Sunday, July 02, 2006

project thessalonica

july 2nd, 2006

this is not in the least bit suprising. long read, but most instructive.

this is the real face of christism. not exactly god's work, is it? the intent is cultural annihilation; if you recognize and resist, you are termed a fundamentalist. yes, just for saying, "do not destroy my faith and my culture".

christism is a monstrous, violent, death-worshipping cult that purveys a massive 4th century hoax about a mythical carpenter.

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Can Hinduism face the onslaught of Project Thessalonica?

Alex Pomero

in a Croatian Newspaper (sorry, no url was provided)

Some months back I watched a documentary which aired an interview with a
young Palestinian terrorist. Most people would be appalled simply at the
fact that someone who had killed innocent people is being treated like a
celebrity and given an opportunity to "explain" himself. But what was more
shocking was that he showed absolutely no remorse for having killed innocent
people on the streets of Israel, including women and children. Worse still
was the fact that even the parents of those youngsters supported the violent
activities of their children. *The reason: they were simply doing their
religious duty as true Muslims. For them killing an innocent bystander is
Jihad, the God-ordained religious duty of every Muslim.
*
I was born to Catholic parents and raised by a missionary Catholic mother
and an abusive, born-again Christian, who I will refer to only as "my
mother's husband". I was raised in an "ideal" Christian environment, and
would have followed my parents' footsteps and would have spread hate against
other religions, if it weren't for a fortuitous meeting I had with a Chinese
friend of my dorm roommate. Little did I realize then that the chance
encounter would end up being a turning point in my life.

The Chinese student was Buddhist who talked about meditation and its
advantages. Finding it curious I checked with my University library for some
books on meditation. After some searching, I found a book on Transcendental
Meditation ™, a meditation technique founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. That
book sparked a profound spiritual and emotional transformation in me and I
have never looked back. My thirst for knowledge led me to read more about TM
and its roots in Hinduism. I started reading every book on Hinduism I could
lay my hands on. In the Ramayana, I came across the life of Lord Rama and
his only wife Sita. Hindus consider Rama and Sita to be the ideal couple and
the path shown by them as the perfect man-woman relationship. *It was a
refreshing change from the abusive relationship I had witnessed and
experienced in my own Christian family.*

The wisdom and spirituality that I found in Hinduism has no parallels. There
is practically no aspect of life that is not dealt with in detail by the
innumerable texts that are a part of Hinduism. There are texts which deal
with the mundane aspects of day-to-day living and those which deal with more
profound questions such as those about life and death. To me, the most
fascinating aspect of Hinduism was that it was inclusive, respectful and
tolerant of all people and their various beliefs, in stark contrast to the
exclusivity that pervaded my native religion. Unfortunately the adherents of
the latter seem to be on a mission to destroy Hinduism.

Josh, my childhood friend with whom I communicate frequently was trained in
a seminary is currently a Baptist missionary. I met Josh during my recent
trip to USA. *He had just returned from India and was going back again in
November. Much of our conversation centered on his current assignment as
part of something called Project Thessalonica*. Josh was very passionate
when he spoke of Project Thessalonica - passionate in a scary kind of way.
In his eyes I could see the same resolve that was visible in the Palestinian
terrorist in the interview.

*Project Thessalonica is a sub-project of Joshua Project II. Joshua Project
II set the scope and strategy for converting the "heathen" of the world in
10-40 window (regions that lie between the latitudes of 10 and 40 degrees
north) whereas project Thessalonica (called PT) prioritizes the tasks to be
taken. Joshua Project II strategized the methodology called
'Adopt-a-peoples' wherein every mission agency or church adopted a 'people
group'.*

Tribals were the first and easy missionary targets. Unfortunately the
missionary activity didn't weaken Hinduism as the church strategists had
anticipated - many of the converts still celebrated and attended Hindu
festivals and continued to follow Hindu traditions. As a counter measure
Project Thessalonica was started in 2004. Before getting into the details of
Project Thessalonica it will be useful to look at the origins of the name of
the project.

Thessalonica was a major port city strategically located at the junction of
the main land route from Italy to the east and the main route from the
Danube down to the Aegean Sea. It was the capital of the Roman province of
Macedonia, a free city ruled by a popular assembly and magistrates. The
people of this city were rich, technologically advanced and culturally
distinct. Paul and Silas, during the Apostle's second missionary journey,
visited Thessalonica to preach the Gospel and propagate Christianity.

However, Paul's teachings received a lukewarm response from the people. Some
locals irritated by Paul's teachings got a hold of Jason and his brothers,
who were hosting Paul, and took them to city officials. They were charged
with harboring traitors, but faced no physical harm. They were eventually
made to post a bond and set free. In 390 AD, the Christian ruler Theodosius
the Great, punished a revolt by the inhabitants of the city by massacring
more than 7000 people. Much of the city was eventually converted to
Christianity.

A few observations about the city of Thessalonica at the time of Paul will
make its relevance to today's world clear. First the city was strategically
located in terms of access to other cities by both land and sea. Before
their forced conversion to Christianity, its inhabitants were economically
and culturally prosperous. Perhaps more importantly they were tolerant,
which explains why, inspire of provocation, the lives of Paul, Jason and his
brothers were spared. The government was also indifferent to the
missionaries and the adverse impact of their activities on the people.

*Hindus in India today are in the same situation as the people of
Thessalonica found themselves in at the time of Paul.* They are prosperous
economically and culturally and extremely tolerant of other people and
faiths. The government is completely indifferent to the activities of the
missionaries in India, in spite of the tremendous damage that missionary
activity has wrought on the local population all over India. *Seen in this
context, the choice of "Thessalonica" as a name for a project focused on
converting Hindus of India to Christianity seems particularly apt.*

*Project Thessalonica aims to stop or limit Hindu activity by converting
people who form the pillars of Hindu culture, festivals, traditions and
activity.* Traditionally missionaries hate any public expression or display
of heathen religions in the form of festivals and temples. *Missions want to
ensure that no new temple construction activity starts*. With this objective
they are converting masons, craftsmen and others involved in temple
construction activity. The First Baptist Church of Nashville, Tennessee
adopted towns where the annual Kumbh Mela takes place and has been actively
converting the locals so that visitors face extreme hardship during their
next visit trying to find services and supplies. Another mission group is
adopting boatmen of Kasi where Hindus drop rice balls in river Ganges as an
offering to their forefathers. The boatsmen are being trained in other
fields so that they abandon this profession. They are making environmental
groups raise the voice so that Ganesh processions, Kumbh Melas and Jagannath
Rath Yatras are limited. One big worry seems to the extremely popular Hindu
television programs. Christian agencies have decided on buying these prime
slots at a premium and are actively working with programming sources. *Over
the past 20 years, missionaries also appear to have invested a lot in
handling the political leadership, so much so that their activities appear
to be almost immune to the ruling political party*. It seems that a good
section of media is also on their side to such an extent that any group
opposing their activity finds itself identified as a militant or extremist
group in the news media.

*My friend Josh doesn't have any sense of remorse, guilt or reasoning when
he speaks about converting the "heathens" of India through any
means.*Instead he shows a sense of pride and achievement as he
believes that he is
simply implementing God's word as written in the Bible. Just like the
Islamic terrorist in the interview.

With Christian Jihadis like Josh at the forefront of missionary activities
in India, one can only hope that Hindus don't face the same fate as the
people of Thessalonica.

*Additional reading*

1. http://www.neglectedfields.net/
2. http://in.christiantoday.com/news/mis_166.htm
A sample of the missionary mischief " A year back, when First Baptist
volunteers first set foot in India, the nation appeared overrun with
idolatry and spiritual darkness. However, the mission team sees signs of
hope".
To learn more about Project Thessalonica, e-mail
project.thessalonica@neglectedfields.net or call the International Mission
Board at 1-800-999-3113.
3. http://www.scbaptist.org/-1999999487/-1999941961.htm

10 comments:

daisies said...

"Now wait till Rajeev fans come and abuse you and call you names."

--- Vamanan showed the way by calling Rajeev names like "MohanLal's Yoddha" when he began "contributing" here, and yet went on to preach to others against name-calling.

Not surprisingly, bloggers were enraged.

(becoz what he actually meant was "do as I say, not as I do").

That is why he still comes back to assert his moral superiority and the moral inferiority of so-called "Rajeev fans".

_

daisies said...

mr. vamanan, thank you, but i have no interest in your website. i thought i clarified this previously.

so, you may henceforth address all your posts to anyone but me.

_

iamfordemocracy said...

This was the most interesting statement in the post...
"so much so that their activities appear to be almost immune to the ruling political party". This is when a few political parties (BJP, ShivSena) are supposed to be Hindu fundamentalists! They got to rule through Hindu votes (and ditched them).

Hindus are now left in such a state that one individual Rajeev Srinivasan, and a few other stray people are left to fight the aggressors, the organizations like BJP, RSS, Tirupati, Kanchi are not of much use. Any comments? (not on me, on the issue raised!)

AGworld said...

Kallan and Vamanan

You have a point there "if christists are converting left, right and centre, why are'nt hindu orgs going in and doing something about it"

Clearly, pro-hindu orgs need to do more; that they are not doing *anything* is not true. I know of several orgs in assam and the NE that have been fighting evangelical terrorism for a long time.
However we clearly need to scale up these ops 10 or even a 100 fold to take a hindu renaissance to target regions.

Two solutions are required to fix this problem.

One: Ordinary hindus need to do more to fix this problem -- in terms of funding and support.

Second, and more important: A pro-hindu government has to unshackle temples and hindu religious orgs from smothering government control. Give hindu temples the chance to run schools, have missions (like madrassas or convents) and the hindu movement will explode 100-fold.

Currently, hindu orgs need everything -- down to purchase of agarbattis to be authorised by the government, even as christian orgs or muslim orgs are free of government control.

Fix this inequity and we'd give the catholics a run for their money at any time.

Key question: Who do we need to convince to have this potential unlocked? The BJP had a chance, but blew it!

The Rational Fool said...

mahashivaji wrote:
...I do know that the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh is a fanatical evangelical christist...
Really? Then, why does this evangelical christian, pseudo-secular, Chief Minister sport a Hindu caste suffix "Reddy" in his name "YS Rajasekhara Reddy"? Perhaps, the Reddy vote bloc in AP is larger than the Christia/Muslim vote bloc?

daisies said...

-
"Why should Hindus feel threatened by missionaries who convert people through peaceful means? Hindus, go help the tribals as well as the boatmen and the carpenters mentioned in the article. Perhaps, they all wont be misled and rush to Christianity if they know that there are people caring for them."

--- There is a crucial point many people miss when it comes to understanding this "great humanitarian helping attitude of christians".

i learned only after reading Rajeev's article on M. Theresa, that the dreadfully poor, sick and starving in Calcutta were left to die unless they wanted to convert to christianity. the belief is that there is no use helping them physically unless their "souls can go to heaven", and unless they accept christ as their saviour, soul will not go to heaven, so why bother to help the ailing body.

so, this is their very heathen belief, the poor things. and this is the basis of their humanitarian help for the boatman on ganga, the carpenter in kashi, and the tribal in nagaland.

and this paganness of theirs
has gained worldwide acceptance as christian kindess and gets trumpeted as moral superiority of christians over the pagan hindus!

this is really truth by repated assertion (rajeev, finally i am borrowing some terminology from you :-))

and hindus buy into all these stories. i myself grew up thinking how much nicer christians are than "us hindus" who arent helping the poor, sick and starving lepers on the streets of Calcutta. M. Theresa in her white habit with her army of sisters of Nirmal Hridaya seemed like a goddess to me. I grew up feeling so inferior to her.

until I found out more about the conversions! which was only several months ago....on this blog.

_

daisies said...

_

and i must add that my guilt feelings went away only after an in-depth study and understanding of hinduism, hindu philosophy (and no, i will not give discoureses here!).

_

daisies said...

Kaalan Avatar,

"I think there is only one exception, Daisies who seems to be good at heart but is swayed by these people who claim to be her own."

--- The true Christian wants to lay His life out of love for all even those who reject Him, don't believe in Him, slander Him even the one who ridicules God.

But Daisies must not think of these blog owners as her own. She must think of them as pagan and reject them. She must reserve her love only for the truly good people such as Kaalan.


And she only "seems to be good at heart", right ? But actually she is not. She only seems to be good.

And the others here are wicked people too. They deserve to be rejected.

In that case, why is Kaalan wasting his time among these wicked people ? (no need to answer me though).

By the way, I also had a friend in college who claimed to be a true Christian, said pretty much the same things as LukewarmChristian here, and AT the same time, did not hesitate to consider others as pagans and ridicule their faith and gods, and try to convert them to his religion. He didnt really succeed.

Kaalan, dont preach to Daisies or worry about Daisies! (there is a saying I learned way back in school - "Dont teach your grandmother to suck eggs!!"

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daisies said...

"One question: what are all these Hindus doing for the underprivileged in India? Not a single thing. There are good souls like Mata Amritanandamayi doing wonderful things. How much does each person here contribute to any such missions? Nothing."

--- Kaalan, What an arrogant person you are, to assume that the people who come here dont contribute to charitable causes, and how arrogant that you name only Mata, just one individual, and simply say "and others" for the rest.

Did you really expect us to announce our contributions here ?

There is an old Hindu saying - "What the right hand gives, the left hand should not know."

And you come here and ridicule people for not being knowledgable on Hinduism, preach your sermons without any regard or respect for people and claim to be superior to them.

And I dont care how much you donated or did for society. These are not things one measures and compares. That would be a shameful thing to do. I cant believe you are so rude as to comment on others' charity! And you claim to be an expert in Hinduism!

Shall we now compare charitable contributions and decide which of us is the best and truest Hindu here ?!
_

iamfordemocracy said...

Kaalan, yes. We do know. In once case, I know the method too. In the charity hospitals, when a patient declares he doesn't have enough money for surgery/procedures, he is offered a free treatment, if he converts. He comes out of hospital with a new name! All old records are destroyed...