|
Guest
2008-01-15
|
An article last year
Evangelism is a societal menace and hindus have every right to tackle the menace head on and using all means. I am sure in western countries shotguns would have lined up against such blatant show of deception by christian missionaries.
=============================================
Is there imperial design behind conversion overdrive?
There is empirical evidence that the evangelical movement operates through multinational corporations (MNCs).
A special section has been devoted to the Seventh Day Adventist church (to which Andhra Chief Minister Samuel Rajshekhar Reddy is affiliated), which targets Dalits for conversion. It is closely associated with
Maranatha Volunteers International, engaged in church planting.
A journalist researching how permissions were obtained for such a vast numbers of churches found that a rough estimate at $ 5,000/church x 1,000 churches gave a turnover of $5million. There is no land cost because most churches are built illegally on Poromboke or Mandir lands.
Ms. Prashar's report, titled "Conversion and Anti-Conversion in India Today," owes its genesis to British MPs Andy Reed and Gary Streeter protesting to India's Deputy High Commissioner in London that certain laws in
the country restricted religious freedom. They presented a letter signed by a cross-party group of 16 MPs;
Reed is a member of the board of Christian Solidarity Worldwide. This exposes the hollowness of the secular principles of the British Government, as evangelical paradigms are so openly supported across political parties.
This agitated Hindus organisations in Britain and America, and independent academics, social analysts, and observers joined hands to prepare a report which convincingly establishes that Western Christian charity and
faith organisations have a clear agenda to convert the socially disadvantaged, and a global imperialistic mission.
A special section has been devoted to the Seventh Day Adventist church (to which Andhra Chief Minister Samuel Rajshekhar Reddy is affiliated), which targets Dalits for conversion. It is closely associated with
Maranatha Volunteers International, engaged in church planting and 25-villages and 50-villages conversion programmes.
Dr Vijay Chauthaiwale of Gujarat studied some multinational Christian organisations, such as the Evangelical Church of India which belongs to OMS International. Its motto is the imperialistic slogan "Reaching Nations
for Christ." The website openly proclaims the targets as Latin America, Europe and Euro-Asia, Africa and Asia ,
where the organisation is actively involved in training and preparing native evangelicals, and church planting. In 2005 alone is succeeded in getting 103,464 people make a decision for Christ and 10,592 undergo lay leadership training. The donor nations include the United States (HQ), Australia , Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom.
The Evangelical Church of India (ECI), established in 1954, targets the slums, scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, in cities and villages. "We must go to where the fish are found …where the fish bite the bait on the hook," it boasts inelegantly. Its logo depicts a cross struck deep in a lotus, seat of Hindu divinity. Dr. Chauthaiwale also
studied the US-based Mission of Joy (MOJ), whose mission is "to bring the gospel to a million unreached believers and provide temporary and permanent assistance to orphans." MOJ has three orphanages in Tenail, Nasaraopet and Vijiwada.
But the most organised movement is the US-based AD 2000 and Beyond Movement and its 'Joshua Project 2000'
which lists 216 people groups throughout the world as Priority-I. These include nine Indian tribes (Bhilala, Binjhwari,Chero, Kawar/Kamari, Lhoba, Majhwar, Panika, Shin or Sina, and Sikkimese Bhotia). The Joshua Project has identified the North India Hindi belt as "the core of the core of the core" because of its population density (40% of
the Indian population); its political importance; its is very deprived (the "Bimaru" states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh,
Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh lie in this region); it is the religious hub of India; and it has the smallest Christian
presence in India. Detailed plans have been drawn up to target India's 75,000 Pin Codes.
An umbrella called North India Harvest Network (NIHN) has been organised on the principles of "Plug, Prem and be nICE" to avoid duplication of effort. Plug stands for People in every Language in every Urban centre in every Geographic division. Prem means Prayer, Research, Equipping & training and Mobilisation. NiCE involves Networking,
Initiative, Catalyst and Encouraging the missionaries. Virtually a war strategy.
Britain 's South Asian Development Partnership (SADP), led by Mr. Ram Gidoomal, a Sikh convert to Christianity,is supposed to "facilitate and catalyze entrepreneurial initiatives in the UK and South Asia ." Its website explains how
the principle of NICE can be applied to SADP working. If there is a link between SADP and Indian evangelical movements, how do these programmes fit into the developmental programmes of Asian and UK professionals?
Ms. Prashar further points out that Mr. Gidoomal has co-authored a book with Robin Thompson, an Evangelical Minister with South Asian Concern (SAC), a Selsdon Baptist Church keen to convert South Asia.
The Seventh Day Adventists owes its Indian success to Canadian evangelist Ron Watts, President for the South Asian Division, who entered India on a Business Visa. He operated out of Hosur. When Watts arrived in 1997,
the Adventist Church had 2.25 lakh members after 103 years of operations. In five years, to took it to 7 lakhs.
Dorothy Watts' recorded their methodology, namely, the 25-Village and the 10-Village Program. This involved five sets of laymen, going two by two, under guidance from a regular pastor, and exploring the
villages in a district, to identify 25 villages in close proximity, with people of the same family groups and castes,
so they could continue to have social relations and marriage alliances after conversion! Once the villages were
selected, the teams would approach the leaders of each village and invite them to send two leaders to a 10-day seminar at a nearby resort, at the organisation's expense. They were then brainwashed in the idea of better living, which was offered to their villages, along with the tenets of Christianity. Then they were denied baptism till they convinced the village to convert.
In 1998, there were 17 Ten Village Programmes and 9,337 were baptized. In 1999, forty programs were held and nearly 40,000 people baptized. The 25-village plan made proselytization a flourishing business, which got a further boost with the arrival of the Maranatha Volunteers International. Under Andhra Chief Minister Samuel Reddy, the Adventists shifted to a 50-village plan. They began baptizing at the rate of 10,000 persons per month.
The US-based Maranatha Volunteers International focused on providing buildings for the Seventh-day Adventist Church . The Fjarli family, who own a construction company, Southern Oregon Builders, went on their first
Maranatha project in 2001. They raised funds to build 1000 churches at a rate of 1 per day. A journalist researching how permissions were obtained for such a vast numbers of churches found that a rough estimate at $ 5,000/church x 1,000 churches gave a turnover of $5million. One church in 1,000 days, and $5m turnover! There is no land cost because most churches are built illegally on Poromboke or Mandir lands. When deportation proceedings were launched against Ron Watts, Dr. K.J. Moses testified that Watts had committed fraud, spending Rs. 1.30 crores as bribes to stay in India . Advocate V.S. Raju said Watts was in the business of conversion to Christianity, offering petty cash concessions and allurements of employment to educated persons in Christian schools and hospitals; sending youth for education to the Spicer Memorial College, Pune, and arranging marriages between young men and women belonging to SDA. Watts, however, remained in India after a much-publicised meeting with Ms. Sonia Gandhi!
Besides America , the European Union is funding a seven year Sustainable Tribal Empowerment Project (STEP), targeting 200,000 tribal households in Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Vishakhapatanam and East Godavari.
|
|
Guest
2008-01-07
|
Fear
The most evident observation is the "fear" in a those protesting or disrespecting of God or the word of God or those who have chosen to worship God. Yes the word is chosen, it is through faith not fear that most Christians have chosen to worship God. Only the ignorant would say that Christianity is being forced on people. Like I said only the ignorant judge a group as a whole by the actions of a select few. Compared to how many Christians there are it is a select few. Thanks to secular media which would rather you worship yourself, themseleves, actors, or others members in the media,a large focus does get placed on Christianity and Christians. The simple reason being what you focus on only gets larger. So if you only focus on the negative that is all you will see. I myself praise the Lord for being able to find Christianity and Give myself to the Lord through faith. I was not forced by any way shape or form. Though i am not perfect by any means. I do strive to be better than i was the day before. Thankfully my God does not require me to be perfect for all would fail at the attempt. ---Just to insert a reply to the ignorance of Christian beliefs and Christians. I dont feel that having faith in a being that is far beyond our understanding is un-intelligent, but for those who do, is believing in something like the big bang theory or evolution more sound or more plausable? To think that two two enormous masses struck eachother and created what we know as the universe? Is that much more sound? I think not. It still could never explain how life came to exist not to mention how nearly every planet is our solar system is perfectly round. Still believe? Well try it yourself go find two large pieces of anything smash them together and see if even ONE is perfectly round. Get back with me if you do. Moving on to evolution. I am not so narrow minded that i dont think minor changes could take place over several thousand years. But to say we evolved from monkeys or some single celled organism is ridiculous. It would take millions of years for human beings to manifest through all those changes from monkeys or any other mammals. Then to even accidentally form nervous tissue from a single celled organism enough to manufacture an eye ball would take just as long and the dating of the Earth as we know could not validate that. My last point why on even the most remote islands, jungle, or other places that have been discovered that has already had any kind of population on it, is it found that the people are worshipping some entity. though it may not be God they are worshipping. They are worshipping. In all human beings there is an inherent need to worship something or someone. Why? Well i hope this will find everyone in a receptive state of mind. thanks for your time. God bless.
|
|
Guest
2008-01-07
|
peace advocate
I'm an American. I believe people should be FREE to believe in whatever religion they wish providing they don't advocate or do violent acts. In America we have Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists,etc. yet we don't have any trouble with religions compared to the rest of the world. Why? Because we have an American style of DEMOCRACY that is hated by every tyrant of the world that wants to maintain power over the common, working class people. This includes the colonialist British and French who are still trying to colonize other countries. Although, now they're trying to do it economically. There are almost SEVEN BILLION of us on this planet and we had better try to learn to live with one another in peace otherwise we'll have a whole lot of death and destruction real soon!
|
|
Guest
2008-01-05
|
om shanti
hindus always tolerated christian and islam religion. even now hindus live side by side with christians and muslims. the probelm arises when taliban style muslims and christian evangelics who spread hatred about there is only one god and all other gods are evil.
in india we always respected all other religion. despite the factor when islam arrived in india they mass murdered hindus from left and right , they converted poor and needy and raped innocent women. they demolished hindu temple and said your god is evil.
same thing happened when europians come to india , a good exapmle is portugese did what exactly islam did 500 ago to india, they put tax on hindus, they raped hindu women, they burned hindu temple and siad your gods are devil and jesus is the only god.
india has lot of christians who live side by side and . it is the evangelical christians who spread this kind of mesage of hindu gods are evil and they like to penetrate to hindu religion by openly saying hindu gods are evil and they want to save hindus.
hindus has nothing to do against christianity. or jesus. we respect all relgion .
we believe in religious respect and tolerance. as long as christian evangelics understand this and start minding there own business ( such as talk good about your god and your religion)
do not talk bad about other god other religion , caste sistem etc.
do not expect to convert any one with money or bribe.
even muslims respect at least this much in the modern civilised world.
it would be very nice we see more civilised christians who respcet other gods and people who worship other relgion
|
GuestBook 
