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I haven't seen a thread that talks about this sort of thing before and thought some people might be interested. While I was born in New Zealand and live there now; most of my childhood and teenage years were spent living in the Philippines where my parents were Christian missionaries. If you have questions on my experiences as a missionary kid, growing up as a foreigner in the Philippines, my thoughts on that sort of work or anything about being a "TCP" (third culture person); I am more than happy to answer questions.
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| # ? Feb 23, 2013 08:00 |
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| # ? May 19, 2013 02:00 |
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Why be missionaries in a country that is already mostly Christian? Or were you trying to convert Muslim Philipinos? Did any locals attempt to convert you to their worldview?
Kopijeger fucked around with this message at Feb 23, 2013 around 14:28 |
| # ? Feb 23, 2013 14:06 |
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Did you ever feel uncomfortable with your parents pushing religion as a solution for problems for the people at your mission? Or uncomfortable full stop? Missionaries can do some good work and I'm sure your parents were some of the good ones but the idea of missionary work doesn't sit right with me. It's probably something to do with the educated white folk coming to tell the idiot savages how to live, which is a gross oversimplification. I will be following this thread with interest!
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| # ? Feb 23, 2013 15:05 |
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Kopijeger posted:Why be missionaries in a country that is already mostly Christian? Or were you trying to convert Muslim Philipinos? Did any locals attempt to convert you to their worldview? Gonna piggy back this one and ask, were your parents trying to get the locals off of Catholicism and on to the right brand of Jesus? How's your Tagalog? Did you get to eat balut?
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| # ? Feb 23, 2013 16:02 |
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meme posted:Did you ever feel uncomfortable with your parents pushing religion as a solution for problems for the people at your mission? Or uncomfortable full stop? Missionaries can do some good work and I'm sure your parents were some of the good ones but the idea of missionary work doesn't sit right with me. It's probably something to do with the educated white folk coming to tell the idiot savages how to live, which is a gross oversimplification. I will be following this thread with interest! I am curious about this as well. I just finished reading The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, and in it, the baptist preacher was essentially what you mentioned above. However, I also see some great work done by Christian missionary groups. For example, 60 Minutes recently profiled the Mercy Ships and their team of medical professionals who do reconstructive surgery for free. Which was the first objective for your family? Was it "do good works" first or "we must convert, then we can help"?
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| # ? Feb 23, 2013 17:26 |
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Cool - I get onto answering some questions. Kopijeger posted:Why be missionaries in a country that is already mostly Christian? Or were you trying to convert Muslim Philipinos? Did any locals attempt to convert you to their worldview? Why indeed. It was, as GreenCard78 speculated, to convert them to their brand of Christianity. They held the view that those of the various protestant and evangelical groups are "true" Christians while Catholics, especially those is Catholic majority countries, are more likely to be culturally christian and in need of being saved. The only locals who tried to convert any of us were JWs doing their door-knocking. And thats just because neither of my parents can resist debating them. GreenCard78 posted:How's your Tagalog? Did you get to eat balut? My Tagalog is such that I can speak a word here and there but often get the gist of what is being said - not good. The reason for this is my schooling was done at a school for Missionary Kids where it was mostly US-based ciriculum and everything was in English. Filipinos often liked to speak to me english; many even said it was good practice for them while others just felt it would make things easier on me - I was a kid. As for Balut: Yes. I liked it and I ate it more than I could recall. I especially enjoyed eating it with people who were visiting or new to the country to see how they would react.
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| # ? Feb 23, 2013 19:36 |
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meme posted:Did you ever feel uncomfortable with your parents pushing religion as a solution for problems for the people at your mission? Or uncomfortable full stop? Missionaries can do some good work and I'm sure your parents were some of the good ones but the idea of missionary work doesn't sit right with me. It's probably something to do with the educated white folk coming to tell the idiot savages how to live, which is a gross oversimplification. I will be following this thread with interest! This is an interesting line of enquiry and I’m not surprised it came up. At the time I was completely on board with my parent's work - not uncomfortable at all. They went to save people's souls from Hell and what could be a higher calling than that? If anything; knowing the truth and failing to inform others would be the worst thing you could do. Now that I am no longer a believer I do feel uncomfortable about it and think there were a lot of other things they could have done instead. The reason they went to the Philippines, though, is because they were asked. This is going to sound weird so I'll explain. They were both at a bible college when they got friendly with another couple who were studying there. This couple were from the Philippines and from the same denomination as my parents. It was they who actually convinced my parents that being missionaries in the Philippines was what they should look at doing. Apparently they weren't subtle about it either; they outright said this is what they though God wanted them to do. When my parents went over this couple (who were about a decade older than them) became their mentors for the time they were there. My Parent's didn't hold with the "we need to tell the locals to change their customs" line of thinking (although I met many missionaries who did). The only custom they were interested in changing was the religious alignment which is, ironically, a big part of the Philippine's culture.
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| # ? Feb 23, 2013 20:08 |
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I was expecting your reply about balut to be "no, they really only eat that over there and we were over here" but that's pretty cool you ate it. You have a leg up on pretty much the entire west.
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| # ? Feb 23, 2013 21:16 |
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GreenCard78 posted:I was expecting your reply about balut to be "no, they really only eat that over there and we were over here" but that's pretty cool you ate it. You have a leg up on pretty much the entire west. I pretty much ate local food over there - most of my parents friends were Filippinos. Balut isn't one of the foods I miss though - it was tasty and fun to eat - but not a favorite of mine. I mostly enjoyed eating with foreigners who hadn't tried it before. Watching them fail (or enjoy - some of them did enjoy it) was quite fun. I prefered balut with only rock salt as an accompaniment.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2013 00:23 |
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Whats it like hanging out with Tim Tebow? Did you have trouble adjusting back to New Zealand once you moved back?
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| # ? Feb 24, 2013 00:35 |
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modernwinglish posted:Which was the first objective for your family? Was it "do good works" first or "we must convert, then we can help"? If people haven't already inferred from a previous answer: my parent's were purely in the converting people business. In fact my Dad ran training courses (theological training) for people in denomination who wanted to go into full-time christian minitry. So a lot their work revolved around helping the established churches and their congregations. That was one of the reasons they were asked to come over; in the Philippines our denomination was filled up mostly of the poor and lower-middle class groups. The objective was to bring theological/ministry training to these people who, under normal circumstances, could not afford to attend seminaries/bible colleges. So the stuff my parents were involved in were co-ordinating extension training and distance learning. uinfuirudo posted:Whats it like hanging out with Tim Tebow? Never met Tim Tebow (as far as I know); they were a homeschooling family and probably looked down on missionaries who sent their kids to school (even the christian missionary school I attended). Pretty much every home-schooled kid I met over there fell into two camps. 1) Distance to a school or the cost of going were too restrictive or 2) Homeschool crazies who didn't mind telling me and those I knew that our school sucked and they were better than us (yeah - a strange thing to get elitist about). I only found out about the guy through friends on facebook - because I don't follow football (American or soccer for that matter). uinfuirudo posted:Did you have trouble adjusting back to New Zealand once you moved back? I didn't have much trouble. I am quite outgoing and made friends at university quickly. Plus I lived in the same city I was born in so I had family there who I spent time with and old school friends. Every four years our family would go back to NZ for a year and I attended the local schools during those times and the same church/sunday school/youth group - so I already knew people upon my return. Also; one of my best friends from my High School class in the Philippines was also from the same church group and we returned to NZ at the same time. I also came back with a US accent (according to some people a mix between californian and texan but I think that was a guess) and that helped me meet people - until I lost it.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2013 03:13 |
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Did you ever visit the south or have any run-ins with terrorist groups? Most of my co-workers are Filipino and they mention that they avoid the south because of potential violence.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2013 04:10 |
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Lincoln`s Wax posted:Did you ever visit the south or have any run-ins with terrorist groups? Most of my co-workers are Filipino and they mention that they avoid the south because of potential violence. The south is quite violent and, although I have never been, I have seen the effects of the muslim seperatists. A good friend of my parents was gunned down in broad daylight for being "American" (he was actualy Canadian) when his family lived down there. One year two teacher from my school were abducted while on holiday in the area - again for suppossed "freedom for the oppressed mulsim population" - they were both raped and abused before being released (because it turned out they weren't actually part of any CIA plot after all). One of my good friends, a Filippina, came from that area and said it was very common for girls in her high-school (the non-muslims) to be abducted and then found, weeks later, raped and murdered. Law enforcement tended to look the other way because the rich and powerful families in the area were muslim and tended to help fund the "freedom fighters" responsible for these actions. But personally I would be too scared that someone would assume I was from the US and want to take me out. The closest I have been to such things is needing to evacuate a shopping mall or being told not to go into the city on a given weekend due to bomb threats. The thing is there are a lot of Muslims in Manilla but none of them set off bombs in shopping malls (or do any of that other stuff I mentioned) - it's always the nutters from the Southern areas pulling that nonsense.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2013 04:23 |
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ElectroMagneticJosh posted:I pretty much ate local food over there - most of my parents friends were Filippinos. Balut isn't one of the foods I miss though - it was tasty and fun to eat - but not a favorite of mine. I mostly enjoyed eating with foreigners who hadn't tried it before. Watching them fail (or enjoy - some of them did enjoy it) was quite fun. I prefered balut with only rock salt as an accompaniment. I meant more like "this island vs that island" because the Philippines is a bunch of islands and for all I know, everything changes on each island. 
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| # ? Feb 24, 2013 07:45 |
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GreenCard78 posted:I meant more like "this island vs that island" because the Philippines is a bunch of islands and for all I know, everything changes on each island. Sometimes it's province vs province for that sort of thing. I just realized that I ended up living in four different provinces: Batangas, Laguna, Metro Manila and Rizal
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| # ? Feb 24, 2013 08:54 |
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Did your mom clean the house or did you have servants?
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| # ? Feb 24, 2013 22:23 |
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Covered In Bees posted:Did your mom clean the house or did you have servants? Servants. We always had a house-maid. My parents liked to hire university students so I had a few "Ates" over the years. Most of them would work a full day Saturday and usually a week day (depending on their schedule) plus a night or two - but Sunday had to be a day off (the whole Christian thing). Then they would graduate - get a full-time job and we would hire a new one. My Parents preferred to hire girls who were from poorer backgrounds who didn't have the means to support themselves while studying; so having a room, board and part-time job would be very useful for them. They also didn't really want a full-time maid because us kids needed to have chores to "build character" or something: dishes, lawns (when our house had them) and cooking meals were our most common jobs. My parent's always maintained contact with them (even to this day) and are godparents to quite a few of their children. As an aside: when I returned to New Zealand one of my Aunst once made a snide comment about me having to learn to do housework because I had a maid look after me all my life. I got a bit offended and informed her that I did have chores and, if anything, it was easier in NZ because we had dishwashing machines and driers for our clothes. She was a bit shocked and then said that my Dad had been telling her (and all my other relatives) how easy I had it. Turns out Dad, who insisted I have strong work ethic and gave me chores, then told my family back home that I lived a charmed existence - I was not very impressed.
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 06:09 |
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What is your relationship with your parents like now? Do they know that you no longer follow Christianity?
Naet fucked around with this message at Feb 25, 2013 around 14:24 |
| # ? Feb 25, 2013 14:20 |
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I just spent Chinese New Year vacation in Manila so the Philippines are fresh in my mind. To what class do missionaries belong? You already mentioned having servants, but also not having certain appliances. I saw how horrible the wealth gap in Manila is. Were you guys living in the Fort, or some other foreign enclave, or were you amongst the people?
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 16:05 |
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Bloodnose posted:I just spent Chinese New Year vacation in Manila so the Philippines are fresh in my mind. To what class do missionaries belong? You already mentioned having servants, but also not having certain appliances. I saw how horrible the wealth gap in Manila is. Were you guys living in the Fort, or some other foreign enclave, or were you amongst the people? I can't speak on the Philippines, but I have an Indian friend who claims that her family had several near-fulltime servant's despite living in what would be considered a very small apartment in america. Hired help is a bit easier to afford in countries where sweatshops and real hunger are widespread.
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| # ? Feb 26, 2013 06:54 |
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Naet posted:What is your relationship with your parents like now? Do they know that you no longer follow Christianity? We are still close but, occassionally, they try to bring up religion and get me back onside. My mother sends me emails with standard christian apologetics stuff in it - Pascal's wager, "how else can you explain X, if not for God?" sorts of things. Bloodnose posted:I just spent Chinese New Year vacation in Manila so the Philippines are fresh in my mind. To what class do missionaries belong? You already mentioned having servants, but also not having certain appliances. I saw how horrible the wealth gap in Manila is. Were you guys living in the Fort, or some other foreign enclave, or were you amongst the people? We tended to live in middle-class areas. Some of the houses were quite small while others large but in less desirable places. My parents didn't get the sort of church funding that could afford us a more expensive place this was the norm. Some missionary families lived very well though (three story houses, 2+ maids, all the latest gadgets) and then were surprised that the churches an ministries they tried to start amongst the very poor never took off. Some of my school friends came from rich local families and wouldn't even be allowed to sleep over at my house - too dangerous. I was more than welcome to go to theirs but, because I didn't have security guards and live on a compound, their parents were concerned they might be targeted for kidnapping.
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| # ? Feb 26, 2013 07:04 |
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Do you have any stories about Catholic missionaries? My aunt and uncle did some kind of missionary stuff in South Africa, and they always bitched about those "poor misguided Protestants".
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| # ? Mar 2, 2013 04:05 |
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Grand Prize Winner posted:Do you have any stories about Catholic missionaries? My aunt and uncle did some kind of missionary stuff in South Africa, and they always bitched about those "poor misguided Protestants". No stories because there weren't any really. The Philippines claims to have around 80% Roman Catholic (with another 10% being other Christian groupds). Essentially all the missionaries are converting Catholics to Protestants (with some exceptions; Muslims and tribal religions). To a lot of people this sounds a bit strange - and they are right.
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| # ? Mar 3, 2013 05:03 |
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It seems like a weird choice. Why not focus missionary efforts on people who haven't accepted Christ, rather than people who have accepted Christ but do some other things wrong or whatever?
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| # ? Mar 3, 2013 10:08 |
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Bloodnose posted:It seems like a weird choice. Why not focus missionary efforts on people who haven't accepted Christ, rather than people who have accepted Christ but do some other things wrong or whatever? Partly because they were convinced by this Filippino couple (who I mentioned earlier) to come and help their particular denomination and partly because they believe that the Roman Catholicism, as it is often practiced in the Philippines, is not properly christian. They have a bit of a point because Catholics in New Zealand don't do a lot of things that are common in the Philippines: praying to their Sto. Nino or leaving gifts for it, having statues and shrines to pray to, lighting candles for specific outcomes (colors correlate with specific blessing and curse outcomes). So, to them, it seemed that the Catholic heirarchy was more happy with keeping a large amount of members that "proper" christianity. My parent's had the view that their theology had more in common with Catholics in New Zealand than the Filippino Catholics did. So thats the rationale - in their view. And I am pretty sure it's still what they think because I spoke to them very recently about this very subject.
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| # ? Mar 4, 2013 08:24 |
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Were they successful? How many converts would they say they claimed?
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| # ? Mar 4, 2013 09:08 |
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Bloodnose posted:Were they successful? How many converts would they say they claimed? Were they successful? Yes - they trained those of their denomination to be teachers, preachers, evangelists, church-planters and ministers. When they left many of those people they trained (and helped facilitate training for) had started churches or increased the size of the churches they were ministering in. So in a direct way it would be hard to measure their converts. As an aside; if I asked them they would claim they didn't do the work anyway - it was a partnership between them, those they trained and resources with God being the centre of it all. Indirectly I would estimate they helped start 20+ churches with an average congregation size of around 60 adults. Their churches would be quite localized because most people wouldn't have private transport and not be willing to travel more than 15 kilometers. Coupled with the fact that land is scarce so they would rent their church spaces and you had numerous but small churches. I seriously remember travelling one day from a morning service at one church to an afternoon lunch/celebration thing at another to an evening service with none of the churches and then travelling only half an hour to get home; all of them were no more than 20 kms from our house.
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| # ? Mar 4, 2013 10:09 |
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My ex-boyfriend had a grandmother who'd been brought up in India because her parents were missionaries there, and an awesome consequence of this was that where other families have "Grandmas special cookies" or "Grandmas best meatloaf", they had "Grandmas traditional Christmas curry"  Did you or your family bring any Philipino food traditions home with you?
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| # ? Mar 4, 2013 10:34 |
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What doesn't make sense to me is that christian evangelism is based completely around accepting Jesus christ as lord and savior, but if you're trying to convert someone who already believes that and essentially believes the fundamental tenets. That's confusing because it defeats the whole point of evangelism. Is believing in Jesus Christ not enough? Do they have to conform to every minor detail of a specific denomination of christianity to be accepted into heaven, like cooking their eggs sunny side up instead of scrambled? Where does it end? No offense but all this evangelism business sounds more like an expression for the human need to assert power and control over what other people do and think. To be fair though, i'm not singling out Christians out, it's more of a thing that's a part of human nature, all you have to do is look through the ask/tell Buddhism thread and you'll see plenty of even worse people over there. ickbar fucked around with this message at Mar 4, 2013 around 20:41 |
| # ? Mar 4, 2013 20:34 |
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Protestants thinking that Catholics are heathens shouldn't really be a surprise and isn't really isolated to the movement that the OP's parents were/are in. The laundry list of issues that Protestants have with Catholicism: -worshiping anything besides God (praying to Saints, praising Mary, etc.) -scary rituals (the bells and smells of Mass, Catholic rites, transubstantiation, etc.) -Church hierarchy that claims special relationships with God (bishops, cardinals, the Pope, the concept of papal infallibility, etc.) -good works being a part of getting into heaven -the idea of purgatory Most of these issues are largely misunderstood (at best) or straight up lies, of course. The Catholic Church has long been a bogeyman for Protestantism, though. Ultimately, the point is that Catholics aren't seen as true Christians by many Protestants and getting into heaven is an all or nothing game. If you think Catholicism is heretical for any reason, then converting Catholics is no different than going after atheists, pagans, Muslims, Hindus, etc. edit: obviously this isn't true for every Protestant and many denominations (like Lutheranism) are much closer to Catholicism than evangelicalism. Naet fucked around with this message at Mar 4, 2013 around 22:36 |
| # ? Mar 4, 2013 22:31 |
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Naet posted:Protestants thinking that Catholics are heathens shouldn't really be a surprise and isn't really isolated to the movement that the OP's parents were/are in. You haven't quite reached the depths of The Whore Of Babylon here to quite describe some irrational hatred. I work with a large community of Fillipinos and the way I see there religeous observance is one of pragmatism. For example- a seventh day adventist married a catholic and they decided to split the children between them, one each as they were born. Baptised in each church Except they lost count and no.5 got out of order. No.5, a good friend of mine described finding out about the fact he wasn't actually a baptised catholic and said - its all the same at the end of the day, who cares? That and the lovely rhotic speach and being called tito.
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| # ? Mar 5, 2013 01:03 |
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Sockmuppet posted:My ex-boyfriend had a grandmother who'd been brought up in India because her parents were missionaries there, and an awesome consequence of this was that where other families have "Grandmas special cookies" or "Grandmas best meatloaf", they had "Grandmas traditional Christmas curry" Not many, unfortunately. My parents were never great cooks and only tried cooking things they were raised on. Only on the nights our maid cooked did we get traditional dishes. I really learnt to cook after finishing high school and returning to NZ so, again, not used to the food. The problem for me is that some of my favourite dishes are from the Philippines. The internet has been great for downloading recipes and lots of my attempts have been very successful - so I do still enjoy the food but didn't really bring the traditions back with me. ickbar posted:What doesn't make sense to me is that christian evangelism is based completely around accepting Jesus christ as lord and savior, but if you're trying to convert someone who already believes that and essentially believes the fundamental tenets. That's confusing because it defeats the whole point of evangelism. Naet answered this quite well already. General China also made a good point that a lot of Filippinos think, like a lot of christians do, that your particular denomination doesn't matter so much. However my parents come from a very evangelical version which does consider many christians (not whole denominations) to not be "saved" unless they have truly "accepted Jesus into their heart" (which is a nebulous term in it's self). They considered most of the Catholics to fall into this category (not all, they would argue, but more than 50%). I mean I am now an agnostic atheist type (I don't have knowledge of a god so I don't believe in one) and they would probably think I was in exactly the same state as those Catholics. Now may parents are very genuine in their views and feel that they are saving people from hell. They also are not power-seeking individuals - part of the reason they left was that a power struggle took place amongst the missionaries in their mission organisation and, as senior missionaries, they would have had to pick sides. So they reluctantly left (and this probably prevently my Father from having a breakdown - he could not conceive how followers of his god could behave in such a way when they should all be on the same side). I might actually explore this further if people are interested - but it's time for dinner.
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| # ? Mar 5, 2013 06:21 |
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Yeah, that's interesting. It sounds like your family preferred respect and conformity towards a particular ideal, instead of straight up crowning yourself as overpriest. I know a philo catholic dude who grew up in Australia and he's pretty chill about it.
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| # ? Mar 5, 2013 06:56 |
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Were the Catholics at all hostile to what your missionaries were doing? I imagine the local diocese would be aware of this stuff and not take too kindly to it.
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| # ? Mar 5, 2013 06:58 |
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ElectroMagneticJosh posted:They also are not power-seeking individuals - part of the reason they left was that a power struggle took place amongst the missionaries in their mission organisation and, as senior missionaries, they would have had to pick sides. So they reluctantly left (and this probably prevently my Father from having a breakdown - he could not conceive how followers of his god could behave in such a way when they should all be on the same side). I might actually explore this further if people are interested - but it's time for dinner. I'd be interested in hearing how your parents missionary group tried to cannibalize itself.
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| # ? Mar 5, 2013 07:18 |
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Bloodnose posted:Were the Catholics at all hostile to what your missionaries were doing? I imagine the local diocese would be aware of this stuff and not take too kindly to it. Not really; some would be but the locals were more tolerant towards the missionary group's beliefs than the missionary groups were to their beliefs. Priests and bishops weren't on their side but no open hostility that I ever saw. They probably didn't even feel threatened - Catholicism is the default belief system over there. afterhours posted:I'd be interested in hearing how your parents missionary group tried to cannibalize itself. Not really cannibalize as such. This requires some background: 1) Their mission organization was specific denomination they belonged to. Some organisations are inter-denominational (OMF, SIL - google them) and some are not (Southern Baptists - for example). We were in the Brethren (sometimes called "Open Brethren" or, in North America, "Plymouth Brethren"). The Brethren churches represent a range of beliefs and can come in very conservative flavors (no music in church, women must be quiet and wear headscrarfs) to ones that resemble pentecostals or even the emergent church stuff (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_church). The big commonality in these churches is the belief in the priesthood of all believers (although, it turns out, Catholics aren't included), justification by faith, believer's baptism. They emphasise the importance of knowing scripture and celebrating communion if often the focal point of the church service. Anyway my parents came from a middle of the road one - women had no restrictions on their involvement in the church (currently one their pastors in female). 2) They were not unique; Australian and New Zealand Brethren missionaries represented the demographics of their "home" churches with a range of views and practices. But the US and Candian missionaries did not. They were all hyper conservative. They thought women should not speak in churches (and even teach teenage males in sunday school classes), they also all held that women should have their heads-covered when in church or prayer meetings (usually a scarf or small doily were the popular options) and held to strong view about seperate roles for men and women in church life. Men were the spiritual leaders of the household and church. I do want to be clear about this point however; this only was in the context of religious life. They didn't think that men needed to earn the money and make decisions while women stayed home, raised kids and followed their husbands's lead; so don't confuse their views with the extreme forms of the religious patriarchy movement. This was purely in a context of church life. The NZ and Aussie missionaries did wonder why all the North Amercians were very conservative in their views - and were dissapointed that this often was a point of tension. Okay, so thats some background. I am a bit tired so I'll continue tomorrow.
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| # ? Mar 5, 2013 09:50 |
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Oooh, so you were the less insane cousins of these guys.
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| # ? Mar 5, 2013 10:14 |
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ElectroMagneticJosh posted:
Thank you for your reply, I didn't mean in my post to say that your parents are bad people, If what you are saying is true then yes they are being sincere and have good intentions towards saving people from hell. However I think my point still holds true, at the very least in regards to the political infighting within the missionary group and how followers of god could behave in such a way. Even with good intentions, if someone is intolerant of another persons belief and trying to convert them to their belief system because they know they are right and have all the answers while the other person is wrong, it's in essence a power play (Even you know it, and say it explicitly in the title of this thread: cultural imperialism). The protestant christian friend that I used to know was a very nice person and tried to do good things all the time, but even then he was a little bit fanatical about his christian beliefs and I never felt comfortable talking about anything related to religion or spirituality and actively avoided the topic with him. With other people like my atheist friend it isn't the same, we have different beliefs but I feel more open about sharing views on religion, spirituality without getting in to open conflict. Still I don't find anything wrong per se with evangelism if the people are nice, the one thing I do like is they have the decency of being open and honest about it all and people do have a right to openly prolestyze. It's nowhere near as hosed up as the deceitfully masked in liberal ideology yet extremely hypocritical and racist appropriation of religion i've seen in the Buddhism thread.
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| # ? Mar 5, 2013 22:00 |
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Naet posted:Protestants thinking that Catholics are heathens shouldn't really be a surprise and isn't really isolated to the movement that the OP's parents were/are in. Very true! There is also the four centuries of bloody war, mass slaughter, terrorist bombings to consider.
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 00:43 |
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| # ? May 19, 2013 02:00 |
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Phobophilia posted:Oooh, so you were the less insane cousins of these guys. Yes, the two groups split well over a century ago and are now quite different (the Exclusives went beyond just religious segregation and ended up sheltering themselves from the rest of the world - I don't even know if they take on new members either). ickbar posted:Even with good intentions, if someone is intolerant of another persons belief and trying to convert them to their belief system because they know they are right and have all the answers while the other person is wrong, it's in essence a power play (Even you know it, and say it explicitly in the title of this thread: cultural imperialism). Without a doubt. I now see it for what it was. Benign comparitive to other forms it can take but still very assured that it is the right path and others must get on board. Anyway back to the story of the fallout. 3) The 3rd fact is that the Brethren missionaries from North America kind of ruled over the Brethren churches in the Philippines. They were consulted on doctrinal matters by the elders, preached on a rotation at various large assemblies, and even had a couple fo dynasties going (several missionaries were children, grand-children, and even great-grand-children of former missionaries). They assumed positions of authority over the Filippos and weren't challenged. They also, as we discovered much later, had strong control over who was allowed to be missionaries from the US and Canada - basically if you came from a church that they considered too liberal you wouldn't be welcome. If my parents were North American they never would have been able to go out as missionaries with the Brethren (they discoverd this fact from meeting Brethren in the Philippines who came with inter-denomitional groups - they all had the same story about not being able to come with the Brethren churches). 4) My Dad's view on his ministry was that it should become obsolete eventually because, as more people got trained, it could be turned over to local control with the only input needed from overseas being financial donations (if necessary). This is actually how things are today - so he feels gratified in that regard. So my parents ended up being missionaries in the Philippines for 11 years when they found themselves in an odd position: Due to the fact their ministy (mostly my Dad's in fairness) revolved around training Filippino church leaders and evangelists a lot of the Brethren leaders were either trained by or, if they were of my parent's age, co-workers in a lot of projects. As a result my Parent's age peers in the Brethren churches were close personal friends and very supportive of their ministry. This started a strange dynamic. You see the usual thing when church leaders disagreed with a missionary on some issue of doctrine or practice was for the church leaders to back down on the issue and leave it. But for a few years, unbeknownest to my Dad, something had started to happen. When disputes arose that church leaders knew my Dad agreed with them on they would come back with "Well Kuya Peter agrees with us..." and that was that. Remember: this wasn't something my parents planned or even really knew about but, considering what they were doing, it was no surprised that their views carried a lot of weight. Without realizing it my father had become a challenge to some of the established power structures in the Churches - and they didn't like it. And a few of the missionaries wanted him out. I should mention that not all the conservative missionaries wanted him gone. They may have disagreed on theological issues but felt that this was to expected and, like my father, wanted to work for the greater good. They also happened to be the ones who, like my parents, disagreed with the assumed authority missionaries felt was their entitlement. But because of this, they weren't in on the push to get rid of him. I don't know all the details because they started to happend when I finished high school and returned to NZ for university. So this comes from my mother, younger siblings and some of my parent's missionary friends and Filippinos (my Dad doesn't say much about it because he still feels hurt and doesn't like to badmouth people). Anyway there were a few key tactics that were used: 1) A campaign to discredit his teaching. If my father preached somewhere, gave a lecture or led a bible study there were a group of men who would try to follow in his steps and overturn what he had taught (unless it was on a topic they agreed). 2) Moves to discredit his ministry to other missionaries and the financial supporters. Telling people not to trust him and that he wasn't doing good things. 3) Convincing an older missionary to return for a couple of years who was, literally, there to see my Dad leave. Basically when someone is totally committed to getting rid of you and you go about oblivious and trying to live your life - they have the upper hand. And it worked in the end. My parents started to hear about the badmouthing and, at first, passed it off as not serious. They noticed this returned missionary seemed to be setting up things in opposition of what they were doing but dismissed it as coincidence. But the coincidences grew too great and the stories they were hearing from other missionaries and church leaders started mounting up. Eventually they realized what was happening. About six months out from them finishing a four year stint they had a decision to make: Do they go back to NZ to pursue something different or return to the Philippines? Feeling disatisfied with the way things were they were leaning towards leaving. The ministry they had founded had an obvious and qualified successor from the local Churches. What convinced them though was a series of meetings with the elders of various churches. Knowing that my parent's were thinking of leaving a lot of them organized meetings intended to convince my parents to return. They all had one theme: "If you come back we will totally be on your side in this conflict." - over and over again they heard this. It confirmed there was a campaign against them and also that the Brethren churches were on the verge of split over it. My Father made his decision based on that one factor: if he came back there could be a geniune chance of a split in the Filippino Brethren churches and it wasn't worth it to him. He made his decision and left it behind only returning to the Philippines to holiday and visit friends. As an interesting aside: the missionary who came back to work against my Dad left the Philippines within week of my parent's announcement never to return. I guess his work was done.
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 06:31 |
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