A new breed of missionary

[Benjamin P N]

Response to CSM Article: A New Breed of Missionary

Posted April 4, 2005
P.N.BENJAMIN
Coordinator
Bangalore Initiative for Religious Dialogue(BIRD)
186 Wheeler Road Extn
Bangalore 560 084
INDIA

Dear Christian Science Monitor Editor,

"A New Breed of Missionary?, is an unbiased report. The proliferation of the born-again Christian evangelicals has upset more the traditional churches in India than the Hindu community. The Indian episcopal mainline churches are awake to the situation and are chalking out strategies to repulse the New Missionary?s assault and stop him in his tracks. It?s a pipe dream that the New Missionary can ?build North India for Christ?. The Hindus have never feared Christian religion in the past. The former is convinced that Christianity does not hold any appeal for any genuine seeker after truth. And, Hindu groups are daily re-converting to Hinduism hundreds of Dalits and Adivasis who have embraced Christianity by the New Missionaries. For instance, 700 persons were "reconverted? in Raipur in Madhya Pradesh on 3 April, according to news reports.

The recent surge of animosity towards Christianity in India is the result of the actions of Christian missionaries and fundamentalists who are being bank-rolled and supported by the Churches in the USA and in Europe. Like the rats scurrying out the sinking ship, the New Missionaries will leave the business of ?reaching the unreached at any cost?, the moment fundamentalist Christians in the US stop sending dollars to people like Biju Verghese.

One last point. ?Hinduism has never been an ?invading? religion as mentioned the report.

P.N.BENJAMIN

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[Arul (Ta'fxkz) Baliah]

The father of this nation suggested that his friend and Methodist Missionary E Stanley Jones practice his Christianity without preaching it. Rev Jones replied Gandhi asking why he not only practice his ahimsa but also preached it.

Dear PNB,

Belief and prostilizing go hand in hand - a constitutional right in our land. Why don't you re-write the constitution instead of bosating about how much press space has printed your drivel.

The proliferation of the born-again Christian evangelicals has upset more the traditional churches in India than the Hindu community.

Jesus taught the Jewish religious leader Nichodemas the doctrine of being born again. this is no "proliferation" as you insinuate.

The Indian episcopal mainline churches are awake to the situation and are chalking out strategies to repulse the New Missionary's assault and stop him in his tracks.

Provide citation - as this forum is not a news paper that blindly prints your drivel - Provide proof and citation- The "episcopal mainline churches"- CSI and CNI are broadly evangelical and have regularly sent missionaries that go into tribal areas to evangelize as their faith requires and the laws of this nation give them the right to.

The Hindus have never feared Christian religion in the past.

Now you change the topic by slight of hand- Hinduism too has been a historically preached religion. Our constitution provides the right to practice and preach one's faith.

The violent "animosity towards Christianity" is unconstitutional. I know you do not have the intellectual integrity to respond to this - go on prove me wrong!

Arul

[Benjamin P N]

I am not a religious scholar. But, I do value and cherish the teachings of Jesus as conveyed to me through my early religious influences in my childhood. Therefore, I am able to empathize with the angst of an adherent of any religion when he or she is confronted by the caricature of one's personal faith as portrayed by a fundamentalist of another religion. Like all my non-Christian friends, I too am annoyed when a well-meaning Christian fundamentalist knocks on my door and asks me whether I am "born-again" and whether I would like to be saved! I can internalize the frustration of a non-Christian subjected to such an intrusive interrogation
 
Since colonial times to the present, the impetus for Christian proselytizing work in India has largely emanated from Western Christian Church groups and missions. The latter's continuing obsession for promoting religious conversions under the aegis of India's Constitutional guarantee of religious freedom has triggered a raging debate among religious and political leaders of my country.

Over seventy years ago, Mahatma Gandhi stated that: "proselytizing under the cloak of humanitarian work is unhealthy, to say the least. It is most resented by people here"[1]. The resentment that Gandhi alluded to has increased in India over the years, mostly due to the persistence of religious conversions engineered by Christian evangelists who derive their financial support from foreign sources. Fundamentalist Muslims too have entered the fray in recent years with substantive financial contributions from Muslim countries interested in furthering the spread of Islam in India. Some Hindu groups have resorted to reverse conversions. All these trends are
destructive to India's time-tested culture of religious tolerance.

The muteness of liberal Indian Christians, both in India and overseas, is indeed surprising. I hope that liberal Indians of all faiths will debate this issue with their fundamentalist counterparts in a similar vein to prevent the spread of inter-religious conflicts in that subcontinent. The Indian tradition of allowing people of diverse faiths to seek their own spiritual centering is now under attack in India at the hands of fundamentalists of all religions.


My reading of the history of early Christianity leads me to believe that the Western churches' obsession for converting others to Christianity is based more on their historical tradition of using proselytization as an instrument of statecraft for the extension of their political and mercantile influences, than in furthering the spiritual welfare of their flocks.

Even in today's post-Communist Russia with its newly established religious freedom, the Russian Orthodox Church does not look upon kindly at proselytization undertaken by any religious sect. In Greece, its Constitution also prohibits proselytization. Whenever it is flouted by a religious sect, the Greek Orthodox Church seeks governmental intervention to suppress it. I am not holding up either Greece or Russia as a model of democracy. I am merely citing Greece and Russia as examples of two western nations that do not tolerate proselytization even when they are undertaken by Christian denominations.

The fundamentalist Christians both in India and abroad have been too quick to condemn as draconian the recent anti-conversion legislations enacted by a few Indian states. Proselytization was not a distinctive hallmark of Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches of early Christianity. Jesus himself appears to have condemned proselytization when he said, "woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more than the child of hell than yourselves".

I often think of those verses whenever I hear of mass conversions of Dalits and tribals in India. They often seem to become outcasts twice! Conversion to Christianity does not eradicate caste prejudice in India any more than it eliminates racial discrimination in the US.

 
PNB


 

 

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Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:21:01 +0530
Subject: Re: A new breed of missionary
From: ta....@gmail.com
To: bangalor...@googlegroups.com

[Benjamin P N]

Evangelists are subverting Indian Culture By MV Kamath 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 laugher in various evangelist centres at India’s stupidity. 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. 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.)

 

 

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Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:21:01 +0530
Subject: Re: A new breed of missionary
From: ta....@gmail.com
To: bangalor...@googlegroups.com

[Benjamin P N]

Please go thru the lecture by Hans Ucko, former director of interfaith-dialogue division at the World council of Churches. The lecture was organised by BIRD

 

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Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:21:01 +0530
Subject: Re: A new breed of missionary
From: ta....@gmail.com
To: bangalor...@googlegroups.com

[Benjamin P N]

Sorry, the 6th Samartha Memorial lecture was delivered by Justice K.T.Thomas on the Right to convert and the Indian Constitution.
Hans delivered the 5th lecture text of which I shall forward a little later.
 

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From: benja...@hotmail.com
To: bangalor...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: A new breed of missionary
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 20:26:41 +0530

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[Arul (Ta'fxkz) Baliah]

Dear Benji,

You remind me of the person who said "i am not a musician, and i have no musical learning or talent" and then went and sat at a piano to prove his point for the next hour or so. Your ignorance is only second to your ability to go on and on- on a topic you admittedly know nothing about.

 I too am annoyed when a well-meaning Christian fundamentalist knocks on my door and asks me whether I am "born-again" and whether I would like to be saved! I can internalize the frustration of a non-Christian subjected to such an intrusive interrogation

It is a market place of ideas- nobody held a gun to your head and asked you if you wanted to be saved. Has your water bill collector and electric line man never asked you for a Deepavali donation? In a civilization you have the right to say "Thanks but no thanks" the violence you are defending is uncivilized and unconstitutional. The religious prohibition of freedom to preach what one believes, that you are advocating is in other words recommending a Fascist Theocracy (yes, look up the dictionary and use it to impress the press)!

Since colonial times to the present, the impetus for Christian proselytizing work in India has largely emanated from Western Christian Church groups and missions. 

More proof of utter religious ignorance, makes me wonder if you were born this smart... The colonists NEVER proselytized they ruled india by divide and rule- they used the fat of pigs and cows in their artillery to humiliate the local sentiments. The missionaries came sent by their churches, the missionaries were against the colonists' on many fronts. Rev E Stanley Jones was a good friend of Gandhi. Bishop Wascom Pickett fought for the downtrodden. Countless missionaries defied the colonists in their calling to serve God and fellow human beings. Go read about missionaries who mobilized pressure to: ban sati. Again, you are recommending  a Fascist Theocracy in the guise of time-tested culture of religious tolerance. 

Benji Bhai you have your right to proselytize your flavor of religious tolerance and while i will debunk the logic of what i disagree with, i will not tolerate or empathize with any violence towards you or even say that you should stop proselytize your flavor of religious tolerance. It is a free market of ideas. While i disagree with what you say and the way you say it- i will fight for your right to say it.

\Jai Hind/

Arul