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Church steps up campaign for protection

George Iype in Cochin

Attacks on missionaries and bomb blasts in churches have forced Christian leaders to step up the campaign for protection of minorities even as some church leaders have brought up the sensitive issue of conversions for heated debate.

On the heels of the killing of a Catholic missionary near Mathura in Uttar Pradesh, bomb explosions rocked three churches in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Goa yesterday.

Condemning the blasts, church leaders have urged Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to order a nation-wide probe on the increase in violence against Christians despite promises of protection by the government.

The government and Bharatiya Janata Party politicians continue to claim the attacks are isolated incidents.

But, interestingly, church leaders are getting divided on the controversial issue of conversions, which many believe to be the cause of the attacks.

As explosions rocked churches yesterday, Reverend Valson Thampu, a prominent Christian theologian belonging to the Religions for Social Justice, said in a statement that the church should declare "a unilateral interim moratorium" on conversion to Christianity.

"Jesus Christ's own commandment was that there should be no conversion at the expense of love. There should be a voluntary moratorium by Christians," he said.

Rev Thampu added that the moratorium would end mindless competitive communalism between different religious communities.

His statements have shocked church leaders. "It is an opinion that lacks depth, and most church leaders do not share it," Father John Thattumkal, bishop-elect of the Cochin diocese, said.

He said the attacks were attempts to scare the church on conversions. "It is a political conspiracy to spread violence against minorities. It has never happened before. The sad thing is that the government has not brought the culprits to book," he said.

Fr Thattumkal said Christians were concerned about the attacks on missionaries in north India. "But the bomb attacks prove that violence and atrocities are spreading to south India also," he added.

Similarly, leaders of the Syro Malabar Church, the major Catholic sect in Kerala, said the moratorium proposal is "ridiculous and anti-Christian". "It means the church was forcibly converting people. It is not and therefore the moratorium prescription lacks merit," a senior Syro Malabar Church leader commented.

Shaken by the blasts, Syro Malabar Church leaders have sent faxes to Vajpayee and President K R Narayanan, asking them to immediately intervene and end the atrocities.

"The continuing violence is a disgrace to our culture and a challenge to the unity of our secular society," a message from Syro Malabar Church Major Archbishop Varkey Vithayathil said.

Top church officials like Vithayathil are upset that Christian leaders are sharply divided on a number of issues, including atrocities on missionaries.

Last month, John Joseph, a Christian representative on the National Commission for Minorities, charged a section of church leaders with driving a wedge between the government and the community, ignoring the larger interests of the latter.

Joseph further upset church leaders by claiming that NCM investigations have found that church groups blew many incidents against missionaries out of proportion.

Similarly, when the Christian Marriage Bill came up for discussion last month, some church leaders were said to be deliberately trying to create a misunderstanding between the Vajpayee government and the Christian community.

The church leaders contended that the new provision in the bill that bars solemnisation of mixed marriages in churches was an infringement of their rights. "On the Christian Marriage Bill, a controversy was sought to be created for reasons other than the consideration of the welfare of the Christian community," Union Minister of State for Law and Company Affairs O Rajagopal said in the latest issue of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh mouthpiece Organiser.

"These elements are creating hysteria among minorities about the Vajpayee government by highlighting isolated incidents of attacks on some Christians by criminals," he added.

Faced with bomb attacks, murders, an indifferent government and divisions among themselves, church leaders these days are trying to delicately balance their act.

RELATED REPORTS:
Christians plan peaceful action against attacks in AP
Church sees plot in Goa blasts

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