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III
Objections to conversions
An Israeli legislator,
Shri Nissim Zvili, had sponsored an anti-proselytising bill. The CNN Networks
(March 31, 1998, web posted at 23:23 GMT), reported that the move was dropped
when 'representatives of 50 Christian evangelical groups agreed to make
an unprecedented joint statement promising not to carry out missionary
activity in Israel.' In the statement, the Christian groups say they 'rejoice
in the presence of the Jewish people in this country of their ancestors'
and agree to avoid 'activities which.... alienate them from their tradition
and community.'
In Russia, a bill entitled
"On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations" was passed. It gives
official status to only the Russian Orthodox Church, Islam, Judaism and
Buddhism, and discriminates against hundreds of other faiths, including
Roman Catholicism and Protestant sects. The bill clamps restrictions on
many new religious groups, foreign as well as Russian, that came into existence
in the mid- 1980s. (The Indian Express, June 26, 1998.)
In India, the anger
against conversions is felt not only by the Hindutvavadis, but also by
the whole Hindu samaj (society). A Christian activist who writes
regularly on Christian issues in both communal and secular media, wrote
in one of the former as follows:
So what is
it that makes missionaries different, I wonder. I asked my Hindu husband
and other Hindu friends - educated, perceptive adults - and I was shocked
at the anger I uncovered. They just don't see Christians as Indians; they
see us as an alien 'other', minions of a white, Christian world that is
synonymous with spiritual and racial chauvinism. Our cathedrals, our culture,
and our worships set us apart. Poland has shown us that the dividing line
between spiritual and political control can be very fine. The red flag,
however, is conversion. It rakes up old hurts of a colonial religion that
not only cut off a people from their rich spiritual heritage and destroyed
their cultural roots, but created pseudo-western Indians that looked down
on the 'natives' and their 'superstitious', 'idol-worshipping' religion.
(Astrid Lobo Gajiwala, "Martyrdom-The call for the new millennium", The
Examiner, July 18, 1998.)
The Hindus that the activist
talked to would perhaps not like to be identified as supporters of Hindutva.
Moreover, as she says, they are "educated, perceptive adults".
In November 1998, in
Nashik the political parties of all shades organised a protest march against
conversion. The Christian converts in the tribal areas refused to partake
in festivities which have been the tradition of the area. This refusal
is part of the programme to wean themselves from the rest of the society.
It is time that Christians and their apologists give serious thought to
the reaction of the Hindu samaj to conversions.
Members of all religions
take a serious view of conversions. In response to the activities of the
International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), there has been
an aggressive reaction from the Christians all over the world. In many
ways, the methods followed by ISKCON mimicked the way the missionaries
operated. At the same time, it has to be noted that the movement flourished
without any state patronage, even from the country of the birth of its
founder, Swami Prabhupada. He took his message to the people in the West,
and he was accepted for spiritual reasons. It was the American converts
who set up the organisation of ISKCON, and they provided the funding.
The aggressive nature
of the Christian reaction to ISKCON can be gauged by the following advice
that was rendered to the parents of children who became attracted to the
movement:
Parents wishing
to extricate their adult offspring from the anti-Christian context' of
an organization like ISKCON can - if they've first exhausted all legal
options, considered the risks and consulted with their pastor - perform
Christian 'civil disobedience': disregard whatever laws (for example, kidnapping,
false imprisonment, assault and battery) stand in the way, and rescue their
son or daughter from the clutches of such a false, non-scriptural religion.
(The Commission on Organizations: The 'New Religions', Brainwashing and
Deprogramming, St. Louis: The Commission on Organizations, Lutheran Church-Missouri
Synod, n.d., pp 4-5.)
The Christian churches
in India have threatened violence against the programme of reconversions
launched by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP). Rev V K Nuh, secretary of
the Nagaland Baptist convention, said, "If someone tries to impose their
faith, Christians in this region will not surrender. There will be a battle
and we shall have no option. There will be a physical and religious war
if attempts are made to propagate Hinduism by forceful means in the Northeast."
Rev M D Oaugma, head of the Garo Baptist Convention of Meghalaya said,
"It could be a threat to Christianity if we remain silent to the VHP's
game plan of mass conversion. We shall have to fight, we shall have to
resist." (Maharashtra Herald, July 11, 1998.)
Some of the aggressive
Protestant sects are targeting not only non-Christians but also other Christian
sects. During his visit to the Dominican Republic in South America in October
1992, Pope John Paul II said that he must protect his flock from the 'wolves'
of evangelical Protestantism wooing Latin Americans away from the Roman
Catholic Church. As shepherd to Latin America's 395 million Roman Catholics,
the Pope said he must "take care of the sheep who have been put in my care
and protect them from rapacious wolves." (Houston Chronicle, October
13, 1992.) The question to be asked of the Pope is if the Protestant missionaries
are wolves in South America, do they not belong to the same category in
India?
Actually, there is an
irony here. The Pope is unhappy not because the Roman Catholics have stopped
believing in Christ, but that they are doing it in another church as Protestants
and under another set of priests. If the Pope can be unhappy of such a
state of affairs, surely the non-Christians have a greater right to be
unhappy when their members embrace Christianity.
This unhappiness of
the Roman Catholics against the activities of the Protestants exists in
India as well. Shri John Stackhouse reported as follows:
In the tribal
belt, many Protestant churches use mass rallies and faith healing to draw
potential converts. And there often are promises of education and jobs.
"Those Protestants - Methodists, Pentecostals - have been baptising left,
right and centre," said Bishop de Rosario (of Vadodara), who has lost many
Roman Catholic villages to the new evangelical missions, which are the
fastest-growing denomination in the adivasi region. "This has created some
of the problem." (Jesus Christ: Persona Non-Grata in India?, Globe and
Mail (USA), Nov 5, 1998)
There is a clear admission
by the Roman Catholics in India that the Protestants, at least, are undertaking
conversions by inducements, which has no spiritual merit. These inducements
are given in South America, and on a visit to Brazil the Pope expressed
his unhappiness.
(Pope John
Paul II) exhorted his followers to crusade against fundamentalist religious
sects that offer what (he) called 'false mirages' to growing numbers of
Brazilians 'hungry for bread and justice'...... Brazil's bishops have reportedly
concluded that as many as 600,000 Brazilians leave the Roman Catholic Church
each year to join fundamentalist and evangelical Protestant sects, some
of which offer mass healing and fund-raising sessions that anger Roman
Catholic and Protestant fundamentalists alike. (Alan Cowell, Pope urges
Brazilians to resist mirages of evangelists, New York Times, Oct
14, year not known.)
Conversions by fraud and
inducements are the standard practice all over the world. In Mongolia,
Shri Alexander Berzin, a research fellow at Columbia University, New York,
said in an interview,
The missionaries
come in guise of English teachers. They give money, computers to universities,
scholarships to children of influential officials. They buy their way in.
(Disrupting the faith?, Newsweek, Jan 13, 1997.)
Apart from being concerned
about Roman Catholics leaving to join the Protestant sects, the present
pope, John Paul II, is most unhappy when Christians adopting another religion.
In the case of Hinduism and Buddhism, he has written in his book as follows:
"(I)t is not inappropriate
to caution those Christians who enthusiastically welcome certain ideas
originating in the religions of the Far East - for example, techniques
and methods of meditation and ascetical practice. In some quarters these
have become fashionable, and are accepted rather uncritically. First one
should know one's own spiritual heritage well and consider whether it is
right to set it aside lightly." (Crossing the Threshold of Hope,
Random House, 1994, pp 89-90.)
It would be appropriate
to ask the Pope what moral right does he have to ask Hindus and Buddhists
to set aside their own even longer spiritual heritage aside lightly and
adopt Christianity. Moreover, given the fact that Christians in Christian
countries are leaving the religion, it would also be appropriate to ask
the Pope to explain to the others the spiritual merit of the system he
is advocating. It would also be appropriate to ask the Christians why do
they not concentrate on ensuring that their own flock does not desert them
instead of trying to entice non-Christians.
In the West there is
a great deal of disenchantment with Christianity as a spiritual guide.
As per a report in a Roman Catholic weekly in India (The Examiner,
July 18, 1998), out of the six million Roman Catholics in Austria, only
20% attend church regularly, and 40,000 are leaving the church every year.
At this rate, by the year 2030, there will not be any Roman Catholics left
in Austria. Another Christian weekly in India (India Currents, June
5-11, 1998) Rev Valson Thampu said that only 7% of the population in the
United Kingdom are practising Christians.
The Sunday Times,
(London, May 11, 1997) carries a report which says that by the year 2002,
the number of Christians attending the Church of England services will
be less than the Muslims going to mosques. Presently, only 850,000 Anglicans
go to church. Out of a population of more than 50 million this is indeed
a low figure.
The Times of India
(July 27, 1998) carried an item with the heading "Sunday shopping hits
Church visits in Europe". One wonders if the people went to churches only
because they had nothing better to do, and not because they received any
spiritual sustenance by their act. The report says, "For many Poles, going
to the hyper-market or shopping mall is an entertaining way to spend time
with the family."
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