Father of Vancouver-Based Missionary Killed by Bow and Arrow Last November Says Christian Evangelicalism Is to Blame

“If you have [anything] positive to say about religion,” Chau’s father told The Guardian, “l wish not to see or hear” it.

John Chau in the North Cascades in 2017 (from his Facebook page)

New profiles of John Allen Chau, the Vancouver, Wash.-based missionary who was killed last November in attempts to convert the inhabitants of North Sentinel Island to Christianity, continue to seek the meaning of the evangelist's demise.

Reporting by The Guardian makes the argument that "extreme" Christianity is to blame for Chau's death. The article pores over Chau's private, handwritten diaries and blog posts and interviews with the church that radicalized him.

Patrick Chau, John's father, tells The Guardian that his son's religious zeal was a point of contention between the two of them. He calls religion "the opium of the mass[es]," and tells reporter J Oliver Conroy, "If you have [anything] positive to say about religion, l wish not to see or hear" it.

Related: Vancouver Man Who Ventured Onto Forbidden Island Wrote Home: "I Think It's Worth It to Declare Jesus to These People"

Mary Ho, the leader of All Nations, the evangelical organization that trained Chau, says he was a martyr. In an interview with the New York Times, she says Chau was one of the best trainees she'd seen in a missionary boot camp that staged village encounters with "hostile natives."

Other analysis, like one from Canadian magazine The Walrus, use Chau's death an as a cautionary tale, outlining the dangerous consequences of American entitlement abroad.

Related: Washington Missionary Killed on Remote Island Had Spent Years Preparing for Trip

"Does a lack of religious zeal change the tenor of his expedition?" the magazine asks. "Not at all. Chau's escapade, in the name of God or not, was nothing more than a violation: he was just another person who believed that the world was his to do whatever he wanted in and with."

Both profiles are worth reading in their entirety. Find The Guardian's exploration of the strong hold evangelism had on Chau here, and read The Walrus' critique of American thrill-seeking by way of traveling places they should not here.

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