Author: The Associated Press
Publication: Sulekha
Date:
Pastor Tyrone Allen's soft Southern
accent rises from a whispered exhortation to a dramatic crescendo that
makes the conference room reverberate with the words of the living Bible.
"Touch your neighbor and say, 'I'm
in the Lord for life,"' Allen commands. The assembled U.S. and local Pentecostals
touch hands, fingers and shoulders and murmur amens and hallelujahs.
The words could come from any Christian
church or revival tent in America's Bible Belt. But Pastor Allen, from
Virginia Beach, Va., is preaching in a plush hall of the Trinidad Hilton,
part of a Pentecostal campaign that worries Hindu leaders in the Caribbean
island.
Evangelical Christian churches are
sprouting across Trinidad -- and Hindu leaders are starting to fight back.
"I told our people to throw these
people out of the villages," said Sat Maharaj, head of the Hindu organization
Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha. "We launched a counter-campaign" that includes
literature pointing out alleged inconsistencies in the Bible and what Maharaj
calls its undue focus on material possessions.
"We're in the soul-saving business,"
retorts Allen, whose Bible Way Church held a recent annual conference here.
"We have a purpose and this purpose is to give out our knowledge of the
Lord. He commanded us to make disciples and that's what we're doing."
Hindus chafe especially at visits
by American evangelicals like Benny Hinn, who came last year and spoke
of Trinidad as a "country full of devils and demons."
The competition touches on the delicate
balance between Trinidad's East Indian and African descended communities,
each comprising almost half of the population of 1.3 million.
East Indians -- mostly descendants
of laborers imported by British colonizers in the 19th century -- were
once overwhelmingly Hindu, and some Muslim. But Christian churches have
made steady headway in recent decades and now can claim perhaps one-third
of the East Indians.
Consequently, census figures show
that Hindus now account for only one-quarter of the Trinidadian population;
some 30 percent of Trinidadians are Catholics, 11 percent Anglican and
6 percent Muslims, with the others including Pentecostals, Seventh-day
Adventists, Moravians, and Baptists.
Pentecostals say many Hindus need
little convincing.
"If you're in an organization that
does not satisfy your needs, I see nothing wrong with moving," said the
Rev. Peter Hosein, a Trinidadian who says he's a Christian of no denomination
trying to start his own church. "It's not stealing. You're just moving
to higher ground."
Pastor Winston Cuffie says Hindus
in poor, rural areas may find some Pentecostal churches attractive because
they look affluent.
Cuffie's Miracle Ministry is housed
in his Christ Castle Church in Chaguanas, in central Trinidad. Built from
donations and fund-raisers, the $1.8 million complex arises, magnificently
pink, like a castle from its modest surroundings.
"Material success is part of it,"
said Cuffie, whose congregation of 1,600 includes many converts from Hinduism
and offers investment seminars and other financial strategies. "If you're
in poverty and you're suffering, we teach you how you can come out of that
situation."
Inside his church are royal purple
altar chairs with gold frames imported from Iran, six chandeliers and a
pulpit that features a rainbow of bright mirrors lit by multicolored lights.
Cuffie himself wears an electric blue suit and bright yellow handkerchief.
Many Hindus say they are mobilizing
to stop the conversions -- if only to maintain a centuries-old tradition
on the island.
"It is, in fact, a religious war,
not in the sense of Muslims and Christians fighting a bloody war, but it
is a war," said Kamla Persad, a Hindu activist and newspaper columnist.
"No Hindu organization over the years had a program to match the Christians.
Now we are going out and trying to reconvert our people. The Hindus are
waking up to that."
