# Sending missionaries to countries with an established church **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 12, 2002, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sending-missionaries-to-countries-with-an-established-church/108603 "2002-05-12T05:35:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Saen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d2c977/32.png) [@Saen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saen)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2002, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sending-missionaries-to-countries-with-an-established-church/108603/21 "2002-05-13T02:28:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Squish \* > \*\* > No, I don’t understand when that law _does not apply_. As far as icons being seen as being the same as idols (and the way you phrased it: “idols/icons/saints” made me think you equated them), that is still a case of ignorance. \*\* Well hell. The reasonings behind the law _do apply_. Ignorance of what? I think it is a matter of opinion. Unless your stating that those who do not have the same opinion as the Orthodox Church is ignorant. Come on now. Do you want to debate this, or pick your arguments? ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2002, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sending-missionaries-to-countries-with-an-established-church/108603/22 "2002-05-13T02:37:56Z")
Feel free to remove the extra “y” in “actualy” in my posting above. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2002, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sending-missionaries-to-countries-with-an-established-church/108603/23 "2002-05-13T03:15:39Z")
Saen: I believe you’ve nailed it–there’s no debate here; just an OP who wishes to naysay. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Squish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8797f3/32.png) [@Squish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squish)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2002, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sending-missionaries-to-countries-with-an-established-church/108603/24 "2002-05-13T03:33:21Z")
From [Oxford University Press](http://www.askoxford.com/dictionary/establish): establish / "st bl / verb 1 set up. 2 settle. 3 (esp. as established adjective) achieve permanent acceptance for. 4 place beyond dispute. Established Church Church recognized by state. ·1base, begin, constitute, construct, create, decree, form, found, inaugurate, initiate, institute, introduce, organize, originate, set up, start. 2ensconce, entrench, install, lodge, secure, settle, station. 3(established) deep-rooted, deep-seated, indelible, ineradicable, ingrained, long-lasting, long-standing, permanent, proven, reliable, respected, rooted, secure, traditional, well known, well tried. 4accept, agree, authenticate, certify, confirm, corroborate, decide, demonstrate, fix, prove, ratify, recognize, show to be true, substantiate, verify. While you mean: Established Church Church recognized by state, I meant: 3(established) deep-rooted, deep-seated, indelible, ineradicable, ingrained, long-lasting, long-standing, permanent, proven, reliable, respected, rooted, secure, traditional, well known, well tried. So that’s a miscommunication. As for the other: “So I ate too much bread today (isn’t bread is a starch, btw) and that’s going to throw off my diet.” The comment isn’t disagreeing with or a satirical aside to the main statement unless it is indicated as such. Leaving the rhetorical nit-picking aside, my OP was asking two questions, which I will restate in the interest of clarity: 1. Why send missionaries to a country that already knows of Christianity and has a long-standing church and Christian tradition? 2. Would it not be more in the spirit of Christian brotherhood to lend support to a Church already in place but struggling after nearly a century of suppression? Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Squish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8797f3/32.png) [@Squish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squish)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2002, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sending-missionaries-to-countries-with-an-established-church/108603/25 "2002-05-13T03:52:15Z")
Saen and Monty: yes, there is a debate/discussion here, and the other contributors have recognized that. ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2002, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sending-missionaries-to-countries-with-an-established-church/108603/26 "2002-05-13T04:05:39Z")
> [@](#): > > 1. Why send missionaries to a country that already knows of Christianity and has a long-standing church and Christian tradition? Then what you’re saying is, “Send Christian missionaries _only_ to countries that don’t already know about Christianity, and that don’t already have a long-standing church and Christian tradition”? Which countries would those be, exactly? All I can think of would be the over-90% Muslim nations. But many so-called “Muslim” nations have percentages of Christians, so where are you gonna put the cutoff for “they’ve already got Christianity so they don’t need missionaries”? > [@](#): > > 1. Would it not be more in the spirit of Christian brotherhood to lend support to a Church already in place but struggling after nearly a century of suppression? Again, you seem to be operating under the assumption that the purpose of Christian missionaries in Russia is to convert people away from the Russian Orthodox church and to some other “flavor” of Christianity (thus “not lending support to the Russian church”), rather than to convert non-Christians to Christianity. Again, have you got a cite for this behavior being demonstrated by Christian missionaries in Russia? ---
**Author:** ![Squish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8797f3/32.png) [@Squish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squish)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2002, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sending-missionaries-to-countries-with-an-established-church/108603/27 "2002-05-13T05:40:58Z")
Why not mission to one’s own flock? Or are they already beyond improvement? > [@](#): > > Again, you seem to be operating under the assumption that the purpose of Christian missionaries in Russia is to convert people away from the Russian Orthodox church and to some other “flavor” of Christianity (thus “not lending support to the Russian church”), rather than to convert non-Christians to Christianity. I do feel that way, and apparently so do those enplace. Here’s the view of the Russian Orthodox Church and Russian representatives of Lutheranism, Catholicism, Judaism, Islam and Buddhism: [http://www.russian-orthodox-church.org.ru/ne011142.htm](http://www.russian-orthodox-church.org.ru/ne011142.htm) In part: > [@](#): > > Without doubt believers have the right to build their own lives in accordance with their own faith. The government, society and the mass media should respect the feelings and way of life of adherents of the traditional religions, both the majority of the population and the minorities. But nobody should be permitted to take the lives of other people or to infringe upon their rights and liberties using words of faith as a cover. We testify with conviction: no traditional religion teaches this. On the contrary, sinful are action that we have witnessed in the recent past, such as kidnapping and banishment of people, dispossession of their homes and property and attempts to convert people to another faith by force Now, that’s not just the Orthodox talking; that’s representatives from six different religions. While some in this thread have said that the missionaries disagree/disbelieve in some tenets of Orthodoxy, so too does Orthodoxy disagree with those churches: [BASIC PRINCIPLES OF THE ATTITUDE OF THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH TOWARD THE OTHER CHRISTIAN CONFESSIONS adopted by the Jubilee Bishops’ Council of the Russian Orthodox Church August 14, 2000](http://www.russian-orthodox-church.org.ru/s2000e13.htm) So, the missionaries can’t agree to disagree and feel secure in the fact that there is an active and vital Christian Church in the area? ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2002, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sending-missionaries-to-countries-with-an-established-church/108603/28 "2002-05-13T06:09:48Z")
Last I checked, debate didn’t consist of talking to yourself. Talking to yourself on a message board, OTOH, does constitute something else in particular. Take a guess. ---
**Author:** ![Squish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8797f3/32.png) [@Squish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squish)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2002, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sending-missionaries-to-countries-with-an-established-church/108603/29 "2002-05-13T06:15:51Z")
It would be nice if you actually attempted to discuss the subject. ---
**Author:** ![capacitor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e47774/32.png) [@capacitor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capacitor)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2002, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sending-missionaries-to-countries-with-an-established-church/108603/30 "2002-05-13T06:20:51Z")
Squish and others, the Christian denominations are neither monolithic nor interchangeable. Sometimes, members from one church beat up on another just because they’re different, or fear that their ideas are taking hold in a community they thought were dominant. ---
**Author:** ![Squish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8797f3/32.png) [@Squish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squish)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2002, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sending-missionaries-to-countries-with-an-established-church/108603/31 "2002-05-13T06:23:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by rocking chair \* > \*\*1. why send missionaries? > interestingly, not many people knew there was a russian orthodox church, and saw a chance to save the godless excommunists. > > 1. yes, it would have been nice if they checked first. although when jehovah witnesses knock on my door they don’t check to see if i belong to a church first. \*\* I think perhaps you’re right and that some of the missionaries didn’t realize that the Russian Orthodox Church was still in existence (or existed in the first place). ---
**Author:** ![capacitor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e47774/32.png) [@capacitor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capacitor)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2002, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sending-missionaries-to-countries-with-an-established-church/108603/32 "2002-05-13T07:03:44Z")
They do know. Yet they still go and evangalize, not willing to give up on anybody. ---
**Author:** ![edwino](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@edwino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/edwino)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2002, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sending-missionaries-to-countries-with-an-established-church/108603/33 "2002-05-13T07:52:00Z")
Last year, I went on a medical goodwill trip to Tomsk, Siberia. Our travel arrangements and visas were organized through a Methodist church here in town who was traveling on mission out there. Some of our goodwill was funded by them. I am an atheist who was raised Jewish. As you can imagine, I was a little nervous about the proposition of traveling with Texas missionaries. But, they shattered my stereotypes. Nearly uniformly, they were tolerant, free-thinking, and did not pray loudly in public. Prayer was limited to quiet reflection in the morning and a quick 10 second prayer before meals. We split up once we got to Tomsk – I stayed in town at the medical school setting up a computer network. They went to the Siberian backwoods to build an orphanage. While they have established a fledgling Methodist church in Tomsk, little of their time was spent working there (under a day out of two weeks). Mostly they were out in the bug-ridden evergreen forest, building an orphanage for children who had barely even heard of the USA. Many of them had contracting experience, and the others learned on the job. This really earned my respect. From what I understand about the teachings of Jesus, these people really tried to follow in the example that he set (while on earth). They do this several times a year, with funding from the community and personal donations. They travel halfway 'round the world to scrub filthy kitchen floors, to build toilets, to replace walls and roofs. They collect donations for buying medical supples, and for me they supplied enough money to start a 5 station computer lab with a year’s worth of broadband hookup (not an easy feat in Tomsk). It is really heartwarming to see anyone, for whatever reason, summoning up the energy and money to actually make people’s lives better. If they try to get dibs on their everlasting soul while doing it, that’s fine by me. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2002, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sending-missionaries-to-countries-with-an-established-church/108603/34 "2002-05-13T14:50:31Z")
People who set out to sell their beliefs to others should be free to do so, and I think that the free commerce of ideas is a great thing. However, in my opinion, treating ones belief as products to be sold makes you a salesman, no better or worse than salemen of industrial lubricants. (The Great Kahuna). That’s NOT necessarily a bad thing (I bear no ill will towards salesmen of almost any kind, and support their rights), but people do have a right to be suspicious of salesman, and the less than honest tactics they are likely to use to convince. And there are many sincere believers who think that the evangelical attitude is both counterproductive and denigrates ones beliefs. And I think they’re probably right: the Texans you describe really seem, to me, to do far more to spread their faith than those that try to pressure anyone they think they can “get.” ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2002, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sending-missionaries-to-countries-with-an-established-church/108603/35 "2002-05-13T14:59:47Z")
A bunch of thoughts related to the subject: 1. From the evangelical Protestant perspective, “saving a soul” is only tangentially related to church membership – it’s bringing someone, whatever his formal allegiance, into a right relationship with God and with Jesus as Savior and Lord. A person might have gone through all the proper Orthodox forms without entering into such a relationship and therefore be “unsaved” – as the Orthodox themselves would probably admit, though with reservations on the salvific effect of the sacraments duly and properly administered. 2. Former U.S.S.R. != Russia, and Russians != total population of the present nation Russia. Estonians, IIRC, are largely Lutheran, Lithuanians and Latvians Catholic, there’s a strong Uniate (Eastern Catholic) presence in Ukraine, and the five -stan nations of what used to be Russian Turkestan, along with Azerbaijan, are predominantly Muslim, as are many of the minorities in Russia itself. Georgians and Armenians have national churches which are **not** what we’d consider Eastern Orthodox. 3. As already pointed out, only a small portion of what most actual missionaries **do** constitutes actual save-your-soul-by-witnessing-to-you evangelism; much more is in the fields of education, health care, and what we’d throw under the general head of “social work” around the U.S. ---
**Author:** ![Squish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8797f3/32.png) [@Squish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squish)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2002, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sending-missionaries-to-countries-with-an-established-church/108603/36 "2002-05-14T08:08:28Z")
OK, I can see the ‘social work’ aspect. That, to me, is the Christian equivalent of “putting your money where your mouth is.” Now see, that’s why I was asking in the first place, and thank you for bringing that to my attention. Certainly people everywhere have the right to choose their own religion; it was the implication that Russia and the other former republics were ‘godless communists’ who had forgotten Christianity that rather annoyed me. BTW, IIRC, Georgia (where my great-grandfather came from, although he was ethnically a mix of Russian and Georgian) does have an Orthodox Church. ---
**Author:** ![ShadowWarrior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7993a0/32.png) [@ShadowWarrior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShadowWarrior)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2002, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sending-missionaries-to-countries-with-an-established-church/108603/37 "2002-05-14T10:04:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by nicky \* > \*\*Sort of off-topic, I’m pretty sure that Nigerian churches actually send missionaries to England. \*\* yep, they sure do - our church here in England has received a number of African missionaries. We also regularly support missions to other towns in England… the purpose not being to ‘steal’ people from the churches already there, but to invite more people to come and meet Jesus! Or to put it another way, which of these would you be more likely to come and see: 1. “We’re here every sunday from now until the end of time, drop by any time on the off chance that we might be covering a subject relevant to you” OR 1. “One Night only! All the way from xxxxx, yyyy has come just to tell you about Jesus, and how he can affect your life in particular” See what I mean… it’s new, so more people might come. Also, most missions are undertaken with full permission and help from local churches (usually using one or more of their buildings for the meetings) ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2002, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sending-missionaries-to-countries-with-an-established-church/108603/38 "2002-05-14T23:46:26Z")
I would become a missionary, if I had the chance-to go to places to teach and bring people food, clothing, help them learn a few skills. If I could. I think that’s the basis of most of your Catholic missions. They convert just by being good Catholics and helping the people. The people then WANT to become Catholic, (although not always). But it’s not a requirement to get help from the church. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sending-missionaries-to-countries-with-an-established-church/108603.md?page=1)