“In November, on an obscure island in the Indian Ocean, [John Allen] Chau – a 26-year-old American adventure blogger, beef-jerky marketer, and evangelical missionary – was killed by the isolated tribe he was attempting to convert to Christianity. When Chau’s death became international news, many Christians were keen to disavow his actions; Chau’s father believes the American missionary community is culpable in his son’s death. John was an “innocent child”, his father told me, who died from an “extreme” vision of Christianity taken to its logical conclusion. All Nations, the evangelical organization that trained Chau, described him as a martyr. The “privilege of sharing the gospel has often involved great cost”, Dr. Mary Ho, the organization’s leader, said in a statement. “We pray that John’s sacrificial efforts will bear eternal fruit in due season.” Ho also told news organizations that Chau had received 13 immunizations, though Survival International, an indigenous rights group, disputes that these would have prevented infection of the isolated Sentinelese people. The Sentinelese, hunter-gatherers who inhabit North Sentinel Island in the Andaman island chain, are considered one of the Earth’s last uncontacted peoples; their entire tribe is believed to number several dozen people. “John Allen Chau is not a martyr,” responded one Twitter user, capturing the prevailing sentiment on social media. “Just a dumb American who thought the ‘tribals’ needed ‘Jesus’ when the tribals already lived in harmony with God and nature for years without outside interference.”…. Chau’s decision to contact the Sentinelese, who have made it clear over the years that they prefer to be left alone, was indefensibly reckless. But it was not a spontaneous act of recklessness by a dim-witted thrill-seeker; it was a premeditated act of recklessness by a fairly intelligent and thoughtful thrill-seeker who spent years preparing, understood the risks, including to his own life, and believed his purpose on Earth was to bring Christ to the island he considered “Satan’s last stronghold”.” (Conroy, 2019).
- Read: Conroy, J. Oliver. (2019). The life and death of John Chau, the man who tried to convert his killers. The Guardian, February 3, 2019.
- Watch: Investigators search for body of American missionary killed by Islanders. Today, November 24, 2018.
“In the late 1800s M.V. Portman, the British ‘Officer in Charge of the Andamanese’ landed, with a large team, on North Sentinel Island in the hope of contacting the Sentinelese. The party included trackers, from Andamanese tribes who had already made contact with the British, officers and convicts. They found recently abandoned villages and paths but the Sentinelese were nowhere to be seen. After a few days they came across an elderly couple and some children who, ‘in the interest of science’ were taken to Port Blair, the island’s capital. Predictably they soon fell ill and the adults died. The children were taken back to their island with a number of gifts. It is not known how many Sentinelese became ill as a result of this ‘science’ but it’s likely that the children would have passed on their diseases and the results would have been devastating. It is mere conjecture, but might this experience account for the Sentinelese’s continued hostility and rejection of outsiders?” (Survival International, 2020).
An important theme for Sacred Machines is the folly of preachers, of any human beings who believe that others ought to believe the same things that they believe (see also Vision Man [1988]). In November of 2018, John Chau was just such a person, a Christian missionary who believed that the allegedly-spiritually-ignorant Sentinelese people needed Christianity. He saw it as his purpose to journey to the remotest culture on the planet, and convince them to adopt his Christian worldview. Fundamentalists come in every shape and form, people who believe they have knowledge that you and I must have and must embrace, at all costs. Fundamentalism is the cause of much of the violence and warfare in the history of humanity.
WE DON’T WANT YOU HERE
(Carruthers/RE-VO) (2018)
Well, I journeyed to the Andamans, wanted to see Sentinel,
the island with the Africans who fight you if you try to land.
Maybe I could change them, make them see my point of view,
make them worship my god, but this is what they said to me:
We don’t want you here with your porno and your beer
We don’t want you here with your money and your bling
We don’t want you here with your missiles and disease
We don’t want you here with the filthy songs you sing
Well, I tried to land my schooner near the shipwreck Primrose,
but they came a’ runnin’ with their spears and stones and bows
They cried out bloody murder, threw their weapons, and I ran
If only I could change them, but this is what they said to me:
We don’t want you here with your haters and your Jesus
We don’t want you here with your strippers and your bling
We don’t want you here with your Uzis and your porn
We don’t want you here with the violent songs you sing
We don’t want you here with your presidents who fear
We don’t want you here with your god who lets you kill
We don’t want you here with your faith that’s cool with guns
We don’t want you here, and we’ll fight you till you run.
Well, I’m gonna go right back there, I’m bloody well determined
to change the noble savage into something I can sell to
I’m gonna make them fear God, convert the little children
I’m gonna change the Sentinel to something that is sensible
