more of the tactics used by christist vultures.
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From: Moksha
The Persecution Industry: What are the stakes?
By Ramapriya Abraham
Human rights issues have the power to bring nations to their knees in the International arena by forcing major policy changes. Evangelical groups worldwide are abusing this issue to achieve their selfish goals by turning human rights into a game called 'Persecution' and making it an essential ingredient of their evangelism plan.
Evangelical groups claim that they are persecuted 'everywhere for practicing their beliefs' (i.e. , in all the 238 countries around the globe). The accused persecutors are liberals in the USA; Muslims and liberals in Australia; seculars in the UK; Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, Buddhist, Tribals, Syrian Orthodox Christians, and Syrian Catholics in India; Buddhists in Sri Lanka; Orthodox Christians in Russian Federation; Muslims the in Middle-East; Traditional Catholics in Mexico; and the list goes on and on. In summary, the group that is targeted for conversion by the evangelicals in every country is de fined as the offender. Persecution stories are flashed daily across evangelical news sources.
What is the truth? Was there really a crime? Who is the true offender in these conflicts? Why is it that only the evangelicals have problems with others? A rational analysis of their claims answers many questions. Missionaries claim that they are persecuted by everybody for 'their beliefs' and thus have problems with everybody else. What are their beliefs? The answer is in the Bible itself, which the missionaries believe to be the inerrant, uncompromising word of God. As quoted by Frank G. Huling:
There are the two groups in the world, children of God " those who have received Christ (John 1:12)", and the children of the devil "those who reject Christ (John 8:44)."
This concept was redefined by Jerry Falwell, the inspiration behind many modern day Western missions, as: If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being.
The missionary groups see the other side namely, all other groups, both Christian and non-Christian alike, that do not share their strict interpretation of the Bible as 'children of devil'. Such animosity has inspired an evangelical war that has been raging for centuries, with no end in sight. Intentionally or inadvertently, the evangelical groups continue to preach and practice intolerance. Yet for as often as they claim to be persecuted, nobody has come to their homes and abused them. Instead, they go to the communities of others and preach their beliefs; the resulting resistance if any is then reported by the evangelicals as persecution. They have problem with everybody because their beliefs, which repeatedly emphasize exclusivity and superiority over others, provoke hostility from the communities to which they preach.
Are the crimes against Christian missionaries true? Are all Christians affected, or is it only those who aggressively seek to convert others? Only through a detailed analysis of these events can such questions be answered. Let us evaluate some persecution stories reported from India:
Case 1 : Throughout January 2007, an incident was flashed repeatedly almost everyday in the evangelical world. The table below provides a sample of the titles used by various missionary news networks to describe the incident.
| News Network | Title |
| BosNewlife | India Militants Attack Missionaries, Throw Teenager From Train |
| Journalchristian | |
| Associated Press of Pakistan | Indian Hindu militants attack missionaries, throw teenager from train |
| Asia News, Italy | |
| Tidbitsandtreasures | |
| VoiceofMartyrs/persecuriton.org |
The central message of all these news items is "Bansi Lal , a 18-year-old Christian convert from Hinduism , was pushed out of a train by Hindu militants. Christians are persecuted for their beliefs." Christian organizations, including the All India Christian Council (AICC) and the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), condemned the incident, alleging that Hindu extremists had thrown Lal out of a moving train. John Dayal said it seemed like "murder, and nothing else."
However, a closer look at the sources from which the incident was reported reveals a very different story.
An 18 year-old youth, who was later identified as Bansi Lal, was lying with a severe head injury at the S-12 signal post near the Bolai railway station in Shajapur district at about 7 p.m. on January 8, 2007. A good samaritan took him to a hospital nearby. Chinmay Rai, the Station master of the Bolai railway station who did a preliminary investigation, said that passengers saw Mr. Lal sticking too far out of the door, which could have possibly caused him to hit against the signal post and fall out of the train. In India, it is common among youth to hang around the doors in trains, buses or any other public transport. The fact that the injured youth was lying clung to a signal post confirms that Mr. Lal was hit by the signal post, which seems to have happened because of the teenager's careless attitude. As described by the other passengers who are the sole witnesses, there was no indication of any pushing, dragging, struggle or aggressive force against Lal.
But if this is so, then how did the "Hindu militants" come into picture? Where did the attack and murder conspiracy theories originate? It may take weeks or months for the official investigation to give its final report. If the report says it is an accident, the missionary news networks are not going to publish any correction because the original newsflashes served their purpose to depict Christians as targets of abuse by other religious groups. Sadly, not just Hindus but a common man around the world wouldn't understand these lies and the reasons behind such propaganda.
Case 2 : When the bones of infants and fetuses were found in the backyard of the Ratlam missionary hospital in Madhya Pradesh, the following headlines were shown by various news sources, both Christian and secular/mainstream:
| Christian News Network* | Title |
| AsiaNews.it, Italy | Fundamentalists accuse Christian hospital of illegal abortions |
| BosNewsLife | BREAKING NEWS: India Police Detain Christian Hospital Official On Infanticide Charges |
| IndianCatholic | |
| IndianCatholic | UCAN: Church leaders say hospital targeted to tarnish Christians |
*(Other popular Christian news sources did not even report this incident)
| Secular/Mainstream News Network | Title |
| The Hindu | |
| NDTV | |
| Zee news | |
| Monsters& Critics, UK | |
| Houston Chronicle | |
| New York Times |
In this case, Christian news sources either blocked or misrepresented the facts. Christian sources were creating conspiracy theories or promoting hate against Hindus. Hindus are blamed in which they had no role to play. The incident was clearly a situation to be handled by criminal authorities, an incident that seemed to be an act committed by some hospital staff in relation to abortions and possible female infanticide. The Christian news sources manufactured 'Hindu fundamentalists' and inserted a Hindu conspiracy into the story to further the evangelical goal of portraying others as merciless killers. Why do evangelists do that?
One of the main purposes behind the falsehoods is to create stories that arouse sympathy for Christians, which in turn yield more financial support from the West. Every missionary fundraiser in the West uses these stories as part of their fundraising campaigns. The message contained in the stories is made up of three essential ingredients:
- Christian missionaries are being persecuted;
- The new converts to Christianity are not going to bow down to threats from other religions; and
- They need your financial support.
These messages have a profound impact in America's Bible Belt and particularly among senior citizens. For example, the Portales News Tribune ran an article on January 27, 2007 that was titled "Hopping on the train". The story reported that senior citizens in Portales, New Mexico were raising money donations for Christian ministries in India by playing games like dominoes and Mexican Train.
Secondly, these stories often lacking scrutiny, silence, demonize and preempt any potential opposition to the missionary activity in their host countries by internationalizing any issue, including law enforcement cases, as human rights issues. Any Hindu in India opposing missionary activity is defined a "Hindu militant". A majority of Western media, which revere the evangelical Christian news sources, pick up such articles which are then picked by Indian media. US State Department often influenced by such manufactured news writes negatively about Hindus in its annual reports. As a result, Hindus become divided into two categories: the 'Good Hindu', who shuts his eyes, ears and mouth in reaction to any anti-Hindu activity; and a Hindu militant, who is likely to raise voice to evangelical activity happening around them.
Finally, the evangelicals use hate as a weapon to put more political power into their hands. This strategy works on the premise of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". In response to the stories of Hindu anti-Christian conspiracies, all the non-Hindu forces join hands with the supposedly victimized missionary groups, thereby strengthening each other against the Hindu threat. The following video on YouTube explains this point in greater detail: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lx4UTHiZrzw.
The evangelical groups are using the issue of human rights to play a dangerous game with public sympathies and international law, a game that actually hurts other Christians as a result. People are increasingly being aware of these manufactured news stories. When true attacks against Christians do happen, they may not be taken seriously because of all the false stories that came before. I urge Christian news sources to be genuine and more vigilant about the news coming from the Indian subcontinent, where reporters tend to be overenthusiastic in proving their allegiance to their new religion of choice Christianity.
I agree with my husband, who was born into a Syrian Orthodox Christian family. He believes that if these evangelical groups continue to resort to such blatant falsehoods and manufactured hate to gain support, they will eventually tear apart every peaceful community they touch.
Watch the following major missionary news networks for a daily dose of purpose-driven 'Persecution' news:
- Agape Press, www.agapepress.org
- American Daily, www.americandaily.com
- AsiaNews, www.asianews.it
- ASSIST News Service (ANS), www.assistnews.net
- At Any Cost Jesus Mission, http://anycostjesus.baseelia.org/
- BosNewsLife, www.bosnewslife.com
- Catholic World News, www.cwnews.com
- Christian Monitor, www.christianmonitor.org
- Christian Post, www.christianpost.com
- Christianity Today, www.christianitytoday.com
- Compass Direct, www.compassdirect.org
- Cybercast News Service, www.cnsnews.com
- Mission Network News (MNN), www.mnnonline.org
- Pakistan Christian Post, www.pakistanchristianpost.com
- Union of Catholic Asian (UCA) News, www.ucanews.com
- Voice of the Martyrs Canada (VOMC), www.persecution.net
http://www.crusadewatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=697&Itemid=128
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