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''The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice'' is an essay by the British-American journalist and polemicist Christopher Hitchens published in 1995. It is a critique of the work and philosophy of Mother Teresa, the founder of an international Roman Catholic religious congregation, and it challenges the mainstream media's assessment of her charitable efforts. In length more a pamphlet than a book, it was re-issued in paperback and ebook form with a foreword by Thomas Mallon in 2012. The book's thesis, as summarized by one critic, was that "Mother Teresa is less interested in helping the poor than in using them as an indefatigable source of wretchedness on which to fuel the expansion of her fundamentalist Roman Catholic beliefs."〔 The response to Hitchens's arguments fell largely upon ideological lines, with some critics contesting his evidence and others his understanding of the religious phenomenon Mother Teresa represented. ==Background== Other authors preceded Hitchens' criticisms of Mother Teresa's work. In 1980, Barbara Smoker, ex-President of the UK National Secular Society, wrote "Mother Teresa – Sacred Cow?", which derided her stance on abortion and contraception while conceding her "obvious sincerity" and calling her "an amazing woman, a warm human being."〔''The Freethinker'', February 1980〕 Germaine Greer chose Mother Teresa as her "villain" in a "Heroes and Villains" feature in the Saturday magazine of ''The Independent''. She called her a "religious imperialist" who used her charity to foist Catholicism on the vulnerable. Hitchens addressed the subject of Mother Teresa on several occasions before publishing ''The Missionary Position''. In 1992 he devoted one of his regular columns in ''The Nation'' to her.〔"Mother Teresa: Ghoul of Calcutta", ''The Nation'', April 1992, reprinted in ''For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports'' (Verso, 1994)〕 In 1993 he discussed her during an interview on C-SPAN's ''Booknotes'', noting public reaction: "If you touch the idea of sainthood, especially in this country, people feel you've taken something from them personally. I'm fascinated because we like to look down on other religious beliefs as being tribal and superstitious but never dare criticize our own." In 1994 he contributed to a 25-minute essay broadcast on British television.〔"Hell's Angel", shown on 8 November 1994 on Channel Four in its arts series "Without Walls".〕 A ''New York Times'' critic thought the show should provoke other journalists to visit Calcutta and conduct their own investigations. He recounted his work on the television production in ''Vanity Fair'' in early 1995.〔Christopher Hitchens, "Mother Teresa and Me", ''Vanity Fair'', February 1995〕 In the foreword to ''The Missionary Position'', he described these activities as "early polemics", part of "a battle"〔''The Missionary Position'', "Foreword", page xii〕 and estimated that ''The Missionary Position'' represented an expansion of the television script "by about a third".〔Interview with Matt Cherry, ''Free Inquiry'', Volume 16, Number 4. Fall 1996〕 The back cover of first edition carried several of the customary blurbs praising the book as well as one that quoted the ''New York Press'': "If there is a hell, Hitchens is going there for this book." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Missionary Position」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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