#211: Missionaries
I don't mind missionaries, Muslim of Christian, - they tend to be very nice people - except when they tell me I am on the path to hell and the only salvation is their way. Unlike some of my friends, I don't like to pester them with endless questions trying to find a flaw in their reasoning. However, I am dumb struck when I see an American football team called Evangel Crusaders (OMG!).
"They [Kyrgyzstani] were totally lost in the darkness. They had no clue about Christianity."Darkness? They probably had no clue about the half a million of Orthodox Christians. In fact, these guys probably think that Orthodox Christians are not even Christian enough.
3 comments:
There's a basketball team in Mongolia called "Hallelujah," also sponsored by Christian missionaries.
I find it a bit weird, especially after years of watching the hyper-commercialized American sports world which is so frequently composed of drugs, sex, and obscene amounts of money.
That said, you're right, the sponsors of the team you mentioned is being a bit worse than condescending.
I think the missionary group in question might be surprised to learn that the former communist overlords of Central Asia would have expressed (and frequently did) a similar (and similarly invalid, I feel) opinion regarding religious groups.
On an odd side note, I once heard an Armenian say the same thing about Russians, implying that they they were historically more backwards than Armenians because it had taken them an extra eight hundred years to "convert to Christianity."
Condescension abounds.
Hellooooo, Azamat, of course it is darkness! That is why you are leaving to better places!
Azamat
I feel bad for the Kyrgyz people who had to interact with that missionary soccer team! I read the piece that you linked to and it was so uninformed and imperialist it made me sad!
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