If someone is helping the poor and expect faith in return, what is wrong with that? If they are forcing conversions or such conversions lead to long term threat to the country, that's a different story. Indians seem to be obsessed with this too.
Conversion Tactics - Charity
Conversion Tactics
Charitable Allurement
Missionaries take advantage of those in need,
especially the poor and children, to convert them
Most Missionary organizations disguise their conversion efforts as charity organization. Often in the press, we hear about “faith-based initiatives” but that is just a euphemism for aggressive and violent conversion organizations. In the Western media, Missionaries are portrayed as true saviors who feed the hungry and nurse the sick.
However, Missionaries do not do this for the good of humanity, but instead to convert people to Christianity. Missionaries have also decided to target the poorest for conversions, not because they are the neediest, but rather, because they can be easily bribed into changing their faith, and they can not easily report to the press the atrocities which the Missionaries have inflicted upon them.
Some people wonder fail to see the maliciousness of conversion through charitable acts. They say that though they are converting, Missionaries are also helping the poor which is more important. However, this is wrong because in times of need humans will often do anything if lured by material possessions. For example, prostitution is a despicable but existing profession because people are lured so much by money that they will sell their bodies. Similarly, one who is converted through “charitable” means is selling their religion and moral beliefs for material possessions. Just as prostitution is wrong and despicable, regardless of the prostitutes financial situation, conversion is also wrong regardless of the converts financially situation. Therefore conversion through charitable inducement is a forcible conversion.
Conversion should only happen through spiritual persuasion and not through the gifting of material possessions.
Below are some of the tactics which Missionaries use in the name of charity to convert:
1. Gifts – By far the most common means of conversion is by buying the poor. In one tribal village, Missionaries promised the head of each household pair of nylon pants if he converted to Christianity and a motorbike if he converted his whole family. In a matter of a few months, the Missionaries had “spread the gospel” along with pants and motorbikes to the entire village.
To convert rich and middle-class non-Christians, Missionaries, who are well-funded by Western churches, buy their way in by giving money, computers to universities, and scholarships to children of influential officials.
In other cases instead of feeding the starving, Missionaries give away a walkman with a tape of the Bible in their own language to brainwash them instead.
Mahatma Gandhi wrote the following on one incident which he witnessed:
"Only the other day a missionary descended on a famine area with money in his pocket, distributed it among the famine stricken, converted them to his fold, took charge of their temple and demolished it. This is outrageous."
2. Adoption & Child Sponsorship – Many innocent looking child sponsorship programs, such as Christian Children's Fund and World Vision, that often advertise on U.S. television are guilty of forced conversions. Many often say, “For 50 cents a day, you'll make a real impact on the life of a child and their community!” However, instead of nurturing these children as they claim, they use this money to buy children of poor non-Christian families (like slaves!). The children unwillingly are then separated from their mothers and are raised by Missionaries who brainwash them with Christian fundamentalist ideas. In other cases, Missionaries will “bribe” the entire family of the child to convert to Christianity.
3. Jobs - In 1999, the Indian Church of Christ in Assam was caught red-handed for forcibly converting at least 14 Hindus. Over a period of six months the missionaries belonging to this Church offered money, jobs and other economic benefits to these extremely poor Hindus if they adopted Christianity. These Hindus were threatened with dire consequences if they revealed to anyone the circumstances under which they had been converted. However, two brave individuals who had been forcibly converted came to the police and told them the details of how Christian priests had lured them to their residence with the promise of jobs and money. In return for this favor, the priests then asked these individuals to convert to Christianity.
4. Loans - When conversions by force not being possible, the methods that are applied are inducements and fraud. Inducements are called “social service” or “charitable” activities. In most cases, the social service benefits were provided only to those who agreed to convert. A loan given to a tribal is cancelled if he, along with his family, becomes a Christian. This inducement has been documented in Madhya Pradesh, though the practices that have been narrated are the ones that are a common practice all over India, and indeed in the rest of the world.
Summary
True social service should be done without expecting anything in return from the recipient. Otherwise it becomes a debased and at best can have an accidental redeeming value. If the motive is bad, then the social service has no real merit. There are many organizations that are doing noble service without expecting anything in return. And in offering such services, the Hindus are very actively involved.
During his meetings with the Christian missionaries, Mahatma Gandhi had said that they are doing social service with the ulterior motive of conversions. He asked them to give up this offensive program. He also said to them that if this situation continued in a free India he would ask the foreign missionaries to leave the country.
