by “Religious freedom laws” recently passed in the Indian states of Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh are targeted at Christian missionaries and their converts.
Freedom? Essentially, if you want to renounce Christianity and return to Hinduism or other traditional religions, you won’t be penalized. Otherwise, you need to apply thirty days in advance most likely to have your petition denied. If you fail to give notice of your intent to convert, you’ll be fined and/or imprisioned for up to three years.
Gospel for Asia’s site quotes national BJP chief Rajnath Singh who admitted to ordering all state governments to bring in:
“legislation forcefully punishing conversions to the purpose of destroying the plans of Christian missionaries.”
Overt persecution. How far are we from this in America? Please pray for the millions of women, men, and children who now face even higher stakes in making their choice about eternity.
If you’re an untouchable in India, why on Earth would you remain a Hindu? That’s what’s driving this anti-Christian sentiment; They’re losing their slaves.
I think there’s going to be more and more pressure as India gets more modern to make it so that the caste system is either going to have to be re-orchestrated or more people will be leaving the Hindu religion.
That being said, it’s not a stretch to see it in this nation where the government would mandate that you cannot practice or share your faith outside of your house or place of worship. The trend seems to be that personal faith is fine, just don’t display or talk about your faith any where. And that is scary.
Exactly, in regards to both comments.
And if spiritual threat wasn’t enough, now the annual monsoons (worse than normal) are wiping out large areas in India…over a thousand died just the first week due to flooding…
If you want to be updated on the persecuted church, visit this site regularly:
http://www.compassdirect.org/
I put a feed of it into my rss-reader.
We do not know how lucky we are, living in “civilized” countries…