Otherwise Entitled “Holy Crap” or “Coming Soon to a Nation Near You”
We’ve been watching an exponential increase in the persecution of believers in certain parts of India over the last five or six years. Besides the explosive growth of indigenous house churches there, I haven’t found much to account for the escalation of violence.
Tonight I happened across this:
“Conversion Is an Act of Violence,” by Swami Dayananda Saraswati
Aha. That would do it. If telling your neighbor about Jesus is a violent act, then coming home to a torched house and an angry mob the next day is perfectly understandable.
The problem with the swami’s argument is that he purports a 19th century notion of a Western missionary arriving in Western attire to deliver a Western gospel and decimate an Asian culture. But in reality, the vehicle for the burgeoning Asian church is Asian believers, who wear Asian clothing, who hold to a biblical gospel free of westernization, who walk next door and speak their Asian language to their Asian neighbors over Asian cuisine about Jesus. And if they are outwardly hurt because of their faith, they are inwardly all the more joyful. They’ll tell you so themselves, from their prison cells, and ask you to pray for their guards. I can see how that might frustrate the “non-aggressive” Hindu militias who dragged them there.
You can keep up with the latest news here.
Man, oh man. . .we have it REALLY easy. I know we like to complain about the liberal media and lack of rights when it comes to Christian beliefs here in the U.S.–and it IS a problem–but I can wear my Western clothing to my air-conditioned Western church building tomorrow and worship God along with my Western brothers and sisters without having to worry about being dragged off to prison.
God bless those who are suffering.
Yeah – the persecution in the West is tough.
Now I’ve been thinking about this a little more.
The other day I listened online to a livecast of the Dahli Lama speaking. I was curious to hear what he had to say. I loved the advice he gave to married people, “stop quarrelling!” He also addressed the topic of [Christians] prosteletyzing and shared his belief that each and every religion should be allowed to be, and in a very round about way he summed it up to say, “leave us alone already.”
What I find fascinating is the whole “conversion” idea. As Christians we are to love one another. Isn’t that what we are asked to do? I’ve always found it bizarre, and quite frankly a bit disturbing, when I hear people talking about the conversion count, the number of people baptized, and so on. Like you can measure the Love for God with arithmetic.
It’s tru that there are numerous “Western ways” to practice the religion of Chritianity, but it doesn’t matter where you are, there is only one way to be a faithful Christian.
It is really disgusting how caught up people get with numbers, like it’s a validation of their effectiveness or the worth of their methodology. I came out of that background, and I understand how exciting it can be when tons of people come to Christ. Sometimes it’s a valid joy, because that many people now have the new life Christ offers, but it can easily turn into self promotion– pride– and be completely un-loving.
But for the most part, believers in hostile areas of the world share Christ purely out of love. They don’t risk their lives and livelihoods to add another notch to their religious belt. If Christ is your life, and your hope, and your freedom, you would hate your neighbor if you kept that to yourself. (Part of the reason so many Hindus are embracing the Gospel is that they feel enslaved to their 330 million gods, and feel that their sin remains on their own heads no matter how hard they try to find forgiveness. They feel hopeless and afraid all the time. Westerners don’t tend to feel the weight of their sin the way the peoples of India do.) If you’re treasuring God for who He is, and the Gospel has truly revolutionized your life, then loving your neighbor is sharing Christ. Not to mention that they study Scripture, and understand that Jesus says, “If you love me, you’ll obey me.” His ultimate command was to make disciples from all nations, as we scatter over the face of the earth. We know for a fact that He was not talking about forceful conversions, or meaningless head-counts. The way He modeled this was through friendships with the unlovely, and patience, and truth, and service, and prayer. The people God has chosen are drawn to the truth without being pushed into it. Our job is to belong to Christ and speak the truth in love, and see who comes running.