The premise of Christianity is a bit crazy.
The basic idea is that the son of God is actually an unemployed carpenter who wandered the desert 2,000 years ago with a dozen random dudes. According to converts, this shaggy-looking man in sandals was named Jesus and was crucified, died, and was buried. Three days later, he rose from the dead and now sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.
Offer him your eternal soul: receive everlasting life. Forsake the world: make disciples of all nations. That’s pretty much the gist of the most populous religion, the one that remade the world.
Don’t get me wrong, there is plenty of evidence to support the argument that Jesus was Lord, not lunatic. The historical record. The multiple first-hand witnesses. But perhaps one of the strongest arguments for the truth of Christianity are the martyrs who keep dying. Stephen was stoned. John Huss was burned at the stake. Nate Saint died at the end of a tribesman’s spear.
All are martyrs for Christ and their deaths, a testament to the truth of Christianity. Add to the list John Allen Chau.
That 27-year-old missionary tried to make contact with tribesmen on North Sentinel Island and convert them to Christianity. The tribe is primitive, cut off from the rest of the world, and hostile. He was not successful.
According to recovered writings, Chau attempted to make contact multiple times before retreating to a kayak anchored just off shore. One tribesman attacked with a knife. Another shot an arrow at his Bible piercing through the pages to the Book of Isaiah. Chau was not deterred. He writes in one entry that “the eternal lives of this tribe is [sic] at hand.” In another, that his parents “might think I’m crazy.”
Chau was last seen on Nov. 17. His lifeless body at the end of a rope being dragged through the sand by a Sentinelese tribesman. In the end, he was right. Chau was crazy and that made him a martyr. It also makes him a bit of a fool.
Chau’s body is moldering somewhere on a tropical island as a result of his efforts. He didn’t make much of a plan. He didn’t have a support team. He couldn’t even speak the language, shouting instead a few lines of Xhosa, a South African dialect spoken thousands of miles away, upon first contact. In short, he needed a miracle that never came.
Sentinelese have a reputation of hostility toward outsiders. A fisherman was killed in 2006 when his boat accidentally ran ashore there. For the better part of a century, outsiders met similar fates. Chau is only the latest.
Of course, it didn’t have to be this way. Chau could have followed the example of Saint and company, for instance, as told in the book Through Gates of Splendor. Those more rational missionaries slowly and incrementally made contact with the Waodani tribe of Ecuador, learning the language before sharing the Gospel. They ended up martyrs, yes, but they did not throw away their lives. Chau, on the other hand, was dead the moment he stepped on shore.
Now the international community struggles with whether or not they should recover the remains. Initial efforts have faced resistance on and off the island. The tribesmen have rebuffed a recovery team and experts warn that further contact could actually doom the tribesmen because their immune systems are not equipped to rebuff modern microbes.
Chau’s example is still inspiring. He was wrong to risk everything so recklessly. He was right to love the Sentinelese tribe, men and women he had never met. Chau believed the Scripture. In a way, he was crazy. Perhaps his body should remain on the island as a testament to that fact.
