Missionaries face jail in India

The Sunday Times ^ | July 30, 2006 | Dean Nelson, Delhi

[vimto]

JULIA and Richard do not look like fugitives but they could be jailed under new Indian laws to stop missionaries converting low-caste Hindus to Christianity without a magistrate’s approval. A well educated British couple with young children, they left London two years ago to teach missionary work in some of India’s poorest states, such as Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Orissa.

Last week Madhya Pradesh became the latest state to pass an anti-religious conversion bill that could leave Christian missionaries open to criminal charges. Leaders of India’s 26m Christians say the bill is an attempt to intimidate and persecute them, while increasing votes for the Hindu nationalist BJP party. Under its provisions missionaries and their converts face up to three years in jail if they do not notify a magistrate of their intentions.

Christian leaders also fear the initiative will encourage attacks against them. India’s National Commission for Minorities has voiced concern about incidents in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan in which orphanages and schools have been targeted.

Last month police in Madhya Pradesh raided a Bible study group and arrested worshippers after complaints that they were converting Hindus. Nuns have been raped and several priests have been murdered in the past seven years. Last year 11 members of a Hindu mob that burnt an Australian missionary and his two young sons to death as they slept had their convictions overturned.

Hindu fundamentalists claim missionaries, mostly American and South Korean, prey on the ignorance of lower castes and persuade them to turn against their culture. The missionaries say they provide education and healthcare and teach the Bible to untouchables whose own religion treats them as outcasts.

[statered]

I think the world's largest Prebyterian church is in S Korea. Its probably about time they sent some missionaries back here to correct the PCUSA.

[Jemian]

I am not sure but I've heard rumors they do send missionaries to the US. However, there are some very good presbyterian churches here, the PCA, the OPC and ARPC come quickly to mind. I would stay away from the Cumberland Presbyterians as well as the PCUSA. Those two are rather apostate, IMO.

[Jemian]

I am very familiar with missionaries. Not a single one in my acquaintance would stop either free speech or a person following their conscience. I apologise for the ones that you have met who are less than they should be.

[Jemian]

Sell your wares elsewhere

I am curious about the "sell" part. Belief in the Christ is a free gift. Who is asking for payment?

[Jemian]

There are a lot of missionaries at work in the US and that is as it should be. I would agree with you that the general reception is a negative one. I would also agree with someone who says that often a missionary doesn't do a good job presenting the Gospel and so does more harm.

But, if you genuinely believed that you had the resolution to the absolute worst problems besetting mankind, wouldn't you do whatever you could to make it available to others? Wouldn't you at least give them a chance to accept or reject it for themselves instead of deciding for them that they can't have that solution?

Christians do believe that Jesus is the only path to God. Since we genuinely believe that, our desire to offer it to others is the impetus for missions. But it is impossible to force Christianity on someone. A patina of Christianity could be forced, overlaid on top of someone's actions. But real conversion cannot be forced.

[Jemian]

foreign Missionaries are involved in terrorism and massacre of innocent Hindus in NE.

That is wrong and shouldn't have happened.

[Jemian]

I really and truly believe that Jesus Christ is the only way to God. The other paths, while many lead to being good, moral people, IMO, lead not just away from God, but to eternal suffering. I don't want that for anyone.

You might not agree with me. You are well within your rights to reject Jesus. But at least it is your choice now and not a decision I have made to withhold it from you.

I have never called other beliefs "dumb." Maybe other Christians have, but I have not. I have called them "wrong", sincerely wrong, but wrong nonetheless.

I have also been ordered by God to tell others about Him. It is between the other person and God what their response would be.

I am truly sorry that you "can never accept the idea of seeking converts." That distresses me more than you could know.

[Gengis Khan]

In addition to the racial hatred for British Hindus, the fact that Britain funds an annual 8 million pounds for jihadi terrorism in India puts Britain ahead of Saudi Arabia in terms terror funding coming from overeas to India.

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

If you believed that the only way out of a burning building was the way you exited, would you shout for others to come to that way or would you let them try to find their own way out?

Christians believe there is only one way. To not tell others is to condemn them to die. But you cannot force anyone, you can merely tell them. The choice must be made individually.

Sorry if trying to tell someone the only way to survive is offensive to you, but that is my firm belief and one you cannot change by wishing it were not so.

[Gengis Khan]

" I apologise for the ones that you have met who are less than they should be."

They are far less then they should be. There have been cases where people have accepted Jesus as their God but only in a manner as they would accept any other God in their multitudinous pantheon. This ecumenical behaviour is absolutely abhorred by the radicalized preachers. There have been instances when the preachers have broken into homes of neo-converts and destroyed their "blasphemous" Hindu idols which those people worshiped alongside Jesus (since old habits die hard).

Tell me would you call that an excercise in freedom of speech or conscience? Do only Christians Missionaries have (or should have) the divine mandate to arbitrate over an individual's conscience? And who, if not the state, would protect such people whose religious/spiritual conscience is being dictated to them by some hate-filled foreign preacher.

"Hate-filled", because the very act of breaking the idols, which are held in reverence by a large population is itself an act of deliberate provocation. Tell me do you condone or condemn such behaviour?

If in the name of religion, this is what you intend to sell (through threat/intimidation) then India isn't the right place for you.

If religion is about an individual's own conscience and his/her personal/private interaction with God then one needs only a teacher and not a preacher. A preacher is one who intends to drag you like an overbearing nanny, over the path he "thinks" is the true path of sprituality. An individual needs to discover his/her own path by himself........ as said by Swami Vivekanananda.

[The Lion Roars]

If you believed that the only way out of a burning building was the way you exited

What if there are multiple exits out of a burning building? What if a person is already close to an exit? Would you threaten him to come towards your exit or else!! There..that is a more appropriate analogy

(PS: I disagree that Hindus would consider Prophet Mohammed to be a way to God. With his message of violence, rape and banditry, Mohammed is a certain path to hell)

[The Lion Roars]

But it is impossible to force Christianity on someone. A patina of Christianity could be forced, overlaid on top of someone's actions. But real conversion cannot be forced.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha. You are surely kidding!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/758342.stm

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1726761,0006.htm

[Jemian]

I can agree to disagree.

[Antoninus]

Religious freedom is a joke in India, apparently.

[Gengis Khan]

Christians believe in one God, Hindus too believe in one God, but Hindus also believe that God is capable of creating infinite number of manifestations of itself and hence the pantheism.

The point is, you and I both pray to the same God who we address using different names. So why should my prayers be invalidated only because I choose to call HIM by a different name. Jehovah or Shiva what does it matter? They both are the same God.

The concept of God did not begin with Jesus and wont end with it. Throughout space and time different people will continue praying to God (the same God) using different names.

[VOA]

I'm pretty sure that I read of one South Korean Christian missionary...
to Los Angeles/So.Cal. a few years ago.

[Gengis Khan]

"A patina of Christianity could be forced, overlaid on top of someone's actions. But real conversion cannot be forced."

You are very much mistaken. Much of the Christianity in Africa, Latin America, Goa and large parts of Asia was the result of brutal inquisition involving murder, genocide, pogrom, rape, torture and slavery.

[Guenevere]

I respectfully submit your concept is wrong, Gengis.