Why is it okay for missionaries to lie?

[HoreTore]

You looked it up on the Nigerian census?

Read the report - the "Native" doctor declared the boy dead. The witchdoctor said the boy was dead, the parents took him to the mission and after three days he woke up.

Who is the pastor holding in the photograph? His own son?

THINK critically, there is no evidence of fabrication - what there is, is evidence that the locals are medically ignorant.

As to the why, these things happen all the time in Africa, they used to happen all the time in Europe too - the reason you used to have a Vigil with an open casket is because you couldn't necessarily be sure the man was dead. More recently you had bells atached to caskets and Swedish enbalmers used to drive a knife straight into the artery to make sure they were dead.

What we have is this:
1. One obvious and big lie(raising the dead).
2. No other sources. At all. The only mention of this incident is on that webpage. None of the names of the involved give any results on google.
3. But we know of several similar stories. Very similar in fact, the biggest difference between them is the names of the involved.

Add them all together, and we have a certain fabrication. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to think otherwise.

The "night of the living dead"-type stories are one of my absolute favourite fabrications though. A close tie with the story about the doctor(usually anonymous, sometimes given a generic name like J. Smith) who measured a soul leaving the body of someone dying "scientifically".

Edit: and if your "ignorant blacks"-theory was correct, it would still be a lie, since the missionaries would know what really happened, but instead chose to spread the lie about raising the dead.