Mission Trip to India - the great American evangelist dream

A simple search on social media shows that a lot of Christians in the US - both teens and adults - want to go to mission trips to India. A lot of American missionaries come to India every year because there are a lot of people to be converted.  For teens, it is like a summer trip and this is a great adventure for them. The teens often come in groups in summer and sometimes accompanied by adults. The adults sometimes come alone and sometimes in groups. Some adults are full-time missionaries and/or pastors in local churches in the US. Some take time off from work to go on these mission trips. Fundamentalism is what drives them. Every one in India has to converted to Christianity.

What is a mission trip?

A mission trip is a client visit in the soul harvesting business. The clients want to see the huge number of souls being harvested. India is a huge harvest field for the missionaries. So they want to see the action live. A vendor NGO makes the arrangements for different activities. For example, this recent mission trip was coordinated by this missionary organization in Andhra Pradesh. They plant churches, train local church planters, missionaries. They call it 'leadership training'.  One guy is considered a hero because he planted 30,000 churches in North India. They even baptize the new converts. They cover all aspects of conversion. This fundamentalist even wants to target Israeli tourists in Goa(See the comment by Jim Christie.) No one has a right to be left alone, according to our missionaries.

Why is India special?

India is special because there are lot of non-Christians to be converted in India. Joshua Project is a huge project which profiled a lot of "people groups" in the world where there are not a lot of Christians. You see missionaries, both foreign and Indian, using phrases from Joshua Project: 10/40 window, 500,000 'unreached' villages etc., Read my earlier post to see why India is special in this 10/40 window.  Foreigners send massive amounts of money to India for conversions. They want to see with their own eyes the massive conversions going on in India. So they come to India on mission trips.

Lies, Illegality and the bogus persecution narrative

India gives missionary visas for missionary activities. But people come to mission trips on a tourist visa. It is illegal to do missionary activity on a tourist visa. Go to twitter and ask them yourself. Most will not answer and some twitter handles may go into protected mode. Honesty is not a priority in missionary activities. Some people confirm they are coming on a tourist visa. There are missionary websites telling how to lie in visa applications. I am not going into this bureaucratic issue of visas. If someone wants to do something illegal, they will find loopholes in the system anyway.

The point is not about lies in visa applications or at immigration checks at airports. The missionaries tell more lies about it and build a bogus persecution narrative. If you see these missionaries when they are on these trips, they simply say they are in a certain part of India. They never tell the precise location even when a schoolmate asks them. The reason they say is their security. I doubt that is the case. They do not tell that they are doing illegal missionary activities on a tourist visa. In Feb 2014, a guy named David Grant was arrested for such illegal activity. This is how the missionaries built a persecution narrative around that news. The guy was arrested for visa fraud and the missionary narrative says he was arrested for simply preaching the gospel. This bogus narrative of persecution is a constant in missionary propaganda.

Ignorance fueled by hate

The missionaries use the usual hateful language. They cannot even enjoy the beauty of nature without thinking about 'darkness' of India. They lack even basic common sense. This guy was on a mission trip recently and says he is in "spiritually dark India." This schoolgirl wants to go on the mission trip to help Dalits because "dalits aren't even recognized as citizens by [Indian] govt." See these two guys talking to each other(One of the guys is involved with Harvest India which was discussed here.) A guy named Charles Rich Jr comes regularly to India for these conversion trips. Also his wife got medical treatment in Bengaluru recently. When another American tweeted something, he said "radical Hindus are MORE dangerous than Al-Q." See the word MORE in caps. Apparently people responsible for 9/11 attacks are less dangerous than radical Hindus. I asked him why he thinks so and where he gets the information. He never responded and deleted the tweets later. Honesty is not a top priority for missionaries. Missionaries thrive on hating other religions and promoting this hate, on ignorance of fellow missionaries and building bogus persecution narratives. 

They teach Creationism to kids. They claim miracles. These people are routinely mocked in the USA for their fundamentalism.

Aggression

Not only they hate 'other', traditions, the missionaries are aggressive. See this guy taking pride in preaching the gospel on a temple door mat. This is not a one-off case. See some other examples here, here, here. I doubt whether the people these missionaries are preaching understand what they are trying to do. Are the missionaries taking advantage of gullible Hindus? 

Mini industry

Mission trips form a mini-industry within the multi-billion dollar soul harvesting industry. There are companies which sell packages for these trips like a tourism package(I am not giving the links because I don't want to give advertisement for their business. Even if a missionary reads this blog, I highly doubt he/she reflects upon the questions raised in this blog.) There are websites which prepare you for the mission trips. There are websites which tell you how to raise funds for air tickets etc., There are websites which tell you how to maximize your time during your trip(i.e, preach as many people as possible.) There are websites which connect you to Indian evangelical NGOs. There are even Christian universities which offer courses on mission trips. It is like a doing practicals in a laboratory after studying theory.

Summary

Next time you see some Americans in a remote village in India, do not assume they are tourists. Do you think people who hardly go out of the Bible Belt go visit remote Indian villages for pleasure? What happens when you do not understand what the mission trips are? A Hindu would donate money to the mission trip to convert other Hindus.

Note: I focused on mission trips by Americans in this post because the highest donations for Christian conversion from the USA. Similarly people from UK, Germany, Norway etc., come to India on these mission trips.

Onsite-Offshore model of Soul Harvesting business

First let us understand how the onsite-offshore model works in the IT services industry. Let us assume the client is an American bank and one of its  vendors is an Indian IT company which has  most of the workforce in India. When personnel from the American client visits the vendor's offshore facility, the client is given great presentations and efforts are made to show how great the vendor is working towards improving the client's product and thus  the client's business. Parties are arranged in office to impress the client. Sometimes managers from the vendor visit the US client location to elaborate about the progress of the ongoing projects and try to get new business from the client. The goal of all this model is getting the work done at a cheaper rate and thus improving the bank's profits. There are lots of varieties in this model but let us take this generic model for this post.

Christian missionaries also have a similar onsite-offshore model. The clients are countless Churches, Ministries and evangelist Christian communities in the US, UK, Germany etc., The vendors are evangelical NGOs in India. Every year the foreign clients send about 1.2 billion USD, approximately half of Indian film industry's revenue,  to these vendor NGOs, according to Govt. of India. The product of this business is Souls of non-Christians. The 'saved' souls are the profit of the collective efforts of the clients and their offshore vendors/counterparts. The souls of non-Christians have to be saved by converting them to Christianity.

Let us understand this business model of missionaries with a case study.

Harvest India - a case study

Harvest India is a Christian missionary organization run from around Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh. Harvest in the title refers to harvesting of heathen(non-Christian) souls. This evangelical NGO received Rs. 41.44 crores between April 2006 and March 2014, according to Govt. of India. See the FCRA filings for 2006-2007, 2007-2008, 2008-2009, 2009-2010, 2010-2011, 2011-2012, 2012-2013.* To see FCRA filings, go to http://fcraonline.nic.in/fc3_amount.aspx, select any year and select state 'Andhra Pradesh' and submit. Search for Registration No. '010260176' in the results and you will see 'Harvest India' and view the FCRA return by clicking 'view' in the last column(A new tab opens). Donations came mainly from USA, UK.

Clients

The clients for this NGO are evangelist Christian communities in the US, UK etc.,. Churches like Cornerstone Church, Chandler, Arizona, USA, Water Church, Bend, Orgeon, USA, St.Mary's, Marylebone, London etc., and missionary organizations like London Prophetic Forum. There are organizations registered with the name 'Harvest India' in US and UK. You can see Form-990 submitted by Harvest India USA to US IRS. These organizations serve as a hub to collect money from evangelist communities withing the US and UK and send it to India.They pool money on different occasions and send it to our Indian NGO. 

What does the vendor do?

Our vendor NGO is run by one Suresh Kumar. Here is the goal of the NGO in his own words

In the video, Suresh Kumar, the president of the NGO says "Harvest India has the vision to reach the unreached people and its main concern is to spread the good news of Christ". He quotes the usual figure of 500,000 unreached villages usually quoted by missionaries. This number comes from Joshua Project.  He further says "Harvest India has been doing crusades and bringing the light of Lord Jesus Christ to the darkness." "This is a huge nation and there are many people now that have never heard the name of Jesus Christ." He requests for funds for conversions. That is his sales pitch.

Let us see another sales pitch video.

The usual numbers from Joshua Project. The usual hateful language "330 million false gods being worshiped", "darkness", "full of spirituality, but no salvation", "70000 people die each year without hearing about Christ." Suresh requests for funds and invites the clients to visit India to see how many conversions are going on. The video tells the cost for each crusade and even gives the cost to save a soul. This fundraising page by Harvest India gives the breakup of cost  and the cost is between $4 and $10 to save a soul(i. e, convert a person). 

The clients often visit India to see the great harvest. These are called mission trips. See these two posts for examples of mission trips.

Vendor Visits

Suresh visits(mostly with family) all the client places almost every year. He visited the American clients in 2014 too. The soul-vendor explains the current status of the projects and looks for "potential new partners." He explains he runs a nursing college for girls, Bible colleges. Boys "graduate" from these bible "colleges" and plant churches. Girls preach the gospel while serving the patients. This is our vendor's sales pitch. That is what our client wants. In the video, the client says a lot of times "we have to make Jesus famous."  Here is Suresh telling about this in one of his US visits:

Showing results

Of course you have to show the results. Otherwise how you would get further funding? Our vendor posts about how many people are getting converted in the crusades. He cites miracles to impress the clients. Here are some samples: 4000 people got converted in a single 2012, 12000 people got converted in a single crusade in 2013. The numbers are just from one crusade. With dwindling number of church-going Christians in Europe and North America, one client from UK does not believe his eyes when he sees so many people getting converted in a remote country. 1.2 billion US dollars would not be pumped into India every year for no reason.

FCRA filings to Govt. of India

By now, it is clear to us that this is a religious NGO trying to convert non-Christians to Christians. But, in its FCRA filings to Govt. of India, it identifies its association as "Economic, Educational, Social", not as a religious association. For example, see the FCRA filing for 2011-2012. 

This lying is the norm in FCRA filings by evangelical NGOs. Are we sure they are not lying about the numbers? Unfortunately there never seems to be any scrutiny on the funding sources, activities, claims made in FCRA filings by Govt. of India.

Politics, Govt programs

In one of visits to the US, Suresh says this:

In the video, Suresh claims the oppressive Hindu(NDA) govt built 68000 temples. Where did he get that number? The govt built temples? Suresh also says he is happy because Congress govt(this was in 2004) formed because "Congress loves all religions and especially Christianity." UPA chairperson Sonia is Christian and YS Rajasekhar Reddy(YSR), a Christian, became Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh(where Harvest India is based) in 2004. (An interesting aside: YSR's son-in-law is also an evangelist.) In fact, YSR used public money to repair churches. In turn, Christian organizations supported YSR in elections.

Also Suresh says "his org is involved with Govt programs." Harvest India got awards from AP govt. Most interesting is the award for 2007. Havest India received the award for helping in Indiramma program. This program was introduced by YSR. As part of this program, "eligible" people receive money from AP govt to build houses. So apart from the foreign funding, Harvest India seems to have got funding from the AP govt. No wonder Suresh felt happy about the Congress govt.

Summary

Clients, vendors, products, sales pitch, cost breakups, posting of results, client visits, vendor presentations - just like the onsite-offshore model familiar to a lot of urban Indians. They even support certain political parties and get all kinds of support in return. They lie in FCRA filings. The clients want to convert all of India and change the demographics of India and our vendors facilitate this change. 33.44 crores is a very small amount. There are evangelical NGOs which receive more than that amount in a single year. But the modus operandi is the same. Let us explore more in the future.

Note: I want to apologize to anyone working in the IT or any business using onsite-offshore model. I do not mean to denigrate your work or business by comparing it to the nefarious activities of the missionaries. This model is used only to explain the similarities so that the readers can easily see how the missionary business models work.

*Update: The way FCRA website displays the returns filed by the registered NGOs has changed and the blogpost has been updated to reflect the change.  

What have Hindus done to these disciples of Christ?

(Throughout this blog whenever Hinduism is referred, you can replace it with any Dharmic tradition. The word 'Christianity' in all the posts in this blog refers to the fundamentalist Christianity. This is the form of Christianity spread by missionaries, both foreign and Indian, in India.)
 
After returning from the USA, Swami Vivekananda asked 

What have Hindus done to these disciples of Christ that every Christian child is taught to call the Hindus 'vile', and 'wretches', and the most horrible devils on earth?

We will find out the reason for the abusive language and hate propaganda peddled by Christian evangelists. People who follow the missionary activities know the reason for this hateful language. This post just to familiarize the reasons to those who have just begun to understand the missionary activities.

Are all religions same? - Exclusivism of Christianity

Hinduism(and other Dharmic traditions) does not have the concept of eternal sin and salvation and talk about different paths to find the Truth. There is no concept of "only Hinduism is true and other religions are false." in Hindu traditions.

Abrahamic religions have exclusivist claims. As Christian fundamentalism/evangelism is the focus of this blog, we will focus only on Christianity. Most denominations of Christianity have an exclusivist claim that people can be saved only by accepting Jesus, the Son of God, as the Savior of  human race. Jesus is the one and only truth - one and only light. You have to have faith in this claim in order be a Christian(exception: minor denominations like Unitarianism.) This is the truth as the Christian evangelist sees it. So there is only one way to go to heaven. Even if you do not want to go to heaven, the missionary wants to send you to heaven, hence the pestering.

For an interesting take on this difference between Hinduism and Christianity(and other Abrahamic faiths), you can read Rajiv Malhotra's Being Different. 
 

Hindus have no right to be left alone

A Christian evangelist wants to spread this "good news" that Jesus, the son of God, sacrificed for our sins. The evangelist wants us to accept this and only this - there is no alternative for this, according to our evangelist. A Hindu might say "Ok, boss, I respect your position and find salvation as you please but let me go on my way of Dharma." The Christian missionary would not accept it. You have to accept the truth as the missionary sees it. The missionary would not settle for anything different. This is the key. Until then, Hindus are not 'saved', Hindus are in 'darkness' and have to see the 'light', Hindus do not worship the real God, Hindus go to hell, Hindus do not know the 'truth'. This is the source of hateful language for Hindus and Hinduism. So Christian evangelists pester non-Christians like Hindus to accept the truth as the Christian sees it. Hindus cannot be left alone in 'darkness'. The missionary has the burden of showing the 'light' to Hindus.

Such is their dogma that the missionaries do not even realize they are insulting other living traditions when they talk about 'showing light to Hindus.' The missionaries feel sad even if Hindus happily celebrate festivals.

Do an experiment

If you do not believe what is written above, do this experiment. Do a search on Twitter for "mission trip India" (Mission trips are explained here. An example of a mission trip.) for people coming on missionary activities to India. All these people going on mission trips are going on trips to convert people to Christianity. Ask them about this exclusivist claim. Ask them whether you go to hell or what happens if you don't accept Jesus as the ultimate savior. Many won't respond as they are not open to dialog. If at all they respond, they say "yes, you will go to hell". I asked many such missionaries  who come to India on mission trips. A couple responded and they confirm their dogma. 

Why Hindus are prime targets in the numbers game

Missionary activity is as old as Christianity. Missionary activity in India also goes back to centuries but this activity has exploded in recent times. It is all about numbers. More numbers have to be brought into the Kingdom of God.  They have run out of people to convert in Europe and North America. So ambitious projects like Joshua Project are commissioned to profile 'unreached'(i.e, non-Christian) people. So it was figured out that there were a lot of people in the 10/40 window who are non-Christians and these people are profiled. Their languages, social mores, worship methods etc., are profiled to facilitate conversions. Profiling of totally different cultures leads to stereotypes when the profiler is alien to the native cultures and especially the aim of the profiler is not benign and to transform the religion and culture of the people being profiled. Some of the common utterances by missionaries on traditional media and social media are "there are 5,00,000 villages in India which have never heard of Jesus and are in darkness", "there are a billion people yet to see the light." All these numbers come form ambitious projects like Joshua Project.

Why Hindus? In the 10/40 window, the non-Christian groups to be converted are in India, China, African countries, Muslim countries Saudi Arabia, Buddhist countries like Thailand. Though they do conversions in countries like China, Iran(see here), a lot of countries in this list have restrictions on missionary activities and some countries in this window out-rightly banned conversion activities. So who is left? India and some African countries. India has a billion Hindus, and that is a huger number to be brought into Kingdom of God. And India provides the right to propagate religions. This right is abused a lot which will further explore in this blog. Huge numbers and constitutional right to propagate - what else do we need to conquer the market?

 This needs to be repeated: it is a numbers game and the market is "ripe for harvest". Market here is market in economics. Here is a Catholic news source said in March 2014. See the quotes around the words 'market share' as if they did not believe in numbers game and immediately the expressed wish for increase in the number of Catholics in India to 26 million by 2050.

During the 20th century Catholicism grew from 1.2 percent to 3 percent of Asia’s overall population, meaning the church more than doubled its “market share.” The number of Catholics in India alone went from under two million to 17 million, and should reach 26 million by 2050.

It's all about numbers. The Pope of Catholic Church himself expressed the wish convert the whole of Asia in this millennium. The same wish is expressed by missionaries from every major denomination of Christianity.

Summary

Swami Vivekananda asked American missionaries in Detroit in 1894:

You train and educate and pay men to do what? To come over to my country to curse and abuse all my forefathers, my religion and everything. They walk near a temple and say and say, "you idolators, you will go to hell."

The dogma, the fanaticism, the hate speech, sinister methods have not changed at all. Here is Joey, an American church planter who was on a conversion trip in 2009 to Dharamsala, India, about India and Dharmic religions(In the video, Himachal mountains; see the full video and this writeup to see what they did in India)

For so long in these mountains, God has not been glorified. For thousands of years, it's been pent up with sinful people and idols, idol worship and singing to idols. And God's worship has been literally robbed from this place.

The language of missionaries – from 16th Century to the age of Internet

Hindus are in darkness, Hindus are primitive, Hinduism is Satanism, Hindus worship false gods, Hindus worship devils.  So Hindus need to see the ‘light’, they need to hear the Gospel, their souls have to be  'saved' and 'harvested', they need to accept the one and only true God Jesus – This is the language used by missionaries centuries ago and remarkably the language remains the same till today as we will see by the end of this post.

Even though different denominations in Christianity - Catholic, Protestant, Mormon etc., - differ on some fundamentals of Christianity, the language and fanaticism with which they denounce Hinduism and other non-Abrahamic religions and the verve with which they try to convert 'others' is the same.

Even though the language used to describe Hindus/Hinduism remains the same from the earlier days of Christianity, let us start from the 16th century. Let us look at a couple of descriptions from 16th century and 20th century and we will see how it remains the same today in the age of Internet. 

16^th Century – St. Fancies Xavier about Hindus

Francis Xavier came to India in 16^th century to convert Indians to Christianity. In 1543 AD, from India, he wrote a letter to the Society of Jesus at Rome. He talks about false gods, Infidels, heathens, perversity and wickedness of Brahmins. Francis Xavier mainly targeted children. Then

Their[The new converted childrens’]  hatred for idolatry is marvellous. They get into feuds with the heathen about it, and whenever their own parents practise it, they reproach them and come off to tell me at once. Whenever I hear of any act of idolatrous worship, I go to the place with a large band of these children, who very soon load the devil with a greater amount of insult and abuse than he has lately received of honor and worship from their parents, relations, and acquaintances. The children run at the idols, upset them, dash them down, break them to pieces, spit on them, trample on them, kick them about, and in short heap on them every possible outrage.[Emphasis added]

That’s right. He takes the children to Hindu places of worship and then takes joy watching the newly converted children insult, trample and outrage the idols(We will see in a future post how even current day missionaries prey on children.) St. Xavier continues...

The heathen inhabitants of the country are commonly ignorant of letters, but by no means ignorant of wickedness.[Emphasis added]

…for I could not but grieve intensely at the thought of the devils being worshipped instead of God by these blind heathen, and I asked them to listen to me in turn[Emphasis added]

In a letter written to the King of Portugal n 1545, Francis Xavier requested for Goan Inquisition. Of course Francis Xavier was given sainthood by Catholic Church in 1622 and many colleges in India were named after him.

20^th Century - a video showing the mind of a missionary

 There is a controversial missionary group in the US called
Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps, also knows as Free Love Ministries. This group was featured in the National Geographic documentary 'I escaped from a cult'. The controversial nature of this group and a lawsuit by an ex-member of the group is the focus of the documentary. One thing that is not mentioned or discussed in the documentary and anywhere else is this group did missionary activities and tried to build an "army" in Philippines, Nepal and India. They have a video on their website which shows visuals of their visit to Kakinada, Andhra Pradsh, India and Nepal in 1980s with commentary from Lila Green of the group. The funny-looking military-style organization is partially inspired by Salvation Army. If you take out the funny looking military dresses, the remarkable thing is the language used for Hindus/Hinduism/Buddhism and Indian/Nepali culture is the same as that of St. Xavier. The language is same as that of 'ordinary' missionaries who consider this group cultish. The language does not deviate even a bit from that of St. Xavier and today's missionaries.  If there is one video which shows the mindset of a missionary, this is it. Watch the video and decide yourself. Below are some highlights from the video(Please see the description of the video in Vimeo for more  of such highlights.)

1:43 - people bound by heathen darkness, still steeped in idolatry
6:50 - mini idols, or should I say demons which make up the Hindu belief system.
10:15 - India is a primitive land
15:52 - We've launched another onslaught/attack on Satan's territory
17:14 - whatever way, however we must do it that we must free the captives of the devil because at one time everyone of us was a captive of the devil[Lila Green and James Green converted to Christianity in 1971.]
27:16 - with Free Love Ministries India's supply of literature, the campaign goes on against sin, against evil, against idolatry, for India is a nation steeped in idolatry and heathen gods and people spend countless hours and rituals in worship of dead idols
30:29 - [the new converts] are now truly serving the loving God.....God has saved them from Hinduism and their traditions [Pastor Papa Rao] 
59:21 - .. idols .... not borne of Heaven but they are from the pits of Hell itself.

Isn't it clear that the language used by a cultish missionary group is the same as that of St. Francis Xavier?

Let us move on to the age of Internet.

The age of Internet

Ruth Malhotra, a Christian evangelist, works for Ravi Zacharias, an influential evangelist operating organizations worth millions. See the below Facebook posts by her in 2013. She feels sad and tears roll down your eyes because people in India are happily celebrating Diwali. She took students to a temple in Georgia and see the her thoughts yourself. See the quote around the word 'sacred' and the hashtag 'darknesstolight'. I wonder what she had told the students about Hinduism.

Some comments from Instagram from some American evangelicals during their mission trips to India and Nepal.

Stephen Baldwin, actor  and brother of Alec Baldwin, is an evangelist who was on a missionary trip in India recently(A detailed post on him in future.) He posted this on his Instagram. In the video, people are happily celebrating Navratri and see our missionary's unhappiness with that.

 
Let us watch the trailer for a movie made by an evangelical group.

Let us see some tweets by the missionaries

A zillion links could be posted to show the ignorance and bigotry of the missionaries but this blog will be cluttered if all such links are posted. 

Summary

There is no new information in this post. This blog post is just to show the hateful language used by missionaries to denounce Indian religions and India has not changed over the centuries (This does not mean they leave fellow Abrahamic religions - Islam, Judaism alone, though the language used to denigrate them is different.) They feel sad even if Hindus happily celebrate their own festivals like Diwali, Navratri or Ganesh Chathurthi.  It would be naive to think that this bigotry is shared by only foreign evangelicals. Benjamin R Ross, a Tamil evangelical, snaps at some guy for his profile picture and asks "Are you an Idol worshiper?". 

When Hindus are "healed" and idols burned, it is uplifting news for our evangelical. St. Francis Xavier would be so proud of him.