Posted on 07/30/2006 12:56:25 AM PDT by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
I wish I had time to really get into some of these discussions. Sigh.
What most people accept as Christianity is quite narrow; ONLY Jesus Christ, ONLY the Bible, ONLY certain names of God. Hinduism is a broad path. The narrow exclusivity that is currently accepted as Christianity is foreign to the Vedic path. One great Hindu teacher said a few decades ago to worship Jesus and Krishna together, and I know many people who do just that. I'm not afraid to read the Bible, why are people who read the Bible afraid to read the Bhagavad Gita? Especially since one can find the same truth in many places in both, just couched in different language or examples.
Fanaticism is the enemy of freedom, and without freedom, there can be no love, only blind fanaticism.
..throughout history many have done much harm ....and said it was under the banner of Christianity.
It was not.
Christ is not mocked.
Threaten?
If you truly believe there is only one way out, what sense does it make to remain silent? By remaining silent, you are complicit in their deaths. Even if you call out and no one comes, you have done what you could.
Using compulsion to convert is ridiculous. You cannot force people to believe.
Can you elaborate?
The idea you promote is different than what I believe. You believe that many ways will lead to God, I have read the words of Jesus who says "I am the way, the truth, the light. No one gets to the Father (i.e. God) except through me."
Now if I claim to believe Jesus, I cannot believe him to lie about this. Following Jesus means believing what he said, and believing what he said means that the idea of many paths is wrong.
It is more than threaten. It is murder!! The Christian inquisition of Goa, the two hundred years of british rule that involved conversion, terrorism by radical christian groups in nagaland and tripura are not examples of peacefully pointing out a door. lol. You make Christianity sound like Buddhism. Christianity has indian blood on its hands.
Mother Theresa I thankfully an Indian and not a radical foreign missionary.
And for the sake of my immortal soul, I pray to God that I be saved from those who wants to save my soul.
No one will be "saved" unless God calls him to that path. And if God should call he certainly doesn't need a missionary to help him save anyone.
God does what he will. He is that that he is. 'Christianity' should learn, not teach. Its arrogance can do nothing for India but divide and cause chaos.
I've rarely met a person who didn't want to impose his belief system on me.
You said....God is capable of creating infinite number of manifestations of itself and hence the pantheism.....
My answer----
God is not pantheistic.
You said....The concept of God did not begin with Jesus and won't end with it.
Throughout space and time different people will continue praying to God (the same God) using different names.
My answer Gengis....
..I realize this is what you believe....
..but there is ONLY ONE GOD.... only ONE.
Lord Krishna in Bhagwat Gita says:
"Whosoever comes to Me, through whatsoever form, I reach him; all men are struggling through paths which in the end lead to Me."
The line you quoted could well have been spoken by Krishna instead of Jesus and it would still mean the same. What you are stressing on is the name "Jesus". Nothing more.
If you read my post once again I said:
"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."
According to Hinduism there is ONLY ONE GOD. Although it does not mean that just because he is one so he is incapable of creating infinite manifestations of himself. There is God residing inside all of us and inside every living being, it is because HE IS capapble of creating as many different manifestations of himself as he wishes. Afterall He is the almighty.
I believe the Catholics and some other Christians have the Trinity.
Three manifestations of the One God.
But the odds are better I will learn more from clouds and stones and water than humans.
Clouds especially. You hardly need anything else.
Yes almost like Hinduism.
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