Meanwhile, the Chinese government continues its attempt to control every aspect of Chinese society, from business to entertainment. These include certain restrictions on video games and K-Pop bands.

Chinese Christians

This display of nationalism put Christians in a difficult spot, says Kurt Rovenstine with Bible for China. Believers in state-sanctioned churches want to love their neighbors, and also serve and proclaim the story of Jesus. “Even in the midst of this difficult political scenario, our partners and provincial leaders are saying, ‘We’re going to move forward. We’re going to do what we think we need to do to be obedient to the call that Christ has placed upon the church, while still living in this difficult political climate that we’re in.’”

Praise God for their faithfulness!

New partnerships

Bibles for China hasn’t been able to visit China since the pandemic began. But they continue to explore new partnerships. “We’ve reached out to a couple of organizations that do similar work as we do to develop some partnerships with them. Those would still function within China, enabling us to reach some places that we haven’t been able to be a part of. It would be a ministry that’s more seasonal. We would maybe do Christmas and Easter outreaches with Scripture.”

Rovenstine says they hope to work with Chinese people living abroad as well. Ask God to use these opportunities to strengthen the Chinese Church.

The header photo shows National Day fireworks from 2012. (Photo courtesy of Mk2010, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

On Thursday, officials announced the results of a six-week polling process in which more than 600 million Indian citizens elected leaders at various levels of governance. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist group, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), won by a landslide – guaranteeing five more years of power.

When the BJP came to power in 2014, they won 282 seats in Parliament’s lowest house – the first time in thirty years that a single party obtained so many seats. This year, they claimed 303 seats. “It’s stunning,” Bibles For The World’s John Pudaite observes.

“My friends in the business community [find] it to be a good thing because they see it as a political stability… they don’t expect any major changes. But, I’ll tell you from the Christian community, it is really not a good thing.

“We have seen the escalation of persecution… during the last five years that this current party has led the government. Christians across the country are bracing themselves for another five years of the same, and many are expecting it to get worse.”

Speaking to U.S. News & World Report about the election results, University of London professor Subir Sinha claims, “Secularism is basically tottering on its knees in India.” Associate professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, Ajay Gudavarthy, predicts the next five years will bring “a more blatant kind of attack on individuals and institutions who don’t adhere to their ideologies.”

What Hindu nationalism means for Christians

Last fall, Hindu nationalists rallied around the goal of making India a “Hindu Rashtra” (Hindu nation) by 2024. Modi and the BJP support the concept, making no secret of their “Hindu first” agenda.

The Hindu god, Ganesh.
(Photo courtesy of Pixabay)

Henrietta Blyth, the CEO of Open Doors UK and Ireland, told Christian Today earlier this week,

“It is an increasingly worrying time for Christians in India. Over the last five years, they have experienced a significant level of violence, discrimination, and intolerance against them. We hope that this second BJP victory will not be a mandate for increased persecution but will instead be an opportunity to heal the increasing divides in India.”

As noted here, there’s even suspicion of a move toward two types of citizenship: Hindu and non-Hindu. A move like this could put even more pressure on Christians and other minorities.

Nonetheless, hope remains. Despite increased persecution and hardship, “we have been seeing requests for Scriptures, for God’s Word,” notes Pudaite.

“Whether [it’s] Bibles for new believers or Scriptures for evangelism, [requests are] even greater than ever before.”

With a strong emphasis on India, Bibles For The World serves unreached people groups, the Church, and Christian leaders in developing nations in a variety of ways. Learn more about their work here.

How to pray for India

Like dark clouds looming on the horizon, Hindu ideology and nationalism appear to be gaining even more strength than before. Pudaite says Indian believers need “to prepare for persecution and hardship that is going to come ahead in the next few years.”

(Photo courtesy of rawpixel via Unsplash.)

Pray believers will keep sharing God’s truth and trust Him to control the future. Ask the Lord to have mercy upon India, and pray for the Holy Spirit to move the hearts of people who don’t know Christ yet.

“[We’ve] got to keep praying that those people out there working hard [to build] the Kingdom [and] getting the good news of Jesus Christ out to the people of India will continue with the same fervor and passion.”

Header image obtained from Narendra Modi’s personal feed on Flickr.

Open Doors USA tracks Christian persecution around the world and reports their findings each year on the World Watch List. China is currently ranked at number 43 out of the top 50 countries with the worst Christian persecution.

2018 World Watch List naming the top 50 countries where it is most dangerous to be a Christian. (Image courtesy of Open Doors)

David Curry, President and CEO of Open Doors explains, “China has moved up that list unfortunately and it has to do with the growing, increasing pressure on house churches — what has typically been underground churches. That is a little misleading because they’re typically well-known within their communities. But [there is] growing pressure to register these house churches.

“The government has been pressuring [house churches] and then when they register, they have been monitoring them in a little more official way, a little more onerous way.”

This power grab for control over religious institutions is frightening, to say the least, because of what it could mean for the future in China.

“You can imagine…if in your home community the police came to you and said, ‘We want to know who is a Christian in this town,’ the first thing you would wonder is, ‘Why do you need to know that?’ Secondly, ‘What are you going to do when you find out?’ And thirdly, ‘If there were some very evil intent sometime down the road and they had a list of Christians, would that portend for some folks to have some very difficult days?’”

Curry says there seems to be a growing nationalist movement taking root in certain regions of China — and it is fostered by the Communist government.

These believers have been asked to replace their cross. (Photo, caption courtesy of ChinaAid)

“If they allow Christians to exist, they want that Christian faith to be ‘Chinese’ or loyal to the government to validate government politics [and] policy.

“The Chinese Church is wary of doing that because, of course, this nationalization of the Church means they may one day be forced to choose between Jesus and the Chinese government.”

Forced nationalization of the Church is extremely dangerous since it asks believers to put secular heads of state above biblical truth.

However, as Curry points out, the temptation to marry political agenda with Christianity rears its head in other arenas — even in America.

“We can look at our own situation and say, ‘At what points am I asked or do I decide myself that I am doing to be a Democrat or a Republican before I am a follower of Jesus?’ Call ourselves on it…because we do it to ourselves in many cases in this country. We say, ‘I’m a this’ or ‘I’m a that’ and people do it in every single political party. But first, we need to center ourselves on being a follower of Jesus.”

A group of Christians prays outside of
the public security bureau. (Photo, caption courtesy of ChinaAid)

The biggest thing we can do as believers is to pray and stay grounded in Scripture. Curry says, “As it relates to China, we need to pray for this Church to mature, and quickly. The Chinese Church is massive in size, but like the American Church, it’s big and it’s shallow. So we need this Church to grow up…. The Chinese Church has been underground for so long, it doesn’t know how to play a useful public role in law, in education, and in the policy world; so Christian faith hasn’t been integrated into all parts. We need to pray for that in China in a healthy way.”

Please also pray for the Body of Christ — in China, America, and around the world — to keep the Lord and His Word at the forefront of our convictions and actions without shared allegiance to other parties, worldviews, or leaders.

Organizers for the event included the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) of America, an organization classified as a “militant religious outfit” by the Central Intelligence Agency. Leaders of the VHP have called for violence against religious minorities in India, and members have even carried out extremist attacks in defense of Hindu nationalist ideals.

According to News India Times, conference convener Abhaya Asthana stated, “When people hear the word Hindu conference they think it’s a spiritual conference. There will be no spiritual discourses…. The aim is to use the essence of Hindu philosophy, dharma, to inform how we come together (in the diaspora) as men, women, and youth — in politics, education, and commerce.”

The concept of Hindus living in the diaspora is a dangerous one. To have a diaspora, one must believe there is a rightful homeland for your group.

Hindu nationalists claim India is their homeland, and as such, all non-Hindus ought to be driven out or forced to convert. In 2010, 94 percent of the world’s Hindus lived in India.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have further advanced these Hindu nationalist ideals — or Hindutva. BJP leaders have announced their goal to make India a “Hindu Rashtra” (Hindu nation) by 2024.

This goal of a “Hindu Rashtra” in India has gravely jeopardized the safety of Indian religious minorities, including Christians.

Todd Nettleton with The Voice of the Martyrs USA says, “If you look at the most predominantly Hindu nation in the world, which is India, absolutely the pressure has been ramping up. In fact, just this past weekend, we had a guest from India on our VOM Radio podcast and his group has tracked persecution. They say, at this point, over the last six months there has been a persecuted Christian on average every single day. So it’s now every 24 hours somewhere in India a Christian is being persecuted.

“That is motivated and really put into practice by a government that has embraced this Hindu nationalist ideology that every Indian should be a Hindu, and if you’re not a Hindu, you ought to leave or you ought to be punished and influenced to become a Hindu.

“So when this congress comes together in Chicago and talks about expanding the influence of Hinduism, obviously for those of us who live in free countries, that should raise some red flags for us.”

India is ranked on Open Doors’ World Watch List in 11th place for “extreme persecution” of Christians. Recently, International Christian Concern surveyed 1,000 Indian Christians across eight states. Their findings showed 68.8 percent of believers in India feel discriminated against and that their safety is significantly threatened. Also, 85.61 percent reported sensing an increase in violence from Hindu radicals against their communities, families, and places of worship.

The growing popularity of anti-conversion laws in Indian states has further increased Christian persecution.

According to Nettleton, another thing their guest on VOM Radio recently shared is “one of the things this [anti-conversion] law says is, if you are going to talk to someone about changing their faith — let’s say we’re going to give a Gospel of John to somebody and we’re going to talk about the forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ — this law says six months before you have that conversation, you’re supposed to go before a magistrate and say, ‘Hey, on this particular day I’m planning to talk to this particular person about changing their religion.’ Which if we even think about that, that just seems so ridiculous.

“But then, of course, if you do talk to someone about their religion, the police can come in and say, ‘Wait a minute, you didn’t go to the magistrate six months ago and tell him you were going to have this conversation. You broke the law.’

“It’s just an impossible standard and it is a Hindu nationalist government that is pushing this kind of law and these kinds of regulations out all across India as a way to persecute Christians and stop the spread of the Gospel.”

In the wake of the 2018 World Hindu Congress in Chicago, Nettleton reflects, “I hope many of the delegates from around the world see what a country that has religious freedom looks like and think, ‘Wow, this is actually kind of cool. Maybe we should bring home some of these concepts of religious freedom instead of some of the concepts of adding the influence of Hinduism in our country.’’

(Photo courtesy of Voice of the Martyrs)

Meanwhile, there is good news. Hindu men and women are being reached out to by their Christian neighbors in India and around the world, and are being transformed by the beauty and power of the Gospel. The best thing we can do for now is pray.

“What we can do is certainly pray that in the spiritual realm, God’s power will reign even over…those living in Hindu-majority countries [and] coming to faith in Christ out of that Hindu background. Pray that they will be rooted in God’s Word, rooted in their faith, and able to withstand the persecution that they face.”

Also, Nettleton asks, “We can pray for our brothers and sisters, I think particularly of India — praying for them to come to faith, praying for Christians to have boldness, even though they know, ‘Yes, sharing my faith in Christ could get me arrested, it could get me beaten up, I still need to do that. God has still called me to do that.’ So praying that they will have boldness to do that in spite of the persecution and the oppression that they face.”

Click here to find out how you can advocate for persecuted Christians with VOM!

But that concerns some people.

“There are so many Christians in China, and some people say there are more Christians than members of the Communist party, and that means the leaders are a little uncertain or not clear what that means for their future.”

According to David Curry of Open Doors USA, the pressure the Church feels varies depending on local and national levels of leadership and how different individuals feel about Christianity. However, some of those movements recently became a little more unified.

“You’re seeing on this continuum of freedom and persecution, you’re seeing it more toward more regulation, more persecution, and certainly more tightening down on the expression of Christian faith,” Curry says. “In this particular case what you have is the state administration requiring underground churches to pop their heads up and get organized or registered in a coherent way.”

Photo and header photo courtesy of Open Doors Ministries

Churches are hesitant about what it might mean to come under state organization. Curry says it’s not necessarily the immediate future that’s concerning but the potential problems it could cause to have the names, numbers, or locations of Christians in one big database.

Why consolidate this information in the first place? Curry says the Chinese government is concerned about the potential for Christians to develop political motivations, but he also thinks these concerns are unnecessary.

“That’s not what the Christian faith expression has been in China,” he says. “It’s been about a faith movement that has undergirded morals in China and other positive things in that community, and I think that’s why for the last several years they’ve been allowing it to function and to grow [without interference].”

Another concern is that politicizing the Christian movement might cause problems within the Chinese Church.

We don’t want to see the other side and have a nationalistic Church. The Church needs to be built around who Jesus is and what he said and his teachings in Scripture. That’s the way we understand theology and the Christian worldview. However, the Chinese Church wants it to be very Chinese in nature.”

Photo courtesy of Open Doors Ministries

The problem isn’t patriotism; it’s nationalism. Curry says he has met churches and pastors all over China who are proud to be Chinese. Problems arise, however, when Christianity becomes a political tool.

“In some environments around the world, you have a nationalized Church, which means the Church is forced to sign off on and give cover to the government in a political sense,” he says.

At that point, it’s no longer about Jesus, and the Church becomes another government organization.

The Chinese Church is going to need your support and prayer over the coming months as this situation unfolds. Curry says they have a tendency to reflect “the American Church’s shallow tendencies,” and that will be challenged by this new push for registration.

“Pray that this kind of process will force them to check deep in their minds whether they’re Christians first or Chinese first,” Curry says. “That’s fundamentally the question every citizen has to answer; are you a citizen of heaven first because you’ve decided to follow Jesus, or are you tied to a political agenda?”

Pray that the government will recognize the importance of the Church’s influence on the country’s morality, not to mention its battle against homelessness and addiction, and drop the new push before it goes much further.

Find out what Open Doors is doing in China and around the world right here.

A nationalist is defined as “a member of a political party or group advocating national independence or strong national government.”
(Photo by Mike from Pexels)

In many countries, restrictions were a direct result of nationalist agendas. As just one example, nationalist parties in approximately one-third of European countries targeted religious minorities in their political statements. This was up from 20% of countries in 2015.

The results of the Pew study came as no surprise to Joe Handley. “Pressure is rising, particularly government pressure,” he says.

Handley serves as President of Asian Access, a Christian ministry operating in 13 Asian nations. Asian Access develops Christian leaders and helps believers overcome the legal and social restrictions studied by Pew Research.

“The rate of persecution that’s been happening in most of the countries [where Asian Access works] has been on the rise,” Handley notes.

“The Lord put the government in charge to help us follow rules of order. At the same time, when they put restrictions on things that we’re obligated to do spiritually, we have to find ways to work in society that maintain peace but also pursue the Gospel.”

Religious restrictions and outright persecution

Since oppression varies from nation to nation, “it’s a significant dilemma you have to work around, depending on your work in the country and the work of the Church in that country,” Handley says.

In some countries, Asian Access can work with the national government and lobbyists. This isn’t possible in other nations, though, and oppression often takes a harsher turn. For example, a leader partnering with Asian Access in an undisclosed location was poisoned by members of another religious group a few weeks ago.

“The people who poisoned him stole his cellphone, laptop, everything he had with him. We’re concerned for him because of the personal data that was on the laptop,” says Handley.

The leader was unconscious for several days following the attack. To help ease the financial burden on his family, Asian Access raised funds to cover the leader’s medical bills.

What can we do about it?

(Photo by Suzy Hazelwood from Pexels)

More than 2 billion people live in China and India. Notably, these two nations were mentioned in the Pew study as having significant levels of governmental oppression (China) and societal oppression (India).

Due to the uptick in religious restrictions in these nations and more, Asian Access is looking to partner with watchdog groups like Open Doors and Voice of the Martyrs. “Let’s work together to help leaders who are facing pressures and persecution,” says Handley.

83 percent of the world’s population lives in countries where following Jesus is a high-risk commitment. Now that you know, will you ask God how He wants you to respond?

“Please come help us. Pray for us, give to us, and do call government officials to see if they can help out,” Handley requests.

“You can call your congressmen, your senators, and speak on behalf of the persecuted Church, speak on behalf of those in restricted countries.”

An example of this is in India, which shares borders with both Pakistan and Bangladesh (two of the three countries where FMI works). In India, to be Indian is to be Hindu. If an Indian isn’t Hindu, they’re almost considered an enemy of the state.

Christians Facing Pressure From Nationalism

Allen says a lesser extreme of this type of nationalism is seen in Indonesia, but to a greater extreme in Pakistan.

“I think it’s very helpful for the Western audiences to understand what it’s like in so many other countries of the world, where simply by virtue of being born in that country, you are legally considered a Muslim,” Allen explains.

People in these countries who don’t fit the majority are often singled out, treated differently, and discriminated against by society.

“There is this feeling that if you are not of, in Pakistan, of the Muslim faith, you are a second-rate citizen. When you start treating people as second-rate citizens, you end up saying, ‘to be a first-class citizen, you have to be a member of this particular faith’. That’s when nationalism creeps in, where you’re saying only ‘certain’ people can be considered ‘us’,” Allen shares.

However, it’s important to note the differences between patriotism and nationalism, because the two are not synonymous.

How Patriotism Differs From Nationalism

Patriotism is a healthy appreciation and love for one’s country. There’s nothing wrong with this. But, a patriot loves his or her country in a way that allows he or she to see where it can grow. Truth is spoken by a patriot, both the good and the ugly.

Mosque skyline in Lahore, Pakistan. (Header/Photo Courtesy of FMI)

One analogy Allen uses is that of a parent and child. A parent will love and cheer on his or her kid. But, a parent will also critique a child to help shape he or she into a better person. A patriot also does this with his or her country.

For example, Allen says many Christians in Pakistan care for and love their country. There’s no friction between loving their country and loving Christ. But, they also intimately know the areas where their country can change for the better. Like, religious freedom for all. Still, they’re aware of the stigma in how they’re considered less of a Pakistani because of their faith and minority status.

“'[God] has ordained that we live here, and so we will do it to the best of our ability and reflect Christ’s values, His purposes. And because we love our fellow countrymen, we want to share the Gospel with them’,” Allen recalls from Pakistani Christians.

Nationalism, on the other hand, is the “us vs. them” mentality. The “us” being the majority and the “them” being the minorities. This can be in regards to race, religion, political views, ancestry, and more. Nationalism can appear as protectionism, isolationism, and ideas of false superiority. This belief system counters God’s heart for all people, and it’s something Christians everywhere should guard against. No one is immune to it.

Challenges of Nationalism

The tricky part of nationalism, though, is it can blind individuals into thinking they’re just being patriotic, when indeed they’re being nationalistic. Nationalism ranks its country above others, to the point of calling it the ‘best’. It oftentimes fails to address the areas where the country can grow and mature.

(Photo courtesy of FMI)

Allen says if anyone had the right to be nationalistic, it would have been Abraham from the Old Testament. Abraham was promised his descendants by God. He knew of the chosen nation, yet he still saw his citizenship not here on earth, but in God’s Kingdom.

“[Abraham] considered his real home to be a place that was not built by human hands on this earth. Hebrews 11:13 says it’s an easy thing for me to admit that I am a stranger and an alien as long as I am walking this earth,” Allen says.

“He really saw himself as a sojourner or a pilgrim. The real problem comes when we no longer have that attitude of being sojourners and pilgrims, and we become settlers—and we’ve settled down into the comfort of whatever country it is that we live in.”

But, all of Christ’s people are called to live with their eyes on Him, not their passport nationality. Furthermore, Christ-followers, regardless of citizenship, are called to love their neighbor as themselves. Nationalism is a thorn in this commandment.

A Different Kind of Citizenship

“If I’m a citizen of His Kingdom, I have to understand what the apostle Paul was saying in Acts 17, about from one single person were all people born from. Therefore, we have a common bond with people in Kenya, in Japan, in Germany, in Uruguay. It was God who ordained where people should live, according to that same verse,” Allen says.

Furthermore, there are more things which connect humans to each other besides nationality. These include our common humanity, our fallen natures, and the love of a God who wants to redeem us. And ultimately, all people have been created in God’s image, not a select few.

“His Gospel is for everyone. And so we dare not blur the lines between healthy patriotism and nationalism, that starts to do an ‘us vs. them’ mentality,” Allen urges.

“It also means that I have to be willing to be a minority voice at times, regardless of how the message is received because my allegiance is to the Kingdom.”

Guarding Against Nationalism

So, how does one guard against nationalism? By testing one’s thoughts against the Bible and God’s truths. It also helps to grasp what patriotism looks like and understand the boundaries of an earthly citizenship.

(Photo Courtesy Sean MacEntee via Flicker)

“I appreciate living in the US. I find, man, there’s a lot of beautiful places here. There’s a lot of topographical diversity from beaches to mountains, to deserts, to canyons, to cities, to farmlands. We have…jungles, we have all sorts of things…more diversity than most nations do. Wow, let’s appreciate that,” Allen expresses.

“But, we don’t let that become, ‘so our country is better than yours’. No, God said all of His creation was good, not just the boundaries that we call the USA.”

Pray that regardless of where we live, we’d all stand firm in our citizenship of God’s kingdom, have a healthy sense of patriotism, and to not give way to nationalism in our minds or hearts. Also, pray for laws denoting citizens as less or as second-class to be repealed worldwide.

Pray for all pastors to reinforce the notion of how this earth is not our home, instead, we are ambassadors of Christ’s kingdom. Ask God to give perseverance and encouragement to those who face persecution. And finally, pray for all Christians everywhere to grow in the ways of God and to reflect them, too.

Help support FMI pastors and church planters here!

According to Open Doors USA, Hindu leader Om Swami Maharaj recently accused Christians of promoting terrorism in a video. If believers don’t leave by choice, he adds, they will be forcibly expelled from the country.

Read more about the video on Open Doors’ website.

“The terrorism charge is a stretch,” says Open Doors’ David Curry, “…essentially, what they’re saying is it’s ‘un-Hindu’ behavior…‘un-Hindu’ and ‘un-Indian’ behavior is anti-state, it’s against the better needs of the state, so therefore it’s terrorism.”

(Photo and header photo courtesy Open Doors USA)

Curry says the accusation is significant because “there are 65 million Christians in the country of India. They’re an important part of the community; they do a lot of charitable work, they add a lot to the fabric of life.”

The charge is certainly troubling, but it’s to be expected. Persecution against Christians has been rising steadily in India since 2014. On Open Doors’ World Watch List, the nation rose from #25 to #11 in three short years.

“This is a political movement, led by President Modi and his team, that is trying to divide and use nationalism…to eliminate their religious enemies,” says Curry.

“They see Christians as enemies of their political agenda.”

Open Doors is supporting the Church in India through partner organizations in the following ways:

• Distributing Bibles, children’s Bibles, mini-library books, training manuals, and Sunday school materials;
• Providing “Standing Strong Through the Storm” persecution-preparedness training;
• Leading livelihood and community development, adult literacy programs, bridge schooling for children, vocational education, and urgent aid and relief for persecuted Christians; and,
• Providing field advocacy (legal help), legal seminars, and Rapid Action Teams in the field.

Learn more about their work here.

“We should not overlook…this very significant problem of religious liberty because it’s [a] fundamental building block [of society],” Curry concludes.

Now that you’re aware of the hardships faced by Christians in India, would you pray?

Ask God to protect believers in India. Pray that this persecution would be a testing fire to reveal the Truth of the Gospel. Finally, pray for credible leaders to rise up in India that will speak out against this persecution.

“The government is putting pressure on Christian churches so that they’ll slow down their activities,” this leader (who has asked that he and his organization not be named) tells us. “In some areas, workers have been killed, prosecuted, and pressured, and it’s pretty significant in some of the regions that are more dangerous.”

Thanks to the nature of their work, not much pressure has been directed at this leader or the organization that he represents.

“We come alongside not just pastors and NGO leaders but also businesspeople,” the leader explains. “In fact, we just had a session in the north part of India with some of the top business leaders in the country.”

(Photo courtesy of Unsplash)

However, even though they can still encourage, equip, and empower, the people they’re sending out are running into problems.

“We want to retain the ability to be able to serve the body of Christ in the country,” this leader says. “We definitely need your prayer, because our folks are feeling it, and they’re saying we need to be more and more cautious as we do the work we do.”

Thankfully, things have not escalated to the level of life-threatening persecution. However, the pressure is building against this leader’s organization and their partners in India.  “When you talk about pressure, that’s more along the lines of a threat,” he says. “Instead of actually being killed, someone might call you and say ‘You need to stop what you’re doing or we’ll take out your daughter. We know where she goes to school.’”

He also believes this situation could be resolved through one-on-one conversations that reveal the grace of Christ.  “We can paint a picture of Christ’s work as not having some sort of political agenda or having strings attached to it,” adding, “Rather, we’re trying to embody our faith, to be the hands and feet of Christ and share the good news we have to offer.”

(Photo courtesy of Unsplash)

“Our faith is not about politics, it’s not about some nationalist move, and we’re not trying to take over the country. We’re merely trying to be the light of Christ.”

As some nationalists become more hostile, this leader is asking for your help and support so his organization, and other helping organizations, can continue to bring the Gospel to India.  “Please pray, because this is a critical season as persecution and pressure are on the rise, and it’s directly happening to groups we partner with, as well as to many other ministries.”

In fact, another Indian state has passed an anti-conversion law. Uttarakhand is the seventh India state to hold an anti-conversion law.

According to UCA News, the law specifically punishes the forced conversion of women, minors, or people from disadvantaged places in society. Along with forced conversions, those deemed to have happened because of allurement and fraud are also punishable. Punishments include short-term prison sentences and fines.

(Photo and header photo courtesy of Open Doors USA)

The problem with these kinds of laws is that they are often abused. David Curry of Open Doors USA says in a way, they allow people to play vigilante if they don’t like the activities of Christians in their community. Anyone can make a claim that somebody forced conversion upon someone else.

Curry says this law, which infringes religious freedom, is another odd example of how India is attempting to fit in with the international community in almost every other way except when it comes to human rights.

“India four years ago elected the BJP party and Prime Minister Modi as their leader. They have a radical Hindu agenda, a nationalist agenda which … is making the statement ‘You’re not an Indian unless you’re Hindu. And we’re going to make it very difficult for you to not be Hindu. And we’re going to make it very difficult for you to be a Christian.’”

India moved up to number 11 on the World Watch List this year. Curry points out once again that this anti-Christian pressure is very strange considering the large Christian population. That, combined with the fact that India is very diverse in people groups, languages, and religion means this latest law doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

“It’s putting into law that you can’t change your registration—you can’t talk about your faith with somebody to the point that it makes them want to discuss, decide, read the text of another faith.”

It’s likely that this law could be used to punish pastors or other Christians who want to be able to share their faith. Furthermore, anyone who does become a Christian on their own free will becomes a target of suspicion.

“In this case, you need the State’s permission to change your faith. You’ve got to apply to the State and say, ‘Guess what, I would like to be, not a Hindu, but I would like to be a Christian.’ And they can then investigate whether you’ve decided on your own.”

It’s also significant that the law specifically highlights disadvantaged groups. Curry says this may specifically be referring to the lowest valued members of the caste system, the Dalits. He believes this is because Dalits are very receptive to the Gospel since the Gospel teaches all humans are of equal value in God’s eyes– something so contrary from the caste system.

“The Dalits appreciate the Christian faith. Many of them are Christians and have come to faith. And it is in a sense mixed up in this, that they don’t want to have any power in the hands of… a large group of people who are, by the caste system, discriminated against.”

Despite the rising persecution, many people are unaware of the human rights violations taking place in India. Curry says this needs to change.

“It’s one of the great persecutors now. It’s right up there with Iraq, Syria, Libya. You know, these kinds of places where people are in grave danger. That’s India now, if you’re a Christian.”

Just last year, for example, he says hundreds of people were held without trial because they are followers of Jesus. So, now that you know, what can you do about it?

“The thing that people need to take away from these kinds of stories is, India is persecuting Christians, it’s getting worse. It’s not the country you think it is. And yet we’re doing millions and billions of dollars worth of business with them. We need to take a new look at India and reappraise our relationship with them if they’re not going to give people the right of religious expression.”

Will you take time to pray for India? Ask God to comfort and strengthen the pastors. Pray for the Christian ministries who are under growing pressure from the government and the individuals who are facing legal pressure for wanting to follow Jesus. Ask God to keep the doors open to ministry in India.