TITLE: Blast from the Past - PowerPoint Presentation

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TITLE: Blast from the Past

TEXT: Matthew 28:19-20, Acts 1:8

THEME: The work of missions throughout the world has had an overwhelmingly positive impact.Slide3
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Huffing Post comment

“How do you think the Christians got control of Europe or Muslims got control of Dal al Islam? Not by people's free choice but by massacres of the pagans and heretics and desecration of ancient holy grounds. It's the rotten fruit of the poisonous Judeo/Christian/Islamic tree and the result of the same small jealous intolerant unforgiving god who delights in punishing anyone who disagrees.”Slide5
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QUESTIONS

Has Christianity spread over the years through coercion and oppression? Slide7

QUESTIONS

Has Christianity spread over the years through coercion and oppression?

Has its growth and influence been destructive and misguided for the native cultures they inhabit? Slide8

I. The Premise: Christian missions have been destructive to the world’s cultures. Slide9

I. The Premise: Christian missions have been destructive to the world’s cultures.

A. Christianity came into contented, well-adjusted cultures and injected their oppressive beliefs causing harm to the populations they influenced. Slide10

I. The Premise: Christian missions have been destructive to the world’s cultures.

A. Christianity came into contented, well-adjusted cultures and injected their oppressive beliefs causing harm to the populations they influenced.

B. Man is

perfectible

except for the religious bigotries that hinder and stunt his virtue. Slide11

The “Noble Savage”

A literary term that expresses the concept of an idealized native or outsider who has not been "corrupted" by civilization, and therefore symbolizes humanity's innate goodness.Slide12

Allan Chapman, “Slaying the Dragons”

“Yet let us be honest, virtue is not natural, as least, not virtue of the Christian variety. Such a virtue requires us to muzzle and chain the beast that rages within each one of us, for the uncivilized barbarian in his bloodlust and defensive wrath is closer to nature than is the prisoner who says, as he bows his head to the executioner, “In Christ’s love I forgive you

.”Slide13

Allan Chapman, “Slaying the Dragons”

“And

, to do this, one has to refashion oneself, root and branch, from within, not to be socially reengineered or materially perfected from the outside, but learn to live in and through the love of God.”Slide14

I. The Premise: Christian missions have been destructive to the world’s cultures.

A. Christianity came into contented, well-adjusted cultures and injected their oppressive beliefs causing harm to the populations they influenced.

B. Man is

perfectible

except for the religious bigotries that hinder and stunt his virtue.

C. No religion has any right to

impose

their views on others. Slide15

Star Trek: Prime Directive

“

prohibits Starfleet personnel from interfering with the internal development of alien civilizations. This conceptual law applies particularly to civilizations which are below a certain threshold of development,

preventing starship crews from using their superior technology to impose their own values or ideals on them.”Slide16

I. The Premise: Christian missions have been destructive to the world’s cultures.

Christianity

came into contented, well-adjusted

cultures…

Man

is

perfectible

except for the religious bigotries that hinder and stunt his virtue.

C. No religion has any right to

impose

their views on others.

D. Missionaries exploited the natives for their personal gain and control. Slide17

I. The Premise: Christian missions have been destructive to the world’s cultures.

A. Christianity came into contented, well-adjusted

cultures…

B. Man is

perfectible

except for the religious bigotries that hinder and stunt his virtue.

C. No religion has any right to

impose

their views on others.

D. Missionaries exploited the natives for their personal gain and control.

E. As people become more educated and informed atheistic secularism will

replace

Christianity which will dwindle into obscurity.Slide18

Biologist E.O Wilson

“we have come to the crucial stage in the history of biology when religion itself is subject to the explanations of the natural sciences. He expresses hope that someday, “the final decisive edge of enjoyed by scientific naturalism will come from its capacity to explain traditional religion, its chief competitor, as a wholly material phenomenon”.Slide19

Influential Missionaries

John Mackenzie: convinced Britain to enact a land protection agreement. Without it, the nation of Botswana would likely not exist today.

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Influential Missionaries

Alice

Seeley and John Harris and her husband John. Baptists who were first people to use photography to promote human rights documenting the colonialists use of forced labor to extract rubber from the Congo's jungles—and villagers who resisted were castrated, burned, or had limbs cut off. Slide21

Influential Missionaries

Ida

Sophia Scudder who addressed the plight of Indian women and the fight against bubonic plague, cholera, and leprosy. Slide22

Influential Missionaries

Timothy

Richard, a Welsh Baptist in China, who helped lead one of the first major humanitarian relief efforts in modern history, campaigning against the cruel practice of foot binding. Slide23
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II. The Problem: The narrative is

wrong

- Christianity has had a positive impact worldwide.

A. Most

of the legitimate issues have been acknowledged, corrected or addressed. Slide25

II. The Problem: The narrative is

wrong

- Christianity has had a positive impact worldwide.

A. Most

of the legitimate issues have been acknowledged, corrected or addressed.

B. The

secularist is not consistent in that he has his own compulsive desire to “save” something.Slide26

Allan Chapman

“So "saving" people, especially distant strangers and those quite outside one's own sphere of natural family or group-culture concern, or reasons of pure altruism, is very much a legacy of the Christian heritage. And it is testimony to the sheer power and cultural pervasiveness of Christianity that even people who vociferously reject it, and may have received an entirely secular upbringing, still feel driven, from the noblest of motives, to "save" something. The profusion of secular charities mentioned above is a case in point

.”

(p. 217-218)Slide27

Allan Chapman

“When

there are those millions of people in the West out to save the environment, the rain forest, the whales, the polar bears, or the planet"; protesters, probably "un-churched", devoting themselves to saving" us from bankers, the oil and atomic energy corporations, or fat cats" in general; and those who pursue Rousseau-inspired ideals. If living simple lives in the countryside (complete, of course, with mobile phones, designer tents, and antibiotics) as a perceived way of reducing their "carbon footprint" and "saving" everyone from global ,arming and extinction. And, of course, this deep "saving" instinct also finds secular manifestation in many who proclaim themselves to be Christians.” (p. 217-218)Slide28

II. The Problem: The narrative is

wrong

- Christianity has had a positive impact worldwide.

A. Most

of the legitimate issues have been acknowledged, corrected or addressed.

B.

The

secularist is not consistent in that he has his own compulsive desire to “save” something.

C.

Christianity

is not declining- it is growing in the South America, Asia and Africa

.Slide29

II. The Problem: The narrative is

wrong

- Christianity has had a positive impact worldwide.

A. Most

of the legitimate issues have been acknowledged, corrected or addressed.

B.

The

secularist is not consistent in that he has his own compulsive desire to “save” something.

C.

Christianity

is not declining- it is growing in the South America, Asia and Africa.

D. Secularists

ignore their own destructive influences. Slide30

II. The Problem: The narrative is

wrong

- Christianity has had a positive impact worldwide.

A. Most

of the legitimate issues have been acknowledged, corrected or addressed.

B.

The

secularist is not consistent in that he has his own compulsive desire to “save” something.

C.

Christianity

is not declining- it is growing in the South America, Asia and Africa.

D. Secularists

ignore their own destructive influences.

E. Christian

missions have had a positive impact on the world (Robert Woodberry). Slide31

Quote

“the work of missionaries turns out to be the single largest factor in ensuring the health of

nations.” Slide32

Charles Smith

"I thought it was a great, daring project, but I advised [him] that lots of people wouldn't like it if the story panned out. For [him] to suggest that the missionary movement had this strong, positive influence on liberal democratization—you couldn't think of a more unbelievable and offensive story to tell a lot of secular academics." Slide33

On Woodberry’s Dissertation

“One stereotype about missions is that they were closely connected to colonialism. But Protestant missionaries not funded by the state were regularly very critical of colonialism.” He also learned that, “Areas where Protestant missionaries had a significant

presence”Slide34

On Woodberry’s Dissertation

“in

the past are on average more economically developed today, with comparatively better health, lower infant mortality, lower corruption, greater literacy, higher educational attainment (especially for women), and more robust membership in nongovernmental associations.”Slide35
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III. The Biblical Response: Missions is a

foundational

purpose of the church.Slide37

III. The Biblical Response: Missions is a

foundational

purpose of the church.

A. Missions

are a

fundamental

tenant of the Christian faith. (Matthew 28:19-20) Slide38

Matthew 28:19-20

“19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”Slide39

Acts 1:8

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”Slide40

III. The Biblical Response: Missions is a

foundational

purpose of the church.

A. Missions

are a

fundamental

tenant of the Christian faith. (Matthew 28:19-20)

B. Paul

Himself commands us to follow his example of outreach. Slide41

Romans 1:14-17

“14 I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. 15 That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome. 16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the

Gentile.”Slide42

Romans 1:14-17

“17

For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”Slide43

III. The Biblical Response: Missions is a

foundational

purpose of the church.

A. Missions

are a

fundamental

tenant of the Christian faith. (Matthew 28:19-20)

B. Paul

Himself commands us to follow his example of outreach.

C. The

eternal destiny of people’s

souls

is at stake. (Romans 6:23) Slide44

Romans 6:23

“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in[a] Christ Jesus our Lord

.” Slide45
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APPLICATION

Your Creator loves you so much and so intensely desires your companionship and affection that He has a perfect plan for your life. In addition, God gave the life of His only son that you might spend eternity with Him. If you are willing to accept the gift of salvation, you can become a child of God:'

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