Christian Subversion And Missionary Activities - 6

[G.Subramaniam]

Dailypioneer



Why this cross is red

October 31, 2010 4:52:08 AM



Margins of faith

Author: Rowena Robinson

Publisher: Sage

Price: 695



The book seems a propaganda literature for the church, says BB Kumar



The book, Margins of Faith: Dalit and Tribal Christianity, has a strange title; stranger still is the content of the book.



First, Christianity with Euro-American backing, a multi-billion dollar soul-saving industry, and with its churches owning/controlling more than 1,300 universities and 1,500 other institutions teaching theology and church history, running about 1,500 radio/TV centres, 930 research centres and publishing 3,000 journals in addition to another 20,000 magazines/newspapers can never be marginalised.



Second, the term ‘Dalit’ and ‘Tribe’ Christianity became necessary due to the church’s failure to bring promised change in the status of Dalits and tribes even after conversion. After all, conversion was often perceived as one of the ways of escaping ‘caste oppression’.



The book, in general, talks of “double marginalisation of tribal church”, which includes intra-church marginalisation and that by Hindu tribes. SM Michael’s paper, ‘Dalit Encounter with Christianity: Change and Continuity’, in particular, talks of five-fold discrimination against Dalit Christians — by the state, caste Hindus, fellow Hindu Dalits, upper Caste Christian community and Dalit Christian subgroups.



In reality, however, only Hindu tribes were subjected to marginalisation, as the church and the British empire helped Christian converts enormously. Senior British functionaries regarded the converts as collaborators and helped them. Thus the problem is a psychological one, emanating primarily from the numerical inferiority of the converts.



The European soldiers and Christian priests, working in unison, were enormously successful in colonising the world and proselytising Africa, Americas, parts of Asia. But Hinduism resisted conversion, which baffled early missionaries. Abbe JA Dubois, an 18th century French missionary, could only convert about 200 to 300 people during his 31 years of missionary work. Incidentally, two-thirds of the converts were “pariahs, or beggars”! He wrote about them: “I will declare it, with shame and confusion, that I do not remember anyone who may be said to have embraced Christianity from conviction.” No wonder many converts, not getting expected temporal advantages, relapsed into Paganism.



He saw no future for Christianity in India unless “intellectual Hinduism” was countered by taking steps to diminish the influence of Brahmins among Hindus.



For church, as the Niyogi Committee Report reveals, end justifies the means. Purity of means is meaningless for them. Adoption of “liberation theology” — a philosophy of direct political action — has given new dimension to the activities of many missions. Dubious organisations, calling themselves civil rights groups, are floated. They act through local political forces and ideologies of divisive significance, hoping to succeed in an India of subverted nationalism.



An official Catholic publication, India and its Missions, issued by its American Capuchin Mission Monks (1923) discussed the “Spiritual Advantages of Famine and Cholera”. It quoted the report of the archdiocese of Pondicherry sent to its superiors in Europe: “The famine has brought miracles. The catechumenates are filling, baptismal water flows in streams, and starving little tots fly in masses in heaven.”



The book uses notorious terms like Brahminism (for Hinduism) and neo-Hindus (for tribals). It does not examine why a convert becomes Hindu-hater? The authors of this book have no use for serious studies, as was done by Dharampal, proving in no dubious term that exploitation by the British empire was the root cause of poverty and illiteracy in India. These weaknesses make the book a propaganda literature, rather than a serious study of the subject.



--The reviewer is editor, Dialogue