Missionary
Activity And Secularism In Light Of The Pope's Visit To India
By David Frawley
http://swordoftruth.com/swordoftruth/articles/revelation/revelation.html
Secularism is based
upon a separation of church and state, removing religious control over the government. It
arose to counter the influence of the church on politics and the religious sanction given
to kings and their armies during the Middle Ages. Secularism grants freedom of religion to
all citizens. It recognizes that many different religions exist and that people should be
free to follow any or none of these. It regards differences in religion like those of
race, language or culture, as incidental more than fundamental, and as involving the
private life rather than the political sphere.
Opposite to secularism, both in ideas and
in practice, is missionary activity, which is the attempt to convert the world to a single
religious belief. Starting from the Christian takeover of the Roman Empire in the fourth
century, European governments have used their influence to promote the conversion process.
In time this gave rise to the Inquisition and to colonial efforts to convert native
peoples. It resulted in a history of violence and genocide on a global scale that
literally devastated the populations of entire continents. Missionaries used the political
and military might of Christian states to discredit other religious beliefs, conquer other
religious groups and destroy their holy places.
While modern secular Western states have removed overt religious
influences from their governments, they have not removed the influence of religion
altogether. In a democratic society any group that can produce votes becomes valuable.
Western political leaders cultivate good relations with Western religious leaders in order
to access their political goodwill.
Western governments
today favor their majority religions in foreign affairs. It is obvious to see how much
more sensitive Western Christian countries are to the welfare of the Christian community
overseas than they are to the welfare of the non-Christian community. Religious oppression
of Christians is quickly highlighted in the Western media, while oppression of
non-Christians is seldom regarded as newsworthy. The entire history of Christian
conversion activity is forgotten, as if the missionaries were only charity workers with no
overt religious agenda!
A good example is Robert A. Seiple, the American
ambassador-at-large for International Religious Freedom. Is the man a seasoned diplomat,
sensitive to other cultures and religions, as would be expected for the post? No, he was
for eleven years the head of World Vision, the largest privately funded relief and
development organization in the world, which is a Christian charity and connected to
various missionary activities.
Seiple was formerly President of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He
is a Christian missionary, which on the Protestant side is dominated by the Baptists. A
person with such a background is inappropriate for the role that he has been given, which
would be like giving it to a Catholic priest. It reflects an American religious bias not a
diplomatic sensitivity and objectivity. Not surprisingly, his report on religious freedom
in the world highlights oppression of Christians but ignores oppression perpetrated by
Christians, as if Christian groups were entirely innocent of any wrong doing anywhere!
Even the secular West will bow to religious influences when it
deems necessary. The result is that missionary activity, which was the main arm of the
religious state, is learning to hide itself under the guise of modern secularism, working
to subvert it from behind the scenes now that its overt control is a thing of the past.
Let us not forget its history. Missionary activity first arose in
a religious state as its main means of expansion. Missionary activity per se is the
extension of a medieval state attitude - that there is only one true religion like only
one true king. It has had a long alliance with colonialism and with racism, with colonial
armies marching with priests and friars, denigrating non-White religions as pagan and
barbaric.
Missionary activity, therefore, is the very denial of secularism,
which it has regarded as its enemy. The missionary movement holds that only one religion
is true for humanity. It creates funds and personnel to convert the world to the one true
faith. It targets the poor and uneducated who are vulnerable to favors. It does not work
through reason or through friendly debate but through every sort of persuasion and
intimidation, friendly or unfriendly.
Secularism and Missionary Activity in the New World Order
The
problem for new democracies of the post-colonial era like India is that foreign
missionaries use the very freedom of a secular state to promote their anti-secular
agendas. A free state means that missionary activity is allowed and that conversion is
tolerated. In a colonial state, one religion, that of the foreign rulers was favored at
the expense of the others. In a free state, Western missionary religions can use the
greater wealth of Western countries, which perpetuates their advantage. They also
manipulate the Western dominated world media for their cause. For this reason a Hindu
Swami in India is ill equipped in terms of money and media facing Christian missionary
forces in his own country. He is dealing with the multi-national conversion business that
has tremendous resources at its disposal, to use with little scrutiny or accountability.
The very groups that denied or limited religious freedom during
their colonial rule now want to make sure that religious freedom is maintained in their
former colonies, not because they honor diversity in religion, but to maintain their
conversion efforts and to sustain the minorities that they carved out by their missionary
activity. Such an action is hypocritical to say the least. It doesn't represent a change
of heart by the missionaries. It is not a sign of their new secularism but merely a
convenient way to keep their agendas going in the changing world order.
Christianity is today and has historically been an anti-secular
religion. Christian churches may tolerate the laws of living in secular countries, but
they have not yet adopted a secular acceptance that many religious and spiritual paths can
be valid and that no one religion has the last word. One could argue that any religion
based upon an exclusive belief, thinking that only its religion, bible, prophet or savior
is true, is inherently anti-secular.
Islam is more obviously anti-secular than Christianity because it
generally has no separation of church and state. Christianity was compromised by a
resurgence of earlier Greco-Roman pagan ideas of pluralism and democracy, but though
softened has still not given up its goal of converting the world. Christianity needs to go
forward with its reformation by giving up its exclusivism and apologizing for its history
of intolerance. The Islamic world needs a similar reformation to begin as it stands much
where Christianity was at the end of the Middle Ages, still harshly controlling the minds
and lives of its people and preventing any religious diversity from arising.
The Pope's Visit
The pope's upcoming visit to India is a product of the same old
anti-secular and intolerant Christian conversion agenda, which has not fundamentally
changed throughout the centuries. The pope can be described, though perhaps
unflatteringly, as a Christian chauvinist leader encouraging massive conversion efforts to
eliminate non-Christian beliefs. He is not a bringer of peace but a destroyer of culture.
The pope has never stated that any other religion is as good as Christianity. He has never
said that Jesus is not the only Son of God. He has never said that salvation can come from
outside the church or apart from Jesus. He has made statements of brotherhood, peace and
tolerance but has not removed the barrier of religious intolerance and exclusivity that
upholds these. All Hindus, including the so-called fundamentalists, have not made such
chauvinistic statements as the pope. They recognize the existence of many religions and of
many paths. They are not promoting the idea that Hinduism alone is the true path and that
non-Hindus must go to hell. They are not insisting that everyone in the world become a
Hindu. They are not asking everyone to bow to Kailash or Kashi.
Recently Ashok Singhal, head of the (VHP) Vishwa Hindu Parishad,
asked the pope to "announce that Christianity is one of the ways that can lead to
salvation and not that Christianity is the only way to salvation." The newspapers
called Singhal a "hardline" Hindu leader but did not accuse the pope of being
rigid in his views. Yet Singhal accepts a pluralism to religion and salvation but the pope
does not. In terms of ordinary religious discourse Singhal has more liberal views than the
pope does but he is called a hardliner because he is questioning the missionary process! A
very statement asking the pope to affirm religious tolerance is itself styled intolerant!
In other words Hindus should tolerate the effort to convert them but it is intolerant for
Hindus to question the motives or ideas of those who denigrate their religion. That such
statements are accepted in the modern media shows how deep-seated the anti-Hindu and
pro-missionary bias is.
Make no mistake about it. The pope is not a friend of
Hindus. His visit is organized to promote his evangelization activities, his targeting
Hindu India for Christian conversion. The pope wants to convert Hindu India to
Christianity. He would be happy if all Hindu temples were abandoned in favor of churches.
He would be happy if all the swamis, sadhus and yogis either became Christian priests or
disappeared altogether. He has no praise for a Ramana Maharshi, a Sri Aurobindo, a
Ramakrishna, or a Shankaracharya. He does not honor the Vedas and the Gita like the Bible.
He does not allow pujas to the Gods or the chanting of Om in churches. He has nowhere
apologized for the use of the Inquisition in India or elsewhere. He has nowhere said that
Hindus won't go to hell. He may claim to honor India's spiritual traditions but not to the
extent that it requires him giving up his efforts to convert Hindus.
Let all Hindus therefore ask the pope to say that he respects
Hinduism, that Hinduism can also lead people to the ultimate goal of life, and that
Catholic efforts to convert Hindus are a mistake. Let the pope repeat the mantra of sarvadharma
samabhava, that all dharmic teachings are in accord, and ekamsad vipra bahudha
vadanti, that the enlightened seers declare the One Truth in various ways.
Let the pope have a conference in Rome and bring the main Hindu
religious leaders to dialogue with Catholic leaders on the nature of God, consciousness,
the universe and immortality. Let such dialogue occur above board, out in the open and
with the educated people in the field, rather than a secretive Christian targeting of poor
Hindus. This would be the correct procedure if discover of truth was the goal of such
encounters.
If the pope will not do these things then let us call him an
intolerant and chauvinistic religious fundamentalist, which is what such behavior would be
called in a Hindu. And let Hindus stop bowing out of respect to the pope, prostrating to a
religious leader who does not respect their religion, who is in fact plotting its
downfall. It is time for Hindus to take the offensive on religious tolerance and freedom,
even if it means confronting the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church has been in India
for centuries. There is no reason why Catholic leaders can't appreciate the Vedas,
Upanishads or modern Hindu teachers as having insights as great as those of Jesus. And
this should be done starting with the pope, not with some Indian priest that has no real
power in the church or influence outside of India.
Let the Christians in India not appeal to Hindu tolerance but show their
own tolerance and acceptance of other faiths by saying that though we believe in Christ we
also accept Rama, Krishna and Buddha as sons of God. Let them declare a unity of religions
that includes Hinduism and Buddhism as true faiths and does not require placing Jesus at
the top for everyone. While Christians in India are unlikely to do this, the challenge for
them to do so is bound to impact their community and cause a deeper introspection.
As long as we hold that only one religion is true, that it must
convert the world, and that other religions must be false we are not good citizens with
respect for all, much less secular people. We are promoting an agenda of intolerance and
violence that must cause conflict and suffering, even if we are doing so in the name of
God. If we truly honor the Divine we will recognize the Divine Self in all and will afford
each individual their own perspective on truth and their own search for enlightenment, not
to be circumscribed according to a church or a creed. If the West is so modern and
enlightened it should stop exporting its intolerant medieval religions and become open to
the great wisdom of the yogis and sadhus of India. Then a real basis for religious
tolerance and spiritual growth could occur without obstruction.
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