Man tries to convert Lions to Christianity

[younggiftedandblack]

An image taken from television shows a man being attacked by a lion after he crossed a barbed wire fence to "preach" to two of the animals at the Taipei Zoo on Wednesday


Updated: 5:51 a.m. ET Nov. 3, 2004

TAIPEI, Taiwan - A man leaped into a lion’s den at the Taipei Zoo on Wednesday to try to convert the king of beasts to Christianity, but was bitten in the leg for his efforts.
“Jesus will save you!” shouted the 46-year-old man at two African lions lounging under a tree a few meters away.
“Come bite me!” he said with both hands raised, television footage showed.
One of the lions, a large male with a shaggy mane, bit the man in his right leg before zoo workers drove it off with water hoses and tranquilizer guns.
Newspapers said that the lions had been fed earlier in the day, otherwise the man might have been more seriously hurt ... or worse.

[bluemonq]

personally, i think this article speaks for itself...

[SunWuKong]

hahhah! if he's going to be crazy anyway, he should have stuck with Falun Gong.
oh but then he might have tried to hand out "Free Falun Gong" pamphlets to the lions.

[yoMAMA]

haha.....and jesus didn't come to save him?

[Kris]

Originally Posted by yoMAMA

haha.....and jesus didn't come to save him?

he only saves people that are pure. obviously, the guy has sinned somehow

[Banana]

The male lion should have chewed his nads off. That would be choice comedy.

[Emperor_Mike]

I'd like to have him for a neighbour. He'd be a hoot and a half.

Clearly he's not familiar with early Christians in the Roman Empire.

"Jesus will save you! JESUS WILL SAVE YOU! OH MY GOD! MY LEG! IT HAS MY LEG IN ITS JAW! OH THE HUMANITY!"

[kimpossible]

I think his next converts should be sea crocs. After that, great white sharks. Be fun to see what finally eats him.

[Mr.Lum]

What an idiot.

[fossilfuel]

Lucky that lion was a Buddhist :)

[DragonKnight]

Originally Posted by Emperor_Mike

I'd like to have him for a neighbour. He'd be a hoot and a half.

Clearly he's not familiar with early Christians in the Roman Empire.

"Jesus will save you! JESUS WILL SAVE YOU! OH MY GOD! MY LEG! IT HAS MY LEG IN ITS JAW! OH THE HUMANITY!"

Lol, sheer comedy. Oh the joy of dealing with fanatics.

[yoMAMA]

Originally Posted by kimpossible

I think his next converts should be sea crocs. After that, great white sharks. Be fun to see what finally eats him.

LOL....god has a plan, afterall, and it is divine.

[s1eve]

Poor lions, I totally empathise with them. Makes me want to bite them preachers everytime they come knockin' on my door.

[hooligan]

too many christian fundamentalists
not enough lions.

I KID.

[yellowperilgirl]

[b]Korean Missionaries Carrying Word to Hard-to-Sway Places
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
The New York Times
Published: November 1, 2004

AMMAN, Jordan - A South Korean missionary here speaks of introducing
Jesus in a "low voice and with wisdom" to Muslims, the most difficult
group to convert. In Baghdad, South Koreans plan to open a seminary
even after Iraqi churches have been bombed in two recent coordinated
attacks. In Beijing, they defy the Chinese government to smuggle
North Koreans to Seoul while turning them into Christians.

South Korea has rapidly become the world's second largest source of
Christian missionaries, only a couple of decades after it started
deploying them. With more than 12,000 abroad, it is second only to
the United States and ahead of Britain.

The Koreans have joined their Western counterparts in more than 160
countries, from the Middle East to Africa, from Central to East Asia.
Imbued with the fervor of the born again, they have become known for
aggressively going to - and sometimes being expelled from - the
hardest-to-evangelize corners of the world. Their actions are at odds
with the foreign policy of South Korea's government, which is trying
to rein them in here and elsewhere.

It is the first time that large numbers of Christian missionaries
have been deployed by a non-Western nation, one whose roots are
Confucian and Buddhist, and whose population remains two-thirds non-
Christian. Unlike Western missionaries, whose work dovetailed with
the spread of colonialism, South Koreans come from a country with
little history of sending people abroad until recently. They
proselytize, not in their own language, but in the local one or
English.

"There is a saying that when Koreans now arrive in a new place, they
establish a church; the Chinese establish a restaurant; the Japanese,
a factory," said a South Korean missionary in his 40's, who has
worked here for several years and, like many others, asked not to be
identified because of the dangers of proselytizing in Muslim
countries.

In Iraq, eight South Korean missionaries were briefly kidnapped in
April. Then, in June, Kim Sun Il, a 33-year-old man who had planned
to do missionary work, was taken hostage and beheaded. In July,
nearly 460 North Korean defectors arrived in South Korea, thanks to a
smuggling network set up by missionaries in China.

In 1979, only 93 South Koreans were serving as missionaries,
according to the Korea Research Institute for Missions. Compared with
South Korea's 12,000, there are about 46,000 American and 6,000
British missionaries, according to missionary organizations in South
Korea and the West.

Roman Catholicism first came to the Korean Peninsula in the late 18th
century, followed a century later by Protestant missionaries from the
United States. Christianity failed to set firm roots in Japan and
China, where 19th-century missionaries were seen as agents of Western
imperialism. But it spread quickly on the Korean Peninsula, where
American missionaries helped Korean nationalists fight against
Japanese colonial rulers and informed the outside world of the
brutalities of Japanese colonialism.

It was only in the last two decades, however, with the growth of the
South Korean economy and its newly democratic government's decision
to allow its citizens to travel freely overseas, that South Korean
Christianity took on a missionary gloss.

Today, an equal number of missionaries are born again or members of
Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptists denominations, said Steve S. C.
Moon, executive director of the Korea Research Institute for
Missions. These missionaries, like their Western counterparts, tend
to focus on activities that are evangelical, educational and medical,
and their beliefs are far more traditional than those of newer sects
like the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, the Korean-rooted
movement.

A typical case is the Presbyterian Onnuri Church, founded 19 years
ago with the main purpose of training missionaries. It now has 500 in
53 countries, though it focuses on China, Indonesia and India, said
Kim Joong Won, director of its missionary program.

Until June, Onnuri had a church in Baghdad where Kim Sun Il, who was
beheaded, had gone to worship.

"He is a martyr to God's glory," said Mr. Moon of the research
institute. "Korean missionaries are eager to do God's work and
glorify God. They want to die for God."

Because religious visas are difficult to obtain in the Middle East,
many come on student visas or set up computer or other businesses,
and evangelize discreetly.

One Korean who has worked here several years and spoke of
evangelizing in a "low voice and with wisdom," said that over
intimate meals with three or four Muslims he would let the
conversation drift to Jesus. So delicate is his work that he never
mentions words like "missionary" or "evangelize." Muslims who have
converted to Christianity are never identified as such - a necessary
precaution in a society where some families engage in so-called honor
killings of relatives who have left Islam.

Many missionaries also focus on bringing Arab Catholics or Chaldeans
into the evangelical fold.

"There are so many ways to do our work," said the missionary in his
40's, who works in a local church in Amman and delivers English
sermons that are translated into Arabic.

"Just as American missionaries did in Korea by building schools and
hospitals, there are many ways here," he said. "One important group
is Iraqi refugees. They come here. They are tired physically and
spiritually. They are so lonely. We help them. They realize they are
being helped by Christians. Then they ask about Jesus."

About 30 missionary families have settled here in Amman. Others wait
to return to Iraq, which they left in June under intense pressure
from the South Korean government. John Jung has been working with an
Iraqi pastor, Estawri Haritounian, 40, to open a seminary at the
National Protestant Evangelical Church in Baghdad.

"Saddam Hussein's regime allowed Christians to gather in private
houses, so it was difficult, though possible, for us to evangelize,"
said Mr. Jung, who has been traveling in and out of Iraq for several
years. "But now it has become even more difficult for Christians in
Iraq. Christians are afraid of Muslims for the first time. We are
frustrated we can't be in Iraq at this important time. But as soon as
the security allows, we will go back to Baghdad."

In Baghdad, Mr. Haritounian explained recently that the church had
been founded half a century ago with the help of British
missionaries. American missionaries replaced them later and were in
turn succeeded by South Koreans.

"We dreamed this dream, Pastor John and I, to start a seminary in
Baghdad," said Mr. Haritounian, showing eight completed, though
empty, classrooms.

Mr. Jung, in Amman, said they hoped to start classes as soon as the
security improved in Baghdad. "We'll start with only 15 students, but
we hope to grow in the future," he said.

Many in Amman said South Koreans had an advantage over others,
especially now that the war in Iraq has aggravated anti-American
feelings in the Middle East.

"People expect missionaries to be from America or Europe, so Koreans
can do their work quietly," Mr. Haritounian said. "Because of the bad
image of Americans now, it will be more difficult for American
missionaries to work here."

Dennis Merdian, 50, an American missionary, said that in one
difficult project he and a South Korean counterpart agreed
immediately that it would be better for the South Korean to take the
lead.

"He wasn't carrying the American government with him," Mr. Merdian
said.

But because of their short history of living overseas, some South
Koreans expect that other cultures will behave the same way their own
does and that Christianity will spread abroad as quickly as it did in
South Korea, said Mr. Moon of the Korea Research Institute for
Missions.

"Western missionaries tend to carry a sense of guilt because of their
imperialist past," he said. "But Koreans don't have that historical
baggage, and they are not inhibited in reaching out to people with
the Gospel. So in their missionary work, they tend not to consult the
local people, but make decisions in one direction."

Shadi Samir, 28, a Jordanian pastor who has worked with South Koreans
and recently visited Seoul, said he had seen inexperienced
missionaries commit cultural blunders.

"They come here full of energy and go out on the streets where they
approach women and tell them Jesus loves them," Mr. Samir said. "By
making such mistakes, they create problems not only for themselves
and other Koreans, but also for us."

Kim Dong Moon, a missionary who works in the Middle East and also
writes about the missionary movement, said some South Korean
missionaries had been deported from the Middle East and ended up on
blacklists.

"There are some pushy Korean missionaries whose approach is: 'Come to
the Kingdom of God now! Or, go to hell,' " Mr. Kim said recently in
Seoul.

In China, South Koreans concentrate on converting the Chinese, as
well as the ethnic North Koreans living in northeastern China. After
they are smuggled out of China to South Korea, though, only about a
third of the North Koreans continue practicing Christianity,
missionaries said. Other South Koreans train North Korean Christians
to return to the North to spread the Gospel.

"North Korea, which is occupied by the devil Kim Jong Il, is the
biggest target of our missionary work," said Kim Sang Chul, president
of the Commission to Help North Korean Refugees, a Christian
organization.

The missionary here in Amman in his 40's said that, in his previous
posting in the Philippines, he was awed when he saw American
missionaries fly to remote islands and, wherever they spotted signs
of life in the jungle below, drop food packets as the first contact
with what missionaries call "unreached people."

"So even here, it is very difficult, but not impossible," he
said. "We are planting one church at a time."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/01/inter...onaries.ht
ml?pagewanted=all&position=

yellowperilgirl