Hindu Mob in India Beats, Strips, Parades Pastor

"Of course, neither of these other religions offers any positive hope of being in eternal fellowship with the One who created us, or even the existence of a God who loves us. That hope is only found in Jesus."


ARJUNA: LORD! of the men who serve Thee—true in heart—
As God revealed; and of the men who serve,
Worshipping Thee Unrevealed, Unbodied, far,
Which take the better way of faith and life?

KRISHNA: Whoever serve Me—as I show Myself—	5
Constantly true, in full devotion fixed,
These hold I very holy. But who serve—
Worshipping Me The One, The Invisible,
The Unrevealed, Unnamed, Unthinkable,
Uttermost, All-pervading, Highest, Sure—	10
Who thus adore Me, mastering their sense,
Of one set mind to all, glad in all good,
These blessed souls come unto Me.
Yet, hard
The travail is for whoso bend their minds	15
To reach th’ Unmanifest. That viewless path
Shall scarce be trod by man bearing his flesh!
But whereso any doeth all his deeds,
Renouncing self in Me, full of Me, fixed
To serve only the Highest, night and day	20
Musing on Me—him will I swiftly lift
Forth from life’s ocean of distress and death
Whose soul clings fast to Me. Cling thou to Me!
Clasp Me with heart and mind! so shalt thou dwell
Surely with Me on high. But if thy thought	25
Droops from such height; if thou be’st weak to set
Body and soul upon Me constantly,
Despair not! give Me lower service! seek
To read Me, worshipping with steadfast will;
And, if thou canst not worship steadfastly,	30
Work for Me, toil in works pleasing to Me!
For he that laboreth right for love of Me
Shall finally attain! But, if in this
Thy faint heart fails, bring Me thy failure! find
Refuge in Me! let fruits of labor go,	35
Renouncing all for Me, with lowliest heart,
So shalt thou come; for, though to know is more
Than diligence, yet worship better is
Than knowing, and renouncing better still
Near to renunciation—very near—	40
Dwelleth Eternal Peace!
Who hateth nought
Of all which lives, living himself benign,
Compassionate, from arrogance exempt,
Exempt from love of self, unchangeable	45
By good or ill; patient, contented, firm
In faith, mastering himself, true to his word,
Seeking Me, heart and soul; vowed unto Me,—
That man I love! Who troubleth not his kind,
And is not troubled by them; clear of wrath,	50
Living too high for gladness, grief, or fear,
That man I love! Who, dwelling quiet-eyed, 1
Stainless, serene, well-balanced, unperplexed,
Working with Me, yet from all works detached,
That man I love! Who, fixed in faith on Me,	55
Dotes upon none, scorns none; rejoices not,
And grieves not, letting good and evil hap
Light when it will, and when it will depart,
That man I love! Who, unto friend and foe
Keeping an equal heart, with equal mind	60
Bears shame and glory, with an equal peace
Takes heat and cold, pleasure and pain; abides
Quit of desires, hears praise or calumny
In passionless restraint, unmoved by each,
Linked by no ties to earth, steadfast in Me,	65
That man I love! But most of all I love
Those happy ones to whom ’tis life to live
In single fervid faith and love unseeing,
Eating the blessèd Amrit of my Being!

Here endeth Chapter XII. of the Bhagavad-Gîtâ	70

I don’t consider Compass the press. I also don’t consider the charges leveled against the RSS to be accurate, whether they come from India or America.

However, the material progress of the last decade has happened because of trade and markets, and the government there knows this, so a further opening of the economy is inevitable.

Good news. Thanks.

“I am not saying that violence against Christian converts is anywhere near to being as common and widespread in India as it is in some Islamic nations, but I do believe it occurs all to often in certain areas of India for a modern day civilized nation such as India to tolerate.”

That is a very fair and accurate assessment. A voice of reason in a very emotional topic.

As an emerging world leader, there should be zero tolerance for this behavior in India.

Me neither.

At least I have never heard the RSS calling for removal of foreigners, asking for Sadhus to make the laws, using "Sanskrit" (Hindu) calender (although thats more accurate the Gregorian calender), or banning modern technology. A lot of these claims are exaggerated. There is a lot of deliberate disinformation campaign directed from the west.

The RSS is theocratic in the sense that its asking for more Hinduisation of the constitution, and recognition of India as a Hindu nation. Some of their ideologies are more inline with that of the Christian conservatives in US.

I am against both Hindu Nationalists and Christian conservatives in that regard. At least in India’s case I don't believe in making religion part of politics. Constitutionally India should remain secular. In that respect even religious conversion and evangelical fascism should not be allowed, its not part of Indian culture.

Imagine you consider a country so big that it stretches from France at one end to Saudia Arabia at the other, and read up on all news of “persecution” (credible or otherwise) you would come to believe there is a mass genocide going on in the country. In terms of population, France to Saudi Arabia is how big India is......a country that is equal to 4 Unites States of America and 40 Iraqs.

In India 20,000-30,000 people die everyday....... of natural causes. Each year more people die in rain, thunder storms or heat waves then through “persecution”. More people die in street/gang violence in US then then people dying as a result of persecution in India.

Besides this article is about a Pastor being hospitalized. You have more fighting in American High schools then that. Recently a Sikh kid in NY was intimidated and got his hair shaven by a bunch of Muslim kids.

“But since my conflicting information comes from a source that I believe to be scrupulously honest and truthful, I have to believe that perhaps the situation over there has changed since you lived there.”

If I build my opinion on the US based on news reports of School shoot-outs, even if those reports are credible you think my perception of US would be accurate?

Great sense of perspective, I could not have stated it better myself.

India is a straight line from Chicago to Miami and everything east. With a population nearly 4 times the USA. On a worldwide scale of religious persecution, India would not make the top 50 in the world.

If I build my opinion on the US based on news reports of School shoot-outs, even if those reports are credible you think my perception of US would be accurate?

No, but that's small comfort if you happen to be the parent of one of the American kids killed in the shooting, or to an Indian Christian college student whose family has been murdered by a mob because of his religious affiliation.

Incidents such as that one are probably very uncommon in India just as school massacres are very rare in the US. But the mere fact that something like that can and occasionally does happen is enough to show the Hindu majority in a bad light. European Christians used to persecute and murder Jews and other non-Christians too, but they gave up that practice a couple of centuries ago and Christians now rightly condemn that awful practice. It's time that Indian Hindus condemn violent persecution of non-Hindus even if it only happens very rarely.

According to reports by Christian missionaries in India who serve there with the same mission org that my daughter serves with elsewhere, the desperately poor Dalits are converting to Christianity on a very large scale, and I imagine that situation is an irritating burr under the saddle for some Hindus.

.

I had a roommate during college from India. He was a Christian. He’s told me numerous stories of the anti-Christian persecution in India. Yes, many Hindus don’t take kindly to those who follow Christ, and are happy to beat them up and even kill them.

I should add that the father of Hinduism is the same person as the father of Islam. So we shouldn’t be surprised when their response to Christ and His followers is one of hatred.

Your “room-mate” must have won a lot of monetary benefits to help him on a “mission” to “win” souls, I’m sure.

“So we shouldn’t be surprised when their response to Christ and His followers is one of hatred.”

SURELY YOU’RE MISTAKEN:

NLFT - The Christian Al-Qaeda

Author: S. Aravindan Neelakandan
Publication: Sulekha.com
Date: May 2, 2002
URL: www.sulekha.com article cid = 195857

I came to bring not peace but a sword – Jesus Christ

For seven-year-old Shreema, 13th Jan 2002 was a special Sunday. All through the year, the girl had awaited the dawn of this day. For, that was the day one goes out and purchases new clothes, new toys and sweets, as the next day would be Makar Sankranthi — the harvest festival celebrated throughout India. The Singicherra Bazar was bustling with activity. Like Shreema’s family there were many people looking forward to a happy Makar Sankranthi. But they didn’t realise that they were violating a fatwa issued by the Baptist Church-created Christian Al-Qaeda, the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT). Nor did they know that they would pay with their lives for celebrating a heathen festival of their motherland.

Shreema would never again celebrate Makar Sankranthi. She died, along with sixteen others, on the spot as 13 terrorists of the NLFT encircled the people shopping for the festival and fired indiscriminately1. The soldiers of Christ have done again in Tripura what they have been doing for centuries to heathens throughout the world.

The Baptist Church of Tripura is not just the ideological mentor of the NLFT; it also supplies the NLFT with arms and ammunition for the soldiers of the holy crusade2. Never mind that the holy war involves killing infants and torching the huts of ‘heathen Hindoos’. The NLFT does all these to bring to the infidels the peace and love of Christ. So, when Nagmanlal Halam, secretary of the Noapara Baptist Church in Tripura, was arrested by the Tripura police he had rather curious tools for evangelisation, which included along with the gospel 50 gelatin sticks, 5 kg of potassium and 2 kg of sulphur and other ingredients for making explosives. Mr. Halam confessed that his activities for the saving the heathen souls involved buying and supplying explosives to the NLFT over the past two years. Another church official, Jatna Koloi, who was also arrested, admitted that he received training in guerrilla warfare at an NLFT base last year. Surely, gelatin and AK-47s have more efficiency when it comes to bringing the light of the only revealed truth to the disbelievers suffering in ‘spiritual darkness’. Those who are in doubt can check it out with another great light-bearer of the other ‘only true book’, Osama bin Laden (that is, when and if the prophet of terror is captured).

The Baptist Church of Tripura was initially set up by proselytizers from New Zealand 60 years ago. Despite their efforts, even until 1980, only a few thousand people in Tripura had converted to Christianity. Then the Church used one of its most efficient and time-tested weapons of evangelisation — creating racial and ethnic divide among the people. In the aftermath of one of the worst ethnic riots, engineered by the Church3, the NLFT was born — but not without the midwife role of the Baptist Church. From its very inception, the NLFT has been advancing the cause of Christianity through armed persuasion. Every trace of indigenous culture is being eliminated through violent means. Every resisting group is made to bleed its way to extinction.

The case of Jamatya tribals provides a telling example. These tribals have strong spiritual leaders and a network of social service organisations headed by their religious leaders. These indigenous sects are neither exclusive nor expansionist. The Baptist Church has always failed miserably in its conversion efforts with regard to this well-knit community. Hence, it is no wonder that the NLFT has made Jamatya institutions and their religious leaders the targets of their attacks. In the August of 2000, religious leaders of the Jamatya community like Jaulushmoni Jamatya and Shanti Kumar Tripura were killed by the NLFT, and Jamatya families were uprooted from their homelands and made refugees. The death threats issued by the NLFT to the inmates of these institutions have already forced the closure of 11 Jamatya institutions like schools and orphanages, set up by the slain religious leaders in various parts of Tripura4. Interestingly, these tribals are not close-minded fanatics. For one thing, they do not mind teaching the theory of evolution in their schools.

The greatest challenge to the Bible inspired mission of the NLFT comes from the Sangh Parivar’s Banbasi Kalyan Kendra. The dedicated life workers of RSS have started empowering the tribals by running many educational institutions which while empowering them through imparting secular technical education also retain their tribal cultural and spiritual identity. Rather than making them disown their roots, the Kendra made the tribals feel proud of their culture. It even conducts national level tribal sports festivals. If the NLFT is to carve out a kingdom for Christ out of the secular republic of India, it has to make sure that the Kendra activities are stopped at all costs. In July 2000, armed NLFT militants torched a residential school and students hostel run by the Seva Mission in the remote Ananda Bazar area of North Tripura5. They had also taken hostage four RSS life workers. These RSS workers were all in their sixties. The crime committed by these old men was that they had dared to run educational institutions for tribals while preserving the tribals’ culture. Later, all four were killed by the NLFT.

The NLFT has been an active partner of the Baptist Church in winning converts to the Christian creed. They have killed tribal priests to threaten communities and effect mass conversions. But those tactics have obviously backfired. In 2001 alone, the NLFT killed more than 20 Hindus who refused to ‘accept the love of Christ’. They also torched to death a Hindu family sleeping in a hut6. In 2001, community chiefs and religious heads of 19 tribes formed the ‘Tribal Culture Protection Committee’ to counter the threat posed by the NLFT7. Despite the NLFT taking all possible steps to enforce conversions, the conversions are still slow. Frustrated, the NLFT has now begun an all out war against Hindu tribals. They have issued fatwas against infidel activities. These fatwas prohibit people from celebrating festivals like Durga Pooja and Makar Sankranthi, listening to Indian music, watching Indian TV channels and films, and prohibit women from wearing bangles or sporting bindis, etc. Just a year before the NLFT started all these atrocities in India, the Southern Baptist Church of the United States of America had given a clarion call to bring the light of the gospel to “millions of Hindus and Jews lost in the darkness” of their religions8.

Shreema, the seven-year-old girl from Tripura, died with bullets pumped into her tender body. Her crime was that she violated the Christian fatwa which prohibited her from celebrating an Indian festival. She was not just a victim of barbaric terrorism but she is also a martyr for Indian culture, a culture that has preserved thousands of tribal customs from barbaric persecution. Yet, she will not make it to the glossy covers of the weekly magazines of English speaking Indian media. Unsubstantiated, fabricated stories of Hindu fundamentalists (an oxymoron) killing Christian priests have been making their headlines. However, these fabrications have their use. They do help in the covering up of such acts of Christian love like killing in cold blood a seven- year-old girl or burning a family to death.

References:

1. 16 shot dead by NLFT in Tripura – PTI, January 13, 2002.
2. Church backing Tripura rebels – BBC, April 18, 2000.
3. India’s North-East Resurgence: Ethnicity, Insurgency and Governance, Development by B.G. Vargheese, 1996, p.175.
4. Militants raid Hindu Ashram – The Telegraph, December 5, 2000.
5. NLFT curb on Hindu institutions – The Telegraph, September 14, 2000.
6. Three killed by Tripura rebels – BBC, April 14, 2000.
7. Tribals unite against conversions in Tripura, Syed Zarir Hussain, www.rediff.com/ news/2001/aug/02trip.htm
8. Southern Baptists target Hindus, Julia Lieblich, The Associated Press, October 21, 1999.

European Christians used to persecute and murder Jews and other non-Christians too, but they gave up that practice a couple of centuries ago and Christians now rightly condemn that awful practice. It's time that Indian Hindus condemn violent persecution of non-Hindus even if it only happens very rarely.

Ha! A couple of centuries ago? Damn, it's not even been seven decades since the last pogrom. Besides, the Catholics and Protestants have been murdering each other in Ireland, with the tension still somewhat thick, and the anti-Semitic killings still happen in Europe, with the Muslims joining in with the neo-Nazis. All that talk of persecution dead in Europe is nonsense. By extension, racial killings happen in the US too.

"European Christians used to persecute and murder Jews and other non-Christians too, but they gave up that practice a couple of centuries ago."

Discuss.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2591615.stm

Neo-Nazi outrage stuns Germany

Support for neo Nazi groups is strong in eastern Germany



By Katya Adler BBC Berlin Correspondent

Revelations of the brutal torture and murder of a teenager in eastern Germany blamed on neo-Nazis has sent shock-waves through the country.

Marius Schoeberl, who was 16, was killed apparently because he looked like a Jew.

His severely mutilated body was discovered in a farm silage pit in the remote village of Potzlow this summer.

Two brothers aged 17 and 23 and another 17-year-old from the village were recently found guilty of the murder.

The court was told that the boys were listening to neo-Nazi music, with its angry lyrics and furious sound, as well as drinking alcohol, before they set off into the night in search of a victim.

Horrific attack

They happened upon Marius Schoeberl. A shy boy, with learning difficulties and unkempt, bleached-blonde hair, a stark contrast to the shaved heads and aggression of his attackers.

There are many types of neo-Nazi scenes these days in Germany. In eastern parts of the country they've penetrated almost every single youth scene.

Lorenz Koerfler, EXIT

They called him 'un-German', 'a pest' and 'a Jew'. They dragged him to a deserted farmhouse, tortured and killed him - and then they went home to sleep.

The details of the murder were so gruesome that the State Prosecutor in the case, Gert Schnittcher, decided not to make them public.

He told me that during 25 years in his job, he had come across many mindless acts of violence. None as bestial as this, though, he said, with a shake of the head.

The murder has aroused particular concern in Germany. Not just because of its brutality but because of who the victim was.

Reports of violence by neo-Nazis are not infrequent in eastern Germany, but their usual targets are immigrants, asylum-seekers, or vagrants.

Marius, though, was a white German boy, known to his attackers.

Indiscriminate

During their trial, the boys reportedly told the court, that on that hot summer's night, they felt any victim would do.

Lorenz Koerfler works for EXIT, a help programme for neo-Nazis who want to leave the movement.

At his Berlin office, he played me some examples of neo-Nazi music and showed me clips from of a couple of videos, apparently cult classics in the scene.

I found the violence stomach-churning. Lorenz Koerfler says it is key to the neo-Nazi movement.

"You have to understand," he told me. "There are many types of neo-Nazi scenes these days in Germany. In eastern parts of the country they've penetrated almost every single youth scene.

"But it's the music in particular that brings the youngsters together. Listening to it, particularly at concerts, gives them a focus, something to do, something to identify with, in depressed areas where isn't anything else."

Bleak prospects

It is particularly in the small towns of eastern Germany, where unemployment is high and the future prospects for youngsters are bleak, that neo-Nazism has a hold.

And since, in these tiny communities, everybody knows everybody, the peer pressure to join the movement, and not to leave it, is enormous.

Many of them don't understand the dangers of being a Nazi. Because of communism, they aren't used yet to the idea of democracy

Matthias Adrian, former neo-Nazi

Matthias Adrian, used to be a neo-Nazi. He had to change his life completely to leave the scene: new town, new friends, new job.

He explained to me why he believes that, higher unemployment figures aside, neo-Nazism is more popular in eastern than in western Germany.

"For kids in the west who have a lot of frustration and who are looking for an identity, or a group to belong to, there's a left-wing scene, as well as a right-wing scene but in the east, after their bad experience with communism, no-one will join a left-wing group."

Eastern poverty

He thinks the problem is going to get worse: "Eastern Germans feel cheated. They didn't become rich after German re-unification, like they thought. They still get lower wages than people in western Germany and they want to express their frustration.

"Many of them don't understand the dangers of being a Nazi. Because of communism, they aren't used yet to the idea of democracy. They also don't have many foreigners there. It's easy to hate people you don't know."

But the President of the German Parliament , Wolfgang Thierse, disagrees. He says the scale of the problem is being blown out of proportion.

"Germany is always pointed at for having neo-Nazis," he said with exasperation.

"But look at the results from our general election in September. It was a total failure for the extreme right. In Belgium, France and Austria, it's a different story."

Certainly at the youth centre in Potzlow where Marius and his murderers used to hang out after school, the teenagers say they are angry at the way they are being judged because of Marius' death.

Distrust

They are reluctant to talk to me, though. They say they do not trust the media anymore. So many lies have been printed about them.

"They say we're all neo-Nazis in this town," one of them blurts out.

"But we're not, " he says, "We're not." Many of these kids have been in counselling since the murder.

A couple of the youngsters I met here saw Marius' mutilated body. They were taken to it by one of his murderers, a former friend of theirs.

But the former neo-Nazi Mathias Adrian sees the extreme right as a growing problem that could yet spiral out of control.

"It's like fighting the flames in one room when the whole house is on fire," he says.

Anti-Nazi campaigners agree. They say that the problem is not just a German one - but is spreading in certain areas across Europe.

Looks like the persecution of Catholics and Christians is alive and well with these Hindus. Hmmmm

Not as much as in Ireland, no doubt.

Show one single American Southern Baptist, not repudiated by the SBC, who has spoken up for conversion by the sword.

he articles posted by me needn't necessarily reflect my opinion.

I.e. you can spread lies and then when challenged on their content back off and claim "oh, that's just what somebody said, I didn't check any facts." This is a liberal media ethic. It does not belong on FR.

Excuse me?

I posted links from reputable sources like GlobalSecurity and others. When I asked for proof for the main article, that was denied, presumably because none was available.

Now what? You’re going to attack me for my tagline? Please!