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Operation Auca
Again kudos to Wikipedia's featured article page, without which I would never have known about Operation Auca, an effort by early-50s protestant evangelists to convert a primitive Ecuadoran tribe which ended in tragedy. Think what you will about zealots twirling around in a light plane with a megaphone, they didn't do anything to deserve getting spitted like fish.
Also note the anthropological view that the operation and subsequent conversion of the tribe is seen as a negative because it "diluted" their culture. Emphasizing that killing your fellow tribesmen at every opportunity and marrying your cousins is, well, bad, will do that every time, donchaknow?
I would like to recommend that you watch "End of the Spear" and "Beyond the Gates of Splendor". I think that these two moview will give you a better understanding of what took place and why?
Here is a place for you that will give you an idea of what it is that drives Christian missions http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/1996/974_A_Passion_for_the_Supremacy_of_ChristWhere_He_Is_Not_Named/
mike
Posted by: holiday_at_the_sea on January 8, 2007 01:55 PMI forgot to add that what James Yost wrote was a half truth which I think you will see after watching these two movies. Laura Rival, another anthropoligis, stated in the wiki article, that missionary intervention caused significant changes in fundamental components of Huaorani society, however she meant that the changes were negative.
Both of these so called professionals failed to state that if these missionarys had not stepped in, the Auca tribe would have exterminated themselves as a result of their violent being. I think that you will notice, after watching these movies, how prevelant and central the word "spear" was to these Indians.
mike