The violence of conversion By Aseem Shukla
urmila
The violence of conversion
By Aseem Shukla
Q: Is there a problem with proselytism overseas by U.S. religious
groups? Isn't sharing one's faith part of religious freedom? When does
it cross the line into manipulation and coercion?
It is impossible for me to reconcile myself to the idea of conversion
after the style that goes on in India and elsewhere today. It is an
error which is perhaps the greatest impediment to the world's progress
toward peace. Why should a Christian want to convert a Hindu to
Christianity? Why should he not be satisfied if the Hindu is a good or
godly man? -- Mahatma Gandhi (Harijan: January 30, 1937)
If I had some good news--really good news that would help others--I
would eagerly want to share that news. Spread the word, pass it on,
share the joy. As Thomas Farr of the Berkely Center at Georgetown
wrote, "For those who believe they have access to such a Truth, the
desire to offer it to others is both natural and rational."
The problem, of course, is that we are dealing with matters of faith
and the experiential, rather than the empirical and rational. And we
are wrestling with not only the benign connotations of evangelism and
charity, but also with the incendiary vocabulary of hegemony,
religious imperialism, asymmetry and conversion.
The Georgetown meeting will only include Christians and
Muslims--sadly, none of the millions of Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and
indigenous traditions that are the targets of proselytism globally are
included--but it is also apropos. For only Christians and Muslims have
a history of displaying an often violent urge to share good news.
Whether you want to hear it or not never much mattered!
The Crusades or the Conquests, the Inquisition or the sword, the
results were the same: millions were forced to turn their backs on
their own faith and embrace another. Only the name of the God changed.
Today, that same urge to persuade, convince and even coerce the good
news upon others remains; the methodology insidiously different, but
the result is the same.
Groups ranging from the overtly evangelical World Vision to
quasi-government entities such as the U.S. Commission on International
Religious Freedom (USCIRF), and many others even within our
government, firmly subscribe to the view that religious freedom
protects--rather mandates--unhindered access globally to carry out the
work of proselytism. Religious freedom is tantamount to freedom to
proselytize and convert.
Article 18 of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human
Rights (UNDHR), is often held up as the rationale--the green light for
proselytization. That every individual "has the right to freedom of
thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to
change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in
community with others and in public or private, to manifest his
religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance."
But adherents of the pluralist religions--Dharma religions, paganism
and native religious traditions--have long argued that there is a very
basic asymmetry at play rendering the Declaration deeply flawed.
Abrahamic religions--the non-pluralist traditions--claim exclusivity
in their belief system's legitimacy as the only religious and
spiritual path and demand absolute adherence. In contrast, pluralist
religious traditions subscribe to a more expansive ethos--that one's
religion may not be the exclusive source of Truth and which
acknowledge the potential of multiple legitimate religious and
spiritual paths. Most pluralist religious traditions allow for the
assimilation of beliefs and traditions of another religion without
demanding repudiation of one's own religion or conversion to the
other.
This fundamental difference--that a pluralist accepts the injunction
of the ancient Rig Veda that, "Truth is One, but sages call it by
various names" while the non-pluralist demands that there is only One
Truth and all others are false and dangerous--renders the pluralist
vulnerable to the asymmetric force of the proselytizer. The pluralist
would find seeking converts or evangelizing others anathema--the
concept of conversion does not even exist--while the non-pluralist
seeks converts as a God given mandate.
Compound this asymmetry with the reality that the most prolific
proselytizers today comprise a multi-billion dollar megachurch
industry, and the previously colonized developing world is open ground
for this latest avatar of colonization. Witnesses from the hot spots
for global proselytism abound with testimony of access to education,
medical care, employment and other necessities being traded--often
subtle, and often not--on the marketplace of religious affiliation.
Most sinister, of course, is the overt bargaining of disaster supplies
or better hospital beds after tsunamis and earthquakes for those
willing to convert.
The pluralists protest, also, against the tactics of the
proselytizers. Christian missionaries in India appropriate Hindu modes
of worship, reconfigure traditional prayer rituals into Holy
Sacraments and sing hymns that are Hindu bhajans (prayer songs) with
words replaced sung to identical tunes.
The violence of conversion is very real. The religious conversion is
too often a conversion to intolerance. A convert is asked to repudiate
his sangha (community), reject the customs and traditions of his
family passed down for generations, and refuse to attend religious
ceremonies that are the very basis of daily life in much of the world.
A person's conversion begins a cascade of upheaval that tears apart
families, communities and societies creating a political and
demographic tinderbox that too often explodes.
Spreading hate against native religions is perhaps the most vile
tactic too often employed. And even the Catholic Church, with its
centuries old presence in India, has blasted the tactics of the new
proselytizers plying their trade today. In our own country, consumer
protection laws ensure that advertisers and retailers abide by
truth-in-marketing laws. There is no parallel protection in the rabid
sales in religious identity that the proselytizer markets overseas,
and the consumers are the victims.
And finally, there is the fact that the evangelical community can only
"pick on" the pluralist societies. India, Nepal, Cambodia, Taiwan and
much of Africa where indigenous traditions still hold sway, are among
the targets today for the next "harvest." The "Muslim world" rewards
conversion away from Islam with death, and in China, Russia Burma and
others, autocracy, the Orthodox Church or military junta proscribe
missionary work.
And so, the very democracy and openness of pluralistic societies
becomes their vulnerability--a poison pill as they face the onslaught
of the proselytizers. Today, the Native Americans of the U.S. and
Canada, the indigenous progeny of Latin America and Mexico, the
Aborigines in Australia are silent witness to lost religions and
decimated traditions that fell historically to earlier iterations of
these onslaughts.
It is in this spirit that many human rights activists and academics
today argue for an overdue amending of the UNDHR. The Hindu American
Foundation proposed in a letter to the UN High Commissioner for Human
Rights, on the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, that Article 18 be amended as follows (emphasis added):
§1 Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and
religion. This right shall include freedom to have, retain or to adopt
a religion or belief of his choice, and freedom, either individually
or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his
religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching.
§2 No one shall be subject to force, fraud and/or coercion, including
but not limited to harassment, intimidation or exploitation, including
but not limited to the conditioning of humanitarian aid or economic,
educational, medical or social assistance upon conversion and/or overt
denigration of other religions to intentionally promote religious
hatred and bigotry (hate speech) and violence, which would impair his
freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice.
The right to have and retain one's path to salvation is and must be as
important as the right to find or adopt a new way. It is time to
change the vocabulary in our engagement with religious freedom.
Religious freedom must mean a commitment to the true spirit of
pluralism, and not a license to those "bearing witness" and forcing
judgment.
Views expressed here are the personal views of Dr. Aseem Shukla, and
do not necessarily represent those of the University of Minnesota or
Hindu American Foundation.