However, YouTube has quite a few seemingly professionally-produced clips of the missions by various Korean missions into the Middle East (some even by busloads of kids), which would seem to suggest that such missions would usually include a component of “faith-sharing”. Now, I’m not saying this particular mission currently in distress also had such a component in its activities conducted, but allow me to say that I wouldn’t be surprised if it did have one to certain extent.

I’ve put up your list of links as a separate post. In particular I’ve been trying to get at the extent to which the missionaries were there to spread the faith; it’s a touchy subject.

And, may I say, I quite enjoy the sparks that come from the discourse you have with various readers in both articles through the comments.

Thanks for the links! Sorry for the delay, but comments with more than a few links must be moderated, and it took me until this morning to see this.

From International Herald Tribune of UK

Video of Koreans at work in Afghanistan

For the one, the original English text is at the bottom

From International Herald Tribune of UK

From Time

Also from Time – 11 webpages long

From Der Spiegel of Germany

From Asia Times

From the Telegraph of UK

From The Daily Mail of UK

From Chosun Ilbo of South Korea

From the Turkish Press

From “The Ledger”

From “The Spec”

From “NPR”

From Christians Today, based on Reuters’ reportage

From Crosswalk

I made no comment on the Italian reporter because I hadn’t followed the story as closely as this one. I should think that a gaggle of reporters traveling in an unprotected bus on a dangerous highway in Afghanistan would be acting stupidly as well; generally, I think, the press are much more careful about their security than the Korean group were.

Like you, I find it sad that the Afghan government were willing to exchange Taliban prisoners for the reporter; it encourages and emboldens the hostage-takers. Had they not done so, perhaps the Koreans might not have been kidnapped either.

As for your “double standard” remark, if I understand you correctly, you’re suggesting that I’m judging the Koreans more harshly because they were on a religiously motivated mission, rather than a secular, journalistic one. Well, to some extent you may be right; I’m sure, for example, that if these kids had gone to Afghanistan to try to get the locals to become Scientologists, or atheists, your own partisan support for their project might have been undercut ever so slightly too. As a secular sort myself, I do see reporting the news, or delivering humanitarian assistance, as being of greater intrinsic value than converting people from one religious cult to another. But I do also understand that everyone acts according to their own vision of what matters, and people may disagree. Like everyone else’s, my opinions are informed by my own values.

My criticism, though, is really only about their spectacular naiveté and foolhardiness, which so far has got two of them killed, greatly discomfited their own and the Afghan government, given leverage to the vile Taliban, and caused a good deal of unnecessary suffering generally.

Finally, I’m not sure what you mean by “siding with” the Koreans. Of course Salim and I – and all civilized people – are sickened by their plight and hope that they will be returned safely. They were fools to do what they did in the way they did it, but they certainly do not deserve to be slaughtered by brutal fanatics for their unwisdom.

As I have said over and over, it is the Taliban who are the morally culpable party here.

Salim, i guess what you’re trying to say is that “A dog returns to its vomit, and a sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud.” (2 Peter 2:22) or “As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.” (Proverbs 26:11)
Thanks for siding with the Korean aid workers Salim. If you weren’t, then you need to refine your logic for a bit.

I don’t know quite what to add to that story, other than that I suppose it proves the old adage that you are what you eat.

There are a couple of morals here (which are well covered by the discussion), but this whole incident reminded me of those Sumatran Christian Cannibals.

I’m sure you can find other forums, as well as nations, that are more to your liking.

Sadly, I can’t say I await your response with any expectation, as I can’t imagine anything other than the typical “monkey out of the hat” where any and all misdeeds can be expunged through the glories of institutional capitalist democracy: “Yes, well, we may kill in record numbers but… we have “courts martial”, “trials by juries of peers,” “fair and free elections” and a rocking GDP to boot! And many immigrants want to come to our shores!” All true facts no doubt, but utterly irrelevant to the charges at hand. Those charges would be this – that the US has killed far more people, in far more heinous circumstances (and not even on its own land!) but remains within the circle of civilization, while the Taliban comes in for the most vicious condemnation possible, dehumanization and rhetoric that echoes the worst of the West’s racist, imperialist past.

Far from taking the blame away from the Taliban, as Kevin believes, it logically extends the blame and ridicules the posturing from those who defend far worse crimes done in one’s own name. Such a move is hardly guilty of “ignoring the complexities,” the typical evasion offered when the harsh gaze gets turned inward, instead, this critical position takes the complexities far beyond where one’s personal comfort level can endure… and hence, we’ll get a litany of rationalizations and rhetorical flim-flam that will do everything but actually debunk the charges at hand.

Finally, one need not be Ward Churchill, or even of the left, to take on “the sins of the father.” My war veteran Grandpa, ol’ timey crusty Republican that he is, has enough sense to be able to call a spade a spade, and has commented that the likes of this hearty blustering against the Taliban is but a diversion to distract from the US’s own catastrophic failure during this particular historical moment. Maybe Grandpa’s become a tenured radical in his golden years. Or maybe he’s able to see with clarity the sad facts of history’s pitiful ironies.

All this deserves a detailed and thoughtful response, which I am, sadly, unable to offer at the moment, as I am at work today and traveling this evening. It will have to wait for my next chance to write. Monday at the latest.

2. did not argue that the Taliban are blameless or above judgment, seriously or otherwise. I did argue that our grounds for making outrageous claims about the humanity of the Taliban based on this case are shaky, based on related claims in history. I also inquired into the rights anyone had to enter their territory and what rights outsiders would have to demand that the Taliban allow certain behaviors or visitors on their lands. Did the Taliban not make it pretty clear that outsiders and non co-religionists should stay out of their land? The US/Korean governments got the message, By what right do we declare that their declaration is invalid?

3. specifically did NOT argue for moral relativism, in fact, argued the opposite. If we hold the Taliban to such and such a standard, such that murder of innocents equals exile from the “circle of humanity,” let’s hold it across the board, through time and space. Let’s condemn the slave-holding presidents of the USA, or, if that doesn’t work for you, how about the helpless victims who suffered at the hands of the U.S. military in Bagram, Abu Ghraib, Ramadi, or Guantanamo.

I hold no truck for either the wicked Taliban or the ruthless U.S. imperialists. I’d prefer to live without either and I will not engage in the moral relativism that allows some to arrogantly dehumanize one while defending the other. Should the Taliban step one inch into my nation and try to assert their law where my citizenship holds sway, I will fight them to the death. But I will not engage in the imperialistic project that maintains for itself the right to determine which laws and which standards will operate over the entire face of the planet. Granted, genocide muddies the waters significantly, but what the Taliban is engaged in here certainly doesn’t reach that standard, and in fact, pales to the crimes of the United States. Thus, I state again, until the righteous condemnation levied here is brought down equally against a state guilty of far greater crimes, I will certainly maintain the charge of racism and imperialism – not because I respect their culture, but because I respect my own.

I’m not anti-Islamic, and it would be embarrassingly simplistic to think that hatred of the Taliban somehow equates to anti-Islamic attitudes, even among “a certain segment of the West.” For some prejudiced souls, maybe Taliban-hatred and Islam-hatred are the same, but there’s no necessary connection between the two.

But if you’re seriously arguing that the Taliban are somehow blameless or above judgment, well… I don’t know what to say to that. Condemnation of the Taliban isn’t an exclusively Western phenomenon, so let’s not turn this into a bogus argument about paternalistic “Orientalism” in the West. The Taliban are free human beings, gifted with choice, who are responsible for everything they do.

Respecting another culture is one thing; using moral relativism to justify the murder of unarmed people is something else. Condemning the murder of helpless victims isn’t chest-puffing.

Brian,

I’m assuming we’re on the same page, then. If Pastor Bae was one of the organizers (was he?), then a certain portion of blame does go to him. Verily, he has his reward.

Kevin

By “trip organizers,” are you referring to the team leader who was the first to die a few days ago, the guy currently being lionized by the Korean press (no doubt his church has the hagiography going to the presses as I type this) as a selfless individual who cared more for his young charges than himself. BUllshit!

THere isn’t a thesaurus big enough to give a writer enough synonyms for “stupid” to explain what these people did, all under the “leadership” of Pastor Bae. Besides the obvious danger of losing their own lives, their actions have no doubt fueled, or will fuel, more sectarian strife; caused a great deal of suffering to their family, friends, and fellow Koreans; and as the cherry on top of this enourmous mess, they have put their country smack dab in the middle of an international incident with various countries taking sides and the diabolical Taliban smack dab in the middle no doubt enjoying all the attention and leverage they now hold. What’s the upside? The church now has a few pictures of their members “witnessing” to poor Afghans? At what cost?

If Pastor Bae really, genuinely cared about his sheep, he would never have taken them to Af-fuckin-ghanistan. There are plenty of much safer alternatives to taking impressionable youth to that hornet’s nest.

Brian

Check out my friend Charles’s comment over at this post on Dr. Hodges’s blog. It’s relevant to your current exchange.

Kevin

Well, we’ve beaten this pretty much to death, but I do feel the need to respond.

I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear. I think there’s no logical error in what I said, if we assume that the parties in question are not merely employees or other nonbelieving functionaries of an evangelical organization, but are themselves evangelical Christians. Perhaps you are suggesting that such an assumption is unwarranted, but this is the impression I have gathered from all the news accounts I’ve read.

As for what an evangelical is, all my previous experience, as well as every definition I have been able to adduce, supports the notion that an evangelical Christian is one who considers it a basic tenet of his faith that a good Christian ought, as Jesus says in the Gospel of Mark, to go “into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature”. Even in nonreligious usage, an “evangelist” is someone who lobbies others to see the benefits of some new product, business method, or political viewpoint. That the term “evangelism” implies a belief in the importance of trying to bring others around to your faith is, I think, beyond dispute. I was just kidding about polling the audience; it was just my way of saying that I think most people would agree.

While it may well be that there are members of evangelical organizations whose task within the organization is not specifically to proselytize, a faithful member of an evangelical church must, I think it’s safe to say, share its core values, or wouldn’t be there at all. (There are lots of religions to choose from, after all.) Among those core values is the importance of spreading the Gospel of Christ, which is considered the greatest possible gift, for those who do not accept Christ as Saviour are doomed for all eternity.

So I fail to see how an evangelical missionary (not the janitor who cleans the church, but a missionary, mind you), surrounded by those who have not yet accepted Christ, would not be moved to share his faith, in the hope of offering salvation.

Therefore, either A) they do so, or B) they do not, which I characterized as maintaining “taciturn silence” (redundant, perhaps) on religious matters. It’s one or the other.

In other words, either they speak about their religion, or they don’t. Perhaps the loophole you have in mind is that they might speak about it in some way that falls somehow short of “spreading God’s word”. But given what evangelicism is, that would still be a conscious withholding of the message. Which is what I meant. Again, I’m sorry if I didn’t make that clear.