Fox,
The article in the OP suggests that this is not true. Now, I
The article is based on Buddhist hard-liners making the accusation of cajoling and coercion against World Vision and attaching their offices. It was a pre-existing situation unrelated to the tusnami aid effort barring the obvious fact that many Christian aid groups are delivering aid in Sri Lanka at present.
I don’t know if you know who World Vision is but it is perhaps one of the most respected fund raisers and aid deliverers out there. I guess it is constantly faced with being accused of such practices weather real or imagined because it has such incredible resources. I’m pretty sure it is very balanced in its delivery efforts. The only real black mark it has had against its name in the past is as a conduit for paedophiles in its sponsor a child programs.
Of course Buddhist organisations cajoling and coercing people to adopt their particular world view is unheard of; yet, how does attaching someone’s offices fit in the scheme here. Take your blinkers off for a minute because you’re not turning with the railing.
One thing I’ve never heard of is World Vision attaching Buddhist monestries and hardliner offices.
I think that’s history these days. We’ve sponsored a couple of dozen kids through WV and they’re always very careful about sponsors having actual contact with the kids until they’ve grown up and are out of the program.
Info on some of the more recent activities of the JVP (Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna), a radical Buddhist/Marxist organization in Sri Lanka.
[quote]
Aid hijacked by political extremists
By Andrew Gilligan In Sri Lanka, Evening Standard
13 January 2005
Foreign aid in parts of Sri Lanka is being hijacked by an avowedly Marxist political party which has been accused of refusing to distribute relief to non-members.
In Weligama, on the stricken south coast, the Evening Standard saw how flood victims were being manipulated.
Two international aid workers, from the French charity Telecoms sans Frontieres, are providing free satellite phone calls for the town whose landlines were destroyed.
People eager to enquire about missing family or tell relatives they are safe, are crowding to enter the compound. But first they must show their identity cards to members of the People’s Liberation Army, the JVP - extremists responsible for political murders in the Eighties and Nineties.
The JVP officials write down everyone’s details. JVP banners hang over the compound where Telecoms sans Frontieres are working, branding it as an operation not of an international aid agency, but of the JVP.
Next door, the JVP is recruiting.
“Look what we have done for you,” a JVP worker says to a reluctant local. “We have given you a free phone call to your family and we are bringing aid.” Pascal, the Telecoms san Frontieres worker manning the satphones, denies the JVP hijack saying: “They lent us a place to work and tables and chairs, that’s all.”
In fact the furniture has been taken from nearby buildings and the premises “borrowed” from the shopkeeper who owns them.
There are other “JVP” help centres every few miles. They dispense medicine and food and are staffed by party members in JVP T-shirts. Water-tanks provided by local charities and water companies have been spray-painted “JVP”.
At the Sri Sudarshna Ramaya refugee camp local people confirmed they had to sign up to the JVP before receiving aid. Puspa Punchihawa, flooded out of her seaside home, said: “Nobody refused.” [/quote]
thisislondon.co.uk/news/arti … ?version=1
lankaweb.com/news/items04/100704-4.html
csmonitor.com/2005/0114/p01s03-wosc.html
infolanka.com/org/srilanka/issues/jvp.html
jvpsrilanka.com/
Umm…these people already have a religion. In Aceh, that religion is, for the most part, Islam. If these “charities” really wanted to offer spiritual help, they could do so through the religion these people already have.
Umm…these people already have a religion. In Aceh, that religion is, for the most part, Islam. If these “charities” really wanted to offer spiritual help, they could do so through the religion these people already have.[/quote]
That’s exactly what the few Islamic charities do. They take care of the Muslims. Period. Nobody else. Of course they will over aid to someone if they truly believe that want to convert to Islam. Do you believe that’s what the Christian charities should do? Cater only to the Christians? 
Y’know, in a free country, people have the right to be of whatever religion they want. And to convert or not convert as they will. Sorry you seem unwilling to see that. Perhaps you’d be more at home in Saudi Arabia?
The article is based on Buddhist hard-liners making the accusation of cajoling and coercion against World Vision and attaching their offices. It was a pre-existing situation unrelated to the tusnami aid effort barring the obvious fact that many Christian aid groups are delivering aid in Sri Lanka at present.
I don’t know if you know who World Vision is but it is perhaps one of the most respected fund raisers and aid deliverers out there. I guess it is constantly faced with being accused of such practices weather real or imagined because it has such incredible resources. I’m pretty sure it is very balanced in its delivery efforts. The only real black mark it has had against its name in the past is as a conduit for paedophiles in its sponsor a child programs.
Of course Buddhist organisations cajoling and coercing people to adopt their particular world view is unheard of; yet, how does attaching someone’s offices fit in the scheme here. Take your blinkers off for a minute because you’re not turning with the railing.
One thing I’ve never heard of is World Vision attaching Buddhist monestries and hardliner offices.[/quote]
sigh
Fox,
Yes… I fully realize that you don’t believe Christians are cajoling or coercing tsunami victims. But whether it is (or has) happened is irrelevant to the question I’m asking. I thought I made that clear already…
I have a long history in mission work. My sister and her husband are missionaries, my brother is a pastor and involved in mission work in South America, and my mother and father, now retired, have been involved in mission work for the last 30 years. As their son, I’ve spent many summers here and there, building churches, repairing houses etc. I know what’s happening in the mission world, and I don’t feel like it’s my responsibility to convince you one way or the other. I simply want to know where you draw the line.
So again… do you think it is ethical for Christians to target suffering people as potential converts due to the fact that their needs make them more susceptible to conversion?
If you don’t want to answer, I understand.
From a Christian point of view, it’s people in trouble who need spiritual sustenance the most. Most people are far too busy taking care of their mundane everyday tasks to be concerned with spiritual matters. Tragedy and death tend to refocus one’s priorities, however, which is also probably why one of the last visitors a condemned man gets is a man of the cloth. Is it exploitative? At its worst, probably. At its best, ministering in a time of crisis and tragedy can be a beautiful thing.
I do not think it is ethical for any religious organization to target suffering people for prosylitizing and conversion.
I see Comrad’s point about Muslim charities not willing to give relief to non-muslims. So, yes I think it is good that Christian organizations don’t discriminate in regards to who they’ll help. I have no problem with a religious organization giving relief–as long as relief is all they are trying to do.
However, the point has been raised that some missionaries see disasters as an opportunity. Is this right or moral? Obviously not.
Perhaps aid-giving is best left to non-religious organizations.
Some people here don’t think that distinction is so obvious.
[quote=“Comrade Stalin”]And BTW, if you are so worried about Christians giving aid to Muslims, perhaps you should read about what official Islam says about working with “infidels”…:
[quote]Question: Can zakah money be used to help tsunami-affected non Muslims or non Muslims in general?
Answer: It is strongly recommended to assist and donate as much as you can to all tsunami-affected people Muslims as well as non-Muslims.
However, as for zakah money, it should be only given to those people stated in the Qur’an (9: 60). They are designated as legitimate recipients of zakah. Having said that, the affected Muslims might fall under one of the recipients of zakah but for non-Muslims they would be only allowed to receive zakah if there is an indication that this would lead to their conversion to Islam, otherwise, they might be given any other donation but not zakah. [/quote][boldprint is mine, IOU][/quote]
Wondering what point you were trying to make with this. All this time I was holding out, hoping that you could explain the connection, yet you failed so I am attacking your statement.
Accusing Muslims of not giving zakah to help tsunami survivors is just as ridiculous as condemning Catholics for not sending communion to help feed the hungry. Zakah is money that is specified in Islamic religion to help other Muslims. It is one of the pillars of Islam. No where does it say that Muslims cannot help the tsunami survivors financially, only that they cannot apply their zakah to helping non-Muslims.
If this is the best example you could come up with to counter Christian charities using aid to coerce Indonesians and Sri Lankans into conversion (aside from the non-sequitur mention of the “kidnapping” of Timorese children into Muslim boarding schools), then once again you have a weak leg to stand on. If you want to paint Muslims with the same old tired tar brush that you always use to generalize them (for instance, using the phrase “working with infidels” to incite that Islamic law is synonymous with the beliefs of Islamic extremists in their view of jihad against non-Muslims), then there are other threads to do that on, particularly in the international forum. I’m sure there are plenty of other broken records in there that would be happy to join your tired refrain.
Comrade doesn’t have a point, or at least not a logical one in that post. He’s just adding his opinion on to a neutral statement to put Muslims in a bad light. He has issues with Muslims and uses every opportunity he can get to bad-mouth them and make negative generalizations of them.
So what if you have lived in an Islamic country and have seen some of the Muslims there do bad things. I used to live in a Christian one and saw, and personally experienced, far worse atrocities being committed there. Doesn’t mean that every Christian is bad nor does it mean that every Muslim is inherently evil. The discussion is about whether or not it is morally okay for Christian charities to the vulnerability of tsunami victims to help boost their ability to convert people. If you have nothing to add along these lines, then perhaps you should refrain from discussion. You do realize that you’re not obligated to post in every thread, right?
I myself have always been a bit suspicious of missionaries who into countries where the indigenous population already has a chosen religion (be it Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Jainism, whatever) because they feel their religion is more correct. I also have a problem where they do work (good) and then turn it around to preach to them. And no other religion is more guilty of this today as Christians. They travel all over the world, helping to build farms, houses, schools, hospitals, and not satisfied to just be doing God’s work of helping others and showing their faith through their actions, they shove their religion down the throats of the locals (along with their culture). They hold food hostage by forcing people to sit through their version of prayers before letting them eat or through worship sessions before letting them have a meal. To me, missionaries going into places where there is a religion already established, interfering with other people’s belief systems, is arrogant and self-serving.
I find the most ironic example of the work missionaries do is when they went into Indian reservations to “save” them from their drinking and drug problems…the funny thing was, that the whole reason why they were shoved into tiny little parcels of land and given alcohol to make up for hundreds of years of being robbed, lotted, victimized, and killed was because of a few boats full of…you guessed it…Christian fundamentalists.
[quote=“ImaniOU”]
Accusing Muslims of not giving zakah to help tsunami survivors is like condemning Catholics for not giving communion to help feed the hungry.[/quote]
No, dear…it’s more like asking Southern Baptists to give their Sunday offering to help Muslims. Which they do.
How so? The children are forcibly converted to Islam and the girls are circumcised. The Scotsman had a nice, graphic description of it a couple of years ago.
They do it to themselves. Perhaps you should learn alittle bit more about Islam and live in an Islamic country for awhile. But then, ignorance is bliss, isn’t it?
You go to an online web site about Islam (and probably a bunch of anti-Islamic sites as well that cut and paste what they see fit to make Muslims look like a bunch of Christian-hating terrorists…or was that just you being original) and suddenly you’re an expert on Islam? You like in Indonesia for a little while and you can tell people what to think and attempt to call anyone else who has not lived there ignorant? I’m sorry, but I’m not buying it. I think I am not the one who is ignorant of Islam considering that it was my religion for several years before I decided against following organized religion. How about you? A single college course in world religions? Reading a website?
As I said, I lived in a Christian country for most of my life. I have seen the things that they have done to others for the sake of their beliefs - setting a synagogue in my hometown on fire, parading down the streets in white hoods for the purity of the white Christian, having their young children stand on top of cars holding signs like “God hates faggots” and pictures of late-term aborted fetuses, yet I know that I do not know all Christians and that for the extremists out there, there are plenty of good ones who do not feel the need to shove their beliefs down the throats of anyone who doesn’t feel the same way about God (and homosexuality, Islam, corporal punishment, interracial relationships, dating, music, etc). You bring up extreme cases and attempt to use these to describe all 1.1 billion Muslims in the world with them. Again, weak arguments.
As I recall, there is nothing in the OP’s post nor title about Islam. This thread is about Christian missionaries and what they may or may not be doing in SE Asia right now.
If you want to start your own thread about how evil Muslims are, being the expert on Islam (especially since you have lived in an Islamic country for what, two years now?), then by all means, do so. I would even recommend the mods of this thread to split off your irrelevant posts so you can splash in your happy (or rather blissful) little pool of bitter ignorance and racism rather than trolling this thread with your shallow world view which has nothing to do with the topic at hand.
Uh, why? What would stop an Indonesian from taking a handout from a Christian charity, going to church for a couple of Sundays and then blowing the whole thing off once those charity workers leave town? You make it sound as if these people will be robbed of their free will and would never be able to turn back if they were to convert to Christianity.
As Comrade Stalin points out, conversion to Islam can be an altogether more violent and scarring thing. Some fundamentalist evangelical Christians make me uncomfortable, but I don’t recall any major churches requiring that new members’ bodies be mutilated.
I might put the burden of proof on you. What is the negative aspect of “conversion” that would make promoting it, under any circumstances, unethical? You can’t make something out of nothing.
From the Christian point of view, help is being given. You might as well say they were taking advantage of their need to give them a blanket. In my opinion, you can not call this behavior unethical without saying that religious belief is unethical.
I
I’ve certainly no need for evangelicals. However, they do exist. And they do evangelicize. And they often perform good deeds too. And people who are suffering need good deeds performed on their behalf.
I’m not certain that these evangelicals are “targeting” the disaster victims. They are primarily performing good deeds for people who need good deeds performed. The fact that these evangelicals also evangelize is hardly surprizing. That is their raison d’etre, non?
So long as they do not make the performance of good deeds conditional on religious conversion, I see no problem with their attempts to spread their beliefs.
If some group of agnostics and or athiests wants to set up an entity to perform good deeds on behalf of people suffering… they ought to get to it. There is plenty of suffering going on and the world is currently going thru a period of good deed deficit.
the whole thing is the result of messed up hyper evangelistic thinking. to these people,everything that happens is God moving His hand for some specific purpose. they don’t believe in the natural order of things (earthquakes, volcanos) cause everything that happpens is just a prelude to Jesus coming back.i jumped off the dispensationalist bandwagon a couple of years ago.
Christians today are being foolish.they have no idea of how politics and the world works and they over simplify every event that happens.the only motivator for them is evangelism, which they always slip in under guise. “Campus Crusade for the CIA” is the worst group in this regard.
Tigerman,
If you read through the thread, you’ll realize that no one is suggesting that it’s wrong for Christians to spread their beliefs, evangelize, or otherwise do what Christians and other religious people normally do. That’s neither interesting nor controversial.
What’s at issue is whether it’s wrong for them to target victims specifically because they are weak and vulnerable. In fact, you wrote:
…which leads me to believe that, if it could be shown that they were, in fact, targeting people because they were weak and vulnerable, you’d think there was something unethical about that. Is this basically correct?
that kind of enticement seems pretty unlikely. if you want to follow that logic of course there could be a wide range of unethical behavior like forcing conversion at gunpoint, etc etc. no such enducement is being made here, and i wasn’t referring to it. getting someone to do anything would be unethical in those circumstances.
[quote]For starters, I think you