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Old 02-23-2011, 07:55 PM   #1
BokerokyBan

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Default Mass conversions: Are they ethical?
An interesting article on the issue of muscular church planting and evangelical missionarying that is going on around the world, but especially in zones of focused attention by many Western church groups. These zones invariably focus in on India, partly because it is an open society and it's easy to hide heinous and aggressive conversion tactics behind the veneer of developmental aid, and partly because places like China and Arab Gulf a quite hostile to aggressive Christian groups and have stiff punishments and aren't shy of using them.

I wonder whether many Americans and Europeans who donate to their churches even know how their money is (mis)used in mission trips and church plantings half way across the globe.

Suhag A. Shukla, Esq.: The Question Of Evangelism In India

Like America, India's shores accepted and sheltered the religiously persecuted -- from Jews arriving 2500 years ago, to early Christians bringing the message of Christ, not to Hindus, but to their brethren, the Cochin Jews. Later came the Parsis from Iran. Others came not to escape but on their own free will -- Arab Muslims to trade, and others from far away lands seeking India's spirituality. Each one of these newcomers sought to live and let live, mixing in, as the legend goes, like sugar in milk.

But since the 12th century, starting with the Islamic invasions and colonizing European missionaries to today, India faces a different kind of religious visitor -- one that seeks not to sweeten the milk, but curdle it.
At the end of the day, numbers and statistics, though illustrative, fail to address the very real human factor on the losing side of the proselytization and conversion equation. Conversion, when born from genuine faith, belief, study, or religious experience, can be beautiful. But, conversion begot by aggressive or predatory proselytization is a form of violence.
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Old 02-24-2011, 11:06 PM   #2
Mark_NyB

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I'm not a fan of 'feather in your cap' conversions where you tally up numbers and then win the game. I don't know if I'd say it's unethical. Some tactics surely are. But, all-in-all I don't know why people get their panties in a twist about it. That being said, if you're trying to convert people, you should probably be respectful and not piss off large groups of people in the area where you're living.

Also, the whole sugar in milk imagery is a romanticization of Indian inter-communal relations. Babri wasn't quite sugar.
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Old 02-24-2011, 11:09 PM   #3
ImapFidaarram

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No, because there is always error introduced when you convert from one unit of mass to another.
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Old 02-24-2011, 11:15 PM   #4
lollypop

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When I learn that the Mormons convert after death, I was over it all...
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Old 02-24-2011, 11:24 PM   #5
defenderfors

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I'm not a fan of 'feather in your cap' conversions where you tally up numbers and then win the game. I don't know if I'd say it's unethical. Some tactics surely are. But, all-in-all I don't know why people get their panties in a twist about it. That being said, if you're trying to convert people, you should probably be respectful and not piss off large groups of people in the area where you're living.

Also, the whole sugar in milk imagery is a romanticization of Indian inter-communal relations. Babri wasn't quite sugar.
Babri happened to those who didn't want anything to do with being the sugar. OTOH, you will never hear of stories of persecution among Indian Jews or Parsis or Jains or Sikhs (the Sikh pogrom in Delhi in the 1980s was a political reaction to Indira Gandhi's assassination by one of her Sikh bodyguards...many Hindus stood up to Congress Party goons and protected their Sikh neighbors) or Buddhists. The Muslims have had a history of attacking their Hindu hosts. So do Christians of all stripes. That's the difference that the article is trying to convey. I should note, though, that India is home to world's 3rd largest number of Muslims (yeah, hard to believe). And for the most part, people manage to live and let live and many Muslims (and Christians and other religious minorities) hold commanding stature in the mainstream of Indian society. Richest resident Indian is a Muslim, many sports and Bollywood stars are Muslims, etc...
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Old 02-24-2011, 11:25 PM   #6
Cajlwdvx

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No, because there is always error introduced when you convert from one unit of mass to another.
they are quite scientific though. who cares about ethics! :P
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Old 02-24-2011, 11:25 PM   #7
fruttomma

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When I learn that the Mormons convert after death, I was over it all...
That's why they have some of the best kept records of geneology.
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Old 02-24-2011, 11:40 PM   #8
WumibBesowe

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Babri happened to those who didn't want anything to do with being the sugar. OTOH, you will never hear of stories of persecution among Indian Jews or Parsis or Jains or Sikhs (the Sikh pogrom in Delhi in the 1980s was a political reaction to Indira Gandhi's assassination by one of her Sikh bodyguards...many Hindus stood up to Congress Party goons and protected their Sikh neighbors) or Buddhists. The Muslims have had a history of attacking their Hindu hosts. So do Christians of all stripes. That's the difference that the article is trying to convey.
Kind of. Although you're leaving out Operation Blue Star and a bunch of antecedents to Indira's assassination . I also wouldn't describe Hindus as hosts and Muslims as guests. I mean, Muslims have been on the subcontinent far longer than those of European descent have been in what is now the United States. I don't think it's proper to label a large group of people into millennial second-class status. But, by broad strokes I'd agree. Most separatism in India is political or ethnic and not religious.
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Old 02-24-2011, 11:56 PM   #9
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Kind of. Although you're leaving out Operation Blue Star and a bunch of antecedents to Indira's assassination . I also wouldn't describe Hindus as hosts and Muslims as guests. I mean, Muslims have been on the subcontinent far longer than those of European descent have been in what is now the United States. I don't think it's proper to label a large group of people into millennial second-class status. But, by broad strokes I'd agree. Most separatism in India is political or ethnic and not religious.
Of course, you should also take into account that the Babri mosque itself was built using ruins of an older Hindu temple at the same site. It is like the Moors taking over Spanish churches and turning them into mosques, except that in the case of Hindu "idolators" the place of worship is desecrated first and torn down, and then the stones used to build a victor's place of worship. And not just any temple, but one that the locals believe to be the birthplace of one of their most beloved deities. Archeological Survey of India has found ruins and older temple foundations at the site, so it's not just hearsay either as some Indian (Marxist or Christian-led) news media always report.

Actually, the biggest separatism in India happened on religious grounds. There would not be a Pakistan and Bangladesh today had the moderates among the Muslim elite back in 1930s raised their voices against the few who insisted on having a separate "land of the pure" (that's what "Pakistan" translates to).

Apparently, the Muslim elite figured they could not see themselves being led by Hindus over whom they held dominion for close to 1000 years... even if the Hindus (Congress Party) went so far as to guarantee a secular constitution where everyone would be equal (in India today, Muslims and all other religions are more than equal as they don't have to follow one civic code, they have their own faith-based family and personal laws).

Even today, the fight over Kashmir is not an ethnic fight. It is most certainly a religion-driven fight. On both sides, in fact. India insists that its secular democracy guarantees Kashmiris freedom to worship and equal rights. In fact, more than equal rights, for no other Indians can buy property in Kashmir, for example... even though the Islamic armed insurgency has cleansed the Valley of pretty much all the Hindus and Sikhs...numbering close to 1 million. Funny how nobody mentions these facts.

In the Northeast of India, some ethnic conflicts have taken on religious tinge. The mass proselytized (and recent) Christians now forbid Goddess worship in Tripura, for example. And Hindus have been attacked and killed for merely being Hindus.


As for Operation Blue Star, that was after a long seige and a lot of political talking-to to the Sikh separatists who had taken over the Golden Temple. It could be translated to what happened to Branch Davidians in Waco. Did the U.S. not send in armed force to evict the goons? At some point, separatism in India will not be tolerated... and in recent times, that point has been raised to a significant degree, and truly the world has taken note of the restraint shown by India... even as the Indian Parliament was attacked, the very seat of government, back in 2002 (IIRC) by Pakistani terrorists.

As it happens, the Sikh separatists were being armed and egged on by Pakistani ISI secret service agents all along.

It's not as if Sikhs are being continually victimized in India. Heck, they demanded their own state and got one when the broke up a bigger state, just so the Sikhs can maintain their majority.

And Muslims were guests at one point. Muslim traders made it to southern coast of India first as businesmen. They got there before the invasions in the Northwest, even. And the first Muslim rulers of northern India certainly didn't consider themselves local... they even tried to rule from Kabul and Bukhara and points north. Only reluctantly did they made home in Delhi... and of course, subjugated as many locals as possible. The narrative of Sikhism itself wouldn't have formed were it not for trying to "evict" the Muslims. Sure, all that is water over the bridge. We are talking about 1000 years, afterall. But my point is that many Muslims themselves, even now, think of their community as separate from the Indian mainstream. And their elite, even as little as 60 years ago, had no problem fighting for a division of India on religious grounds. How can that be tolerated anywhere... and of course, it hasn't been to my knowledge. Perhaps East Timor, where the Christian converts insisted on separating off from Indonesia, but what a small scale that is versus the mass exodus of people in 1947 in South Asia...
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