The year 2020, when the entire world was trying to fight an unknown disease and effectively went into stringent lockdown – Christian missionaries were very sorted in their goals. In fact, they manipulated people and lured weaker sections of society into their fold. While India was battling the Chinese pandemic, such missionaries initiated a wave of proselytisation previously unheard of in India. Reports suggest that missionaries were able to convert as many as 1,00,000 people to Christianity amidst the lockdown last year. Further, missionaries also planted several churches all across India, using them as a shot in the arm for their predatory proselytisation.
According to David Reeves, the CEO of unfoldingWord, an organisation dedicated to church planting and ‘translating God’s Word — with accuracy and excellence’, one of their partners of the church planting network shared a detailed report about how susceptible Indians were lured into the Christian fold during trying circumstances faced by people around the country. David Reeves admitted that the work done by missionaries during the lockdown was much more than they had ever undertaken even in the absence of the pandemic.
In an interview to Missionary Network News, Reeves said, “Because they could not meet with others during lockdown, they decided [to] simply start specifically praying for unsaved people they know. Then, they decided to follow up those prayers by phone and WhatsApp. They estimate about 100,000 conversions during lockdown as a result of this approach. Similarly, with church planting, they encouraged every church to [pray for] 10 specific villages or neighbourhoods [with] no church. Then, as restrictions loosened slightly, they were able to get into these regions. They estimate that churches adopted about 50,000 villages during lockdown, and 25% now have an “opening” for the Gospel — some believers, a small house church, etc.”
According to Reeves, church-planting organisations were able to make more churches in India than they have in the past 25 years combined. This should give Indians a sense of how Christian missionaries are invading the country, and destroying Dharma in rural India. It is understandable that authorities last year had their hands full while dealing with the pandemic, but for missionaries to score such successes in India is truly a blot on all authorities concerned, who should have been ensuring that the predatory measures employed by such supremacist organisations are culled. There are estimated to be over 110 Evangelical organisations with a ‘Church Planting’ mission running steadily in India, who set out every year with a specific set of objectives for conversion and targets for new Churches.
Interestingly, however, Reeves claimed that Christians were being persecuted in India, despite missionaries in the country during an unprecedented number of Indians into the Christian fold in the past year. Reeves says several of his friends in India were killed for their Kingdom-building efforts. Others were “thrown in prison [or] persecuted in various ways,” he adds. He also remarked, “There are plenty of risks involved, but it won’t stop the Church from moving forward.”
Going forward, the Modi government must make it a point to keep the activities of such missionaries in check. In absence of them being scrutinised, Indians will continue to be trapped by such organisations and converted mercilessly.