The Missionary Position

Once upon a time there was a tribe who lived in the forest.  They rarely had any contact with outsiders, except for the two neighbouring tribes with whom they exchanged food, women and occasionally had ‘wars’ – ritual skirmishes in which a cut or a graze was the most serious injury expected.  They were born, grew up, married and had children of their own and then retired to being elders who sat around the fire and talked about how much better things were when they were young.  They farmed the local land and foraged for roots and plants, always producing enough food so that nobody went hungry.

Occasionally the men would go out hunting and bring back a pig, which the women would ceremonially roast and all would have a great feast, washed down with a drink they made from a forest vine.  They’d drink, dance, drink more, dance more, drink even more, fall down and sleep.  Next day they’d wake up and carry on just as before. 

When someone became too old or too sick they said goodbye to their close relatives and walked off into the forest.  They never came back.  They were mourned for a day and then life carried on.

They respected the spirits of the forest but if you asked them where they came from or why they were there they would have shrugged and said the question was irrelevant.  They were happy, though they wouldn’t have known what the term meant.

Then one day two missionaries arrived in the village. 

The tribe welcomed them, as they did any visitors.  The missionaries, it seemed, wanted to stay, so the tribe found them a hut and settled them in, sharing their food with them and making sure they joined in all the village life as best they could, not sharing a common language.  They even offered them girls as bedfellows, and when these were politely refused they offered them boys instead.  These, too, were refused, which puzzled the tribe, but they did not fret about it, knowing that outsiders had strange ways.

Slowly the missionaries learned to communicate.  And when they did they told the tribe that a person called Jesus had died for their sins.  The tribe had difficulties with this, not knowing what Sins were, so the missionaries tried to explain.

Sin, they said, was stealing something.  This caused great puzzlement because the tribe held everything they owned in common.  Nobody owned anything, not even the (few) clothes they wore.  If you needed something and it was available you just helped yourself.  So how could you steal? 

The missionaries tried again.  Sin was telling lies.  But again, the tribe were much puzzled because nobody ever told anything other than the truth.  They had no concept of deceit.  They didn’t even tell white lies.  If you re-fashioned your hair or put leaves on your head and it made you look stupid everybody just laughed at you.

Finally the missionaries said that God had set rules for how people should live and that Sin was disobeying these rules.  So the tribe asked to be told about these rules, and the missionaries explained. 

They said that everyone should set time aside every day to speak to this God and ask him for help with things.  They said that everything must have an owner and nobody should take what belonged to anybody else.  They said that there should be no more of the drink made from forest vines that made you happy and then fall down.  They said that sex should be restricted to one man and one woman who were joined together by something called a marriage.  And they said that everyone in the village, without exception, had to come together one day in every seven to sing songs to this God and thank him for all the things he had provided for them.

The tribe were amazed by this.  It all seemed so strange.  They thought the things they had were the fruits of their hard work, but now they were told they were all given to them by this God?  They couldn’t see why everything needed an owner because surely that meant that those that needed the thing might not have it?  And what was wrong with the forest vine drink, which made you happy and then fall down?  And surely it couldn’t be right that a man and a woman had to restrict themselves to each other when there were so many other men and women to have fun with?

But as they thought about it they decided that the missionaries must be telling them the truth because why otherwise would they have come into the forest to pass on the message?  After much deliberation this view held sway and they resolved to commit to this ‘Christ’ and follow the rules of God. 

The men and the women paired up as best they could, even though this meant severing some long held relationships, and underwent a mass marriage ceremony.  They would have celebrated this occasion with lots of the forest vine drink, but now they just drank water and fruit juice, which seemed a bit flat but they knew it was God’s will.  And they hunted and killed a pig, and stopped afterwards to thank God for providing it for them, and then cooked and ate the meat but didn’t feast or celebrate because that wasn’t God’s will.  Instead the missionaries led them in prayer and preached to them about how terrible their sins were and how much they needed the help of Jesus to get better.  And they all listened and tried to understand.

One day a young man of the tribe decided he should no longer be naked so he went into the missionaries’ hut and put on a pair of their trousers.  The missionaries saw him wearing the trousers and called a meeting of the tribe.  They said the young man had committed a ‘crime’ by stealing the trousers.  The missionaries had to explain again the concept of ownership and possession, and this time the tribe understood, and from that moment all the items in the village were assigned to somebody and became theirs.  Most took just what they needed but a few took much more than they needed and thus became wealthy.  And when the wealthy were asked for use of their possessions because somebody else needed them they demanded food or work in return and thus had more food than they needed and didn’t need to work themselves.

Within a few weeks, helped by the missionaries, the tribe had an economy in operation, with goods and services being bought and sold.  The wealthy got wealthier and the others had to work hard from dawn to dusk to get enough to eat.  The elderly and the sick suffered most because they couldn’t work.  A few of the wealthy gave food to these, and the missionaries said it was called Charity and was a good thing to do.

And every seventh day they all met in a special hut and praised God for all the good things he had given them and were told what terrible sinners they still were.  And they all listened and tried to understand.

Forced by hunger the poorest people began stealing small amounts of food.  Ashamed by their nakedness when others now wore fine clothes, the poorest began stealing clothes too.  They were brought before the missionaries and punishments were assigned – more work for no pay, which made them even poorer, but this was God’s way and everyone accepted it.

Also a few of the men and women who had been separated by the new marriage rules found they could not keep apart.  They began seeing each other behind the backs of their respective wives and husbands.  Extreme secrecy was needed in a community where everyone pretty-much knew everything, and inevitably one couple were caught.  They were brought before the missionaries and lectured about what awful sinners they were, and then publicly flogged with creeper-vines to teach them to behave.

Soon it became necessary to build a special hut with a secure door and windows where people could be put for a few days to punish them for their sins.

It was enlarged a few weeks later.

For the wealthy few, life was good.  They did little work, using their wealth to buy what they needed and wanted.  They enlarged their huts and spent their days relaxing and playing games.  For the rest the day began before dawn and ended well after dark, using flaming torches to work the farms well into the night.  They prayed to the God for relief from their life, but when they asked the missionaries why no answer came and nothing changed they were chastised for their impatience and told that their reward would come after they died, in a place called Heaven, where you went after death if you had worked hard and stayed faithful to God’s laws in your life. 

One day one of the women, destitute because she could not work and nobody would give her charity because she had been caught having sex with another woman’s husband, walked out into the forest and, with a rope made from twisted vine, hanged herself.  When her body was found the villagers sadly brought it back, not knowing what to do next.  The missionaries said that taking one’s own life was the biggest of sins, and that the woman’s body must be taken far into the forest and thrown into the river for the Crocodiles to eat.  The missionaries explained that life was sacred and that nobody could take their own life for fear of eternal punishment – they would not go to Heaven and would be consigned to Hell for eternity, which was a very long time.  And from then on, however destitute or sick people became, they could not take their own lives and had to live on in misery until God decided it was time for them to die.  Some of the scarce farmland was given over to a ‘cemetery’ and the bodies of the dead were buried there.

And every seventh day everyone, (wealthy and poor alike, though the wealthy sat at the front on stools fashioned from wood, while the others sat on the floor at the back), met in the special hut, which had been greatly enlarged and decorated, and praised God for all the good things he had given them and were told what terrible sinners they all remained.  And they all listened and tried to understand.

Too soon, their work done, it became time for the missionaries to move on.  The tribe were concerned that there would be nobody to keep them on God’s right path, but the missionaries had thought of this.  They trained up a few members of the tribe to lead the weekly services and watch out to make sure people kept to the rules of God.  They called these people ‘priests’ and they had special large huts and did no work, being fed and finely clothed by small donations from the wealthy and larger forced contributions from the workers (it was called ‘tax’).

There was a big prayer meeting with much singing and praising of God and then the missionaries left the tribe.

The missionaries moved on through the forest and after walking for many days they came across another tribe, very much like the first in culture and behaviour.  The elders welcomed them in and sat them by the fire to hear what they had to say.  The language of the new tribe was also very similar to that of the first, so the missionaries were able to communicate immediately.  As they sat around the fire they told the new tribe about Jesus and God and his rules and were listened to intently. 

When they had finished they looked to the tribal leader for his decision, and he smiled at them.  Then he made a signal.  Immediately the missionaries were tied up, beheaded and put into the cooking pot.  The tribe had a great feast, drank copious quantities of the forest vine drink, danced and fell down.  When they woke up again the next morning they carried on exactly as before.

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