November 10, 1999
Prayer guide for Hindus stirs anger in India
___RICHMOND, Va. (ABP)--A Southern Baptist prayer guide on Hinduism has prompted outrage in India, home to 800 million Hindus, according to international press reports.
___The pocket prayer guide, published by the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, urges Southern Baptists to pray that Hindus would be delivered from spiritual "darkness" and accept Christ during Divali, Hinduism's Festival of Lights, a major religious holiday in early November.
___Indian newspapers have published excerpts from the prayer guide deemed offensive to Indians, according to Ecumenical News International.
___News of the prayer guide has deeply embarrassed many of India's 23 million Christians, who already are under pressure because of violence directed against them by fundamentalist Hindus and are campaigning against a planned visit to New Delhi by Pope John Paul II, ENI reported.
___The Times of India, the nation's largest English-language newspaper, published a portion of the booklet describing the city formerly known as Bombay as "a city of spiritual darkness" where "eight out of every 10 people are Hindus, slaves bound by fear and tradition to false gods."
___Reuters quoted an Indian official who described the booklet as "illiterate and offensive."
___"Firstly, India is more religious than any other country in the world," K.R. Malkani, spokesman for the governing Bharatiya Janata Party, said in a statement. "Morally, it is more Christian than any other Christian country. Secondly, is it not an insult to India to tell Hindus that they are all sinners and that only Jesus can save them?"
___Religion News Service reported criticism of the effort also coming from Nepal, which is 90 percent Hindu.
___The World Hindu Federation, based in Katmandu, called the action a farce.
___In a statement dated Oct. 27, officials of the Richmond, Va.,-based IMB apologized for offending Hindus.
___"The purpose of the Divali guide was to help Southern Baptists understand and identify with Hindu people as we express our love for them in prayer," the statement said. "The language in the prayer guide was chosen to communicate to Southern Baptists, not Hindus, and the truths in it, as we understand them, are rooted in the Bible, the book we believe to be God's revealed word.
___"It is distressing to us that elements of the guide may have offended our Hindu neighbors, and for that we are profoundly sorry. We understand that the good news of God's saving love in Jesus, the Savior, may be offensive to some, but never was it our intent to express that love in an offensive way."
___The controversy comes on the heels of an earlier flap involving an IMB-produced prayer guide focusing on Judaism.
___American Jewish leaders called that booklet, coinciding with Judaism's High Holy Days, arrogant and offensive. SBC leaders defended the effort, saying the New Testament commands Christians to share their faith with all people.
___In an interview with ENI, Pastor Gulkhan Pau, general secretary of the 750,000-member Council of Baptist Churches in Northeast India, said he disagrees with the approach taken by Southern Baptists in the Divali prayer guide. "You preach your faith, but you don't play down others," he said.
___An estimated 2 million Baptists in India do preach that Jesus is the answer to life, Pau said, but added: "We recognize anyone's right to worship any god. We share the love of God, and I am not going to condemn the Hindu or the Muslim for his faith.
___"Those who bring out such derogatory material from outside should be more careful, as it is going to disturb our mission and put us in trouble," he said.Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!