The death of the Christian Missionary, John Allen Chau, at the hands of the aboriginal Sentinelese tribe has sparked a whole host of reactions across the world. While most say that Chau was horribly misguided to even attempt to convert the tribe in the first place, some are calling him a ‘martyr’ for the Christian faith.
https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1065510709327474688?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Apart from friends and family, fellow Christians are dubbing Chau a ‘martyr’ as well who risked ‘everything to share the good news with a tribe who has no known contact with the outside world’.
https://twitter.com/PaulWorcester/status/1065460351762751488?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Devout Christians are also calling Chau a ‘wonderful martyr’ and claim that he will go ‘straight to heaven’.
https://twitter.com/biblicalbelief/status/1065640749662969856?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/Desirel/status/1065617164856713217?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/danielking100/status/1065376730054098944?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/TheBodyguard777/status/1065251804450045952?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
It appears that the Sentinelese have been on the radar of Christian Missionaries for a while now. Joshua Project, a non-profit, that documents every ethnic group under the Sun and the prevalence of Christianity among them, lists the Sentinelese in their database as well. The page dedicated to the Sentinelese states, “Sentinelese people need to know that Creator God exists and that He loves them and paid the price for their sins.”
The page also states, “Pray that the Indian Government will allow Christians to earn the trust of the Sentinelese people and that they will be permitted to live among them.” It adds, “Pray that God will open doors to Sentinelese people to receive the gospel message.” Under such circumstance, it is no surprise that even a zealot like Chau is being dubbed a ‘martyr’.
As we have reported earlier, Chau had risked the existence of the entire tribe by coming in contact with them as he could have transmitted pathogens the Sentinelese had no immunity to. He risked it to ‘establish the kingdom of Jesus on the island’.