of cement-batendo laje in portuguese). I helped dig several irrigation ditches. I helped paint several homes inside and out. I delivered baskets of food to several people who received welfare from the state and others who received it from the church. The purpose of the church in Brasil is to help provide assistence to the people of Minas have someone in whom they can confide. They only pay tithing on what they receive, what is 10% of nothing? zero...so they pay percentage wise as much as the rich. The rich american mormon who pays 10,000 per month because he earns 100,000 per month pays 10% just like the poorest Brazilians who pay BR$30 ($13USD) from his 300 Real salary. The result of that money is visibly seen in how the chapels and temples across the world belong to the members, we pay for their upkeep and utilities, and when we build a temple we never owe a cent because we pay it off in full. Members of the church who are leaders are NOT paid as we do not have a paid clergy (paid pastors, fathers etc.) So you can visibly see where your money goes.

There are 50,000+ missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints who do their best to teach people about the gospel of Jesus Christ, but if you decide you do not want it...then the missionaries are not (should not-better said) waste your time...and there are humanitarian missions where proselytizing or teaching religion must only be done on request of the people. My grandparents served in Albania in 1991-2 and they helped change the way the Albanian Government sees Christianism let alone the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints...

Answer 9

Missionaries are obligated BOTH to administer aid and share the Gospel to offer salvation to those who will receive it. Not by force, but by offering it. other wise they would not be missionaries but social workers.

The world needs Jesus - but unlike the early Roman Catholic method of mission work - its never to be forced on anyone - just offered.

Todays big threat comes from Islam who forces its religion under penalty of pain or death, in parts of the Middle East, Indonesia, etc. and are in fact todays "growing" version of the old roman catholic Crusade.., under the alternate name of, Jihad.

Answer 10

According my psychology class last year, everything anyone does for another person benefits the person who is doing it. even if it harms them, they gain some sort of fulfillment, peace of mind, rest from some torment, etc etc etc. people often feel good about themselves if they do something for another person, or they feel that they have purpose in their life. So, are these strings? And if so, then can one define them as being "bad"?