Christianity Destroying innumerable cultures
The West has the most brutalized indigenous populations in the world.
Concerns for missionary aggression are not unique to India, but are universally experienced by native communities struggling to withstand assault from organized evangelism. In 2001, the World Congress for the Preservation of Religious Diversity met in New Delhi and discussed the problems of indigenous faiths, especially in the light of the inadequacy of protection afforded by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in 1948.
Proselystization destroyed innumerable cultures and depleted the wisdom of the human race. Deploring unwholesome practices to encourage conversions, the World Congress noted that organizations, like the Church Planting Movement, had set up aggressive targets for the conversion of Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists. In one region of India, the number of churches rose from 547 in 1996 to 2000 in 1998, and more than 55,000 persons were converted to Christianity in just seven years. The World Congress asserted that such massive conversions could not be entirely voluntary, and that they necessarily resulted in animosity and retaliation among religious groups.
The World Congress for the Preservation of Religious Diversity resolved, inter alia, that proselythizing a person living in a community with a particular religious tradition is an act of violence against the person, the community and the religious tradition; that individuals and groups have the legitimate right to defend their religious tradition against proselytization; that it is imperative to preserve religious diversity and foster mutual respect for all religions through appropriate legislation and that a person converted from an indigenous tradition, culture, faith and belief has a right to return to his or her traditional belief.
The incessant pressure on surviving indigenous groups compelled the UN General Assembly to a late but timely recognize the worldwide loss of cultural diversity due to centuries of unwholesome physical and cultural annihilation of indigenous communities by politically organized religious groups. Eventually, the decade of 1995-2004 was dedicated as the International Decade of Indigenous Peoples, following global acknowledgement that native communities, estimated at around three hundred million worldwide, suffer extreme hardships as they struggle to retain their distinct cultural and religious traditions and lifestyles. UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali had said that indigenous had been pushed to ‘the margins of national and international life.’
On 13 September 2007, after more than twenty years of negotiations between nation states and indigenous peoples, the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples with an overwhelming majority of 143 votes in favor, four against (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, United States), and eleven abstentions.
It is not without irony that the countries that voted against the declaration have the most brutalized indigenous populations in the world, and an unedifying history of genocide and almost unending atrocities. Australia and Canada have offered apologies for their treatment to the aborigines. (Australia – Stolen generations, Canada – residential school for aborigines). Neither the United States nor New Zealand have so far apologized, or signaled intent to do so.
The West has the most brutalized indigenous populations in the world.
Concerns for missionary aggression are not unique to India, but are universally experienced by native communities struggling to withstand assault from organized evangelism. In 2001, the World Congress for the Preservation of Religious Diversity met in New Delhi and discussed the problems of indigenous faiths, especially in the light of the inadequacy of protection afforded by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in 1948.
Proselystization destroyed innumerable cultures and depleted the wisdom of the human race. Deploring unwholesome practices to encourage conversions, the World Congress noted that organizations, like the Church Planting Movement, had set up aggressive targets for the conversion of Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists. In one region of India, the number of churches rose from 547 in 1996 to 2000 in 1998, and more than 55,000 persons were converted to Christianity in just seven years. The World Congress asserted that such massive conversions could not be entirely voluntary, and that they necessarily resulted in animosity and retaliation among religious groups.
The World Congress for the Preservation of Religious Diversity resolved, inter alia, that proselythizing a person living in a community with a particular religious tradition is an act of violence against the person, the community and the religious tradition; that individuals and groups have the legitimate right to defend their religious tradition against proselytization; that it is imperative to preserve religious diversity and foster mutual respect for all religions through appropriate legislation and that a person converted from an indigenous tradition, culture, faith and belief has a right to return to his or her traditional belief.
The incessant pressure on surviving indigenous groups compelled the UN General Assembly to a late but timely recognize the worldwide loss of cultural diversity due to centuries of unwholesome physical and cultural annihilation of indigenous communities by politically organized religious groups. Eventually, the decade of 1995-2004 was dedicated as the International Decade of Indigenous Peoples, following global acknowledgement that native communities, estimated at around three hundred million worldwide, suffer extreme hardships as they struggle to retain their distinct cultural and religious traditions and lifestyles. UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali had said that indigenous had been pushed to ‘the margins of national and international life.’
On 13 September 2007, after more than twenty years of negotiations between nation states and indigenous peoples, the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples with an overwhelming majority of 143 votes in favor, four against (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, United States), and eleven abstentions.
It is not without irony that the countries that voted against the declaration have the most brutalized indigenous populations in the world, and an unedifying history of genocide and almost unending atrocities. Australia and Canada have offered apologies for their treatment to the aborigines. (Australia – Stolen generations, Canada – residential school for aborigines). Neither the United States nor New Zealand have so far apologized, or signaled intent to do so.
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