Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Christians Persecuted in India

Hopegivers International, a religious charitable group based in Georgia, cares for more than 20,000 orphaned and abandoned children throughout India and Africa. One of the group's officials, Samuel Thomas, was arrested near New Delhi by a dozen men claiming to be police officers from the provincial capital of Kota, Rajasthan. His current status is unknown.

This situation seems to be a Hindu version of what is going on in much of the Middle East. A group of religious zealots wants to end India’s secular government and make it a Hindu state. Sound familiar? Evidently part of their plan is to remove all Christian influence in the area, including the Emmanuel Hope Home for Orphans in Kota. Rajasthan newspapers have repeatedly quoted terrorist leaders offering a reward of $26,000 to paramilitary groups who will capture and behead the Christian leaders.

And when asked what should happen to the 2,500 children at the Christian orphanage, Rajasthan’s government along with other militant groups have taken the position to simply let them go back to the streets they where they came from. Hopegivers has offered to bus the orphans to some of their other 86 orphanages throughout India, but local government and police have refused to provide security.

I don't understand a religion that places anything above the welfare of innocent children. This is definitely a matter for prayer... prayer for the kids, for Samuel Thomas and his associates, and for the country that is letting this happen.

While President Bush promotes new ties and a closer relationship to India, maybe he should encourage the government to stand up to the religious radicals and protect the lives of American missionaries. And if the mainstream media weren't so preoccupied counting the American dead in Iraq, maybe they could cover this story.
http://www.persecution.com/news/index.cfm?action=fullstory&newsID=383

3 comments:

SkyePuppy said...

Sadly, the mainstream media has been relentless in its non-reporting of the persecution of Christians. In their eyes, Christians are beneath contempt and undeserving of sympathetic coverage.

Fortunately, we now have alternative media to spread the word.

Thanks for bringing this up.

Anonymous said...

You know, several thoughts come to mind as I read this.

1. It's awfully hard for the mainstream media to report on something that they really in some small way agree with. Now I don't think they would advocate the outright killing of Christians, but they would dearly love to shut us up and completely rid the world of our influence. The Hindus rid their world of Christianity through violent murder, the media in more subtle ways.

2. This is precisely why the war on terror is so absolutely important. Not just to rid the world of terrorists who are violent, but those who are so violently opposed to freedom of religion. I'm afraid that Americans are so "open-minded" and determined to have a separation of church and state that we could easily find ourselves embracing all religions...even those truly extreme ones that will stop at nothing to spread their hate and intolerance everywhere, including and especially here in America.

janice said...

If the MSM were to report this, they would agree to leave the children to their on demise. The thought of these children being cared for and taught "christian" values is a against their secular beliefs.
Prayers are forth coming. Good post Chris