thinking about India..
It’s strange to think that a few months ago, we came back from India so encouraged and proud of the great work that was going on there.
I’m incredibly sad about the violence that’s going on there.
I think this article from the BBC is the best single article I’ve seen so far on the topic.
My summary of other stuff I’ve read:
- Christians have been making a strong evangelism push in recent years. From visiting IFCM, my impression is that it’s often the case that the church first seeks to meet material needs.. IFCM served food to starving villagers. Other churches provided medical service and education for impoverished neighborhoods. There were many conversions among the poor, and among the low caste.
- Hindus felt this was an unfair way to convert people.. essentially bribing people to convert. This eventually led to the creation of “anti-conversion laws”, outlawing “force,” “fraud” and “inducement”. Examples of what that means:
- Section 2(b) of the Himachal Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act terms “divine displeasure” – a key component of the gospel message – as “force.”
- Section 2(d) labels an “inducement” the offer of “any gift or benefit” – thus criminalizing Christ’s command to feed, clothe and give drink to the needy.
- Section 2(b) vaguely defines as fraud “misrepresentation or any other fraudulent contrivance.”
- Some Christians got extremely upset about the laws and lashed out in violence against one of the proponents, Laxmananda Saraswati. When he was killed in August, although a Maoist group claimed responsibility, it became a trigger point for anger at Christians. It’s unclear if it really was See google searches 1 and 2.
- There also seems to be unrelated terrorist activity(like the bombings today) that is probably adding to the tension.
