Ethan’s Comments (group member since Oct 02, 2017)

Ethan’s comments from the Dangerous Territory Discussion Group group.

As a child I read more than one laudatory biography of David Livingstone, printed by evangelical publishers. I am tempted to go back and read more about his life now, since he was definitely an extremely interesting and complicated figure, and reading about him sparked my interest in foreign missions. However, these biographies of course focused almost exclusively on the “eternal reward” of his mission and gave little attention to the practical consequences, such as his terrible neglect of his family or the fact that his adventures paved the way for vast colonial expansion into Africa. A common theme in the many missionary biographies that I read as a child was that the material effects of missionary work are essentially irrelevant; So long as a missionary is “saving souls” any amount of collateral damage is acceptable. (This tends to be more prominent, in my view, when biographers are describing missionary work in “exoticized” locations.)

I also had a morbid fascination with tales of cannibal and headhunting tribes as a kid! I’m sure this says something about the American evangelical psyche.