Missionaries, Zealots and What They Stand For

Two hundred years ago, on Christmas day, old Samuel Marsden preached the first Christian Service in New Zealand and he is credited with bringing Christianity to the country.  Two hundred years later, parliament asked itself if it should continue with the opening prayer – it does, for the meantime.

Old Samuel was apparently preaching to the indigenous population, who were at that time unfamiliar with the English language and what they gleaned his preaching is difficult to know. His idea, no doubt, was to convert them and that is usually done in most religions by promising everlasting life, a hereafter for believers. Just how he conveyed the idea of Heaven and if it was understood is uncertain.

Like all races, Maori are intelligent and would not have tarried if they were not entertained or enticed in some way – food is always a good enticement.

The simplest form of classification in humanity is good and bad or the stronger term evil.

When it comes to religion, a deity or prophets promote laws and rituals aimed at making their followers good. Likely there are cults that promote evil and follow their particular deity too, but the majority align with the good and desire to be classified as good – because the good have an afterlife.

There are also those who align with neither good nor bad – these are the fence-sitters, a group that is growing; the secular – faithless, if you like.

Missionaries like Schweitzer promote their religion by doing good deeds like building hospitals or schools, providing water, delivering medical assistance and much more. It is beneficial to be a follower– and the idea of a possible afterlife can’t be a bad thing. Most would agree that they align with the good.

There are bands of zealots, who do their missionary work through violence. They think their deity will be pleased, but most of the world condemn them as evil.

To help the zealots with their thinking, here is a barometer: upon reaching the gates of the hereafter, the gate keeper will ask, ‘What good have you done that would allow you to enter here?’

‘I shot a bunch of school kids in the name of our deity.’ The zealot replies.

Of the two hereafters, which suits the deeds?

Power, they say corrupts, and it does! And power is orgasmic for these zealots, believing themselves to be crusaders, armed to the teeth and omnipotent. They use their religion as an excuse. Off they go on their killing, raping and rampaging spree thrilling at their power, later defecating because of the nervous tension and wiping with their dirty hand – a useless exercise because both hands are soiled!

Believing forgiveness, even honour will be granted by their deity. But what they have done is in fact unforgivable.

Oddly the current lot of zealots are meting out revenge for attacks, saying that such attacks make them even stronger. Hey up! How do they expect the people they attack to react?

The girls or young women who run off to join them are not motivated by religious purity; its hormones – the same reason girls and young women hang around rock stars, footballers, politicians - or any imagined testosterone-charged-half-influential bloke.

Power is not easily relinquished, evidenced by all those dictators who end up paranoid about their own safety – and dead after outstaying their welcome. Power may be given willingly or unwillingly as with a new church here in the antipodes. A self-styled bishop has created a huge enterprise and while he may be fleecing his parishioners, they are coughing up willingly – if somewhat coerced.

It remains to be seen if the parishioners will wrest the power from the bishop – intelligence has a habit of winning through.

If a missionary wants to collect followers, he has to promote faith. In promising a hereafter, he relies on faith because there is nothing that the five senses can experience to actually prove its existence. Indoctrination from an early age is one of the ways to instill faith into adherents. Recite stuff by rote until it is ensconced in the brain.

The other way is to preach using religious texts, literature and pictures as well as demonstrating good acts to promote a Utopian place.

No matter the deity, it is a human frailty to slip up and commit sin, so the missionary, or deity’s representative is able to conjure up forgiveness – sometimes for a fee – and the client then thinks entry into the hereafter is a certainty.    

But surely a deity who has created the universe and all in it, can’t be that easy to fool!

There is a right for everyone to believe, or not believe, in whatever takes their fancy and not to be judged for doing so. There is no right to force beliefs on others and there is no right to use belief to harm others. Robust debate, however is helpful.