382 Comments

My wife had an aunt and uncle who were missionaries in Haiti for many years. Kind and decent people for the most part, but also people who did not have a shred of doubt where their particular brand of Christianity was concerned. That second bit I found creepy to no end. People who go through life with out any doubts about their beliefs are responsible for a great many of the world's problems. I would not be surprised to learn this young couple were afflicted by the 'great white savior' complex.

Expand full comment

I agree there 100%. The “White savior” is a big problem with missionaries.

Expand full comment

Especially when they decide they're going to go and spread the "good news" 𝘵𝘰 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵'𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘺 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘺 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘢𝘯.

Expand full comment

But not the right kind of Christians, evidently.

Expand full comment

According to Wikipedia (yeah, I know) Haiti is mostly Catholic these days, so no, not the right kind of Christian. Pardon me, I need to go retrieve my eyes, they somehow just rolled right out of my head.

(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Haiti)

Expand full comment

I think that may be France's legacy to their former colony.

Expand full comment

More like their curse. That and making them pay for their freedom.

Expand full comment

I think they are too stupid to know that, or someone in the church is making bank on them being there.

Expand full comment

Not just the 'White Saviour', but also the 'Black Saviour' one (Afro-Americans are also part of these missionary groups as well, I'll bet [the novel The Color Purple has a subplot about Celie's sister being a missionary in early 1900's-1920's Africa.])

Expand full comment

I have the vaguest recollection that one of my aunts was a nurse/missionary in Haiti. Sometime in the late 1960s if my guesses about timelines are accurate. Knowing her, I’m confident the white savior complex was part of it as well as the view that they needed to be saved from Catholicism. She is still alive but every interaction with her is about why i need to come back to Jesus — and my Jewish wife too! So we don’t interact much. The last time I told her about my trans son and she misgendered him for the rest of the convo.

I’m about done with her.

Expand full comment

Upvote if I could. There is no situation so bad it cannot be made worse by religion.

Expand full comment

Did she tell you to send/convince your son to Jesus torture camp?

Expand full comment

No, I’m sure she thinks a steady diet of Missouri Synod Lutheran is all anyone needs.

Expand full comment

Is there a difference?

Expand full comment

We won't be a civilized country until we outlaw that child-torture shit in every state.

Expand full comment

To know they're still with you, is by far a relieving moment for sure. 👍

Expand full comment

They both passed some time ago.

Expand full comment
Comment deleted
May 25
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

The gospel never saved anyone from anything. No problem was ever fixed with magical thinking.

Expand full comment

🎯Yes, Amy Phoney Parrot has adopted a Haitian boy, it's like they view them as a fashion accessory.

Also, there was a male missionary that they knew was molesting young Haitian boys and they continued to let him go there.

From their website: Most of our support comes from Amish, Mennonite, and other conservative Anabaptist groups and individuals.

Mast also faces allegations of sexually abusing minors during his time serving Christian Aid Ministries in Haiti, according to the Berlin, Ohio-based nonprofit.

“It is already well known that our former employee, Jeriah Mast, has confessed to molesting boys while working for our organization in Haiti,” Christian Aid Ministries' board of directors wrote in an open letter on June 17.

Jeriah Mast, 38, faces seven charges in Ohio of gross sexual imposition, and is also wanted in Haiti for sexually abusing minors.Holmes County Sheriff's Office

Christian Aid Ministries said in the same letter that two managers at the organization had known about Mast's behavior since 2013, when he had admitted to Christian Aid Ministries staff to "sexual activity" with boys under the age of 18 "that had taken place several years prior in Haiti," Robert Flores, an attorney representing Christian Aid Ministries, told NBC News.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/christian-charity-paid-alleged-sex-abuse-victims-former-haiti-missionary-n1049916

Expand full comment

As much as I now hate to say this, adapting them is better than letting them be this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restavek )

Expand full comment

It’s sad that they were killed but Port au Prince is run by gangs. Why dare fate by going there right now? Plus, Haitians don’t need missionaries since most people there are Christians. They need stability and development. Missionaries have nothing substantive to offer them.

Expand full comment

I suspect that what Haiti needs, more than anything else, is a US Marine expeditionary force, to clear out the gangs and at least attempt to return it to something resembling civilized, and I am probably underestimating the personnel needed.

Haiti at this point is an utterly failed state, and having missionaries or any other kind of aid group there without substantial armed escort is an exercise in blunt foolishness.

Expand full comment

Kenya is stepping in, with our assistance.

Probably a better deal, as US forces tend to be very White and that's only gonna stir the pot more.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/22/why-are-kenyan-forces-set-to-intervene-in-haiti-and-how-is-the-us-involved

Expand full comment

You make a good point, Joe, and Kenya is being amazing at making the attempt. I still am not optimistic, but I hope they succeed.

Expand full comment

"Not America" is also likely, at this point, to be a big selling point.

We have a reputation for overstaying our welcome in places we were never invited to in the first place- a reputation which we've been building since 1898 (or far longer, depending on perspective...). Kenya, on the other hand, lacks such a reputation; this will be their first major operation as a global actor. What they do with that opportunity... who knows? They, like the US, are a former colonial state. The lesson we took from our colonial past was "hey, we can do that too!" Hopefully Kenya does better.

Expand full comment

I hate to be like this, but FYI, the majority of soldiers who are sent to fight overseas by the USA are Afro-American and Latino-American with very few white people, so I don't see a problem with the U.S. sending forces there.

Expand full comment

As of 2022, the racial and ethnic demographics of the US Army active component were:

White, not Hispanic: 53.6%

Black, not Hispanic: 20.3%

Hispanic: 17.6%

Asian or Pacific Islander: 6.9%

American Indian or Alaskan Native: 0.9%

Unknown/Other: 0.8%

Yes, we do deploy a lot of minorities (been there, done that, got the shirt...how about you?), but it's far more White than you'd have us believe... especially in the eyes of the indigenous population.

Take a guess the Kenyan military's demographic makeup. 😉

Expand full comment

The last time a US Marine expeditionary force went there was 1915, sent by Wilson. That appears to be the beginning of the current hot mess. Wilson sent the Marines because US bankers were worried Haiti would default on it's debts.

Expand full comment

Yes. Recall the great patriot, Marine Lt. GEN Smedley Butler's speech to that effect- he was an enforcer for US companies whenever he was sent abroad.

He also was instrumental in saving us from the first time the vile Republicans tried a coup, led by Prescott Bush, against FDR and democracy in the 30s.

Republicans were shit then, and shit now

Expand full comment

And that's a big reason why they concentrate on nonsensical cultural issues.

Expand full comment

Prescott Bush was the leader of the attempted business coup? That was never revealed in the Kitty Kelly book about the Bushes, and according to Jonothan Katz, it's not true:

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Jonathan, didn’t Butler also claim, in addition to these corporate leaders, that there were folks like Prescott Bush involved in this, the father of George Herbert Walker Bush and grandfather of George W. Bush?

JONATHAN KATZ: So, there’s actually a kind of a game of broken telephone going on with his name being involved in this. So, Bush was actually — Prescott Bush was actually too much involved with the actual Nazi Party in Germany to be involved with the business plot. Bush was a partner at Brown Brothers Harriman, which is still a major investment bank based in New York, across the street from Zuccotti Park, their headquarters. And Bush was the — Brown Brothers Harriman was the subject of a different investigation by the same congressional committee, because that committee’s ambit was to investigate all forms of sort of fascist influence and all attempts to subvert American democracy. And because Brown Brothers was part of a separate investigation, they end up sort of in the same folder at the National Archives, and then it ends up sort of getting mixed up in a documentary that came out about 10 years ago. So that’s actually a misunderstanding. Butler never brought up Prescott Bush’s name. But it was because Prescott Bush was too involved with the actual Nazis to be involved with something that was so homegrown as the business plot.

https://www.democracynow.org/2022/1/26/jonathan_katz_book_gangsters_of_capitalism

Expand full comment

Take that, plus Papa Doc, and throw in an earthquake or two, and here we are. WHEW!

Expand full comment

How about Operation Uphold Democracy in 1994?

Expand full comment

Since the U.S. has no idea how to run a country and has proven that time and again over the last several decades, maybe somebody else's Marines should try to bring order out of the anarchy.

Expand full comment

The big question I have is, are the Kenyan troops able & good enough to accomplish this?

Expand full comment

Afghanistan.

Expand full comment

Afghanistan is a puzzle that no one has yet solved, that I've seen, not the Russians, not the US, either. Haiti has its own history, as I've noted here, and as RegularJoe has noted, the Kenyans are at least going to TRY to bring some order to chaos.

I have no idea what to expect, other than the whole operation being ugly as fuck.

Expand full comment

They need more bibles, obviously. /s

Expand full comment

We call them 'gangs,' but what would one call the American revolutionaries hiding in the woods and shooting British personnel from behind trees?

Expand full comment

The American revolutionaries were terrorists. Haiti has gangs, not trying to effect political change but merely rob the place blind. Very different issues.

Expand full comment

And above all birth control. Lots of birth control.

Expand full comment

I don't know how you get them to take it, with the Catholic church telling them not to.

Expand full comment

Let's send all the young Mormons to Haiti for their "mission!"

Expand full comment

As pointed out above, they are using the chaos, to steal children through their "orphanages".

Expand full comment

Haiti isn't just a hot mess now. It has BEEN a hot mess since the days of the Duvaliers, and possibly before then. Anyone going to that half of Hispaniola, thinking that they're just going their to help and that they'll be just fine because they pose no threat to anyone is 𝗞𝗜𝗗𝗗𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗠𝗦𝗘𝗟𝗩𝗘𝗦. I will stipulate without blinking that what happened to Natalie and Davy and Jude is tragic, because it is.

The sad part is that it was utterly predictable.

Expand full comment

When the boat lifts of the '90's were happening I was their serving aboard a vessel of Uncle Sam's Confused Group. We made a game of counting the dead dogs floating in the channel while we transited into Port-au-Prince harbor. It smelled. It was crowded. There were AK's everywhere. But I tried to remember it was somebody's home. Think of the strength needed to get into a what could barely be called a boat and try cross to the angry sea to Miami while leaving your home and loved ones.

Expand full comment

Damn. You were up close and personal with that mess. I shudder to think what that was like, and I'm sure I have no idea at that.

Expand full comment

A representative of our Embassy met us at the pier and handed a crisp 100 dollar bill to each of the 400+ people we had on deck. I was the overwatch in the bridge and as they walked down the pier (it was cacophony, every inch of pier space had a dingy, a rowboat, a trawler, a freighter, a raft in all states of repair with their crews and longshoremen and agents yelling, loading and unloading cargo and fuel - like a movie) swerving in and out of the crowd I saw what the State Department Man said to ignore - a pair of dudes with AK's collecting each Benjamin at the gangway.

¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

Expand full comment

It wouldn't surprise me if the Duvaliers came to power because it was already a hot mess. That seems to be right out of the standard dictator handbook.

Expand full comment

The nation wasn't a hot mess before the Duvalier's came to power, but after years of their rule, it was a hot mess (particularly after 'Baby Doc' Duvalier was deposed.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duvalier_dynasty

Expand full comment

I read in 'Forbes' years ago that one of Dump's biggest supporters, real estate mogul Tom Barrack, cut his teeth working for the Bass brothers helping Baby Doc 'manage' his blood money. What a guy.

Expand full comment
May 25Edited

Christian Missionaries in Haiti: At the crossroads of Delusional and Stupid.

Expand full comment

Yes, since way before then. Well over 2 centuries ago thanks to severe colonial oppression.

Expand full comment

And punishing them for overthrowing their slave-masters, no country would trade with them.

Expand full comment

"Why are missionaries even necessary in a nation that’s roughly 94% Christian already?"

They should have gone to Alabama. Same kind of audience, fewer gangs.

Expand full comment

But almost certainly WAY MORE GUNS!

Expand full comment

Can confirm. My octogenarian parents live near Mobile. They both carry concealed.

Expand full comment

I can't imagine living like that, carrying a weapon through the day. Insanity.

Expand full comment

Can they please practice on Tommy Tuberville? Coach Tuberville I mean.

Expand full comment

I thought red states were a hot bed for drug trafficking.

Expand full comment

True, but the higher murder rate there appear to be less from gang violence and more to people being assholes.

Expand full comment

Being armed to the teeth probably doesn't help matters. But guns don't kill!1

Expand full comment

I've never looked at one-are our assholes red?

Expand full comment

only in prison

Expand full comment

Usually.

Expand full comment

Oh no, according to Noem, that'd be the Dakota tribes. /s

Expand full comment

A woman who kills a dog because *SHE'S* too inept to train zir.

Expand full comment

...and who has now decided that the best thing for her to do, at this juncture in her career, with the eyes of the nation already fixed on her every misstep... to go and be an even bigger dick to the Native Americans in her state, to get back at them for telling her to fuck off: https://apnews.com/article/pronouns-tribal-affiliation-south-dakota-66efb8c6a3c57a6a02da0bf4ed575a5f

Expand full comment

Where’s the U.S. 7th Calvary when she needs them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre

Expand full comment

My only shock is that it wasn’t the University of Texas system banning pronouns. I’m sure that’s coming.

Expand full comment

I will only trust what she says when she will be dead and in a 6 feet cement coffin at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

Expand full comment

They are. Often the sherrifs run the drugs.

Expand full comment

because they're arrogant white christians.

Expand full comment

Seems to be a prerequisite.

Expand full comment

"Urgent prayer needed...." Many, many, many responses of prayer emojis and "praying" on their FB page. God seems to have ignored them all. I guess god decided it was time for them to die. Prayers don't change god's mind once it has been made up.

Expand full comment

My impression is that Yahweh doesn't give a ripe dump about them or anyone else. Then again, something that doesn't exist can't do a whole lot of fuck-all.

Expand full comment

It's worse than that. Yaweh is a sadistic asshole who 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘴 in the violence.

Expand full comment

Abrahamic gods are sick SOBs. And always men, of course.

Expand full comment

blame the Jews for patriarchy in religion

Expand full comment
May 25Edited

And then, along came Jesus. That's when the real violence started. On behalf of the merciful God himself.

Expand full comment

Nothing gets you killed like preaching peace. Ask Jesus, MLK, Gandhi and others.

Expand full comment

It interferes with the money-grubbing and control!

Expand full comment

Joe Biden is a GOOD CATHOLIC(TM).

Expand full comment

More like "urgent 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 needed."

Because I guarantee the next cheery-faced batch of missionaries is already gearing up to take their place.

Expand full comment

They died a pointless death... and what is with this call for "urgent prayer needed"? They believe in a god who knows everything, sees everything, created them and everything else in the Universe, and is supposedly everywhere at once... The god they believed in knew this was going to happen and stood there and watched it happen. Mysterious ways, indeed.

Expand full comment

It follows that the same God had them whacked.

The two biggest mistakes we've made were allowing religious maniacs and slavers a seat at the table of our national discourse.

Expand full comment

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?

Then he is impotent.

Is he able, but not willing?

Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing?

Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing?

Then why call him God?”

-Epicurus

Expand full comment

Epicurus wasa a bright guy! Imagine that, all those years ago. "There is no new thing under the Sun". - Koholet (Ecclesiastes)

Expand full comment

Thanks! I now know who to attribute this to.

Expand full comment

Even better is this one:

''If this is your God, he's not very impressive. He's got so many psychological problems; he's so insecure. He demands worship every seven days. He goes out and creates faulty humans and then blames them for his own mistakes. He's a pretty poor excuse for a supreme being.”

Spock, speaking about an alien the Enterprise encounters that may be the source of The Big Three religions on Earth in 'The God Thing', an unproduced Star Trek movie script, written in 1975 (https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/84382-i-handed-them-a-script-and-they-turned-it-down )

Expand full comment

They weren't there to "bring peace" with their school and churches. They were there to disrupt and destroy local culture by indoctrinating the people into their way of living; imposing their nonsense over whatever nonsense the locals already believe in. In Haiti, it's a mix of christianity and ancient African beliefs, including voudou. They may not have "deserved" to die, according to some, but that's what you get when you come in and shove your beliefs at people under the guise of "helping." Many people resent that kind of help.

For a real cracking good time, google 'Scientology in Haiti,' where the cult sent in untrained cult goblins to indoctrinate the locals after the big earthquake. They muddled about, completely unprepared, got in people's way, and in one case, distributed radioactive water because they were unaware that the radiology tent was using bottles of water to shield the outside from radiation.

I really disapprove of religious people swarming in to remake local cultures. There oughta be a law. But no, they just come in, planning to terraform a place into their version of a society. Little wonder some are received with hostility.

Expand full comment

And they do it all tax free!

Expand full comment

That is true crime!

Expand full comment

This!

Expand full comment

And the christian (far) right wants more indoctrination centers, including converting public schools, for this result. Where are the franklin graham, joel osteen, kenneth copeland, paula white and others who brainwashed this young couple ? Davy's father begged his son to come back. What about the couple's pastor ?

The worse is theses fabriques à gogos won't learn anything, they will triple down as long as the lives of their leaders are not endangered and the money flow.

Expand full comment

They'll be treated as martyrs by their fellow Christians. But what those same Christians should be asking and are afraid to is this: Where was their god's righteous fury? Why didn't he smite the trio's killers? After all, that god brags "Vengeance is mine. I will repay." So why silence from the clouds? Why did he so spectacularly fail to protect them?

We can ask, of course, Bu we really don't need to. We already know the answer.

Expand full comment

Y’know, this brings up an EXCELLENT point about either the non-existence of the Christian God, or the UTTER POWERLESSNESS of the Christian God.

John Chau. No “godly retribution”. Either their god doesn’t exist to dish it out, or their utterly weak god was utterly cockblocked by non-believing humans who insisted that the Sentinelese be left alone.

Expand full comment

Christians seem perfectly content to switch off their brains and just follow blindly. THAT will sometimes lead them right off the edge of a cliff.

Expand full comment

See November 2024.

Expand full comment

May the not-insane people triumph and may that toxic waste disposal in the long red tie find himself behind bars with what's left of his brain rotting away.

Expand full comment

I've had *a week*. I have no optimism left. I've even had some dark thoughts I haven't had to deal with in 3 years. One of my todos for this weekend is to update my resume and see if I can find something paying twice as much so I can move to the sinister coast or only 125% and move to Buffalo. I'm think I'm done with Texas.

Expand full comment

I rather think the godly retribution was in smiting Chau, he was going there to a people who had no exposure to outside germs, and were protected by law, for that reason. He was quite willing to kill them.

Expand full comment

There isn't anything in error in this post, but I think you missed some important issues.

1. Christians thrive on martyrdom. They turn victimization into an asset. This missionary group will likely convert these murders into successful fundraising.

2. These missionaries were predators. The objective is to gain religious converts and overthrow the existing social relations in a nation. They are neocolonial. They find the weak, like lions find the weak in a herd, and help them but with the motive to convert them. Also, to get a standing in the society they are invading as positive persons.

3. Whereas the Catholic Church in Latin American nations are fairly tolerant, these Evangelicals are there to eliminate human rights of those who aren't Evangelical. These missionaries were a danger in themselves to Haitian society. They shouldn't have been murdered, but expelled, but it needs to be recognized that Haiti has been spared from a danger.

4. These so-called gangs, did they target them to rob them? Or did they see them as a menance to Haitian society? People outside the West are fairly clear in recognizing neocolonialism. Has the Catholic church experienced these problems? Do Voodoo practicioners experience these problems?

5. I think we need to be more critical of the mainstream media narrative of what happened.

6. This practice of sending missionaries to places which put their life at risk, is part of a larger pattern of delulu attitudes towards safety. Many refuse vaccination, others want to drink raw milk. It is a death cult.

I subscribe to this newsletter because it is a valuable source of information, but I am thinking "friendly" shouldn't mean not doing a critical analysis. The current dominate formations of atheism are not protecting society from Christian aggression, and in my particular interest, not protecting the LGBT. We need to sharpen our thinking.

Expand full comment

Proud mama bear of 2 gay daughters 💖

Expand full comment

❤️👍

Expand full comment

You are spot on. Absolutely correct.

Expand full comment

I think they are preying on the children, as well as what you have pointed out, they have "orphanages" there and it is probably easy to smuggle children out in the chaos. Amy Phony Parrot has an 'adopted' Haitian child.

Expand full comment

“Why are missionaries even necessary in a nation that’s roughly 94% Christian already?”

I had this exact thought when the news broke about this couple’s murder. Then again, Haiti is largely Catholic, which probably doesn’t even count as Christian to people like these folks.

Expand full comment

That is exactly correct. I lived in an officially Catholic Central American country for a year and met the occasional missionary. They would glom onto me as a friendly face, being a gringo. When I asked why a missionary would be in an overwhelmingly Christian country, the reply was always a variation on “they aren’t really Christian.”

It might be amusing to pretend to be Catholic and talk to people in the Baptist South about becoming a real Christian.

Expand full comment

"It might be amusing to pretend to be Catholic and talk to people in the Baptist South about becoming a real Christian."

Be sure to wear your bullet-proof vest. Couple of Aussie comedians did something similar and were assaulted, though I don't think seriously injured.

Expand full comment

Pardon my asking, but is there a video on YouTube about that?

Expand full comment

Used to be. Don't know if it still exists.

Expand full comment

These missionaries are mostly (probably) Protestant-based which-if you know anything about what happened in Northern Ireland-means that they want to one-up the Catholic majority that Hati consists of.

Expand full comment