I found the narrator to be way too emotionally distant and complacent in this story. She's suitably shocked and horrified when she finds out that the Teddy Bear religion is practicing human... er sentient Teddy Bear sacrifice and encouraging ritual starvation to death. But she takes that knowledge and does nothing with it. This is the kind of thing that she should probably go ahead and tell someone about. Like her church elders. Or the Earth government, which might be interested that a number of humans are joining a religion that encourages ritual murder and suicide. But she doesn't do that, and the story ends with her making peace with this other religion that kills people. That's not a very good ending for a story about a minister.
And to add jaywalking charges to murder and arson, I didn't like the part where she walked into a restaurant and made quite a scene directly asking patrons for their leftovers and lying about having a delivery for the Lowertown residents, rather than quietly and respectfully approaching the owner like she should have done. I can imagine a deleted scene in this story where the restaurant owner has the chef quickly make something so that the minister lady will get out and stop bothering his customers.
I don't think this minister is cut out for her job at all.
Completely agreed, but also for several other reasons. This minister took several weeks to do more than merely preach to the token set of individuals that showed up. Her superiors had to tell her about the other religion, and that she should go to it. (Yes, there is some indication that the other inhabitants kept this from her, but really, did she make no effort to get to know the local culture? Heck, there are mentions of drunks stumbling into her services, she could at least ask them for the lay of the land.)
Also, that her immediate response to learning that the Teddies (and converted humans) had their own set of beliefs was not "Huh, I should get to know a lot more about these people if I want to have any chance of actually having a fruitful interaction with them," but instead "My profession called me to love my enemies instead of shoot at them, so how could I fight the Teddies’ doctrine?" After one sermon, and before learning of the ritual killings, she had a black and white response: they are wrong, I must fight their beliefs, I cannot shoot them, how to stop them from their ignorant sinfulness?
...which is fine, given her ex-marine background and newness to the preacher gig (what kind of training did she get anyway?), but from that point on, her character does not evolve at all. She simply tries a few things, sees what works, and never questions her own view of the situation: I am right and they are wrong. Her profession as she lives it is one of competing with native beliefs instead of connecting with the natives themselves.
Not to say I have not seen/had such preachers myself, but all those same charges--not being interested in other perspectives, believing oneself to have the totality of information necessary to the salvation of others, seeking to impose a traditional order with oneself at the head upon those that do not welcome it--can be levied at male hierarchical religions, including the throwaway reference at the beginning (the persons who might be objecting to a female preacher). Her perspective with regard to religion is similar enough to that of the conquistadors and colonialists to give pause; no she didn't try to subjugate, enslave, or otherwise deny the "humanity" of them, but they are ignorant if noble pagans to be saved from themselves.
For me the spectrum of sensitivity to aliens with regard to religion runs from Blish's
A Case of Conscience to Russell's
The Sparrow; this one felt much closer to the former. Which is to say as engaging as it was, as much as I enjoyed the premise and denouement, at the end I wanted much more from the preacher than I got.
On the plus side, I did appreciate the Saul reference at the end. "Apostle to the Teddies" has a nice ring to it.