Posted on 07/24/2005 8:39:12 PM PDT by ttsmi
Pass the facts -- the church in India is not officially persecuted -- there are lunatic fringes who do carry out attacks, but they are condemned -- remember that the guy who murdered the missionary was given the death sentence recently.
That was one guy -- a scapegoat, at that. Staines and hsi two young sons were murdered by a group of Hindu militants who surrounded their jeep while they were sleeping in it, set it on fire, and chanted "Victory to Hannuman." This was not a bunch of lunatics; according to the newspapers that reported the incident, it was an arm of the RSS, which is the parent organization of the party that was in power at the time. (Not that the Congress Party is any better.)
The church is persecuted. There have been thousands of deaths since Christmas 1998. A Christian religious festival on the theme "Jesus Is the Answer" was broken up by police gunfire. Several states have passed laws making it illegal to convert to any religion other than Hinduism. Priests ahve been murdered; nuns have been raped; churches have been burned; Christian schools have been vandalized with impunity. No one has been punished for any of it.
Missionary Joseph Cooper of Pennsylvania was beaten so severely that he had to spend a week in the hospital. Rather than punish his attackers, India threw Cooper out of the country.
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