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WAY OF LIFE'S PERSECUTION WATCH 

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July 5, 2000 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) - The following is another edition of Way of Life Literatureās Persecution Watch, which is published to encourage prayer and vigilance on the part of Bible-believing Christians:

INDIA

Dozens of incidents of violent persecution against Christians have been reported in India in the past year and a half. These include the following:

* Australian Baptist missionary Graham Staines and his two sons, ages ten and eight, were murdered in Orissa in January 1999. Staines and his boys were sleeping in the vehicle when a mob surrounded it, caught it on fire, and refused to let them out.

* Two Catholic priests have been beaten to death in Uttar Pradesh, the latest on June 7, 2000. In the latter case, the church’s cook was found dead in his cell of strangulation after being jailed by police for questioning.

* Bibles were seized from a missionary in Gujarat and burned.

* Churches were burned in Gujarat last year.

* More than 150 homes of Christians were burned in 1999 alone.

* A bomb blast at a Christian festival in May 2000 injured more than 20 people in Andhra Pradesh.

* Six Operation Mobilisation evangelists were attacked and beaten in Gujarat in May and their literature burned. One was beaten so severely it was feared he would lose his limbs.

* Bombs were exploded in four churches in Goa, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh in June 2000. Three people were injured.

* Also in June an evangelist who worked with Campus Crusade showing the Jesus film was stabbed to death in his home in northern India. His attackers also tried to burn down his house with kerosene.

All of the incidents are thought to have been carried out by militant Hindus, though the attackers are rarely caught. In areas where attacks take place, Christians describe a pervasive atmosphere of hate that has been created by Hindu groups. The local authorities have frequently been reluctant to pursue the criminals.

Alarmist unsigned literature has been distributed charging Christians with a conspiracy to take over India through "forced conversions." A loose network of Hindu groups called sangh parivar ("united family") is suspected of being behind the campaign. The group has grown in following and prestige since the Hindu-based Bharatiya Janata Party came to national power in 1998. Another Hindu group which is behind the Bharatiya Janata Party is the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). A book by M.S. Golwalker, a former leader of the RSS, identifies Muslims, Christians, and communists as the three enemies of India. The book, titled "Bunch of ‘Thoughts," states: "Wherever [Christians] have gone, they proved to be not blood-givers, but blood suckers." The book warns that if Christians do not offer their first loyalty to India, they will have to be treated as hostiles. This book is for sale in the New Delhi bookstore operated by the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led government of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, has largely been silent on the issue. This week in Italy, Vajpayee’s spokesman denied that there is an organized campaign of violence against Christians in India, calling the attacks "isolated" and "aberrational." On June 28, Home Minister L.K. Advani suggested that the attacks are largely the work of foreign agents from Pakistan.

Denials aside, the aforementioned hate literature speaks for itself, and some of the radical Hindu group leaders are openly speaking of "driving Christians from India."

One of the grave problems in this matter is that non-Christians have no means of discerning the difference between true and false Christians. Apostate Christianity has caused great harm to the name of Christ because it does not follow the Bible. Roman Catholicism, for example, has perverted the gospel by its unscriptural sacramental system; has turned Christianity into another form of idolatry with its doctrine of the mass, the papacy, the saints, and Mary; has been guilty at times of forced conversions; and has brought great reproach upon Christ by the unholy lives of many of its priests and by its failure to produce genuine Christian holiness in its adherents. The mainline Protestant denominations in India are not much better. The average Protestant pastor does not even believe in the infallibility of the very Bible he (or she) preaches. The average Protestant church member does not take the Bible seriously in his or her daily life.

This is not to excuse those who are persecuting Christians in India, but it is important to remember that not everything that calls itself Christian is the genuine article when compared with the Bible pattern.

India, with a population of one billion, is 85 percent Hindu and roughly 2.3 percent "Christian," referring to every type of denomination and cult that calls itself by that term.