I did a ctrl-f in the article for "missionary" or "missionaries" and found nothing. There's a real problem (in my opinion) with weird evangelical Christian missionaries who treat the population of PNG as some sort of religious terra nullus. It's a bit weird to write a reasonably lengthy and detailed article about New Guinea and not mention the missionaries...?

They see it as some great holy mission from god to go out into the hinterlands and convert the local people from their local existing belief system to their own particular form of Christianity. The "mission aviation foundation" collects considerable amounts of money to operate bush planes for this purpose.

Edit: PNG is really the most egregious example, but there is clearly a phenomenon that exists of evangelical christian missionaries that seek out the "least developed" or most "bone in the nose" pre-technology isolated cultures and then do fervent work to convert them into dedicated followers of their own specific niche of Christianity. You'll see it in very rural parts of Africa as well. If you spend some time in the churches where they raise funds for these and look at the presentations of the guest speakers brought in to solicit funds for their ongoing missionary campaigns you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

> They see it as some great holy mission from god to go out into the hinterlands and convert the local people from their local existing belief system to their own particular form of Christianity.

Call me apologist, but I can see no real problem with that. They are willing to take risks and have enough motivation to spend resources. Whatever I think about their belief system in my opinion they are free to do that.

It's not 1800s, if the given population doesn't like missionaries, as far as I'm aware it's equally free not to listen to them. Or to throw them out.

>They see it as some great holy mission from god to go out into the hinterlands and convert the local people from their local existing belief system to their own particular form of Christianity

That is, pretty famously, the "great commission" given by the founder of the faith.

>Christian missionaries who treat the population of PNG as some sort of religious terra nullus

Apparently it's not a religious terra nullus, since PNG's parliament recently voted 80-4 to identify themselves as a Christian nation.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/pacific/544665/papua-new-guinea-d...

Well, colonialism also been an issue for hundreds of years, but wouldn't it be boring to bring that up every time a country impacted by it is mentioned?

This article is clearly not about missionaries, why would they be required to mention them? Half the world been impacted by missionaries one way or another, we'd never hear the end of it if it'd be mentioned every single time...

> There's a real problem (in my opinion) with weird evangelical Christian missionaries who treat the population of PNG as some sort of religious terra nullus

The contemporary role of missionaries is complicated. My mother is a (now retired) doctor, who formerly (>10 years ago) worked for a Seventh Day Adventist church mission in the Solomon Islands (I also mentioned in another comment she worked in the PNG, that was with Australian Doctors International, a secular charity–although even part of that work involved working with a French doctor who happened to be a Catholic nun). My mother isn't a Seventh Day Adventist, she isn't even particularly religious (lapsed Catholic) – her personal motivations weren't about religion, it was about charity, and also the professional and personal experience. She just somehow (I think through some work colleagues who happened to be Seventh Day Adventists) became aware of the mission and ended up working for it–it was essentially volunteering, they may have reimbursed some of her expenses, but whatever she was paid was a fraction of what she'd get working as a doctor in Australia. The mission wasn't currently converting the local population – that had already happened generations ago - and much of the local population combined Christianity with elements of their indigenous belief systems. I guess coming from a Catholic background gave her some personal tolerance for the religious aspect, even if it was never her motivation.

This is what Columbus saw:

"The captive women told the Spaniards that Carib men traveled by canoe to neighboring islands, killed or captured men and carried away young women. Chanca says the women were kept as servants and concubines. They further alleged that children born to these captive women by Carib men were eaten, whereas children born to Carib women were raised."

IMHO People had it rough before missions. These particular natives left right there and were ready to sign up!

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Congratulations on your opinion?