Missionaries rouse Sri Lankan Buddhists' wrath

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HinduThought, "Ashok Chowgule" <ashokvc@c...>

wrote:

Missionaries rouse Sri Lankan Buddhists' wrath

 

THE OBSERVER , LONDON

Friday, Nov 21, 2003,Page 5

 

Controversial missionary activities by fundamentalist Christian sects

in Sri Lanka have inflamed passions among the predominantly Buddhist

population to an extent that could rebound against older, established

Christian groups such as the Catholics.

 

New evangelicals, often flush with American funding and eager to

spread the fundamentalist gospel in the island, have been targeting

the poorer sections of Sri Lankan society. Jehovah's Witnesses, the

Assembly of God, Southern Baptists and several others sects have

established churches in remote rural areas that have remained

Buddhist through the centuries. They distribute food, clothes and

other basic essentials and even cash to the deprived people,

encouraging them to attend prayer sessions.

 

This has antagonized Buddhists, who have launched attacks on some of

these churches and preachers. Many have called for a law

prohibiting "unethical" religious conversion and demanded that

evangelists set up shop in predominantly Christian, rather than

Buddhist, areas.

 

The zeal of the fundamentalists has also affected Sri Lanka's

established churches, especially the Roman Catholic community, the

largest and oldest Christian church, introduced by Portuguese

colonizers in 1505.

 

Matters came to a head last August when Sri Lanka's Supreme Court

ruled in a landmark judgement that the constitution's guarantee of

freedom of worship did not extend to the right to propagate religion.

 

The judgment also noted the constitution's acknowledgement of

Buddhism as the country's foremost religion and the state's duty to

protect and foster it.

 

The court was responding to a petition by Buddhists against the legal

incorporation of a Roman Catholic order of missionary nuns seeking to

carry out teaching, vocational youth training, nursing and care of

the elderly, together with missionary work. It ruled that "the spread

of knowledge to youth" by a Christian missionary order was

inconsistent with the constitutional requirement to protect and

foster Buddhism, the religion of 69 percent of the population.

 

Hindus (15 percent) are the next biggest group, followed by

Christians (8 percent), Muslims (7 percent) and others (1 percent).

 

The Supreme Court also held that Christian institutions should not

couple religious instruction with charitable deeds and agreed with

the petitioners that young, inexperienced and elderly people could be

lured to other religions by charitable activities.

 

Although fundamentalist Christians number less than 1 percent of the

population, their activities are highly visible among the urban

middle class and are spreading increasingly to the rural poor. More

than 10 attacks on new evangelist churches have been recorded this

year compared with five last year.

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