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Why so much persecution of Christians in India?
by Scott Gilbreath ~ April 10th, 2009
The April issue of The Voice of the Martyrs (Canada) Newsletter has an answer to the headline question. (Text not online, so no link.)
In India in the last five years, more Christians have been beaten or killed and more houses and churches burned than in all other countries of the world combined. What has happened? Why have so many fanatics arisen among the Hindus? Thousands of Dalits (formerly untouchables), have found Christ. This is a threat to their masters, the land-owning higher caste Hindus. Still opposition at such as anti-conversion laws in India has not stopped the evangelistic explosion there.
The impoverished Dalits, regarded as dirt to be walked on, are now breaking out in joy, sons and daughters of God. Their delight, their passion to tell others about Jesus, stuns Hindu powerbrokers, who thought the Christian problem was conquered when the white-skinned missionary was banned from their country. The Dalits seize every opportunity to witness, in spite of overwhelming odds.
The article includes this photo and caption:
Militant Hindus in Orissa state, India, distributed this notice before a rally against Christians. It says, “In order to make it a grand success, you all are requested to please come and join the rally with all your traditional weapons, like arrow, axe, appear, sword, etc.”
A recent book based on a careful analysis of events in Orissa charges that anti-Christian mob violence in Kandhamal district was not a “spontaneous” reaction to the murder of Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati.
[T]he zig-zag route of the funeral procession taken out in defiance of curfew, the author of the book Anto Akkara said the procession taken along even un-motorable roads was “a ploy to whip up communal passions and execute the anti-Christian agenda that had been chalked out much earlier and put to test on a limited scale during Christmas 2007.”
Pope Benedict XVI has announced that the plight of Christians in India will be a focus of meditations in this year’s Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) set to take place this evening in Rome. The meditations will be written by Archbishop Thomas Menamparampil S.D.B. of Guwahati, India.
The Voice of the Martyrs Newsletter is available free to Canadians. Click here for more information.
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