Scene: Outside a church (board) on a Sunday. There’s worship music in the background. People have begun going towards the church.
In walks a little boy (Raj) in rags, carrying a runaway-from-home bundle. He keeps looking to the pavement and feeling his stomach. A girl walks by, carrying a whole load of buns, towards the church. He stares longingly. Suddenly he spies that one of them has fallen on the ground. He runs for it and grabs it — a happy smile on his face.
Out of nowhere come two ruffians. They walk up to Raj as he’s about to bite into the bun.
Ruffian1 (grabbing hold of Raj’s hand): Give me that!
Raj (grabbing at the bun): Give that. it’s mine.
Ruffian2: So, new here eh? (hits him on the head). Don’t you know the rules? Before you eat, ask us.
(Raj begins to weep)
R2: (boxing Raj’s ears) He won’t forget now.
R1: Let’s go.
(R1 and R2 leave, eating the bun. Raj goes and sits on the pavement, crying. Enter an Christian youth worker, notices Raj and walks to him.)
Youth Worker (YW): Why are you crying? Are you hungry?
Raj (wiping face): Yes.
YW: Come, I know where you can get some food.
(YW takes him to the church where people are distributing food (buns) to the poor. Raj gets some buns and eats happily)
YW (walks towards the pavement and sits. Raj sits beside him, still eating): Where have you come from?
Raj: Udaipur. I’ve run away from home.
YW: Why?
Raj: I wanted to be rich. Like them (points towards the church). I don’t want to be hungry.
YW: Oh look, the pastor is about to start his sermon.
(Raj hesitates, but then decides to go to the door and listen from outside)
(They go to the church door)
Pastor: Today, I want to tell you the story about a man who can fulfill our hunger.
(Reading from his pastor notes). Once upon a time, God was born on earth, as a man called Jesus. He came to show mankind how much he loved him. When he was 30 years old, he didn’t eat for 40 days and nights! Can you imagine that!
(Raj shakes his head.).
Pastor: (continuing) Food stopped being important to him. Instead, he went around asking people to be good and to obey the only God. He had amazing powers. He healed the sick and made the blind to see. One day, he even multiplied five loaves of bread and two fish so that they could feed more than 5000 people! And whenever people asked him how he got the powers, he kept saying he was God’s Son. He taught that man is always hungry in his stomach but he was the bread of life. If anyway chose him, he would never be hungry in his heart. Many didn’t believe him and were angry with him. Later those people nailed Jesus to a cross. Everybody thought he was dead. They buried him. But on the third day he rose again! In fact, even then some people didn’t even recognise Jesus until he “broke bread with them.”
Raj: (looking at the church congregation that is looking sleepy) Why are these Church people looking bored?
YW: They are bored because they don’t understand what it really means to be hungry, and what Jesus was actually offering.
Raj: Hey I would like to know more about this Jesus.
(Enter Religious nationalist.)
Nationalist: Stop!!! You are forcing conversion!
YW: What? What are you talking about?
Nationalist: You are making converts by bribing them with food!
YW: I did no such thing. This boy was hungry, I gave him something to eat. I never forced him to listen to the message. Plus, I never promised him more food, in fact the message was about how God is beyond our need for food. If he really wanted food he would have run away.
Raj: (raises his hand to say something) excuse me…
Nationalist: That’s forcing someone to become a christian. You christians are all alike… you bring people to food, then scare them about stories of heaven and hell, and then these poor people have no choice but to become Christians….
Raj: Excuse me…
YW: I never asked him to become a Christians I just…
Nationalist: (to police) Arrest him…
Police: I’m sorry, at the moment I don’t have jurisdiction to…
Nationalist: (to mob) beat them!….
(Mob attacks and YW is hit, and the church building is destroyed.)
Nationalist: (to Raj) Now we’ve saved you. Why did you come here? Isn’t your religion good enough for you? Why do you need to change your religion? We’re a peaceful religion, a peaceful people. It’s only these Christians who have made us take up arms! Come with us.
Raj: I don’t want to.
Nationalist: If you don’t come with us, there’s no place left for you to go.
–the end–
hi friend.
you create nice stories .The story would have been better had you replaced religious nationalist with Hindu nationalist .
why don’t the people understand that it was the Church which taught pe ople to love,brought civilazation to Africa,involved in scientific development and stopped second world war?
I believe people should understand Evangelists and their offerings to society.
Evangelists are so pure. They are highly enlightened people with no superstious beliefs ,respect the cultures and more importantantly they know that they are commissioned by God in their dreams to share christian love with poor souls of other religions and they have no intentions to convert people at all.
I reaffirm that christians are the most selfless service providers in the whole world.
Wow, avatar… your “story” (response) is even more amazing. It’s great! I know, Christians messed up. I know the Church has been abusive. Heck, I see Christians… messing up even today! Even as “minority” Indians. So I can’t help but see the satire (irony) of your appreciation. :) And even if it is not intentional, it does drive home the point real hard. Thanks for your response.
hey……..hi
In a serious note, I condemn the charges against the ‘genuine’ Christian helpers of the poor by self appointed Hindu conservationists.
I also know that those ‘genuines’ are of very little proportion.
Considering the too much money being invested in India to plant innumerable churches ( ha.. for a small ‘minority’ population) , buying of morning time slots in major TV channels , seeing the posters and banners of “GOOD NEWS” in every nook and corner , doubts may arise whether they are really ‘helpers of the poor’( as they proclaim proudly) or acting on some hidden agenda.
You do know the Evangelical explosion in the country,right?
I cannot accept Christian God to be so lovable and provides food to the hunger ( I’m not the first to use the phrase ‘Christian God’ ,infact christians started it to distinguish their ‘God’ from universal definition of ‘GOD’) having gone through few pages of Old Testament .
sorry…..i ‘ve no intentions to go through all 66 books of Bible or
base my arguments on few pages of New testament.
I ‘ve already texted you that I’m an observer in this world and I’m impartial to everybody and anything.
I sometimes think whether there had been any country where Christian preachers entered without a zeal to convert but to help people???
Hmm. This conversation is too depressing. I know Christians are messed up. You know Christians are messed up. Sigh! What is there to do! More sighs!
But to push the conversation forward, a little… I don’t think evangelism is wrong. I think the way it is done can be wrong.
In fact, I think evangelism is the very core of intelligent humanity, as we ‘proclaim’ our ideas, our visions, our PRICES, our cricket team, our whatever to others to “win” them to our side. Thinking of it like that… the world is a global discussion theatre, where we all have our arguments and counter-arguments.
Hence I believe to evangelise, to proclaim the “Christian” God, is not wrong. In fact, it can be beautiful, even liberating to a few who choose to believe this God… as perhaps the other way round as well.
The “way” evangelism is often done however is terrible! I don’t think all “conversions” are “forced” or even bribed. But still, there is certainly a lot of money at stake, and many Christians have zero sensitivity to people of other faiths and ideas and ideologies.
This is inversely true as well… as the Religious fundamentalists and sometimes even normal people at the work place… can agressive evangelise their position without sensitivity to others.
I want to recover “right” proclamation… and I believe it can be done.. and HAS been done.
I believe WE are doing it right now… where there is freedom and respect.
And this kind of evangelism I want to hold on to… I believe is a fundamental right… for any/every person (not just religious community).
What do you think?
Ha, Ha, Ha..
What a ‘REAL’ story. We know well these people who give food first. There in west, people are getting bored with this christianity. We know these pastors, what they did in other continents in history. Long time back when these pastors converted so many tribals in to chirsianity by force. I have all those images. what terribles things they did to convert people into christianity. Does christ told pastors to do forceble conversions to remove hunger. Now these pastors are coming with secular mask. Intelligence allways wins. Thats what is ‘GOD’.
This is not going to work in India. There will be fullstop here. Till now you are saying stories. Soon you will here terrible stories. Not only you even your forefathers nvered heard those like.. :) Then we laugh at you. You may boast you never wait. but we will make you to wait :)
Here stories will be different.
to kalyani: Whaaat?
My point of view: It’s so typical that even in a STORY like this we gravitate towards the ISSUES of conversion or violence, and ignore the very person affected by all this. But that’s just life, and what you said, just confirms what I feel about this whole mess. You blame the Christians? Well, so do I! You feel Christians are abusive when in power? So do I! You want to fight against forced conversion? So do I?
The difference Kalyani is that I believe sin is committed by everyone, even us Indians living here in India (not just missionaries). Not just Christians, but also Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs even Buddhists have done terrible things. And many Hindus (even Muslims) justify their violence saying that they were PUSHED to violence otherwise they are a gentle people. What rot! Violence, harming human beings, especially for ideological issues like religion should never be justified!
My view is that we are all messed up, but I’m not going around accusing Hindus or Muslims of being the people messed up, I’m saying that we Indians (and I AM THAT!) are messed up… and the world we lived in is messed up.
More personally, and on a gentler less ideological note, every morning I hear the very loud music of a temple next door. I don’t like listening to the music, it’s neither my taste nor does it make me feel peaceful. But it’s blared loud from 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning and I’m forced to hear it. And then, just today, I heard a stupid church suddenly blare Christian music from a loudspeaker. Though I am a Christian, I found even that music as loud and unpleasant! I reject any justification of this kind of behaviour, both from the temple and the church, because both that temple and that church are wrong to worry about their own issues and totally ignore the rights and concerns of normal people who just want to live/survive!
So what I’m saying is that let me try to bring attention of these gross injustices and mis-perceptions that affect us all. We talk about forceful conversion ignoring the real people who need help. Who will help them, you? Then do it!
Hopefully you will not think you (or your community, whatever it is) is guilt-free. I certainly don’t!
I guess the catholics should stop building schools and hospitals…Everything we do is taken negatively…Its like some children put their parents in the old age homes once they grow up and are independent. In a similar way ..Hindus once educated in convent schools …u know what !!! .Btw nice story ..i think you could have joined Hitler’s army ..ur a good propaganda machine…If u feel that 2.3%(acc to google) is causing u a problem…its better for you to stay on the moon .
To Indian Catholic: What? What are you saying man?
very good
Well its sad and unfortunate the way a Hindu’s tolerance is taken for granted in India.To Indian Catholic, the only way you build schools and colleges is to serve your own people and covert some Hindus. Check out the facts:most convents have 50% reservations for Christians!! So are you really working for the good???
To Indian Catholic: wow !!!I liked that…U tght India will go to the ruins because of that …Plz stop building..it will stop half the problems..
Moreover, first try to be an Indian before a Christian …
Also check out the no of churches that are there for a population of 2.3%(acc to google) .. we can as well use the land for helping others…….
Hi,
This is best example of justifying the conversion in India.Even churches also know that they are doing the conversion by offering not only food, money, work and other status.
I am not only condemning chruches for this, we Indian open the door for them and they have come and sat in the home as a owner.
Only why is kick them out like dog.
Heyy Avtar,U say it was the church which brought peace and love in Africa.Now thats quite ironical.But it were the same people of the church who were bent upon destroying others religion.They were the ones who brought slaves from Africa,they destroyed the INCAs and Mayas from south america just to spread their religion.Love,peace and gods grace is only for those who are in their religion and all the misery is for those of other religions.
What these Church people do is feed those in their religion,help those in their religion.In a secular country like India there are their minority institutions which provide benefits only to people of their religion.
So the truth is you get the BUN only if u go to the church otherwise you wont get it.This is the truth of the church.We have been taught the if you pray to God while travelling in a Bus then god will protect all the people in the bus,while what they teach is if you want the BUN then come to us.This just means that they go to the church so that they get tomorrows BUN.This is where the irony lies.
You nailed the logical fault. Ironical it is, indeed. Let us work towards a society that accepts people as human beings, does not force a system of religion upon them,
Ask yourself.
“How many times you feed the hungry people?”
It is easy to put mud on others.
Let us work together to help poor and needy.
I consider it a rather cheap trick.Christianity is a great religion, it is not the religion that is at fault.
What i dont like is the way some of these people treat Jesus like some product they have to sell.
this is my personal view after studying religions and there history ….
The Problem is with the monotheistic religions ..
everything they do is just for spreading the religion its not peace but the population which matters .
There are few articles which I would like you guys to refer just fyi .. as I don’t want to start any debate here .
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2153026/posts
anyway, I don’t have any right to tell you what to do and what not ….but before saying anything just remember that we are humans (Homo sapiens sapiens ) use your brain .
and one more thing right now what most of the monotheistics are sleeping with the enemy … cause these missionaries and invaders forced your forefathers to follow something which they just want to spread so that they can rule .
anyway …… sayonara please dont post any reply :-) I dont like arguments
I was reading all those responses. Even a story out of someone’s imagination can lead to heated discussions.Underlying fact is that irrespective of the religions that people follow, tolerance is zero in so many instances. Tolerance alone can pave thw way forward towards a society where all religious systems function equally well, without entering into conflicts.There will have to be rules if conflict is to be avoided.Blaming each other is of no use, this blame game should stop first.Unconditional Love for all beings we see, irrespective of the religion they follow, is a difficult but practical and effective solution to implement. Try to love the other person unconditionally, then you have made a beginning.People follow different religions to suite their origins, so no organisation should try to convert others. The sole reason for a conversion should be personal, coming from within, not forced by coercive methods,propoganda and media.The fundamental right to choose one’s religion should not be tampered with. It is being tampered with, everywhere.Let others breathe. let them decide who they want to follow.Just love everyone unconditionally irrespective of what religion they follow.Do not hate, do not spread hatred.
My Message to Indian Christians,
All this Christians are creating more problems every day….
They are disturbing the peaceful atmosphere even in villages…
They should stop being so arrogant…we are not like African blacks
to be mopped up & converted without resistence…
We Hindus are more civilized than europians…Our culture
is existing for the last 5000 years(that time ur white christian masters are using leafs as dress in europian jungles).
Our Understanding of Mathematics is well known…Even to day arab’s
uses the Indian Numerical system..Trignometry was invented by an Hindu.
Ur Christian Masters captured our country not wholly with their
military power..but with their cunningness…that wont happen again..So they want to convert whole India to Christianity & using the local Christians as tool for controlling our India