Hindu Mob Attacks U.S. Missionaries in Bombay

[kskiska]

BOMBAY (Reuters) - Angry Hindu youths beat three American missionaries and tried to kidnap one as they held a bible studies class in Bombay, police said on Monday.

About 30 or 40 men attacked the three, part of a group of eight, on Saturday night because they thought the missionaries were trying to convert Hindus in the Indian financial capital.

The three were treated for bruises and cuts at a hospital but were not seriously injured, police said.

(snip)

Christians are often accused of "forcibly" converting poor and uneducated low-caste Hindus by bribing them with money and gifts, a charge missionaries deny. Some states have outlawed forcible conversions.

more…
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050613/ts_nm/india_missionaries_assault_dc

[xchrom]

1. NO MEGA CULTURE!

[Ravenseye]

2. It's a serious problem not only there.

Some missionaries don't push religion at all, they just pass out food or whatever is needed, bring doctors in.

Too many though force people to attend a service. The old skid row "a hymn and a meal" has turned into "a full court press for conversion and then a meal"

People "convert" without realy thinking just to get more food. They might not really believe or anything. They're just hungry. Then the brainwashing begins.

Not just in India, but in Africa too.

[gratuitous]

6. Excellent point

Our congregation includes a wonderful woman who was a missionary in India for 37 years. During all that time, she and the people she worked with tried very hard to encourage Christians without offending others, and cooperated with local authorities in making a space where everyone could worship freely. In a country where some 2% of people identified as Christian, it was a fine line to walk and required an openness and tolerance that is sadly lacking in these more sectarian times.

She has mentioned more than once that there was a big difference between missionaries who commit to serving an open-ended term and those who go for 18 months or a couple of years.

[spinbaby]

8. Not just India or Africa

Pennsylvania, too. In the smallish PA city I live in, you can get free food or medical care if you're willing to put up with the preaching. And there are many who are poor enough to put up with it.

[NWHarkness]

3. More media weasel-speak

"About 30 or 40 men attacked the three, part of a group of eight, on Saturday night because they thought the missionaries were trying to convert Hindus in the Indian financial capital."

Why say "they thought" the missionaries were trying to convert Hindus? They WERE trying to convert Hindus. That's what they were there for.

[PATRICK]

5. "financial capital"

I wonder what relationship is being drawn here between the story and the location.

Thugs hired by corporate Hindu nationalist drive out infectious competitors of the Mammonite Christian Bush Cult. Or Christians assail the shores of Mammon. Or, exploiting the divisions of the poor and mega rich. Some rich dynamics hinted at here. The rural areas we often identify with ripe missionary territory are usually the most conservative with their old religion no matter what. Missionaries there have come to understand they must make themselves useful and not preach much. In the sprawling misery of cities however the service can be dispensed with quite a bit and spiritual hungers sated immediately with the hope of change. Low service, low demands on missionaries, easy pickings, but there is another kind of trouble in urban settings for the unwary of other cultures.

Too few facts in the report. Too much potential for spinning the story pro Westernm Christian.

[RPM]

16. yep wtf else do missionaries do?

yoga?

[havocmom]

4. Combine this with the AF Academy being run by/for Evangelicals

and one should fear a return to the methods of the Conquistadors in the Americas. Spreading the christian (won't use a capital C for what armies do) word by holding a sword as a cross and letting indigenous people make the choice of how they would accept the cross

When clerics in the ME first grumbled about America starting another Crusade, I passed it off as just one religious group spreading dis-info about another. Seems I owe many foreign clerics an apology.

There are idiots who are indeed involved in yet another Crusade. This is what comes from failure to learn and comprehend history. Ignorance is NOT bliss. It is the main ingredient in creating hell on earth. That some religious groups are intent on fostering ignorance is evidence of who they are really working for.

I used to not believe in Satan. Now, I am rethinking that too. :shrug:

[eissa]

7. When will we start doing that here?

I am so sick of these people. It's one thing to help the poor, as real Christians are supposed to do. It's another to go over and convert them, forcibly or not. In many countries, religion is tied to culture; undo their religion and you're basically clawing away at their national identity.

[librechik]

9. The Fristians will have to start burning witches before we turn on em

cuz most of us still try to follow the teachings of Christ, not Dobson.

[DinahMoeHum]

10. "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. . ."

"...Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

- Mohandas Gandhi


:smoke:

[The Magistrate]

11. One Of The Problems, Ma'am

Is evident from the charge in the article here, that missionaries forcibly convert low-caste Hindus. To me, this smacks of "outside agitators" riling up our "local Negroes." So long as Hinduism has been subject to competition from other faiths, the miserable situation of the lower caste persons has been a standing weakness, offering an excellent point for penetration. Why a person of untouchable caste should wish to remain a part of the religious and social structure that so oppresses him or her is quite beyond me. It does not seem either trickery or force would be required to detatch the allegiance of many such persons from it. The distress of higher caste persons at the prospect of a diminished pool of persons to look down on and tyrannize over is understandable, but to my view hardly evokes sympathy.

[The Stranger]

12. Seriously doubtful:

These "Christians" wince at the very mention of Marx. And their theology seeks to control rather than to liberate.

[The Magistrate]

14. Could You Clarify, Sir?

The comment mystifies me.

The orientation or intention of the missionaries was beside the point of my comments, which focused on the motivation of converts drawn from certain segments of Hindu social structure, and the roots of opposition to conversion among persons occupying other positions in that structure. It is a structure that, by designating some persons for lives of abuse, opens an avenue for penetration by competing confessions that is obvious, and well documented historically, by both Islamic and Christian prosetylization.

Whatever one's feelings concerning Christian missionaries and their doctrines, both religious and social, the fact remains that a preaching which includes, as missionary work in India certainly does, the proclaimation that all believers are equal before God, makes a powerful appeal in egalitarian style to persons raised in a religious structure that condemns them as defiling filth to their very shadow, and a social structure that sanctions their physical abuse and lynching in many instances.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

18. Questions for you....

1. Do you know the percentage of the various castes present in the mob that attacked the missionaries?

2. Do you support the kind of overseas missionary work that involves the religious conversion of native populations?

3. Why do people who fall into the "lower income" brackets here in the US choose to remain a part of a social and economic structure that oppresses him or her?

[The Magistrate]

19. Briefly, Sir

The caste identity of the violent resistance by the Hindu Nationalists to missionary work is pretty well known; this is hardly the first incidence. The complaint of higher caste leadership, and the problem of low caste "desertion", has remained consistent from the first appearance of Islam in the sub-continent. Doubtless some in the mob may have been middle or lower caste persons: the leadership, and the finaces, come from higher caste elemnets.

You will find few persons on this forum, Sir, with less regard for organized religion than me. It is true that some missionaries do good works, but it is reprehensible when, as is often the case, these good works are conditioned on conversion. But it does not seem to me that persons are required in any wise not to shift their religious beliefs, providing it is not the result of duress. It is certainly my belief that human liberty trumps all concerns, and where a system disadvantages individuals in cruel and demeaning ways, draping a cloak of religiousity over the thing will not move me the least fraction of a millimeter in my opposition to, and detestation of, thar structure.

In many instances, Sir, those disadvantaged in our society do so through religious attachments, and also through patriotic attachments. In many instances, they feel a distinct spirituality to the doing, and are quite aware they are "rising above mere materialism" in supporting policies that disadvantage their immediate economic interests in favor of the good of their faith and country, as they conceive them. Doubtless there are untouchables in India who similarly feel, having internalized the religious strictures which condemn them, that their treatment proper and good. Those who rehect this, however, deserve our support, just as a fundamentalist Christian in our countty who comes to realize he is being rooked by the reactionaries and resolves to act accordingly deserves our support and welcome to our ranks.

[mom cat]

13. Guess they were trying to tell the missionaries to "Go OM"

:sarcasm:

[RPM]

15. Good. Serves those arrogant fuckers right

Maybe people don't want to worship their stupid god...

[kskiska]

17. UPDATE ON STORY! India to deport US missionaries

Four American missionaries have been asked to leave India for what police say is a violation of visa regulations.

(snip)

Police told the BBC that the men entered India on tourist visas, but were found preaching religion.

They say two of them have already left Mumbai, and the other two are waiting to catch the next available flight.

Police say a group of local Hindus beat up the missionaries, because they angered over their attempts to convert local Hindus.

more…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4088594.stm