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By David F. Dawes
AS rampant violence by Hindu extremists was escalating against Christians in India, the head of a major Indian ministry gave CC.com his assessment of the situation.
While visiting British Columbia late last week to promote his organization's church planting activities, Saji Lukos of Reaching Indians Ministries International (RIMI) noted that his group is very active in Orissa, the state where most of the recent violence has occurred.
"We have 70 missionaries, an orphanage and a Bible school," he said. "Many of our people are in the forest, hiding. We got one email saying the Hindus were looking for them, to kill them."
Another email from one of his colleagues, named Surjit, also bore direct eyewitness to the catastrophe: "The Christians in Orissa are in deep trouble; 99 percent of Christians' houses are being burnt in Kandhamal district of Orissa. My house [was] also completely destroyed and looted by the Hindu militants. My parents are running for [their lives] here and there.
"My brother in law was killed and chopped into four pieces, and then set on fire. His dead body was lying for two days outside the place where he was pastoring . . . My parents are hiding in the forest for [the] last four days without food and water. We earnestly need your prayer for our families and the Christians in Orissa. The government, the administration, are just silent spectators."
"God's anger will be upon the land," said Lukos. "There will be justice, wait and see." The extremists, he stressed, "are messing with the living God. He is not an idol."
Still reeling from violence in Orissa, India's Christians suffered major blows in two other states over the past weekend.
As the Global Council of Indian Christians revised its estimate of deaths from the last two weeks of violence in Orissa from "more than 100" to 53, suspected Hindu extremists in Ratlam, Madhya Pradesh burned down the 86 year old St. Bartholomew Church of North India on September 7, according to Compass Direct News (CDN).
Christian leaders said suspected members of the Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council, or VHP) torched the building after parishioners had decorated it for its 86th anniversary, reported CDN. VHP members are also responsible for ongoing violence in Orissa state, following the killing of a VHP leader, Laxmanananda Saraswati, and four of his associates in Kandhamal district on August 23.
Thousands of houses, churches and institutions have been damaged or destroyed in the violence that began after VHP members led a funeral procession of Saraswati's body to stir up anti-Christian sentiment, according to CDN. Maoists have since claimed responsibility for the murders, but Hindu extremist groups continue to blame Christians.
Hindu militants have a history of violence in the Ratlam area, said CDN. Most recently, on August 15, VHP and Bajrang Dal members attacked a youth meeting in Ratlam after a neighbor complained, said pastor Jose Mathew.
"They beat up many participants," including a pastor, his wife and the district manager of World Vision," Mathew said. "Later the police, without any enquiry, charged [the victims] with attempted forcible conversion."
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In Chhattisgarh state about 20 Bajrang Dal extremists forced their way into a train at the Durgh railway station on September 5, reported CDN. Shouting anti-Christian slogans, they took four babies from two nuns of the Missionaries of Charity and their assistants. Subsequently the Hindu extremists beat a nun and a driver sent to help.
Christian leaders in Karnataka state reported that about 30 attackers on motorcycles and in an SUV stormed into a church service September 7 and abducted pastor R. Babu, according to CDN. After disrupting the service in the Mulbagal, Kolar district by tearing up Bibles, hymnals and curtains and beating church members, the attackers carried Pastor Babu to a temple about three miles away, and forced him to observe Hindu rituals.
They released him only after he gave a written declaration in front of the police at Mulbagal police station, stating that he would not go back to the village or continue any church activities, said CDN.
Lukos told CC.com his ministry's church planting efforts would continue, even in the face of such violent opposition. He estimated that, since its founding in 1993, RIMI has planted more than 4,000 churches in India; currently, he said, the ministry has some 1,300 missionaries operating.
Often, he said, there has been no serious opposition to evangelism. "Generally, there are good people in most communities. They have no problem accepting another god. If the father of a family accepts, it's easy for the rest of the family. In most cases, this is the first time they've heard about Christ. Then they are told they must forsake all other gods. The ones who can do that get baptized. In 2007, we had 7,200 baptisms in various churches."
In most communities, Lukos said, "we can set up a church within six months. In some places, however, there is violence. The opposition comes mainly from Hindu radicals in the community."
Despite the continuing strife, Lukos expressed optimism.
"Indeed, we are hopeful. The church will continue to grow. We are dreaming big things, for our God is a great God."
-- Additional reporting by Jeremy Reynalds, Assist News Service
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The sad plight of India's flock
Last Friday, Sept. 5, was the anniversary of Mother Teresa's death. Eleven years ago, Indians lined the streets to honour her state funeral procession. This year, her sisters, the Missionaries of Charity, encountered a rather different crowd on the anniversary. Four sisters were attacked by about 20 Bajrang Dal (a Hindu nationalist youth movement) activists and forced off a train in Chhattisgarh, a province in central India. The small mob marched the sisters to the police station, chanting anti-Christian slogans, threatening to beat them up and accusing the sisters of kidnapping the children in their care. A Hindu nationalist mob threatening violence against religious sisters who run orphanages? Sadly, that there were only threats must today be considered a blessing. In the neighbouring state of Orissa, the past fortnight has seen an outbreak of deadly anti-Christian violence -- the latest episodes in an ominous trend spanning several years.
Father Raymond J. De Souza, National Post, September 8
September 11/2008
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