The Indian preacher(evangelist missionary) and the fake orphan scandal

[Vehl]

An Indian missionary charity falsely portrayed young Buddhist girls from Nepal as "orphans" of murdered Christians in a global fund-raising operation involving British and American churches.

Parents paid a child-trafficker more than £100 to take their daughters to good schools in Nepal's capital, Kathmandu, but instead they were taken more than 1,200 miles to Tamil Nadu, southern India.At the Michael Job Centre, a Christian orphanage and school in Coimbatore, they were converted to Christianity, given western names and told that its charismatic founder, Dr PP Job, was now their father.

On websites, the children were given serial numbers and profiles. The charity claimed they had been either abandoned by their parents who did not want the financial burden of raising girls, or orphaned after their "Christian" parents were murdered by Nepal's Maoist insurgents.The profiles were used to attract financial sponsors from around the world.

Many of the donors were in the United States, Holland and Britain, where Dr Jobs's sister organisation, Love in Action, is run from St Mary's C of E Church in Stoke-sub-Hamdon, Somerset.

The sick bastards!! :mad:
And they wonder why people hate missionaries in India.

I guess the Christians had to resort to such cheap methods (they have been for centuries...during colonial rule, they used to give out sacks of rice to people dying from famines(induced by the policies of the East Indian Trade Company) only if they converted. The derogatory term "rice convert" came to be because of this practice. Now they resort to kidnapping children!

even after 2 centuries of missionary activity, the % of Christians in India is only 2%. Maybe they ought to get the message and just shut up, but they wont...not when Evangelical nutcases are willing to funnels Billions to "save souls"

The good new is that this guy will now rot in Jail, and deservedly so. Having seen this, I totally understand why there is a huge push in many South Asian nations for a ban on missionaries. I hope they ban these asses.

Link
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/8856050/The-Indian-preacher-and-the-fake-orphan-scandal.html

[AsahinaKimi]

1. Is there a link for this story?

I have heard about this kind of thing, is there more to read?

[rug]

3. There are lots of links to this.

https://www.google.com/#hl=en&sugexp=kjrmc&cp=11&gs_id=2d&xhr=t&q=indian+preacher+orphan&tok=9Jg11Ui3irF420OGuZp5zg&pq=indian+prescher+orphan&pf=p&sclient=psy-ab&safe=off&source=hp&pbx=1&oq=indian+preacher+orphan&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=&gs_upl=&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=2ed7cdad67c2f9f3&biw=1600&bih=719

[Vehl]

5. Added link, thank you for pointing out :)

Was in a bit of a hurry today morning and forgot to add the link :)

And yes, stuff like this happens all the time. The missionaries use any and all means to add to the "flock". Often the poorest are given money (which the missionaries get in billions from the evengelicals) to convert. Some of the poor fall for it. Another tactic they use is divide and conquer. For example, jewish people have lived in india from centuries bc and to this day never felt any animosity from the indians (hindus, buddhists) however when christianity came to india the jews faced antisemitism and even inquisitions at the hands of these missionaries.

The missionaries were trying to convert even during the tsunami, handing out aid only to those who were interested in listening to their preaching

Conversion attempts in the time of grief
http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/jan/24shoba.htm

[AsahinaKimi]

7. During the Tsunami?

Even that wouldn't work. Most Japanese ignore anything regarding converting to Christianity. Its considered "Bad Luck" to even consider it, and Japanese can be very
superstitious. While Buddhism and Shinto are prominante, many Japanese don't consider themselves religous. They employ Buddhism for rituals such as deaths, but people born and those married, go to Shinto Priests. Shinto Priests will be asked to bless everyone and everything, including a new car if you wish!

Just don't talk to them about becoming Christian. They will turn and walk away very fast, without looking back.

[Vehl]

12. This was during the Tsunami of 2004

[dmallind]

2. Here's what you'll be told by DU Christians

Ther's only one story about it. The story is from a source that they will portray as untrustworthy. The story keeps changing. The names are common ones and could be made up. The Christians are doing a lot of good. If they are not then they are not REAL Christians.

'Tis the way of DU believers: attack the source, try to build plausible deniability, and if all else fails pretend that true Christians could never act this way.

[rug]

4. Since you have a cartoon view of Christianity, you may as well have a cartoon view of DUers.

At least you're consistent.

[dmallind]

6. Built up by the cartoon behavior of DU Xians - Elmer Fudds hunting the rabbits of religious venality

Inceidentally can you identify a trait of Christianity that I have claimed and cannot proviide evidence to support?

[rug]

10. Yes, all of it.

Particularly since your snark is directed at "DU believers" without exception. Prove it or retract it. Or, as a novelty, think before you let your biases leach out on the screen.

[Taverner]

8. I met lots of missionaries in SE Asia. Most of them were con men (and women)

And pretty much all of them have little to no oversight

[Vehl]

14. Yep. All missionaries are con men imo

Also Imo all missionaries are con men/women by default, as they try to sell something which has no evidence backing it up :D
To top it all they compound their crime by claiming that not only is their way superior to others, but is the only way.

If people really want to help other humans, they can help without a religious banner/affiliation. Everything else is done with an ulterior motive.

[elehhhhna]

9. There are also fake adoption arrangers who prey on TX church people --

they come to the church, conduct a seminar, take tons of cash, even have the parents fly to India (twice in one case!). People are gullible. Desperate-for-a-child couples can be especially so. It's a con wrapped around a cross. Happens alla time.

[Vehl]

15. +1 nt

[Lydia Leftcoast]

11. The term "rice converts" was actually a wake-up call for the missionaries

(at least the mainline ones). They long ago realized that people were claiming to be Christian only to receive rice, at which point they dropped the precondition of conversion. Today, agencies like Catholic Charities, Lutheran World Relief, Episcopal Relief and Development, and even the evangelical-leaning World Vision do not require conversion to receive help. Note that they all went into Pakistan (which forbids Muslims to convert to Christianity) and gave away food, warm clothing, and tents freely after the earthquake there a few years back.

Now what the free-lance fundamentalists (unorganized religion) do is something no one has any control over. Certainly not the mainline Christians, whom they see as deluded by Satan for their liberal ways.

By the way, anyone who tries missionary work in Thailand (staunchly Buddhist) or Malaysia (where ethnic Malays are Muslims who are forbidden to convert and the small number of Indians or Chinese who were so inclined were converted under British rule) is just plain banging their head against a wall.

[Vehl]

13. The term was also used/is still being used in the subcontinent for those who convert for benefits

As you pointed out, direct monetary and materiel benefits are not widely used nowadays; however they still offer other indirect benefits. For example, the kids of a convert can get admission into good schools often run by churches/convents...or the convert could get a job for him/his relatives in some missionary/Evangelical leaning/operated business/charity/NGO.

Often the poorest and the most illiterate segments of the society are the ones who fall victims to the missionaries..as they are least prepared to stand up to/and or refute the bogus claims and tall tales of "professional" looking people who go about professing their religion.

However I am glad that some countries have banned missionary activity altogether, and I'll be ecstatic if India finally does it as well. These missionaries take advantage of the nation's secular constitution to carry out their activities. Imho Missionary work is a crime against humanity, and a new form of colonialism. However, with rising literacy and more exposure to the world as a whole, people will be less and less susceptible to attempts at conversion.


PS: If I remember correctly, some of the missionaries conducting aid camps in Pakistan/Afghanistan did hand out Bibles along with their aid, and it raised an outcry amongst the people there.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. That was probably one of the fundamentalist groups

They have this notion that they can't support any charity that doesn't include evangelism.

For example, when I was in grad school, most of the religious groups on campus--Catholics, Jews, mainline Protestants, Muslims--joined forces to promote an Oxfam Fast Day for as many students as possible, religious or non-religious. That's when you fast for a day and then donate what you would have spent on food to Oxfam. (The food service provided us with figures for the cost of one day of the meal plan.)

Well, the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship would not participate unless there was a funding alternative with an evangelistic approach. The organizer said, "World Vision?" and the president of IVC said that World Vision not acceptable because they didn't evangelize anymore. So the organizer told them to name an organization that was acceptable to them, and they came up with some small outfit called the Bible Medical Society, which worked in a small corner of India.

The IVC was surprisingly large for an Ivy League University, and the organizers wanted to raise awareness of world hunger as much as possible (the day was supposed to end with a light meal and a film about Oxfam at 8PM), so they consented, even though the Bible Medical Society had nothing to do with world hunger.

I recall seeing fundamentalist Sunday School materials (my father being a Lutheran pastor received mailings from every Christian denomination from hellfire Baptists to pre-Vatican Catholics and everything in-between) in which there was a multiple choice question about which order of actions missionaries should take to "civilize" people. The "correct" answer was that you had to convert them before solving any of their other problems.

Yes, so that attitude does exist, but the largest religious disaster relief and charitable organizations--the ones run by Catholics and mainline Protestants-- do NOT require conversion to receive aid.