Posted on 05/26/2007 5:40:02 AM PDT by Esther Ruth
Friday, May 25, 2007
FAITH UNDER FIRE 'We must fine you because you're a Christian' Convert loses family, home, crops in Hindu crackdown
Posted: May 25, 2007 1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
In a nation where 75 percent of the population is Hindu, there was a congregation of four Christians in his small village when Rajan expressed a faith in Jesus Christ. But that's back down to three after he lost his family and crops, and was forced to leave his home and village, because of his conversion, according to new documentation obtained by the Voice of the Martyrs.
Sources within Nepal, the mountainous nation sandwiched between India and China that holds Mt. Everest, have told the Voice of the Martyrs that the persecution campaign encompassed all parts of Rajan's life when he became a Christian.
"Hindu neighbors have dug up Rajan's cauliflower and potatoes," the VOM reported its sources confirmed. "He has lost his whole year's income."
Villagers took every opportunity to make life difficult for him, including their response when some water from his field inadvertently spilled onto a neighbor's land, the sources reported.
"He was recently fined 6,000 rupees (about $100, a large sum in Nepal), after water from his field spilled over into a neighbor's field," the VOM sources reported. "Normally, this would not be a problem, but the neighbors consider water from Rajan's field unclean because he is a Christian.
"Normally, we wouldn't fine you, but because you changed your religion and became a Christian, you need to pay 6,000 rupees," the villagers told him, according to VOM.
(Story continues below)
They even turned Rajan's wife and family against him, and he was forced to leave his home, to stay with a pastor briefly, and then to move to another village.
"When Rajan left his home to live with the pastor he was sad, but said his experiences had made Jesus more precious to him than before," the Voice of the Martyrs reported. "His pastor told us that as persecuted believers, they have learned that one of the results of persecution is that Jesus becomes much more precious to them."
VOM reported, however, that Rajan's faith was unshaken.
"No matter what you do to me, I will not leave Christ," Rajan told his Hindu neighbors.
The nation of Nepal, about the size of Arkansas, for decades has been a Hindu kingdom with Hinduism the national religion. About three-quarters of its population is Hindu, another 15 percent Buddhist and about 5 percent Muslim. Christians are estimated at between one and two percent of the population.
Officially, Christians were not allowed to live in Nepal at all before 1960, and while they now are allowed by the government, they often suffer persecution at the hands of family, friends and villagers.
The nation's tolerance of persecution of Christians often has raised concerns around the world, and the issue was raised internationally again not long ago when British Parliamentarian David Alton wrote to Nepalese officials.
"I am disturbed by reports that [a Hindu group] wishes to kill the main Christian leaders in Nepal and to destroy the church buildings," he wrote. "Hatred is also being incited in local newspapers against Christians. I am told that Christians have been falsely accused of involvement in Maoist activity, drug trafficking and trafficking of girls for prostitution.
"The reality is that the churches are doing good works such as providing homes for orphans, help for the poorest of the poor, giving humanitarian and medical aid and education for the underprivileged as well as taking care of the spiritual welfare of the people," he said.
The nation also endured a civil war, which came to an end only last year as the government and Maoist rebels signed a Comprehensive Peace Accord, bringing an end to the officially recognized Hindu monarchy and creating a secular government for the first time.
VOM also recently has reported that Hindus in India also have been cracking down on Christians, forcing some to "reconvert."
The Voice of the Martyrs said the most recent physical attacks were reported from inside the Indian state of Orissa, but other attacks also have come to international attention, including verbal attacks that have generated from the Hindu community within the United States.
WND recently reported that Hindus have been launching a series of attacks against Christian organizations dedicated to promoting the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
A report from the Hindu American Foundation accused a long list of Christian organizations, including some providing aid in India, of promoting hatred.
"The proliferation of websites promoting religious hatred is an unfortunate consequence of the universality of access to the internet," said Vinay Vallabh, the lead author of the report.
Among those targeted verbally included the Southern Baptists' missions board, Gospel for Asia and the Minnesota-based Olive Tree Ministries, which aims its ministry at teaching Christians about their beliefs.
"We must vigorously identify, condemn and counter those who use the Internet to espouse chauvinism and bigotry over the principles of pluralism and tolerance," Vallabh said.
Voice of the Martyrs is a non-profit, interdenominational ministry working worldwide to help Christians who are persecuted for their faith, and to educate the world about that persecution. Its headquarters are in Bartlesville, Okla., and it has 30 affiliated international offices.
It was launched by the late Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand, who started smuggling Russian Gospels into Russia in 1947, just months before Richard was abducted and imprisoned in Romania where he was tortured for his refusal to recant Christianity.
He eventually was released in 1964 and the next year he testified about the persecution of Christians before the U.S. Senate's Internal Security Subcommittee, stripping to the waist to show the deep torture wound scars on his body.
The group that later was renamed The Voice of the Martyrs was organized in 1967, when his book, "Tortured for Christ," was released.
“And take they our life, goods, fame, child, and wife,
Let these all be gone,
They have yet nothing won,
The Kingdom ours remaineth.”
from “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” by Martin Luther.
I thought Hindus were into flakey tolerance of some sort? Forgot the “tolerance” crowd can’t stand anyone who doesn’t accept everything.
I know a priest that works in India. For the most part, he reports relations with local Hindus are very good. As for the Muslims in India, I’ve never seen a mild-mannered priest get so worked up about those SOBs.
This persecution by Hindu’s of Christians seems to be stepping up.I wonder if our buddies the moooooooooooooslims are their inspiration ???
That's the Buddhists
I wonder if they “fine” the Muzzies?
It’s okay. God will see to it he is more fully rewarded. The Hindus will not benefit by their stupidity.
Yeah well, somehow it will be America’s fault...
This is mnothing unusual. It is only in America that we have become insulated from the cost of following Christ.
‘Church backing Tripura rebels’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/south_asia/717775.stm
The government in India’s north-eastern state of Tripura says it has evidence that the state’s Baptist Church is involved in backing separatist rebels.
Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar said state police had uncovered details of the alleged link after questioning a church leader.
Nagmanlal Halam, secretary of the Noapara Baptist Church in Tripura, was arrested late on Monday with a large quantity of explosives.
Mr Sarkar said that allegations about the close links between the state’s Baptist Church and the rebel National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) have long been made by political parties and police.
Now for the first time, he said, hard evidence supporting the allegations had been found.
Explosives
Mr Sarkar told the BBC that Mr Halam was found in possession of more than 50 gelatine sticks, 5kg of potassium and 2kg of sulphur and other ingredients for making explosives.
Chief Minister Sarkar says he has proof
He said that two other junior members of the same church, arrested last week, had tipped the police off about the explosives which were meant for the NLFT rebels.
The chief minister said that Mr Halam confessed to buying and supplying explosives to the NLFT for the past two years.
Another church official, Jatna Koloi, was arrested in south Tripura last week.
Police say Mr Koloi had received training in guerrilla warfare at an NLFT base last year.
Conversion
Guards have been placed outside the headquarters of the Baptist Church in Tripura’s capital, Agartala, to prevent possible attacks on it once the news of Mr Halam’s arrest spread.
The NLFT is accused of forcing Tripura’s indigenous tribes to become Christians and give up Hindu forms of worship in areas under their control.
Last year, they issued a ban on the Hindu festivals of Durga Puja and Saraswati Puja.
The NLFT manifesto says that they want to expand what they describe as the kingdom of God and Christ in Tripura.
The Baptist Church in Tripura was set up by missionaries from New Zealand 60 years ago.
It won only a few thousand converts until 1980 when in the aftermath, of the state’s worst ethnic riot, the number of conversions grew.
__________________________________________________________
National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT)
The National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) was formed in December 1989 for the purpose of seceding from India in order to create an independent Christian fundamentalist state of Tripura. The group was banned under the Unlawful Activies Prevention Act of 1967.
The headquarters of NLFT is located in the Khagrachari district of Bangladesh, about 40-45 km southeast of Simanapur.
In Tripura a systematic surrender of arms by a faction of NLFT insurgents and NLFT fringe groups is due to the increased security pressure and to infighting within NLFT insurgent ranks. Since 2000 a few hundred militants have surrendered in small groups to the security forces, handing in their weapons. The NLFT leadership engaged in peace talks with Mizoram Chief Zoramthanga in April 2001, however the NLFT has not promised acceptance of any future peace process.
The NLFT has set up a number of camps in Bangladesh’s Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), in the Sylhet, Maulavi Bazar, Habiganj and Comilla regions. NLFT also has ties with Pakistan’s external intelligence agency, the Inter Services Intelligence Agency (ISI).
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/nlft.htm
Nepal Ping!
If they are self-acclaimed ‘Baptists’, and if they are doing it under that banner, then it doesn’t make them any better, or any different than/from the “Hindus” doing the same misdeeds. Say wot?
If you replace 'Baptist' with 'Hindu'...
This cannot be said to show evidence that Christians Hindus are engaging in violent rebellions, just that some local yokels are, and who knows how they've interwoven their tiny church group and its teachings into their local rebellion.
Agree?
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