Church Attacks, Conversions & Holy Fathers..

Faith Under Attack? Which Faith?

Times of India's detailed everday coverage of the recent Karnataka Church Attacks & the aftermath under the heading "Faith Under Attack" is intriguing. Maybe the intention behind the repeated use of the words "attack", "danger", "assault" and all that is to denote the damages to a few Churches by a few angry Hindu youth. Maybe these youth are from Bajrang Dal or some other organization or even a section of frustrated general public.

But I think, the phrase "Faith under attack" should ideally be used to denote the concerted Christian efforts involving ALL sects and Churches of India & their global masters at converting gullible and poor Hindus by overt and covert means. That is an attack, an aggresion, a war, an invasion of much higher and alarming proportions.

It is an open secret that these Church groups which are in focus now are part and parcel of aggressive global evangelist missions like the "Joshua Project". When some of them say "oh we dont do any conversion" in the Indian media, it is an utter lie and flies off their face - The details and facts speak for themselves. ALL global Christian evangelist websites openly declare India as their No.1 focus.

For example, "Joshua Project" even has a running counter of a large list of all Hindu castes in India that shows what % of each caste has become Christian, and that is proudly denoted as "progress". Analagous to "planting of bombs", they speak of doing "Church planting" in every nook and corner of India. The Times of India iteself carried a report "The Businees of Faith" (7 Sep 2008, By Amrita Singh, TNN) on this. The Churches "planted" this way - do they have any sanctitiy, sacredness or noble purpose associated with them? The correct description for them is aggression camps or fradulent shops.

Aggressors pretending as Victims

The so called "normal" Hindus who are "pained" by attacks on Churches by Hindu "mobs" who are converting Karnataka into a battleground better become aware of all this. It is the Christian missions who are converting parts of India into "battleground" in their impatient, Adharmic quest to convert the whole world into a "harvest ground" for Christianity. Great ancient nations and cultures like Korea, Vietnam, Thailand and even many parts of China are falling for them, unfortunately. Alas, these cultures, having lost their vigour and virility are falling a prey to the Christian evalengelization.

"Normal" Hindus, ask yourself - is that what you want to happen to Bharat Bhumi also? You better learn a bit about the track record of "peace loving" Christain missions all over the world - in Africa, In South America and parts of Asia. Has that been *any* different, other than the common results of destruction of native cultures, exploiting and impoverishment of native tribes, stifling of freedom and libetry, engineering of long lasting ethnic conflicts (like in Rwanda and in our own Orissa tribal belts) and capture of political power thru religion? We in India have seen the face of Christian terror for so long in the North East. For example, frustrated by not getting converts over decades, the Baptist Church of Tripura deliberately engineered ethnic conflicts in the 1980s that resulted in large scale conversions. The deep nexus between the Christian missions and North eastern terrorsit outfits (like NLFT and the Baptist Church of Tripura) is very well documented. (Book: PG Varghese, 'India 's North-East Resurgence: Ethnicity, Insurgency and Governance, Development ' 1996).

The initial physical attacks on Churches in Karantaka were violent. They are no doubt condemnable - whoever is the guilty should be arrested and punished in accrodance with the law. But viewing them with myopic "secular" eyes as just "yet another act by the fascist saffron Brigade" is either utter stupidity and igorance or deliberate act of omission. It is very surprising to see the so called "intellectuals" who are supposed to be well-read in the world history and current affairs view these just as "goonda acts" and NOT as a relatively mildly violent Hindu reaction given the curernt scale of Christian aggression on Hindu Dharma and society.

The attacks had one good result in that they intially sparked a much needed discussion and debate on the Christian evangelist missions in Karnataka - viz. their activities, motives, their sources of funds, their impact on the society and demography and their political agenda. But in the chorous of the shrieking noises by the Christian bodies posing as "victims" and the overt Christian-appeasing acts by the Central govt. and the state opposition parties, the real issue abt Christian evangelization and conversion is now deliberately being pushed to the back seat.

Going by the facts and details of the reports about the later "attacks", particularly the burglary/intrusion in two Bangalore Churches, a strong suspicion arises whether these are stage managed shows by the Christian bodies themselves to increase the pitch of their "victimhood" stories. Given the track record of Christian groups in India and the world over, they are very adept at this. We have not forgotton the over-hyped stories about "murders" of Christian priests in Gujrat and "rapes" of nuns in MP a few years back none of which were real incidents but concocted stories deliberately propagated by the Christian missions. This has to be borne in mind.

Acts of folly by the Holy Fathers

The Karnataka state government has handled the issue really well. The Managalore police maintained extreme restraint even at the grave provocation of attacks by Christian protesters from Churches and cemetries.

The public snubbing of Karnataka Chief Minister by the Bangalore Archbishop in the full glare of the media is a highly condemnable and an utterly cheap act. What authority does the Archbishop have that he dares to humiliate the Honourable Chief Minister, that too when the CM has come as a guest to Bishop's house? Is this the "Atithi Satkar" that his Christian Values have taught him?

The Archbishop is really out of his mind, "Attacks worse than terrorism" he thunders in Times of India (24 Sep 08, Bangalore edition). Pray God, can he or anyone explain what that means? These skirmish attacks in which none died or even injured, in his view, are *worse* than terrorism that killed close to thousand Indian citizens, including our brave soldiers and policemen - What kind of Indian is this guy? Does he have any sense of belonging to this country and its people? I can understand his affections for the religion and the "Blessed sacrement", but such a statement?

Probably The Archbishop takes all his orders from Vatican and values them even more than the interests of the nation he is born into and its constitution. In that sense, he is just a lowly stooge of Pope, a tinpot dictator sitting in his Christian banana republic and exhorting his followers all over the world... And he makes faces and gets agitated in front of a well-respected and beloved person of Karnataka, a person holding the democratically elected highest office of the State govt.! His master dares to summon the Indian envoy in Vatican and questions about some small incidents happening in some states of India ! What an arrogance - so befitting to the religion of aggression that these holy men seek to propagate!

Conversion - is that all that is to your religion, Bishop?

Another perl of wisdom from Rev. Bernard Moras - "conversion is a relationship between God and human being. if it is under duress, I will not call that person a Christian" (TOI, 24 Sep 08). Its really neat, I think... he said it so clearly in his own words - The relationship between God and man - the pivot of his religion is not Bhakti or Prem (love), not Jnana (spiritual quest), not Seva (service), not Sadhana (divine practices) or any such thing - it is *conversion*.. If the idea of "conversion" is removed from the Christianity that he practices and preaches, there will be nothing left ! Conversion is both the means and end to such evangelical Christianity which is what *most* of Indian Christians are into, unfortunately, with very few exceptions of truly spiritual and worship-oriented Christian sects.

And there are theological reasons to it. Sitaram Goel, famous Scholar and a great historian observes -

"The Vedic tradition advises people to be busy with themselves, that is, their own moral and spiritual improvement. Several disciplines have been evolved for this purpose tapas (austerity), yoga (meditation), jñAna (reflection), bhakti (devotion), etc. A seeker can take to (adhikAra) whichever discipline suits his adhAra (stage of moral-spiritual preparation). There is no uniform prescription for everybody, no coercion or allurement into a belief system, and no regimentation for aggression against others.

The Biblical tradition, on the other hand, teaches people to be busy with others. One is supposed to have become a superior human being as soon as one confesses the *only true faith*. Thenceforward one stands qualified to *save* others. The only training one needs thereafter is how to man a mission or military expedition, how to convert others by all available means including force and fraud, and how to kill or ruin or blacken those who refuse to come round."

(Preface of the book VINDICATED BY TIME - The Niyogi Committee Report
On Christian Missionary Activities, Voice of India Publications, New Delhi) .

The whole meaing of freedom to relgious conversion has to be understood in such a theological context. There is an ocean of difference between religions that just accept converts that come by naturally (Hinduism, Buddhism) and cults which have conversions as their main goal, aiming not for any liberation of individual but for dominance and power (Christianity, Islam).

The Indian Christian missions should realize that slogans like "Nagaland for Christ", "Karantaka for Christ" and the biggie one, "India for Christ" should all be rejected outright for the well being of Indian nation, with its grand and beautiful legacy of religious diversity from time immemorial. They should start respecting other religions and stop the conversion activities. Otherwise such "missionary position" that is not just dull, uninspiring and boring :)), will also continue to pose great danger to the the social harmony and freedom in India. And thats true for the world at large, too.