re SIL

Tue May 6 01:45:20 UTC 2008

Richard,
    I was at a "primitive skills" event last weekend. I was listening to 
what I thought was a group of men who were "End Timers". They were fired up 
with the "word" in their flint knapping circle. I was sitting quietly sewing 
a deer hide to smoke in a demonstration. Anyway, I let it out I was an 
anthropologist and spent the rest of the weekend being interrogated about my 
beliefs. It was tough, my point though is that I hadn't realized how 
important the phrase "In the beginning was the Word" to these Southern 
Christians until this weekend.  It made me realize why the Bible is so 
important to this group, and realize why the missionaries have become 
linguists, and translated the bible into so many different languages. Maybe 
they are becoming like their God, being the first to share the "Word". Their 
zealot like enthusiasm seems to suggest this to me. I agree after talking to 
these people with what you said here

>From his paradigm window, these natives are children of "the fall" of
> a literal Adam and Eve, and they need to be rescued at any cost.
> I think Its important for us to understand what compels missionary work,
> even if their view of reality is MAJOR different than our own.

I heard this same kind of thinking about the unsaved, and a story about 
someone (Adam or Adam's brother???) taking a wife from the land of Nod or 
something. Wish I'd played closer attention now. The person was suggesting 
the land of Nod was populated by other people or maybe the  unsaved people. 
All this was suggested with questions and seemingly open for interpretation.

Understanding the perspective of the Christian missionaries "paradigm 
window" is useful to defend against the assimilations pressures that often 
begun with adopting their religion.

Jan Tucker
Applied Cultural Anthropologist
Liberal Arts Department
Lake City Community College
Lake City, FL

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard Smith" <rzs at WILDBLUE.NET>
To: <ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU>
Sent: Monday, May 05, 2008 5:28 PM
Subject: Re: [ILAT] re SIL

> kweh Richard LaFortune,
>
> I sure agree with alot of what you share here.
> Some people can't seem to see it.
> The Evangelical/Catholic Christian views things through a window
> which insists on some major absolutes usually very different than the
> paradigms of the people groups they go to "save".
>
> Giving benefit of the doubt that most are basicly wholesome people,
> an Evangelical is not necessarily and consciously intent on destroying a
> culture. In fact culture and even language is a side issue completely.
> He might actually love those who he views as "ignorant of God" and care
> deeply in his heart for souls he understands as condemned to eternal
> damnation.
> From his paradigm window, these natives are children of "the fall" of
> a literal Adam and Eve, and they need to be rescued at any cost.
> I think Its important for us to understand what compels missionary work,
> even if their view of reality is MAJOR different than our own.
>
> An example with own ancestors i've used before: Jesuit priests would
> secretly baptize Wendat children dying of small pox when their parents
> weren't looking.When they were caught doing it, parents were horrified and
> threw the priests out of the longhouses in fear that priests were now
> finishing their children off with witchcraft and mumbling strange curses.
> Its possible BOTH parents and priests deeply cared for the dying ones,
> but these priests were strange newcomers, and were acting out of line.
> Even if they wrote happily in their journals about how they saved dying
> children from hell that day...    to my own people they acted wrongly.
>
> Language is their vehicle for conversion of people to their own paradigm.
> Wycliffe wants to "reduce" all earths languages to writing so that people
> can read the Christian Bible in their own language. Its inherent with many
> Christian beliefs that when "all have heard"   Christ will return to 
> earth.
> All this passion of foreigners coming to save souls from "sin" and 
> hellfire
> and convert the lost to a middle-eastern based paradigm has a cost
> and weakens alot of  very important traditions of our people
> but strangely enough it has one bright side. Languages are preserved and
> even some pretty complicated thought is recorded.
>
> I guess maybe i'm trying to be positive,
>
> Richard Zane Smith
> Wyandotte Oklahoma
>
>
>
> On 5/5/08 11:06 AM, "Richard LaFortune" <anguksuar at YAHOO.COM> wrote:
>
>> I forwarded this earlier to Rudy and rec'd a response.
>>  Some people would assert that some evangelical
>> translations efforts have advanced applied
>> -not theoretical- linguistics...except First Speakers
>> are required for applied fieldwork and other tasks of
>> science.  And the early and emerging information about
>> these outfits over the past couple of decades
>> convincingly alleges that these reactionary
>> denominational translators were all about neutalizing
>> (and you can interpret that word in its most sobering
>> sense) the very people who were first speakers,
>> because of fights over natural and political
>> resources.  There is no valid argument for any
>> government surveillance that wipes out a quarter
>> million Native first speakers; there is no balance in
>> which a list of languages outweighs the lives of
>> sovereign people in our ancestral domains by force of
>> violence.  My own family are leading heirarchy in one
>> of the minority evangelical denominations in North
>> America, so I know from missions; and I'm a Native
>> person whose lineage is straght-up medicine people as
>> well.  I was raised not to express an opinion unless
>> it was considered and useful in some way.  But
>> that's...
>>
>> Just an opinion
>> Anguksuar (Richard LaFortune)
>>
>>
>>> A lot of people in the field disagree with you Rudy-
>>> with all due respect- folks from the aeryies of the
>>> Academy, to the corn fields and jungles where SIL
>> and
>>> New Tribes Mission have operated over the decades.
>>> This includes people who have spoken to me
>> anecdotally
>>> and have no particular political axes to grind.
>>>
>>> I suggest interested people on ILAT take a look at
>>> "Thy Will Be Done:  The Conquest of the Amazon :
>>> Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oi";
>>> and "The Missionaries", by Norman Lewis.  To use the
>>> phrase 'without substantiation' suggests that a
>> great
>>> deal of scholarship and actual substantiation from
>>> international government agencies, to personal
>>> communications by people of regard.  Who cares if
>> they
>>> have done important things in linguistics - Hitler
>>> built nice highways.
>>> Richard
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
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