Anthropax's Old Blog

... for the Jesuits for quite a while, partly because of the nature of how they perform missionary activity, partly because of the way they focus on social justice and human rights and partly because of the Servant of God Oscar Romero, as well as other Jesuit saints and notables. Many of the more extreme Protestant missionary groups (I'm thinking of NTM in particular), seem to lack respect for indigenous cultures that is simply shocking. They introduce seek to transfer their little slice of America (for they all too often are American based) into the South American jungle, without a thought towards what is best for the cultural groups in question. I've been told of a tribal group, half who had been converted to a very protestant form of Christianity, and the other half to Catholicism. The protestant half were all wearing western clothes given to them by the missionaries, being moulded into consumers who did not hunt for their food, and viewed their own culture with scorn. The Catholic group were allowed to continue living in their traditional clothes, as well as the methods of production of their food, and created carvings of Our Lady in a form that was meaningful to them. I feel that the Catholic way of spreading the word is much less damaging to the indigenous cultural systems. Another anecdote that springs to mind is when I was told by a fundamentalist preacher in Lampeter that if a cultural group did not have a concept of 'guilt' then it should be introduced. Needless to say, the Anthropology student in me recoiled in shock! I first read about Oscar Romero in a Religious Studies textbook (he was a case-study) when I was 13. The idea of the priest speaking out against the injustices that affected his flock left its mark on me, and the image of an Archbishop being martyred as he celebrated the Eucharist is such a powerful one, that reminds one of Thomas Becket, a Saint slightly nearer to home. Both stood up against pressures from the secular world to defend what they believed in,andnbothe were murdered for it. Other Jesuits whose stories tear at the heart strings include St. Peter Calver and Alfred Delp, as well as all those who defended indigenous peoples in the reductions. Technorati Tags: Jesuits, Oscar Romero, Anthropology, Theology