U.S. missionary: A martyr or invader?
The 360 is a new feature designed to show you diverse perspectives on the day’s top stories.
The facts: A U.S. missionary traveled to visit an isolated, indigenous tribe living on an island in the remote waters between India and Southeast Asia, where visits are forbidden by the Indian government. When the fishermen who took him there returned to the island, they say they saw members of the tribe burying his body on the beach.
Indian authorities believe that John Allen Chau, a 26-year-old U.S. missionary, was killed on North Sentinel Island by members of the indigenous hunter-gatherer tribe living there that is known to reject contact with any outsiders. Chau, who broke local laws to travel to the remote home of the Sentinelese people in the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago, planned to preach Christianity to the tribe (
Authorities have arrested several fishermen and another man who helped ferry Chau to the island (
ABC News) and charged them with culpable homicide (
New York Times). The fishermen told authorities that they dropped Chau off, and that when they returned, they saw members of the tribe dragging a body. Authorities are investigating what happened amid mounting calls to permanently abandon efforts to recover Chau’s body. A cause of death will not be officially be known unless his body is recovered. Some who believe the recovery effort should be abandoned say it would pose too big a risk to the tribe because of the potential it could be exposed to disease.
Views and reactions
After a few failed attempts, Indian authorities have paused their attempts to retrieve Chau’s body. “We want to avoid direct confrontation with the tribespeople,” said Dependra Pathak, director general of police of the Andaman and Nicobar island (
CNN). But Pathak also said police haven’t officially given up, explaining that they are consulting anthropologists and psychologists to try to develop a plan to recover the body (
P.C. Joshi, an anthropologist, said he understands why recovery of the body could help authorities. “If there is a death, then the cause of death should be known,” said Joshi, a professor at Delhi University, though he noted that Chau’s body may have already decomposed too much to be useful in an investigation (
Anthropologists, authors and human rights activists asked Indian authorities to permanently call off attempts to recover Chau’s body, citing dangers to the police and the Sentinelese tribe. “The rights and desires of the Sentinelese need to be respected,” a group of Indian experts wrote (
AFP).
Survival International, an indigenous tribes rights group, warned that the tribe is especially vulnerable because of its complete isolation from the outside world. “The risk of a deadly epidemic of flu, measles or other outside disease is very real, and increases with every such contact,” said Survival International (
Reuters).
Stephen Corry, the group’s international director, said, “The British colonial occupation of the Andaman Islands decimated the tribes living there, wiping out thousands of tribespeople, and only a fraction of the original population now survive. So the Sentinelese fear of outsiders is very understandable” (
BBC).
T.N. Pandit, an anthropologist who made the last known peaceful contact with the Sentinelese in 1991, warned that closer contact would harm the tribe. “It’s not just the spread of disease, I think it is also about their way of life, community and culture,” he said (
Chau’s family has asked that the fishermen who helped Chau reach the island face no consequences. In an Instagram post, his family wrote, “Local contacts need not be persecuted for his own actions.” Chau’s family also called for forgiveness for the tribesmen who allegedly killed him.
Pandit also said that there was “no sense” in catching and punishing the tribe members who allegedly killed Chau. “These are not their laws,” he said. “They were protecting what is theirs, just like we do. We forget, the ‘civilized’ man is the aggressor here” (
An anthropology professor at the University of Delhi echoed Pandit. “What we know is that they have been killed and persecuted historically by the British and the Japanese,” Anup Kapoor said. “They hate anyone in uniform. If they see someone in uniform, they will kill him on the spot” (
AFP).
Phillip Wegman, a commentary writer at the Washington Examiner, wrote that according to Chau’s own journal, he didn’t have “much of a plan,” unlike what Wegman called the “more rational missionaries,” such as Nate Saint, who “slowly and incrementally made contact with the Waodani tribe of Ecuador, learning the language before sharing the Gospel. They ended up martyrs, yes, but they did not throw away their lives. Chau, on the other hand, was dead the moment he stepped on shore” (
All Nations, the group that trained and sent Chau on his mission, defended Chau’s preparation. Mary Ho said that Chau had trained in linguistics, become an EMT, “attempted to get” multiple vaccinations and quarantined himself for “many” days before traveling to the island in an attempt to protect the Sentinelese from outside disease (
Christianity Today). However, Ho also confirmed that Chau lacked a missionary visa because they “aren’t easy to come by,” insisting that he had violated no laws (
Washington Post). The island, she said, wasn’t off-limits, pointing to newly relaxed rules that permitted researchers with pre-approval to visit (
Kansas City Star columnist Melinda Henneberger wrote that All Nations, based in Kansas City, had failed Chau. “That All Nations did nothing to dissuade him was unconscionably negligent, and maybe even actionable,” Henneberger wrote (
Family and friends who are grieving Chau as a martyr described him as an adventurer and a passionate follower of Christ. “He loved creation and being out in it, I think having probably found and connected with God that way, and deeply so,” said Casey Prince, a friend of Chau’s (
Associated Press). Chau, raised in a deeply Christian community, had considered a mission to North Sentinel Island since high school, said Mat Staver, a friend of Chau (
Good Morning America). Prince added that Chau knew some of his travels were dangerous, noting: “If he was taking a risk, he was very aware of it” (
Wei-Han Kuan, state director of the Church Missionary Society in Victoria, said, “If a martyr is one who is killed in the process of living openly and faithfully for Christ, then I suppose John Allen Chau qualifies.” But Kuan added that he doesn’t worship martyrs, or “pretend that they got everything right” (
Two missionaries who work in Nicaragua said that if Chau had been a physician who was trying to save the tribe from illness, he wouldn’t have been criticized. “If these doctors were to go and in the process get killed, I think most people around the world would say those were brave people,” Scott Esposito said. “[Chau] went to save their eternal lives” (
BBC).
Kaitlin Curtice, a Potawatomi author who practices Christianity, cautioned that the kind of “love” practiced by Chau is problematic because “often under its veil there lies deceit, assimilation and colonization.” While churches view missionaries as heroes, indigenous people see them as invaders, Curtice wrote, urging there be a broader conversation about mission work and colonization (
USA Today). Caitlin Lowery, a former missionary, called Chau’s mission “white supremacy” in a Facebook post. “Do not victimize the missionary that was killed for not following the laws of the tribe he claimed to love. Do not demonize the tribe that simply tried to protect their children from disease and violence,” she wrote. “If he cared he would have already known their beliefs and laws and would not have disrespected them. But he didn’t care. They were just going to be another notch on his cross.”
In Chau’s final journal entry, he wrote: “You guys might think I’m crazy in all this but I think it’s worth it to declare Jesus to these people. Please do not be angry at them or at God if I get killed — rather please live your lives in obedience to whatever He has called you to and I’ll see you again when you pass through the veil.”
How the media covered it
Was Chau a heroic martyr who was murdered by a hostile tribe? Or was he a foolish, unprepared missionary who tried to force his faith on peaceful, uncontacted, indigenous people? News organizations framed his death and follow-up coverage differently.
AFP stressed the value of recovering his body (“U.S. missionary John Chau’s body could be lost in battle to preserve isolated tribe”). Other news organizations focused on his mental state at the time of his mission. The
Washington Post reported: “‘He lost his mind’: Slain missionary John Allen Chau planned for years to convert remote tribe.” The
New York Post portrayed him as an obsessed, doomed missionary.
National Geographic reported on the dangers of “pacification” of the Sentinelese, warning: “Death of American missionary could put this indigenous tribe’s survival at risk.” Canada’s
Global News focused on the harm that could be done to the tribe (“North Sentinel tribe could be endangered by attempts to recover missionary John Chau’s body: experts”). Former Mumbai Bureau Chief for the Times of India Soumyadipta Banerjee slammed the U.S. media for failing to explain why the Sentinelese tribe killed Chau. “The American media — which aggressively talks about civil rights, right to privacy and free will — seemingly couldn’t care less about the will of the Sentinelese,” he wrote.
What’s at stake
Estimates on the number of the Sentinelese, isolated from the world for thousands of years, range from dozens to a few hundred (
Associated Press). If Chau had exposed them to foreign pathogens, he could have wiped out the entire civilization because they lack immunization to what modern society considers mild illnesses, such as colds. Experts also worry that introducing modern technology, such as electricity, could decimate their culture and way of life (
AFP).
Indian authorities are grappling with how to enforce their society’s laws against murder on an island that society is forbidden to contact. A death certificate in India normally cannot be issued without a body (
In 2006, the Sentinelese killed two Indian fishermen who drifted onto the island. Their bodies have not been recovered (
