The Conversion Agenda

Two Christians arrested for throwing beef at Lakshmi puja

2009-10-06T10:11:00.000-07:00

Two arrested for throwing beef at idol

STAFF WRITER
Rourkela, Oct 4 (PTI) Two persons were arrested for allegedly throwing beef at an idol of Goddess Laxmi at a community puja pandal in Orissa's Sundargarh district today, police said.

Francis Ekka and Ajit Munda were arrested for their alleged involvement in the incident at Bolonda village about 25 kms from here, they said.

According to police, the two men along with one of their friend had slaughtered a cow before throwing its meat on the idol.

Police have recovered about two kg of beef from the pandal.

Earleir, a large number of locales blocked a road for several hours to protest against the incident.

Security has been steeped up at the village to maintain law and order and efforts to nab the third culprit were on, police said.

http://www.ptinews.com/news/313655_Two-arrested-for-throwing-beef-at-idol

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Orissa police arrest two for throwing beef at Laxmi idol
By Dipti Ranjan Kanungo
10/04/2009

Rourkela (Orissa) : Orissa police have arrested two person for allegedly throwing beef at an idol of Goddess Laxmi on Sunday.

The arrested persons are Fransis Ekka and Ajit Munda. However the brother of Fransis Ekka claimed to be the main culprit. The police have also seized about two kgs of beef from near the idol.

A large number of people gathered in front of Goddess Laxmi puja pandal at Bolonda village and blocked the road for four hours, demanding arrest of the culprits those have thrown beef to an idol of Goddess Laxmi .

A team of police force led by superintendent of police, Diptesh Patnaik immediately rushed to the spot and brought the situation under control.

The three had allegedly slaughtered a cow at a nearby field Sunday morning before indulging in the incident.

Police force had been deployed in the village to maintain law and order and efforts to nab the main culprit.

http://www.odishatoday.com/district/Orissa_Police_arrested_two_for_throwing_beef_051009-762537457812547326723454632.html

Baptist church on Ganesh Chaturthi

2009-10-02T20:54:00.001-07:00

http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=31363
http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=31364

Interesting that a religion that believes that the world was created in 3000 BCE claims to be the only true one & wants to 'save' others.

Bishop apologizes for conversion-conservatives furious

2009-10-02T20:49:00.000-07:00

http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=11268

Check out the comments in the article-some conservatives revealing their line of thinking.

Inter-faith Dialogue: Vatican in sheep's clothing

2009-07-02T18:03:00.001-07:00

by Radha Rajan
11th June, 2009
VIGIL Public Opinion Forum

Modified weapon of mass destruction

The Vatican wolf is at our doors again playing grandmother and perhaps hoping that the Hindu religious leadership with whom it wants ‘dialogue’ and the de-Hinduised political leadership which permitted its entry into the nation will play naive Red Riding Hood. Among the several individual Hindu religious leaders who will be meeting the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for inter-faith dialogue in Mumbai on the 12th and 13th of June 2009, will be the senior Mathathipathi of the Kanchi matham, monks of the Ramakrishna Mission, Sri Sri Ravishankar and one Swami Chidanand Saraswati from Divine Life Society, Uttaranchal.

Hindu nationalists know and understand the political objectives of the Church and Islam; the outcome of the meeting on the 12th and 13th of June notwithstanding, we firmly dismiss the very idea of inter-faith dialogue because, by the Vatican’s own admission, dialogue is only Church ploy to seek accommodation in non-Christian, non-Islamic nations and societies to carry out its only mission – to Christianize the world. Hindu nationalists will be compelled to publicly reject any joint declaration, or resolutions adopted at these dialogue meetings if they in any manner compromise the interests of Hindu dharma on Hindu bhumi. Knowing what they do, Hindu nationalists therefore consider the very presence of Hindu religious leaders at such dialogues with the enemies of dharma to be an affront to the dignity of our sanyasis and to the honour of all dharmis.

The Christian church and the Muslim mosque are not sacred places like the Hindu temple. These are places for the faithful to congregate for prayer and politics while our temples are abodes of the divine; the Divine, in supreme compassion for the bhakta, consents to reside in the structure raised by the bhakta. Hindu temples are therefore the sacred and divine core of Hindu society and all activities of society are governed by the consciousness that the divine is residing in our midst. The village and village temples were therefore self-governing autonomous units linked by a common worldview defined by dharma, karma and the purusharthas to the larger pradesa, desa and rajya.

The Church however is both the small ‘c’hurch building in the locality where the Christian faithful gather and also the big ‘C’hurch which is the entire edifice of the religion called Christianity; and this includes its headquarters in the Vatican and the Catholic Hierarchy – the Pope, Cardinals, Archbishops, Bishops, Pastors, Monks, Nuns and Priests. The Vatican is a State, its purpose is political and militarist and its Religious Hierarchy constitutes the government (Cardinals), the diplomats (Cardinals), the bureaucracy (Archbishops and Bishops) and the local municipal councilor (Monks, Nuns, Pastors and Priests). All of them are also collectively the Army of Christ driven by the mission to establish the Kingdom of God on Earth. Christian theology is therefore also replete also with militarist jargon.

The Anglican Church and the Protestant Churches outside the UK also have their own Capitals and well-organized centralized, hierarchical edifices like the Vatican. And they are all expansionists by nature and have the same single-pointed objective of christianising the world. To the Hindus and other targeted victims of the Church therefore, there is no redeeming distinction among the denominations; Catholic, Protestant, Pentecostal, New Life, Adventist or Jehovah’s Witnesses, they are all the same.

The Church is a self-perpetuating creature; it has to keep reiterating its raison d’etre or its mission for existence periodically for sheer survival; and these statements of intent and objectives have come at more frequent intervals in the last five decades, signaling the challenges to the survival not only of the Christian religion but also its expansionist edifice. The Second Vatican Council declaration Ad Gentes, Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Redemptoris Missio and Cardinal Ratzinger-authored ((the incumbent Pope before he became the Pope) Dominus Jesus, all reiterate the agenda and the mission of the Catholic Church.

We are concerned in the main with the Catholic Church for two reasons: one, the intended inter-faith dialogue in Mumbai is a Catholic-Hindu dialogue; and two, the Catholic Church or the Vatican has written and documented statements on its website of its intent and its mission which prove its guilt. We have it on the best authority that this dialogue was sought by the Vatican and also that the Vatican has taken the position that the escalating disharmony between Hindus and Christians in India has been caused by some of the new denominational churches with their brash conversion methodology. In essence, the Vatican has absolved itself of ‘offensive and unethical’ religious conversion. It is our responsibility to prove that the Vatican is lying through its teeth in the hope that it can still get away behind the veil of Hindu ignorance/tolerance and its own notorious secretive modus operandi.

We will refer to only two important documents to expose the Vatican for the fascist state that it is – the mission statement Ad Gentes from the Second Vatican Council and ‘Challenges Today to Mission “Ad Gentes” – Meeting of the Superiors General of Societies of Apostolic Life, Maryknoll, NY, USA, 1st May, 2000’. Fascism is not a word to be used lightly or loosely; political fascism derived from a monotheism which is only religious fascism. While the original Ad Gentes stated the mission of the Catholic Church in the brevity of a couplet, the statement of the Superiors General states the same in epic format.

“The pilgrim Church is missionary by her very nature, since it is from the mission of the Son and the mission of the Holy Spirit that she draws her origin, in accordance with the decree of God the Father”

“Then, when He had by His death and His resurrection completed once for all in Himself the mysteries of our salvation and the renewal of all things, the Lord, having now received all power in heaven and on earth (cf. Matt. 28 18), before He was taken up into heaven (cf. Acts 1:11), founded His Church as the sacrament of salvation and sent His Apostles into all the world just as He Himself had been sent by His Father (cf. John 20:21), commanding them: "Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you" (Matt. 28:19 ff.). "Go into the whole world, preach the Gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized shall be saved; but he who does not believe, shall be condemned" (Mark 16:15ff.).” (Ad Gentes, Second Vatican Council)

Fascism is inherent in Christ’s proclamation that it is not enough to believe, but the faithful have to be baptized (self-perpetuating church) and also that while he who believes and is baptized will be ‘saved’, those who do not believe and who reject the church will be condemned. This fascist exhortation rooted in the intolerant Christian God the Father and in the intolerant Son, Jesus Christ created the fascist Church which caused genocide of entire non-Christian nations, civilizations, peoples, faiths and religions. It is this Catholic Church which is seeking to sweep its bloody past history away from sight and is seeking dialogue with Hindu religious leaders in the backdrop of angry Hindu reaction to frenzied religious conversion undertaken by the Church across India.

“Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Redemptoris missio, subtitled "On the Permanent Validity of the Church’s Missionary Mandate", was an eloquent appeal to renew missionary fervor within the Church.

The very need for an encyclical such as Redemptoris missio was indicative that a problem existed. There had been an acute questioning of the purpose of mission immediately after the Council even by missionaries themselves. The crisis of the 1960’s and 1970’s was not just a theological one; the decolonization and new statehood of many mission lands had led to calls -- especially in Africa -- of a "moratorium" on mission.

The second shift has to do with the forms of evangelization. Most important here is the introduction of dialogue alongside proclamation. Redemptoris missio tries to address the relation between dialogue and proclamation; the Vatican document Dialogue and Proclamation, issued jointly by the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and the Pontifical Council on Inter-religious Dialogue just a few months after Redemptoris missio, tries to go even further. Mission had been rather clearly understood as proclamation of the Gospel to those who had not heard it. The importance given to dialogue by Nostra aetate at the Vatican Council raised a new set of issues. By according respect to other religious traditions, and by promoting dialogue with them rather than an apologetic to prove their errors, how to relate the aims of proclamation and dialogue to each other becomes problematic. While both Church documents and theological publications have tried to explicate and clarify the relationship between them, the confusion continues. If dialogue (or at least certain kinds of dialogue with certain aims of respect of the other) is an end in itself, then what happens to proclamation as traditionally understood, and a fortiori to mission ad gentes? (Statement of the Superiors General in NY, USA, 2000)

Now let us take these documents apart to clearly see what the Vatican stands for and what our Hindu religious leaders have to confront when they sit across the table with these diabolic agents of destruction of other religions.

Ad Gentes says the Church is missionary be nature. This means the Church’s whole purpose of existence is only its mission to take the Gospel to those who have not heard it. In brief, Christianize the world.

The core of the Christian faith is that it ‘saves’ all humans who believe and who are baptized, This is a two-in-one proposition – ensures the relevance of the persona of Jesus Christ and also ensures the continuity of the Church edifice. This is salvation or the salvific nature of the Christian religion and the Church. Like Allah and the Prophet Mohammed who cannot be separated as two entities by the Muslim faithful, belief in Christ as the Son of God and the Church are two in-severable entities. They go together and sustain each other.

The mission of the Catholic Church to Christianize the world, in the beginning, was effected by weapons that suited the fascist agenda in a world disarmed and subjugated by White Christian colonialism – genocide, war, forcible conversion, separation of children from parents in non-Christian colonized nations when the children were brought up as Christians. Second World War and the ugly truths of Christian roots of Nazism, fascism and colonization made such ruthless methods increasingly untenable and so the Second Vatican Council crafted its modified weapon – inter-faith dialogue. Now, the Church will not ram the Christian faith down the throats of non-believers by hectoring to them about ‘satan worship, false gods and barbaric, pagan superstitions’ but will approach them respectfully for dialogue and tell them politely that the Catholic Church is the sole repository of truth, Jesus Christ is the only Lord and the Church the only way to salvation. The agenda remains the same – Christianize the world but the words, on the surface will be polite but the execution of the mission will be just as ruthless and as determined.

Inter-faith dialogue is the weapon of the Catholic Church crafted in the Second Vatican Council for easy penetration not of societies but penetration of Hindu and Buddhist religious leaders through access during these dialogues. The Pontifical Council on Inter-religious Dialogue is in Mumbai now to meet with our religious leaders. Hindu religious leaders must understand that inter-religious dialogue by the Church is cancer, like Sufism in Islam – intended to disarm the gullible with sweet talk. Our leaders must prove equal to the task.

Know your enemy

The Second Vatican Council exhorted the faithful, clergy and laity alike to reach out to non-Christian peoples to engage them in dialogue. This Council made the startling submission that the Catholic Church acknowledged that while all religions had some elements of truth in them, only the Christian faith had all the truth and that the Catholic Church alone was the repository of that truth. The Catholic Church states that the essence of the Christian faith is its salvific quality – the power to ‘save’. It accepts that all religions may have some salvific capacity in them but only the Christian faith is wholly salvific.

Hindus who promote inter-faith dialogue must know what they are getting into when they sit across the table with an intolerant, fascist religion. They must know the enemy before them for what it is, as it is, in its own words. Hindus go to the table with absolutely no knowledge of the nature of the enemy and go to these meetings with no prior planning and equipped with little besides their smug tolerance and pacifism. At the end of all such ‘dialogues’ Hindus have either failed to assert their position or ended up signing documents and resolutions most insulting to Hindus. These inter-faith dialogues, because Hindus did not care to know the enemy, have always ended favorably for the Church. This of course is not to say that these resolutions and declarations are in any way binding upon Hindu society which knows exactly how to deal with jihad and the evangelising missionaries. The problem is with idiot Hindus who think there is an intellectual and pacifist way to deal with issues of survival.

Non-resident Hindus and Hindu PIOs living in Europe and America, and globe-trotting gurus and sanyasis with growing numbers of foreign bhaktas and foreign funds have been guilty of drawing Hindus at home and high Hindu religious organizations into the vortex of inter-religious or inter-faith dialogue with foreigners. Growing NRI Hindu and non-Indian Hindu influence on a section of Hindu religious leaders and formerly Hindu political leaders has made these leaders look more and more at overseas Hindus and their interests to the detriment of Hindu interests in the country. It must be emphasized that in all these dialogues Hindu religious leaders have belonged to non-traditional, new cult, or neo-vedantin sects. The Mumbai inter-faith dialogue for the first time will have the high-voltage presence of the senior pontiff of the Kanchi matham while all other Hindu sanyasis at this meet come from the non-traditional stream.

This point deserves close attention for only one reason. Religious leaders of traditional mathams are rooted in centuries-old tradition and are the living symbols of a timeless heritage with the extraordinary responsibility not only to preserve that heritage but to hand it down to the next generation. This is a mind-boggling and breath-taking responsibility. Mathathipathis, Adeenams and Mandaleshwars do not act as individuals driven by personal beliefs or fleeting interests and are therefore very unlikely to give in to any demand from the Church and even more unlikely to make any concession harmful to Hindu dharma or dharmi. And that is why at all these dialogues we find only Hindu religious leaders from non-traditional streams engaged in a dialogue with the Church, in the Church’s own territory or in territory loyal to the Church. Hindu religious leaders knowingly and willingly start with this disadvantage. One does not meet the enemy on his territory unless one is Srikrishna.

The intense discussion of the Superiors General in New York in 2000 points to an existential dilemma among a section of the Catholic Hierarchy – if religious conversion or ‘taking the gospel to those who have not heard it yet’ is the Church’s whole and only mission, then what is the purpose of inter-faith dialogue and what is the relationship between Proclamation and Dialogue? Good question; and it has been answered unambiguously by Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger. Pope John Paul II declared on Indian soil in November 1999 that he intended to plant the Cross in Asia in the third millennium; what he did not say explicitly was that ‘Dialogue’ was all bunkum and that Dialogue and Proclamation were the classic good cop-bad cop ploy by the Church. Cardinal Ratzinger declared in Dominus Jesus that Christ was the path and the destination; what he did not say explicitly was that the soporific, all religions have some elements of truth in them and all religions have some salvific power in them was bunkum too.

When Hindus sit down to ‘dialogue’ with the enemy, they must keep the following in mind –

The Church, as it is understood and as it is in reality, is the White Church. The coloured drops in the Hierarchy of the Church are only permitted colour and flavour.

The White Church is racist and has expanded across what were once non-White continents only by brute force.

The White race’s religion, trade, history, politics and science all share the same characteristics – exploitative, avaricious, intolerant, brutal and destructive whose only objective is to wield absolute control over all things in Creation

The White Church began by first controlling the Sovereign (King) and then expanded its horizons by controlling/converting peoples, then nations and then continents

The Catholic Church was assisted in its mission to convert the world to Christianity by Sovereigns and freebooters alike, by armies and traders alike, by the clergy and laity alike

The Church’s expansionist path in the beginning took the “trade-routes and highways” of the Roman Empire and then took the trade-routes and highways of expanding, colonizing Spanish and Portuguese Empires and then the trade-routes and highways of British, French and Dutch Empires

The White Catholic Church, White Christian Empires and White agents of Trade have not just worked in tandem but have walked hand in hand to the mutual benefit, growth and entrenchment of all three

A Christian King, politician, shop-keeper, smuggler or academic, serves his religion first and always

This much is White Christianity’s distant and recent history. This should be kept in mind of all those who think the Church is the padri in popular Hindi and vernacular films and who maintain in public discourse and private conversations that the only mission of the Church is to provide education, healthcare and beatific smiles for those in distress. Those desirous of indulging in religious diplomacy (or so they think) by sitting across table with the White Church must also keep in mind what the White Church has said in New York in May 2000.

For better understanding of what follows, it must be borne in mind that Christianity and Islam have NO native land because they are both only derivatives of the parent religion – Judaism. Therefore they do not subscribe to concepts like matrubhumi, and pitrubhumi (not fatherland but land of our pitrus or ancestors). They also reject Hindu nationalist assertion that the Hindu nation, religion, culture and dharma, while it is universal and may exist anywhere in the world with no conflict, tension or disharmony with other ways of life and worldview because of its very nature, Hindu nation, religion, culture and dharma was born on a specific territory and the sense of nation, nationhood and nationalism is only territorial even when the nationalism is narrowly construed as being only religious, only cultural, only civilisational or only dharmic.

Hindu nationalists assert that the Hindu nation is all these. This is the territory of Bharata, Hindusthana, India and it is a nation or territory with well-defined borders even from historic times. This is the territory of sanatana dharma. Sanatana dharma may be universal but it is not amorphous that predatory religions can deny the territorial content of Hindu nationhood so that this territory too may be Christianized.

Our religious leaders and non-sanyasi vacuous ‘scholars’ who advocate inter-faith dialogue with the Church as some defining gesture of Hindu tolerance must keep all this in mind to understand what the White Church is saying about its mission, its new goals and new opportunities and the methods that these opportunities provide. The White Church has always converted every social, economic, political trend in the world to its benefit and advantage. In the following excerpts from the statement of the Superiors General in New York in May 200, which is of critical importance to understand the Church, the White Church has a name for the two fascist, expansionist, and genocidal Abrahamic faiths – Islam and Christianity; the name is ‘great translocal religions’. The name is pregnant with all kinds of possible interpretations. Non-Christian, non-Islamic faiths and religions which have existed for millennia before these two religions are simply “local, oral traditions”. Not religions mind you, not civilizations, not worldviews, and above all, not universal; just simply “local, oral traditions”. This is what it is saying now -

“One thing that globalization is changing (we will return to others in the final part of this presentation) is the meaning of territory and the nation-state. Because the information and capital flow made possible by communications technology, boundaries of the nation-state, which have been a staple of political economy since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, have ever decreased significance. With the flow and migration of peoples, as well as the incursion of global cultural forces on local communities, "culture" as territory has ever decreasing significance. While neither nation-state nor cultural territory will completely disappear (as was the fear in earlier stages of discussion of globalization), its significance is greatly diminished. What does this mean for a mission that defines itself as ad gentes, if the world is no longer so neatly divided into cultural and ethnic groups? Missionary institutes ad gentes have tried to redefine ad gentes as ad extra (that is, simply going out from where one is), or more recently, as ad altera (that is, to those who are made "other").

The first is that the converts who join the great translocal religious traditions (such as Christianity or Islam) come largely from local, oral traditions. Indeed, history would seem to indicate that people in local, oral traditions (sometimes called indigenous religions) shift rather readily to join a translocal tradition such as Christianity, Buddhism, or Islam. But once having done so, they are unlikely to move from one translocal tradition to another. Only those who have not yet been fully integrated into the translocal tradition or those who have been alienated from it are likely to change their affiliation. If that is indeed the case, then mission ad gentes will end for Christianity (and Islam) when the final indigenous peoples have been reached.”

Hindus generally being idiot Hindus, let us break this astounding presumption into small parts. Hindus and tribal communities “readily” convert to Islam or Christianity and these Christian and Muslim converts do not abandon the religion to which they have converted to re-convert to Islam or Christianity. That is, when a Hindu converts to becoming a Christian, then that same converted Hindu Christian will not convert again to becoming Hindu Muslim convert; not unless the Hindu who converted to the Church has not been integrated fully with the Christian community. Read this, understand this and beware. This is full of significance for the way the Church in India operates to pressure Indian polity for concessions for so-called dalit and BC Christians. Ditto with how the Muslims pressure Indian polity to keep the Muslim flock contented in the pen. And that is why the Sachar Committee report assumes significance for Hindu nationaists.

“The story of empire and mission has been told often, by opponents and defenders of mission alike. It is not my intention to recount that history here once again. Rather, I would like to focus on one aspect of that history: namely, that the expansionist designs of Europe provided the infrastructure for an organized and concerted mission ad gentes. Empire not only provided a necessary infrastructure for transportation, protection, and even fiscal support for missionaries, but no doubt figured into the thinking of how mission itself was to be organized, both on the home front and in the distant lands. Individual efforts of missionaries can be traced through history. But the mobilization of religious institutes -- and later the founding of institutes specifically for that purpose -- followed the pathways and even assumed the military rhetoric of the empire-builders.

Now, the Church admits to how it has always played both sides of the game in any conflict to the advantage of its expansionist designs. Do Hindus who engage in inter-faith dialogue at the behest of the White Church have the sense to know the enemy with whom they are “engaged” from its own words, from its own description?

“In saying this, I do not wish to reduce organized mission ad gentes to a byproduct of empire. That would be simplistic and inaccurate. Missionaries often became the opponents of empire, siding with local people against their colonizers. Missionaries preserved local culture through writing down indigenous oral languages even as empire was crippling or destroying it. What I am trying to do here is trying to indicate some factors arising from this convergence of empire and mission ad gentes which may be instructive for our own time.

The convergence of mission ad gentes and empire created a powerful way of thinking wherein the notion of mission ad gentes became bound up with territory. One sees this as early as the founding of the Propaganda Fide in Rome in the seventeenth century and as late as the establishment of the "jus commissionis" in the twentieth century. Rather than models (of religious conversion) wherein going ad gentes meant going to the sovereign (the King) to effect his conversion, mission was seen as Christianizing a territory. The convergence of empire and mission provided models of mission which were derived from the empire and colonizing process.

Most prominent throughout the period of European empire was the civilizing model, which meant bringing European education, technical training, and health care ad gentes. Put in late twentieth century terms, models of human promotion go hand in hand with mission. Today we would think more in terms of social justice or the defense of human rights. In both the earlier and more recent models, what evangelization is becomes extended in terms of an infrastructure which supports mission.

Two characteristics of globalization today which are of significance here are its homogenizing power, whereby it interlinks the world and communicates the same message throughout this network; and its fragmenting power, which in local settings disrupts social arrangements, creates resistance, and heightens the sense of the particular and the local. How does this aspect of globalization interconnect with mission ad gentes?

In responding to the interlinkage through communication as a form of homogenization, missionary institutes and the Church itself should utilize its resources as a transnational and non-governmental organization to bring people together in the solidarity of the human family, and form networks of support and advocacy. Missionary institutes should show by how they live and operate that transnational organizations need not be oppressive, but can bring together human and material resources for the betterment of life for humankind. They should use their resources to reach the gentes, who are now scattered throughout the world, as a result of migration and refugee status, those gentes who drift into our huge cities and lose their identities in the process. We need to think through as missionaries and missiologists how the homogenizing factors in the world today are shaping our thinking and our relationships.

Globalization also fragments the world. Here it seems to me that the mission ad gentes is called to address the consequences of that fragmentation, where people reshape and construct new identities to resist the encroachments of globalization, where refugees and displaced persons have to rebuild lives and heal memories. The work of mission here is a work of reconciliation; that is, restoring human dignity and healing a broken society. It is about telling the truth, seeking justice, and creating a new moral vision. Indeed, it seems to me that reconciliation may well be the metaphor for mission as we enter the twenty-first century.”

The Superiors General, the White Catholic Church has nothing to hide because there are in effect, no real challenges to their agenda, which they have articulated with an openness that is insulting but which is a commentary on Hindu powerlessness to deal with this agenda. The Church is backed and supported thoroughly by the US and the EU. The US and the EU will first create, trigger and nurture conflicts around the world (and these are always countries and regions where the Church has not been successful so far) and once the people have been devastated by prolonged conflict, then the Church will step in to administer the healing touch!

US and European aid agencies and funding agencies – USAID, DFID, Red Cross, World Vision, these are the foot-soldiers of the White Church. Human rights, religious freedom, freedom of conscience, social justice, justice with peace are the new weapons of war in this war-by-other-means. Truth and Reconciliation is the new Church Opening Gambit in this great chess game between the Church and its victims; and we the idiot Hindus mindlessly parrot the slogans the White Church has coined for entrapment, and which have been legitimised by the supporting White Christian nations as the new liberal universal political ideology for the world. The globe-trotting Sri Sri Ravishankar is one of the “spiritual” (not religious, by his own admission) leaders who will be sitting across the table today and he conducted with much media fanfare his own variation of the (in)famous “truth and reconciliation” circus with the dalits in India.

Swami Chidananda Saraswati, another loose-cannon from something called ‘Divine Life Society, Uttaranchal’ who will also be present at the table today, was also present in Advani’s house last year with the Archbishops of Orissa and Delhi, and penned his name to the declaration called infamously, the Delhi Declaration, which the BJP proudly mentioned in its election manifesto. The Delhi Declaration stated that Swami Chidananda Saraswati would re-build the churches burned down by angry tribal communities after Christian terrorists gunned down the venerable Swami Laxmananda Saraswati. This Chidananda Saraswati signed the Delhi Declaration which also stated that he deplored not only “unethical religious conversion’ but also “unethical re-conversion”. He deserves nothing but the strongest condemnation not only for his pathetic understanding of religious conversion but also for his poor understanding of the critical necessity for re-conversion on Hindu bhumi to the parent religion.

The presence of the revered mathathipathi of the Kanchi matham is the only saving grace in this whole disgraceful event. Hindu nationalists and Hindu bhaktas are hoping passionately that the Pujya Kanchi seer will tell the White Church on its face that until the Church declares that it will no longer undertake or countenance religious conversion in India, this will be the last inter-faith dialogue with the Church on Hindu bhumi.

Radha Rajan,
12th June, 2009

This is what Kanchi Shankaracharya spoke at the inter-faith dialogue

2009-06-23T00:57:00.001-07:00

This is what Kanchi Shankaracharya spoke at the inter-faith dialogue
By Radha Rajan

In 1999, Pope John Paul-II had stated that the mission of the Vatican was to plant the Cross in Asia in the third millennium to facilitate the Christianising of the world, which alone would cause the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. The Pope must tell us the rationale for the First Coming of Jesus Christ when there was no Christianity or the Church to undertake the mission to Christianise the world.

(We have it on excellent authority of Kanchi Shankaracharya that the inter-faith dialogue did not go as planned by the Vatican. We are told that no one except the religious leaders themselves and one or two persons to assist them in the dialogue were permitted in the hall. Pujya Periava spoke as is characteristic of him, in the softest tone possible, with the unfading smile never slipping from his face, in chaste Hindi. However, it is obvious from the statement, which he released to the press and media after the dialogue, that the soft tone and chaste Hindi surprised the gathering. It is a good thing for Hindus that this time we had a man who knows his dharma, and more importantly, understands evil, and who spoke for Hinduism. Following are the points that Pujya Periava made at the inter-faith dialogue.)

1. Exactly one month ago to the date, the Pope went to Jerusalem where Jesus was born, for a similar dialogue that the Vatican had undertaken with the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. At the end of that meeting when the Pope and Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzer jointly addressed the press and media, the Chief Rabbi thanked the Pope for assuring the Chief Rabbinate that the Catholic Church would desist and cease from all missionary and conversion activities among the Jews. This is construed as endorsed and agreed by the Pope since he was present at the press meet. We need a similar commitment from the Church for Hindus.

2. After such inter-faith meetings, the points agreed have to be faithfully abided. Otherwise, there will be no point in holding such meetings. Unless the Church reassures Hindus that it will not conduct itself in a manner that wounds Hindu sensibilities and follows up on those assurances, such inter-faith meetings, no matter how frequently they are held, will be futile and not serve any meaningful cause.

3. In 1999, Pope John Paul-II had stated that the mission of the Vatican was to plant the Cross in Asia in the third millennium to facilitate the Christianising of the world, which alone would cause the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. The Pope must tell us the rationale for the First Coming of Jesus Christ when there was no Christianity or the Church to undertake the mission to Christianise the world.

4. We see the USCIRF (US Commission on International Religious Freedom) as an intrusive mechanism of a foreign government to interfere in the internal affairs of this country. The USCIRF, which has been permitted to visit this country to hold meetings with our people to ascertain religious freedom in our country, must no longer be permitted to enter this country on this intrusive mission. We will not allow external interference into our internal affairs.

5. We know that very large amounts of money come into this country for churches and Christian groups, ostensibly for charitable work. These funds should be used only for social causes like health, education, etc, and should not be used for religious conversion. During these dialogues, it should be agreed that the funds should be distributed to all organisations who do charitable work, irrespective of the organisations’ religious faith. A common pool should be created and a committee formed to distribute and monitor the usage of these funds.
6. It has become easy for the missionaries to convert Hindus. All Hindu organisations and associations should work together to educate Hindus and eradicate the conversion activity.

7. Hindu dharma is by nature diverse and so all different panths and sampradayas co-exist on this bhumi without seeking to destroy the others. Hindu dharma has nurtured and supported all faiths and religions because that is the way of dharma. We expect that religions which have come to this bhumi from other lands will respect this vital characteristic of Hindu dharma and not do anything to subvert or disturb the sense of nationhood of this country. Hindu dharma and the Hindu people welcome Christians and Muslims, Parsis and Jews to make this land their home. We expect from these religions that they will not seek to destroy our faith, our religion and wound our religious sensibilities. We encourage all religions to live with mutual respect and harmony in a shared sense of nationalism which should bind us all as one nation. Nationalism should come first.

8. We are aware of the propaganda that they [the church] will cure diseases and ailments if the individual converts to their faith. This is illegal as per the Drugs and Magic Remedies Act 1954 and we call upon the Indian government to take action under the provision of law.

9. Most of the countries in the world (USA, UK, Japan, Middle-East nations, Pakistan, Sri Lanka etc.), adopt national resolutions and statements of intent proclaimed by their governments and their tallest religious bodies, affirming their determination to protect and defend the culture and the religion from which their cultures derive. In India alone we pass resolutions which officially and legally promote an irreligious and unspiritual creed called secularism. Secularism is an administrative quality; it cannot be the soul of this nation. The soul of this nation is religious and spiritual. We call upon our government and other important religious bodies to recognise this truth and affirm their commitment to protect the soul of this nation.

10. The Buddhist Mahasangh and the joint committee of Buddhist organisations have declared their intention to get the Sri Lankan government to pilot and pass a national anti-conversion bill and make it law. We welcome this move and strongly endorse this measure.

11. The Church in India must stop forthwith the use of Hindu religious words, phrases and symbols like Veda, Agama, rishi, ashram, Om and other such in what is referred to as ‘inculturation’ tactics, but which are only intended to deceive the vulnerable sections of our people who are the intended targets for religious conversion. This is also insulting to and wounding the religious sensitivities of Hindus. Similarly, it has been brought to our notice that some churches are scripting a new Bible for the new converts by usurping sections of our sacred Vedas, Upanishads and Puranas and incorporating them into the Bible. This must stop immediately and all such Bibles must be withdrawn from circulation. We urge the Indian government to look into the issue and do the needful.

March of Missionaries in India: God's Moment for India

2009-05-27T22:34:00.000-07:00

http://mydigitalpublication.com/publication/?i=11492
"Attached is a link to a Christian Magazine called Charisma. Please read the article about the progress Christianity has made in India in the recent years - starts on page 26 (God's Moment for India). This is a must read article that summarizes the astonishing progress made by missionaries within the last decade. This article claims that Orissa is now 28% Christian. You should also read the article on page 6 ("They Burn Bibles in India). There are several reasons for this astronomical success; the key reasons are the following."

Church in Africa

2009-05-23T11:46:00.000-07:00

http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2009/05/christist-luuuuuuv-in-action-lessons.html

there is a huge 'mediation center' at muringoor near trichur, kerala. they have been accused of murdering lots of people and all kinds of other mischief. naturally, because the people they murder are usually hindus, the church and the kkkangress hush it all up. (actually, even if they murder christists, it's hushed up -- note the hundreds of cases of nuns being found dead, generally following sexual harassment).

of course, large-scale conversion also goes on there. in addition, a lot of mental patients are apparently 'treated' there, although i believe the recovery rate is poor. it is yet another mechanism by which christists make money.

so is the following story from africa.

they worship mammon, the god of money. and they want to wipe out hinduism. very dangerous people.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: info@

Church in Africa: Child Witches

Dan Harris' story airing tonight on World News highlights the cruelty and violence directed at young children in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Tens of thousands of children are being tortured and executed because they are accused of witchcraft in the name of Jesus Christ. These victims are suffering at the hands of a new breed of pastors who profit by telling parents that the source of their money and health problems is their children.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theworldnewser/2009/05/child-witches-h.html

and

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8063855.stm

what happens behind Church doors (in this case the Orthodox Church). This video reveals how drug addicts have allegedly been filmed being beaten.

A video of one assault, published by Vreme magazine, shows a man appearing to assault a patient by hitting him with a shovel and punching his face. One former resident said staff had offered to cure his addiction with "pleasant conversation" and beatings. A priest running the centre, near Novi Pazar, said a "heavy hand" was needed. One former resident said staff had offered to cure his addiction with "pleasant conversation" and beatings. A priest running the centre, near Novi Pazar, said a "heavy hand" was needed.

Historical Instances of "Love"

2009-05-23T11:39:00.000-07:00

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Naresh
Subject: [FHRS_USA] List of christian 'love' from all over the world

Listed are only events that solely occurred on command of church authorities or were committed in the name of Christianity. (List incomplete)

Ancient Pagans

As soon as Christianity was legal (315), more and more pagan temples were destroyed by Christian mob. Pagan priests were killed.
Between 315 and 6th century thousands of pagan believers were slain.
Examples of destroyed Temples: the Sanctuary of Aesculap in Aegaea, the Temple of Aphrodite in Golgatha, Aphaka in Lebanon, the Heliopolis.
Christian priests such as Mark of Arethusa or Cyrill of Heliopolis were famous as "temple destroyer." [DA468]
Pagan services became punishable by death in 356. [DA468]
Christian Emperor Theodosius (408-450) even had children executed, because they had been playing with remains of pagan statues. [DA469]
According to Christian chroniclers he "followed meticulously all Christian teachings..."
In 6th century pagans were declared void of all rights.
In the early fourth century the philosopher Sopatros was executed on demand of Christian authorities. [DA466]
The world famous female philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria was torn to pieces with glass fragments by a hysterical Christian mob led by a Christian minister named Peter, in a church, in 415.
[DO19-25]

Mission

Emperor Karl (Charlemagne) in 782 had 4500 Saxons, unwilling to convert to Christianity, beheaded. [DO30]
Peasants of Steding (Germany) unwilling to pay suffocating church taxes: between 5,000 and 11,000 men, women and children slain 5/27/1234 near Altenesch/Germany. [WW223]
Battle of Belgrad 1456: 80,000 Turks slaughtered. [DO235]
15th century Poland: 1019 churches and 17987 villages plundered by Knights of the Order. Victims unknown. [DO30]
16th and 17th century Ireland. English troops "pacified and civilized" Ireland, where only Gaelic "wild Irish", "unreasonable beasts lived without any knowledge of God or good manners, in common of their goods, cattle, women, children and every other thing." One of the more successful soldiers, a certain Humphrey Gilbert, half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, ordered that "the heddes of all those (of what sort soever thei were) which were killed in the daie, should be cutte off from their bodies... and should bee laied on the ground by eche side of the waie", which effort to civilize the Irish indeed caused "greate terrour to the people when thei sawe the heddes of their dedde fathers, brothers, children, kinsfolke, and freinds on the grounde".
Tens of thousands of Gaelic Irish fell victim to the carnage. [SH99, 225]

Crusades (1095-1291)

First Crusade: 1095 on command of pope Urban II. [WW11-41]
Semlin/Hungary 6/24/96 thousands slain. Wieselburg/Hungary 6/12/96 thousands. [WW23]
9/9/96-9/26/96 Nikaia, Xerigordon (then turkish), thousands respectively. [WW25-27]
Until Jan 1098 a total of 40 capital cities and 200 castles conquered (number of slain unknown) [WW30]
after 6/3/98 Antiochia (then turkish) conquered, between 10,000 and 60,000 slain. 6/28/98 100,000 Turks (incl. women & children) killed. [WW32-35]
Here the Christians "did no other harm to the women found in [the enemy's] tents - save that they ran their lances through their bellies," according to Christian chronicler Fulcher of Chartres. [EC60]
Marra (Maraat an-numan) 12/11/98 thousands killed. Because of the subsequent famine "the already stinking corpses of the enemies were eaten by the Christians" said chronicler Albert Aquensis. [WW36]
Jerusalem conquered 7/15/1099 more than 60,000 victims (jewish, muslim, men, women, children). [WW37-40]
(In the words of one witness: "there [in front of Solomon's temple] was such a carnage that our people were wading ankle-deep in the blood of our foes", and after that "happily and crying for joy our people marched to our Saviour's tomb, to honour it and to pay off our debt of gratitude")
The Archbishop of Tyre, eye-witness, wrote: "It was impossible to look upon the vast numbers of the slain without horror; everywhere lay fragments of human bodies, and the very ground was covered with the blood of the slain. It was not alone the spectacle of headless bodies and mutilated limbs strewn in all directions that roused the horror of all who looked upon them. Still more dreadful was it to gaze upon the victors themselves, dripping with blood from head to foot, an ominous sight which brought terror to all who met them. It is reported that within the Temple enclosure alone about ten thousand infidels perished." [TG79]
Christian chronicler Eckehard of Aura noted that "even the following summer in all of palestine the air was polluted by the stench of decomposition". One million victims of the first crusade alone. [WW41]
Battle of Askalon, 8/12/1099. 200,000 heathens slaughtered "in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ". [WW45]
Fourth crusade: 4/12/1204 Constantinople sacked, number of victims unknown, numerous thousands, many of them Christian. [WW141-148]
Rest of Crusades in less detail: until the fall of Akkon 1291 probably 20 million victims (in the Holy land and Arab/Turkish areas alone). [WW224]
_{Note: All figures according to contemporary (Christian) chroniclers.}

Heretics

Already in 385 C.E. the first Christians, the Spanish Priscillianus and six followers, were beheaded for heresy in Trier/Germany [DO26]
Manichaean heresy: a crypto-Christian sect decent enough to practice birth control (and thus not as irresponsible as faithful Catholics) was exterminated in huge campaigns all over the Roman empire between 372 C.E . and 444 C.E. Numerous thousands of victims. [NC]
Albigensians: the first Crusade intended to slay other Christians. [DO29]
The Albigensians (cathars = Christians allegedly that have all rarely sucked) viewed themselves as good Christians, but would not accept roman Catholic rule, and taxes, and prohibition of birth control. [NC]
Begin of violence: on command of pope Innocent III (greatest single pre-nazi mass murderer) in 1209. Bezirs (today France) 7/22/1209 destroyed, all the inhabitants were slaughtered. Victims (including Catholics refusing to turn over their heretic neighbours and friends) 20,000-70,000. [WW179-181]
Carcassonne 8/15/1209, thousands slain. Other cities followed. [WW181]
subsequent 20 years of war until nearly all Cathars (probably half the population of the Languedoc, today southern France) were exterminated. [WW183]
After the war ended (1229) the Inquisition was founded 1232 to search and destroy surviving/hiding heretics. Last Cathars burned at the stake 1324. [WW183]
Estimated one million victims (cathar heresy alone), [WW183]
Other heresies: Waldensians, Paulikians, Runcarians, Josephites, and many others. Most of these sects exterminated, (I believe some Waldensians live today, yet they had to endure 600 years of persecution) I estimate at least hundred thousand victims (including the Spanish inquisition but excluding victims in the New World).
Spanish Inquisitor Torquemada alone allegedly responsible for 10,220 burnings. [DO28]
John Huss, a critic of papal infallibility and indulgences, was burned at the stake in 1415. [LI475-522]
University professor B.Hubmaier burned at the stake 1538 in Vienna. [DO59]
Giordano Bruno, Dominican monk, after having been incarcerated for seven years, was burned at the stake for heresy on the Campo dei Fiori (Rome) on 2/17/1600.

Witches

from the beginning of Christianity to 1484 probably more than several thousand.
in the era of witch hunting (1484-1750) according to modern scholars several hundred thousand (about 80% female) burned at the stake or hanged. [WV]
incomplete list of documented cases:
The Burning of Witches - A Chronicle of the Burning Times

Religious Wars

15th century: Crusades against Hussites, thousands slain. [DO30]
1538 pope Paul III declared Crusade against apostate England and all English as slaves of Church (fortunately had not power to go into action). [DO31]
1568 Spanish Inquisition Tribunal ordered extermination of 3 million rebels in (then Spanish) Netherlands. Thousands were actually slain. [DO31]
1572 In France about 20,000 Huguenots were killed on command of pope Pius V. Until 17th century 200,000 flee. [DO31]
17th century: Catholics slay Gaspard de Coligny, a Protestant leader. After murdering him, the Catholic mob mutilated his body, "cutting off his head, his hands, and his genitals... and then dumped him into the river [...but] then, deciding that it was not worthy of being food for the fish, they hauled it out again [... and] dragged what was left ... to the gallows of Montfaulcon, 'to be meat and carrion for maggots and crows'." [SH191]
17th century: Catholics sack the city of Magdeburg/Germany: roughly 30,000 Protestants were slain. "In a single church fifty women were found beheaded," reported poet Friedrich Schiller, "and infants still sucking the breasts of their lifeless mothers." [SH191]
17th century 30 years' war (Catholic vs. Protestant): at least 40% of population decimated, mostly in Germany. [DO31-32]

Jews

Already in the 4th and 5th centuries synagogues were burned by Christians. Number of Jews slain unknown.
In the middle of the fourth century the first synagogue was destroyed on command of bishop Innocentius of Dertona in Northern Italy. The first synagogue known to have been burned down was near the river Euphrat, on command of the bishop of Kallinikon in the year 388. [DA450]
17. Council of Toledo 694: Jews were enslaved, their property confiscated, and their children forcibly baptized. [DA454]
The Bishop of Limoges (France) in 1010 had the cities' Jews, who would not convert to Christianity, expelled or killed. [DA453]
First Crusade: Thousands of Jews slaughtered 1096, maybe 12.000 total. Places: Worms 5/18/1096, Mainz 5/27/1096 (1100 persons), Cologne, Neuss, Altenahr, Wevelinghoven, Xanten, Moers, Dortmund, Kerpen, Trier, Metz, Regensburg, Prag and others (All locations Germany except Metz/France, Prag/Czech) [EJ]
Second Crusade: 1147. Several hundred Jews were slain in Ham, Sully, Carentan, and Rameru (all locations in France). [WW57]
Third Crusade: English Jewish communities sacked 1189/90. [DO40]
Fulda/Germany 1235: 34 Jewish men and women slain. [DO41]
1257, 1267: Jewish communities of London, Canterbury, Northampton, Lincoln, Cambridge, and others exterminated. [DO41]
1290 in Bohemian (Poland) allegedly 10,000 Jews killed. [DO41]
1337 Starting in Deggendorf/Germany a Jew-killing craze reaches 51 towns in Bavaria, Austria, Poland. [DO41]
1348 All Jews of Basel/Switzerland and Strasbourg/France (two thousand) burned. [DO41]
1349 In more than 350 towns in Germany all Jews murdered, mostly burned alive (in this one year more Jews were killed than Christians in 200 years of ancient Roman persecution of Christians). [DO42]
1389 In Prag 3,000 Jews were slaughtered. [DO42]
1391 Seville's Jews killed (Archbishop Martinez leading). 4,000 were slain, 25,000 sold as slaves. [DA454] Their identification was made easy by the brightly colored "badges of shame" that all jews above the age of ten had been forced to wear.
1492: In the year Columbus set sail to conquer a New World, more than 150,000 Jews were expelled from Spain, many died on their way: 6/30/1492. [MM470-476]
1648 Chmielnitzki massacres: In Poland about 200,000 Jews were slain. [DO43]

(I feel sick ...) this goes on and on, century after century, right into the kilns of Auschwitz.

Native Peoples

Beginning with Columbus (a former slave trader and would-be Holy Crusader) the conquest of the New World began, as usual understood as a means to propagate Christianity.
Within hours of landfall on the first inhabited island he encountered in the Caribbean, Columbus seized and carried off six native people who, he said, "ought to be good servants ... [and] would easily be made Christians, because it seemed to me that they belonged to no religion." [SH200]
While Columbus described the Indians as "idolators" and "slaves, as many as [the Crown] shall order," his pal Michele de Cuneo, Italian nobleman, referred to the natives as "beasts" because "they eat when they are hungry," and made love "openly whenever they feel like it." [SH204-205]
On every island he set foot on, Columbus planted a cross, "making the declarations that are required" - the requerimiento - to claim the ownership for his Catholic patrons in Spain. And "nobody objected." If the Indians refused or delayed their acceptance (or understanding), the requerimiento continued:

I certify to you that, with the help of God, we shall powerfully enter in your country and shall make war against you ... and shall subject you to the yoke and obedience of the Church ... and shall do you all mischief that we can, as to vassals who do not obey and refuse to receive their lord and resist and contradict him." [SH66]

Likewise in the words of John Winthrop, first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony: "justifieinge the undertakeres of the intended Plantation in New England ... to carry the Gospell into those parts of the world, ... and to raise a Bulworke against the kingdome of the Ante-Christ." [SH235]
In average two thirds of the native population were killed by colonist-imported smallpox before violence began. This was a great sign of "the marvelous goodness and providence of God" to the Christians of course, e.g. the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony wrote in 1634, as "for the natives, they are near all dead of the smallpox, so as the Lord hath cleared our title to what we possess." [SH109,238]
On Hispaniola alone, on Columbus visits, the native population (Arawak), a rather harmless and happy people living on an island of abundant natural resources, a literal paradise, soon mourned 50,000 dead. [SH204]
The surviving Indians fell victim to rape, murder, enslavement and spanish raids.
As one of the culprits wrote: "So many Indians died that they could not be counted, all through the land the Indians lay dead everywhere. The stench was very great and pestiferous." [SH69]
The indian chief Hatuey fled with his people but was captured and burned alive. As "they were tying him to the stake a Franciscan friar urged him to take Jesus to his heart so that his soul might go to heaven, rather than descend into hell. Hatuey replied that if heaven was where the Christians went, he would rather go to hell." [SH70]
What happened to his people was described by an eyewitness:
"The Spaniards found pleasure in inventing all kinds of odd cruelties ... They built a long gibbet, long enough for the toes to touch the ground to prevent strangling, and hanged thirteen [natives] at a time in honor of Christ Our Saviour and the twelve Apostles... then, straw was wrapped around their torn bodies and they were burned alive." [SH72]
Or, on another occasion:
"The Spaniards cut off the arm of one, the leg or hip of another, and from some their heads at one stroke, like butchers cutting up beef and mutton for market. Six hundred, including the cacique, were thus slain like brute beasts...Vasco [de Balboa] ordered forty of them to be torn to pieces by dogs." [SH83]
The "island's population of about eight million people at the time of Columbus's arrival in 1492 already had declined by a third to a half before the year 1496 was out." Eventually all the island's natives were exterminated, so the Spaniards were "forced" to import slaves from other caribbean islands, who soon suffered the same fate. Thus "the Caribbean's millions of native people [were] thereby effectively liquidated in barely a quarter of a century". [SH72-73] "In less than the normal lifetime of a single human being, an entire culture of millions of people, thousands of years resident in their homeland, had been exterminated." [SH75]
"And then the Spanish turned their attention to the mainland of Mexico and Central America. The slaughter had barely begun. The exquisite city of Tenochtitln [Mexico city] was next." [SH75]
Cortez, Pizarro, De Soto and hundreds of other spanish conquistadors likewise sacked southern and mesoamerican civilizations in the name of Christ (De Soto also sacked Florida).
"When the 16th century ended, some 200,000 Spaniards had moved to the Americas. By that time probably more than 60,000,000 natives were dead." [SH95]

Of course no different were the founders of what today is the US of Amerikkka.

Although none of the settlers would have survived winter without native help, they soon set out to expel and exterminate the Indians. Warfare among (north American) Indians was rather harmless, in comparison to European standards, and was meant to avenge insults rather than conquer land. In the words of some of the pilgrim fathers: "Their Warres are farre less bloudy...", so that there usually was "no great slawter of nether side". Indeed, "they might fight seven yeares and not kill seven men." What is more, the Indians usually spared women and children. [SH111]
In the spring of 1612 some English colonists found life among the (generally friendly and generous) natives attractive enough to leave Jamestown - "being idell ... did runne away unto the Indyans," - to live among them (that probably solved a sex problem).
"Governor Thomas Dale had them hunted down and executed: 'Some he apointed (sic) to be hanged Some burned Some to be broken upon wheles, others to be staked and some shott to deathe'." [SH105] Of course these elegant measures were restricted for fellow englishmen: "This was the treatment for those who wished to act like Indians. For those who had no choice in the matter, because they were the native people of Virginia" methods were different: "when an Indian was accused by an Englishman of stealing a cup and failing to return it, the English response was to attack the natives in force, burning the entire community" down. [SH105]
On the territory that is now Massachusetts the founding fathers of the colonies were committing genocide, in what has become known as the "Peqout War". The killers were New England Puritan Christians, refugees from persecution in their own home country England.
When however, a dead colonist was found, apparently killed by Narragansett Indians, the Puritan colonists wanted revenge. Despite the Indian chief's pledge they attacked.
Somehow they seem to have lost the idea of what they were after, because when they were greeted by Pequot Indians (long-time foes of the Narragansetts) the troops nevertheless made war on the Pequots and burned their villages.
The puritan commander-in-charge John Mason after one massacre wrote: "And indeed such a dreadful Terror did the Almighty let fall upon their Spirits, that they would fly from us and run into the very Flames, where many of them perished ... God was above them, who laughed his Enemies and the Enemies of his People to Scorn, making them as a fiery Oven ... Thus did the Lord judge among the Heathen, filling the Place with dead Bodies": men, women, children. [SH113-114]
So "the Lord was pleased to smite our Enemies in the hinder Parts, and to give us their land for an inheritance". [SH111].
Because of his readers' assumed knowledge of Deuteronomy, there was no need for Mason to quote the words that immediately follow:
"Thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth. But thou shalt utterly destroy them..." (Deut 20)
Mason's comrade Underhill recalled how "great and doleful was the bloody sight to the view of the young soldiers" yet reassured his readers that "sometimes the Scripture declareth women and children must perish with their parents". [SH114]
Other Indians were killed in successful plots of poisoning. The colonists even had dogs especially trained to kill Indians and to devour children from their mothers breasts, in the colonists' own words: "blood Hounds to draw after them, and Mastives to seaze them." (This was inspired by spanish methods of the time)
In this way they continued until the extermination of the Pequots was near. [SH107-119]
The surviving handful of Indians "were parceled out to live in servitude. John Endicott and his pastor wrote to the governor asking for 'a share' of the captives, specifically 'a young woman or girle and a boy if you thinke good'." [SH115]
Other tribes were to follow the same path.
Comment the Christian exterminators: "God's Will, which will at last give us cause to say: How Great is His Goodness! and How Great is his Beauty!"
"Thus doth the Lord Jesus make them to bow before him, and to lick the Dust!" [TA]
Like today, lying was OK to Christians then. "Peace treaties were signed with every intention to violate them: when the Indians 'grow secure uppon (sic) the treatie', advised the Council of State in Virginia, 'we shall have the better Advantage both to surprise them, & cutt downe theire Corne'." [SH106]
In 1624 sixty heavily armed Englishmen cut down 800 defenseless Indian men, women and children. [SH107]
In a single massacre in "King Philip's War" of 1675 and 1676 some "600 Indians were destroyed. A delighted Cotton Mather, revered pastor of the Second Church in Boston, later referred to the slaughter as a 'barbeque'." [SH115]
To summarize: Before the arrival of the English, the western Abenaki people in New Hampshire and Vermont had numbered 12,000. Less than half a century later about 250 remained alive - a destruction rate of 98%. The Pocumtuck people had numbered more than 18,000, fifty years later they were down to 920 - 95% destroyed. The Quiripi-Unquachog people had numbered about 30,000, fifty years later they were down to 1500 - 95% destroyed. The Massachusetts people had numbered at least 44,000, fifty years later barely 6000 were alive - 81% destroyed. [SH118] These are only a few examples of the multitude of tribes living before Christian colonists set their foot on the New World. All this was before the smallpox epidemics of 1677 and 1678 had occurred. And the carnage was not over then.
All the above was only the beginning of the European colonization, it was before the frontier age actually had begun.
A total of maybe more than 150 million Indians (of both Americas) were destroyed in the period of 1500 to 1900, as an average two thirds by smallpox and other epidemics, that leaves some 50 million killed directly by violence, bad treatment and slavery.
In many countries, such as Brazil, and Guatemala, this continues even today.

More Glorious events in US history

Reverend Solomon Stoddard, one of New England's most esteemed religious leaders, in "1703 formally proposed to the Massachusetts Governor that the colonists be given the financial wherewithal to purchase and train large packs of dogs 'to hunt Indians as they do bears'." [SH241]
Massacre of Sand Creek, Colorado 11/29/1864. Colonel John Chivington, a former Methodist minister and still elder in the church ("I long to be wading in gore") had a Cheyenne village of about 600, mostly women and children, gunned down despite the chiefs' waving with a white flag: 400-500 killed.
From an eye-witness account: "There were some thirty or forty squaws collected in a hole for protection; they sent out a little girl about six years old with a white flag on a stick; she had not proceeded but a few steps when she was shot and killed. All the squaws in that hole were afterwards killed ..." [SH131]
More gory details.
By the 1860s, "in Hawai'i the Reverend Rufus Anderson surveyed the carnage that by then had reduced those islands' native population by 90 percent or more, and he declined to see it as tragedy; the expected total die-off of the Hawaiian population was only natural, this missionary said, somewhat equivalent to 'the amputation of diseased members of the body'." [SH244]

20th Century Church Atrocities

Catholic extermination camps
Surpisingly few know that Nazi extermination camps in World War II were by no means the only ones in Europe at the time. In the years 1942-1943 also in Croatia existed numerous extermination camps, run by Catholic Ustasha under their dictator Ante Paveli, a practising Catholic and regular visitor to the then pope. There were even concentration camps exclusively for children!
In these camps - the most notorious was Jasenovac, headed by a Franciscan friar - orthodox-Christian serbians (and a substantial number of Jews) were murdered. Like the Nazis the Catholic Ustasha burned their victims in kilns, alive (the Nazis were decent enough to have their victims gassed first). But most of the victims were simply stabbed, slain or shot to death, the number of them being estimated between 300,000 and 600,000, in a rather tiny country. Many of the killers were Franciscan friars. The atrocities were appalling enough to induce bystanders of the Nazi "Sicherheitsdient der SS", watching, to complain about them to Hitler (who did not listen). The pope knew about these events and did nothing to prevent them. [MV]
Catholic terror in Vietnam
In 1954 Vietnamese freedom fighters - the Viet Minh - had finally defeated the French colonial government in North Vietnam, which by then had been supported by U.S. funds amounting to more than $2 billion. Although the victorious assured religious freedom to all (most non-buddhist Vietnamese were Catholics), due to huge anticommunist propaganda campaigns many Catholics fled to the South. With the help of Catholic lobbies in Washington and Cardinal Spellman, the Vatican's spokesman in U.S. politics, who later on would call the U.S. forces in Vietnam "Soldiers of Christ", a scheme was concocted to prevent democratic elections which could have brought the communist Viet Minh to power in the South as well, and the fanatic Catholic Ngo Dinh Diem was made president of South Vietnam. [MW16ff]
Diem saw to it that U.S. aid, food, technical and general assistance was given to Catholics alone, Buddhist individuals and villages were ignored or had to pay for the food aids which were given to Catholics for free. The only religious denomination to be supported was Roman Catholicism.
The Vietnamese McCarthyism turned even more vicious than its American counterpart. By 1956 Diem promulgated a presidential order which read:
- "Individuals considered dangerous to the national defense and common security may be confined by executive order, to a concentration camp."
Supposedly to fight communism, thousands of buddhist protesters and monks were imprisoned in "detention camps." Out of protest dozens of buddhist teachers - male and female - and monks poured gasoline over themselves and burned themselves. ( Note that Buddhists burned themselves: in comparison Christians tend to burn others). Meanwhile some of the prison camps, which in the meantime were filled with Protestant and even Catholic protesters as well, had turned into no-nonsense death camps. It is estimated that during this period of terror (1955-1960) at least 24,000 were wounded - mostly in street riots - 80,000 people were executed, 275,000 had been detained or tortured, and about 500,000 were sent to concentration or detention camps. [MW76-89].
To support this kind of government in the next decade thousands of American GI's lost their life.
Christianity kills the cat
On July 1, 1976, Anneliese Michel, a 23-year-old student of a teachers college in Germany, died: she starved herself to death. For months she had been haunted by demonic visions and apparitions, and for months two Catholic priests - with explicit approval of the Catholic bishop of Wrzburg - additionally pestered and tormented the wretched girl with their exorcist rituals. After her death in Klingenberg hospital - her body was littered with wounds - her parents, both of them fanatical Catholics, were sentenced to six months for not having called for medical help. None of the priests was punished: on the contrary, Miss Michel's grave today is a place of pilgrimage and worship for a number of similarly faithful Catholics (in the seventeenth century Wrzburg was notorious for it's extensive witch burnings).
This case is only the tip of an iceberg of such evil superstition and has become known only because of its lethal outcome. [SP80]
Rwanda Massacres
In 1994 in the small african country of Rwanda in just a few months several hundred thousand civilians were butchered, apparently a conflict of the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups.
For quite some time I heard only rumours about Catholic clergy actively involved in the 1994 Rwanda massacres. Odd denials of involvement were printed in Catholic church journals, before even anybody had openly accused members of the church.
Then, 10/10/96, in the newscast of S2 Aktuell, Germany - a station not at all critical to Christianity - the following was stated:
- "Anglican as well as Catholic priests and nuns are suspect of having actively participated in murders. Especially the conduct of a certain Catholic priest has been occupying the public mind in Rwanda's capital Kigali for months. He was minister of the church of the Holy Family and allegedly murdered Tutsis in the most brutal manner. He is reported to have accompanied marauding Hutu militia with a gun in his cowl. In fact there has been a bloody slaughter of Tutsis seeking shelter in his parish. Even two years after the massacres many Catholics refuse to set foot on the threshold of their church, because to them the participation of a certain part of the clergy in the slaughter is well established. There is almost no church in Rwanda that has not seen refugees - women, children, old - being brutally butchered facing the crucifix.
  According to eyewitnesses clergymen gave away hiding Tutsis and turned them over to the machetes of the Hutu militia.
  In connection with these events again and again two Benedictine nuns are mentioned, both of whom have fled into a Belgian monastery in the meantime to avoid prosecution. According to survivors one of them called the Hutu killers and led them to several thousand people who had sought shelter in her monastery. By force the doomed were driven out of the churchyard and were murdered in the presence of the nun right in front of the gate. The other one is also reported to have directly cooperated with the murderers of the Hutu militia. In her case again witnesses report that she watched the slaughtering of people in cold blood and without showing response. She is even accused of having procured some petrol used by the killers to set on fire and burn their victims alive..." [S2]
As can be seen from these events, to Christianity the Dark Ages never come to an end.

If today Christians talk to me about morality, this is why they make me sick.

References:

[DA]

K.Deschner, Abermals krhte der Hahn, Stuttgart 1962.

[DO]

K.Deschner, Opus Diaboli, Reinbek 1987.

[EC]

P.W.Edbury, Crusade and Settlement, Cardiff Univ. Press 1985.

[EJ]

S.Eidelberg, The Jews and the Crusaders, Madison 1977.

[LI]

H.C.Lea, The Inquisition of the Middle Ages, New York 1961.

[MM]

M.Margolis, A.Marx, A History of the Jewish People.

[MV]

A.Manhattan, The Vatican's Holocaust, Springfield 1986.
See also V.Dedijer, The Yugoslav Auschwitz and the Vatican, Buffalo NY, 1992.

[NC]

J.T.Noonan, Contraception: A History of its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists, Cambridge/Mass., 1992.

[S2]

Newscast of S2 Aktuell, Germany, 10/10/96, 12:00.

[SH]

D.Stannard, American Holocaust, Oxford University Press 1992.

[SP]

German news magazine Der Spiegel, no.49, 12/2/1996.

[TA]

A True Account of the Most Considerable Occurrences that have Hapned in the Warre Between the English and the Indians in New England, London 1676.

[TG]

F.Turner, Beyond Geography, New York 1980.

[WW]

H.Wollschlger: Die bewaffneten Wallfahrten gen Jerusalem, Zrich 1973.
(This is in german and what is worse, it is out of print. But it is the best I ever read about crusades and includes a full list of original medieval Christian chroniclers' writings).

[WV]

Estimates on the number of executed witches:

N.Cohn, Europe's Inner Demons: An Enquiry Inspired by the Great Witch Hunt, Frogmore 1976, 253.
R.H.Robbins, The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology, New York 1959, 180.
J.B.Russell, Witchcraft in the Middle Ages, Ithaca/NY 1972, 39.
H.Zwetsloot, Friedrich Spee und die Hexenprozesse, Trier 1954, 56.

Source:

http://www.truthbeknown.com/victims.htm

The Crusade Behind Conversions

2009-05-07T19:38:00.001-07:00

Author: P.N. Benjamin
Publication: Covert
Date: January 16-31, 2009
URL: http://www.covert.co.in/guest.htm

Christians are thoroughly muddled over the business of conversion. They don't want to quit this field of clover. However, think for a moment. Do they really want their Hindu and Muslim friends to join the churches? Listen in at their Pastorate Committee meetings. Quarrels over who is to be the next bishop, principal or secretary? What's so wonderful about Christians that they should appeal to others to leave their traditions and come to Christian camps? Christians, who are neither fish, flesh nor good red herring? Do they really take the teachings of Christ seriously?

Christians' morals are no better than others. Don't they take and give bribes, tell lies like anyone else? As to violence, they don't need to learn anything. They have in the past set fire to a bishop and his wife. The bishop survived and the wife died. That happened in the late 1970s. The bishop was none other than Bishop Anantha Rao Samuel who later became the Moderator of the Church of South India. I ask my Christian brethren: wasn't there anything else we could burn - paper, cigarettes, fireworks?

What is more - Jesus was not a Christian. He was a Jew and he remained one. He did not found Christian religion. That was done by organisation-loving men. He showed the Christians a way, which was he himself. But he was a daredevil all right, and used pretty strong language when it came to telling the priests and leaders where to get off. He even called them "whited sepulchres" [isn't that a lovely phrase?]. The Jews despised the Samaritans, somewhat like the way Dalits have been despised in our country for centuries or the Blacks in the US. But Jesus was always telling them stories about how much better as human beings the Samaritans were.

When the traveller fell among thieves the priest and the upper-castes passed him by, but the Dalit bound his wounds and took him to an inn. Ten lepers were healed. Only one returned to give thanks to God and he was a Dalit.

One day Jesus was found talking to a Dalit woman - a woman, believe it or not. Jews never spoke to women and even his disciples were shocked at his atrocious behaviour. Added to it, the woman had had five husbands. To top it all, he asked her for a drink of water. As bad as a Brahmin asking a Dalit in some parts of Tamil Nadu for water from an out-caste well. No wonder the priests wanted to do him in. They waited around corners to slosh him on the head. Finally, they got him crucified with two thieves.

No one can deny that genuine conversions do take place through the influence of one individual. A lovely Ca nadian girl came to India [Bangalore] on a Government of India scholarship to learn Bharatnatyam in the 1970s. Like so many of her generation she was an agnostic. She was U.S. Krishna Rao's star pupil and made her debut in six months. One day she met Mother Teresa. She fell under her spell. She abandoned dance and donned the robes of a nun. "You are a born artiste. How dare you become a nun?" Krishna Rao raged in vain. She went to Kolkata and later to Mexico where she was working in a slum when we last heard about her. No one can quarrel with such a conversion. But when a well-organised body financed by foreign money begins to shift a whole herd of people from one caste to another, one begins to suspect their motives.

A brilliant Danish professor, Dr Kaaj Baago, in the United Theological College, Bangalore, made history when he said in the 1960s: "Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists should never give up their religion to join the Christian Church." On the other hand, the Church should humble itself and find ways of identifying itself with other groups, taking Christ with them. Christ, he said, was not the chairman of the Christian party. If God is the Lord of the universe he will work through every culture and religion. We must give up the crusading spirit of the colonial era and stop singing weird hymns like "Onward Christian soldiers marching as to war". This will lead to Hindu Christianity or Buddhist Christianity. It must involve the disappearance of the Indian Christian community, but he reminded us: "A grain of wheat remains a solitary grain unless it falls to the ground and dies."

Needless to say, Indian Christians were furious. He left the College, the Church and the mission and took refuge with the Danish Foreign Service. He later returned to India as his country's Ambassador and died in harness in 1988.

One last story. About 150 years ago, the Church of England was sending out a very important Anglican Church dignitary as Metropolitan of Calcutta. The Brahmin priests got wind of it. This foreign religion might become a threat to their own traditions. They must investigate. So they sent one of their men to investigate. He wandered around the city till he came to the Bishop's residence. It was a vast, sprawling opulent mansion. As he stood at the gate the great man walked down the steps, arrayed in his magnificent robes. He stepped into the waiting carriage drawn by two horses with a postillion sitting at the rear.

The spy returned to his friends. "Have no fears," he said, "this is not a religion we need fear." The priests were relieved, and rightly relieved, for the pomp and splendour of organised Christianity holds no appeal for any genuine seeker after truth [¼]

- P.N. Benjamin is Coordinator, Bangalore Initiative for Religious Dialogue [BIRD]

Myanmar Mission of the Council of Nagaland Baptist Churches Missionaries set Hindu temple on fire

2009-05-07T19:36:00.001-07:00

Publication: Organiser
Date: February 15, 2009
URL: http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=277&page=8

According to the complaints of Hindu Nagas, the Christian missionaries from Tamenlong in Manipur in collusion with their Barak Valley activists have been converting the Hindus of Ujan Tarapur through allurements and threats.

SILCHAR: Christian missionaries preach many things and quote the Bible in particular to say, "We do not hurt other denominations." And behind the facade of this Biblical adherence lies the ugly face of their activities to take resort to illegal and fraud for conversion of the innocent and simple minded people by force, inducement and questionable means. It is now more than clear that it is these missionaries who create conflict and stoke the flame of religious bigotry and communal passion. Glaring example is Kandhamal.Laxamananda Saraswati was murdered because he had become a formidable force in the area against forced conversion of Hindus. His popularity and following in the area was rapidly increasing, scaring the Christian zealots.

The pseudo secularists and the media of that mindset blamed the VHP and the Bajrang Dal for the Kandhamal situation without making any ground study. Let them come to Barak Valley of Assam and have independent and objective look at the nefarious and provocative designs of the missionaries to convert the Hindus.

Christian missionaries as a part of their proselytisation drive after abortive attempts at conversion have again targeted the Hindu Rongmei Naga inhabited village of Ujan Tarapur, near Banskandi. Under the guidance of their pastor they attacked the temple of Goddess Kali and set the idol on fire, besides causing extensive damage to the temple.

On the basis of the complaint lodged with the Lakhipur police station by the Rongmeis, the police took prompt action and arrested Thuirangdin Rongmei (47), Pawhailung Rongmei (63) and Alum Rongmei (35). Thuirangdin is from the Tamenlong district of Manipur while two others are from Barak Valley of Assam. Another missionary involved in the crime identified as Miuri Rongmei is absconding.

Additional SP of Cachar Pradip Ranjan Kar, officer in-charge of Lakhipur Seva Singh and magistrate Ranjit Kumar Laskar rushed to the spot on receipt of information and arrested the missionaries who were produced before the Chief Judicial Magistrate Court at Silchar. These missionaries have been chargesheeted under sections 120(B), 153(A), 295(A) of 427/435/34 IPC.

According to the complaints of Hindu Nagas, the Christian missionaries from Tamenlong in Manipur in collusion with their Barak Valley activists have been converting the Hindus of Ujan Tarapur through allurements and even by threats. Zeliangrong Haraku Association (ZHA), an organisation of Naga Tribes-Zeme, Rongmei and Liyangmei-has taken serious exception to the decision of the Myanmar Mission of the Council of Nagaland Baptist Churches (CNBC) to evangelise the Nagas.

The Council at its last annual meeting held at Paren in Nagaland has adopted a resolution to conduct evangelisation programme. The resolution calls upon the Baptist churches to take positive steps in this regard.

Quite intriguing is the use of code and the organised efforts of the Baptist churches to work for the realisation of Myanmar mission. Details of this mission are not known. The CNBC has reiterated to "uphold this mission project in every possible way as a joint ministry in the world evangelisation mission."

Gaifui Rongmei, Pinsingpoi Rongmei and Chinkudai Rongmei of Ujan Tarapur had complained earlier that "this proselytisation drive is not new." Three missionaries have been frequenting their areas and forcing them to embrace Christianity. This process started in 1996 when copies of Bible were distributed among the 50 odd families of the village. Following year their visit was with questionnaires to all of them and particularly on the essence of the Bible and what they have learnt about Jesus Christ and Christianity.

Panicked villagers met Kalyan Ashram members who immediately took up the matter with the then deputy commissioner, Pawan Kumar Borthakur and SP Jeevan Singh as well as the subsidiary intelligence bureau officials. The villagers said the missionaries abused their gods and goddesses and advised them not to offer worship at their apoo ragwang (Shiva) and paimadiliu (Kali) temples. They also alleged that the missionaries not only resorted to coercive methods but also extorted money from 43 families.

ZHA in a statement at Haflong while advising the Zeliangrongs to preserve their tradition, culture and heritage has cautioned the missionaries against conversion for such a process would only create tension and conflict, fraught with disastrous consequences.

Evangelists have to be stopped on the ground by all means

2009-04-29T19:36:00.001-07:00

Gautam Sen
date Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 2:58 PM

I find mystifying the insistence on convincing highly motivated evangelists of the error of their ways by pointing to Christian superstitions and the contrasting nobility of the Vedic espousal of truth. Nor is it a persuasive idea that highlighting the social tensions evangelical activity and conversion create will suffice to deter them.

Firstly, I know of no Hindu within the fold who has the intellectual capacity to engage in debate with Christian (or indeed Muslim) missionaries on theology since they cannot even comprehend the basics of their own history, all of which are available in standard texts. I do not think contemporary Hindus, who mostly despise intellectual endeavour and prefer to read mediocre and error-prone texts by the uneducated, will be able to deal with the likes Hans Kung (whose outstanding book on religion I suggested to the Hindu, allegedly in-charge of Hindu educational programmes in the UK, and which he instantly and arrogantly rejected). The Hindutva movement as a whole regards intellectual activity with deep animosity, whatever they say in public to the contrary and there is no Aurobindo or Vivekananda to provide ballast today for a Hindu intellectual revival.

Secondly, evangelists are socialised emotionally and intellectually in societies that are already the products of the Enlightenment. Religion in these societies today pertains mainly to observance of ritual, shared with others to bind inter-personal relationships and has little to do with belief in a god, i.e. and even unbelievers acquiesce in Christian rituals on marriage, birth, death, etc.

The vast evangelical empires of the US, which are really business corporations and political organisations, are an adverse reaction to black empowerment and ethnic demographic change that has dis-empowered a numerically significant section of the white population — white collar, skilled blue collar working and lower middle classes of the South. Those who take to Christian evangelical activity, despite this unpropitious Enlightenment background, are highly unlikely to listen to pagan sermons on Christian superstition and concede the superiority of Sanatana Dharma as a result. They are true believers, not interested in logic and truth and have on their side the subliminal superiority of dispensing an import from white European civilisations. Such sermons are also a double edged sword since popular Hinduism is also suffused with superstition and this is the Hinduism of both the masses and the adherents of political Hindutva. Even the divine Vivekananda wavered on this score though he provided persuasive reasons for this rejection of the Brahmo Samaj's austere perspective. God, he was such an intelligent man!!

Thirdly, I cannot fathom why there is such resistance to accepting that Christianity is primarily a political ideology, regardless of what the individual Christian believes. And I have no doubt that most true believing evangelists are personally sincere and many are unusually decent human beings as a result of their belief in Christ. I am getting tired of repeating that from the time of Constantine, Christianity has been a state religion, designed to legitimate and exercise control over the populace and crush rivals. I will provide a list of readings to anyone under a misapprehension on this matter. And may I add that this is something Ram Swarup and Sitaram Goel also assert without suspecting that controversy on the matter would persist in 2009!!! The individual evangelist on the ground and his locally-recruited, salaried, Christian coolie are entirely the creatures of western governments and their intelligence agencies. From Poland or Nepal (($ 5 million bribe to mainstream political leaders to remove the word Hindu from the new Republican Constitution), evangelical activity has always been dependent on US government agencies whenever they are in trouble. Within the country (e.g. India) where operations are undertaken, interference in local politics has always been brazen and needs no deep argument and facts to demonstrate. Various churches have repeatedly intervened to guide voters (from the 1950s in Kerala), cajole, bribe and intimidate. Is there any doubt about the venal political agenda of low life like John Dayal (please read what he has to say about Hinduism before suggesting I moderate my language) and Professor Raju Thomas of Marquette, someone who testifies in the US that the situation of Christians in India today is akin to the situation of Jewry in 1930s Germany — yes, such are the vicious lies and untruths propagated. And these people will be persuaded to re-think their strategies of imperial conquest when (the BJP representatives like) Seshadri Chari learns a little theology and corners them on the matter of Christian superstition? Please, don't make me laugh!

Evangelists have to be stopped on the ground by all means, since they are preparing the ground for total subjugation of Hindus and Swami Lakshmananda has already shown us the way and paid with his life in doing so. And please, no more inter-faith dialogues, a matter I have dealt with at length in the two recent issues of the Organiser.

GS

Record 90.21 per cent turnout in peaceful Nagaland polls

2009-04-27T06:52:00.001-07:00

By Jagdamba Mall

An estimated 90.21 per cent out of 13,17,729 voters (total population 19,88,636) on April 16 exercised their franchise at 1790 polling stations across Nagaland including those in inaccessible villages in districts of Mon and Tuensang bordering Myanmar and infested by different underground factions to elect the lone representative to Lok Sabha as well as four Assembly constituencies in an exercise that remained largely peaceful. The highest polling percentage was reported from Kiphire with 97.49 per cent followed closely by Mon at 93.56 per cent and third Pughoboto at 93.66 per cent. Other districts like Dimapur registered 83.47 per cent voter turn out, Peren 91.60 per cent, Kohima 79.30 per cent, Phek 94.12 per cent, Mokokchung 86.26 per cent, Zunheboto 93.58 per cent, Longleng 96.49 per cent, and Tuensang 96 per cent. The Assembly segment poll percentage stands at 83.42 per cent for 41 Tizit (final), 83.35 per cent for 54 Tuensang Sadar II, 82.88 per cent for Dimapur III and 91.40 per cent for 17th Chizami. Reportedly, the over-all polling in the state was peaceful with no major incident, no mob violence or clash. Polling Stations not connected by road stood at 56, mostly in Peren, Phek, Wokha, Longleng, Kiphire and Tuensang. It was a bipolar election. The Congress and Naga People’s Front (NPF) supported by BJP were two main rival parties though invisible Trinamool Congress (TC) had also fielded its candidate.

Three candidates were in the fray for Lok Sabha seat, which included CM Chang, a retired state government officer (NPF), K. Asungba Sangtam, former MP Lok Sabha (Congress) and Dr. Rilangthung Odyuo (Trinamool). Of the three candidates, CM Chang (NPF) contested the Lok Sabha polls for the first time and is backed by the ruling Democratic Alliance of Nagaland (DAN) which is at the helm of power in the state. CM Chang unsuccessfully contested on NPF tickets from Noksen in 2004 and 2008. K. Asungba Sangtam (Congress) is in the fray for the forth-consecutive terms for the Lok Sabha Polls. He fought on Congress ticket in 1998, 1999 and 2004. This time too, he is contesting on Congress ticket. Asungba won the seat in 1998 and 1999 and became MP (Lok Sabha) (1998-1999 and 1999-2004) from Nagaland. Dr. Rilanthung Odyuo also contested the 2004 Lok Sabha election as Independent but lost.

The most debated 16-page booklet-Bedrock of Naga Society authored by Shri SC Jamir and published in 2000 by AICC (Nagaland) still haunted the mind of rival politicians. They alleged that Bedrock of Naga Society of Shri Jamir had put Naga secessionist movement in reverse gear. On the heat of election, NPF reclaimed to work for reconciliation between different militant factions and bring permanent peace and prosperity in Nagaland. Top-most politicians including Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio said that in the changed international and national scenario, various countries were talking of inter-dependence and economic sovereignty instead of political sovereignty. The Baptist Church has engripped Naga society with almost 90 per cent Christian population. They have been successfully, as alleged, influencing all the earlier Assembly and Parliamentary elections in favour of those who had support for the secessionist movement. This time also, the Church leaders tried their level best to influence the election, but their grip appeared to be fast declining because of their artificial life, greed for carnal pleasure and their hob-nobbing in dirty political game and secessionist movements more than religious matters. The missionary work has become a business in Nagaland.

The insurgency in Nagaland started with the conversion of Nagas into Christianity in early part of 1950 onwards. The growth of Naga insurgency ran parallel to that of conversion of Nagas to Christianity. The Churches became the safest shelter place for insurgents. Today, over 40,000 Nagas stand killed reportedly and the killing spree still continues. The common Naga people have become fed up of hypocrisy of Church and Church supported militant organizations. They are also fed up of corrupt politicians and Church leaders. The Naga public dream to live in peace and prosperity. They wish to revive their age-old ethos, which are disappearing fast. The 90.21 per cent turn out and incident free polling are the reflection of Naga people’s dream to live with peace and prosperity in the emerging super power—Bharatvarsh. This is also a clear-cut denial of secessionist demand of underground organisations.

Election prompt prayer campaign

2009-04-20T19:35:00.001-07:00

Dr Mrs Hilda Raja,
Vadodara

A ministry working with the persecuted church is calling Christians round the world to pray for fellow believers in India as the country begins its national parliamentary elections.

The author conveniently refers to church in the singular—but there are so many churches and each with its own distinct Christian God and gospel, rite, beliefs dogmas etc. This election-prompt prayer campaign for Christians in India made by the ministry working for the persecuted church —hiding behind a ‘Church’ to broadcast its propaganda of lies, false allegations, anti-national statements is nothing but a political propaganda blitz.

Where is this persecuted church—and what in some countries where the church is the persecutor? Any one with a smattering of world history will know that the church started its mission with persecution and blood shed. It continues till date. Methods of persecution change according to time, clime, culture and exigencies. So it is caught in its own persecution phobia.

Did the Christian country—USA under Bush—belonging to the Born Again Church on lies and blatant lies not declare war on Iraq—tortured, killed, and demolished a whole nation? Soldiers knelt made the sign of the cross and fired on civilian areas. How Christian was that and on which side of the firing line was this Christian god, and is it to this god now the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC) national president Sajan K George and Director Abhishek Singh of Open Doors are requesting Christians around the world to supplicate for the persecuted Christians in India?

I suppose this God will be able to differentiate election campaigning and a prayer of supplication. If God is Truth then is it not a blasphemy to supplicate to that Truth with lies?

The GCIC has made a grave accusation against the present UPA government—the threat of unfair elections—Yet it further appeals to the same political leaders who cannot ensure even fair elections to guarantee safety for religious minorities and ensure their participation in elections, defend freedom of religion and bring to justice those who discriminate against the Christians. That’s a tall order. If the UPA government till date was not able to ensure all this then how can it on the eve of the elections? If carefully scrutinized the statement calls for throwing out such a government and bringing in one which will fulfill the tall order made by the GCIC. So unwittingly it has accused the UPA government—under the leadership of Mrs Sonia Gandhi –an Italian Christian to have failed in protecting the minorities.

Another serious accusation made by Abhishek—director of Open Doors—that law had been restricted in its application in favor of the Hindu majority and to the disadvantage of the minorities such as Christians and Muslims (under the Congress led UPA government I suppose). Will it mean that he and other organizations with whom he collaborates want to throw out the UPA government which failed the minorities and bring in a government which will protect the minorities?

The judiciary is also accused—after elections does Abhishek Singh think that the whole judiciary will be overhauled, with a new one set up which will apply law without discrimination?

Singh’s exposition of Kandhamal is a concoction of lies. The Hindu Swamiji Lakshmananda becomes a fundamental Hindu. It is not in the chemistry of swamijis to be Fundamentalists. If Hindu religion was a Fundamental one then we would have no Christians and Muslims in this country.

It is the inbuilt tolerance of the Hindu religion that has nursed and nurtured all world religions to grow in this country. In Kandhamal—Orissa pamphlets were distributed by the World Vision a virulent Fundamental organization with a cover-up of humanitarian work but a hidden agenda of evangelization stirring up communalism. It found the work of Swamiji a great hindrance for its own proselytization. Even if Moaists had owned up the massacre—there was not a single condemnation from any quarters on this brutal and cold-blooded murder of Swamiji and his ashramities.

Christians were attacked—true, but according to reports Hindus also were attacked and killed, their houses too were destroyed. But the fury of the tribals on the brutal massacre of Swamiji and his three ashramites naturally took a heavier toll of the Christians. But today the displaced Christians are being cared for—fed and sheltered in relief camps. Not with the monies of the organizations which profess to work for the displaced Christians but by the government with the tax payers’ money.

The displaced Hindus get no relief and the Hindu victims of this communal riot have become beggars. Abishek Singh’s God will know the truth. ‘Open Doors’ must not work within closed doors with closed hearts when it comes to the truth.
What strikes me is how God is dragged into gutter politics and how commercialized the whole business of supplication and appeal becomes. This is called prayer.

A distortion of history is presented by Sajan K.George—Is it ignorance or is he resorting to cheap political rhetoric. According to him 2008 saw the worst kind of repression in our society as the church in India experienced a wave of violence and persecution unprecedented since the origin of Christianity in India 2000 years ago. The national president of the Global Council of Indian Christians must do some reading—When did Christianity come to India? This will lead to inter-churches claims and counter claims! Did Thomas bring it or did Francis Xavier carry Christianity to India first? How many years ago? The persecution started with the entry of traders—missionaries (Dutch, Portuguese, French and the English) who demolished hundreds of temples and through threats, coercion and killings converted the Hindus. Unprecedented persecution was unleashed by these foreign Christians against the Indians who were Hindus. This is not confined to India alone.

Mr Sajan George cannot hide the truth because this is world/Indian/church history –Christian religion was born in blood and persecution, thrives on it and made it its business to wage wars on spreading Christianity all over the globe. Now it has adapted other methods to proselytize because religion is a business and it has been commercialized to such an extent that the churches are today Transcontinental Corporates with the respective CEOs sitting in the Vatican, Geneva, England and its network of corporate offices all over the globe manipulating the media, funding wars, investing in arms and ammunition, subjugating whole tribes, whole regions, cultures and alienating the people from their own, in divisiveness it thrives. But prayers are scripted for persecuted church and peace missions are held—humanitarian works are undertaken—A soul searching will reveal how much of money does this ‘Open Doors’, and the GCIC attract from foreign countries?

With a preamble of lies and of election-prompt prayer for Christians to God just prior to this parliamentary election Christians are asked to pray for three specifics—in which God should play a role in ushering in a political party which will embark on the following:

1 - Officials in the government ignoring persecution of Christians will be replaced by officials who support and protect religious freedom. This sounds a promise rather than a prayer.

2 - The freedom and liberty of church and missionaries in India to share the Gospel and disciple believers.(A bit difficult even for God because there are different gospels and different sects of Christians—they are at each others throats and will not agree even among themselves to share!)

3 - God would move in culture to remove the caste system and create equal opportunities and rights for all people.

Again all the above indicates an election manifesto of a party if it wins and comes to power. Whose manifesto is this?

Is God standing for election? But the Christians are asked to pray thus—The third area is rather confusing—If the political party wins then God would move in culture to remove caste system and create equal opportunities. Which is this new political party which through the prayers of the Christians if wins will bring about all this?

Culture is not something that appeared in India with Christianity and no government can move a god into a culture. The Indian culture is not minus of god that a new promise is held out that god would move into culture. Where has he been so long? Is the Indian culture devoid of a god that a promise is held out for the future to move God into culture? Or is the present god going to be displaced a Christian god moved in.

What absurdity and what flights of fantasy these so called leaders of Christian organizations have. It implies that if a particular party wins for which the Christians are asked to pray then it will move in God in culture. How this movement is going to take place? Perhaps God will be rolled into culture with the help of Lulu in a roller!

The implication is that the political party will give a free run to the Christians and its churches and Christianize the whole Indian ethos. This is not communalism—only if the ethos is Hindu—then it becomes a blatant hindutva which is communal. But the name of the political party has not been mentioned to avoid violating the model code of conduct.

Throughout India the churches have violated this code by mixing religion with politics. The Catholic Church in Pune had its own prayer—the Andhra Pradesh CM’s son-in-law in his evangelization and prayer meetings had urged the people to vote for the Congress. Christian leaders have sent out circulars and directives urging the people to vote for a party (which will give it a free run). Only the minority religious leaders stoop to this and are not confident to allow its followers to vote according to their conscience. They have to follow the dictate of the religious leaders whose vested interest need be protected.

2000 years ago Truth was crucified by the conspiracy of the civil authorities and the religious leaders. The same is being repeated here. Religious leaders are misusing religion, misusing their leadership and straitjacketing the Christians.

Prayer is a cover up to coerce the Christians to vote for a particular party. This is an expression of Fundamentalism of the minority religions.

What if the Hindu religious leaders and all the Sankaracharyas issue such a direction to their Hindus? What kind of punishment will it attract from the Election Commission? Will the Minority religious leaders not oppose it? Ground rules must be same for all. Minority religious leaders cannot and should not misuse churches, pulpits and their positions to canvass for votes under the guise of prayer for a persecuted church. What hollowness and cheap gimmicks and what faith and trust in God that He leads on …. Perhaps the blue print of the efforts of Open Doors and the Global Council of Indian Christians will draw the attention of the funding agencies and will bring in more money—but their prayers will not move the heavens—they fall on the ground with a thud! Lucre and godliness do not mix

Conversion is an invasion on Hindu society - Dr Pravin Togadia

2009-04-13T18:57:00.001-07:00

National convention of VHP’s Dharma Prasar Samiti

National convention of VHP’s Dharma Prasar Samiti was organised in Delhi from March 13 to 15. Addressing the delegates, VHP general secretary Dr Pravin Togadia described conversion as an invasion on the Hindu society. “If conversion is not stopped it might cause another Division of the country. The Hindu society cannot survive only on the strength of government. We have to restore the glory of the nation with our own strength. There should be strong units of the organisation even at the village level and service projects should be started for the benefit of the deprived people,” he said. He announced that the VHP would soon start over one lakh service projects across the country to counter the conversion activities by the alien forces. Dr Togadia appealed the Hindus to donate at least one rupee or one handful of foodgrain for the needy persons of the society.

Earlier, inaugurating the meeting, Delhi Prant Sanghachalak Shri Ramesh Prakash Sharma said ban on conversion would solve many problems and the activities of homecoming should be organised even at the village level. Jain Sadhvi Kaushalya Mata stressed the need to stop brain drain and said their wisdom should be used in development of the country. Smt. Mridula Sinha, former chairperson of Central Social Welfare Board, appealed to the women to come forward and contribute in nation building. Central secretary of VHP Mohan Joshi and senior VHP leader Shri Dharmnarayan Sharma also spoke on the occasion.

Trans World Radio-India compelling its employees to convert

2009-04-13T18:40:00.001-07:00

Innocent and gullible Hindus are exploited by the Christian missionaries not only in remote areas but also in metro cities like the national capital, New Delhi. The racket of converting innocent Hindus to Christianity has been flourishing in Delhi and the surrounding areas for decades. So much so that the evangelists have become so brash and impudent that a Christian institution—Trans World Radio, India (TWR, India)—started compelling its Hindu employees to Christianity. When the employees outrightly rejected the proposal of their employer they were tortured in very inhuman ways and some of them were even sacked from their jobs. Those who are still in the service are being subjected to ruthless, inhuman torture every day and are denied even the weekly off or holidays on festivals.

These employees have been served three months of ultimatum on March 23, to either embrace Christianity or quit the job. “We are working in very inhuman conditions. Though the management has five days a week office, we are denied even the weekly off on Sundays and other festivals like Holi, Deepavali, Republic Day, Independence Day or even Christmas. Everyday we are tortured through different methods. Life has become hell for us and nobody is ready to listen to our woes. We were warned on March 23 to embrace Christianity within three months or resign from the job,” alleges Lal Singh Yadav, a cleaner in TWR-India. He said the TWR-India adopted all means—allurement of money, promotion, etc. as well as threat to remove from the jobs, if the non-Christian employees do not embrace Christianity.

Now the employees are denied even their salary and they have been told to collect donations if they wish to draw salary at the end of the month. “We are told that the institution has stopped getting aid for the Hindu employees and if you wish to draw your salary as a Hindu employee collect donations. We have been given receipt books to collect donations. We are constantly being told that if we become Christian we shall get higher salary and other facilities,” alleged Lal Singh.

Meanwhile, the victims approached the Court of Metropolitan Magistrate, New Delhi, requesting to save them from the forced conversion. The court summoned the culprits and granted bail on March 28. According to the petition filed by the five employees of TWR-India (Ram Babu, Ghanshyam, Munna, Lal Singh and Hari Prasad) the officers of the TWR-India particularly Smt. Christine Swaroop Raj (Director HR), Smt Vinita Sahai (CEO), Smt. Dezy Sem, Supervisor, Shri Shakti Verma (Technical Director), have been pressuring and torturing them for the last few years to convert to Christianity.

Passing adverse comments upon Hinduism that Hinduism has many castes and the upper castes do not accept the lower caste i.e. Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes is a daily routine there. In the month of June 2007, Smt. Vinita Sahai told Ram Babu, “Tum chamar chuhde aise hi kutte ki tarah rahoge aur tumeh sab kuchh jhelna parega agar tum isse bachna chahte ho to apna dharma badal kar Christian ban jao. When Ram Babu requested her not to comment like this she got furious and repeated the comment.

In the month of August 2007, Smt. Dezy Sen told Ghanshyam to convey to all the Hindu employees that hereafter they would have to take their meals only by sitting near the toilet. When Ghanshyam wanted to know the reason, she got infuriated and said, “Tum log bhangi ho aur tumeh toilet ke paas hi baith kar khana parega aur agar tum aisa nahin karoge to tumeh naukri se nikal diya jayega.” Thereafter the victims were forced to sit near the toilet in foul smell and were compelled to take their meals there only. The victims tolerated it, as they do not have any other source of income.

In October 2007, Ram Babu approached Shri Shakti Verma and apprised him of the maltreatment and harassment meted out to them and very humbly requested him to request the management not to harass them. But to the utmost shock and surprise, Shri Verma started abusing him in filthy language saying, “…tum sab chure chamaron ko jute maar kar bahar nikalenge.” The management of TWR-India levelled false allegations against Ram Babu for misbehaving with the seniors and also not performing the duties properly. A false and frivolous inquiry was ordered against him and finally he was removed from the job. All the five victims were frequently called bhangi ka kutta. Not only this, the victims were called in the office by the accused persons and were made to sit for hours and were harassed and pressurised to convert their religion against their wish.

The victims were boycotted socially and were treated discriminately as neither they are allowed to sit along with other employees specially the Christian employees of the management nor they are allowed to interact with them. They adversely commented that until and unless they change their religion they would be treated in the same fashion and even may be worse than that. The aggrieved victims also lodged complaint with the Police Station in Hauz Khas with copies to DCP South, Lt. Governor of Delhi and Human Right Commission on January 10, 2008, but in vain.

On January 15, 2008, Smt. Christine Swaroop Raj called Lal Singh in her office and straight-way started abusing on the pretext that why they lodged complaint against them. Lal Singh humbly apprised her of the harassment they were being subjected. But instead of paying any heed to the complaint of Lal Singh, she burst into anger and said, “Ya to tum sabhi bhangi-chamaron ko Christian banna parega nahin to main tumeh naukri se nikaal dungi.” The victims also approached the Labour Commissioner, SHO and National Commission for SC/ST but of no avail so far.

The victims are harassed every day. Ram Babu had been appointed as Attender in 1993 and instead of promoting to further higher rank, he was down graded to cleaner without any cause, reason or fault on his part. “One day I inadvertently touched the meals prepared for the persons attending a meeting. I was not only abused by the incharge but also was pushed away using very filthy language,” alleges Ghanshyam. When the Hindu employees went to the court, the management transferred them to Chennai, where they are allegedly being tortured not only by them but also by the local police.

Conversion: Colonisation through faith

2009-04-13T18:39:00.001-07:00

(Full text of the fifth Chamanlal Memorial Lecture delivered by Bhikkhuni Dhammananda in New Delhi on March 25 on the topic of ‘Conversion: Colonisation Through Faith’)

When we talk about conversion, we talk about change from one way of thinking and behaving to another. Conversion in religion is to give up one religion and take on another for better or worse.

In my young age, the first conversion story I heard was that of my own mother. As a student, she attended Assumption Catholic School. She must have been an outstanding student, Sister Rose, a French Catholic sister offered to take her to France for higher education and eventually a better opportunity in life, of course she had to be converted. My mother admitted that it was quite tempting proposal. Going to France meant travelling to foreign country, a dream of many third world children. More than that sister promised that she would get best chance for education. Being an orphan, she did not have anyone to turn to, that was a serious decision for her to make. As the story went, the next day when she had to give an answer to the Sister, she intentionally put a big Buddha amulet around her neck and wore it outside her uniform.

The sister never asked her any more about going to France.

In February (2009) I attended a conference on Buddhist and Hindu Religious leaders Summit in Phnom Penh. My host travelled by boat from Siamreap to Phnom Penh reported ‘excitedly’ that it was striking to see sudden emergence of many mosques lining the horizon along the bank of the river, this happened only in the last decade. Islamic conversion in Cambodia is taking place very quietly but for real.

Among the Cambodians we cannot blame them, those who survived 1975-79 killing fields literally had nothing left. If they accept assistance in any form from other religious denominations under whatever condition, this was expected and understandable. We need to work here too together.

Tsunami is yet another incident which some of the missionaries thought that it is God sent opportunity to reach out to offer help to the needed. Their mission is to help the needy, with a string attached, that is, to gain new converts.

This kind of conversion is unethical, its colonisation through faith. This conversion is prevalent and it is something that we must resist and condemn in strongest words.

In my role as a female Buddhist monastic, I went with a group of monks to visit the victims of Tsunami in Phang-nga, a province in the south heavily effected by Tsunami. The victims were very happy to see us. One woman in particular lost all her family members; she came up to me and sobbed in my arms. She said in southern tongue “I have nothing left.” I assured her that the most precious thing in life, is life, and she is alive. But the Buddhist clergy was so feeble in reaching out to the needy in time of need. Social welfare is not first in our agenda (Theravada Buddhists), so it is explained in a traditional way.

But isn’t compassion our practice? Welfare service is nothing but compassion in action. To be compassion is not to sit and give a beautiful smile only; compassion must be translated into action.

This we need to change.

In the Philippines there is an institute for Christian missionary to study Buddhist teachings. I am afraid to admit that they know of Buddhist teaching better than ordinary average Thai Buddhists. That is a dangerous trend, and as a Buddhist I am ashamed. Hathaway brought out a book giving details of information on Thailand with geographical locations and details of ethnic differences, etc. for missionaries to work particularly with the hill tribes, the minority. And work for what? We all know it very well. Conversion is for real. Christians are working very hard to crack the weak area where Buddhism has not covered. In Thailand they have failed for the last century but more money has been spent now focusing on the various hill tribes who have been neglected by mainstream Buddhists, Buddhist authority and Buddhist Government. This is also a time for us to ponder. Those who are neglected by both the Government and the Buddhist Sangha are an easy prey to such ‘design’ in the name of relief and welfare.

In the US we know that they have Joshua project providing also information for Christian missionaries how to convert effectively. We can go on in great length in the extent of conversion that is going on and planned.

Theoretically there in no need to fear conversion, neither Islam nor Christianity if Buddhists are firm in their own belief and practices. Though it is a big If.

When the Buddha established Buddhism, he envisioned fourfold Buddhists namely, the bhikkhus (monks), bhikkhunis (fully ordained nuns), laymen and laywomen. By establishing Buddhism he expected these fourfold Buddhists to:

Study his teaching (dhamma)
Practice the teaching (patipatti)

Be able to defend the dhamma

Take a look at Thailand, a country with some 63 million out of which 94 per cent of population claim to be Buddhists. I intentionally use the word “claim’ as many of them might turn out to be just Buddhists by birth certificates, sometimes I call them Buddhists by chance as oppose Buddhists by choice, this I mean the new Buddhists who have come to Buddhism with much critical study before being accepted. When Buddhism is a religion of majority, there is a tendency of laxity. In fact Thailand boasts of having highest Buddhist population in the world. Myanmar comes second with 87 per cent of her total population claiming to Be Buddhists.

Thailand has been a unified country since 13th Century A.D. and has been the only country in South East Asia, which has not been officially colonised. Thai people had never experienced any hardship of foreign occupation. Buddhism as practiced for more than 700 years had never been put to test and had never been challenged. As a result we witness that Buddhists in Thailand tend to become complacent and negligent both in their study and practice.

This negligence is doing more harm for the stability and progress of Buddhism than any attempt of conversion from and by outside agent.

As we have not taken responsibility given by the Buddha as earlier mentioned, Buddhists in general cannot even explain their highest spiritual goal, not to mention practicing it. Basic practice as a foundation to good life, the commitment to the basic five precepts as ethical foundation is taken only ritualistically. Even taking refuge….Buddham saranam gacchami ….which is a pronouncement of commitment to become Buddhists is also often taken as lip service.

This needs to be addressed. I cannot pretend to speak to you about Indian context but while I am giving you a Thai context, you can compare with what is happening here in India among Hindus and Muslims, and I am sure it will ring the bell for you as well.

Only with a proper understanding of the true spirit and essential message of Buddhism will provide us proper tools to face the complicated nature of the present world. With strong base of Buddhist understanding we can handle the shift of value and once again return to show respect to our religion, our culture, our tradition. With strong base in Buddhist way of life, we can become modernise happily. With Buddhism as our central core, we can handle material growth wisely.

With a solid foundation in Buddhism we will not be converted to Christianity or Islam.

Looking at the unethical conversion that the Christian missionaries have been working very hard, they can offer only material support. We should not trade material comfort with our spiritual liberation. The message is direct and strong. We will not be shaken by the unethical and evil approach trying to look down upon Buddhist belief and practices. Our Sri Lankan sisters told us how the Christian missionary is trying to do. They made the Buddha into a culprit by picking on the fact that he left his new born baby and responsibility to his family. Buddhists must realize that the Prince chose to leave his family only to return to deliver them spiritually. The spiritual deliverance is much more long lasting and he not only brought about spiritual freedom for himself, his family but also humankind. The Buddha’s message was the greatest achievement of the human era.

When a Buddhist has not studied Buddhist teaching properly, how can he or she put it into practice? How can he or she defend the teaching? How can he/she differentiate the false accusation bombarded against the Buddha and his teaching through unethical conversion?

The so-called Buddhists would choose material support as offered by the missionary readily as it is direct material gain. They do not have spiritual value which would enable them to have happy life. It will take them a long while to realise that life with material wealth as offered by Christian missionary can support them only temporarily. On the other hand, they are up-rooted from their own culture which comes with all the social values as the foundation of society, society of our forefathers.

While we are affirming that Buddhism can withstand the storm of conversion, Buddhism is definitely relevant to modern society; it is only the Buddhist to prove that such belief can become a reality in their own commitment, in their own lives.

The change must happen now. They cannot keep Buddhism alive and active for the future generation if Buddhism is not lived in this generation.

Dhammo have rakkhati
Dhamma cari?
Dhamma protects one who practices dhamma.

But we must also protect dhamma by making it real in our lives and not only on our lips.

Soft Religions

I would now like to share with you what we have been discussing at the Buddhist Hindu Religious Leaders Summit (Phnom Penh, Feb.2009). It was brought to light that at any so-called International Interfaith Dialogue on Religions, Buddhist and Hindu voices often are not heard. While Abrahamic religions (i.e. Judaism, Christianity and Islam) always lead both the discussion and decision.

There is something here, in this gathering that we can discuss the common characteristics found in both Buddhism and Hinduism. It strikes at the core of conversion issue we are interested at hand. Both Buddhism and Hinduism do not have mission to convert. One Swami even said that the Christians have nothing to convince so they have to convert.

Both Buddhism and Hinduism are tolerant by nature.
Both Buddhism and Hinduism emphasise on Ahimsa, non-violence.
Both Buddhism and Hinduism are nature loving people.
Both Buddhist and Hindu see ourselves as part of nature, this makes us humble.
Both Buddhist and Hindu have respect for others, and tend to place other’s importance over ours.

These common features make Buddhism and Hinduism soft religions as compared to the more aggressive Abrahamic religions.

Focusing on Hinduism, we have outstanding character like Swami Vivekananda who stood out at the Parliament of World’s Religions in Chicago in 1893.

Allow me to remind you that Indian elites at that time were turning their heads towards the West, trying to copy western values, western style, etc. Among Indians, some of them even look down upon their own motherland; Indian values and Indian culture were seen as inferior.

Only with the success of Swami Vivekananda in the West that caused such a ripple and brought about an awakening among the Indians to look back and search for spiritual values which India is well known for.

It was Swami Vivekananda who brought out the spirit of peace and harmony among religious leaders of the world in the past century.

A nasty massacre of peacefully protesting Indians at Amritsar (Jalianwala Bagh) provoked the conscience of Mahatma Gandhi. It was then that he decided to head his mission, which eventually led to Indian Independence.

As soft religions, we Buddhists and Hindus should be serious to work together on the projects of common interest, not only so much about fighting against conversion from outside but also more on helping each other to strengthen our own common spiritual heritage.

If our spiritual heritage is rooted, the trunk is solid; branches will eventually spread out and provide proper protection with laden blossoms and fruits.

No, we are not going to compete so that we become strong and hard and at times destructive like the Abrahamic religions. We will retain this quality of soft religions.

We have to understand and utilise this quality of being soft religions to its best.

While hardness symbolizes death, softness is death.

It is the water that cuts through the mountain and not otherwise so we learn from our Eastern wisdom.

It is only loving kindness and compassion that will nurture the world, and not violence. We have to confirm this message again and again.

Philosophically and spiritually, Buddhism and Hinduism are very strong and no outside invasion or conversion can harm us in any way. In practicing religion, we must actualise our ideals. We cannot simply sit and be compassionate and remain peaceful.

We have to look at and understand peace in a new light. Peace is anchored from within, coming out of a peaceful mind to engage with the world outside. Peace is to resist violence. Peace is to end unjust activities. Peace is to end exploitation. Peace is to end patriarchy, etc.

Sitting peacefully among turmoil society is selfishness.

Peace is

Participatory at all levels
Easy for every one
Accessible for everyone
Compatible to deal with social problems
Equality for humankind.

Compassion is not lip-service, compassion must over flow from our trained mind and compassionate heart into action. Compassion is not only wishing others happiness and wishing them to be free from suffering, but it is sharing of wealth and sharing of happiness. Compassion is an ability to share both suffering and happiness. Compassion is an ability to take on suffering of others as our own.

These messages are strong in Buddhism and Hinduism. What we need is to work these beautiful concepts out and allow them to actualise in life.

If we go together hand in hand, the strength will be immense. This reshuffling of ourselves will be able to strengthen our identities, our communities.

We Buddhists and Hindus will bring about changes, and we will begin here, now. Right now here to kindle the memory and the way shown by personality like Chamanlalji.

When we are convinced we will commit.

Conversion will have no place to take root.

Missionaries are colonialists

2009-04-11T18:54:00.001-07:00

Gregory F. Fegel
http://english.pravda.ru

Christian missionaries make no secret of the fact that they use medical services, education, and employment opportunities to lure impoverished indigenous populations throughout the world into conversion to Christianity.

According to the popular and scholarly history of Christianity, the early Christian Church found its greatest appeal and attracted its greatest number of converts from the poor people of the Roman Empire. The early Christian churches raised money through a tithe, or ten per cent income tax, levied on their members, and the early Christian church is said to have had a strong 'sense of community', which implies that it had a well-organized social, financial, and political network among its membership.

Using your wealth to purchase other people's loyalty is a game as old as humanity itself. Rich men use their wealth to attract women, unscrupulous employers use material incentives and disincentives to manipulate their workers, and wealthy countries like the USA use their national wealth to keep their citizens loyal to the cause of aggressive and genocidal Imperialism. But historical longevity and common practice don't make the manipulation or exploitation morally or ethically right.

Organized religions are inherently POLITICAL organizations. There is a fundamental difference between the financial enterprise and political machinations of an organized religion versus a mass of independent, unaffiliated believers, philosophers, and mystics who do not support any organized religion.

Christianity and Islam are known as proselytizing religions because they make an organized and systematic effort to gain converts, and they often provide services, products, or employment to attract converts. Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism show far less zeal about gaining converts, which is why you almost never hear about Jewish, Hindu, or Buddhist missionaries.

Modern medical and nursing schools usually teach their students the moral principle that the provision of medical services should never be used as a means to proselytize or promote a religion, but that does not deter many Christian health care providers from doing exactly that. Most of the medical and charitable organizations based in Christian countries are fronts for Christian proselytizing activities.

One of the largest international medical relief organizations based in the USA, Northwest Medical Teams, states in their recruitment brochure that their chief 'mission' is to 'spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ', that their medical relief services are subordinate to their stated goal of proselytizing Christianity, and that their medical relief work is merely an 'aegis', or facade, for spreading Christianity.

The religious and cultural Imperialism performed by missionaries nearly always goes hand-in-hand with political and economic Imperialism. Christian missionaries often work in partnership with the CIA, with the US government, and with wealthy corporations to subvert the religion, the culture, the economy, and the politics of vulnerable indigenous populations. The CIA often uses planes owned by Christian missionary organizations and flown by Christian missionary pilots to smuggle drugs, arms, and prisoners.

During the CIA's illegal Iran/Contra scam of the 1980s, Christian missionary pilots and planes smuggled drugs into the USA and arms into Central America and Iran. Now the CIA is using Christian missionary planes to smuggle heroin from Afghanistan, cocaine from Latin America, and for 'rendition' flights of 'Terrorist' prisoners to secret prisons that practice torture and commit extra-judicial executions.

The USA's Faith Based Initiative law provides Christian missionary organizations with taxpayer funds that are used to proselytize Christianity to indigenous populations throughout the world. Christian missionaries are the leading edge of a religious, cultural, economic, and political aggression supported by the US government.

When missionaries bring outside wealth to an impoverished Third World country and use that wealth to provide services that are meant to attract converts, they are interfering with the local social and economic structure as well as the local cultural traditions. Indigenous people who take advantage of the privileges provided by the missionaries and convert to Christianity partake in a social organization that uses foreign wealth as a tool to eliminate the indigenous culture and replace it with Christianity.

A small and reclusive population of a few hundred people with a primitive Stone Age culture lives on North Sentinel Island, in the Andaman chain, which is administered by the government of India. To protect the culture of the inhabitants of North Sentinel Island, the Indian government has wisely banned anyone from visiting the island. I approve of the Indian government's policy of protecting the unique culture of the North Sentinels from outside influence. If anyone on North Sentinel Island should ever desire to leave, they can build a boat and do so.

Among a total of 195 nations in the world today, fifty-seven of those nations have a legally established, official State Religion. There are fourteen nations that claim Christianity as their State Religion, twenty-six nations that claim Islam as their State Religion, six nations that claim Buddhism as their State Religion, and the Jewish State of Israel. The Jewish State of Israel discriminates against its non-Jewish citizens and within its borders Israel officially prohibits the proselytizing of any religion other than Judaism. Many people believe that Israel has a ‘right to exist’ in this manner as a Jewish State.

Many Islamic countries strive to protect the cultural identity of their citizens by enforcing a ban on preaching any religion but Islam. Considering the aggressive, insidious, and highly political nature of Christian missionary programs, the banning of non-Moslem religious preaching by Moslem governments makes sense.

Currently there is no officially Hindu State anywhere in the world, but perhaps India should become a Hindu State in order to protect its indigenous religion and culture from the predatory missionaries and State-sponsored cultural Imperialism that are coming from both Christian and Moslem countries. If the Jews have the right to establish and maintain Israel as a Jewish State, then the Hindus certainly have a right to establish and maintain India as a Hindu State.

When Western leaders talk about a 'Clash of Civilizations', what they really mean is Judeo-Christianity and corporate Capitalism versus all non-Christians and non-Capitalists. Christian missionaries are essentially colonialists working for Christian cultural Imperialism.

When the Hindus of India rise up in riot and drive out the Christian missionaries and the Christian 'cash converts', they are doing what the Iraqi, Afghani, and Palestinian Freedom Fighters are doing. They are protecting themselves and their indigenous culture from wealthy and unscrupulous invaders who have no respect for them or for their culture. I wish the Hindu nationalists well in their efforts to defend and maintain the independence and survival of their indigenous culture and religion against the onslaught of predatory and disrespectful foreigners whose goal is to replace indigenous traditional cultures with a global Christian empire.

If Christian missionaries want to come to India and try to make converts to Christianity, let them come with empty pockets and compete on a level playing field. And if most of the locals don't want the missionaries interfering with their traditional way of life, they have the right to make the missionaries and their converts leave.

Religious conversion and interfaith dialogue

2009-04-11T18:52:00.001-07:00

by Dr. Gautam Sen

There are two critical reasons why one cannot be converted to Hinduism from another faith. Firstly, conversion into Semitic faiths implies abandonment of an antecedent faith and the utter rejection of the beliefs and practices entailed by it. By contrast, Hinduism is sufficiently varied for Hindus to simultaneously espouse a multiplicity of ideas and practices, which need not be entirely consistent with each other. As a result, intellectual curiosity and self-interested spiritual generosity would motivate converts to Hinduism not give up an antecedent faith altogether if some aspects of it retain appeal. It means that a convert to Hinduism cannot really behave like an unyielding true convert as Semitic religious conversion demands. If many spiritual paths towards the divine are feasible, as Hinduism affirms, one cannot reject other paths because an individual chooses a particular one! Vivekananda, for example, though a committed Vedantist, found some aspects of Christian belief attractive, carrying with him Thomas á Kempis’, Imitation of Christ (the only text in his jhola) while on his arduous journey across India as a Rishi.

The key to Hindu belief and practice is fidelity to the Vedas, though their arguments and injunctions need not necessarily be mutually consistent. In a wider context, the revelations experienced by great Rishis are not unambiguously compatible either, as witness the important disagreements of rishis Ramanuja and Madhav with Shankara, their illustrious predecessor, over crucial issues of theism and worship. As a counterpoint to diverging views and convictions, Hindus are enjoined to accord a special place to reason as a method of resolving them although without making a fetish of contingent logical plausibility. In their inherited tradition, undue reliance on rarefied logic can turn out to be misplaced and the apparently contrary arguments of Rishis proven more viable. However, it should be pointed out in passing that Dharmic conduct is achieved only by scrupulous adherence to injunctions of the Vedas, including the circumstances in which violence is justified. It is far removed from contingent rational arguments about justice and truth though of course issues of interpretation of what is enjoined may remain to be determined.

The historical misnomer Hindu encompasses Sikhs and Jains and, for some observers, Buddhists as well since they are all considered overlapping expressions of faith. What they share is a degree of open-endedness though some are less willing to accord significant primacy to human reason and experimentation and privilege a revealed scriptural text instead. It is possible for an adherent to one specific set of Hindu beliefs to aim at a higher degree of internal coherence and dismiss other contiguous beliefs and practices as a consequence. Yet, that would still not entail an active renunciation of the kind sought by adherents to one of the Semitic faiths that enjoin an emphatic pronouncement of exclusive and indeed militant loyalty to one religious idiom. Hindu vegetarians are rightly sceptical of Hindu carnivores, but do not reject their claim to being Hindu altogether though quite clearly some are tempted to do so because they shrink from cruelty to animals.

Hindus may have committed secular crimes and some for which they sought to adduce religious justification, but they have not persecuted for heresy and apostasy over which Christians routinely committed mass murder and Muslims also punished with death. If one were to overcome this rather large practical problem of reconciling Hindu eclecticism with the absolutes of Semitic conversion and become a Hindu through conversion it would nevertheless still be necessary to decide if one form of conversion would suffice for all the varied Hindu belief systems or if several would need enumeration.

Secondly, if converted in some artificially prescribed manner into Hinduism a major problem arises if one exclusive god is embraced in the way prescribed by Semitic faiths? Such sectarian loyalty automatically subverts the very condition of being a Hindu, which is to remain eclectic and open-ended despite according an important role to the revelations of rishis as guides for thought and action. And being eclectic also implies the freedom to undergo religious experience in temples, gurdwaras and indeed churches, synagogues and mosques. In fact, Hindus face no imperative scriptural injunctions against doing so and many do join non-denominational worship, to use a Christian concept. Of course some Hindus do have objections to one or the other place of worship for political reasons or they may legitimately claim preference for their own particular religious institution as being more meaningful for themselves. But if eclectic Hindu conduct is permitted it defeats the very purpose of conversion, which, if it is to be meaningful, means adopting a singular divinity by decidedly rejecting all others as the Semitic faiths insist. Otherwise, the very purpose of conversion to a Semitic faith is rendered meaningless and irrelevant. Hinduism can be espoused by privately adopting its theology and practices without the formal intervention of an external agency to legitimise it though initiation by a teacher or guru might be sought.

Thus, formal conversion to Hinduism cannot be regarded as conversion at all in the sense in which it is understood by adherents to Semitic faiths and from whose sectarian agenda it is now corruptly entering Hindu discourse. Hindus could invent a distinctive new term for conversion, which allowed for their peculiar pluralism but the content it implied would still remain incommensurable with the vocabulary of conversion historically understood by adherents of Semitic faiths. The significance of even such a mode of conversion to Hinduism, by inventing a ceremony, would immediately be subverted by the innate eclecticism of Hinduism once the person began to practise Hindu beliefs unless a new and genuinely sectarian version of it was to come into existence in which case it ceases to be Hinduism. There are some newer sects like the Swaminarayan movement that might apparently approve such a development since they are enlarging their congregational reach and simultaneously identifying whom they wish to exclude - Semitisation after all in all but name!

It is precisely because conversion into Hinduism cannot be achieved in the sense intended by Semitic faiths, which have an unambiguous and specific meaning for it, Hindus can only be born. Hindus are mostly born into the faith in India, but they are also Hindus by birth wherever they may be, from either or both parents (in Judaism it is only possible through the maternal lineage). But of course there is no barrier for anyone to adopt Hindu beliefs and practices and indeed attain a degree of perfection and high status in terms of achievement greater than those born Hindu. This possibility transcends time, place and pre-existing status, removing the notion of absolute primacy for anyone by virtue of belonging to a particular social group. The children of those who have to taken to espousing Hindu beliefs and adopting its practices, can then become born Hindus and it therefore only takes one generation to become a born Hindu. But it occurs without conversion since the child concerned did not already possess an existing faith from which conversion would have had to occur.

Thus, when Hindus join dialogue with other faith groups like Christians about religious conversion and legitimate methods of approaching the issue in the context of interfaith dialogue they are only discussing a method for the abandonment of their Sanatana Dharma. There can be no meaningful counterpart for them as a quid pro quo, which, in any case, has little relevance for their eclecticism and practice of allowing diversity. This is why Christians are anxious to engage them on the issue of religious conversion because it pertains almost exclusively, in practice, to enticing Hindus into their fold. The same holds true for Islam, but Muslims are less duplicitous on the subject and openly denounce Hinduism and its entire evil, pagan works. However, the same offensive behaviour is usually true, in practice, for evangelical proselytisers on the ground since they find a dose of fear and demonisation of rival faiths like Hinduism and Buddhism, coupled with bribery of the poor, hastens religious conversion.

As an aside, it might be noted that interfaith dialogue ought to imply mutual respect and as a corollary should mean abstaining from the aggressive and devious proselytising methods that evangelists invariably adopt. The reason they do not desist is that evangelical activity has been absolutely central to Christianity historically as a faith and is inconceivable without it. In the aftermath of the adoption of Christianity by the fourth century Roman Emperor, Constantine, as it happens because it supposedly aided a crucial military victory that ensured his rise to political pre-eminence, conversion and evangelical activity acquired a potent political rationale. In subsequent centuries it was the political necessity of imperial expansion that dictated the genocidal conversion of pagans and others, whether by the eighth century Holy Roman Emperor, Charlemagne or the post-renaissance empires that Europeans established worldwide. In the light of insatiable evangelical zeal, interfaith dialogue is meant to distract Hindus, lulling them into a false sense of security and apparent mutual regard, while the real business of conversion proceeds unchecked through every devious means possible.

In the modern world, evangelical activity has become a political vehicle for self-proclaimed Christian States like the US that regard it as an useful adjunct to more obvious economic, political and cultural means of controlling other countries and cultures. It is this rationale that led to the forcible conversion of the Philippines in the late nineteenth century and the later sophisticated subversion of the Republic of Korea by Christian evangelists. Imperialist Christian evangelical activities have in fact grown steadily as nations of European Christian origin have weakened and found it difficult to subdue other rising centres of national power by using traditional political and military instruments. India and China have become the most valued targets for Christian evangelical activity though other smaller countries like Nepal are experiencing a wave of successful conversions to Christianity. The fact that such religious conversions precipitate social tensions and conflict by dividing families and communities does not appear to trouble evangelists. Nor are they prepared to reflect on the bitter on-going disputes among Christians owing to the conversion of older Latin American Catholic communities by aggressive American Protestant evangelists. Adherents of Sanatana Dharma need to recognise that Christian evangelists, especially the myriad variants of American Protestantism, but also the Papacy, are essentially business corporations striving to enlarge market share and revenues.

The scale of the Christian evangelical operations in India has grown hugely in recent decades. Various Christian denominations have long undertaken their own missionary operations in different parts of India and they regard Hindu opponents to proselytising as the main hurdle to their designs. As a result, they co-operate with each other and any local group or political dispensation not opposed to evangelical activity or unable to comprehend its significance. They discreetly coordinate their activities with Muslim groups who, in turn, regard potent Christian influence within India’s socio-cultural milieu, academia and the media as less controversial than their own presence and a facilitator of their particular aims. Muslims are also confident that their own communities are immune to Christian evangelical blandishments and consider them unlikely to grow sufficiently in numbers to constitute a greater threat to Islam than a dominant Hinduism. The use of local converts to engage in Christian evangelical activities has also been an inspired decision because easily identifiable foreigners are more likely to attract unwelcome attention from the general population and oblige some government reaction to constrain it. In addition, Christian evangelists have recognised the centrality of intervening in domestic politics and the ease with which the Indian polity can be subverted.

Superior numbers and higher educational levels proved decisive for Christian evangelical activity in Kerala once they had reached an understanding with communists and Muslims to disempower the nominal Hindu majority though tensions are now surfacing over a division over the political spoils of success. More generally, Christian evangelists and their many co-conspirators in India and abroad have long understood that caste animosities were an essential pre-condition for constraining the self-conscious religious and politically active forward castes. They have incited and fuelled such caste divisions at every opportunity and successfully institutionalised deep hatreds in Tamil Nadu, intimidating local politicians and offering financial inducement as well to facilitate their evangelical mission. The accident of the rise of a Catholic to the pinnacle of political power in Delhi, along with an extraordinary sectarian cabal of Christian advisers, has created an opportunity for evangelical activity that they have taken advantage of fully. They have made rapid inroads into Andhra Pradesh by resorting to brazen actual and symbolic acts of political subversion and of course a massive infusion of funding to aid their local political protégés. India south of the Vindhyas is politically Christianised on a scale that will be difficult to reverse. The arrest and public humiliation of the Kanchi seer Jayendra Saraswathi and the complete elimination of all Brahmin trustees from temple management, a traditional preserve for them, under state purview in Tamil Nadu is indication of the calamitous situation for Sanatana Dharma.

Let me conclude with the two unrelated issues associated with contemporary concerns over the diabolical threat posed by Christian evangelical activity to the future of Sanatana Dharma. The first is the phenomenon of Ghar Wapaysi, which is mistakenly regarded by many as a Hindu form of re-conversion. It is nothing of the sort. It is essentially a defensive political act to resist the machinations of evangelical activity to subvert both Sanatana Dharma and Indian nationhood by creating religious enclaves that harbour extra-territorial political loyalties. Ghar Wapaysi is equivalent to the rescue of a kidnapped person, returning the person to the family and community from which effective kidnap had occurred. It does not create a new religious persona nor does it imply outright rejection of all Christian values the evangelist supposedly espouses though it is exactly what the evangelist sought to achieve in relation to Sanatana Dharma through the original conversion. Ghar Waypasi is merely a restoration of the status quo ante.

New adherents to variants Hindu belief and practice are welcomed by Hindus. A disproportionate number originate from well educated and wealthy societies and cannot altogether overcome their sense of social and racial superiority that they had already acquired as members of such better off societies. Once they have embraced Hindu ideas, practices and often joined a Hindu community or congregation they seem to quickly aspire to leadership positions of that community, accustomed as they are to enjoying social primacy over the perceived lesser breed of Hindu Indians in their midst. There is also a somewhat worrying tendency to assert superior knowledge and understanding or religious texts and practices than members of the host community they have joined. Such a situation is not in play because of some dark conspiracy or an innate tendency towards supremacist impulses, but it has an awful ring of familiarity for the pre-existing members of the Hindu faith community. Wisdom and basic decency counsel that such newer adherents to Sanatana Dharma exercise a measure of self-restraint and espouse modesty in their relations with other Hindus to ensure that the harmony they wished to experience by espousing Sanatana Dharma does indeed prevail.

Dr. Gautam Sen
March 2009.

(Taught political economy to graduate students at the London School of Economics & Political Science for more than two decades and is the co-author of Analyzing the Global Political Economy, Princeton University Press 2009)

'Conversion is God's work'

2009-03-29T19:00:00.001-07:00

KOLKATA: Describing religious conversion as "God's work", new Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity (MoC) Sister Mary Prema Friday said she would go to Orissa's Kandhamal - scene of communal violence - if she received divine inspiration.

The German born Prema, who was elected as MoC head Tuesday, hoped the order's founder Nobel laureate Mother Teresa will be canonised one day. She also expressed her desire to meet Pope Benedict XVI.

Replying to a query on the Kandhamal riots during her maiden media meet after taking over the top position, she said: "We forgive those who caused us suffering".

"If God inspires me, I'll definitely intervene," said Prema, when asked whether she would go to Kandhamal.

Asked to spell out her views on religious conversion, she said: "Every human being has the right to believe. Each person is born with dignity. Religious conversion is God's work".

Prema, who turns 56 in May, responded to a host of posers during the half-hour media interaction at the Missionaries of Charity global headquarters, the Mother House.

Expressing surprise at her election, the nun said she needed to know the community across India.

Sister Nirmala, who had led the congregation for 12 years since Mother Teresa stepped down in 1997, was re-elected for a third term March 13. But the MoC held a second election Tuesday after she expressed a desire to be relieved of the post owing to ill-health.

"My election was a bit of a surprise to me. I had no plans, Mother led the society quite amazingly. Sister Nirmala followed her. Now, I have to follow Sister Nirmala."

"I'll work for the poor, the downtrodden. I will work to eradicate poverty," said Prema, who was born Mechtilde Pierick in Reken, Westfalia, Germany. Her parents are now dead, but she has an elder brother and a twin sister. "Both of them are married and have children." In her early life, Prema taught in a school for the handicapped.

She first came to know about Mother Teresa by reading the book "Something Beautiful for God" by Malcolm Muggeridge.

"Inspired by the book, I met Mother in 1980 in a youth meeting in Berlin, and joined the MoC the same year in Essen, Germany."

Missionaries of Charity sources said she served the poorest of the poor in Italy and other European countries, and was a member of the general chapter in which Nirmala succeeded the Mother as Superior General.

Since 2001, Prema is living in Kolkata.

"Sister Nirmala will continue to guide us," she said to a question on her predecessor.

Prema hoped that the Mother will be canonised one day. "The investigation of the Miracle is still on."

The MOC, founded by the Mother in 1950, now has 766 Mother Houses all over the world, of which 246 are in India. "We have 4,950 novices working all over the world, though their numbers have gone down in the last one year," said Prema.

She traced the reason to break-up of families and fewer children.

Prema said the young generation has to be inspired to join the MoC. "Through our humble service and plain lifestyle we have to draw the young generation," she added.

She did not think the charisma of the Mother was missing. "It is still there."

Hindu minorities in Christian dominated Kanyakumari district

2009-03-28T21:55:00.001-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0gkD16-_GY

Lured Conversion & some history

2009-03-23T21:35:00.000-07:00

http://varnam.org/blog/2009/03/shoguns-vs-jesuits/

Challenges and Threats Posed by New Religious Movements

2009-03-15T23:49:00.001-07:00

Sophia Tesfamariam

The story is long, so bear with me…it will take a while...but in the end, I hope that we would have learned from the mistakes of the last 8 years and most importantly, that the incoming Obama Administration will not commit the same blunders that have wrecked havoc in the lives of millions in Africa.

Much has been said and written about religion in Eritrea and various accusations have been hurled at the Government and people of Eritrea over the last 8 years. I believe it is time once again to re-visit the issue of "religious freedom" in Eritrea and how this "wedge issue" was hatched and why Eritrea was targeted. While the regime in Ethiopia may have contributed, by way of lies and disinformation, to the campaign to demonize the Eritrean leadership, the scope of the agendas seem to be much larger than anything the aid-dependent minority regime could ever muster on its own. A beggar regime whose national budget is donor subsidized and whose people are dependent on food aid, and whose institutions of government are externally funded and run, neither has the financial or intellectual capacity, to launch or sustain such a campaign.

It was also a campaign that the so-called Eritrean opposition (a dubious association of like-minded defectors, disgruntled diplomats, pedophiles, rapists, self-professed "intellectuals and professionals" and an assortment of scandalous opportunists), who I have baptized as Eritrea´s Quislings League (EQL), could never organize or lead without directives. After overcoming almost three decades of betrayals and untold suffering, the neocolonialists should have been hard pressed to find a single Eritrean Chalabi …but as we have seen in the last decade, Eritrea too has her share of treasonous children and scholars-for-hire… Instead of defending the dreams and aspirations of the Eritrean people, they set out to advance that of others. The EQL sert out to betray the trust of the Eritrean people.

Serving as puppets for the minority regime in Ethiopia; they undermined, ridiculed and sullied every Eritrean institution. They left no stone unturned to isolate Eritrea and deny Eritrea and its people the right to development. They burned the midnight oil churning out "analysis", "reports", "lists" etc. to malign Eritrea, its people and its leadership. Even the historical Eritrean Orthodox Church was challenged and its members rebuked. As we will see later, the Eritrean Orthodox Church was long targeted and the EQL, instead of defending the rights of the Church, worked in tandem with its enemies to distort its history and its foundation. Today, we see a member of the EQL is parading "In Chains for Christ"-how fitting for someone who have been unable to unchain himself from mental slavery…this from a man who had the audacity to preach to others about African decolonization.

So, if it not the minority regime in Ethiopia and if not the EQL, then who was running the show? Well, suffice it to say that it too was an equally dubious alliance of fundamentally different and even ideologically opposed religious and political factions. One was the coalition of evangelical Christians (also known as the New Christian Right) and other was the aggressive political ideologues commonly known as the Neoconservatives. Despite their many ideological, cultural, and socioeconomic differences, these two factions found common ground in Bush White House and they, like Machiavelli back then, recognized the power of religion as a potent political tool. The cartel used civil religion to justify, promote and effectuate its political goals. They introduced us to a new brand of politics coined "Political Fundamentalism" -which has been defined as the "strategic manipulation of religious beliefs, narratives, and sentiments for political gain at home and for aggressive militarism overseas". I will henceforth refer to them as the cartel.

Jeffrey Goldberg of the New York Times wrote about the cartel and its agenda in the 21 December 1997 article "Washington Discovers Christian Persecution". According to Goldberg, the cartel included:

"...Reaganite conservatives, labor activists, veterans of the Soviet Jewry movement and, most important, evangelical Christians. These unlikely partners are united by their desire to "remoralize" American foreign policy…Midwifed by a handful of veteran organizers, this is an issue manufactured in the mile-square section of Washington that produces the most priceless of political commodities: the wedge issue. It is a process of political manufacturing that Washington seems to have perfected the taking of a simple, transparently righteous issue and turning into a political football..."

The Bush Administration´s Faith Based Initiative buoyed their coffers and offered them further access to nations big and small around the globe.

With a variety of mercenaries in tow, the cartel, which controlled the purse and the agenda, launched a massive disinformation and vilification campaign against the State of Eritrea. Eritrea´s Chalabis, expert information launderers that they have become, were eager to peddle countless lies and exaggerations about Eritrea´s history, economy, and its leadership and people-especially the Eritrean Diaspora. After jumping on the "democracy" and "human rights" bandwagons in the early years, the confused and disoriented EQL lined up to push the "religious freedom in Eritrea" wagon, while the cartel rode high. They figured it would be the most divisive issue, and the one that could help them achieve their ultimate goals. In these circles, treason and deceit are commonplace and there was plenty of that. Eritreans endured an incessant barrage of distortions, fabrications and insults from self-righteous individuals and groups.

The cartel which enjoyed unprecedented access and power in the Bush Administration, is seeking to do the same with the new Barack Obama Administration. With individuals strategically placed in key Washington institutions such as Freedom House, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, Institute on Religion and Public Policy, Open Doors, World Wide Evangelicals, Christian Solidarity Worldwide and in the United States Congress, the "network" managed to pass legislations during the Bush era, that would most probably not see the light of day in an Obama Administration…that does not mean that they will not try… and some already have.

It is that access, influence and power that enabled cartel groupies like Joseph Griebosky of the Institute on Religion and Public Policy and Dick Army, Meles Zenawi´s lobbyist, to provide the minority regime in Ethiopia, the political and diplomatic shield it needed as it violated international law, committed international crimes in Somalia, and committed genocides in the Gambela, Ogaden and Oromia regions of Ethiopia. The cartel and its "network" bombarded Congress with faxes, emails and letters to prevent lawmakers from taking action against the lawless and belligerent regime. When US lawmakers introduced HR-2003, known as the Ethiopian Democracy and Human Rights Bill, it was Joseph Griebosky that wrote to the United States Congress to kill the Bill. Here is what he wrote:

"...Ethiopia has made outstanding progress in democratic development, human rights, religious freedom, political and civil rights. Despite this improvement, the House of Representatives wishes to impose its own timeline and its own standards on Ethiopia's advance… H.R.2003 is a threat to American political and security interests in the Horn of Africa and in Africa as a whole and only serves to alienate yet another ally with a sticks-but-no-carrots approach to foreign policy…It is imperative that the United States Senate reexamines the merits of H.R. 2003 as currently drafted and amend the bill to provide the appropriate democratic tools and capacity-building agenda, before it causes undue harm to American interests..."

Not surprisingly, Meles Zenawi is not the first brutal dictator that the cartel has defended; their hands are soaked with the blood of thousands of innocent people all over the world. Throughout the Cold War years, these groups have been responsible for helping to get these dictators into power and then provided the diplomatic and political shield and support to stay in power. Some examples of such dictators who enjoyed the cartel´s support are Mohammed Suharto of Indonesia, the most brutal and corrupt of the 20th century, Haiti´s Papa Doc Duvalier, Guatemala´s General Rios Montt, Siad Biarre of Somalia.

In the 1980´s, using language similar to that used by Griebosky to defend Meles Zenawi, the American televangelist Pat Robertson defended the atrocities committed by General Rios Montt of Guatemala. Nikolas Kozloff on 18 September 2005 warned of Pat Robertson´s duplicity and hypocrisy. He wrote:

"...Rios Montt conducted a scorched earth policy. His forces massacred as many as 15,000 Indians. Whole villages were leveled and the army set up "Civilian Self-Defense Patrols" which forced 900,000 villagers to "voluntarily" aid police in tracking down suspects. Rios Montt created "model" villages, similar to concentration camps, which housed Indian refugees. However, when 40,000 survivors sought safety in Mexico, Guatemalan helicopters machine gunned the camps…Amnesty International noted that extra judicial killings carried out the by the military "were done in terrible ways: people of all ages were not only shot to death, they were burned alive, hacked to death, disemboweled, drowned, beheaded. Small children were smashed against rocks or bayoneted to death."…Far from denouncing such practices, Robertson rushed to defend Rios Montt. "Little by little the miracle began to unfold," he wrote of the regime. "The country was stabilized. Democratic processes, never a reality in Guatemala, began to be put into place. Most damning of all, even as Rios Montt was carrying out the extermination of the Mayan population, Robertson held a fundraising telethon for the Guatemalan military..."

But Rios is not the only dictator that has won the support of Robertson and the cartel. Mobuto Sese Seko also benefited from his close friendship with Pat Robertson. He then, like Meles Zenawi today, was portrayed by Robertson as a "loyal US ally" in the war against international communism. He also emerged as Mobutu's close friend, and probably his most valuable asset in a deceptive campaign to maintain his stature with some ruling circles in the United States. Robertson was "wined-and-dined" by Mobutu on the dictator's presidential yacht, and entertained at his lavish estates. Robertson was rewarded handsomely for his political support and shield. He received extensive lumber and mining concessions along the upper Zaire River and operated a 50,000 acre farm in Zaire (now Congo).

Pat Robertson is not the only member of the cartel that has provided diplomatic and political, shield and support for vicious and criminal regimes that have committed historical crimes against humanity. No one should forget the support given by Jerry Falwell for the apartheid regime in South Africa. In the 1980s, the leaders of the unashamedly pro-free market economics and anti formal religion cartel had invested heavily in apartheid South Africa. Believing that the African liberation struggles would bring an end to their free reign over the territories, they demonized the liberation struggle and its leaders. Many were forced into exile, many more were killed. Back then it was "the fight against communism", that served as a pretext for their "unholy" alliances. They said that South Africa was "the Kremlin's Playground" and that its leaders were "Marxist". Desmond Tutu, Beyers Naudé, and Allan Boesak were portrayed as dangerous "foes" and Nelson Mandela was labeled a "terrorist".

Ted Haggard, one of the nation's most influential conservative "Christian" leaders and a staunch ally of the Bush administration, who in a recent letter to his congregation confessed that he was "a deceiver and a liar" and cited "sexual immorality" as the reason for resigning from his position as President of the National Association of Evangelicals and as pastor of his Colorado mega-church (14,000-member congregation), once claimed that Jesus wants a free market economy.

No to be outdone, Billy Graham, a renowned Evangelical Christian and spiritual adviser to multiple U.S. presidents was against communism and supportive of U.S. Cold War policy, including the Vietnam War. But his political views did not stop him from having a very close relationship with the late North Korean dictator Kim Il-sung. Graham said that Il-Sung was a "different kind of communist" and that he was "one of the great fighters for freedom in his country against the Japanese." There is a saying in Tigrinya that goes something like this-kit bel´o zideleKa aba gumbah, zagra tiblo…

Déjà vu!

Today we see the cartel and its mercenaries employing pretty much the same propaganda techniques to demonize the Government of Eritrea and its leadership. Damning pictures and words have been replayed in thousands of missionary sites by the cartel for over 5 years. Pat Robertson´s 700 Club and the many hundreds of radio programs such as Compassion Radio, and hundreds of website have disseminated un-Christian propaganda. These lies have been regurgitated by young and old Americans; some of these people do not even know where Eritrea is, but chose to propagate the lies and deceptions, forgetting God´s commandments that clearly say, "thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor" and "thou shall not lie´. Toeing the line is a group of cheap imitators who insist on being "In Chains for Christ". These individuals and groups call on prayers for others when it is obvious that it is them who need prayer and salvation the most.

There are individuals and groups that have been obsessed with Eritrea, as if it were their final quest. One of them is Glenn Penner. This man who insists on challenging this author about Eritrea, as if he would know Eritrea better than I would, is typical of the patronizing and condescending lot. For a man who has never visited Eritrea, knows absolutely nothing about Eritrea´s long and deep religious history, or about Eritrea´s cultures and or about the people, and could care less, has gone out of his way to pen the most outrageous and false articles on Eritrea. For people like him, the end justifies the means. In some he has even attempted to provoke this author (rather childishly, I might add). But he, like all the other peddlers of Christian persecution news, knows that without the deceptions and the lies, there would be no sensational gut wrenching stories to tell. No stories, no funds… "Spreading the Gospel" is not going to earn them the $45 million dollars a year that "persecution of Christians" rakes in...

This member Voice of the Martyrs (VoM) maliciously labeled the Government of Eritrea "Communist" and falsely claimed that "the Eritrean security was trained by the East German Stasi, who were experts at recruiting informers from within religious groups" . Had he known anything about Eritrea´s long and heroic struggle for independence, he would have known that the East German´s never supported the Eritrean peoples struggle and never trained any members of the Eritrean People´s Liberation Front (EPLF). Glenn Penner knowingly misled his readers. Instead of doing his homework, he chose to "cut and paste" unsubstantiated reports from dubious sources such as Release Eritrea. For people like him, it is the sound bites that he chases, not the truth. The fundamentalist and evangelical groups, such as VoM, preyed on the sympathies and kindness of the American public while and fleeced it of millions in donations and contributions, solicited on behalf of the "persecuted".

But he is not the only person at VoM that has fabricated lies and distorted the truth to hoodwink his readers and hide VoM´s lawlessness. Todd Nettleton is another member of that NGO who has engaged in the most vicious campaign designed to distort Eritrea´s image. He is one of the many individuals and groups missionaries who have abused Eritrea´s visa regulations and entered the country under false pretexts citing tourism or business (English teacher) as reasons and then extending their stay repeatedly to carry on missionary and proselytizing activities.

Unfortunately, Eritrea is not his sole victim; there have been many other nations that have been violated by this wayward "missionary". He justifies his illegal entry into sovereign nations and his lawless activities by saying that he is doing it for the good of the "converts"…he traverses the globe and tells us that if people are not introduced to the Gospel, "the alternative is that they will go to hell". The alternative is that there will not be conflicts and violence and therefore no persecution stories for his group to peddle. For Nettleton and his group, its not just Moslems that are targeted, but as we shall see later, it is the established churches, such as the Eritrean Orthodox Church in Eritrea and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Ethiopia, that are prime for "harvest".

Then there is the audacious Kevin Turner, a USAID subcontractor that entered Eritrea pretending to be a "humanitarian" worker, who had no qualms insulting the people and government of Eritrea, while he was still in Eritrea. Probably felt that his USAID credentials gave him free reign in Eritrea, as it did in Sudan where he has been "converting Moslems" for over 14 years. Turner of Strategic World Impact (SWI) tells an unlikely tale about a dream in which Jesus Christ told him that there were 9 hot spots in the world that he needed to go to and do God´s work. By coincidence, they also nicely aligned with those countries that are of strategic political and economic interest to the cartel leaders.

Feeding on the fear of Islam and the Islam phobic atmosphere in the United States, he sent numerous reports from Eritrea accusing the President of Eritrea, H.E. Isaias Afwerki, a Christian, of trying to "Islamize" the nation. He falsely and malicious propagated the false accusation of Christians being imprisoned "in the middle of nowhere in 40-foot shipping containers" which are "very hot during the day and freezing cold at night". For Turner and his ilk, the nastier the tale, the better the response from the gullible that he and the cartel sought to deceive. These modern day missionaries are no different than their forefathers…the apple does not fall too far away from the tree…

The scandal ridden-cartel that brought us the illegal detentions of Guantanamo Bay, the prisoner torture and abuse of Abu Ghraib, extraordinary renditions and secret prisons all over the world, including Ethiopia, and the fake National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and National Democratic Institute (NDI) sponsored multi colored and scented revolutions such as: Orange Revolution in Ukraine, Rose Revolution in Georgia, Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, Purple Revolution in Iraq, Saffron Revolution in Myanmar (Burma) and fake elections such as the 2005 elections in Ethiopia and the bloody Kenyan election of 2007, did not have the moral or legal authority or integrity or credibility, to preach to Eritrea about anything, least of all religious freedom.

What triggered the aggressive militancy of the "political fundamentalists"? Yash Tandon of the South Center in his 1996 paper on Africa´s development wrote:

"...The collapse of the Soviet-style Communism obscures a deep crisis facing Western powers. Other forces are emerging to challenge them. One is fundamentalism. The West had a clear answer to Soviet communism, but has no answer to Islamic fundamentalism where the issues go beyond the development paradigm. Against Islamic fundamentalism, the West offers its own forms of Christian fundamentalism..."

During the last ten to fifteen years, there has been a bewildering explosion of new religious movements (NRMs) in Africa. We have all heard about the massive open-air rallies, crusades, revival gatherings, miracle centers, healing ministries and so on. While there are many African Christian churches that have been established by Africans themselves, it hardly explains how the number of churches in Africa grew from about 5000 churches in 1968 to the tens of thousands today. The headlines are filled with stories of this phenomenon. Here are a few examples:

"...Authorities in Cameroon are seeking to control the surging numbers of Pentecostal churches in the country… Distinguishable by the loud music which emanates during services, the churches are found in the most densely-populated areas… concerned officials in the South West Cameroon governor's office, together with police, have stepped in and begun closing down some of the churches - even though Cameroon is a secular state with freedom of worship..." (BBC 24 April 2007)

"...There has been a boom in the number of new Pentecostal churches in Nigeria in recent years… Almost half the disciples are foreigners… Many Pentecostal churches have set up schools and universities, often focusing on business skills..."(BBC in pictures)

"...The Registrar General is overwhelmed by increasing demand for the registration of churches … the department is facing difficulties in processing 6,740 pending applications by various religious groupings…about 60 applications are filed every month. Already, there are 8, 520 registered churches…The AG [Attorney General] cautioned that some of the groups masquerading as churches were illegal outfits established to cash in on freely flowing money in the evangelical world…There is an astronomical increase in the application for the registration of religious societies, some of them turning out to be either wolves and sheepish or formed purely for financial gain, and take advantage of the unsuspecting public..."(East African Standard 4 September 2007)

Allow me to present some recent stories that will show some of the problems that developing countries are facing because of these modern day missionaries and their illegal, aggressive proselytizing and conversion schemes:

Groups of Ethiopian Christians were reportedly still hiding in churches Thursday, January 18, after one believer was killed, Christian homes burned and several believers were threatened with execution for converting from Islam.

Violence has engulfed some predominantly Moslem villages in Nigeria, where Nigerian Moslems are protesting the visit of German evangelist Reinhard Bonnke.

The recent Hindu attacks on Christians in the east and south of the country where churches homes and schools belonging to Christians were burned down and 22 people were killed and thousands forced to camps is yet another example. In this case, Christians in the area were "forcibly converting Hindus to Christianity". The report cited a rise in "prosperity and status" that accompanies conversion to Christianity as being the underlying reason.

In March 2008, the Jordanian government deported an unspecified number of expatriates for "carrying out Christian missionary activities under the guise of charity work". Jordan, where Jesus Christ was baptized and is also home to several tombs of the Prophet Mohammed's companions and Mount Nebo, and where according to biblical tradition God showed Moses the Promised Land, is a popular destination for Christian, Muslim and Jewish pilgrims alike who revere Moses.

On 6 April 2007, the Times of India report said: "…police had questioned 26 American tourists on a visit to the city after residents of a slum in Baghlingampally complained that the foreigners were trying to convert the locals… a group of 53 foreigners had come to India on tourist visas. Of them, 26 came to the city led by a schoolteacher from California …the villagers complained that the foreigners were trying to convert the locals… the tourists were propagating their religion by luring people with gifts like chocolates and sweets… The tourists are reported to belong to a group, Youth Wing Mission and went to the slum in vehicles provided by Bethel Gospel church…"

Not to single out Kenya, but this statistics on Kenya is interesting and a wake up call for Africans. In "Keeping Kenya Christian" posted on 18 February 2008 , the Economist reported:

"...Missionaries are not the only ones interested in keeping Kenya Christian: the international community also enlists Christ to further Kenya's stability. Colonial governments funded missionaries to ease tribal tensions. Western governments support them to battle the spread of Muslim extremists. The US government counts hundreds of international Christian groups as development partners. Of the 9,000 Americans in Kenya, two-thirds are missionaries and their families..."

Imagine the fit the bigoted self-righteous cartel would have if 6000 Moslem Kenyan Missionaries came to live in their midst, to convert their children, wives, husbands, fathers and mothers to Islam and convert their Mega Churches to Mega Mosques or as they are doing in Africa, break them up into many "house Mosques" or "Islamic cells". Yet, when countries introduce laws to protect their people´s peace and security from the cartel and the aggressive militancy that is engaged in religious expansion, "harvesting believers", creating "underground churches" and "Christian cells", they are labeled "draconian", "anti-Religious Freedom" etc. etc. These groups go out of their way to provoke governments, but are the first to cry "foul" when governments act. What hypocrites!

Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana´s first president warned of these groups over 4 decades ago, as he recognized the entry of various "missions" that were established by the neocolonialists to maintain control over the economies of the newly independent African states:

"...Perhaps one of the most insidious methods of the neo-colonialists is evangelism. Following the liberation movement there has been a veritable riptide of religious sects, the overwhelming majority of them American. Typical of these are Jehovah´s Witnesses who recently created trouble in certain developing countries by busily teaching their citizens not to salute the new national flags. ´Religion´ was too thin to smother the outcry that arose against this activity, and a temporary lull followed. But the number of evangelists continues to grow..."

To its Bretton Woods "structural adjustments programs", the cartel now added the Bible belt´s "spiritual adjustment programs" to maintain its economic stranglehold on Africa and its vast mineral, oil and other natural resources.

According to the modern day missionaries, they have a mandate to make disciples in all nations and fundamentalists and evangelicals launched "The Joshua Project"- to take the Gospel to as many "un-reached" people in the world as possible. The countries have been chosen and put into a neat rectangular area that Luis Bush (no relations to George Bush) says is the most important area that missionaries should focus on. Bush describes it and its importance:

"...It is a belt that extends from West Africa across Asia, between 10 degrees north to 40 degrees north of the equator… 97 percent of the 3 billion people who live in the 55 most un-evangelized countries live in the 10/40 Window… it is the heart of Islam… Adherents to the Islamic religion are growing, as is suggested by the increased numbers pilgrimaging to Mecca. Yet at the same time, it is reported that many Muslims–having studied the Koran in great depth–have discovered in the process that the highest prophet described in the Koran is Jesus Christ and not Muhammad… just as Eastern Europe recognized that the atheistic ideology of Communism could not stand the test of time, so also the "eyes" and the "hearts" of the Muslims will be opened to the truth… it's where the three main religious blocs are located. There is the Muslim bloc with 706 million … There is the Hindu bloc with 717 million people … And there is the Buddhist bloc with 153 million..."

By the time George Bush came to the White House, the Project was already at its height in places such as India, Burma and in African countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, and Cameroon. In Eritrea, the Afar, Beja, Bilen, Kunama, and Saho were considered the "un-reached" and missionaries eyed the newly independent nation.

Eritrea (pre-independence and post independence) has also seen an explosion of NRMs with roots in Ethiopia or in the West. The variety of these groups include the Church of the Living God- out of the Medhane Alem (Sunday School Ministries) revival groups within the Eritrean Orthodox Church, Dubre Bethel Church , Faith of Christ Church, Hallelujah Church / Hallelujah Pentecostal Church, Kale Hiwot (Word of Life- Baptist church affiliated to the SIM, formerly the Sudan Interior Mission), Mensfesawyan, Mullu Wongel (Full Gospel), Meserete Kristos (Christ is the Foundation-Menonite), Mehrete Eyesus Evangelical Church, Berhane Hiwot Church of Eritrea, Philadelphia Church of Eritrea, New Covenant Church, Rhema (from Ethiopia) etc. etc. the missionary groups were just as many. At one point there were 36 groups…

In the entire history of Eritrea, the only "religious conflict" happened during the British Administration, when individuals in that Administration deliberately and maliciously sought to bring conflict amongst Christians and Moslems in Eritrea. Astier Almedom describes one such incident, a very bloody incident, in her paper "Re-reading the Short and Long-Rigged History of Eritrea 1941–1952 : Back to the Future?"

"...on Wednesday 28 August 1946, the day of Eid (Feast at the end of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan) a fight broke out in Abba Shaul, the poorest part of the Eritrean quarters of Asmara, in which one Sudanese man died and a few others were injured. As soon as the news of the death reached their barracks, about 70 Sudanese soldiers "careered murderously through Asmara´s native quarter armed with weapons ransacked from the armoury"…Predominantly Christian residential areas were targeted and those who did not wear a turban or an amulet or had the Coptic cross tattooed on their foreheads (as was common among Orthodox Christian women) were dragged out of their homes, lined up, and executed on the streets of Asmara. Ullendorff (1988) noted that this happened between 5 and 6 pm, and that he and his wife had heard the sound of "heavy machine-gun fire, loud and prolonged. As soon as we realized that something pretty serious was happening we went to the Senior Officer´s Mess, less than five minutes´ walk from the Hamasien Hotel the Massacre which lasted about two hours claimed the lives of 46, leaving about 70 wounded; of which 3 of the dead and 13 of the wounded were Sudanese [possibly victims of ´friendly fire´, as there were no records of Eritreans firing back]..."

In addition, during Eritrea´s 30-year long struggle for independence, Christians and Moslems lived and fought together to liberate Eritrea. Even though there were efforts to disrupt and divide the people between ethnic and religious lines, these efforts were immediately recognized and thwarted.

So what is the problem today? For that, I think it is easier to take a look at how these new churches are being established and what their goals are. We will take a look at one of the churches that was established in the early 40s and one that was formed in the 60s. I chose these two because the missionaries involved with these two churches have written extensively about them, making it easy for me to illustrate the problem. Just because the churches were established way before Eritrea´s independence doesn´t mean that they are good for Eritrea, or that they ever had the best interests of the people of Eritrea, as one shameless Eritrean scholar-for-rent suggested in one of his recent posts.

FULL GOSPEL CHURCH

For example, in Africa, the Assemblies of God (AG) had over 245 missionaries in 50 countries. There are 49585 Assemblies of God churches and preaching centers, 48448 national and lay ministers, 232 Bible schools and 11964 Bible school students established in Africa. This mission operates all over Africa and is primarily responsible for the huge number of "churches" mushrooming all over Africa. Here are the staggering numbers :

The Burkina Faso fellowship formed in 1944 and is the largest church in the nation of the 6,000-plus churches and preaching points in that country. Besides emphasizing home missions to the nation´s 58 distinct tribal groups, the Fellowship has sent and supported missionaries to Niger, Senegal, Mali, Benin, Guinea, and Belgium.

In Tanzania the focus is on reaching the nation´s 160 cultural groups and 120 tribes. Its concerted church planting strategy and cross-cultural home missions training have been significant in the fellowship´s growth. In 1980, TAG consisted of 275 churches and preaching points. Today that number has mushroomed to more than 3,200 with at least 100 churches in Dar es Salaam, the capital. Nearly 500,000 adult believers attend AG churches each week.

First introduced to Kenya in 1921 and today nearly 3,200 churches and preaching points have been planted around the nation.

In Nigeria the church´s growth is said to grow at approximately 400 churches yearly. There are more than 10,000 churches and preaching points, and the Nigerian church is the largest AG fellowship in Africa. The Nigerian AG has been instrumental in the development of the Pentecostal church in Niger.

Let us take a look at AG in Eritrea.

Jerry Falley and Maxine Falley are two American missionaries with the Assemblies of God who have written about their "adventure" in Eritrea. In their story they tell how Eritrea was chosen by these American missionaries:

"...A month earlier, Eritrea had been recognized by the United Nations as the newest African Republic. Following 30 years of guerrilla warfare, it appeared the society would be fertile soil for church planting. Since the Assemblies of God had not yet entered Eritrea, Ethiopia or Sudan, I asked to survey those three countries. My Area Director agreed… God threw a curve ball and turned me toward the horn of Africa… On my flight from Nairobi, Kenya to Eritrea, I spent one week in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia which was a wonderful introduction to the horn of Africa…Staying at a missions´ guesthouse, I met a man who had just come from Eritrea. He kindly recommended a hotel in Asmara and gave me the telephone number of Kuflu Meskel, chairman of the Board of Elders at the Full Gospel Church and a mathematics professor at Asmara University..."

Soon both Jerry and Maxine Falley were in Eritrea. They say that their primary mission was to work with the un-reached populations-the Afar, Beja, and Rashaida they also knew that without a national link, they could not do what they wanted to do. They established a link with the Full Gospel Church in Eritrea through correspondence, a visit and then by providing for the Church. Falley wrote that the mission had provided half $4500 of the $9000 needed to buy a large tent that was sent to Eritrea for the Church´s use. The balance of $4500 was raised by the local Church members. Falley wrote that the check for payment for the tent was brought from Asmara by an Eritrean American. Falley also writes about the Church in Eritrea and its needs.

Falley says the Chairman of the Full Gospel Church told him:

"...We need training. Training that goes beyond a formal Bible school and teaches us how to share the gospel with other cultures, especially the groups in the lowlands of Eritrea..."

Two months later, the School of Leadership Training was birthed. A shipping container in the church yard served as a classroom and 21 Eritrean students enrolled for the opening class of the School of Leadership Training.

According to Falley:

"...Full Gospel Church of Eritrea was birthed in 1965 as several born-again believers received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Bible studies grew into a young church… Then under 18 years of Communist rule and persecution, they met covertly and emerged in free Eritrea numbering about 250 believers…Six years later with a congregation of near 2,000 believers, a training program was being initiated. Senior pastors Habtom and Twelode were among the students..."

In 26 years, from 1965-1991 the Church managed to get only 250 members and yet, after independence, within 6 years, they managed to get 1750 new members… a whopping 700% increase…

MEHRETE YESUS EVANGELICAL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (MYEPCE)

The book FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT: A Brief History of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, by D.G. Hart and John Muether, chronicles the establishment of the OP church in Eritrea. It also contains information on the missionaries in Eritrea. MYEPCE Church was initially established in the early 40s by the American missionary Clarence Duff :

Duff decided to go to Eritrea in 1943, which at the time was under British Military Administration. He was joined the following year by the Rev. Charles E. Stanton and, in 1945, by Mrs. Duff, Mrs. Stanton and the Rev. and Mrs. Francis E. Mahaffy. Three stations were established, in Ghinda, in Arafali and in Assab. Duff wrote about the challenges he faced in Eritrea. The work was far different from his previous experiences. He called Eritrea a "hot, barren, rocky, Mohammedan field". According to the book, Duff saw the need for many workers and, in effect, two missions:

"...one to the Ethiopic Coptic [Orthodox] Church and another to the Muslims…The mission needed long periods of laborious plowing before it began to reap any significant fruit. Several different languages had to be learned and relationships of trust had to be established. Several times the mission was frustrated by painful defections of individuals who had made what seemed were genuine professions of faith. The persecution and ostracism faced by new converts were harsh. Ten years would pass before the mission would realize the spiritual harvest of new believers…The emerging church had to be strengthened through a program of Christian education, thus heeding Christ's command in the Great Commission to make disciples. The translation and publishing of solid Christian literature was always a priority in the mission. Francis Mahaffy translated portions of the New Testament into the Saho language and produced over a dozen booklets and tracts in that language. Working among the Coptics, Herbert Bird worked on Bible and catechism translation into the Tigrinya language..."

In 1974 two OPC missionary nurses, Anna Strikwerda and Debbie Dortzbach were kidnapped by members of the Eritrean Liberation Front from the Mehreta Yesus Hospital in Ghinda. Anna Strikwerda was shot and killed and Debbie Dortzbach was held for 26 days and released unharmed on Saturday 22 June 1974. This is how OPC tells the story:

"...At noon, Monday, May 27, four armed men of the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) invaded our Compassion of Jesus Hospital in Ghinda, Eritrea Province, Ethiopia, and took two of our missionary nurses away with them—Miss Anna Strikwerda, who had served at the hospital since 1966, and Mrs. Karl (Deborah) Dortzbach, who was nearing the end of a one-year term of service. Within minutes Miss Strikwerda had been cold-bloodedly murdered, and within two hours Mrs. Dortzbach had been flown off in a helicopter to a mountain hideout… On Tuesday, the day after the attack, Anna was buried in the presence of many, many people (estimates range up to 2,000) at a service conducted by Mr. Steltzer and participated in by elders of the congregation. She was buried in the garden of the hospital..."

The mission continued for about eighteen months but they decided to suspend their work in 1976 when Osman Adem, a "convert" in the hospital, was seized and never seen alive again. Immediately, the mission and the hospital closed, ending thirty-two years of service. The remaining missionaries returned to the United States. OPC returned to Eritrea in 1992, after Eritrea´s independence. Don and Jeanette Taws, who served from 1958 to 1961, returned to Eritrea for three years to reestablish the mission. The church sent Charles and Rhonda Telfer and Steve and Jane Miller and the Church was re-established in 1995. OPC said:

"...August 1995 saw the reopening of the Mehreta Yesus Family Care Center, at which Dr. Grietje S. Rietkerk and Lois Ooms work. In Asmara, Steve and Jane Miller, Dirk Kievit, and Charles and Rhonda Telfer are busily involved in all aspects of establishing and strengthening the indigenous church..."

Lois Ohm worked in Eritrea for nearly two years training traditional birth attendants and community health workers as well as presenting the gospel to Muslim women. Ohm no longer works in Eritrea but is still in Africa. Rietkerk has retired and Steve Miller is back in the USA.

Almost all the faith based groups in Eritrea had similar missions. For instance SIM says:

"...By faith, we see SIM enlarging the kingdom of God in Eritrea by making disciples, developing quality leaders in SIM-staffed Bible schools, building up strong house churches, and reaching unreached people groups. The Tigre, Bilen, Saho, Nara, Kunama, Rashaida, Beja, and Afar are predominantly Muslim peoples and need to hear of God's compelling love for them..."

According to SIM, the Kale Heywet Church (SIM-related) has planted 11 new churches in 5 years and sent 21 evangelists to "non-Christian and nominally Christian areas of the country ".

Obviously, these groups had no problems "planting churches. If these are legitimate religious groups, why not register them instead of encouraging them to operate "underground"?

Allow me to quickly address the issue of the Jehovah Witnesses (JH) in Eritrea as that is another issue that is repeatedly misrepresented by the cartel and the self serving EQL. What the cartel and the EQL conveniently forget to tell their readers is that in the United States, members of the JH have been jailed for refusing to be drafted, during the war. Children were expelled for not pledging allegiance to the flag etc. etc. and parents were jailed for truancy. There is a long and sordid list of court cases filed against and by the JH that show that Americans were not as tolerant of JH as is being claimed today. Between 1933 and 1951 there were 18,866 arrests of American Witnesses and about 1500 cases of mob violence against them. There is a case about JH members being forced to drink castor oil, a strong laxative, to cause their humiliation and degradation. They were labeled "fifth columnists" and more. Attitudes towards JH have not changed; just dampened by an inordinate amount of legislation.

The Jehovah Witnesses came to Eritrea in the 1940s. While most of the established religious groups in Eritrea have complied with the various laws, there are some, like the Jehovah Witnesses who have rejected the laws and refused to abide by them. The JH refuse to participate in military service. Main issues which cause criticism of JH in Eritrea and in many other countries across the globe include failed prophecies, blood transfusions, and nationalism. In Eritrea the issue that has brought criticism of JH is their refusal to recognize the Government of Eritrea and refusal to abide by its laws. They also refuse to carry Eritrean identity cards. JH believe that "they owed allegiance to no person, flags, or nation; they owed allegiance only to Jehovah," therefore, they do not vote, salute the flag, or participate in military duty.

The JH refused to participate in the 1993 Eritrean referendum and when the Proclamation on National Service No. 82/1995 of 23 October 1995 which made national service compulsory for all Eritreans between the ages of 18-40 was published, the JH refused to participate in military service. In Eritrea, as in all other countries, a member of any religious group who breaks the law will be punished as any other individual, and cannot invoke obedience to a religious precept as a cause for impunity. No one is punished for the sole fact of belonging to a religious group, as the cartel wants us to believe. A Jehovah´s Witness can be punished if he refuses to do military service in countries where this service is compulsory and no conscientious objection is allowed, although refusing military service is required by his religion.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN ERITREA

Every person has the freedom to practice any religion and manifest such practice, but no one has the right to forcible or coercively convert another person. Eritrea´s religious and ethnic harmony and culture of tolerance and respect has been well established. In its April 1995 country profile on Eritrea, the US State Department´s Office of Asylum Affairs acknowledged the peaceful coexistence and religious harmony in Eritrea. It said:

"...There is now religious freedom throughout Eritrea, and all denominations and faiths are permitted to practice. There is no state religion, and no religion is supported over another. The government is carefully balanced to reflect the virtually even composition of the population between Muslims and Christians and is sensitive to outside efforts to influence this even division..."

In May 2002, the Government of Eritrea once again called on all religious groups to comply with Proclamation No. 73/1995 and took action against those that did not comply. According to the US State Department the Mehrete Yesus Presbyterian Church, Faith Mission Church, Seventh-day Adventists, and Baha'i Faith each submitted a complete registration application. The Kalehiwot, Full Gospel, Meserte Kristos, Tinsai, and Philadelphia churches submitted registration packages that did not include individual member names, while the Rhema Church and others groups reportedly submitted blank registration forms. Yet, the western media and the cartel deliberately and maliciously misrepresented that as being some sort of "persecution of Christians". They are not victims of "religious persecution"; they are victims of the cartel and their mercenaries who have used them to advance other illicit and dangerous agendas using religious freedom as a pretext.

It is very important to understand what religious freedom is, and that it includes in it the freedom not to have one's religion targeted for destruction. For those who have forgotten Eritrea´s struggle to preserve Eritrea´s cultures, traditions and ethnic and are propagating the cartel´s agenda to disrupt the peaceful coexistence in Eritrea, the destruction wrought in India, Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria and other countries ought to serve as reminders.

New Religious Movements (NRMs) have existed throughout history, but the visibility, extent, and variety of have increased dramatically in the last decade. From the United States to Europe, Asia and Africa, nations that have been concerned about the mushrooming of the various NRMs and have instituted some forms of legislation to deal with them. While some registration processes are short, there are some that take years for completion. In African countries where the origins and intentions of a particular group are so hard to determine, especially if they are foreign influenced, the bureaucracy may take years. For instance, in Equatorial Guinea, the Assemblies of God group registered in 1987, but it was not until 1993 that it received official recognition.

The actions taken by Eritrea were misrepresented by the cartel and its mercenaries as being harsh, but as we will see, even the most "democratic" and "liberal" European states have opted for additional legislation or something close to that to handle this growing problem. It would take another seating to address the long and ugly history of religious persecution in the United States

Austria

In Austria the Bundesstelle für Sektenfragen was created by a federal law in 1998. The law defines a sect as a community referring to religious or philosophical beliefs that can endanger the life or the health of persons, their property, or financial autonomy; the free development of human personality; the integrity of family life; and the free mental and physical development of children…The task of the Bundesstelle is to provide "documentation and information about dangers that can emerge from programmes or activities" of these sects.

Czech Republic

The 2002 law on Religious Freedom and the Position of Churches and Religious Associations created a two-tiered system of registration for religious organizations. To register at the first (lower) tier, a religious group must have at least 300 adult members permanently residing in the country. To register at the second tier, a religious group must have membership, with the requisite signatures, equal to at least 0.1 percent of the country's population (approximately ten thousand persons).

Denmark

The 2002 Guidelines for approval of religious organizations requires religious groups to submit the following items: a written text of the religion's central traditions, descriptions of its most important rituals, a copy of the rules and regulations of the organization, a copy of the organizational structure, and an audited financial statement, as well as background information about the religion's leadership and each member with a permanent address in the country. Additionally, the organization must "not teach or perform actions inconsistent with public morality or order."

Angola

The Government requires religious groups to petition for legal status with the Ministries of Justice and Culture. Legal status gives religious groups the right to act as juridical persons in the court system, secures their standing as officially registered religious groups, and allows them to construct schools and churches. Groups must provide general background information and have at least 100,000 adult adherents to qualify for registration.

Benin

Persons who wish to form a religious group must register with the Ministry of the Interior. Registration requirements are the same for all religious groups. Religious groups are free from taxation.

Botswana

All organizations, including religious groups, must register with the Government. To register, a group must submit its constitution to the Registrar of Societies section of the Ministry of Labor and Home Affairs. Any person who holds an official position in, manages, or assists in the management of an unregistered organization is liable to a fine of up to $166 (Pula 1,000) and/or up to 7 years in prison. Any member of an unregistered society is liable to penalties including fines up to $83 (Pula 500) and/or up to 3 years in prison.

Cameroon

It is illegal for a religious group to operate without official recognition. To register, a religious denomination must legally qualify as a religious congregation. The definition includes "any group of natural persons or corporate bodies whose vocation is divine worship" or "any group of persons living in community in accordance with a religious doctrine." The President generally follows the recommendation of the Minister and grants authorization by a presidential decree.

Djibouti

All religious groups are required to register in this predominantly Muslim country.

Malawi

Religious groups must register with the Government by submitting documentation to the Ministry of Justice detailing the structure and mission of the organization along with a nominal fee. Once approved, a religious group registers formally with the Registrar General's Office.

Tanzania

The Government requires religious organizations to register with the Registrar of Societies at the Ministry of Home Affairs on the mainland and with the Chief Government Registrar on Zanzibar. Religious organizations must have at least 10 followers to register, provide a written Constitution, resumes of their leaders, and a letter of recommendation from their district commissioner.

Uganda

All new nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), including religious organizations, must register with the Ministry of Internal Affairs' NGO Board. Foreign missionary groups, like foreign NGOs, must register with the Government.

Zambia

Governmental controls require the registration of religious groups. To be eligible for registration, groups must have a unique name; possess a constitution consistent with the country's laws; and display compatibility with the peace, welfare, and good order of the country. Unregistered religious groups are not allowed to operate. Violators can face a fine and imprisonment for up to 7 years.

Hopefully, the Obama Administration will put an end to this impunity by the cartel and its mercenaries and respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations. The American public should stop giving their hard earned monies to this self serving cartel and think twice before condemning other people´s cultures and traditions. It is about time that the public wake up and see the cartel for what they are…abusive, self centered, greedy and most importantly-UNCHRISTIAN!

"…The missionary wants to put an end to pluralism, choice and freedom of religion. He wants one religion, his own, for everyone and will sacrifice his life to that cause. True freedom of religion should involve freedom from conversion…" (David Frawley)

The rule of law must prevail over the law of the jungle!

Back in the Hindu fold

2009-03-12T20:49:00.001-07:00

Around 300 Christians belonging to 60 families at Vikasnagar in Dehradun returned to their roots i.e. Hinduism on February 25. The home coming ceremony was organised at a temple by Dharam Jagran Vibhag. After performing a yajna, Shankaracharya Shri Raj Rajeshwaranand sprinkled holy Ganga jal on them. They were also gifted lockets etched with the emblem of Om.

Addressing the gathering Shankaracharya Raj Rajeshwara-nand said Christians are trying to lure Hindus to Christianity. Religion can never be changed. It is high time we should come forward to save Hinduism otherwise the Hindus will become minority in the country. He said Hindu dharma is the oldest living way of worship of the world. It is not formally enunciated by any one particular individual or prophet. It is rather collective accord of revelations of truths to several seers. In order to sustain and cushion it and to promulgate it, various rishis and acharyas and many noble souls have dedicated their lives. They relinquished their selfish motives and consecrated their authority and total energy to the service of Hindu dharma. We need not just relish in the loftiness of our illustrious past, rather, we should aspire for that dignity and distinction in the present, he said. Through “Sangthan” “Sanskar” and “Sewa” (Unity, character and service) our Hindu society may progress and take its rightful place of honour, he emphasised.

Shankaracharya said that everyone who has taken birth on this land is originally a Hindu. This land had been a Hindu rashtra and will continue to be a Hindu rashtra. Islam came into existence only 1,400 years ago and the Christianity only 2,000 years ago. We should introspect, what people were before 1,400 years or 2,000 years ago, he said. Definitely they were Hindus. It is also a fact that there was no untouchability and no discrimination was made on the basis of caste and creed in Hindu dharma before the arrival of Islam and Christianity. Feeling of untouchability which is against humanism was spread by the Muslims and Christians under their policy of dividing the Hindus. Hindus are extremely innocent, liberal, humble and trustful. Their virtues and noble qualities were used against their own religion. Otherwise there was no discrimination and untouchability in the Hindu dharma and no one was prohibited to enter the temples in the long past. If this was not true, how Meera accepted Ravidas her guru and Kabir made Ramanand his guru, he emphasised.

Speaking on the occasion, Prant Pracharak of RSS Shri Shiv Prakash appealed to the Hindus to remove and forget the evils of the Hindu society. He said that untouchability is one of the greatest evils of the Hindu society. This sin has led lakhs of our Hindu brothers and sisters to conversion into Christianity. When they were deprived of their rights, love and affection and co-operation by the so-called upper caste people, they were forced to embrace Christianity and give up their own religion. It is a matter of great pride for the Hindu society that the Hindus who had left their Hindu dharma and became Christians have decided to embrace Hinduism again. Now it is the duty of the Hindu society to accept these Hindus and make relations with them. Hindu society can attain its glorious past only by removing its evils like untouchability. Atrocities on Hindus in Hindustan are increasing day by day, their places of worship and faith are being attacked and they are being ignored despite being in majority, it is a matter of great shame and this can only be ceased only by the unity of Hindus, he said. (RS)

Seventy per cent of reservation benefit is cornered by 18 per cent converted Vanvasis

2009-03-08T10:50:00.001-07:00

http://pseudosecularism.blogspot.com/2009/03/seventy-per-cent-of-reservation-benefit.html

Conversions creating social tension in Karnataka

2009-01-24T18:48:00.001-08:00

From R Guru Prasad from Bengaluru

It seems Christian groups have decided to convert all Hindus to Christianity at any cost. One shocking incident reported on January 4 in Bengaluru, revealed that Hindus are not safe even in their homes, as members of Christian missionaries have intensified their door-to-door campaign to market their religion through illegal ways. The incident of forced conversion came to light when Prabhod Kumar Das, who hails from Orissa and resides in 5th Cross, Murugeshpalya in Bengaluru, bravely filed a complaint with Airport Police Station. Rama Reddy, 26, from Nanjareddy Colony, who came from Andhra Pradesh, Micoh Barbosa, 35, and his wife Asmira Barbosa were arrested by the police and a case was registered against them under sections IPC 153(A) and 295(A).

The residents from Murugeshpalya, brought these miscreants to Airport Police Station. They allegedly tried to perform a conversion by luring general public to convert with promises of better jobs overseas. Books, handouts and other materials used for conversion were seized from them. Two other persons who worked with the three are absconding. Micoh is a native of Karwar and resident of Rajanukunte, on the outskirts of Bengaluru.

On December 28, 2008 the trio went door-to-door distributing Bible and other pamphlets in the densely populated Murugeshpalya, located near old Airport Road. Residents of the area did not take their act seriously. When they visited Prabhod Kumar Das’s house and many other Hindu’s homes to convince that Christianity is better than any religion. It has become a common sight for Bangloreans to see Christian missionaries offering free Bibles and CD’s in Railway Stations, KSRTC bus stands, exhibition halls and at other public gatherings. Public prayer meetings and healing sessions organised in play grounds are also not new to Bengaluru. Crowd of Muruge-shpalya became restless on January 4, when the trio out of over confidence, revisited the same locality to persuade them to change the religion with more vulnerable promises like financial benefit for those who sign the agreement form for changing the religion. What irked Prabhod Kumar Das and his neighbours is the attitude of these alleged agents of conversion. According to the complaint lodged with the police, these agents derided Hindu gods and told that Hindu gods are responsible for poor lifestyle, gates of heaven open only for Christians and all others go to hell. If converted to their religion, they said they could offer a better living overseas with a high paying job.

As the forced conversions are rampant in Karnataka, pro-Hindu organisations are demanding the state government to frame Anti-Conversion Law. Speaking at seminar organised by Platform of Indian Intellects on January 4, ‘Conversion—an assault on Truth’, well known authors like Dr SL Byrappa, Dr M Chidananda Murthy, Dr R Ganesh, Dr NS Rajaram and ex-minister Harnahalli Ramaswany demanded the Union government to introduce Uniform Civil Code and urged the State government to implement Anti-Conversion Law at once. Dr SL Byrappa alleged that Hindu population seen a 6.35 per cent decline whereas Muslim population has grown by 3.57 per cent in the last 50 years because of absence of uniformed civil code. If the same trend continues, he reiterated that in 150 years from now Hindus will become minorities in India. To safeguard our culture, religion and vedic knowledge, our country should be protected against Christianity and Islam and he requested the public to understand the poisonous effect of conversion and voluntarily lodge a police complaint against forced conversions throughout the state.

Dr NS Rajaram said conversion issue is not as simple as it looks as the national security is also linked to conversion.

Another massive awareness programme against conversion ‘Hindu Dharma Jagriti Sabha’ was organised on January 4 at Malleswaram grounds. Speaking on the occasion, VHP leader Vijayakumar Reddy said both conversion and terrorism are two faces of the same coin and he urged the government to hang Afzal Guru, the man accused in Parliament attack case. He further said all political parties are trying to appease minorities for the votes and forgetting Hindutva which is slowly slipping away.

Report On Gospel Missions of India

2009-01-17T19:23:00.001-08:00

Organization

Gospel Missions of India (GMI) is an IRS approved 501(c)(3) non-profit, tax exempt, religious organization based in Michigan, USA to support Christian workers and ministries in India associated with the Brethren assemblies.

Memberships - GMI is a member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) and Christian Ministries Management Association, both of which stand for financial integrity and public accountability.

Support qualified national missionary workers and ministries engaged in the task of carrying out Christ’s great commission in India.

Mission

• Supply needed funds, facilities and equipment to produce radio programs in different Indian languages.
• Provide Bibles, literature, and follow up materials.
• Print Christian literature in different Indian languages.
• Support efforts to translate the Bible into Indian languages.
• Provide resources for Indian Bible schools and colleges.
• Begin and maintain Christian libraries with books and equipment.
• Construct new church buildings.
• Provide means of transportation for missionaries and gospel teams.
• Train local believers for village evangelism.
• Distribute Bibles in various Indian languages.
• Encourage Indian believers outside India to get involved in the work.
• Create awareness among American Christians concerning the need in India.
• Provide relief work to the most needy brethren.

Belief

• The Bible - We believe the Bible, composed of 66 books, is the divinely inspired Word of God; is inerrant in the original autographs; and is the supreme and final authority in faith and life.

• The Trinity - We believe in one God eternally present in three persons – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

• God the Father - We believe that God the Father, the First Person of the Divine Trinity, is Spirit—infinite, eternal and unchangeable in all His attributes.

• Jesus Christ - We believe in the Deity of Jesus Christ—that He is the Son of God, the Second Person of the Divine Trinity. We believe in His virgin birth, death, bodily resurrection, present exaltation at the Father’s right hand, and in His personal and imminent return. We believe that He is true God and true man, and that He is the only and sufficient Mediator between God and man.

• The Holy Spirit - We believe in the personality of the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Divine Trinity, and that He convicts the world of sin, regenerates the sinner, indwells, guides, instructs, and empowers all believers for godly living and service.

• Man - We believe that man was created in the image of God, but a sinner; that the fall and lost estate of man—his spiritually dead condition—makes necessary the New Birth.

• Salvation - We believe in salvation by grace through faith in the substitutionary death and shed blood of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.

• The Church - We believe that the Church the Body, or Bride of Christ—consists only of those who are born again; of those for whom He now makes intercession in heaven; and, those for whom He shall come again.

• Resurrection and the Eternal State - We believe in the bodily resurrection of both the saved and the lost: the saved unto everlasting joy and blessedness in perfect union with Christ in heaven; and the lost unto everlasting punishment separated from God.

• The Great Commission - We believe in Christ’s great commission to the Church to go into all the world and preach the great Gospel to every creature, baptizing and teaching those who believe.

Projects

GMI is engaged in several projects. To find out more about specific projects or ministries, please contact GMI.

The Lord’s Workers - There are currently over 1600 Indian missionaries from Brethren assemblies serving the Lord in India. They look to the Lord for their support. You may consider - supporting them financially to fulfill any of their following needs:
• Expenses and needs associated with the ministry such as literature, and transportation.
• Family and personal needs such as housing and children’s education.
• Medical care for the workers and their family members.
• Widows of late evangelists who need to be supported.

Bible Schools - There are several good assembly Bible Schools in India that are engaged in training and equipping missionary workers in Doctrines and Evangelism. You may consider sponsoring a Bible School student, or contributing to cover the expenses of operating any of the schools.

Orphanages - Provide a home for abandoned children and children from very poor families. Room and board, as well as clothing, schooling, medical care are provided for them. There are many orphanages in different states and a good number of them are run by missionary workers as an extension of their ministry. Over the years, Christian Orphanages have proven to be a very effective ministry. Often children raised in these orphanages go on to serve the Lord among their own people.

Radio Programs - GMI works closely with established radio ministries in India to support their programs. Currently programs are aired in eight different languages (Hindi, Oriya, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, Marathi, Chhattisgarhi and Nepali). These fifteen minute programs are broadcasted weekly. The airtime cost is just $75 for one language each week. Follow up with interested listeners is done using Bible correspondence courses.

Literature Ministry - Large quantities of gospel portions, tracts, booklets, New Testaments and Bibles are needed to support outreach work. GMI is working to meet this need by supporting a literature ministry based in Mumbai. This ministry purchases and supplies large quantities of gospel packets based on the requests from missionary workers and assemblies. This literature is then supplied free of charge to the requesters.

Assembly Building Construction - Construction of assembly buildings remains a large need throughout India as new assemblies are planted and existing assemblies grow. In many parts of India it is difficult to rent facilities for the purpose of holding church meetings.

Gospel Outreach Teams - Several ministries in India organize outreach teams to visit different locations in cooperation with the local missionary and conduct short term gospel campaigns and distribute tracts and literature.

Tribal Ministries - Several missionary workers are engaged in ministering to various tribal groups. Work among the tribal groups involve Bible translations, literacy programs and running orphanages.

Medical Ministries - Several ministries are engaged in running hospitals, clinics, mobile medical facilities, and ministry to people suffering from AIDS. Medical ministries focus on meeting the physical as well as spiritual needs of the people being served.

Child Evangelism - Child evangelism is a very effective tool in reaching many with the Gospel. GMI is involved in supporting a very effective child evangelism ministry which produces and provides materials and training for conducting Bible Clubs and Vacation Bible Schools.

Current Evangelistic Trends

The Indian assemblies have learnt to adapt to the changing circumstances, and as a result there are numerous types of evangelistic ministries.

Open-air preaching is becoming increasingly difficult, but still continues to be an important method for sharing the gospel. In recent decades there has been an increase in house-to-house visitation and sharing of the gospel. In a society where women are averse to visit the houses of strangers, sisters' teams go for house-to-house visitation in southern parts of India and receive a warm welcome from the unchurched. The results of such a personal approach have been gratifying.

Literature evangelism plays an important role in India. The high literacy-rate has produced a minimum of 500 million people who are functionally literate, and open to literature evangelism. Many assembly ministries and evangelists use this opportunity, and use literature produced either by them or by other agencies such as the Bible Society. Of late, assembly-based movements like SBS (Evangelistic fellowship for Children) have started targeting unreached and unchurched Indian children through VBS and Children's Clubs. Others use the Internet, Radio, TV and even CDs for evangelistic activities.

India The Challenge of reaching the people of India with the Gospel

Within 20 years India will be the world's most populous nation.
There are more people in India than in North and South America combined.
While the Christian Church in India is estimated to be growing by 5,000 people per day, the nation grows by 55,000 per day.
India contains the largest block of unreached people in the world.
India is one-third smaller than the size of the United States geographically, and four times bigger than the United States in terms of population.

A LOOK AT INDIA

Many nations (people groups) make up India's 900,000,000 people. Some 3,000 people groups in India speak at least 1,652 languages. Beyond the complexity of language exists different religions, varied cultures and a society divided by caste-together creating a grid of barriers to the spread of the Gospel.

Undertaking the religion of India's 900 million people is not easy. Regionalism and religious fundamentalism are on the increase. On the other hand, India has a sleeping giant of 36 million Christians. Pray for a revival among them and for a frontier mission vision.

BARRIERS

The Indian church is thriving in some people groups but may not spread beyond that group. Why? Because of barriers such as language, culture, and caste. Furthermore, most Christians lack the vision to reach beyond their own group.

Cross-cultural mission work is required to penetrate each people group and start a church that can then make the Gospel available to the whole group.

BREAKING BARRIERS

Most people groups in India have not had a chance to hear and do not have access to the Gospel. The purpose of missionaries is to go where the church is not present rather than expand the church where it already exists. Some so-called mission work in India is really evangelism and is growing the church in an already reached people group. This is good, but it does not directly affect unreached groups.

REACHED AND UNREACHED

The world's highest concentration of Christians is found in some areas of India, and yet India also has vast areas of more unreached groups-people with no access to the Gospel-than any other country. One such area is the Punjab-home of the Sikhs. Punjab was closed to foreigners until recently due to unrest arising from the efforts of some to have Punjab recognized as an independent homeland. Today there is much opportunity for Christian outreach.

MISSIONARY VISION

It is not enough for the church to grow within a people group. There must also be obedience to the Great Commission. In the past, progress toward world evangelization has been slowed because many missionaries failed to establish mission-minded churches. What happens when mission fields become mission-sending churches? A terrific example can be seen in the Mizo peoples of India. Missionaries took the Gospel to them 100 years ago, and now this group is sending over 1,700 missionaries of its own. The best way to reach the peoples of India is to mobilize the existing Christian groups to be like the Mizos.

Gospel Network

AD2000 & Beyond Movement

url: http://www.ad2000.org/

The AD2000 & Beyond Movement is a global, informal network of Christian missionary
agencies, denominations, churches and individuals committed to world
evangelism.

Abide In Christ International Ministries

url: http://members.aol.com/njcnewsgrp/aicim.htm

Welcome to Abide in Christ "Foundation of Christianity" International Ministries,
and New Jerusalem News.

Agni Ministries

url: http://www.agniministries.com/

A ministry started by Sadhu Chellappa, a powerful speaker, who was in the forefront
of evangelism in Tamil Nadu.

Althea International Ministries (AIM)

url: www.althea.org

An evangelistic ministry doing seminars on Biblical subjects focussed
to young people and to equip Christians for witnessing. AIM also do
Church planting and charitable mission through Althea India Mission
(AIM) based in Karnataka state of India.

Bible Times

url: http://www.bibletimes.com

The premiere Christian web-site, Biblical resource, and source of nourishment for the eternal part of you- the soul.

Blessing Youth Mission

url: http://www.blessingyouthmission.org/

Revival camps are conducted for christians to experience the renewal and
restoration. Bible Study Programmes for and training camps are organized for
the growth and maturity of the believers.

Christ For Asia International

url: http://www.christforasia.org

A non denominational Christian Gospel outreach ministry conveying
Christ in the native languages to Asians and Asian origins with an aim
to bring as many as souls to Christ before He returns.

Christian Aid Mission

url: http://www.christianaid.org/index.htm

Preaching the Gospel in some of the hardest-to- reach areas on earth.

Christian Bible Fellowship - Andhra Pradesh, India

url: http://www.ourchurch.com/member/b/barbmindia

Christian Bible Fellowship is an evangelistic ministry in Andhra Pradesh, India.
Come & see the miracles of changed lives!

Christian Life International Bible College

url: http://www.clibc.edu

Christian Life International Bible College offers a complete External
Degree Bible program in English, Tamil, Telegu, Hindi, Gujarati, French, and
Russian. Included in this program is a complete Bible Commentary that covers
over 3000 pages in material. The price for the External Program is extremely
reasonable.

Evangelizing India For Christ

url: http://members.tripod.com/EIFC

The mission of Evangelizing India For Christ shall consist of Evangelism, the
proclamation of good news about Jesus Christ; Establishment of Churches, the planting
and nourishing of churches ...

Faith Ministries for India, Unreached People Missions

url: http://www.fmfi.org/

Our aim is to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ throughout India. Our primary
strategy is church planting, followed by numerous methods of effectively communicating
the message of Jesus Christ ...

Good News India

url: http://www.goodnewsindia.org/

To preach the gospel and make disciples among the unreached areas of North India.

Good News for India

url: http://www.goodnewsforindia.org/

Good News for India is a Christian interdenominational organization dedicated
to training native believers to spread the gospel to the unreached parts of
India.

Gospel For Asia

url: http://www.gfa.org/

Gospel for Asia. "Reaching the most unreached." Welcome to Gospel for
Asia's home page! Together we can reach our generation for
Christ.

Gospel Missions of India

url: http://www.gospelmi.org/

Gospel Missions of India (GMI) provides an opportunity for believers here in the
United States and Canada to continue the Gospel work in India from their homes.

Gospel News for All Nations

url: http://www.keralanews.com

Gospel News for All Nations from Poruvazhy, Kollam, Kerala, India

Gospel for India

url: http://vcu.org/gospelforindia

Gospel For India is a Christ centered,Bible based missionary organization.
Engaged in evangelism and Church planting among the most unreached people groups
of India by training,equipping, and sendingout natives of India.

Grace Fellowship, Jaipur, Rajasthan

url: http://netministries.org/see/charmin/CM01783

Reaching South Asia for Jesus! To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness
to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins,
and inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith

HBI Ministries International

url: http://www.gospelcom.net/hbi/

HBI GlobalPartners exists to glorify God by enabling the North American church to
develop partnerships to reach the unreached of India and beyond.

House of the Good Shepherd Ministries

url: http://www.houseofthegoodshepherd.org

This Candadian ministry is involved in setting up a permanent drop-in
style Christian outreach center in Delhi.

Immanuel faith Ministries International

url: http://ifmi.homepad.com

Christian Missionary Ministry

India Full Gospel Mission

url: http://www.angelfire.com/pa/ifgm/index.html

India Full Gospel Missionary Institute, Bhopal India Full
Gospel Missionary Institute (IFGMI) is situated in Bhopal, the
capital of India’s largest state, Madhya Pradesh. This institute
in Govindpura, Bhopal is the headquarters of India Full Gospel Mission
(IFGM), which was founded nearly 25 years ago.

India Prayer & Fellowship Association

url: http://www.geocities.com/athens/troy/2836/

India Prayer & Fellowship Association is a registered trust in India and started our
mission from 6th Jan. '98. We are doing evangelism among non-believers.
We do door to door ministry area wise and have close friendly relationship with those who
responded for prayer and lead them to salvation. We start prayer cells and Sunday Schools
area wise so that the children of our contacts get regular teaching also.
We have regular free postal follow up to those who are double minded. We provide free
literature, tracts and Christian comic books. As the number of contacts are increasing
day by day we are looking for sponsors to support evangelists / counsellors, supply of
material, etc.

India Rural Evangelical Fellowship

url: http://irefusa.org/

Evangelical Christian mission bringing hope to rural India by child sponsorship
for food education, and operation of orphanages and by sponsorship of native
evangelists spreading the gospel of ...

Indian Evangelical Team

url: http://www.pgv.com

IET has experienced phenomenal growth during the past 24 years. The missionary team
itself has increased from P. G. & Lilly to 976 and the number of mission stations
from 1 to 367.

Inter Collegiate Prayer Fellowship

url: http://www.icpf.org/

Inter Collegiate Prayer Fellowship, born in a student convention in 1980 In a humble
way, with only a handful of groups and a few committed voluntary workers in Kerala,
the southern state of India, has grown to its present position with over, fifty staffs.

Jesus Calls Ministries India

url: http://www.jesuscalls.org

The 19 facets of Jesus Calls ministry carry Christ's love, compassion
and His divine power to the people, who live in sorrow, around the world.
Every month, millions of people receive abundant blessings from the Lord
Jesus through these ministries.

Life and Light Ministries

url: http://netministries.org/see/charmin/cm01400

MINISTRY FOUNDED IN 1994 WITH VISION TO REACH THE SOULS IN
INDIA,ESPECIALLY THE STATE OF KARNATAKA.
CURRENTLY WE HAVE SEVEN FULL TIME MINISTERS AND
WORKERS IN SEVERAL PARTS OF KARNATAKA.

MARANATHA GOSPEL FELLOWSHIP

url: http://www.geocities.com/maranatha_fellowship/

Evangelistic Christian site with focus on Missions

Mission 21 India

url: http://www.missionindia.org/

Mission 21 India is an agency which seeks to reach India with the gospel of
Christ through motivating, equipping and training national churches to plant,
grow and multiply new churches through India in a systematic and measurable way.

Native Missionary Movement of India

url: http://www.nmmindia.org/index.htm

Udaipur, Rajasthan, India

Founded 1981 by Pastor Thomas Mathew. Have 600 Native Missionaries and 600 Local
Churches. Mission work among 45 unreached ethnic groups.

North India Missions

url: http://www.nimissions.org/

The purpose of North India Missions is to evangelize the northern part
of the sub-continent of India, leading men and women to faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ, then assist in the start up of churches to teach and
equip these to lead a solid spiritual life according to the Bible.

Proclamation Ministries

url: http://www.proclamationministries.org/

Proclamation Ministries is an evangelistic organization dedicated to proclaim the
good news of God's salvation, His glory among the nations, and His wonders among
all peoples.

Project India 2000

url: http://www.jesusfilm.org/pi2000/

Through the use of the JESUS film, a powerful multi-language
presentation of the gospel, Project India 2000 plans to reach the diverse
populations of India.

Real Audio Gospel messages

url: http://www.i-am.org/south_asia.htm

Real Audio messages of God's love and grace in several major Indian languages with an easy to use map interface.

Sports Outreach India

url: http://www.mtoak.org/soi/

The Sports Ministry in India has seen unique happenings since its inception. The
movement is built on inter-denominational Sports Chapters.

To the Utter Most Part - The Call to North India

url: http://www.ad2000.org/utermost.htm

Why North India? North India is strategically important in completing the
unfinished task of world evangelization

Voice of Calvary International Ministries

url: http://www.geocities.com/athens/7834/

We are an international missions organization
which is working to train and send missionaries
into the unreached people groups of India.

Voice of Gospel

url: http://www.thecore.com/~clf/webp/vog1.htm

Voice of Gospel is an indigenous, Full Gospel, missionary, non-profit organisation
established on the foundation of the fundamental truths of the Apostolic
creed.

Training Students to Convert Hindu Students in America

2009-01-17T19:03:00.001-08:00

Training Students to Reach Hindus
InterVarsity Christian Fellowship
by Evelyn Stephens

I have found that the students who are most effective with Hindus are the ones that are teachable and willing to put themselves in uncomfortable situations for the sake of the gospel. When working among Hindus, one needs to be particularly aware of the cross-cultural dynamics. It is important to teach students to enter another culture with a learning posture and willingness to go the extra mile, so they can reach the heart of a person. This is especially important in reaching Hindus, since most are not interested in learning new cultures or becoming “Americanized.” They usually do not need as much help with English as some internationals and often have a strong group identity on a campus. This means it is crucial to enter into the Hindu student world, rather than trying to draw them out into programs and other communities.

Hindus sometimes see conversion as a change in community identity, rather than a belief distinction. Thus, invitations to "convert" to Christianity will likely not be accepted. Hinduism is complex because it is really a way of life and a family of religions, rather than one set of beliefs. Thus, even training students in basic Hindu theology is difficult, since the majority of Hindus on campus may not agree on one set of beliefs. Our aim is not the type of cultural conversion that the Hindu students fear. It is to share Jesus and allow him to draw people in and change them completely as they decide to make him the Lord of their life.

The best way to reach Hindus is to share Jesus and talk about personal faith and beliefs, asking about their personal beliefs rather than getting involved in theological debates. Often such debates center around issues that the Hindu does not even believe, but has been taught to defend, so it can be fruitless to argue against these ideas. The students who are most effective with Hindus are the ones who form authentic friendships, showing genuine love and care. These students are able to tell about their personal faith in Jesus and learn about the Hindu student’s beliefs as their friend. This often leads to fruitful conversations where the Christian can share who Jesus is, what he teaches about God, and demonstrate what it means to give our lives to Jesus and receive life from him. This demonstration is more powerful to many Hindus than any well-constructed argument of doctrine.

As a student group, we encourage our members to be a part of the Hindu student club on campus. Together we go to their festivals and parties. We also attend important community functions like dance recitals and Diwali. In these ways, we connect to the culture and have a natural meeting place to develop friendships with Hindus. Once the friendships are formed, it is important to train students to go deeper in friendships and really get to know one another through giving to and receiving from our Hindu friends.

One of the most effective students I have seen in befriending Hindus takes a genuine interest in Hindu culture. She watches a lot of Bollywood films and takes dance lessons in traditional Hindu dance styles. She learned the basic stories of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. In this way, she connects with the culture and shows her respect for their way of life. She has a love for Indian food and clothing and also attends cultural festivals and frequently invites Indian students to her apartment. Indian students are impressed to meet someone who has a sincere interest in their life. Yet, because of her genuine friendship, she also is able to share about her personal belief in Jesus and to pray to Jesus on behalf of her friends. One of her friends recently confided that he is interested in Jesus and may want to read the Bible.

Prayer is a crucial component in getting started in Hindu ministry. We have to seek the Lord and ask him to lead us to the students who are cross-cultural and able to easily relate with Indian students. We also have to pray that the gatekeepers of the Hindu community will welcome us in with open arms. Once the key people in the community are welcoming and friends with us, it will be much easier to relate with the group at large. So, we must continually put everything into God’s hands throughout the process of relating. Prayer keeps us in a solid relationship with Christ and allows us to acknowledge that God is the one at work through our relationships and that God is the only one capable of changing our friends hearts and minds.

Quick Guide to Meeting Indian Students on Campus

Events: Get involved in Indian student organizations and community activities such as playing cricket. Learn about and attend Indian cultural festivals.

Food: Eat Indian food, and ask students to show you how to cook it. Bring snacks to any gathering where you hope to have Indian students. Serve mostly vegetarian foods or chicken.

Bollywood Movies: After meeting people at cultural events, you could host a Bollywood film night or a dinner gathering at your home where you order or cook Indian food.

Gatherings: Start a get together that is focused on creating friendships that will also help them with their felt needs, like how to write a resume, get an interview, and obtain a driver’s license.

Friendships: Develop a few genuine friendships rather than many shallow friendships.

InterVarsity's International Student Ministry (ISM) Purpose Statement:

In response to God's love, grace and truth: the purpose of InterVarsity's International Student Ministry is to

Establish and advance at colleges and universities international witnessing communities of international students and faculty who follow Jesus as Savior and Lord:

Growing in love for God,
God's Word,
God's people of every ethnicity and culture, and
God's purposes in the world.

The world is at our doorstep! A half million of the brightest international students from 210 countries have come to the United States to study - most from the 10/40 Window, unreached people groups, restricted access and closed countries.

The Impact

The impact of InterVarsity's International Student Ministry is that thousands of international students are exposed to the Gospel for the first time each year.

International student's lives are being changed as they make life changing commitments to Jesus Christ.

Hundreds of international students are being trained and are building solid foundations in their relationship with Jesus Christ.

Returning international students are taking their learning, leadership experience and commitment to Jesus Christ, and are having an impact for the Gospel in their home countries in churches, universities, the workplace, missions and governments.

25% of the world's future leaders are studying here right now, according to the U.S. State Department.

Indian Media's War on Hinduism

2009-01-17T18:56:00.001-08:00

by Swami Jyotirmayananda

1. The Indian media: Its adverse role

There are many people in India who strongly feel that the so-called ‘secular’ print and electronic media, at least a dominant section among them, knowingly or unknowingly, is playing a very adverse and prejudiced role, when it comes to the reporting of the Hindu point of view. Suppressing or misrepresenting tactics are being liberally used along with admonitions and ridicules of the Hindus, ‘Hindutva’, and the Hindu Dharma. At the same time, this secular section appears to support the anti-Hindu forces in the country, which are active with their alien and subversive ideologies. In essence, it has come to mean that ‘secularism’ is nothing but opposition to Hindus, Hindustan, Hindutva and the Hindu Dharma. This is quite ridiculous in a country that is predominantly Hindu in its composition and character. This situation is agonizing to many and confusing to many more, since they would not get a true picture of what is going on in the country because of the prejudice of the media.

‘VivekaJyoti’, wants to do its bit to correct this situation. It has been trying and would also try in future, to throw light on those issues which get twisted or misrepresented by the ‘secular’ media. It is the considered view of ‘VivekaJyoti’ that in Bharat, a country with more than eighty percent of Hindu population and a hoary Hindu history, the true nationalism is undoubtedly ‘Hindutva’ and any neglect, denouncement or ridiculing of it is improper, unjust and ridiculous. The country would be truly free when ‘Hindutva’ gains its due respect, not ridicule as at present. Of course, this would be just a beginning of the country’s resurgence. Other larger issues are to be attended too. Various social injustices weakening the society, serious distortions in the field of socio-economic development, a chaotic situation in the political and administrative system and devitalized cultural and religious life—also are causes of concern, inviting correction. ‘VivekaJyoti’ would always try to focus the attention of its readers on these issues and goad them to do their bit in the service of the Motherland. It rededicates itself to that cause on the fourth year of its existence.
2. The Indian media: Why it is partial

The reasons for the selective propaganda by Indian media could be: a) Many leading journalists and media barons are Christians or Christian sympathizers; b) They are educated and indoctrinated in Christian run institutes; c) The media companies in India are completely under control of western companies through cross holdings; d) The media is advertising driven and almost all leading ad companies in India are foreign subsidiaries of global ad companies.

In the inimitable words of Sri V. Sundaram, IAS (Retd.), renowned columnist of Chennai, “all the mainline English Newspapers in India are deliberately Islam-embracing, Christianity-coveting, Hindu-hating and Hindu-baiting”. And, as revealed by Dr. Subramanian Swamy, “Academia, NGOs and mass media are the obvious instruments that are on the radar of anti-Hindu forces. Which and who are these forces that are shaping the anti-Hindu bias of the media? It is a coalition, not explicit but implicit, of Communist, Christian missionary, Islamic fanatics and other terrorist interests. Each of these interests has their own specific agenda. The anti-Hindu mentality of the English-dominated media in India is secured by the cozy nexus of media with academia and the English-speaking governing elite”.

“The Internet is full of anti-Hindu rubbish”, points out Swami Devananda Saraswati who is well known for his research on the ‘Myth of St. Thomas’. “It is impossible to tackle head on and piece by piece by individuals. That is why we have our own website (Hamsa.org) / blog (VivekaJyoti). We put our views and research out for public consumption with the hope that intelligent and honest readers chose us over the intellectual criminals. We must set up a legal association like the Jewish Defense League (DFL) in the United States, made up of Hindu lawyers. As soon as court cases start to be foisted on these missionaries, their conduct will change if not their attitude. But they have vast monetary resources behind them. Which Hindu moneybags would finance a Hindu legal team? Which Hindu lawyers (of which there are lakhs) would ever back a dedicated Hindu cause? At the root of our problem is the Hindu social and business elite class who could care less about their Dharma though they make huge donations to Balaji at Tirumala. We have to face this fact. We can do nothing until our own public intellectuals and rich socialites and industrialist class are behind us.”
3. Christian sponsorship of Indian media: An example

Here is a case study wherein the ‘Sify.com’, a major online Indian media outlet is working with ‘World Vision’, an evangelical body openly indulging in unabashed proselytisation with huge funds at their disposal for this purpose. Details about Sify.com’s partnership with the ‘World Vision’, patently a missionary agency, are online at: http://sify.com/news/antichildlabourday/ On this page, they are blatantly fundraising for them without informing the Indian public that they are missionaries. ‘World Vision’ also regularly advertises on Sify. It should be noted that the ‘World Vision’ has been implicated in induced conversions in Orissa and in Sri Lanka during the Tsunami. Look at a quote from the World Vision's website regarding their “noble” mission: “Wherever we work, our prayer is that our efforts will be used by God to heal and strengthen people's relationships with Him and with one another. We do this by demonstrating God's unconditional love for all people through our service to the poor — which includes providing for daily needs, working to build peace and promote justice, and partnering with churches and individuals to encourage spiritual transformation.”
4. Countering the propaganda unleashed by the Indian media

The propaganda unleashed by the Indian media can be countered by supplementing the existing media channels and using internet as a tool to spread truth. Already in most western countries, TV and newspaper viewings are rapidly shrinking. Using Internet, ordinary individuals now have the same tools of potential exposure on a scale comparable to large media companies. Internet Media is the way to go. With this in mind ‘VivekaJyoti’ blog was conceived.

According to the recent reports, the total newspaper advertising revenues have declined at an almost continuously accelerating rate, and the advertising dollars are rapidly shifting from print media to online publications. While the online readership is steadily growing, the print publication readership is declining.

In view of the prevailing political bias in the mainstream Indian print media, the Hindu perspectives can be advocated much easier in an online medium than a print medium, because the online blogs have zero cost. Further, the online publications do not have to go through the mainstream and potentially, politically biased editors. The online publications are not only readable throughout India and throughout the world, they are interactive, and people can respond to posts via comments. Of course, there are also a few other challenges: There is a lack of non-English online blogs (example Hindi blogs). As more people who do not know English come online, this is a key area for content creation.

In this context, a reader of “VivekaJyoti’ has a thoughtful comment which is worth noting: “In view of the popularity and influence of the internet, I strongly feel that as yet the competition from print and visual media is overwhelming. In India, very few are connected to the net and out of them still fewer visit our sites or blogs. On the other hand millions read news papers and watch TV, both of which are controlled by unfriendly forces. Hence we may not expect too much about our influencing the public at large. At best they can inform the curious and educate the convinced (-- Ashok Joshi, Chennai).

In this context Dr. Subramanian Swami has a very useful and practicable suggestion: “While owning one’s own media is difficult economics because the cost curve depends on advertising revenue, pro-Hindu forces should help market existing friendly or persuadable media in a wide circle. This will gain for pro-Hindu forces substantial influence”.

Somebody should bell the cat!

2009-01-17T18:55:00.001-08:00

By Dr. Mrs. Hilda Raja

I know about World Vision personally because many of my students were recruited to work in it. But invariably at the interview the question which they asked is about "evangalisation". Even a friend of mine who had applied for a chartered accountant post in response to an advertisement, was asked not of his professional and knowledge skills but about evengalisation. He came home and shared this with me and wanted to know if World Vision was a purely a development organization or one for evangalisation. Poor fellow does not know that development is the cover up for its evangalisation.

At a public meeting I raised this issue in Chennai. I had even responded to Mani Shankar Iyer who stated that to his knowledge there is not a single Christian development agency involved in evangalisation. I reacted to that by citing the case of World Vision. It was published in the papers. I can cite quite a few examples. World Vision will not recruit a single non-Christian, no matter the competence. They will not even recruit a Catholic because they do not trust the Catholics.

They once offered one of my Catholic students a job provided she leaves the Catholic church and joins in a Protestant church. She did convert because she was in dire need of a job for financial support. Two Brahmins were converted to the Protestant church and placed in high official positions.

In fact World Vision looks out for Brahmin converts to make them show pieces. These head the various departments which is highly remunerative. This is my own micro-level first hand knowledge. So what will it be on the all India level?

World Vision has a narrow, myopic vision of the world where their main agenda is evangalisation. The government of India must be aware of it. I have been always advocating for a ban on foreign funds. China, France and so many countries will not tolerate what India not only tolerates but even abets. The fight against terrorism will be futile unless and until foreign funds for "development" are monitored and banned.

Guidelines for Christian Workers

2009-01-17T18:52:00.001-08:00

Guidelines for Christian Workers

[This is an extract from a booklet “Anti Freedom of Faith Acts” published by Christian Institute of Management, 1359/1, 11street, Vallalar Colony, I Block, Anna Nagar (W), Chennai- 600 040, India. Email concern@eth.net]

The Tamil Nadu Act against freedom of faith necessitates that some guidelines are given to all the full-time Christian workers serving in the state. The following was drafted by a team of legal professionals, heads of churches, mission agencies and institutions. This draft was again corrected by very responsible Christian leaders. This can be used with further modification to suit your needs.

We are taking every democratically ordained means, like the legislature, judiciary and executive to defend our freedom of faith and defeat this Act. However, we should avoid negative communal approach. The communal antisocial forces today in India would like to see the Christians also take to a communal divide. We should not fall into the trap. The Church is called by God to be a prophetic voice for the entire nation and bring healing and blessing to all peoples under all circumstances.

Our response has to be positive to accept the situation, as God allowed, in His sovereign will – for the ultimate good of His church, even if it is through unpleasant circumstances. The Lord is in control of every situation. The Church in each century has faced some difficulties in some parts of the world. Ultimately the sufferings have resulted in blessing.

According to the Acts in Tamil Nadu, MP, Arunachal and Orissa, Christian “conversion” is understood as the act of baptism. “Abetting conversion” is understood as any step aiding or leading to baptism.

The Tamil Nadu Act by and large will be used by communal anti-social forces to make false complaints to harass genuine evangelistic ministries, even if such complaints finally cannot stand in the court. However, their purpose of harassment will be achieved till the court acquits. Therefore what are suggested below are steps not only to avoid legal action, but also to avoid illegal harassment from anti-social forces.

1. Outsider participation: If a seeker from some other faith or non faith wants to attend weekly church or weekly Christian meeting or weekly Bible study, he is completely free to do so. You are at full liberty to allow him to do so. If a minor wants to attend, he can do so except that he should not sign any statement or declaration of religious nature.

2. Baptism: When a person from some other faith or non-faith wants to take baptism, you need to do the following:

a. The seeker needs to attend regular instruction in the Christian faith for 3 months or more. File some document as evidence that he attended such instruction. One simple way is to enroll the seeker in Bible correspondence Course. His filled-up correspondence lesson sheets sent to either you or the Bible Correspondence Course Centre is sufficient evidence of his study.

b. If the seeker is an illiterate or half literate provide him/her oral instruction for 3 months and some recorded evidence must be maintained like signature/ thumb impression as to attending such instruction classes.

c. Obtain a Declaration from the seeker signed by a Notary Public, that he/ she after due study of the Christian teachings, is voluntarily seeking admission in the faith / church without coercion, force, fraud, allurement, etc.

d. After the baptism, as per the Act, file the Intimation with the appropriate judicial officer. Study thoroughly the Act as well as the Rules of the Act, which will be published soon. This Intimation Form will be available in any Government publications center. Otherwise write to Christian Institute of Management.

3. Group Baptism: Avoid large group baptism as this has caused harmful publicity and resulting difficulties even though the seekers were genuine. On the other hand, an individual may not have the courage to take baptism fearing violence or harassment from anti social forces. It may be advisable that, in the case of the weaker sections of the society, a whole family is given baptism together, so that they can endure persecution together.

4. Minors: Do not give baptism to a minor from non-Christian faith unless his/ her parents request in writing for the same. Minors (from other faiths) should not sign any religious statements, without the consent of parents. Follow also the instructions given in Point No. 2 above.

5. Witnesses: In the case of baptism of minors, women, dalits or tribals, as a safeguard against harassment from anti-social forces, obtain the signatures of four or more witnesses in their Declaration seeking baptism. In case of a minor or a woman, the written assent of her father/husband/ closest male relative is very advisable besides other witnesses. This is suggested because some witnesses can turn hostile subsequently due to threat or harassment by anti-social forces.

6. Hospital evangelism: We can continue hospital evangelism as before. Literature can be distributed to patients and cab be prayed for the sick. Our literature can proclaim the teachings of Christ but should not ask for a pledge. The literature can offer further study, Bible Correspondence Course etc. but should not seek a pledge.

You can pray in general for all the sick in mission hospitals. The hospital staff may start their work with public prayer for healing for all. No one can object to it because it is “practice of our faith” in Christian medical institutions. A patient or his relatives who do not want to partake in it have the freedom to abstain from attending it.

However, if you are visiting a Govternment hospital or a private hospital, use discretion in ministering to the patients there. We can pray for a patient only with his /her interest and consent.

When you do community health care in villages and slums, you can start your morning work with public prayer as this is part of our “faith practice”. Before doing the prayer, you must announce clearly that attending the prayer is optional for the villagers and those who want to abstain can do so.

7. Minority Institutions: Christian schools are minority institutions. Article 29 and 30 explicitly provide for practice of our faith in minority educational institutions. The phrase “institutions of their choice” interalia includes providing education along the lines of our minority religious identity. Therefore Christian schools can (and should) continue their morning song, prayer and Bible reading. However make sure that the songs, bible reading and prayer are devotional and of worship in content.

It must be announced in written form that the non-Christian children have liberty to be passive participants in the morning worship (not singing the song or saying the prayer, etc) Non-Christian children or parents who object to even passive participation in the morning worship have the option to join some other schools.

Christian schools can also have religious instruction classes but only outside the academic hours. However these classes are meant only for Christian children. Non-Christian children can attend Bible study classes in your school, only with the written consent of the parent/guardian.

8. Public Preaching: Preaching in public places, street preaching, tract distribution, etc. can continue as before but the crusade mindset must be avoided. More of songs and bhajans and the expounding of the teachings of Christ need to be done with more cultural and religious sensitivity. Criticising or condemning or comparing of other religious faiths or practices must be avoided.

9. Media: Television, radio, film and other mass media ministries can continue but with extraordinary cultural and social sensitivity, which is lacking today in many of our programmes.

10. Children ministries: In many rural, tribal and urban ministries children of all faiths eagerly attend our holistic children clubs/ literacy classes/ health clubs / Sunday schools, etc. They can continue to do so. However no child (from other faiths) should sign any religious declaration / pledge.

11. Orphanage / Children Homes / Christian Hostels: Taking care of orphans and poor is an explicit command given in the Bible. Therefore, under our Constitution this is practice of our religion. The orphan (and poor children) may be Christians as well as non-Christians. In case of non-Christian orphan/ destitute, you must obtain necessary permission for the child to be brought up in a Christian orphanage / children’s Home. Consult your lawyer on this or write to us. The child can undergo all the Christian disciplines of the orphanage/ children’s Home. However, the child (from other faith) should not write any religious declaration without parent / guardian’s written consent. See points no. 2,3,4, and 5.

12. Missions/ Social service / Development agencies: All your field workers can carry identity cards and also your organization’s policy statement. The statement must state besides other things that:

a. The social service is offered to only Christian poor (if that is your policy) and strictly confine to Christian poor only. OR

b. The service is offered to all poor irrespective of race, religion, etc.

c. You are a Christian agency, therefore you will “practice your religion in course of your service – like corporate prayer, Bible reading or worship”

d. No one is obliged to take part in the above “practice of our faith” unless they want to.

Consult your lawyer and draft necessary policy statement or contact CIM.

13. Public Relations: Wherever possible involve the local officers like the village chief, panchayat president, municipal councilor, MLA, police officer, etc in the inauguration or other functions of your social services. You must also participate as much as possible in all civic functions.

14. Venue of evangelistic meetings: Wherever feasible avoid holding evangelistic meetings in public grounds. Hold them in the church or Christian school ground. No one can object to a Christian evangelistic meeting being conducted in a Christian campus. But Christian celebrations like Yeshu Jayanthi or Easter or New Year can be conducted in public grounds. However, for evangelistic meeting for non- Christians (which is perceived rightly or wrongly as ‘ Conversion activity’) the most appropriate place is a Christian ground.

15. Literature: Pledge / declaration slip should be removed from all evangelistic literature. We are at liberty to appeal to the reader on the soundness of following Christ or His teachings but it is unwise, in the present context, to ask a reader / seeker to sign the pledge card.

Secondly, such literature may end up in the hands of minors and signing such a pledge (without the consent of parents) by the minor can raise problems.

All evangelistic literature meant for non - Christians should have Indian addresses and preferably Indian writers to avoid cultural insensitivity.

16. Cultural Sensitivity: We need to encourage more of culturally relevant modes of evangelism. We thank God for every form of effort by the universal church and God can use any method. However, in the context of the current communal sensitivity, we must weigh every one of our methods in presenting Christ to our fellow patriots.

17. Publicity: Some mega crusades with international have drawn unhealthy attention, with their out of proportion publicity material. More culturally suitable methods of evangelism need to be promoted in future.

Your e-mail, post and magazines in India and abroad are being read by others including the anti-social forces. Therefore use discretion in your publicity and reports as they can be misused against you.

18. Internationals: Use internationals, if need be, only in backup ministry like social, medical, educational, office or technical ministry but not in any front line evangelistic ministry. International can be used in spiritual ministry to Christians but not be used in evangelistic efforts meant for non -Christians. Internationals should not be taken to interior tribal areas or rural areas.

19. Vocabulary: We need to avoid all words of colonial era like “winning, warfare, strategy, convert, conversion”, etc. What we understand by these words is totally different from what the average non-Christian understands by them. Ask mature Christian leaders to read your literature before publishing.

20. Independent workers: There are many independent workers who need to relate to some network or fellowship. It is very important and urgent that they do so. This will serve double purpose. They will become accountable to some community of ministers in India. Secondly in time of need, harassment or opposition that community will stand behind them. If no network suits their kind of ministry, they can form their own network, bringing into it, all the ministries of their kind across the state.

Know your rights as a citizen. The booklets published by Indian Social Institute are invaluable guides in this respect. Consult responsible Christian leaders or write to us before taking any major steps in your work in relation to the above state Act.

If any one including the police makes any complaints, threats, or claim, insist that they make their complaint or case in writing. Do not respond to oral claims. Send CIM a copy of the complaints you receive. Consult your lawyer before responding to complaints.

We need to build up on our spiritual resources – increase our prayer efforts for the nation, for the Church and its mission, confess our own failings – especially in the area of Christian brotherhood and cultural sensitivity. Thereby we will overcome every obstacle.

You may find the above Guidelines useful till all the States Acts against freedom of faith are eliminated.

Tamilnadu Grievance Cell for Freedom of Faith.

3 held for forceful conversion

2009-01-07T17:44:00.001-08:00

Bangalore: Tension prevailed for some time near HAL airport police station after a group of people approached the police and handed
over three persons, who allegedly tried to convert others into a particular religion.

The three persons, including a couple, were later arrested by the police on charges of proselytism. Books and pamphlets used in the activity were also recovered from them. Two other persons who worked with the three are absconding.

The arrested persons are Rama Reddy (26) from Nanjareddy Colony, who came from Andhra Pradesh, Micoh Barbosa (35) and his wife Asmira Barbosa. Police said the crowd brought them from Murugeshpalya, where they allegedly tried to perform a conversion.

Micoh Barbaras is a native of Karwar and resident of Rajanakunte. The three were arrested on a complaint filed by Prabhod Kumar Das from Murageshpalya. He works in a private company.

According to police, the three visited Das' house for the past one week and persuaded him to change his religion. Das is a native of Orissa. Police said they also gave books and other reading material to Das.

On Sunday, the three came to Das' house while he was with a relative. Then Das went out and called some people from the colony and asked the three about their intention, after which the three spilled the beans.

In the complaint, Das stated that the accused were involved in "denigration of Hindu gods". The complaint also stated that the three persons promised him money and a job if he agreed to convert.

The three are in custody and will be taken to a court on Monday.

Survey Shows U.S. Religious Tolerance

2008-12-30T17:31:00.001-08:00

By NEELA BANERJEE
Published: June 24, 2008

Although a majority of Americans say religion is very important to them, nearly three-quarters of them say they believe that many faiths besides their own can lead to salvation, according to a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

The report, the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, reveals a broad trend toward tolerance and an ability among many Americans to hold beliefs that might contradict the doctrines of their professed faiths.

For example, 70 percent of Americans affiliated with a religion or denomination said they agreed that “many religions can lead to eternal life,” including majorities among Protestants and Catholics. Among evangelical Christians, 57 percent agreed with the statement, and among Catholics, 79 percent did.

Among minority faiths, more than 80 percent of Jews, Hindus and Buddhists agreed with the statement, and more than half of Muslims did.

The findings seem to undercut the conventional wisdom that the more religiously committed people are, the more intolerant they are, scholars who reviewed the survey said.

“It’s not that Americans don’t believe in anything,” said Michael Lindsay, assistant director of the Center on Race, Religion and Urban Life at Rice University. “It’s that we believe in everything. We aren’t religious purists or dogmatists.”

The survey confirms findings from previous studies that the most religiously and politically conservative Americans are those who attend worship services most frequently, and that for them, the battles against abortion and gay rights remain touchstone issues.

“At least at the time of the surveys in 2007, cultural issues played a role in political affiliation,” and economic issues less so, said John C. Green, an author of the report and a senior fellow on religion and American politics at Pew. “It suggests that the efforts of Democrats to peel away Republican and conservative voters based on economic issues face a real limit because of the role these cultural issues play.”

For all respondents, the survey’s margin of sampling error is plus or minus one percentage point. For smaller subgroups of religions or denominations, the margin of sampling error is larger, ranging from 2 to 11 points.

The nationwide survey, which is based on telephone interviews with more than 35,000 adults from May 8 to Aug. 13, 2007, is the second installment of a broad assessment Pew has undertaken of trends and characteristics of the country’s religious life. The first part of the report, published in February, depicted a fluid and diverse national religious life marked by people moving among denominations and faiths.

According to that report, more than a quarter of adult Americans have left the faith of their childhood to join another religion or no religion. The survey indicated that the group that had the greatest net gain was the unaffiliated, accounting for 16 percent of American adults.

The new report sheds light on the beliefs of the unaffiliated. Like the overwhelming majority of Americans, 70 percent of the unaffiliated said they believed in God, including one of every five people who identified themselves as atheist and more than half of those who identified as agnostic.

“What does atheist mean? It may mean they don’t believe in God, or it could be that they are hostile to organized religion,” Mr. Green said. “A lot of these unaffiliated people, by some measures, are fairly religious, and then there are those who are affiliated with a religion but don’t believe in God and identify instead with history or holidays or communities.”

The most significant contradictory belief the survey reveals has to do with salvation. Previous surveys have shown that Americans think a majority of their countrymen and women will go to heaven, and that the circle is wide, embracing minorities like Jews, Muslims and atheists. But the Pew survey goes further, showing that such views are held by those within major branches of Christianity and minority faiths, too.

Scholars said such tolerance could stem in part from the greater diversity of American society: that there are more people of minority faiths or no faith and that “it is hard to hold a strongly sectarian view when you work together and your kids play soccer together,” Mr. Lindsay said.

But such a view of salvation may also grow out of doctrinal ignorance, scholars said.

“It could be that people are not very well educated and they are not expressing mature theological points of view,” said Todd Johnson, director of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. “It could also be a form of bland secularism. The real challenge to religious leaders is not to become more entrenched in their views, but to navigate the idea of what their religion is all about and how it relates to others.”

The survey tried to determine how people’s religious affiliation and practice shaped their views of culture and politics.

As past surveys have shown, this report found that Americans who prayed more frequently and attended worship services more often tended to be more conservative and “somewhat more Republican” than other people. Majorities of Mormons and evangelicals say they are conservative, compared with 37 percent of Americans over all. (Twenty percent say they are liberal, and 36 percent say moderate.)

Respondents were evenly split on whether churches should express views about politics, with evangelicals and black Protestants favoring such activities far more than people of other faiths.

Nearly two-thirds of respondents favored more government help for the poor, even if it meant going deeper into debt. Sixty-one percent of respondents also said “stricter environmental laws and regulations are worth the cost.”

A majority said the United States should pay more attention to problems at home than those abroad, but in the area of foreign policy, 6 of 10 said that diplomacy, not military strength, was the best way to ensure peace.

Heaven for the Godless?

2008-12-30T17:29:00.001-08:00

By CHARLES M. BLOW
Published: December 26, 2008

In June, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life published a controversial survey in which 70 percent of Americans said that they believed religions other than theirs could lead to eternal life.

This threw evangelicals into a tizzy. After all, the Bible makes it clear that heaven is a velvet-roped V.I.P. area reserved for Christians. Jesus said so: “I am the way, the truth and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” But the survey suggested that Americans just weren’t buying that.

The evangelicals complained that people must not have understood the question. The respondents couldn’t actually believe what they were saying, could they?

So in August, Pew asked the question again. (They released the results last week.) Sixty-five percent of respondents said — again — that other religions could lead to eternal life. But this time, to clear up any confusion, Pew asked them to specify which religions. The respondents essentially said all of them.

And they didn’t stop there. Nearly half also thought that atheists could go to heaven — dragged there kicking and screaming, no doubt — and most thought that people with no religious faith also could go.

What on earth does this mean?

One very plausible explanation is that Americans just want good things to come to good people, regardless of their faith. As Alan Segal, a professor of religion at Barnard College told me: “We are a multicultural society, and people expect this American life to continue the same way in heaven.” He explained that in our society, we meet so many good people of different faiths that it’s hard for us to imagine God letting them go to hell. In fact, in the most recent survey, Pew asked people what they thought determined whether a person would achieve eternal life. Nearly as many Christians said you could achieve eternal life by just being a good person as said that you had to believe in Jesus.

Also, many Christians apparently view their didactic text as flexible. According to Pew’s August survey, only 39 percent of Christians believe that the Bible is the literal word of God, and 18 percent think that it’s just a book written by men and not the word of God at all. In fact, on the question in the Pew survey about what it would take to achieve eternal life, only 1 percent of Christians said living life in accordance with the Bible.

Now, there remains the possibility that some of those polled may not have understood the implications of their answers. As John Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum, said, “The capacity of ignorance to influence survey outcomes should never be underestimated.” But I don’t think that they are ignorant about this most basic tenet of their faith. I think that they are choosing to ignore it ... for goodness sake.

Is History Going To Repeat - I Hope Not

2008-12-30T17:16:00.001-08:00

The time has come for India to wake up and stop this aggression from Abrahamic religions: Bharat Gajjar

by Bharat Gajjar

About a week ago I was watching the historical channel, it was about Christians in Germany. At that time 90% of Germany was Catholic then the Pope sent a message to the people of Germany that they should convert the remaining 10% of the people to Catholicism then people went about forcing the 10% to convert and those who did not were killed and they burned their books. After that, 100% were Christian. Then at one point Hitler came and he didn’t like Jews and he wanted to clean out Germany again.

In Islamic countries they like to have 100% Islamic people.

When Pakistan was separated, they had 20% of a Hindu population; they kicked them out or killed them, now they have 1% of a Hindu population.

In KashmirHindus have already been converted to Islam and those remaining were killed or kicked out recently.

In North East of India, Christians have taken over as they are 90% of the majority, and they are kicking out Hindus.

They want 100% pure Christians.

Pope Paul declared in Delhi by putting a cross into the ground with a statement, that in the 21st Century all Indian’s will be converted.

At this time 10,000 missionaries are working in India with 1000’s of dollars in their hands. They want India to be a pure Christian nation.

The way it is going within a short period India could become a pure Christian nation.

It looks like history may repeat itself as India is divided.

As one Saint says a garden is beautiful when there are a lot of different kinds of flowers with different colors. If a garden has only one type of flower of the same color it will not be beautiful.

Hinduism is the oldest civilization at this time. It has a lot of inner strength with a great philosophy while other Abrahamic philsophies don’t match the Hindu Philosophy.

Anyway the time has come for India to wake up and stop this aggression from the Muslims and Christians in India.

Bharat J. Gajjar

Christian sponsorship of Indian media

2008-12-27T18:05:00.001-08:00

Indian Media's War on Hinduism
by Swami Jyotirmayananda

1. The Indian media: Its adverse role
2. The Indian media: Why it is partial
3. Christian sponsorship of Indian media: An example
4. Countering the propaganda unleashed by the Indian media

1. The Indian media: Its adverse role

There are many people in India who strongly feel that the so-called ‘secular’ print and electronic media, at least a dominant section among them, knowingly or unknowingly, is playing a very adverse and prejudiced role, when it comes to the reporting of the Hindu point of view. Suppressing or misrepresenting tactics are being liberally used along with admonitions and ridicules of the Hindus, ‘Hindutva’, and the Hindu Dharma. At the same time, this secular section appears to support the anti-Hindu forces in the country, which are active with their alien and subversive ideologies. In essence, it has come to mean that ‘secularism’ is nothing but opposition to Hindus, Hindustan, Hindutva and the Hindu Dharma. This is quite ridiculous in a country that is predominantly Hindu in its composition and character. This situation is agonizing to many and confusing to many more, since they would not get a true picture of what is going on in the country because of the prejudice of the media.

‘VivekaJyoti’, wants to do its bit to correct this situation. It has been trying and would also try in future, to throw light on those issues which get twisted or misrepresented by the ‘secular’ media. It is the considered view of ‘VivekaJyoti’ that in Bharat, a country with more than eighty percent of Hindu population and a hoary Hindu history, the true nationalism is undoubtedly ‘Hindutva’ and any neglect, denouncement or ridiculing of it is improper, unjust and ridiculous. The country would be truly free when ‘Hindutva’ gains its due respect, not ridicule as at present. Of course, this would be just a beginning of the country’s resurgence. Other larger issues are to be attended too. Various social injustices weakening the society, serious distortions in the field of socio-economic development, a chaotic situation in the political and administrative system and devitalized cultural and religious life—also are causes of concern, inviting correction. ‘VivekaJyoti’ would always try to focus the attention of its readers on these issues and goad them to do their bit in the service of the Motherland. It rededicates itself to that cause on the fourth year of its existence.
2. The Indian media: Why it is partial

The reasons for the selective propaganda by Indian media could be: a) Many leading journalists and media barons are Christians or Christian sympathizers; b) They are educated and indoctrinated in Christian run institutes; c) The media companies in India are completely under control of western companies through cross holdings; d) The media is advertising driven and almost all leading ad companies in India are foreign subsidiaries of global ad companies.

In the inimitable words of Sri V. Sundaram, IAS (Retd.), renowned columnist of Chennai, “all the mainline English Newspapers in India are deliberately Islam-embracing, Christianity-coveting, Hindu-hating and Hindu-baiting”. And, as revealed by Dr. Subramanian Swamy, “Academia, NGOs and mass media are the obvious instruments that are on the radar of anti-Hindu forces. Which and who are these forces that are shaping the anti-Hindu bias of the media? It is a coalition, not explicit but implicit, of Communist, Christian missionary, Islamic fanatics and other terrorist interests. Each of these interests has their own specific agenda. The anti-Hindu mentality of the English-dominated media in India is secured by the cozy nexus of media with academia and the English-speaking governing elite”.

“The Internet is full of anti-Hindu rubbish”, points out Swami Devananda Saraswati who is well known for his research on the ‘Myth of St. Thomas’. “It is impossible to tackle head on and piece by piece by individuals. That is why we have our own website (Hamsa.org) / blog (VivekaJyoti). We put our views and research out for public consumption with the hope that intelligent and honest readers chose us over the intellectual criminals. We must set up a legal association like the Jewish Defense League (DFL) in the United States, made up of Hindu lawyers. As soon as court cases start to be foisted on these missionaries, their conduct will change if not their attitude. But they have vast monetary resources behind them. Which Hindu moneybags would finance a Hindu legal team? Which Hindu lawyers (of which there are lakhs) would ever back a dedicated Hindu cause? At the root of our problem is the Hindu social and business elite class who could care less about their Dharma though they make huge donations to Balaji at Tirumala. We have to face this fact. We can do nothing until our own public intellectuals and rich socialites and industrialist class are behind us.”
3. Christian sponsorship of Indian media: An example

Here is a case study wherein the ‘Sify.com’, a major online Indian media outlet is working with ‘World Vision’, an evangelical body openly indulging in unabashed proselytisation with huge funds at their disposal for this purpose [Rs 256 crores this year according to Home Ministry records]. Details about Sify.com’s partnership with the ‘World Vision’, patently a missionary agency, are online at: http://sify.com/news/antichildlabourday/ On this page, they are blatantly fundraising for them without informing the Indian public that they are missionaries. ‘World Vision’ also regularly advertises on Sify. It should be noted that the ‘World Vision’ has been implicated in induced conversions in Orissa and in Sri Lanka during the Tsunami. Look at a quote from the World Vision's website regarding their “noble” mission: “Wherever we work, our prayer is that our efforts will be used by God to heal and strengthen people's relationships with Him and with one another. We do this by demonstrating God's unconditional love for all people through our service to the poor — which includes providing for daily needs, working to build peace and promote justice, and partnering with churches and individuals to encourage spiritual transformation.”
4. Countering the propaganda unleashed by the Indian media

The propaganda unleashed by the Indian media can be countered by supplementing the existing media channels and using internet as a tool to spread truth. Already in most western countries, TV and newspaper viewings are rapidly shrinking. Using Internet, ordinary individuals now have the same tools of potential exposure on a scale comparable to large media companies. Internet Media is the way to go. With this in mind ‘VivekaJyoti’ blog was conceived.

According to the recent reports, the total newspaper advertising revenues have declined at an almost continuously accelerating rate, and the advertising dollars are rapidly shifting from print media to online publications. While the online readership is steadily growing, the print publication readership is declining.

In view of the prevailing political bias in the mainstream Indian print media, the Hindu perspectives can be advocated much easier in an online medium than a print medium, because the online blogs have zero cost. Further, the online publications do not have to go through the mainstream and potentially, politically biased editors. The online publications are not only readable throughout India and throughout the world, they are interactive, and people can respond to posts via comments. Of course, there are also a few other challenges: There is a lack of non-English online blogs (example Hindi blogs). As more people who do not know English come online, this is a key area for content creation.

In this context, a reader of “VivekaJyoti’ has a thoughtful comment which is worth noting: “In view of the popularity and influence of the internet, I strongly feel that as yet the competition from print and visual media is overwhelming. In India, very few are connected to the net and out of them still fewer visit our sites or blogs. On the other hand millions read news papers and watch TV, both of which are controlled by unfriendly forces. Hence we may not expect too much about our influencing the public at large. At best they can inform the curious and educate the convinced (-- Ashok Joshi, Chennai).

In this context Dr. Subramanian Swami has a very useful and practicable suggestion: “While owning one’s own media is difficult economics because the cost curve depends on advertising revenue, pro-Hindu forces should help market existing friendly or persuadable media in a wide circle. This will gain for pro-Hindu forces substantial influence”.

Courtesy: Creation and Propogation of the VivekaJyoti Blog at www.documents.scribd.com/docs/1vh08lkkvg4isushflsb.pdf

WHO CONTROLS THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA IN INDIA?

NDTV:

Funded by Gospels of Charity in Spain. Supports Communism. Recently it has developed a soft corner towards Pakistan because the Pakistan President has allowed only this channel to be aired in Pakistan. Indian CEO Prannoy Roy is co-brother of Prakash Karat, Gen Secy of Communist party of India.

CNN-IBN:

Funded solely by the Southern Baptist Church in the US. It has branches in all over the world with headquarters in the US. The Church annually allocates 800 million dollars for promotion of this channel. Its Indian head is Rajdeep Sardesai and his wife Sagarika Ghosh.

TIMES GROUP LIST:

TIMES OF INDIA, MID-DAY, NAV-BHARTH TIMES, STARDUST, FEMINA, VIJAYA TIMES, VIJAYA KARNATAKA, TIMES NOW (24 hour news channel) and many more.

Times Group is owned by Bennet & Coleman. Eighty per cent of funding is done by the World Christian Council. The balance of twenty per cent is equally shared by an Englishman and an Italian. The Italian Roberto Mindo is a close relative of Sonia Gandhi.

STAR TV:

Is run by an Australian who is supported by St. Peters Pontifical Church in Melbourne, Australia.

HINDUSTAN TIMES:

Owned by Birla Group, but hands have changed since Shobana Bhartiya took over. Presently it is working in collaboration with Times Group.

THE HINDU:

An English daily started over 125 years by a Sri Vaishnava Hindu family. It has been recently taken over by the Joshua Society in Berne, Switzerland. Edited by the Communist Sinophile N. Ram. He also edits the newspaper's fortnightly Marxist magazine FRONTLINE. THE HINDU is known in Chennai (Madras) variously as "The Sapper" (because it supported the British during the struggle for Indian independence) and "The Old Widow of Mount Road" (because of its lugubrious, cliche-ridden style of writing and incomprehensible editorials). More recently it has aquired the title "China's National Newspaper in India".

INDIAN EXPRESS:

It is divided into two groups. THE INDIAN EXPRESS in North India and THE NEW INDIAN EXPRESS in South India. Founded by the Hindu freedom fighter Ramnath Goenka. Controlled by Acts Ministries who has a major stake in the INDIAN EXPRESS. THE NEW INDIAN EXPRESS is still with its North Indian counterpart.

EENADU:

To date this Hyderabad newspaper is still controlled by an Indian named Ramoji Rao. It is under concerted attack by the Christian Church, the Andhra Pradesh Christian chief minister Y.S. Rajashekhara Reddy and the Congress Party.

ANDHRA JYOTHI:

The Muslim Party of Hyderabad known as MIM along with a Congress minister has purchased this Telugu daily very recently.

THE STATESMAN:

It is controlled by Communist Party of India.

KAIRAL TV:

It is controlled by Communist Party of India (Marxist).

MATHRABHOOMI:

Leaders of the Muslim League and some Communist Party members have major investments in the newspaper.

ASIAN AGE & DECCAN CHRONICLE:

These popular newspapers are owned by a Saudi Arabian company. Its chief editor was M.J. Akbar until early 2008. New chief editor unknown. These papers are aggressively pro-Christian (Roman Catholic) anti-Hindu newspapers.

DOORDARSHAN

India's national TV network broadcasting in all corners of the country. Since Sonia Gandhi's Congress Party has come to power, all DOORDARSHAN stations carry Christian missionary programmes dubbed into the regional languages.

Courtesy: Intellibriefs at http://intellibriefs.blogspot.com/2006/12/why-eenadu-etv-is-under-siege-in-ap.html

THE USURPATION OF CONTROL OF THE INDIAN MEDIA HAS BEEN DONE BY THE AMERICANS

By Gautam Sen

India happens to be one of the very few major countries in the world whose dominant media is controlled directly or indirectly by foreigners. The usurpation of control has actually been by Americans, much of it through surrogates of evangelical organisations that are in fact quasi-government agencies. Paradoxically, Leftist Indian political parties supposedly hostile to a US presence in India have been subdued with alacrity by these quasi-state religious agencies, which have been operating effectively in other parts of the world as well. In Latin America, where liberation theology offered succour to the poor, the very same neo-fascist, American evangelical organisations, working in conjunction with the US State Department and intelligence services, ousted them. In India, most English language media outlets, are, in effect, vying with each other to accelerate the fragmentation of India in consonance with Anglo-American goals.

Viceroys to India in the decade before independence, Linlithgow, Wavell and Mountbatten are destined to prove prescient about its innate fractiousness. The alleged oppression of minorities is the political bridgehead that modern evangelical organisations have entrenched in the public consciousness, relentlessly distorting its reality and using it ruthlessly to fuel discontent within India. By deliberately misrepresenting the Godhra communal riots as genocide, though both communities suffered, the media has gleefully incited Islamic terrorist attacks against Hindus and harsh international condemnation of India. As a corollary, the rise of the BJP inspired them to equate mundane nationalist aspirations with the oxymoron of Hindu extremism. Yet, there is resounding silence on the role of the minority community in providing succour to Islamic terrorism through vote bank politics and concealment from attention.

Courtesy: India-Forum: News and Analysis at
http://www.india-forum.com/strategic_security/impending-dangers-to-india-political-survival-678.html

"Indian Media's War on Hinduism" - A Historic Symposium in Chicago. This link includes all references. http://vivekajyoti.blogspot.com/2008/11/indian-medias-war-on-hinduism-historic.html

The Truth about World Vision

2008-12-27T18:03:00.001-08:00

by V. K. Sashikumar

The author is a noted investigative journalist for Tehelka. This article was prepared by him for IBNLive.com (the online arm of CNN-IBN, owned and funded by the Southern Baptist Church in the US) under the title “Preparing for the Harvest”, which IBNLive so far has not published it as it exposes World Vision’s Christian missionary activities in India. Donars to World Vision India - Rs 256 crores collected in 2008 - believe it to be the premier NGO working in India for the upliftment of the poor and downtrodden. In fact it is the premier Christian missionary organisation working in India for the harvesting souls for Jesus. Since the killing of Swami Lakshmanananda and the resultant communal violence in Orissa in August 2008, World Vision’s funding and missionary activities have come under the scanner of the Home Ministry in New Delhi.

World Vision, the world’s largest Christian church mission agency, has traditionally been closely linked with successive American governments. The former US Ambassador for International Religious Freedoms, Dr Robert Seiple, was World Vision chief for 11 years till 1998 when he was picked by former president, Bill Clinton, to head the office of International Religious Freedoms. Around the period when Seiple was the president of World Vision, its vice-president from 1993 to 1998 was Andrew S. Natsios. He is now the administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID). For more than 40 years, USAID has been the leading government agency providing economic and humanitarian assistance to developing countries.

World Vision’s focus is children and community development. It is involved in more than 162 projects in 25 states. It projects its community development programmes as “holistic development”. This is implemented through Area Development Programmes (ADP). Each ADP works in an area that is contiguous geographically, economically or ethnically. These programmes provide access to clean drinking water, healthcare, education and setting up of income generating projects. But infused with such development works is the spiritual component - Bible classes.

In India, World Vision projects itself as a “Christian relief and development agency with more than 40 years experience in working with the poorest of the poor in India without respect to race, region, religion, gender or caste.” However, Tehelka has in its possession US-based World Vision Inc.’s financial statement filed before the Internal Revenue Service, wherein, it is classified as a Christian church ministry. In any case, its mission statement is self-explanatory: “World Vision is an international partnership of Christians whose mission is to follow our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, in working with the poor and oppressed, to promote human transformation, seek justice and bear witness to the Good News of the Kingdom of God.”

Though World Vision has consultative status with UNESCO and partnerships with UN agencies like UNICEF, WHO, UNHCR and ILO, the fact is that its financial records reveal that it has funded evangelical activities all over the world including India. World Vision uses its international clout and its close links with the US government through USAID to network with governments and corporate entities in the developing world.

World Vision has an ongoing channel of interaction with the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII); in its 2003 financial report it states that “the Rural Development Department of the Government of Assam recognized World Vision India as a leading development agency in the state and has recommended that World Vision be the choice for receiving bilateral funds. The government has also sought World Vision’s assistance in creating a proposal for US$ 80 million for development work in the state.”

The income and expenditure account for the year ended September 30, 2002 shows that its total income was Rs 95.5 crores, which included foreign contribution of Rs 87.8 crores. For an organisation that claims to be only involved in development and relief work, it is quite secretive about its positioning and exact nature of activities. When approached by Tehelka as part of its undercover operation for an interview, World Vision India’s national director, Dr Jayakumar Christian, after having agreed to the interview backed out because he wanted copies of the fictitious Christian magazine that Tehelka claimed to be representing.

However, what goes unnoticed by the governments and the corporate world is World Vision India’s evangelical missions as part of its development agenda. Proselytisation (conversion of faith) is an integral part of its provision of development services under its much-touted ADP programmes. Though none of the literature published by World Vision India even mentions its evangelisation missions, foreign publications of World Vision India proudly proclaim its “spiritual” component.

Take, for instance, World Vision New Zealand’s report (4 September 2002) on the funding of ADP in Dahod, Gujarat. Under the head, “spiritual development” the report states:

“Held a vacation Bible school for 150 children from different villages. The children participated in games, Bible quizzes, drama and other activities. Organised a one-day spiritual retreat for 40 young people and a children’s Christmas party. Each of Dahod’s 45 villages chose five needy children to attend the party.” In Dumaria, Banka district, eastern Bihar, “the ADP supports local churches by running leadership-training courses for pastors and church leaders.”

What has an Area Development Programme (ADP) got to do with running leadership training courses for pastors and church leaders? Incidentally, World Vision New Zealand funds ADP programmes in the tribal pockets of India. The New Zealand Government’s Voluntary Agencies Support Scheme (VASS) jointly fund the two-year project, the NZ government matching World Vision contributions on a 2:1 basis. There are many other instances of evangelical programmes run by World Vision India.

In the Gajapati ADP, situated in Gumma Block of Orissa’s Gajapati district, a World Vision report admits that “Canadian missionaries have worked in the area for just over 50 years and today 85-90 percent of the community is Christian. However, local church leaders had little understanding of the importance of their role in community development. ADP staff build relationships with these leaders to improve church co-operation and participation in development initiatives.” Here World Vision organised two training camps for local church leaders in holistic development.

In Mayurbhanj, again in Orissa, World Vision regularly organises spiritual development programmes as part of its ADP package. The World Vision report says: “Opposition to Christian workers and organisations flares up occasionally in this area, generally from those with vested interests in tribal people remaining illiterate and powerless. World Vision supports local churches by organising leadership courses for pastors and church leaders.”

World Vision India is active in Bhil tribal areas and openly admits its evangelical intentions: “The Bhil people worship ancestral spirits but also celebrate all the Hindu festivals. Their superstitions about evil spirits make them suspicious of change, which hinders community development. ADP staff live among the Bhil people they work with, gaining the villagers’ trust and showing their Christian love for the people by their actions and commitment.”

This being the case it is not surprising that World Vision India was honoured with the 2003 Mahatma Gandhi Award for Social Justice. This award is hosted by the All India Christian Council. Incidentally, Joseph D’Souza who was AICC’s President during that year also heads an evangelical network, Operation Mobilisation, in India. Operation Mobilisation, again, is an American missionary organisation. It was founded by Georg Verwer and today is a global ministry “committed to working in partnership with churches and other Christian organisations for the purpose of World mission.”

Courtesy: Hindu Voice, December 2008

The Church's "harvest of souls" policy has led us to this foul juncture

2008-11-25T23:00:00.001-08:00

Let Sleeping Gods Lie
Balbir K. Punj

The recent violence involving the church and locals in Orissa and elsewhere has, it is said, sullied India's image abroad, put the Sangh parivar in a spot and evoked global sympathy for the "hapless Christians", the victims of those fascist Bajrang Dal goons.

The broad picture put out by the 'secular' media (Outlook included) mirrors the position of the Church: the missionaries only serve the underprivileged, they have no evangelical agenda. The Manuvadi vested interests cannot stand the emancipation of the hapless poor and hence resort to violence.

Also, conversion from indigenous faiths to Christianity through fraudulent means is a bogey raised by the parivar to cover its black deeds. In short, the church's motives are pious and those of its opponents devilish.

But what
are the facts? Were relations between the church and locals all hunky-dory before the arrival of the Bajrang Dal a few decades back? Will the problem disappear if the Sangh is exiled from the country? Are the allegations against the church a Sangh concoction? Finally, is it church vs parivar or church vs locals?

To find answers, we must go way back. Christianity came to India a few decades into its birth and remained undisturbed in the subcontinent till about 500 years back. It's the arrival of the missionaries—in the company of imperial forces—that shattered the peace. As Babasaheb Ambedkar writes: "The entry of the Catholic Church in the field of the spread of Christianity in India began in the year 1541 with the arrival of Francis Xavier.

The Syrian Christians shrank with dismay from the defiling touch of the Roman Catholics of Portugal. The inquisitors of Goa discovered they were heretics and like a wolf in the fold, down came the delegates of the Pope upon the Syrian Churches".

What followed was even worse.

Till the end of British rule, the missionaries were brazen about their intent. Hindu gods were abused openly. Writing about his childhood in Rajkot, Gandhiji says in his autobiography, "In those days, Christian missionaries used to stand in a corner near the high school and hold forth, pouring abuse on Hindus and their Gods." Decades later, Gandhiji recalled in Young India (March 4, 1926), "Though the preaching took place over forty years ago, the painful memory of it is still vivid before me." Obviously this practice was followed in the entire British India. If the "preaching" could leave such scars for so long on a person like Gandhiji, how do you expect a tribal to react to such humiliation?

Social reformers, from Dayanand Saraswati to Vivekananda to Gandhiji, have questioned the Church's 'real intent' and its methods at one time or another. Gandhiji said, "I believe there is no such thing as conversion from one faith to another in the accepted sense of the term...Christian missions will render true service to India if they can persuade themselves to confine their activities to humanitarian service without the ulterior motive of converting India or at least her unsophisticated villagers to Christianity, and destroying their social superstructure" (Harijan, Sept 28, 1935). Note the words, "destroying the social superstructure".

Post-Independence, the Church changed its methods. Open confrontation was dropped in favour of covert methods like inducements to target groups (the poor, illiterate sections). The new strategy, focused on specific areas, yielded a handsome harvest. A comparison between the census figures of 1991 and 2001 shows the growth rate of the Christian population was many times more that of Hindus in as many as 18 of the 25 states and UTs.

To carry out the sordid business of harvesting of souls, the Church now adopts a multi-layered strategy, full of prevarication and Janus-faced subterfuge.

The church tells the elite it worships the Lord through the service of the poor and has no conversion agenda. But at ground level, there are overt attacks on other faiths. (The trouble in Karnataka followed the publication of a booklet, Satyadarshini, in which Hindu gods were abused). Protests against such insults are termed as attacks on Christians. Again, the right to evangelise is defended and exercised. 'Help' to the needy and subsequent conversions are explained as a 'change of heart'.

This is by no means Bajrang Dal propaganda. It is the substance of a 1956 report by the Niyogi Committee, which was constituted by the Congress government of Madhya Pradesh. In response, four Congress-ruled states—MP, Arunachal Pradesh, Orissa and Himachal Pradesh (in '07)—brought out laws to check such unethical conversions and maintain social harmony.

"The entire problem began because New Life was attracting poor people in distress and...offering money and property to convert," was how Father Austin Menezes of Mangalore described the work of the New Life Fellowship Trust whose actions sparked off the violence in the port city. ('Life As the Other', The Indian Express, Oct 23, '08). It's true that clashes between the Church and locals have become frequent and violent in the last few years. This was inevitable given the Church's plan to evangelise India in the 21st century. A Tehelka investigative report (Feb 7, '04) says "a new mood of aggressive evangelism has been emanating from America" and it has India as one of its key targets.

It is against this backdrop that one has to see recent events. The hapless Kandhamal tribals are under siege, fighting to preserve their culture, even their very existence. The Kandhs, once tribal kings, are now pariahs, hunted by the CRPF in their own land, painted as rapists/ murderers. Thousands have fled to the jungles. There is no one to speak for them. They don't interest our rent-a-cause NGOs and activists.

Arraigned against the Kandh tribals are the missionaries with their centuries of global experience in decimating local cultures. Backed with foreign funds, the Church is following its age-old divisive agenda of splitting local society into hostile factions. At immense human cost, it has reaped a rich harvest of souls. The share of Christians in the population of Kandhamal, just six per cent in 1971, had grown to 18 per cent by '01.

Kandhamal has witnessed violence earlier too, in 1994 and in 2007. The recent blowout came after the murder of Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati and his three associates. The Kandhs, 90 per cent of whom are Hindus, revered the aged swami. Over four decades, he had not only started schools and hospitals for them—in a sense, he helped them preserve their identity and ancient faith against alien onslaughts.

Who killed the 84-year-old swami? Sabyasachi Panda, the Maoist leader who owned up to the killing, said the swami was eliminated for reviving Brahminism. Strangely, Panda turned a blind eye to evangelism. But he divulged an interesting fact—that the Christian Panas (an SC group) provides cadres to the Maoists in Orissa.

I for one don't know how to reconcile evangelism, which believes in the harvesting of souls, with Maoism, which believes there's no soul. In Europe, wherever Communism succeeded, the Church had to go underground, if not disappear. But in Orissa, perhaps there is some kind of 'strategic alliance' happening. Did the Church outsource the swami's assassination?

Now to the alleged rape of a nun in Kandhamal. Such 'Rape of nun by Hindu fascist' stories have turned out to be false in Jhabua, Jajjhar and Baripada in the past.Unfortunately, by then the 'hot story' had gone cold for the media. We are witnessing another edition of this in Kandhamal. The nun would not attend the identification parade, the SC ruled out a CBI inquiry, but the National Commission for Minorities still jumped into the fray. Is the nun a pawn in the church's game of chess?

It's all a result of what Gandhiji called the destruction of the "social superstructure". India is steeped in a pluralistic ethos and believes God is one, irrespective of his numerous names and shapes. The Church has faith only in "one God". The rest, to it, are false. Wouldn't it be better if the church heeded Gandhiji's words and left people to their faith?

One lakh Hindus vow to combat Christian terrorism.

2008-11-25T22:44:00.001-08:00

Historic Hindu congregation in Orissa
By Debasis Tripathy in Bhubaneswar

Jo church dharmantaran kare, voh church papi hai; Jagannathji ki dharti par Christian atankwad nahi chalega; Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati amar rahe—These slogans were aired by one lakh Hindus of Orissa in Bhubaneswar while paying their tributes to the late Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, who was brutally murdered by Christian terrorists in the holy night of Janmashtami. This was a mammoth gathering of Hindus representing every part of the state. The condolence meeting was organised by the followers of the late Swamiji. The whole capital city was captivated by the Hindu patriots and their bhagwa (saffron) flags. They did not care for the UPA government’s warning to suspend this grand meeting and warned all those, who intend to preach violence and propagate terrorism and conversion in the state, against carrying out their propaganda. They also gave an ultimatum to the state government to arrest the real assassinators of Swami Laxmanananda on or before December 15 and to stop arbitrary arrests of innocent Hindus in Kandhamal. It was alleged that the Chief Minister is working under pressure of both the church and the Congress-led UPA government at the centre in dealing with the Kandhamal violence. They held Congress Rajya Sabha member Radhakant Nayak as the prime conspirator behind Swamiji’s murder and demanded his immediate arrest.

Shri Harihar Nanda, the central convener of Hindu Jagaran Manch (HJM), said: “Communist ultras are hand in glove with Christians to eliminate Hindus from Orissa. The Maoists are adequately funded by the Christian NGOs. The state government should make an enquiry into the church fund and its utilisation for converting the Hindus. Peace will not return in the state until the conversion is stopped. Swamiji’s assassination is a challenge to all of us, for our survival. We should strive our best to awaken the Hindus of the state and to mobilise them to resist the church-sponsored violence.” The former Member of Parliament and VHP’s present Kendriya Margadarshak Mandal member Dr. Ramvilas Vedanti accused the UPA government of being the agent of the Pope. In his speech he said: “The Congress is fully captured by the Christians. The UPA government is a slave of the Vatican City, which did not utter a single word against the murder of Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, rather it strongly condemned the baseless church-burning incidents. The Congress MP Radhakant Nayak is the real conspirator behind Swamiji’s murder. Swami Laxmanananda once told me that Radhakant Nayak was the man who always wanted to eliminate him. The Orissa government must arrest him immediately.” He strongly condemned the narco tests of Sadhvi Pragya and emphasised that such tests should be conducted on Radhakant Nayak and Raphel Chinnath in order to ascertain the real murderer of Swamiji. Similarly, Swami Jivan Chaitanya Maharaj gave a call to the Hindu youth to make anti-conversion squads. He registered an oath to the audience for cattle protection and to combat conversion.

Shri Indresh Kumar, Member, RSS National Executive, said that conversion is a sin and a crime against God and it must come to an end in order to maintain peace and tranquility in the world. “Unless and until the church-sponsored conversion is stopped, peace and brotherhood cannot be established in this world. A lady journalist of Florida has written a book namely The Dark Side of Christianity. That book points out how more than 100 civilisations were destroyed and 1.5 crore people have been killed by the church in the whole world.” He urged the government to publish a white paper on church funds and its utilisation for the development of backward people and why the church fails to bring development in the underdeveloped areas, under its exclusive operation.

Dr. Indulata Das, a known educationist and social activist of the state, vehemently criticised the state government for giving preferential treatment to the alleged rape victim nun who had no faith on the government as well as on the police. Bharatiya Kisan Sangh’s central secretary Shri Mohinimohan Mishra came down heavily on the state government for its studied silence and unprecedented inaction towards protection of Hindus in Kandhamal. He also accused the state government of appeasing the Christian community as it being pressurised by the evangelist proselytizers. He also demanded the arrest of Archbishop Raphel Chhinath. “Raphel Chinnath has published a book namely Faith Under Fire. In that book at page 41, Chinnath has described the Orissa Freedom of Religion Act, 1967 as a draconian enactment. He has dared to ridicule such an enactment, which was passed by the state legislative assembly as the mandate of the people of Orissa. By doing so, he has apparently outraged the sanctity of the state legislature and as such deserves to be prosecuted as per law.”

Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram’s national president Shri Jagdev Ram Oraon in his thought-provoking speech said that Kandha Vanvasis are the integral part of the Hindu society. They cannot be separated from the mainstream of the nation. Every attempt of the Christian missionaries to convert them should be answered properly, he said. Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh’s national organising secretary Shri Krishna Chandra Mishra criticised the anti-Hindu media and warned them not to publish the false anti-Hindu news, as it fuels the communal fire. Similarly, Hindu Jagaran Samukshya’s state president Shri Ashok Sahu and ABVP’s zonal organising secretary Shri Vishnu Das appealed to the audience not to compromise with their national and religious sentiments and to protect their dharma at any cost. VHP’s state general secretary Shri Gouri Prasad Rath gave the welcome speech and Swami Sachidananda proposed a vote of thanks. Among other dignitaries, VHP’s central secretary Shri Y Raghavellu, Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram’s state president Dr. Laxmikanta Dash, Swami Pranarupananda Saraswati of Ramakrishna Mission, Prant Sanghachalak Shri Ashok Das, writer Shri Bhagirathi Mahasuar, and Tridandi Swami Bhagawan Dev Maharaj were present on the dais. Dr. Ratnakar Chaini, the convener of this programme, demanded to confer the highest civilian award of this country on the late Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati as he relentlessly served the poor tribals for last 40 years. The assembled sadhus performed a havan aiming to defeat the anti-national forces. At last, the meeting declared to observe a state-wide bandh on December 25.

Subsidy for Christian pilgrims in Andhra

2008-11-24T21:46:00.001-08:00

Uma Sudhir

Thursday, February 14, 2008, (Hyderabad)
Christians have reason to rejoice in Andhra Pradesh. The state government has announced subsidy for Christians going on pilgrimage to Israel.

"Our dream to go to the holy land to visit Jesus graveyard. That's the last intention and hope of the Christians and Catholics but the ticket is very expensive, so we have been asking to put us on the lines of Haj scheme,'' said Martin Michael, President, Catholic Association of Hyderabad.

The government has not yet clarified on the quantum of subsidy nor how and from when it will come into effect only that it will be similar to the Haj scheme for Muslims.

Political analysts say the scheme aims to woo Christians, who comprise 1.5 per cent of the state's population, ahead of assembly and general elections.

"Elections are numbers, so in a number game, you need to have more and more votes. My question is if tomorrow fundamentalist Hindu groups demand subsidy for poor Hindus to go to Kashi or Varanasi, what will their answer be? Will they be able to take the financial burden?'' asked K Nageswar, Political Analyst.

It's perhaps only incidental that YS Rajasekhara Reddy is a practicing Christian.

Political observers say since the state is a secular entity, priority for subsidies should rather be for more basic essentials like food, water and housing.

Why are we opposed to conversions?

2008-11-22T17:11:00.001-08:00

An answer to a thousand questions
By Raghvendra Singh

Indian state and politics are going through the most decisive phase in post Janata movement era. How the state responds to the ongoing crises will be interesting to see. Whether the state is able to formulate and implement an independent policy for internal affairs is another serious matter that we need to observe seriously but not silently. Unfortunately, till now the UPA led ruling combine at the Centre hasn’t come out with any strong stand.

So from now onwards we can’t speak loudly if our brethren are being targeted and killed in an island nation....or if they are targeted in some South-East Asian country like Malaysia. A descent reason: Because we don’t interfere in the internal matters of any sovereign country; but at the same time European Union and other western countries have each and every right to advise and dictate us about our internal affairs. Because neither they are over from the mentality of treating us like colonised people nor our colonised, western ideas dominated minds are able to reject them as our masters, be it in foreign affairs or in internal affairs. This whole gamut of issues is relevant in the present context of conversions.

Conversions are something that have become benchmark for defining a secular identity. If you are standing in favour of conversions then you are undoubtedly secular otherwise you are considered as a Hindu fundamentalist, communal, orthodox and irrational creature knowing nothing about the secular sciences, secular humanities and other such secular knowledge systems. Though King or Queen of Britain may be the protector of the faith and at the same time a ceremonial head of a secular state.

Religious conversions are intricately linked with change in the value systems, belief and self defining capacity of an individual or a group. The point for our opposition to any kind of attempt to convert must be based on opposing these new value systems that are to be brought with the new religion. It is interesting to see what are the values that are associated with the new religion which is so desperate to expand its canvas? Do these values talk about peaceful coexistence? Is this new religion able to tolerate the diversities that are natural to be found in human society; and if the answer is yes then we must also look into the history of this religion in the society where it originated.

What have been the responses of this so called liberating religion to various social issues? How far this new religion has succeeded in providing a kind of solace to disgruntled and disenchanted individuals who are too tired with this materialistic world? How far this new religion will be successful in providing a much needed impetus to the process of nation building? These are few questions that we need to think about a thousand times before opposing this new religion. This so-called liberating religion has marched progressively in history with a proud (?) history of blood-shed, imperialism, colonization of several peaceful societies and then domination and exploitation followed. The very much liberal values that this religion is credited with to promote, have degenerated into unhindered pursuit of wealth, pleasure and material satisfaction. Fundamentalism of this religion and libertarian policies now being promoted by this religion go together. These are the same libertarian policies that have taken the Indian state into its grip. So today Indian state is happy to displace some people for the sake of development. To whom this development is meant for? Does it provide any relief to our ‘farmers’ or our Vanvasi bandhus whose voices have been forcefully suppressed to not to come out of the vacuum created around these groups?

Vanvasi societies are the most descent and self sufficient societies with limited desires. They represent the most egalitarian society with total absence of patriarchy. They are the kind of societies that are capable to show us the way in this modern era. They are not asking for anything from any messiah. What has Indian state done to them except marginalising and displacing them continuously. Now these liberating missionaries, born with a prejudice of white man’s burden are trying to convert them not for giving them any relief but to create another consumer class for profit thirsty industries and globalisation. After all, where from more and more profit is supposed to come from if some groups are not trained in using tooth pastes or perfumes or cars and other such products? The attempt to convert these groups is to familiarise them with a new life style.

The conversion works in a multifaceted way for these missionaries. Through these conversions they are also marching towards establishing the supremacy on whole world. Hence, it is our moral responsibility and duty to oppose any such attempt. If you want a highly individualistic society where no one is bothered to think about the deprived or downtrodden.....then you stand with these machineries. If you have become modern enough to just get satisfied with only your own food and material necessities and without sparing a minute for the people sleeping with empty stomachs then you stand by these missionaries. If you don’t have time to think about the displaced people, then, my dear...you stand by them. It is your moral responsibility to stand against these agencies. No one needs to tell this to you, my friend....it is upto you that how do you take a stand on such issues.

Does this religion believe in peaceful coexistence? If yes, then why are they not satisfied with the status quo? Why are they so desperate to eat every ‘other’ group and digest. Why they couldn’t reconcile with Jews? Why are they unable to live peacefully with Islam? Why are they scared that their identity is endangered even if they are the one with second largest followers in the world? Why couldn’t they find any lady Pope till now? What kind of a solace this religion has provided if the maximum number of mental patients are in western world? Why can’t they think about anything other than unipolar world?

What followed in Kandhamal after the murder of Swami Laxmanananda is an answer of the oppressed global minorities. Its an answer from those Vanvasi bandhus who don’t like any kind of external interference in their life style. The biased media, academicians, historians and the intelligentsia can’t suppress the truth. If Orissa is ‘burning’ so much then why an excellent victory was handed over to BJD-BJP alliance in recently concluded civic polls of the state?

Religion is not something to fight for. But when it comes to erase your thousands year old civilisation, identity and value system and you are sitting silently then your future generations will never pardon you for your cowardliness. Do you want to have a generation with confused identities? Do you want a generation with a fragmented family system? Rise up to the occasion and resist every such attempt that tries to destroy your civilisation and identity. If you are a confused mind about your own civilisation then please bother to look into an atlas and find out the early historical extent of the Indian civilisation. We believe in peaceful coexistence but not at the cost of our own existence. We are tolerant but not at the cost of intolerance from any other religious group.

An ideal religion should never show tolerance to intolerance. Religion is not only spiritual, it is intricately linked with culture also. It is this cultural umbrella that provides you and us a sense of belonging to a larger whole. But this belonging should not be confined only to rituals, we need to think about the poor, downtrodden and oppressed. Ethics are fine, you pray daily in morning and evening.....its also fine...but if you don’t....then too its fine. Doing something for our needy brethren is the most essential part of our religion. We should never forget that for a hungry person a piece of bread is the primary necessity and rest follows. Let’s take an oath to work for the uplift of our brethren. This will be the real service to god (if you are a theist),...to humanity (if you are a humanist)... to society. (if you are an atheist) and to ‘base’ (if you are an atheist and socialist). At the same time it will also be a fitting reply to the liberators desperately engaged in the task of liberation through tools of religious conversions.

(The writer can be contacted at Centre for Political Studies, School of Social Sciences, JNU, New Delhi.)

Priesthood as vocation – and the mental health professional

2008-11-19T16:27:00.001-08:00

Krishen Kak
05 Nov 2008

The Christian priesthood is a vocation (from the Latin for “to call”), quite literally, a calling. The Christian god Jehovah, or more usually his “son” Jesus, speaks to, calls a man (or woman) to His service. To enter His service without this divine call to it is gross hypocrisy and is treating His service as a profane job rather than as a sacred mission.

The Vatican is quite explicit about this:

The priesthood is a vocation. No one can claim this dignity himself, but only those who are called by God……The Bible states: "One does not take upon himself, but he is called by God" (Hebrews 5:4)…..The one who chooses him is also the same who consecrates him and sends him: that is, Christ himself, through the apostles and their successors…… "You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you" (John 15:16)

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cclergy/documents/rc_con_cclergy_doc_28101995_intsy_en.html.

The true Christian priest is therefore one who has been selected by God to serve Him. Of this there can and should be no doubt. To ensure the absence of doubt, the proof of calling is the satisfaction of its authenticity by the successors of Christ, who can and should safely be presumed to themselves have been called by Christ.

It is a matter and test of faith. Jesus loves you and selects you, say the official successors of Christ and selectors of priests.

That is the official version. Why then should these successors and selectors need to resort to professional psychological testing, rather than their own faith, to determine whether Jesus has really called you to serve Him? Recently,
The Vatican issued new psychological screening guidelines for seminarians…the latest effort by the Roman Catholic Church to be more selective about its priesthood candidates following a series of sex abuse scandals. The church said it issued the guidelines to help church leaders weed out candidates with "psychopathic disturbances." The scandals have rocked the church in recent years, triggering lawsuits that have cost hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements
(http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hejaPlCMqsPz8TbjNFpsY9Y5eoVQD94530MO0).

Sex abuse? Psychopathic disturbances? Seems your this-worldly love for your human fellows may be more than your other-worldly love for Jesus!

This priestly pre-occupation with the theory and practice of sex-abuse by priests merits pagan attention for more than one reason. To start with, consider how widespread it is:
Catholic American bishops actively lobbied against a proposed Ohio law to extend the statute of limitations in child sex-abuse cases, and the Archdiocese of Milwaukee used a real estate fund to pay a $450,000 settlement to a man who accused its then Archbishop of sex-abuse
(http://www.boston.com:80/news/nation/articles/2005/07/11/catholic_group_calls_for_tougher_abuse_laws/).

In California, settlements totalling about $163.3 million were reached with victims of sex-abuse by priests and lay employees and “an additional 900 or so alleged victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy and lay people in California await resolution of their lawsuits”
(http://www.hindu.com/2004/12/27/stories/2004122701471302.htm).

In Kentucky, a class-action suit that accused the church of a 50-year cover-up of sexual abuse by priests and other employees was settled by the church for $120 million (http://www.hindu.com:80/2005/07/07/stories/2005070705921400.htm).

Los Angeles records at least 75 years of child sex-abuse by Catholic priests under the benevolent patronage of the cardinals in charge, “case after case in which the church was warned of abuse, but failed to protect its parishioners”. Settlement estimates exceed $500 million (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/12/national/12priests.html).

A grand jury issued a scathing critique yesterday of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, saying its former archbishops and other leaders concealed and facilitated clergy sex abuse of children for decades. The grand jury, which investigated the archdiocese for more than three years, concluded that at least 63 priests - and probably many more - sexually abused hundreds of minors over the past several decades. But even more disturbing, the jurors found, was the coverup by the two previous archbishops, Cardinals John Krol and Anthony J. Bevilacqua who, they concluded, ''excused and enabled the abuse" and put legal and financial interests and moral reputation of the archdiocese ahead of protecting the children entrusted to its care…The cardinals typically removed priests only when faced with the threat of lawsuit or scandal, the report found, and some archdiocesan leaders regularly lied to victims and their families when asked if an abuser had a prior record. Priest abusers were transferred to other parishes to hush up allegations; as a result, other children were victimized, the report found
(http://www.boston.com:80/news/nation/articles/2005/09/22/archdiocese_hid_abuse_grand_jury_says/).

The Catholic church in Boston agreed to pay $85 million to 560 people to settle their lawsuits and $10 million to 86 victims of one of its priests. Cardinal Bernard Law, the archbishop of Boston, who “resigned in 2002 after media reports publicizing his failure to remove abusive priests provoked public outrage” was Papally “rewarded… with a pleasant retirement sinecure: appointment as chief priest of the St. Mary Major Basilica, one of the greatest churches in Rome” where, “seated on a gilded white throne and wearing a funereal red chasuble with a broad golden stripe, [he] said a Mass of mourning for Pope John Paul II despite objections from clergy abuse victims”
(http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/09/national/09WIRE-CHURC.html?ex=1225684800&en=a3030a74f588acf2&ei=5070 ;
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/04/13/reilly_blasts_vatican_on_
laws_prominence/ ;
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2005_01_06/2005_04_12_BostonGlobe_CardinalLaws.htm ;
http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2005/04/12/law_says_a_mass_for_john_paul_ii/)

In 2007, the Catholic church in America forked out $615 million to settle child sex-abuse cases (
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_kmafp/is_200803/ai_n24388524).

The Vatican instructed Catholic bishops around the world to cover up cases of sexual abuse or risk being thrown out of the Church. The Observer has obtained a 40-year-old confidential document from the secret Vatican archive which lawyers are calling a 'blueprint for deception and concealment'….. The 69-page Latin document bearing the seal of Pope John XXIII was sent to every bishop in the world. The instructions outline a policy of 'strictest' secrecy in dealing with allegations of sexual abuse and threatens those who speak out with excommunication… the instructions also cover what it calls the 'worst crime', described as an obscene act perpetrated by a cleric with 'youths of either sex or with brute animals (bestiality)'… 'These instructions went out to every bishop around the globe and would certainly have applied in Britain. It proves there was an international conspiracy by the Church to hush up sexual abuse issues. It is a devious attempt to conceal criminal conduct and is a blueprint for deception and concealment'
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/aug/17/religion.childprotection).

Pope Benedict XVI is no different. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he ordered “the church's investigations into child sex abuse claims be carried out in secret……'Cases of this kind are subject to the pontifical secret,' Ratzinger's letter concludes. Breaching the pontifical secret at any time while the…order is operating carries penalties, including the threat of excommunication”; publicly, however, he claimed he was “`deeply ashamed’ by the actions of pedophile priests”, actions that have cost his church some $2 billion in settlements
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/apr/24/children.childprotection ;
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/16/us/nationalspecial2/16pope.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin).

No, it is not just the United States. Sex-abuse by Christian priests – and its cover-up by their superiors under a Papal fatwa of excommunication - is so widespread that Wikipedia has a lengthy entry on it – Australia, Canada, Austria, Ireland and Britain are just some of the countries involved (

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_sex_abuse_cases ;
http://dailypioneer.com/indexn12.asp?main_variable=WORLD&file_name=wld5%2Etxt&counter_img=5 ;
http://www.shropshirestar.com/2008/09/26/porn-vicar-investigation-revealed/).

The sexual abuse of nuns by priests is rampant “especially in Africa and other parts of the developing world” and is well within the knowledge of the Vatican. Indian nuns are exported to the West where, for example, in the Brigittine Order in Italy, they reportedly suffer “maltreatment, moral violence and working conditions close to slavery”, reminiscent of the infamous Magdalene laundries of Ireland
(http://www.vijayvaani.com:80/FrmPublicDisplayArticle.aspx?id=180 ;
http://www.rediff.com/news/2004/feb/07spec.htm ;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_laundry).

Christian priests in India are not immune to this-worldly Christian love. The “church in Kerala is rocked by sex scandals” and 63 Kerala priests stand accused of “murder, attempt to murder, rape, molestation, assault, abduction, theft, break-in, cheating…almost every offence under the Indian Penal Code - and of course, the Ten Commandments”. Tamil Nadu priests are trying to catch up. Notorious proselytiser Graham Staines was accused of sex-abuse and, as it happens, “Christian nuns claim false rape in India to defame Hinduism”
(http://www.rediff.com/news/1999/dec/01iype.htm?zcc=rl ;
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/bishop-adopts-26yrold-woman-kerala-smells-a-scandal/373544/ ; http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1128496 ;
http://indiainteracts.com/utilities/printpage.php?source=blogcontent&id=2290&postid=39 ;
http://www.rediff.com:80/news/2003/jun/12oris.htm ;
http://hinduvoice.net/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/archive/nll/20081015211502/ ;
http://www.indianexpress.com/res/web/pIe/ie/daily/19981216/35050064.html /

“MP nuns rape case: 12 involved are Christians”, The Observer, 24 Oct, 1998).

The allegations of paedophilia/sexual abuse by Church functionaries had become so pressing that, in September 2001, a conclave on the subject was convened in St Peter's Church in the Vatican. That, out of 183 Roman Catholic cardinals in the world, 155 attended underscored its importance (Balbir K Punj, “Time for some soul-searching", The Pioneer, Aug 29, 2003).

Which brings us to a second point of pagan interest - more than two billion dollars for sex-abuse in about the last five decades by Christian priests and, given the Vatican's endeavour to silence pardey ke peechey kya hai, this must be only the tip of the iceberg. Just look at the staggering amount of money Christianity can spend to settle, not sex-abuse, but its sex-abuse cases.

And a third point of pagan interest – the whole biblical basis of sex-abuse.

Jehovah Himself has such a weak libido that in all His eternal existence He has chosen to produce only one child, that too a male - well, actually a holy ghost was responsible, but thereafter the biblical reference is "Son of God" and not the ghost's son. This His only Son He fathered without copulating (copula = to join) with the Son's human mother who was someone else's wife. The Son, conceived parthenogenetically, arguably was celibate too.

Actually, it is not so simple. The Bible also describes Jesus as the son of Joseph (St John 1.45) and the Son of Man (St John 1.51). It says too that “Christ cometh of the seed of David" (St John 7.42), which could make David the ancestor of Jehovah. Then, to complicate matters even further, Jesus and his father Jehovah are one (St John 10.30) so that, if Jesus was a historical figure, then in some inscrutable way Mary was impregnated by her own son to give birth to him. As the Bulgarian-French philosopher Julia Kristeva has noted, “Not only is Mary her son’s mother and his daughter, she is also his wife”
(http://books.google.co.in/books?id=XiqIB4GcUasC&pg=PA190&lpg=PA190&dq=%E2%80%9CNot+only+is+Mary+her+son's+mother+and+his+daughter,+she+is+also+his+wife%E2%80%9D+julia+kristeva&source=web&ots=SB1LsW1O9x&sig=UE_AgP4NcdIc2arcUdnc68EVN9k&hl
=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result).

However, to make it simple again, recall here the saying attributed to Pope Leo X (who, under the doctrine of Papal Infallibility, would have known), “All ages can testifie enough howe profitable that fable of Christe hath ben to us and our companie", usually quoted as “It has served us well, this myth of Christ” (

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pope_Leo_X). In other words, the entire foundation of Christianity, and its Church, is mythological.

However, about 4000 years earlier, Jehovah had created another male named Adam and this He did asexually. Jehovah then, again asexually, made a rib of Adam into a woman, and Adam then copulated with this, his own rib, to start off the entire human race. Unlike to His own Son through that ghost, to Adam and Adam's sons Jehovah gave a high sex drive.

We have said Jesus arguably was celibate; arguably, because there is a serious Gnostic argument that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene. The Bible and Church tradition have it that the bride of Jesus is the Church (e.g., Eph.v.22-33; Rev 21.2). There is also that tradition that Jesus was married to his own mother; “in Christian thought the Virgin was understood as the Bride of Christ, her son”(http://employees.oneonta.edu/farberas/arth/arth214_folder/mary_of_burgundy.html).

Now, the Church consists of both monks and nuns and, certainly insofar as the nuns are concerned, they are quite literally the brides of Christ. “Every nun” – past, present, future – is a “Bride of Christ”. So Jesus has hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of wives (http://www.sacred-texts.com/journals/oc/pc-bc.htm).

But then what does this make the monks?

The chief monk or priest is Il Papa di Roma, the Pope (literally, father) who represents Christ on earth, so lesser priests (who call the Pope “Holy Father”) can be seen to be lesser representatives (sons?) of Christ.

Now, on the one hand, those sons of Adam who are the Christian god's privileged interpreters, the priesthood, must strive to justify their creation by Him in His own image by being celibate like Him.

On the other hand, He Himself gave them the desire to copulate with the descendants of their own first ancestor and his rib.

So, from a pagan perspective, a priest can choose - sex with a nun as consummating her marriage to Christ, or sex with a man in the manner of the biblically-approved love of David and Jonathan, the wonderful love that surpasses the love of women (2 Sam 1.26 with 1 Sam 18.1, 3-4, 20.4 and 20.17).

And then there is all that original sex-abuse and psychopathology, that adultery and incest. No wonder the priests are confused, and cannot decide whether to have sex with males, females, or not at all.

Which brings us back to the original point. Why should the successors of Christ and selectors of His servants (brides) need to resort to professional psychological testing, rather than rely on their own faith, to determine whether Jesus has really called one to serve Him?

Sex abuse is a sociological construct, not a theological one. A professional psychologist today is quite likely to interpret the ecstasy of St Teresa as masturbatory. The Victorian upper-class male saw no wrong in copulating with a pre-teen female. And one of Christ’s prophetic successors took a number of wives amongst whom was a six-year-old girl.

Psychopathy is a socio-psychological construct, not a theological one. If a psychologist says I am a potential sex abuser, his professional opinion to “weed out” me will over-ride any theological one.

The Bible states: "One does not take upon himself, but he is called by God" (Hebrews 5:4); "You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you" (John 15:16).

If the Christian god has been calling sex-abusers and psychopaths to His priesthood, evidently He is not infallible. And clearly the Church lacks faith in its own professional theology that it calls in mental health professionals to choose for it. Humans can veto “God”.

Just one more reason to confirm to pagans that the Church continues to use “God” as a cover for its nefarious missionary-colonial enterprise.

Krishen Kak is a Hindu pagan

Christian Missions in India: "Education" and Misrepresentation

2008-11-13T07:00:00.001-08:00

Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy

Two questions require separate consideration in any discussion of Christian missionary activity in India; these are, first, is missionary effort justifiable at all, and second, are the methods employed defensible? ...It is impossible in a short essay to cover the whole field of missionary activity in India. I propose to deal with two special points, viz: Education, and Misrepresentation.

In India, any man may preach any doctrine, even upon the temple doorstep. He may believe what he will, if only his practice does not undermine the structure of organized society. There has never been a conflict between science and religion, for science has always been religious, and religion philosophical. It is a debated question whether there has ever been serious religious persecution in India; it is certain that it was the regular practice of Buddhist, Hindu, and some Muhammadan rulers, not merely to tolerate, but to support all sects alike. The missionary uses such tolerance to spread his own intolerance. His aim is to win souls for Christ; on him no other duty, principle or right can be allowed to interfere with his efforts to accomplish this end...

Missionaries in the last resort rely on force. This is notoriously so in China. "Force," says Lafeadio Hearn (quoted Modern Review, III, 234), "the principal instrument of Christian propagandism in the past, is still the force behind our missions... We force missionaries upon China, for example, under treaty clauses extorted by war, and pledge ourselves to support them with gunboats and to exact enormous penalties for the lives of such as get themselves killed." It would be the same in India, did not Hindu tolerance (apart from 'India held by the sword') make it needless; but even Hindu tolerance may some day be overstrained. If it be intolerance to force one's way into the house of another, it by no means necessarily follows that it would be intolerance on the owner's part to drive out the intruder.

The use of physical force is now indeed rejected; but all that money, social influence, educational bribery and misrepresentation can effect, is treated as legitimate. With all this is often combined great devotion and sincerity of purpose; the combination is dangerous in the extreme.
Education as a tool for Proselytisation

The most subtle, and in a certain sense, I suppose, effective proselytising agency in India is the Mission School. When adult conversion was found to proceed too slowly, it was decided to reach the children; hence the education bribe. The magic word itself stills opposition and enquiry; everyone is convinced that India needs educating, -it would be intolerant to deny to Christians a right to share In reply to: this noble work, impertinent to doubt their capability. A deliberate effort is being made to "keep the education of girls predominantly in Christian hands for perhaps a generation," as it is thought that "upon the character and extent of the education provided for girls during the next few years will depend the spread of the Christian faith amongst all the higher castes of India." Let us see what this education of girls in mission schools implies.

The education is undertaken with an ulterior motive, that of conversion. The first qualification of a teacher is therefore good sectarian Christianity; but for educational problems, - in these it is only necessary that she should be interested as a means to an end. However, the qualifications next desired are the ordinary qualifications of an English school-teacher; and in some cases the teacher may even be an University graduate. Such persons are sent out after a preliminary theological training, to teach in, or to take charge of, a mission school for girls. It is sometimes not decided until nearly the last moment to what part of the 'mission field' the teacher is to be sent. In any case she is not prepared for her work of education by a sympathetic study of local ideas, culture and traditions; if she studies the heathen religion at all, it is mainly in books written by those who do not sympathize with, and therefore do not fully understand it. Upon arrival, she finds herself in an altogether unfamiliar mental atmosphere; and she has only her Christian dogma, and at the best a good English education on classical lines, as her resources. Unless she is to be a preaching missionary, which as a teacher she is not proposing to do, she will probably learn no more of the mother-tongue of her pupils than suffices to direct her servants; the mission is short-handed, and she has to devote her whole time to class work and management... However keen her educational instinct, she has but one course to follow, - to create a spiritual desert in which to plant the Christian dogma. The greater part of the educational work of a mission is thus destructive.

Why then send our girls to mission schools? It is, I think, unwise. But some of us are so convinced of the importance of education that we are driven to take what we can get. In desiring for our girls the kind of education given in mission schools, it may be that we have accepted, at your valuation, that which has no value. It is true that Indian women are not even now uneducated or non-educated; but their education is highly specialised; it is rather culture than learning; it is not recognised as education by the modern world. The education of Indian women in the past fitted them to satisfy all the demands of a beautiful social ideal. Moulded upon the national ideals of character enshrined in the heroic and romantic literature familiar to Indian women, the beauty of Indian womanhood is beyond the breath of criticism. But the time has come when new demands are made upon the Indian people; in the national and civic synthesis in progress woman must play her part, as she has done in other syntheses before. Hence the need for an education no longer so exclusively specialised in relation to the home and to religion; the need for a scientific, geographical, historical synthesis. Recognition of this need has led to the desire for 'English Education.' Hesitation as to the real aims of the education offered has kept many from seeking it; it might have been well had it kept more, for too often have those who asked for bread been given a stone. Be that as it may, English education is now desired by many; that which purports to be this thing is offered at low rates in missionary schools.

The motif of the parent is not always a pure desire for education; it is sometimes a desire, not elsewhere unknown, to get something for nothing; sometimes a wish for mere material advantage for the girls. "Education is valued in India," says the Archdeacon of Madras, "not so much because it is enlightening as because it is profitable," and the missionary provides the easiest and cheapest avenue to the attainment of it. The first statement, in so far as it is true of modern India, is in direct opposition to Indian tradition, and to all that is best in Indian educational ideals.

Alas for wasted opportunity! To share in the true education of the Indian women were indeed a privilege. Behind her are the traditions of the great women of Indian history and myth, women strong in love and war, sainthood, in submission and in learning. She is still a guarded flame, this daughter of a hundred earls. She has not to struggle for a living in a competitive society, but is free to be herself. Upon her might be lavished the resources of all culture, to make yet more perfect that which is already most exquisitely so... You that have entered on the task so confidently, with the ulterior motive of conversion, have proved yourselves unfit.

Lay no blame on India for her slowness to accept the education you have offered to her women; praise her rather for the wise instinct that leads her to mistrust you. When you learn that none can truly educate those against whose ideals they are blindly prejudiced; when you realise that you can but offer new modes of expression to faculties already exercised in other ways; when you come with reverence, as well to learn as to teach; when you establish schools within the Indian social ideal, and not antagonistic to it- then, perhaps, we may ask you to help us build upon that great foundation. Not I trust, before; lest there should be too much for the daughters of our daughters to unlearn.
Demonisation of India and Indian religions

I speak now of Missionary misrepresentations. There is no part of the Christian code of ethics more consistently ignored in missionary circles, than the commandment, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour."

It has been said, "By their fruits ye shall judge them." Now if the fruits are grapes and figs, obviously the plants cannot be thorns or thistles. Hence the necessity for seeing and describing the fruits of Hinduism and Islam not as grapes or figs, but as something more appropriate to the missionary conception of the plant. The result is a relentless and systematic campaign of vilification of all things Indian. When I say, 'necessity,' I do not mean to say that the missionary quite deliberately falsifies the facts; on the contrary, he deceives himself as well as others; this is easy, for when the plant is already identified as a thistle, it is difficult to see figs upon it, even if they be there. The missionary is not aware of his false witness; he does generally present things as he sees them, but he sees through highly-coloured spectacles, which he removes when turning for comparison to inspect a Christian society at home. Thus he blackens India's name, in all good faith, if one may call it so, and with the best intentions.

Those who wish to understand the process should study missionary literature, attend meetings, or read what missionaries say of those who see India in a different way. The method is simple and even obvious: Indian society, being like all others, mixed good and evil, the missionary (by no means free from the ordinary prejudices of other Anglo-Indians) sees and describes only evil; much that is merely strange he mistakes for evil, or notices only because it is strange; much he argues from particular instances to be universal; and all he sets down to the vile nature of the Hindu religion or of Islam or Buddhism as the case may be.

It is as if a Chinese visitor to England, courteously received, were to describe to his friends in Pekin, the effects of drink and poverty, agricultural depression, the overcrowded slums with their moral and physical results, sweated industries and dangerous trades, baby farming, street prostitution, the unemployed, and the idle rich, and ascribe all together to the vile nature of the Christian dogma. How easy it would be for him to do this has, by the way, been suggested by Mr. Lowes Dickinson, in his 'Letters of a Chinaman.' In just this way the missionary home on furlough preaches his mission sermon or gives his mission lecture; and the collection is swelled by the contributions of a sympathetic but uncritical congregation, not quite free from a suspicion of gratitude to God, that they are not as other (heathen) men. Missionary literature is similar. A typical volume is Miss Carmichael's 'Things as they are in Southern India', from which I have already quoted. No volume could be a more impressive monument of the unfitness of the ordinary missionary to concern himself with the 'civilization' of India.

When in another man's heart you can see only blackness, the fault is likely to be your own; when in another civilization you can see unutterable vileness, it means that you have not understood the parable of the mote and the beam. The method of such a book is simplicity itself; ignore the presence of virtues in non-Christian, and of vices in Christian, communities; describe all individual and local instances of evil known to you in a heathen society as typical; add violence of language and morbid religious sentiment, suggest all that you do not say, and the volume is completed

Missionary Literature: Hate Campaign

I shall now quote some examples of missionary mis-statements from various less extreme sources. Easily refuted, such statements perhaps do less harm, except amongst the most ignorant, than do those which contain some element of truth, or extend a local or particular instance to cover a whole race of country.

Here is a statement absurd upon the face of it, yet given as an absolute fact, without any qualification at all: "The Hindu Christian (sic), who is going to disgrace his family once for all by breaking caste through baptism, will be quietly poisoned by his nearest relative to avert such a catastrophe." Another statement in the same article perhaps explains the value of such a writer's evidence: "Students of non-Christian religions must consider Heathenism on its worst side, if only to counteract the sentimental fancies of some who chatter about 'the beautiful religions of the East.' "

I take an even more serious example of very special pleading, from a more widely read volume 'Lux Christi', published for the Central Committee of the United Study of Missions. This book in 1903, the date of my copy, and the year after first publication, had already been reprinted seven times; I do not know how often since. Here we read (p. 211):

It should be borne in mind that the mighty systems of paganism in India, whether Hindu, Buddhist, or Muhammedan, are alike destitute of all those fruits of Christianity which we term charitable, philanthropic, benevolent. Where are the hospitals, dispensaries, orphanages, and asylums for the leper, the blind, the deaf and the mute? They have no place in the heathen economy.

Such a statement hardly needs refutation; but since there must be persons able to believe it, let me answer it by quotations from a single volume, the Sinhalese Mahavamsa. King Duttha Gamani (161-137, B. C.) on his death-bed could say:

I have daily maintained at eighteen different places, (hospitals) provided with suitable diet, and medicines, prepared by medical practitioners for the infirm.

Buddhadasa, (A.D. 339) was himself a physician. Out of benevolence towards the inhabitants of the island, the sovereign provided hospitals for all villages, and appointed physicians to them. The Raja, having composed the work Sarattha-sangaha, containing the substance of all medical science, ordained that there should be a physician for every twice five villages, and set apart one-twentieth of the produce of fields for the maintenance of these physicians. Parakrama Bahu (A. D. 1164-1197) built a large hall that could contain many hundreds of sick persons:

To every sick person he allowed a female servant (nurse), that they might minister to him by day and night, and furnish him with the physic that was necessary, and with diverse kinds of food... And he also made provision for the maintenance of wise and learned physicians who were versed in all knowledge and skilled in searching out the nature of diseases... And it was his custom, on the four Pohoya days ('Sabbaths') of every month, to cast off his king's robes, and, after solemnly taking the five precepts, to purify himself and put him on a clean garment, and visit that hall together with his ministers. And being endued with 'a heart full of kindness, he would look at the sick with an eye of pity, and being eminent in wisdom and skill in the art of healing, he would call before him the physicians that were employed and enquire fully of the manner of their treatment... also to some sick persons he would give physic with his own hands... unto such as were cured of their diseases he would order raiment to be given... In this manner indeed did this merciful king, free from disease himself, cure the sick of their diverse diseases from year to year.

Vijaya Bahu (A.D. 1236) "established a school in every village." Such refutations could be multiplied indefinitely, but the association of charity with religion in modern India is too familiar to require proof. It is unfortunate that libels upon nations and religions cannot be punished, as can libels upon individuals. At any rate, it is obvious that missionaries capable of making such statements are unfitted to be teachers in India; whether by ignorance or insincerity, it may be left to them to explain.

Commoner than the simple lie described above, is the half truth or misrepresentation. Many of these relate to the position of women. Sister Nivedita says that she has heard the following thirteen statements made and supported in a single speech; each statement has a familiar ring to the student of missionary literature. They were as follows:

(1) That the Hindu social system makes a pretence of honouring women, but that this honour is more apparent than real; (2) That women in India are deliberately kept in ignorance; (3) That women in India have no place assigned to them in heaven, save through their husbands; (4) That no sacramental rite is performed over them with Vedic texts; (5) That certain absurd old misogynist verses... are representative of the attitude of Hindu men to their women-folk in general; (6) That a girl at birth gets a sorry welcome; (7) That a mother's anxiety to bear sons is appalling; 'her very wifehood depends on her doing so'; (8) That the infanticide of girls is a common practice in India; (9) That the Kulin Brahman marriage system is a representative fact; (10) That parents unable to marry off their daughters are in the habit of marrying them to a god (making them prostitutes) as an alternative; (11) That Hindu wedding ceremonies are unspeakably gross; (12) That the Hindu widow lives a life of such misery and insult that burning to death may well have seemed preferable; (13) That the Hindu widow is almost always immoral.

It would be waste of time to give the answers to these thirteen statements here; but I may, as Sister Nivedita does, classify them. Nos. 1, 3, 7, 11 and 13 are entirely false; Nos. 2, 5 and 12 are the result of misinterpreting or overstating facts; Nos. 4, 8, 9 and 10 may be true of certain limited localities, periods, or groups, yet are spoken of as representative of Hindu life as a whole. The last class is the most important; take only one example, No. 8; it is true that infanticide was at one time common amongst a certain class, of Rajputs; but "it is in no sense a common Indian practice, any more than, if as much as, it is a common London practice." Indeed, in almost all these cases a terrible tu quoque can be alleged, -not to speak of vices peculiar to the Christian West.

Vulgarising Hinduism

I briefly review some other common missionary statements. The sacrifice of goats to Kali is condemned, - though they are slain at a blow. The scene is described in all its horror; the simple English audience is led to think of it as typical of heathendom; and to forget their slaughterhouses and their rabbit coursings, the 'accidents' that happen to the carted deer, and the young ladies of the country-house who assist at the death of carefully imported foxes, only too happy if the bloody tail is their reward for a successful chase. The mode of worship of Hindus and Buddhists is called idolatrous; whereas every missionary must know that this is in direct opposition to the statements of the Hindus and Buddhists themselves. This is not the place to enter into a discussion of the rationale of image-worship; suffice it to say that the distinction between a symbol and a fetish is, to the Protestant missionary, nil. Hindu literature is said to be gross and impure; to those who see in sex-love merely the gratification of an animal passion, this may seem to be so, for certainly, like Shakespeare and the Old Testament, Eastern literature is not fettered by the conventions of Victorian England. Bishop Caldwell has said, "The stories related of Krishna's life do more than anything else to destroy the morals and corrupt the imagination of the Hindu youth.": but honi soit qui mal y Pense... the stories of the child-Krishna delight the mother-heart of every Indian woman, the love of Krishna for Radha typifies to Indian men and women that ideal love which Dante felt for Beatrice, and the love of the soul of man for God; the teachings of Krishna in the Gita, are the consolation and guide in life alike of the learned and unlearned, the 'New Testament' of Hinduism.

Of caste, only evil is spoken, its trade-guild and eugenic aspects being altogether ignored. It is related as horrible that men are divided into groups that may not intermarry; as if the situation were not almost identical in Europe, only there the rank depends more on wealth than on descent; and as if the missionary did not himself belong to the most arrogant of Indian castes, the Anglo-Indian. How many missionaries would care to see their daughters marry an Indian of any caste?

Finally we have the misrepresentation of Hinduism itself; or of Buddhism, or Islam as the case may be. "Sometimes," says an English writer "a faint suspicion... haunts us that Englishmen are constitutionally unable to realise the spiritual life of any other people." It is perhaps worthwhile to briefly illustrate both the ignorance of bare facts, and the incapacity to understand unfamiliar religious experience by one or two typical quotations from missionary books. One writer says:

The fundamental error of Hinduism is to judge God by our own standard. The doctrine of Maya is pure imagination, utterly opposed to common sense... Christianity, on the other hand, affirms the reality of the universe, and the trustworthiness of our senses... Every one of our five senses... bears witness to the reality of the objects around us. To any man endowed with a grain of common sense, the opinion maintained by some of the schools that the soul is infinite, like akasa must seem the height of absurdity. Other views held are scarcely less extravagant, that it is eternal, svayambhu, self-existent. Not a single character in the Hindu pantheon, or in the pantheon of any other nation, has claimed the position of one who offered himself as a sacrifice for the benefit of humanity.

The author of 'Holy Himalaya,' a missionary book of the worst type, writes:

Hinduism has no system of moral teaching, with definite sanctions or adequate basis.
It would be cruel to continue making quotations, which illustrate the 'constitutional inability to realise the spiritual life of any other people.' Suffice it to say that those who suffer from it are not fitted to educate the Indian people, and it is questionable whether we do well to permit them to do so.

Simple Solutions

The question of our attitude towards the Christian missionary is not an academic one. His misrepresentation of India at home, and miseducation of Indians in India, do us serious injury by suggesting that it is England's God-given mission, not only to rule, but to civilise and to convert us, and by raising up a generation of 'educated' Indians who are indeed strangers in their own land. What is to be our course of action in relation to these facts? The answer is fairly simple. The power of the missionary at home to misrepresent is being continually lessened with the increasing knowledge of Indian religion and Indian civilisation contrasting so markedly with the indifference of even ten years ago. The funds of missionary societies in America were considerably lessened for a time subsequent to the speeches of Swami Vivekananda at the World's Parliament of Religions; "if that is what Hinduism means, why are we helping to destroy it? We wish to know more", they said. Just now in America, the keenest interest is now being taken in Indian religion and philosophy, and the tables are indeed turned by the presence of Hindu missionaries in California and New York.

In respect of education, the remedy is almost altogether in our own hands. Let us cease to allow ourselves to be pauperised by sending our sons and daughters to schools supported by the contributions of those in far off lands who know nothing of us, but are quite sure that we are living in the deepest spiritual darkness. It is shameful for us to allow these worthy people to do for us, so badly, what we could (if we would) do so much better for ourselves. The subject of National Education is perhaps the most important of all before us, for it lies at the root of all other problems.

We must not rest content for a single moment until the whole of Indian educational machine, is taken out of the hands of Government and the missionaries, to be controlled by ourselves. And as at present so many of us are almost as unfitted by the existing systems of so-called education as the missionaries themselves to do this work, let us prepare ourselves for it, by studying the most important educational movements going on in the West, and especially by studying the educational systems of small and important independent nations, such as Denmark, Hungary; but above all by deeper knowledge of our own country, which contains within itself all the elements of a cult more profound and a faith more reasoned than that of any other land.

A most clear recognition of the true character of missionary activity, and a most determined resistance to its aims and methods are needed now. The author of 'Holy Himalaya' writes:

The true friends of India are those who would change its root ideas... the bogey of religious neutrality... will have to be laid to a considerable extent... else in the end we shall have to make the confession that we as a nation have no rational objects in India beyond commercialism and exploitation.

It has been well said that the nonconformist conscience is the greatest barrier to Indian freedom! In a recent number of the School Guardian, the editor refers to the Church Missionary Society's school at Srinagar as follows:

1,400 boys - mostly Hindus and a large proportion of them of high caste - are being changed from superstitious, cowardly, idle, and untruthful beings into manly Christians.

As a commentary on these characteristic statements, and in illustration of the effects of the policy they reflect, the following extract is given here, from an article by Lala Har Dayal:

"The missionary is the representative of a society, a polity, a social system, a religion and a code of morality which are totally different from our own. He comes as a belligerent and attacks our time-honoured customs and institutions, our sacred literature and traditions, our historical memories and associations. He wishes to give us a new name, a new place of worship, a new set of social laws. He has declared war to the knife against everything Hindu. He hates all that we hold dear. Our religion is to him a foolish superstition: our customs are the relic of barbarism, our forefathers are to him black heathens condemned to burn in the fires of hell for ever. He wishes to destroy our society, history, and civilization. Our Shastras, Darsanas and Vedas are for him so much waste paper. He regards them as monstrous machines devised by misguided priests to prepare millions for damnation in the next world. He condemns our manners, pooh-poohs our holy love, laughs at our heroes and heroines and paints us as black as the devil to the whole civilised world. He is the great enemy of the Hindu people - the Principle of Anti-Hinduism Incarnate - the Ravana of today who hates all that we cherish, despises all that we revere, all that we are prepared to defend with our very lives...

He looks forward to the time when the Smritis shall be unknown to the descendants of present day Hindus, and the Ram Lila shall have become a meaningless word in their ears. He shall cover India with acres of burial-grounds; cremation is anathema to him. He is the arch-enemy who appears in many guises, the great foe of whatever bears the name of Hindu, the ever-watchful, ever-active, irreconcilable Destroyer of the work of the Rishis and Maha Rishis, of that marvel of moral, intellectual and civic achievement which is known as Hindu civilisation. Let us labour under no delusions on this point. You may forget your own name; you may forget your mother. But do not for a moment forget the great, all-important, outstanding fact that the missionary is the most dreaded adversary you have to meet.. the greatest enemy of dharma and Hindu national life in the present age."

In these words there may be exaggeration - they do not apply throughout to the work of every missionary; but there is nevertheless essential truth; and it is resistance in this spirit which missionaries must expect in the future, if they persist in their mistaken aims and methods.

A time will come when Christian missions, as at present understood, will seem to Christians as wide a departure from the true spirit of Christianity as the crusades appear to us today. Meanwhile, the missionary must not be allowed to 'educate,' until he really understands the Indian people and desires to help them to solve their own problems in their own way; he must not be allowed to teach, until he himself has learnt.

[Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy, one of the greatest Indian Art-Historians, was Chairman of the National Committee for India's Freedom. Hw was also the foremost interpreter of Indian culture to the West in his day. The extracts published here are from his inspiring collection, 'Essays in Indian Nationalism', 1909. His book 'Myths and Legends of the Hindus and Buddhists', co-authoured with sister Nivedita, was reprinted recently by Advaita Ashrama, Kolkata.]

Blasphemous distortions

2008-11-13T06:32:00.001-08:00

‘On Friday 24 October, the devotees of the world famous ‘Sri Kapalishwarar Temple’ Mylapore, Chennai were literally shocked when they were given five booklets each containing defamatory write-ups about Hinduism, Vedas, Vedic heritage, Hindu Shastras, Hindu culture & tradition, Sabarimala Ayyappan and denigrating articles on Sage Thirumoolar, Nayanmars and others, by a bunch of mean-minded Christian evangelists just in front of the Temple entrance! For example, in the book titled ‘Light in darkness’, it is written that, the word ‘Sadhaa’ in the verse ‘Sadhaa Shivaaya’ means ‘forever’ and there is only one God, who blesses and takes care of this world forever, and he is ‘Jesus’ and the verse ‘Sadhaa Shivaaya’ denotes only him! All the five books are said to have contained more defamatory stories about Hindu Gods and Religious Gurus. Many people have called up this magazine and sent mails to it giving complete details about what happened in front of the temple that day’.

Incidentally, the Santhome Cathedral stands on the ruins of the original Kapalishvarar Temple, which was destroyed by the Portuguese invaders and now the evangelical invaders are trying to destroy the Hindu culture and religion in front of this reconstructed Kapalishvarar Temple.

This outrageous incident has brought out the following facts:

The evangelists have made bold to distribute blasphemous literatures and conduct a hate-campaign against Hinduism, that too in front of a very famous historic temple.

The minority appeasement policies of a ‘minority’ government, which openly said that it is committed to the welfare of minorities, and its anti-majority stand have emboldened these evangelists to indulge in this kind of illegal activity.

The policemen who have been posted near the temple for security (Mylapore temple is under terror threat) have turned a blind eye to this venomous act, probably due to fear motivation from the ‘minority’ government or money motivation from the evangelists.

The Hindus have just exposed their ‘dhimmitude’ by remaining passive without acting against those evangelists. Sadly, not even one devotee has exhibited the courage to lodge a police complaint against them. The traders near the temple have not bothered to drive away those Christian rapscallions. Certainly the number of devotees must have easily outnumbered those evangelists and they must have caught them with their collars and taken them to the Mylapore police station. Instead of doing all this, some people have written to this particular weekly magazine.

Similarly, in Coimbatore, on 24 September, five staff of Chennai based ‘East Coast Christian Matriculation School’ have been arrested by the police for distributing blasphemous literatures propagating Christianity and degrading Hindu Gods and engaging in evangelisation. The police action has been prompted by the complaint given by the local people belonging to BJP and Hindu Makkal Katchi, who caught those evangelists and took them to the nearby police station. Ironically those evangelists have asked the students (most of them are Hindus) to distribute those pamphlets and the innocent students have obeyed the order out of fear. This has been done while taking the students on an excursion (study tour) to Ooty. If this is the way study tours are conducted by a Christian School, one can imagine the standard of education imparted by it.

In this context, it must be noted that in most of the schools run by the various Christian denominations, Hindu students (who obviously are more in number) are not allowed to sport ‘Thilaks’ on their forehead and girl students are not allowed to have flowers on their heads. Last year a boy was reprimanded and sent out by the management of a Christian school in Chennai city for having applied ‘Mehendi’ in his palms. His parents were made to run from pillar to post to reinstate him. In another school in Dindigul, some boys, who were ‘fasting’ for Sabarimala pilgrimage, were allowed to write their examinations only after having a haircut and removing their ‘Tulasi Maalaas’. In certain schools ‘Bible’ is being taught and the Hindu students are forced to attend such classes. The parent community is also aware of these kinds of tortures undergone by their wards, but they prefer to keep quiet in the fear that their wards’ education would be affected.

Recently in a Church in Kakkan Nagar, in the Ambedkar slum dwellings of Adambakkam, a Chennai suburb, the pastor, during morning prayers, had openly ridiculed the practice of Abishekams of Amman Deities saying that ‘they are nude & naked worships performed with an erotic motive’. As the Pastor was addressing a group of ‘converts’, his blasphemous speech was heard by the slum dwellers through loud speakers. A Hindu woman, who was drawing drinking water from a nearby Municipal water-pump, got outraged by the blasphemous speech, threw out the water from her vessel and filled it with gutter from the nearby ditch and threw it inside the Church. Only then the Hindu men realised the seriousness of the issue and reportedly damaged the windowpanes of the Church. The Pastor lodged a police complaint and the police promptly booked those Hindus, who damaged the windowpanes, and the Pastor, who was the real culprit as per the law of the land, went Scot-free!

These incidents may look like isolated due to the fact that the Hindus rarely exhibit courage to take on those evangelists, but these strategies adopted by the Church and missionaries are a regular phenomenon going on for years in the state. Mariamman and Aiyappan are two Deities, which attract millions of devotees, particularly the Scheduled Castes, as evidenced by the Sabarimala pilgrimage and Melmaruvaththur pilgrimage. Since the SCs are the targeted audience of the evangelists, the Churches come out with literatures, pamphlets and books denigrating Goddess Amman and Swami Aiyappan and ridiculing their worship.

An evangelist by name Dr Theivanayagam has founded an organisation by name ‘Diravida Aanmeega Iyakkam’ (Movement of Dravidian Spiritualism) to spread the concept of ‘Thomas Christianity’, in the name of ‘Aadhi Christhuvam’ (Early Christianity). Through this concept, he attempts to project Shivisim and Vishnavism as sub sects of Christianity. He wrote a book titled ‘Vivliyam (Bible), Thirukkural, Saiva Siddantham - Oppu Ayvu’ (Comparative Research) and published it in 1985-86 and has been steadfastly campaigning on this concept since then. Very recently, he convened ‘Agila Ulaga Dravida Samaya Maanaadu’ (International Dravidiyan Spiritual conference) under the aegis of Mylapore diocese, in which the following blasphemous distortions were projected as researched facts:

‘Aadhi Christhuvam’ (Early Christianity) was promulgated and established in Tamilnadu by St.Thomas is the original religion of the Tamils.

The Aryan invaders distorted Thoams Christianity and conceived new concepts called Shivism and Vishnavism and hence they must be treated as the sub sects of Thomas Christianity.

The ‘holy trinity’ of ‘Father-Son-Holy Spirit’ is denoted by ‘Shiva-Muruga-Shakthi’ and the same is also denoted by ‘Brahmma-Vishnu-Rudran’

The ‘holy trinity’ concept has beautified the Indian Religions. The ‘Holy Spirit-Father’ combination can be identified with ‘Arthanarishvarar’ and ‘Sankaranarayanar’ formations.

St Thomas’s teachings were abounding in Thirukkural and Sage Thiruvalluvar was a disciple of St Thomas.

Many such blasphemous distortions were presented in the conference. Close on the heels of the conference the inauguration of the Rs.50 crore production of a movie on St.Thomas was also conducted. The Chief Guest of the inauguration was none other than the Tamilnadu Chief Minister Karunanidhi, who waxed eloquent on the ‘supposed’ history of St.Thomas, despite having excellent knowledge on Thiruvalluvar and Thirukkural. Dr Deivanayagam has recently released a book titled ‘Thiruneeraa, Siluvaiya?’ (Sacred Ash? Or, The Cross?), in which, he has again brought out blasphemous distortions. A few examples are given below:

The Hindu practice of applying ‘sacred ash’ on the forehead has actually started from ‘Ash Wednesday’ the first day of the ‘Penance’ (lent-days). The sacred ash comprises within it all the three stages of ‘Death, Resurrection & Pardon due to the fact that the ‘ash’ cannot be destroyed, as how the resurrected body cannot be destroyed.

When Visnavism got separated from Shivism, the style of applying sacred ash was changed from horizontal pattern to vertical pattern.

Shiva is supposed to have given his left half to Shakthi. If that left half is worshipped as woman, it becomes Shivism and if the same is worshipped as man it becomes Vishnavism.

‘Thiruneetru Pathigam’, a collection of Shivite Hymns sung by Sage Thirugnaana Sambandhar comprises a number of messages of Christianity.

All Shivite literatures namely ‘Thirumurai’, ‘Thevaram’, ‘Thiruvasagam’ and ‘Thirupathigam’ do not talk about the four Vedas namely Rig, Yajur, Sama and Adharvana. Also, as they carry the messages of Christ the ‘Bible’ is the only ‘Veda’.

All these things go to show that a sustained campaign has been going on for years and the momentum keeps on increasing with foreign aids and local support. The Dravidian political parties, which are bent on alienating the Tamils from the Hindu fold, have been aiding and abetting these anti-Hindu forces and this unholy nexus between them is creating havoc in the society. Though the Religious Gurus are deeply concerned about the speedy developments in this area of evangelisation and the alarming rate of conversion going on in the state, they feel helpless and fear the Dravidian rulers. So, the onus lies purely on political and social Hindu organisations to take legal actions against persons like Deivanayagam and their organisations for destroying the Hindu cultural heritage and Religious traditions posing a danger to communal harmony.

Evangelisation has gone beyond the limits of tolerance by abusing the constitutional provisions for freedom of religion and the general public must also be aware of their moral responsibility to act against those who indulge in blasphemy against their religion and the government machineries must also act as per the rule of law.

Evangelists are subverting Indian Culture

2008-11-05T17:05:00.001-08:00

Evangelists are subverting Indian Culture

By MV Kamath

Francois Gautier is a French journalist, born in a conservative Catholic family but is an ardent admirer of India. To the best of one’s knowledge he is independent-minded and does not belong to any party or group, be it the Bajrang Dal, the VHP, the RSS or even the BJP. Which is why an article he recently wrote for The New Indian Express (October 6) should command attention. He was analysing the situation in Karnataka and the reason why there was a spurt of anger against missionaries in Kanara. To quote him: “Newlife, one important western-funded missionary centre (http:/www.newlifeforce.org) began making conversions in and around Mangalore by accosting poor people… befriending them and then taking them to churches to introduce them to the Father. Upon introduction, they were paid Rs 2, 500 per person and then taken to the Velankanni Shrine in Tamil Nadu, where they would get another Rs 3,000. When they finally got converted by changing their name, they got an incentive of Rs 10,000 onwards. Newlife would then give them instructions to abandon wearing the tilak on forehead, replace photos and figures of Hindus gods and goddesses with a Cross” etc. Gautier then presented a picture or how Hindu gods were denigrated and how missionaries—there are apparently more than 4,000 foreign Christian missionaries in India—brain-washed the poor. It is a revealing article.

But where do the missionaries get their money from and how much do they get? Available information lends credence to public apprehensions. Thus it is noted that in the year 2005-2006, these metropolitan cities, Chennai, Bengaluru and Mumbai received Rs 753.08 crore, Rs 464.09 crore and Rs 440.04 core respectively—all from foreign sources. Ananthpur district received Rs 288.01 crore and Hyderabad-Secunderabad Rs 236.08 crore.

Apparently, Andhra Pradesh which has a Christian Chief Minister has consistently been one of the three states to receive such mind-boggling foreign aid. Christian leaders smilingly point that under the Constitution, propagation of religion is legally permissible. But what the Vatican and the various protestant organisations are seeking is not so much the spread of Christian faith as much as extension of the power of the church to undermine the cultural unity of India and break up the nation—a trick that must be exposed by all patriotic Indians.

May it be remembered that when Pope John Paul II visited India (he had been barred from China) he made the point in a public statement that in the first millennium it was Europe that was converted, in the second it was Africa and henceforth it is Asia’s turn. It was a slap in the face of India, a predominantly Hindu country, but quiet was maintained because Hindus with a greater culture believed in the ancient dictum: atithi devo bhava—guest should be treated as God. Pope John could not care less, if he hurt Indian sentiments by his indiscreet comments.

The issue today is not conversion to another faith. Rather it is the deliberate move to break up India. Conversion inevitably destroys a local culture and is fundamentally subversive in content. Conversion, especially in tribal areas, leads to demographic disturbances which in turn lead to resentment. Resentment leads to violence. We condemn violence without trying to seek the reason behind it because it does not serve the interests of our secularists. Kandhamal is an excellent example of this submersion. In 1961, the Christian population there was just under 2 per cent. In 1971 this rose three times to 6 per cent. Thirty three years later, in 2001, the Christian population has risen to 27 per cent. The cleavage between Christian and non-Christian tribes has widened to such an extent that it has been the cause of social antagonism and killings.

Banning the Bajrang Dal would not solve the problem. It would only add to tensions, not only in Orissa but right across the country. Christianity came to India even before it spread to Europe and it was accepted ungrudgingly. If today Christian efforts at conversion are strongly opposed it is because the loyalty of converts is turned towards Rome or to Protestant evangelical centres. There is clear evidence which confirms that Christian organisations are backing terrorism and separatist movements in India’s North-East.

The National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) was founded in 1989 and since its inception the NLFT has been engaged in an armed struggle to carve out a separate Christian nation—Tripura. The Baptist Church is known to back it. Christians entered Nagaland and Mizoram in the last quarter of the 19th century and this has led to the transformation of an entire culture which could lead to the isolation of an entire state from mainstream India with dire consequences. The protestant church is working havoc in India while the Union Government wilfully turns its head away. In a short time we are going to have another Kashmir in the North-East thanks to the indifference of Sonia Gandhi- dominated Congress. The first step to prevent further deterioration of the situation is not banning the Bajrang Dal but deporting all foreign missionaries and confiscating funds sent from abroad to undermine the essential unity of India. The sinister plan of the evangelists has to be exposed. The issue is not religion; it is foreign dominance through not -too-subtle means. Under the protection of the Constitution, foreign sources are determined to undermine the basic cultural structure of India which is impermissible. They should be summarily thrown out. The vanvasis of Orissa did not invite the evangelists; it is the evangelist who is imposing himself on the vanvasis under the protection of the Constitution. We are hung by our own petard. Australia’s Prime Minister John Howard has asked Australian Muslims who want to live under Islamic sharia to leave the country. Pakistan does not permit conversion. Nor do so many other nations. There is no reason why India should suffer evangelists. The only way to stop the predatory ways of missionaries is to throw them out, bag and baggage. What is at stake in India is not Christianity as a faith but Christianity as a political weapon to take over India by means foul.

The opposition is not to a religion but to a calculating church which is practicing a silent invasion under the very umbrella of a Constitution. The UPA government—and in the end India itself—is being taken for a ride. India’s decency is being exploited fully and there must be laughter in various evangelist centres at India’s stupidity. Meanwhile the public should demand a White Paper on the evangelist invasion of India so that the truth is out. To practice a faith do converts need money from abroad? Who is fooling whom?

(The writer is a highly respected columnist, author and former editor of Illustrated Weekly and Chairman, Prasar Bharati Board.)