Partial History of Christian Missionary Atrocities

INDIA

India’s first major contact with Christianity began when Vasco da Gama, from Portugal, landed with gunboat and priests in 1498… The newcomers were not only merchants but also devout Christians ordered by the Pope: “… to invade, conquer, and subject all the countries which are under rule of the enemies of Christ, Saracens (Moslems who fought against the Christian Crusaders in the middle ages) or Pagan….”

Hindus were forced to convert or faced torture and death. Thousands had to flee Goa in order to keep their culture and religious beliefs.

The historian Gaspar Correa described what Vasco da Gama did, thus:
“When all the Indians had thus been executed, he ordered them to strike upon their teeth with staves and they knocked them down their throats; as they were put on board, heaped on top of each other, mixed up with the blood which streamed from them; and he ordered mats and dry leaves to be spread over them and sails to be set for the shore and the vessels set on fire… ” Before killing and burning the innocent Hindus he had their hands, ears and noses cut off.
…”When the Zamorin (head of the Hindu population) sent another Brahmin (Hindu Priest) to Vasco to plead for peace, he had his lips cut off and his ears cut off. The ears of a dog were sewn on him instead and the Brahmin was sent back to Zamorin in that state. The Brahmin… had brought with him three young boys, two of them his sons and the other a nephew. They were hanged from the yardarm and their bodies sent ashore.”

Francis Xavier, a Jesuit Priest, came soon after Vasco da Gama, with the firm resolve of uprooting Hinduism from the soil of India and planting Christianity in its place. His sayings and doings have been documented in his numerous biographies. Francis Xavier, wrote back home,

“As soon as I arrived in any heathen village, when all are baptized, I order all the temples of their false gods to be destroyed and all the idols to be broken to pieces. I can give you no idea of the joy I feel in seeing this done.” The Church had a special way of dealing with converted Hindus who were suspected of not observing Christian rites with appropriate rigor and enthusiasm, or even of covertly practicing their old faith: “…the culprits would be tracked down and burnt alive.”[28]

Xavier called for an inquisition, recorded by historians as being more horrendous and barbaric than any prior to that. Thousands were tortured mutilated and killed. Thousands had to flee Goa in order to keep their traditional culture and religion.

It is recorded that between 600 and 1,000 Hindu temples and shrines were destroyed, but many consider these numbers to be on the conservative side. [29]

Many types of brutal torture were employed by the Inquisitors, such as mutilation of body parts, fire torture and drownings. The details of this torture are too ghastly and horrid to contemplate for any sane human being.

”Children were flogged and slowly dismembered in front of their parents whose eyelids had been sliced off to make sure they missed nothing. Extremities were amputated carefully, so that a person could remain conscious even when all that remained was a torso and a head.”[30]

The archbishop of Evora, in Portugal, eventually wrote, “If everywhere the Inquisition was an infamous court, the infamy, however base, however vile, however corrupt and determined by worldly interests, it was never more so than in Goa. [31]

Nobody knows the exact number of Goans subjected to these diabolical tortures; low estimates put the number in the tens of thousands, high estimates are in the hundreds of thousands, perhaps even more. The abominations of these inquisitions continued from 1560 until a brief respite was given in 1774, but four years later, the inquisition was introduced again and it continued un-interruptedly until 1812 — the inquisition in Goa wend on for over two-hundred and fifty years. At that point in time, in the year of 1812, the British put pressure on the Portuguese to put an end to the terror of the Inquisition and the presence of British troops in Goa enforced the British desire.[32]

Dr. Trasta Breganka Kunha, a Catholic citizen of Goa writes, “Inspite of all the mutilations and concealment of history, it remains an undoubted fact that religious conversion of Goans is due to methods of force adopted by the Portuguese to establish their rule. As a result of this violence the character of our people was destroyed. The propagation of Christian sect in Goa came about not by religious preaching but through the methods of violence and pressure. If any evidence is needed for this fact, we can obtain it through law books, orders and reports of the local rulers of that time and also from the most dependable documents of the Christian sect itself.”[33]

A proposed celebration for the 500 year anniversary of Vasco de Gama’s arrival in India was fiercly proposed and successfully stopped, bringing together a surprising alliance of Hindus, Muslims, left wing campaigners and environmentalists.

The Gaur-Sarasvata Brahmins were one such sect who had to flee at the hands of the invading fanatics. Now their sect is situated in the state of Karnataka. Leaving everything behind and starting from scratch they are now a very well to do and prosperous community. Their temples rival any in the world. Still practicing their ancient Vedic religion, the Gaur-Sarasvata Brahmins are recognized for their dignity, honesty and contributions to society. This soundly nullifies the idea propagated by the Christian zealots that Hindu religion is heathen and pagan.

Frances Xavier is commonly known as ‘St. Francis Xavier,’ ‘the Patron Saint of the East.’ He is still worshipped, prayed to and honored as the pure representative of Jesus Christ and his gospel by Christians all over the world. There are innumerable hospitals, schools, and other institutions in India named after him. Even today the archdiocese of Goa boasts,

“The glorious chapter of the expansion of the Catholic Church in the east can be said to have begun after the European ‘discovery’ of the sea route to India in 1498. This helped the coming of the European fathers to these lands, one of them being St. Francis Xavier, the great Apostle of the East and Patron of the Missions. Goa is privileged to have been the starting point of his Church work labours and the place where his sacred remains are preserved. Goa was called the “Rome of the East” due to the central role it played in evangelization of the east.” [34]

India today is ruled by a secular government modeled after the western democracies. What many Indians do not understand is that the idea of secular government, first seen in the United States of America, was a reaction to the theocratic tyrannies that pervaded the Dark Ages of Europe all the way to the founding of the American nation. Separation of religion and government were an effort to ward off and prevent any Christian theocracy from taking control in modern times.

Now the Christian tactics have changed, but their underlying premise that ‘Christianity is the only true religion’ nullifies all their attempts of portraying themselves as tolerant and loving. The reality is that Christianity has not changed its theology, it has only changed its techniques of conversion. Christian evangelists are now using vast amounts of wealth (billions of US dollars) to spread their propaganda. Mission activity in India comes in the guise of helping the downtrodden, sick and helpless. In reality the aim is the same — to convert all to Christianity and in the wake destroy all the cultures and religions that lie in the way. There is no need to abuse, attack, or condemn the Non-Christian religions. The plain truth is the Christian Missionaries work with usage of lies, falsehood, and hypocrisy. The social improvement facade is only a camouflage or disguise for conversion work.

Why should the Christian Missionaries want to collect converts? Because, it is in the nature of the religions of exclusivity (Islam and Christianity) to try to make every one like them in terms of religion. They have no use, whatsoever, for pluralism or respect for other religions; in fact what they have is pure contempt for other religions. Further, this exclusivity attachment and attitude comes straight from the horse’s mouth i.e. from their scriptures. For instance, in the Bible Matthew 28:19-20, Mark 16:15-16, and Luke 24:46-47 every Christian is commanded to make converts and it is the duty of every Christian to uphold these commands of the Bible.

A glance at their activities in India clearly reveals that the Christian Missionaries denigrate and demonize the Hindus every single day. Hinduism is equated with Devil Worship and Hindus are described as Heathens, as workers for the Devil, and as lost souls who are headed straight to hell.

Now-a-days, in most civilized countries, open and outright utterance of ignoble and unflattering slurs and put downs on the basis of race, religion, creed, or other affiliation is not tolerated because it has been legislated as illegal. But in Pseudo-Secular India, Hindus can be freely insulted, abused, degraded and dragged into mud, by the Christian Missionaries with impunity, without any fear of lawsuit. They freely broadcast their Hate-Hindu, vile and vituperative propaganda into Indian villages and cities.
Because the preacher of Christianity single-mindedly believes his loathing gospels of hate, seeing them as divine commands from his religion, he utters venom and vindictiveness against the Hindu with zeal and with [in their estimation] a clear conscience.

Nearly every single day, rhetoric similar to the words below confirm the reality that Christianity, while posing as a religion of love, peace and tolerance is anything but that.

“These Hindu Heathens have their idols and their superstitions, their idol-bearing temples and shrines where they conduct their noisy foolish rituals and ceremonies. They generate a lot of evil. They are totally ignorant that Jesus Christ came to overcome death. There is a great need to propagate the Christian Gospel amongst them.”

Only now is India beginning to realize what the Christian Mission activity is really all about. This is evidenced in states like Nagaland, Mizoram, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and in other areas in Northeast India. As soon as Christians become a majority in a given area, they sow the venom of hatred and strife, turning family member against family member, villager against villager and instigate their Christian followers to ask for self-determination and a Christian Homeland. This is virtually the same technique that the Moslems continue to use with success.

As soon as a convert is made, they are greatly encouraged to vehemently and publicly denigrate their previous culture, traditions and everything related to it. This greatly disrupts the entire community and its normal social and economic activities.

Militant Christians in several of these Northeastern Indian provinces have been forcing non-Christian residents to either convert to Christianity or face capital punishment. With death staring at their face, most of the adult members have fled the villages to escape torture, resulting in disruption of agricultural activities. Buddhist leaders of both the states of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh have strongly condemned the heinous carnage committed by the militants on the peace-loving Buddhists and tribal cult followers.
Because Hindus now know what the Christians are up to, it is time to take some serious steps to counter the Christian propaganda and instill pride in Indians across the nation for their glorious past and distinguished Vedic heritage.

For Additional Information on the Goan Inquisition, please visit:
The Portuguese Invasion of Goa
Details of the Goan Inquisition
Hindu Genocide in Goa

CONCLUSION

Christians have always portrayed non-Christian civilizations as backwards, underdeveloped, superstitious, and barbaric. What really underlies all of their criticism is that these cultures do not accept Jesus, the Bible and their western way of life. This is what, in the Christians’ opinion, deems these cultures as needing their help, when in fact the their fervor to destroy any theistic conception other than Christianity or any temple other than a church shows that they are really the ones who are showing the qualities of barbarians.

Today, many are uninformed and believe that mission excesses only took place in prior times and today’s preaching works are a ‘good thing.’ But as long as the basic premises and theology that underly all the abuses that took place in the past are not corrected, the result of mission activities will remain the same: Genocide and destruction of all that lies in its way, replacing it with the ‘superior religion and culture’ that most missionaries believe they are delivering.

In retrospect, these various ethnic cultures were far better off before the introduction of Christianity, as it had nothing better to offer them. In reality, these cultures were decimated, their histories were erased, their cultural traditions eradicated, their former religions destroyed and they were left more unhappy than before the arrival of Christianity.

There have been many revisions in the teachings of Jesus Christ since it first took hold some 2,000 years ago. But until the xenophobic and iconoclastic teachings of the Bible are corrected, mission activity will yield the same catastrophic results. As taught in the Bible, ‘we can know a tree by its fruit,’ these evangelists need to adopt a more pluralistic theology, recognizing the divinity in other religions and the contributions of other cultures and further recognize that theirs is not the only path to salvation. Suffice it to say, until these things have been corrected, that to label such endeavors for Christ as good works or pious activity is wrong.

Otherwise, in this modern age, those deemed with good intelligence, who are advanced in philosophy and science, have no other choice than to condemn these preaching activities worldwide, which seek to destroy ethnic cultures. Mission activities need to be monitored and the conversion agenda needs to be reconsidered.

Footnotes

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[1] Akha Chronicles, Book 1: Maesai, Chapter 20: Missions. Available online: http://www.akha.org/upload/akhachronicles/chapter20missionaries.htm
[2] Genocide is defined by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) article 2 as any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: “Killing members of the group; Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide
[3] S. P. Attri, Conversion Aggression, http://conversionagenda.blogspot.com/2004/01/conversion-aggression.html
[4] Chris tian apology for the Crusades: The Reconciliation Walk. http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_cru1.htm
[5] C.M. Cipolla, Before the Industrial Revolution, London 1981, pg. 55ff.
[5.5] http://web.archive.org/web/20080415222023/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ustasha , http://web.archive.org/web/20080415222023/http://www.priestsofdarkness.com/gold.html , http://web.archive.org/web/20080415222023/http://www.holocaustrevealed.org/_domain/holocaustrevealed.org/Yugoslavia/Yugoslavia-Croatia.htm .
[6] http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42755-2001Jun8?language=printer
[7] Excerpt of the Requerimiento.
[8] D.E.Stannard, American Holocaust. Columbus and the conquest of the New World, New York/Oxford 1992, pg. 72.
[9] E.S. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom, New York 1975, pg. 39.
[10] D.E. Stannard, American Holocaust, Columbus and the conquest of the New World, New York/Oxford 1992. Pg. 106
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid, Pg. 227.
[13] Ibid.
[14] ed. Stuewe, Paul K., KANSAS REVISITED: HISTORICAL IMAGES AND PERSPECTIVES, article by Unrau, William, The Depopulation of the Kansas Indians”)
[15] Footnote source to Jefferson: The source of the statement is indeed Thomas Jefferson dating from 1807 when addressing his Secretary of War regarding any Indians who resisted American expansion into their lands.
David Stannard in American Holocaust, The Conquest of the New World, Oxford Press 1992, page 120 expands further, “These were not offhand remarks, for five years later, in 1812, Jefferson again concluded that white Americans were obliged to drive the ‘backward’ Indians ‘with the beasts of the forests into the Stony Mountains’ and one year later still, he added that the American government had no other choice before it than ‘to pursue (the Indians) to extermination, or drive them to new seats beyond our reach.’ Indeed, Jefferson’s writings on Indians are filled with the straightforward assertion that the natives are to be given a simple choice — to be extirpate(d) from the earth’ or to remove themselves out of the American’s way.’ Had these same words been enunciate by a German leader in 1939 and directed at European Jews, they would be engraved in modern memory.
[16] J. Axtell, The Invasion Within, New York 1985, pg. 327.
[17] Ibid, pg. 303.
[18] Drinnon, Facing West, pp. 96, 98, 116; Ronald T. Takaki, Iron Cages: Race and Culture in 19th Century America (New York: Alfred A. Knof, 1979), pp.61-65.
[19] The Missions of California: A Legacy of Genocide, edited by Rupert Costo and Jeannette Henry Costo, San Francisco: Indian Historian Press, 1987.
[20] Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, pg. 374f.
[21] R. Wright, Stolen Continents. The Indian Story, London 1992, pp. 20-21.
[22] D.E. Stannard, American Holocaust. Columbus and the conquest of the New World, New York/Oxford 1992, pg. 5.
[23] B.R. Ortiz de Montellano, Aztec Medicine, Health, and Nutrition, New Brunswick 1990, pg. 127f.
[24] H. Thomas, Conquest. Montezuma, Cortés, and the Fall of Old Mexico, New York 1993, pg. 19.
[25] Akha Chronicles, Book 1: Maesai, Chapter 20: Missions. Available online: http://www.akha.org/upload/akhachronicles/chapter20missionaries.htm
[26] Ibid.
[27] The Akha Heritage Foundation, http://www.eco-action.org/mission/akha1.html, http://www.akha.org/
[28] Paul William Roberts, Empire of the Soul, Some Journeys in India (Riverhead Books, New York)
[29] History of Hindu Chris tian Encounters, Sita Ram Goel, South Asia Books (July 1990), ISBN 9990049173.
[30] Ibid.
[31] The Empire of the Soul by Paul William Roberts (Harper Collins, 1999)
[32] Ibid.
[33] The Portuguese Invasion, http://www.indpride.com/portuguese%20invasion.html
[34] The Archdiocese Of Goa and Daman, http://www.archgoadaman.org/Dioceses/index.ஹதம்

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