Don Richardson floats on The Stream

You know how it goes.  You travel into a mosquito and crocodile-infested swamp to tell people about a God of love who sent His Son to heal, feed the hungry, free women, and give his life for the world.  But it turns out the cannibals who hear the story think Judas is the hero.  What a man!  He cleverly pretended to be Jesus' friend for years, then betrayed him with a kiss -- a true Sawi artist!  A new standard in the macho art of betrayal!

My article telling Don Richardson's remarkable story, and the lessons to be learned from it, was just published at The Stream.  Pass it around!  I think you and your Facebook friends will enjoy it:

https://stream.org/don-richardson-warring-cannibal-villages-christ-missions/

Does Christianity Help or Harm? (Analyzing Assertions)

Now the rubber meets the road.   Having gathered numerous assertions by skeptics and Christians about the impact of Christianity, then tried to trace those supposed affects to Jesus, the Bible, or later Tradition, we now ask whether those claims are true or not.  

Does Christianity Help or Harm? (Gathering Assertions)

How we see right and wrong depends on how we see God, Nature, and Society.  If you're Maori, then the "mythological origin of women" explains why the male symbolizes "success, prosperity, and vigor," while the female symbolizes "calamity and distress."  (Maori Women, Berys Heuer, 10)  In which case, don't let your wife near your house or canoe while you are building them, but you might have her consecrate them afterwards with her evil powers.  Likewise, a clear change for women can be traced during the evolution of early Hindu thought.  Ramayana already began to idealize the woman who burnt herself to death.  Then the Law of Manu warned widows they would be born as jackals if they remarried, which I think helps explain why two thousand years later, Rajput women still refused to remarry (Sitah's Daughters: Coming Out of Purdah, Leigh Minturn, ).  (Even if they were virgins.)

Clearly, ideas have consequences.