Author: David Frawley
Publication: The Organiser
Date: August 6, 2000
Christianity does not
have a notable reputation for tolerance and respect for other religions.
The Christian need to convert the entire world and the Christian failure
to honour other religions, particularly non-biblical traditions, is well
known. Christian missionaries have had a reputation of using methods to
promote conversion that are not always honest, including employing military
and political force during the colonial era. Yet Christians today conveniently
like to ignore such facts. They are surprised if members of other religions
are suspicious of them, even if they look at these religions as works of
the devil. Christians, now promote conversion as a democratic freedom,
even though their view of religion is authoritarian, not democratic, accepting
only one way, and not honouring pluralism in approaching the Divine.
The Christians of India
are continuing in attitudes hostile to the other religions of their country.
They want A freedom convert but they are not willing to accept the other
religions of the land as valid. They highlight minor attacks on Christians
done by unidentified groups as a concerted Hindu campaign against them,
while they themselves are actively working to change Hindu India into a
Christian nation. While Christians have a long history of aggression against
other faiths that certainly has not come to an end, they are quite offended
if their religion comes under minor obstructions even by the groups they
have long maligned and, not long ago, actively oppressed.
Recent arrests in India
have shown that a Muslim organisation led by a Pakistani national was behind
most of the bomb blasts and attacks on Christian groups in South India,
The Christian response has been to ignore or deny the report, though it
is quite well documented and occurred in States of Karnataka and Andhra
Pradesh, not ruled by the 'Hindu Nationalist BJP party'.
In fact Christians in
India are defending the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency that has long
tried to destabilize India, and absolving it of responsibility in the affairs.
This would he like an American religious minority defending the KGB during
the Cold War. Whether the ISI is directly involved in such efforts to cause
conflicts in India, we must recognize that it is a project they would certainly
support and would be likely to promote. To dismiss their involvement out
of hand, as Christian leaders in India are doing, is highly suspicious.
They are publicly blaming Hindu organisations for attacks that they have
not been proven to have caused and which no court has found them guilty
of.
Christians in India also
exaggerate minor incidents into a national anti-Christian agenda. More
churches have been burnt in America in recent years than in India. That
a few priests or ministers have been harmed in a country of one billion
over a period of several years is not surprising even if we only consider
ordinary crimes like robbery. That Christian missionaries have run into
difficulties in sensitive tribal areas where there is not much government
control is also not surprising particularly given their hostility to tribal
culture and to the tribal religions.
One oven wonders if Christians
are staging some of these attacks to gain sympathy, but certainly they
are exaggerating them. Christianity has had a long history of using victimisation
in order to promote conversion. We know of the stories of Christians being
fed to the lions in Rome. We are not -told that many more pagans were killed
by Christians and thousands of pagan temples were destroyed throughout
Europe. The number of native Americans killed or forcibly converted by
Catholics was also in the millions, and yet the Catholics emphasize a few
prima martyred by the native Americans as being the real victims.
Mother Teressa's success,
Sister Nirmala claims that Hindu fears that conversion is being done by
forces, deception or propaganda are not true and are ridiculous. But she
should well know that such devices have long been used in Christianity.
We can find native peoples all over the world whose cultures have been
destroyed and even whose populations have been decimated by the missionaries
and by the colonial armies that they supported. Even if the Hindu fear
is exaggerated, it is certainly understandable. We should remember that
the pope in his recent visit to India himself threw down the gauntlet,
stating a renewed church policy to convert Asia to Christianity in the
coming years. To dismiss the Hindu fear as baseless only shows that it
is not. If Christian were really sincere they would acknowledge that missionary
activity has used such questionable methods in the pan and work to insure
that it does not do so in the future, not simply ignore the issue.
What is most surprising
is that Christian missionaries have more freedom - of operation in India
than in the rest of Asia. They are banned in Islamic countries, including
Pakistan, and strictly monitored in China, which has its own nationalist
Catholic Church apart from Rome. Christians are under direct attack in
Indonesia, where hundreds of Christian have been killed recently. But it
is India that being called to task in the world forum for its oppression
of Christians!
The reason is simple.
India allows missionary activity and so is a soft target. Islamic countries
and China are hard targets. The missionaries are targeting India because
they feel they can make headway in India, not because India is a place
where they are particularly under siege! The hypocrisy of the whole thing
is sad. It only shows that Christians are still promoting a medieval religion
that will not honour other religions and is still seeking world domination
by any convenient means.
If we count the victims
of Christians aggression on one side and the Christians themselves who
have been victimized we will find that the victims of Christianity are
in the great majority. While some Christians have apologised to African
and native American groups for such missionary misdeeds, the Hindus have
so far not received any such apology, though they have suffered from the
same methods.
In the nineteenth and
early twentieth century Christian colonial governments used their influence
to promote conversion in the countries they ruled. Now s want to use freedom
and democracy, which they didn't allow under their rulership, to continue
the conversion process. And all without an apology.
If Christians want to
be honoured and respected, let them first proclaim that Christianity is
not the only true religion and Jesus as not the only Son of God. Let them
say that Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism and the other
Indian religions are as good as Christianity and that members of these
religions will not go to hell but will gain immortality in the presence
of God. They will certainly not do so. Their failure to do so shows the
extent of their intolerance that naturally breeds conflict and leads to
communal tension. Christians wouldn't even accept a Mahatma Gandhi and
worked to covert him, while the Mahatma described missionary activity as
a great danger and as ethically flawed.
As a former Catholic
I know in what little esteem the Church holds Hinduism and Buddhism with
all their great sages and yogis. Were Christians to honour Hinduism as
a valid religion, all Hindu-Christian hostility could easily come to an
end. As long as Christians hold that theirs alone is the true faith and
are working to covert the members of other religions in one way or another,
they should not be surprised if members of other religions may not welcome
their presence in the neighbourhood.
