"Christian" Fundamentalism in West

[Manish_Sharma]

So I sent her the e-book someone posted on the myth of St Thomas, so she can start accepting history as part of her reality, unlike people here who think that pre-1947 history is non-existent.

RamaY, can you send me this e-book on manishsharma_690 AT YAHOO DOT COM

I'll be very grateful.

[RamaY]

Sure. Tomorrow. Pls do not remove your email.

[Theo_Fidel]

RamaY,

Doesn't sting at all. It was reality. But History is real for some of us. My Great Grand mother spoke of it when I was a Child as something she dealt with and insisted I remember. So as long as this get over it thing is going on, should one not get over the Islamic massacres of Hindus as well. Yet it haunts Hindus does it not.

It is easy to forget bad things if your community did not experience them.

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Manny,

How do you define outsider. In 1947 the last 'conversion' of people took place when 1/3 of India was simply reclassified as Hindu.

It don't know about other things, but slavery very definitely existed here in the deep South. And much worse that we choose not to remember.

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Yes, Syrian Christians were largely 'upper class' folk who converted. Just as most Hindus in South India converted or were forcibly reclassified at one time.

Time to duck.

[RamaY]

Theo ji,

You forgot to add Christian attrocities on Hindus and Indian mind.

Reclassified by who?

[brihaspati]

Please do go back to fundamentalism-western-Christianity. Any insertion of "Hindu/India/Buddhist" should be clarified and shown why it is connected to the triad. Just a request.

[brihaspati]

Theo ji,
are you saying that the Islamic fundamentalist atrocity on Hindus haunt only the "Hindus"? The Christians were sufferers too isnt it - and they were witnesses too! Does atrocity on "Hindus" not haunt the Christians? If not then that should be a revelation of the true nature of fundamentalism.

[sanjaykumar]

What is deliciously ironic is that Christian atrocities on christians do not haunt Christians.

[brihaspati]

I am not sure we really want to go to this "rise" of "fundamentalism" in Christianity repeatedly brought into India/Hindu context. Also the claim being that it was such a late "feature". The Syrian writer Zenob writes that there was an Indian colony in the canton of Taron on the upper Euphrates, to the west of Lake Van, as early as the second century B.C. The Indians had built there two temples containing images of gods about 18 and 22 feet high. When, about AD 304, St. Gregory came to destroy these images, he was strongly opposed by the Hindus. But he defeated them and smashed the images.

[brihaspati]

Panikkar had an interesting thing to say about the volte-face of Syrian Christians when the Portuguese demanded "rights" - although this particular extra-territorial identity lay dormant for almost 1200 years. Theo ji - are you game for this?

[Paul]

I am not sure we really want to go to this "rise" of "fundamentalism" in Christianity repeatedly brought into India/Hindu context. Also the claim being that it was such a late "feature". The Syrian writer Zenob writes that there was an Indian colony in the canton of Taron on the upper Euphrates, to the west of Lake Van, as early as the second century B.C. The Indians had built there two temples containing images of gods about 18 and 22 feet high. When, about AD 304, St. Gregory came to destroy these images, he was strongly opposed by the Hindus. But he defeated them and smashed the images.

Are these the Mittanis...the branch that supposed moved to the west after the Saraswati dried up.

Even Wikepedia is drying up as a source of reliable info..with modernist interpretation of events gone by.

[brihaspati]

The Mittanis were millenia distant! But it is just that Indians were all around the place!

[brihaspati]

One of the aspects of the rise of "fundamentalism" in the west can be exemplified by st Augustine's definition of pagan God's as demons. What prevented the textual goodness and truth in the congregation from not blindly submitting to De Civitate Dei, where Augustine argued that "devils presented themselves to be adored, but they were no gods but wicked fiends and most foul, unclean and impotent spirits". This attitude permeated the reports of Christian travelers to India and other eastern domains - and we have proof of how this "western" fundamentalism affected their deliberate misrepresentations of Indian religious practices and idols/sculptures.

Father Odoric of Podenone, was in South India from CE 1316 to 1318. He described "a monstrous idol in the form of half man and half ox". The "monster at Quilon in South India gave responses from its mouth and demanded the blood of forty virgins to be given to it." This was used in a painting by Boucicau Master, the famous 15th century illuminator of manuscripts in Paris, in Livres de marveilles, a famous manuscript, "on human sacrifice taking place in Quilon in front of an idol." This painting is the known first instance of assigning horns and goat-head to an Indian god which had until now been the common features of the devil.

The Italian traveller, Ludovico di Varthema, from Bologna who was in South India between CE 1503 and 1508, described the prevalent religion as the Raja of Calicut paying "respect to a devil known as Deumo in these parts." [Itineratio, CE 1510]. The Raja of Calicut, he wrote, “keeps this Deumo in his chapel in his palace." The chapel had in its midst "a devil made of metal" having "four horns and four teeth with a very large mouth, nose and most terrible eyes." Its hands were "made like those of a flesh-hook and the feet like those of a cock." Varthema saw many more devils in "pictures around the said chapel." On each side of the chapel, he found a Satan "seated in a seat, which seat is placed in a flame of fire, wherein are a great number of souls, of the length of half a finger and a finger of the hand." He concluded his account of the Raja’s chapel by stating that the Satan "holds a soul in his mouth with the right hand and with the other seizes a soul by the waist."

An illustrated edition of Varthema’s Itineratio was published in Germany in 1515. The Deumo of Calicut came alive in a woodcut by an Augsburg artist. Varthema was translated in all major European languages and ran into numerous illustrated editions. It became the best travel guide for most European visitors to India during the two succeeding centuries. Modern scholars find the obviosu discrepancy between real sculptures, and these descriptions - and the onlee conclusions is that, it was the "western" fundamentalism that even blinded the Christian "viewer" and they saw something else in place of reality. A significant aspect of fundamentalism.

[brihaspati]

What about Francis Xaviers - the patron saint of the "East"? Was he a fundamentalist or not? If he is - then any org who still endorses him or fails to reject him - is fundamentalist in ideology too! This is the problem with conformist dogma, where every member must officially share in the official position - thereby making "fundamentalism" a shared attribute.

[ramana]

In a recent study, the Barna Research Group revealed a stunning statistic that continues to reverberate throughout the evangelical world. Only 9 percent of professing Christians have a biblical worldview. Because of this, today's believers live very similarly to non-believers.

[brihaspati]

True - there are now stats which show officially Christian but admitting atheism too. So the fundamentalism is within that 9%!

[brihaspati]

The EJ methods are being claimed to be a modern method and a recent phenomenon - but they are part of the fundamentalism that developed early on. I said that without understanding what happened towards Indians - fundamentalism cannot be fully understood.

T. R. de Souza [ M. D. David (ed.), Western Colonialism in Asia and Christianity, Bombay, 1988] “At least from 1540 onwards and in the island of Goa before that year, all the Hindu idols had been annihilated or had disappeared, all the temples had been destroyed and their sites and building materials were in most cases utilised to erect new Christian churches and chapels. Various vice regal and Church council decrees banished the Hindu priests from the Portuguese territories; the public practice of Hindu rites including marriage rites, was banned; the state took upon itself the task of bringing up the Hindu orphan children; the Hindus were denied certain employments, while the Christians were preferred; it was ensured that the Hindus would not harass those who became Christians, and on the contrary, the Hindus were obliged to assemble periodically in churches to listen to preaching or to the refutation of their religion.
[...]
A particularly grave abuse was practised in Goa in the form of ‘mass baptism’ and what went before it. The practice was begun by the Jesuits and was later initiated by the Franciscans also. The Jesuits staged an annual mass baptism on the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul (25 January), and in order to secure as many neophytes as possible, a few days before the ceremony the Jesuits would go through the streets of the Hindu quarters in pairs, accompanied by their Negro slaves, whom they would urge to seize the Hindus. When the blacks caught up a fugitive, they would smear his lips with a piece of beef, making him an ‘untouchable’ among his people. Conversion to Christianity was then his only option.
[...]
...the government transferred to the Church and religious orders the properties and other sources of revenue that had belonged to the Hindu temples that had been demolished or to the temple servants who had been converted or banished. Entire villages were taken over at times for being considered rebellious and handed over with all their revenues to the Jesuits. In the villages that had submitted themselves, at times en masse, to being converted, the religious orders promoted competition to build bigger and bigger churches and more chapels than their neighbouring villages. Such a competition, drawing funds and diverting labour, from other important welfare works of the village, was decisively bringing the village economy in Goa into bankruptcy."

Dr. Sisir Kumar Das [The Shadow of the Cross, New Delhi, 1974]
writes that in Bengal "The conversion of the Bengalis into Christianity not only coincided with the activities of the Portuguese pirates in Bengal but the pirates took an active interest in it." The Augustinians and Jesuits manned the mission with bases at Chittagong [one of the hubs of the slave trade] in East Bengal and Bandel and Hooghly in West Bengal. Mission stations were established at many places in the interior. "It was the boast of the Hooghly Portuguese that they made more Christians in a year by forcible conversions, of course, than all ,the missionaries in the East in ten. [Dr. P. Thomas, Christians and Christianity in India and Pakistan, London, 1954]

The Portuguese captured the young prince of Bhushna, a Dhaka region zamindari estate. He was converted by an Augustinian friar, Father D’Rozario and named Dom Antonio de Rozario. The prince, in turn, "converted" 20,000 Hindus in and around his estate. Dr. Das writes that "The Jesuits came forward to help the neophytes to minister to the needs of the converts and this created bitterness between Augustinians and Jesuits... In 1677, the Provincial at Goa deputed Father Anthony Magalheans, the Rector of the College at Agra, to visit and report on this problem. According to his report nearly 25,000, if not more, converts were there but they had hardly any knowledge of Christianity.... ". He also observed that many of them became Christians to get money. The Marsden Manuscripts now preserved in the British Museum containing letters of Jesuit Fathers, give evidence that Portuguese missionaries gave money to prospective converts to allure them.

Conversion was consciously not about change of "heart" - just as it is now. Frey Duarte Nunes, the prelate of Goa, in 1522, declares, "even if the first generation of converts was attracted by rice or by any other way and could hardly be expected to become good Christians, yet their children would become so with intensive indoctrination, and each successive generation would be more firmly rooted."

[sanjaykumar]

As the bumper sticker states: My karma just ran over your dogma.

[brihaspati]

When objectives take priority over methods, any method can be justified - for instance, since the text does not explicitly forbid some "method", there is no reason not to justify it as long as it apparently helps the "objective". The debate and claim that the method of modern "fundamentalists" is wrong because that is not what has been "revealed" is focusing on a false premise - the textual logic does not prevent many such methods either.

Here is an incident again from the peaceful and loving overtures on Indians - that illustrate both how "fundamentalism" - in this case the fundamental task of "conversion" as a supreme objective, leads to adoption and justification of any tactic - even deception - which in turn will lead to others seeing this as corruption and deviation from the "true", and hence will feel the need or urge for a different "fundamentalism" to correct this supposed deviation.

The Jesuit, Robert Di Nobili, after coming to the Madurai Mission in 1606, described the conversion scene as a “desert”. Observing the reverence Hindus had for the Brahmins in spite of missionary propaganda, he disguised himself as a Brahmin to carry out prosleytization. He put on an ochre robe, wore the sacred thread, grew the obligatory shikha, took to vegetarian food, etc., in order to pass as a Brahmin. He wrote some books in Tamil and Sanskrit, particularly one he palmed represented as Yajurveda. But the colour of his skin led to suspicion and he claimed that he was a high-born Brahmin from Rome. But he was exposed by other missionaries who were either jealous of him or did not favour his methods. Some Christian theologians dub him the pioneer of indigenisation in India and the founder of the first Christian Ashrama. ["Roberto de Nobili and Adaption" by S. Rajamanickam, S.J. in Indian Church History Review, December 1967]

The term used to justify these sort of "tactics" is called "condescensio" as used in the Church - "stooping down to conquer" again in turn justified and traced to St. Paul. Facing the problem of skin colour betraying identities - Fr. Poenco of the Madurai Mission made an appeal in his Annual letter for 1651. “Among my readers, there will be some who could procure for us some lotion of ointment which could change the colour of our skin so that just as we have changed our dress, language, food and customs, we may also change our complexion and become like those around us, with whom we live... It is not necessary that the colour should be very dark; the most suitable will be between black and red or tawny. It would not matter if it could not be removed when once applied; we would willingly remain all our lives the 'negroes' of Jesus Christ, for the greater glory of God."

[Theo_Fidel]

Bji,

If you are so tortured by conversion you should start a thread for that. You are not doing much more than exposing random weirdo's with in or with out the Christian faith now. Most western Christian extremists/fundamentalists want nothing to do with SDRE. They think they are gods chosen people and SDRE are not invited. Even the money for conversion activity comes largely from non-fundamentalist Churches. I had a neighbor who visited Velankanni and prayed for a boy child. She named the son Peter with one of his sisters named Rajam. She has kept her name Selvi but now goes to Church more than temple. I had another one who has labeled herself Christian to get a scholarship for Christian students to MCC paid by my Church. Will she stay Christian after, who knows. The vast majority of conversions in my area take these routes. Maybe different in other areas. Another Christian friend of mine has a son who has gone on pilgrimage to Palani with his friends. My uncle visits Tirupathi often because he finds peace there. There is no requirement that converts maintain some pure form of Christianity. It is more like a social grouping. Even most pastors on mission work have no requirements to show 'numbers'. Its lot more fluid than you think.

If you want the Church to stop preaching to non-Christians because you think that is fundamentalism your logic will make little impression. For devout Christians, anything they can not understand often gets labeled pagan. Muslims and Hindus were once considered pagan too. But this has changed over time as the Christian opinion of non-believers and various denominations has become more accommodating.

Fundamentalists have a very different source for their poisons.

[Muppalla]

Will she stay Christian after, who knows. The vast majority of conversions in my area take these routes. Maybe different in other areas. Another Christian friend of mine has a son who has gone on pilgrimage to Palani with his friends. My uncle visits Tirupathi often because he finds peace there. There is no requirement that converts maintain some pure form of Christianity.

This is fundamental problem with Christianity and its orgs though the faitfuls may not like it. It is these folks who are semi-converted that are the problems and I know it personally as these types are in my school-friends circle. The fake ones who converted by that goes to Tirupathi are fine but their next gen are the ones who become aggressive Evangelicals. The EJs know the game and they not planning for today's fake. It is these fake's children. By the way they don't care about pure ones. They need numbers that can be used for future destabilization of cultures and also countries.

[Virupaksha]

Bji,

If you are so tortured by conversion you should start a thread for that. You are not doing much more than exposing random weirdo's with in or with out the Christian faith now. Most western Christian extremists/fundamentalists want nothing to do with SDRE. They think they are gods chosen people and SDRE are not invited. Even the money for conversion activity comes largely from non-fundamentalist Churches. I had a neighbor who visited Velankanni and prayed for a boy child. She named the son Peter with one of his sisters named Rajam. She has kept her name Selvi but now goes to Church more than temple. I had another one who has labeled herself Christian to get a scholarship for Christian students to MCC paid by my Church. Will she stay Christian after, who knows. The vast majority of conversions in my area take these routes. Maybe different in other areas. Another Christian friend of mine has a son who has gone on pilgrimage to Palani with his friends. My uncle visits Tirupathi often because he finds peace there. There is no requirement that converts maintain some pure form of Christianity. It is more like a social grouping. Even most pastors on mission work have no requirements to show 'numbers'. Its lot more fluid than you think.

Lets just say if the gods are for sale as in the bolded part, ...

As Bjis statement said, it is all good as long as the sheep increases

Conversion was consciously not about change of "heart" - just as it is now. Frey Duarte Nunes, the prelate of Goa, in 1522, declares, "even if the first generation of converts was attracted by rice or by any other way and could hardly be expected to become good Christians, yet their children would become so with intensive indoctrination, and each successive generation would be more firmly rooted."

[Arjun]

Fundamentalists have a very different source for their poisons.

Not really. What are termed as fundamentalist sects by more mainstream / liberal Christians emphasize the same basic coercive and exclusivist elements of Christianity- only in a lot more aggressive fashion in relative terms. The difference is only a matter of degree - there is no fundamental difference of values.

Theo, what you have to realize is that in the same manner that mainstream / liberal Christians view the fundamentalist sects with some repugnance and term them 'cults' - it is only natural for a religion like Hinduism which is doctrinally far more liberal than Christianity to view all of Christianity in similar terms.

This is not my subjective opinion by the way.....The definition of a 'cult' and its characteristics are widely available on the net. This definition basically represents the specific complaints that 'liberal' Christians have vis-a-vis fundamentalist sects. One can objectively compare this list with the points typically raised by Hindus in relation to Christianity. The issues are almost precisely the same. Aggressive proselytization is one of the issues that mainstream churches have against the 'fundamentalist' churches / 'cults'.

I would leave Syrian Christians out of this - since all other mainstream as well as fundamentalist sects do believe in proselytization.

[Arjun]

Just as most Hindus in South India converted or were forcibly reclassified at one time.

Converted / reclassified - from which religion & by who?

Even if there has been conversion - there is a difference between a conversion where your original Gods and culture are retained and respected vs one where you are forced to repudiate your roots and bow down to an alien image that does not in the least correspond to your own self-image......The latter is simply cultural genocide that strips both the 'convertee' as well as the 'converting religion' to a caricature where neither can possibly hope to nor expect to receive any respect.

[brihaspati]

Theo ji,

If you are so tortured by conversion you should start a thread for that. You are not doing much more than exposing random weirdo's with in or with out the Christian faith now. Most western Christian extremists/fundamentalists want nothing to do with SDRE. They think they are gods chosen people and SDRE are not invited.

Again you think I am arguing emotionally here. As I have suggested earlier, I am still analyzing without passing value-judgments. I am still showing why the "fundamental" dogma of Christianity - conversion as the "salvation" of the "soul" while the body is still living in preparation to avoid permanent penalty in hell - is an integral part of the whole process of "fundamentalism". As my examples show, taking this as the supreme objective provides for tactical adoption of any and all means which may or may not fall within a strict ethical/moral interpretation of the text - that text which is the source of all legitimacy - and over time leads to ideological and methodological "corruption". This in itself attracts further fundamentalist attacks within the church and generates dissent in the form of new fundamentalisms.

If you start terming leading lights of the Church and its most famous and prominent orders like the Jesuits or Augustinians, whose ranking members actions or statements are not denied or rejected by the parent org or its hierarchy itself - as "random weirdos" - then I guess we already are seeing the start of the process by which dissent turns to fundamentalism.

Most western "sects/fundamentalists" are not against all SDRE's - they are against the unconverted SDRE's. That still does not mean of course that such converted SDRE's are considered at par with the God-rolled-out special melanin-lacking versions of humanity. But "converting" these heathens is still part of the heathen agenda - in fact one of the few issues that almost all "churches" agree upon.

There is no requirement that converts maintain some pure form of Christianity. It is more like a social grouping. Even most pastors on mission work have no requirements to show 'numbers'. Its lot more fluid than you think.

Well - that is not new! When times are hard, with no obvious secular arm of the rashtra directly aiding "harvesting of souls" and merely protecting the one way right to proselytize - it is a question of money after all. As I have already shown, the church has always been flexible on such periods - waiting patiently for better times. This has always been the pattern - and one of the quotes I gave came from the 1500's. Not much of a change in tactics.

If you want the Church to stop preaching to non-Christians because you think that is fundamentalism your logic will make little impression. For devout Christians, anything they can not understand often gets labeled pagan. Muslims and Hindus were once considered pagan too. But this has changed over time as the Christian opinion of non-believers and various denominations has become more accommodating.

Well there can no longer be the type of rashtryia support available to the Goan Portuguese Catholic missions, or the rights allowed to William Wilburforce and co, under British imperium. So exactly same methods of treatment can no longer be applied - and the church ahs to appear "accommodating" - but the fundamental dogmatic condemnation of the pagan remains, it is just not so much publicized but circulates at a more internal level.

As again, you are making the mistake of assuming that I am here to convince the Church of anything. I am simply pointing out the relation of the fundamental dogma leading to proselytization which in turn leads to fundamentalism - arising from the "western" version of Christianity.

What is more of concern is of course the very logical possibility - that this inherent generator of fundamentalism in western Christianity will eventually prepare the flock to accept Islam as a more fundamental version of the message of Christianity - if the current crop of "fundamentalists" are sought to be crushed by the state and current Church authorities in combination.

If you can drop the emotional viewpoint, you can perhaps look at the issue of theological "corruption" [not just the issue of financial irregularities in the church] - as it is traditionally understood - corruption in the sense of false representations of belief, identity and self. I am talking from that angle.

[Pranav]

Conversion was consciously not about change of "heart" - just as it is now. Frey Duarte Nunes, the prelate of Goa, in 1522, declares, "even if the first generation of converts was attracted by rice or by any other way and could hardly be expected to become good Christians, yet their children would become so with intensive indoctrination, and each successive generation would be more firmly rooted."

Nice quote. But people also get disillusioned after a few generations. Somebody mentioned that only 9% of the population in western countries has a biblical world-view.

What is needed is education - statements like that of the good Frey Duarte Nunes need to be given publicity. Also, the modus operandi by which Church doctrines and activities serve the political interests of foreign elites needs to be understood by a much wider audience.

[ManishH]

One of my colleagues is a Syrian Christian from Bangalore, Kerala. She proudly claims that she was a Brahmin who converted to Christianity with that guy Thomas.

Haha. This is an urban legend that several Bangalore convertees narrate. This narrative is on instruction from the fundamentalist satraps who have a hold over them. Another attempt at weakening those who most stubbornly hold on to indigenous culture.

Psychologists should have a name for such phenomena - Constantinitis.

Such false lores form a part of the fundamentalist template. For a historical analogy, Gibbon quotes Prudentius (a Christian Roman Poet) on the conversion of the Roman Senate under emperor Theodosius ...

the luminaries of the world, the venerable assembly of Catos were impatient to strip themselves of the pontifical garment, to cast the skin of the old serpent; to assume the snowy robes of baptismal innocence; and to humble toe pride of the consular fasces before the tombs of the martyrs.

Whereas, in reality the Roman senate had been coerced to abolish worship of Jupiter and make Christ-worship the state religion. The coercion was in the form of exiling the influential senators who were mose vocal about indigenous culture.

Such lores, be they about "Senators" or "Brahmins", are meant to put a cloak of volunatary conversion over the reality of forced conversions. Realizing that these lores are nothing but a template, is essential to unerstanding the western fundamentalism.

[abhischekcc]

Conversion was consciously not about change of "heart" - just as it is now. Frey Duarte Nunes, the prelate of Goa, in 1522, declares, "even if the first generation of converts was attracted by rice or by any other way and could hardly be expected to become good Christians, yet their children would become so with intensive indoctrination, and each successive generation would be more firmly rooted."

Nice quote. But people also get disillusioned after a few generations. Somebody mentioned that only 9% of the population in western countries has a biblical world-view.

What is needed is education - statements like that of the good Frey Duarte Nunes need to be given publicity. Also, the modus operandi by which Church doctrines and activities serve the political interests of foreign elites needs to be understood by a much wider audience.

It took 16 centuries and the disillusionment of the two world wars to break Xnity hold over western populations. The WW period (1914 - 1945) was a watershed in European history as ALL institutions of authority failed in the eyes of the people - the monarchies/aristocrats, the church, the political process, diplomacy, and finally humanity (the holocaust) - everything.

But this is how ALL totalitarian idealogies break - in an all consuming crisis.

[Pranav]

It took 16 centuries and the disillusionment of the two world wars to break Xnity hold over western populations.

IMHO, it is actually increasing prosperity and individual freedom of thinking that broke Christianity in the west. But maybe the trauma of the wars did trigger some soul searching.

[shyam]

For disillusion to occur, the faithful should stop going to church on every Sunday and listening to priest's sermon. Most of the converts in Europe stopped visiting Sunday-church and you see the disillusionment among the population there. However, in newly converted area like India, the local active priests ensure that the faithful regularly visit the church. If anyone miss a Sunday mass, the priest will meet the person to find out why he did not show up and make sure that he is regular then onwards.

The importance of Sunday-church is that, I'm told, in addition to regular religious stuff, they also talk about social, political issues. Even evil aspects of Hinduism is also discussed at times. Essentially, this is needed to keep follower brainwashed. It is possible that most of the arguments and data we hear from the followers are rooted in this type of sermons.

If people want to tackle issue with christianity, what they need to address in not the connection between followers and their god, but that between followers and the priest. It is through the established hierarchy among priests, the outside powers get control over the local converted masses. One way, fundamentalism is also channeled through that path.

[Pranav]

For disillusion to occur, the faithful should stop going to church on every Sunday and listening to priest's sermon. Most of the converts in Europe stopped visiting Sunday-church and you see the disillusionment among the population there. However, in newly converted area like India, the local active priests ensure that the faithful regularly visit the church. If anyone miss a Sunday mass, the priest will meet the person to find out why he did not show up and make sure that he is regular then onwards.

In the west, people stopped attending the Church because they found the services utterly boring.

IMHO, prosperity plays an important role - in India, massive corruption leads to poor standards of living. The Church, being pumped up with funds from abroad and enjoying privileges from the government, becomes relevant through providing social services. For example, corruption will mean that there is no water in a drought prone area, but the Church may have funds to have its own bore-well, which it may make available to converts and potential converts. Similarly for schooling, health-care and other services which a government is supposed to provide.

The importance of Sunday-church is that, I'm told, in addition to regular religious stuff, they also talk about social, political issues. Even evil aspects of Hinduism is also discussed at times. Essentially, this is needed to keep follower brainwashed. It is possible that most of the arguments and data we hear from the followers are rooted in this type of sermons.

Absolutely. The Church is a thoroughly political animal, regularly issuing Fatwas telling the believers who to vote for.

I believe there is a symbiosis between EJ activity and political corruption. The corruption leads to poverty, which leads to increasing numbers of converts, who are then issued Fatwas to vote for the corrupt politicians in the name of secularism, who then grant special privileges to the EJs and indulge in still more corruption, leading to still more poor people ripe for harvesting. It is a vicious cycle.

[Theo_Fidel]

Most Christian churches preach the Inquisition as the start of reform and introspection. Actions began to be tested to reality for the first time despite lapses. The priests are not always the ones in charge. Usually it is the elders of the church who decide who the priest is and who gets to present a sermon on Sunday.

All three Churches I'm a member of in India have at least 3-4 Services a day. The congregation changes subtly depending on the time. The 6 PM one is very popular with the youth groups and often get a young, fiery, up and coming pastor. Depending on what you want to hear you can select your service. Now the Catholic church is different and smaller churches that have only one sermon a day may be different as well.

Vernacular pastors are very very popular and very different from the English pastors. Often standing room only with overflow on the front portico with Bose speakers.

Even in massaland vernacular pastors are extremely popular esp. in dialects like Cuban Spanish or Black Ebonics. I've heard vernacular Churches in Europe are extremely popular and growing rapidly. The part of Christianity that is dying in Europe is the old organized religion with deep liturgy and a very confessional (read mournful, depressing and self flagellating) approach. The Catholic church in particular is being strangled by recent 'events'. A very different sort of Christianity is going to emerge from this in Europe.

Breivik might be the first symptom/outlier.

[Philip]

Webmasters,please warn members and lock this thread if need be,as it has gone seriously off the rails.Here is hardly any debate about happenings in the west,please leave the Indian content out of it,or start a new thread about religion in India if one wants.

This morning,on Hard Talk/BBC ,a well-known Swedish author was questioned about the far right's growth in Scandinavia.He said that to ignore them was perilous and that dialogue was needed to prevent them from growing further.The riots in London in a poor district is another expression of a fundamental layer of discontent,economic deprivation due to excessive immingration,where immigrants live in urban ghettoes-we saw riots in Paris too,and the tension fuelled by such immigrants lead the natives to consider extreme action which they justify as Brevik has done ,as a "religious crusade" against Islam, or whatever the current flavour of the "enemy" is.This is a growing movement as all over Europe,the far right and in the US "CHristian" fundas are stirring once again and ignorance of foreign lands and their peoples are making them targets for latter-day "crusaders".

[Sanku]

I personally second; locking the thread, since I agree with Philip in what he said above. I would like to say that locking the thread would be a good example of how a thread or a discussion be stopped because of not meeting the requirement or intent of the topic, even when the discussion is polite, very informative and free from acrimony, despite it being on a sensitive topic.

Otherwise the topic of the thread should be changed, and moved to GDF etc to better reflect the actual discussion.

[Muppalla]

I don't know who invented the word EJ as it makes perfect sense. Just like the several generations of indoctrination in Pakistan that created a 100 million suicide bombers for the Islamic world, these converted are the most motivated in doing future conversions. In US the folks who stand outside asian grocery stores to distribute christian religious materials are 99% of the times Korean or Indians (Tamil/Telugu).

[brihaspati]

There is a subtle but important difference between discussing "religion in India" and discussing Indian aspects that have opposed/contradicted/faced Christian fundamentalism as it was brought to India and on Indians. "Christian fundamentalism in the west" cannot be understood without understanding ideological opponents of such fundamentalism, and their critiques.

Over the essential role and place of "fundamentalism" within the Abrahamic tradition - there is little doubt or controversy among both scholars and religious leaders or theologians. Where they fight is over the targets, methods, victims and culprits - not the essential dogmatic core objectives. Therefore critique from "within" is less illuminating than critique from outside. This happened most strongly from the Indian side - for example look at the intense polemical as well as rhetorical debate between Rammohan Roy and the Wilburforce camp.

By deleting such debates from discussion we delete an important window into the heart of western Christian fundamentalism. As far as I am concerned, I have simply picked up those aspects of the doctrinal and organizational consequence, that I see as relevant for exploring and exposing the mechanisms by which fundamentalism has been ingrained in Christianity right from the beginning. It could even be characterized as a "fundamentalist" movement that took off in the then "west" centred around the Roman empire - from within the Judaic fold - because it contrasted itself with the "decadent/fallen/false/deviated" religion of the pharisees, while laying claim to core Mosaic values, the "revelation", and the divinity principles then existing within Judaic traditions. Further down the road, Islam took off where Christianity had left the task of "fundamentalist" course correction.

To understand this process - we should not forget that the centre of religious ideological conflict then - was not geographically in the "west" as we understand it now, but a point in between the Mediterranean and the "East", and philosophically for the Mediterranean group's imagination, India played a key role in the shaping up of that conflict. As early as the iconic cataclysmic period in Church history of the first 3 centuries, "Brahamanas" are mentioned repeatedly in Christian authors as personifications of evil and the devil - while at the same time the New Testament was unable to drop the reference of sending Thomas off to India.

[brihaspati]

Phillip ji,
you are seeking to disjoint the historical continuity by which fundamentalism persisted in "western Christianity" from its current manifestations. If we look at the common thread right up to its birth as a movement - we can see a persistent trend towards "fundamentalism" which is directly linked to the shaping up of the doctrine and the dogma. If we simply attach "attacks on Islamic countries" as the source of all Christian fundamentalism then that is not only a gross distortion of the historical reasons for the current trends, but also giving too much credit to Marxian claims of economic-political drives driving all historical processes.

A variety of interests and factors are coming together - that have always lain dormant within the version of Christianity that won over all other versions. These factors are

(1) ingrained belief that the non-Christian is a potential evil and base for devil
(2) ingrained belief that those who "resist" conversion into Christianity are "intolerant" and are enemy
(3) belief that Christians have a God-given right to rule and dominate the world, and hence anyone who does not submit to the authority of the Christian is challenging God.
(4) only Europe and its supposed natives are the true and consistent repositories of Christianity - this combined with (3) gives ideological support to racist supremacy theories, whose one other support is the historical experience of European imperialism having defeated the "non-Christian" and been able to enslave it.
(5) the need to connect to a past point of time for legitimacy, and a fixed textual representation for the same, as well as organized enforcement of dominance-submission patterns to a conformed dogma. This need to fix a set of values and objectives which developed only at a certain time, place and people - means that over time new situations and challenges cannot be met from within the old dogma, but which the theological authorities are scared to accept as possibly undermining their authority - because that authority is based on an unchallengeable set of claims. This naturally gives rise to pressures from within to find the cause of the aberrations and mismatches of dogma with reality - and it is forced to develop a fundamentalist critique of the prevailing theological structure.
(6) the need for an overarching devil to hold the continuously evolving factional dissent within the theological camp, together. With the fall of USSR, and a "domesticated" PRC, the new devils are unconverted resisting Indians, and the Islamic world.
(7) the fear that the disenchanted may see greater strength in the fundamentalism apparent in Islam and defect.
(8) The pseudo-leftist "labour-socialist" politics was a tactical response during the cold War, to ideological pre-empt any leftist radical tendencies within European societies. Now it is no longer needed or useful, and Europe can safely turn back towards its imperialist-capitalist expansionist urges. The older tactical need suppressed the overt assertion of the theological dogmatic Christianity.

What we are seeing is a very old scenario in the Christian Church. There is a periodic adjustment of inconsistencies arising out of the dogmatic restrictions, by a recourse to a "fundamentalist" critique - where all negativities are associated with "deviations" from an imagined golden core/original fundamental. It can be helped along by political circumstances but making the circumstances the "root" cause is a serious error.

Points (1)-(7) can all be supported by extensive references - some from within the theologians, church literature, as well as from non-Church scholarship.

[Philip]

Bri,I well understand your view that to understand "C" fundamentalism today we must seek out its roots in the past.But we can debate the essence/doctrine of "Christian" fundamentalism -its origin,spread,etc.,and its relevance to India endlessly,perhaps in another more specific thread.There are so many divergent streams of "Christianity" as I listed earlier and "Christians" worldwide cannot be lumped together as one species.Such an exercise would be more acadaemic.There is also as I pointed out some time ago,a vast difference between Christ's teachings (Love God, and love your neighbour as yourself),which asks you to "turn the other cheek".Any contra doctrine cannot be truly called "Christian" in the original sense,and the so-called "Christian" states ,past and present ,through their adventurers and rabble-rousers,are anything but "Christian".It is well understood that to certain so-called "Christian" entities,down the centuries,perpetrated the most vile atrocities and preached the most narrow-minded,perverted vision of their faith.The "Holy" Inquisition is the best example of such ignorance and intolerance.

We are here more concerned with the groups and individuals who are fuelling and perpetuating this doctrine in the west ,their repercussions as we observe today,thei destructive force, and how we can combat this cancerous growth,orchestrated by both state actors and individuals who are together propagating global disharmony and discord.Ramanna rightly said that this was a means to gain control over weaker entities.Brevik is a storm-trooper for such an ideology,but the armies of such "crusaders" are controlled by state actors.The need of the hour is to combat this growing menace that threatens the fabric of peaceful ,ordered society and harmony between nations and their peoples around the globe today.

Mupalla,Dubya was urged on by his fundas who wanted war all over the Middle East so that they could accelerate the Biblical "Armageddon" in the book of Revelations,thus speeding up the second coming of Christ ...in their lifetime! If you realise this trend of undercurrent in US policy,spurred on by the supporters of this dcotrine ,the events in Egypt-where the CIA allegedly spent two years in palanning for Mubarak's downfall,and other ongoing events in the Middle East.The "Jasmine" revolution is so similar to that of the "Orange" revolutions oin former Warsaw Pact states,which have now been found out to have been havily orchestrated by covert western entities.In Iraq,after the war was to have been won,an army of "Christain soldiers" were according to western media sources themselves ,ready to swoop into Iraq and convert the Iraqis ! We now see another illegal war going on in Libya,unsanctioned by the UN,where deaths of innocent Libyan civilians are simply being swept under the debris of NATO's bombings,while Ghadaffi and co. are being labelled as monsters alone.

The gameplan of these western entities is to create utter havoc amongst the smaller resource rich nations of the globe,so that their wealth can later be picked up at will.This morning,famous Swedish writer Henning ,anti-Apartheid veteran,on BBC "Hard Talk" while discussing the Norwegian atrocity and fundamentalism in the west, described the World Bank's "genocide" in Africa in Mozambique as one example,where the lives of cashew growers were destroyed thanks to the eco policies of the WB.We would do very well to contemplate this war,both by armies and by eco-armies who wear suits and ties, "suited and booted",who by their advice on the virtues of unbridled free-for-all capitalist "liberalisation",has seen our stockmarket,supposed to b the world's worst performing market,fall catastrophically,while we have also bankrolled US debt thanks to Dr. Man Mohan Scam...sorry ,Singh,and his holy gospel of "snake-oil economics" to the tune of $50B ,plus also sending the EU a few more B to tide over a little matter of Greek indebtedness,soon to be follwed by Italy,Ireland,Spain,Portugal et al,while poverty-stricken Indian peasants are daily "suiciding" themselves as they are unable to buy the latest luxury autos like Bentley's,Rollers,Audis,Beemers and Mercs-not to mention Ferraris and similar sporting beats,for their farms and himesteads in "Little India" .

India must become pro-active in countering such evil forces.We cannot remain mute spectators to global events.In recent times,we-the world's largest democracy and second largest nation on the planet appear to have become deaf and dumb mutes to the tyranny and opression unleashed by state actors,as if we were a vassal state and totally on the back foot when criticised for our flaws,refusing to tell the "brother" to first remove the offending material from his eye,before advocating such advice to us.The "Christian" West must first practise what it preaches if it wants respect and understanding from us and we must not be ashamed of our ancient heritage and millennia of accumulated spiritual and practical wisdom,a moral force greatly required in a troubled and warring world.

[svinayak]

RamaY,

Manny,

How do you define outsider. In 1947 the last 'conversion' of people took place when 1/3 of India was simply reclassified as Hindu.

Who are the people who reclassify indians. Are these foreigner have any right to reclassify Indians according to their imagination. Who are these people. Just because some people change the names does it become seperate. Indian social order is still present and it has been there for many 100s of years.
Who are these people to create a new social identity of Indians just by their religion or name change.

[svinayak]

If you want the Church to stop preaching to non-Christians because you think that is fundamentalism your logic will make little impression. For devout Christians, anything they can not understand often gets labeled pagan. Muslims and Hindus were once considered pagan too. But this has changed over time as the Christian opinion of non-believers and various denominations has become more accommodating.

Fundamentalists have a very different source for their poisons.

Foreign ideology is the problem and inside India the foreign govt penetration is the danger. Once you start acknowledging this then you may understand the big picture.

[svinayak]

It took 16 centuries and the disillusionment of the two world wars to break Xnity hold over western populations. The WW period (1914 - 1945) was a watershed in European history as ALL institutions of authority failed in the eyes of the people - the monarchies/aristocrats, the church, the political process, diplomacy, and finally humanity (the holocaust) - everything.

But this is how ALL totalitarian idealogies break - in an all consuming crisis.

Does this mean that Christianity promotes totalitarian view and supports totalitarian govts.