So this came up again on another forum I post on. There had been some interest in this back in December. For me it was just amazing to learn there were still people living this way, and how determined they were to go on living that way.
I’ve always felt ambivalent about missionary work whose aim is to implant Christian beliefs, more because I celebrate the diversity of cultural expression than because I am critical of Christianity. But I recognize that many missionaries have done a lot of people a lot of good beyond spreading the word. So it is sad when someone seeking to help others is killed even though it is lamentable that he ever tried to go to this particular island.
For those of you who also seemed interested in this story this latest news story concerns the father’s reaction now. I think it is understandable and I think he does a pretty good job of keeping his criticism specific. I’m sorry the source for the story is such a shoddy site. Ugh.
His father Dr Patrick Chau has spoken out and said the American missionary community is responsible for his son’s death.
He claimed John was an ‘innocent child’ who died from an ‘extreme vision’ of Christianity taken to its logical conclusion.
Like his son, Chau was a graduate of Oral Roberts, an evangelical university in Oklahoma. He told [The Observer]
‘If you have [anything] positive to say to me about religion. I do not wish to see or hear it.’
‘John is gone because the Western ideology overpowered my [Confucian] influence. He blamed evangelicals’ ‘extreme Christianity’ for pushing his child into a ‘not unexpected end’.