Tuesday, September 20, 2005
3 Cases Of Evangelism
Helping Hands of India is a charitable organization funded by European Protestants. For more than 20 years this group has been adopting Hindu orphans who are either dalits or from a backward community and converting them into protestants. Some of those converted have been relocated in Europe and some have been helped to settle down in India. When they decide to marry or reach the age when they can be independent they are given a fat sum to settle down. The condition-they MUST marry only someone belonging to the Christian faith. My mother along with her friend has been fighting for a girl who decided to marry a Hindu. Somehow they convinced Helping Hands of India to give the girl the money, which was rightfully her due.
My classmate Karthik informs me that there is a rich American couple that stays in the Besant Nagar area in Madras. Their mission in life is to convert as many people into Christians as possible. Apparently they go looking around for people in a dire financial crisis and promise to solve all their woes. The price-the beneficiaries must convert, of course.
One of my paternal aunt’s relatives, a young Brahmin woman fell in love with a Christian, married, got converted and totally disassociated herself from her family.One would think that her husband married her all for love right? No, this is far more sinister. Apprently the Church, Parish or whatever the girl’s husband is associated with pays something to the tune of RS.150000 for every Hindu whom a devotee of that Church has managed to convert. They consider it the ultimate victory if you convert a Brahmin.
Evangelism disguised as charity has been occurring wherever missionaries have set foot. Aren’t these cases of manipulated and forced conversion? Just how does someone become a Hindu fundamentalist by simply questioning these and several other dubious activities? Early this month the homes of about 25 dalit families were torched down in Maharastra.Does anybody know or remember this? But we all still remember the Graham Staines story. Maybe persons like Bal Thackeray are a necessary evil.
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11 comments:
Myself being a protestant (my passport says so), I can´t understand those fundamentalists who still try to "missionize" other people. I thought this game had died out 100 years ago.. In my eyes the "Helping hands" seem to be a criminal organisation.
Err...Siddharth, there are also several Hindu saints who visit dalit areas to prevent conversion but also practise untouchability in their own subtle ways.
Everyone remembers Graham Staines...is that bad?? And do you think Bal Thackeray is even remotely concerned about the 25 dalit families?? Maybe it would help if we remembered people because they died when they needn't have and not because they were Hindu deaths or Muslim deaths or Christian deaths. I am not trying to sound noble or even secular. I am merely trying to be logical.
And do let's not say Bal Thackeray is necessary! Please!
hmm.. money for religion is defintely not my cuppotea. It has to be condemned irrespective of who does that.
Its marketing plain and simple. These ppl have reduced preachers to a sales person. And have introduced creative selling techniques to lure the 'customers'.
Oh how pathetic can it get.
I suppose their understanding of the christian faith is that its ok to use money to convert the non-believers.
There must be a law enacted against forced and induced conversion.
this is a perennial problem which is existing for the last few decades...
I always used to wonder as to what they get by converting people to other religions - by keeping it as a sales target.
Oh God,I dont think Bal Thackeray is necessary. This kind of conversion has been occuring for quite some time now and organisations like Helping Hands have to be reported to uhh the people in charge of this kind of thing. Ahh yes, the police.
First we should be a good human, god is one we are seprating him.
Ya i remember the torched down in Maharastra.
These rascals are comparable with Osama Bin Laden. Only that their methods are less gory and more subtle.
They would not let even Tsunamigo free from all this.
Christian there are Christian and Muslim who do seek converts, but I do not favor coercion or gifts of the like. I am a Unitarian and we do not proselitize. I think Christianity appeals to some Untouchables, because they are on the bottom of the total pole in Hinduism truth be told.
Tell me about it...Evangelism disguised. Look at what they did in Africa ( My friend from Cameroon was in tears when he told me this).
I hope we erase all these lines and learn to live as one..!! Will that time come soon?
History teaches us that while we may want to "live as one" we do not practice it. People tend to emphasize their differences more than their similarities and therein lies the problem I think.
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