Christianity Blames
others.....
Blaming Others
Title: Blaming Others
Author: Ashok Chowgule
Date: 24 January, 1999
Introduction: Having failed in their attempt to make a political
capital out of the issue, Christians are trying to blame others
for the problems due to conversion, says Ashok Chowgule,
President, Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Maharashtra.
The Christian propaganda against Hinduism has taken a new phase.
We now have Sonia Gandhi singing paeans of Hinduism, and
acknowledging that it is because of the Hindu tolerance, the
spirit of secularism has survived in this country. But, this is
exactly what the votaries of Hindutva have been saying all along.
More important, there is a clear admission on her part that her
own faith, namely Christianity, does not believe in tolerance. She
should realise that it is only in a Hindu land that Jews were
never persecuted, while all Christian countries have done their
best to harm the Jews. And it is in a Hindu land, and not the land
of its origin, that one finds the holy fire of the Parsis, a faith
to which her late father-in-law subscribed.
Similarly, Soniaji wants to appropriate the mantle of Swami
Vivekanand, and went out of the way to emphasise his rendering of
Hindu polytheism, even while sticking to the monotheistic faith of
her birth. The sad part is that she derisively calls the ones who
have kept the memory of Swamiji alive as those ‘who spread the
politics of hate and antagonism, who reject the secular
foundations of our ancient civilisation and who seek to distort
the very message of Hinduism - that of tolerance, harmony and
understanding of different faiths.’ There is obviously an
attempt to politicise Swamiji and not to spiritualise him. Swamiji,
upon his return after his triumph at the World Parliament of
Religion, said in one of his lectures: “Before flooding India
with socialistic or political ideas, first deluge the land with
spiritual ideas.”
Simultaneously, the main line churches are starting a programme of
blaming some fringe Christian organisations for the aggressive
proselytisation that is the cause of so much tension in the
society. In one of their community publications, Indian Currents,
an article entitled “Secularism: Hypocrisy at its best” by
Jacob Kaniyaraseril, appeared in the January 11-17, 1999, issue.
After the usual diatribe against the RSS and other Hindu
organisations, it ends with the following illuminating statement:
“At the same time it is a matter of great concern that some
Protestant Christian groups adopt a rigid and fundamentalist
attitude in their propagation of faith. While the major Protestant
Churches in India have a sound doctrine and central leadership
rooted in genuine faith and knowledge there are innumerable
splinter groups which cannot claim to have anything but fanatical
ideals, partial truths and partisan approach. There are several
independent Protestant “Churches” in India which consist of a
pastor and a handful of his followers. One pastor of a major
church had recently said in a meeting - “there are also pastors
without congregation”. Such pastors work day and night to
increase the number of his followers and they target mainly the
Catholics to add to their kitty.
“The literal and wrong interpretations of the Bible by such
“leaders” is often misleading and causing confusion in the
minds of others. The condemnation of other people, their faith,
practices etc. are to be condemned by the genuine Christians.
Unhealthy practices like free distribution of Bible to
non-Christians and making them sign on it, late night prayer
sessions which becomes hysteric and nuisance to the neighbours
etc. are to be checked.
“The people of other faith don't know the difference between the
various Christian Churches and groups. For them anyone who bears a
Christian name and wears a cross and carries a Bible is Isai,
Christian. Those who misuse these sacred objects for their own
selfish motives are inviting the wrath of others. It is a fact
that the Catholic Church and some other major Protestant Churches
in India had to suffer for the recklessness of some un-Christian
‘Christian’ groups. It is time for everyone, especially the
leaders of various Churches in India, to ensure that no
un-Christian activities are being done in the name of
Christianity.
“At this critical juncture the duty of every true Christian is
to make sure that the “Christians” do not dig the grave for
Christians in India.
“Only the united force of the Christians together with the
support of all the like-minded secular people can beat the
hypocritical secularists and protect true secularism and the
rights of the minorities.”
The essential message of this piece is not to blame the fringe
Christian organisations for their perverse activity, but to blame
the Hindus for not making a distinction between them and the main
line organisations. It is also to sweep under the carpet the fact
that the crude methods that these fringe organisations were the
ones that were perfected by the main line organisations in the
past. These methods, it should be remembered, were successful in
all countries except when it came to the land inhabited by the
Hindus.
The change in methods of the main line organisations is not
something that has come out of an appreciation that Hinduism is
something that can give salvation. It has come out of a change in
the political environment in the world - namely, the end of
colonialism. A leading Christian theologian, and an ex-Jesuit to
boot, said, “The first lesson history makes us aware of is that
all our disquisitions are dependent on a temporal factor - that
is, on historical circumstances. Were it not for the fact of the
political decolonisation of the world, we would not be speaking
the way we are today. Dialogue has not sprung out of pure
speculation. Praxis conditions theory. Yet it is also wisdom to
make a virtue out of necessity.” (“The Jordan, the Tiber, the
Ganges”, in The Myth of Christian Uniqueness - Towards a
Pluralistic Theology of Religions, John Hick and Paul F Knitter (eds),
Orbis Books, New York, 1994, p 96.)
The change has come to ‘make a virtue out of necessity.’ The
original goal of attempting to convert all is kept intact, but the
approach to achieve the goal has been modified. Earlier, it was to
use the power of the state as provided by the colonialists. Now,
it is to indulge in fraud and inducements. One example is the use
of what is called inculturation. This is a method to incorporate
Hindu symbols in Christian rituals, and try to fool the people
that what is being offered is not an alien religion, but one that
has been developed in this land. In my capacity as an office
bearer of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, I had a correspondence with
one such practitioner, a Spanish Jesuit who goes under the name of
Swami Shilananda and operates from a village near Nashik in
Maharashtra. His main message was: “Repent and believe in
Christ”.
During his discussion with the Christian missionaries, Mahatma
Gandhi challenged them to convert him before they offer their
religion to the Hindu masses. This challenge was not taken up,
because from their early conversation with the Mahatma, the
missionaries realised that he knew that Christianity does not
offer the same spiritual satisfaction as Hinduism does. This line
is even followed today in the case of this so-called inculturation
programme, which is conducted only in non-urban surroundings. Fr
Myron Pereira says, “(The Ashram) makes sense where Fr
Shilananda lives, but not in Mumbai where I live. If all Catholic
priests were to adopt the ashram life-style, it would pose
practical and emotional problems in big cities.” (The Week, Oct
20, 1996.)
Thus while the main line churches follow subtle methods of
inducements and frauds, the fringe groups follow the crude methods
of the past. However, the questions is should the Hindus make a
distinction between the two? My answer is no, because both of them
have the same objective - to convert the Hindus to Christianity.
Both of them believe that Jesus Christ is the only son of god, the
difference being that each claims that it has a better line of
communication to him. Since both of them believe in proselytising,
it does not matter to the Hindus the methods that are followed,
and both of them would be resisted. It is in this context that the
call for a debate on conversion made by the Prime Minister is
relevant for the society.
The call for debate has been guardedly welcomed by some of the
churches. However, their apologists in the so-called intellectual
circles, both Christians and non-Christians, have totally rejected
it. Some say that the debate on conversion is irrelevant or likely
to increase the tensions in the society, and what should be
debated is issues like poverty. Their intellectual bankruptcy can
be easily exposed by simply informing them that in any society
there are more than one debate taking place at a time. A debate on
conversion does not preclude others from proceeding ahead. But the
intention of these ‘intellectuals’ is not to debate poverty,
but not to debate at all. They would be confronted with the
question why they did not do anything about it all this time.
We hope that the churches will not take this Ostrich-like
attitude, and boldly address the issue of conversion, and whether
such conversions create tensions in society or not. While
undertaking the debate, we would like the main line churches to
identify who are these fringe groups, who are today adopting the
crude methods that they did in the past. We would also like to
know how they intend to stop their activities, which they seem to
readily admit are wrong and against what they claim to be the
essence of Christianity. It is only by such distancing away from
the fringe groups, will the main line churches convince the Hindus
that they are truly different.
The article by Kaniyaraseril does not give us confidence that this
is about to happen. Even while admitting that the free
distribution of the Bible to non- Christians is wrong, he brings
the issue of the desecration of the Bible in Rajkot. It has been
more than clearly established that the desecration was a reaction
to the distribution and taking a pledge from the school children
that they are sinners and that the Christ is their saviour. (Here
it would be appropriate to mention that the VHP in Gujarat has
condemned the desecration, but no church or their apologist, until
the article by Kaniyaraseril, has condemned the distribution.)
Similarly, Kaniyaraseril talks about the rape of the nuns as an
incident of attack on Christians, even though it has been
established that half of the miscreants are converted Christians.
If Hindus are to accept that there is a genuine change in the
thinking of the main line churches, they should explain why there
has been an attempt to politicise and internationalise the issue
of the ‘attacks’ on Christians. While doing so, they have not
only calumnised the Hindus, but also India, of which they claim to
be citizens. It is they who have caused a huge waste of resources,
both time and money, of the country. It is they who have created
the cleavage between the Christians and the Hindus, and made many
of the uninformed Hindus to feel ashamed of themselves. Such
calumnisation was their objective in the past, and one has to
wonder if it is still not their objective in the present.
The politicisation has given a good handle to those who are
inimical towards India, for whatever reason, to use the issues to
brow-beat the country. The ridiculous extent that this has been
taken is clear from the fact the National Assembly in Pakistan
thought it fit to pass a resolution condemning the ‘attacks’.
(The treatment that Pakistan affords to its Christian minority is
well known.) The German Ambassador in India, the British Foreign
Minister, and many such people, have sought to make a diplomatic
issue of the ‘attacks’. (Can the German Ambassador tell the
Indians more about the way his countrymen treat the Turkish guest
workers? And can the British Foreign Minister tell the Indians
more about the ‘dot busters’?) Some American politicians have
talked about economic sanctions to be applied to India. (Can the
same American politicians tell the Indians more about the burning
of Christian churches belonging to the black community by the
white supremacist?) If in the process, Hindus doubt the Indian
Christian’s commitment to the country, can they be faulted?
There is a tremendous Hindu awakening that has taken place in the
recent past. Because their reasoned voices are sought to be
silenced, the issues are taken to the streets. For example, when
temples were destroyed in Dangs, the matter was of no concern to
the Christians or to their apologists. The manner in which the
main line churches and their apologists have handled the issues of
the attacks on Christians recently, clearly indicate that they
find a grave danger to themselves in this process of awakening.
None talk about the action that provoked the reactions of the
Hindus. At the same time, the Hindus are finding themselves being
damned for no fault of theirs. The involvement of the apologists
in this game plan of the churches makes the Hindu wonder if there
is not a conspiracy here.
The Hindus has given succour to those who came here due to
religious persecution. It was not only the Jews and Parsis who
have been the beneficiaries of the compassion so willingly, and
without any expectation, given by the Hindu samaj. The Syrian
Christians who came here in the 4th century were also the
recipients of this munificence. The only thing that the Hindus
expected in return was respect to their civilisation and their
culture. When this happened, there were no problems. Duncan
Forrester wrote, “The Syrian Christians, like the Jews of Cochin
and the Bene Israel of Bombay, survived and indeed flourished
because they accepted the social system within which they found
themselves and observed its norms.” (Caste and Christianity:
Attitudes and Policies on Caste of Anglo-Saxon Protestant Missions
in India, London, Curzon Press, 1979, p 100.) Is such respect too
much to ask?
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