John Chau, Antagonistic Attacks, and Why We Persevere!

John Chau, Antagonistic Attacks, and Why We Persevere!

It was late Thanksgiving Day when I got the word that a young missionary, John Chau, was killed earlier that week.  John was attempting to make positive contact with a Stone Age indigenous tribe on North Sentinel Island in the jurisdiction of India. Reports from a local fisherman noted that the islanders had shot him with arrows in his final encounter with them.  While there are many aspects to this story, the one that surprised me the most was the enormous negative coverage the media and critics are giving Chau.

The mild attacks simply focused on a fear of Chau spreading diseases foreign to the indigenous people while the cruder referred to John as a criminal adventurer, full of prejudice, and even lambasted him as xenophobic.   One article even called him a villain and most attacked him as being arrogant and in dismay as to why he would feel a need to convert these people to his way of thinking about God. (more…)