XYZ- I highly doubt that God had anything to do with it. I loved your use of the word "drafted". That's exactly what it is. You were drafted into this life, with no say and no way out. Conscripted. Enslaved. Grrr.
I am angry on behalf of ALL those precious little children- those very ones that Jesus personally reached out to with compassion and honor in his life on earth and warned his disciples not to offend- who were treated like mere belongings needing to be put in storage. Why? Because their parents flattered themselves that they were special people- missionaries!-and above all those other petty commands of Jesus. They were 'going into all the world' doncha know? That trumps the rest of the words of Jesus, apparently. If their conscience bothered them at all, a contingent of shamers was sent over to repeat the missionary party line until the parents willingly complied.
I am angry at the outrageously horrible Bible interpretation that was used to manipulate good people into believing God demanded they abandon their dependent precious needy children to boarding school or they were "not worthy" of him. Any intelligent person without an agenda reading that scripture would get the message that if your family around you is disdainful of your faith- to the point that THEY exile YOU- then God will comfort and reward you. How on earth they turned that verse around to a command for YOU to abandon your FAMILY in the name of faith- and people who read their Bibles actually fell for it!- I can not understand.
The only way to understand it is to get the whole brain-washing picture, and know that insecure people who wanted to feel superior, special, above the rest are the wounded souls who respond to these messages. "Called"? Not a fundamentalist! They make rational decisions based on intellect, no emotion involved. They were not called. They chose to go. They chose to abandon their families. They wanted to be heroes, tragic heroes that get no respect from "the world" (insert dramatic gesture here) but who expect that God will be super-pleased with their righteous works when they see him face to face.
To that I say, prepare to be surprised. I don't think you lived righteously. I don't care how often you memorized verses or went to church. It is doers of the Word, and not hearers only, who avoid self-deception. Hearing the Word more often than others is no panacea against self-deception.
People made mission boards. People staffed mission boards. People were attracted to the career of missionary. Missionary women were pressured to put career above all else- to the point of ten month 24/7 daycare being promoted as righteous! People did that. Not God. You won't find a blueprint for that way of life laid out plain in scripture because it doesn't exist. It was made by men.
The ironic thing is that a lot of you were in these ten month 24/7 daycare institutions (aka boarding schools) in the 80s, while here in the states Focus on the Family was railing against daycare and raking in the money with the Christian message that FAMILY is what is closest to God's heart. Working women were castigated in pulpits all over America for leaving their children in daycare for nine hours a day, while missionaries were being told it was God's will to leave them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 10 months a year because their CAREER was TOO IMPORTANT to let parenting interfere with the work!
So for all of you missionaries on this board, don't blame your decisions on God. YOU chose your career. God has nothing to do with it. YOU chose to interpret scripture the way you did to support your choice. If you're a good fundamentalist you have already proudly declared this many times, with the exception of ever considering that your interpretation of the text might possibly be out of context, wrong even. Fundamentalists are not only never wrong, they know all mysteries.
Is this post opinionated? You betcha. I totally own it. God did not make me write it. I wrote it with my own fingers because I chose to do so, though I do believe every word of it as truth.
Threewillows,
Hey there! *friendly wave*
HnH,
Yes, I think both silence and shame - two famous weapons of missionary psy ops- are both being used to try to kill this forum.
Silence? NTM will probably never answer the question as to how many children have come forward with reports of abuse! Isn't
the silence that keeps people from knowing the truth the way they have always handled these things? Like the scripture in Proverbs about the adulteress who wipes her mouth clean and says "what? I haven't done anything!" NTM/fundamentalist missionaries never admit sin. That's a heathen problem.
Shame? Another famous fundamentalist missionary weapon. Since XYZ is already bracing him or herself for a rousing religious lecture from Publius, it clear that shame is being used on this forum to silence people who have left the faith (fundamentalism or Christianity itself). This is known in other circles as spiritual abuse, and if it was used on this forum against survivors then, yeah, they had to leave to protect themselves.
Well, shame on the shamers who claim to speak for God and dump responsibility for men's choices on God! You DO NOT speak for God! I don't know how you dare to do so, but I think it's because God is an abstract concept for you. When Job came face to face with God, the first thing he did was SHUT UP. His friends, who were claiming that God micromanages all suffering and had a reason for it, were condemned by that same awesome God! When Paul met God on the road to Damascus, he shut up for years. Then when he started speaking out, he said outrageous things like:
This is our ministry, to tell the world that God has reconciled man to himself in Christ Jesus, and is not holding men's trespasses against them!
and
if I have not love, I am (to paraphrase) wasting my time with all my teaching and sacrifice.
Not very fundamentalist of him. In the fundamentalist world I know, teaching and sacrifice trump all forms of love and the message is that God is sending the huge majority of all humanity for all time straight to hell for all eternity. Hmmmm......
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