Tory Shepherd: Zealots have no right to decide what’s best for others

John Chau’s ludicrous attempt to convert the Sentinelese to Christianity ended in his death, but he’s just one of scores of rogue evangelicals targeting “unreached people”, writes Tory Shepherd.

Murdered missionary John Allen Chau has already won a Darwin Award.

It may be a little cruel to have given him the award so soon after his ludicrous death.

American Mr Chau approached a hostile, isolated group of people in an attempt to convert them to Christianity. He was reportedly singing worship songs the Sentinelese would not have even understood.

He may as well have been talking in tongues. The Sentinelese, who live on one of India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands, have no contact with the outside world and speak a language no one else understands, killed him.

Mr Chau would not have been chuffed at the Darwin Award, and almost certainly would not have believed in the works of Charles Darwin, for whom the awards were named.

“Darwin Awards commemorate those who improve our gene pool — by removing themselves from it,” is the mob’s motto.

The 26-year-old selfie-lover bribed Indian fisherman to illegally take him to the islands where he reportedly brandished a soccer ball, scissors and a Bible. The Sentinelese shot him dead with arrows.

The Sentinelese are known for not welcoming outsiders. A member of the tribe is shown pointing a spear at a helicopter carrying officials checking on their welfare after the 2004 tsunami. Picture: Survival International

His body has not been recovered. And it’s not yet known if he passed on any germs that could prove fatal to the isolated tribe.

Mr Chau was no Robinson Crusoe.

Christians — and Muslims, and Buddhists, and atheists, and more — do good, charitable works all over the world. Building toilets, and houses. Helping women. Fighting poverty.

Then there are the evangelical missionary organisations — like that Mr Chau came from — who are more in the business of gathering up souls so they can show off to Jesus when he returns.

They are targeting “unreached people groups” — those who have never heard of Jesus Christ. They believe they must bring the word of Jesus to every nook and cranny of the world. They clearly discovered the little-known 11th Commandment: Thou shalt bleat and browbeat everyone you meet into joining your cult.

That’s not quite how they put it. Missionaries refer to the “Great Commission” — inspired by a Bible passage that refers to making “disciples of all nations”:

“And Jesus came and said to them, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”

John Allen Chau was killed while attempting to convert the Sentinelese to Christianity. Picture: supplied

Mr Chau trained with a group called All Nations, who are working on the Great Commission to colonise the whole world with Jesus. There are plenty of others — and Australia is among their targets.

In 2014 the Bible Society published an article in its Eternity News newsletter on Australia’s unreached.

“Among the unreached groups in Australia are those on the Cocos Island, Uzbeks, Central Thai people, Afghan Hazaras, Khmer people, Kurdish people, Malays, Persians, Turks and Arabs,” the article says.

This zealous missionary behaviour is derided by many as stupid, condescending, deluded. Even within the broad Christian church it’s a topic of heated debate.

In a more recent article, the Bible Society Australia tries to pick it apart. It talks about the “urgency” of converting unreached people but thankfully also takes into account the need to not actually kill people while you’re trying to save them, and the benefits of some humility.

The Joshua Project is the main source of information on “unreached” people for the missionaries keen for some reaching. Their website points at some South-East Asian communities, Greeks, Khmer — and a handful of Aboriginal communities.

Australians, of all people, should know how missionaries deciding they knew what was best for Aboriginal communities worked out.

Most of the missionaries out there in the world are on serious, long-term programs — whether you agree with the basic idea of this conversion-slash-colonisation or not. Then there are the solo evangelicals who end up in North Korean jails, dead in Ecuador, or deported from Nepal.

Solo missionaries have ended up in jail in North Korea, where local Christians regularly go missing. Picture: Carl Court/Getty

The dangerous rogues.

Joining the ranks of the rogues is this breed of brash, young, Insta-happy travellers.

The New York Times reports their numbers are on the rise. The number of missionaries going overseas has more than doubled in the past 50 years, as the number of evangelical Christians increases. Travel is easier and cheaper, and more independent churches are organising their own missions.

In Australia, there’s even a travel agency that will sign you up with a short, fun trip to a “closed country” (one where missionaries are banned) and assures you of its “complete discretion”.

It seems so horrifyingly emblematic of the modern era that young perky missionaries can fill out an online form to visit a faraway land and its foreign people, then post selfies and blogs.

They can even “checkout the #unreached of the day” (yesterday’s was the Suodi of China) and post using the hashtag #GreatCommission.

It seems to be more about glory than God.

I hope that instead of an afterlife for the likes of Mr Chau, he will be reincarnated and condemned to silent and unnoticed toil in the hellish refugee camps of the world. That would be an evolution.

Tory Shepherd is State Editor for The Adelaide Advertiser.

@ToryShepherd