Well, Kat, one of my major disagreements with Mother Teresa was about birth control. She spoke strongly against artifical birth control, which is what you'd expect out of a pious old Catholic lady - but I highly doubt that her expression of her beliefs had any significant effect upon the population of India. There's certainly no indication that she forced people to believe as she did. Should she have been barred from India because she had ideas that were unacceptable to liberals? For that matter, it seems that birth control is not part of the indigenous culture, anyhow - so Mother Teresa may have been more in accord with local culture than we would be.

The Europeans conquered America for economic reasons - they wanted land and riches. They took their religion with them, and they believed that their God approved of their conquest - but religion was not their reason for conquest. Yes, there were missionaries who did harm to Native Americans - but there were also many missionaries who did good. In the end, religion had very little to do with the final outcome. America was doomed to become a land of sport utility vehicles and flush toilets. Primitive American culture and religion died. In recent years, the traditional, authoritarian model of European Christian religion died also. The old men are trying to hold onto power in the churches, but they're not having much luck.

For Catholic and other mainstream Christian missionaries, the standard practice nowadays is to serve people without preaching. Coercion is completely forbidden, and evangelization is generally frowned upon. The missionaries practice their own religion openly, and the church doors are open to local people. Converts are certainly welcomed, but only if they freely choose to convert.

My main point is that it's dangerous to make generalizations and it's wrong to demonize anybody - missionaries, European settlers in America, or indigenous peoples. I'll readily agree that coercion is harmful - but churches just don't do that nowadays. In fact, modern missionaries from the mainstream churches now work to preserve the indigenous cultures in Central and South America.

-Joe Offer-