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Monday, January 24, 2005
Posted by: Awaaz / 1/24/2005 01:58:38 PMNew York Times
January 24, 2005
IN TSUNAMI AREA, ANGER AT EVANGELISTS
By David Rohde
MORAKETIYA, Sri Lanka A dozen Americans walked
into a relief camp here, showering bereft parents
and traumatized children with gifts, attention
and affection. They also quietly offered camp
residents something else: Jesus.
.
The Americans, all of them from one church in
Texas, have staged plays detailing the life of
Jesus and had children draw pictures of him, camp
residents said.
.
They have told parents who lost children that
they should still believe in God and held group
prayers where they tried to heal a partly
paralyzed man and a deaf 12-year-old girl.
.
The attempts at proselytizing are angering local
Christian leaders, who worry that they could
provoke a violent backlash against Christians in
Sri Lanka, a predominantly Buddhist country that
is already a religious tinderbox.
.
Last year, Buddhist hard-liners attacked more
than 100 churches and the offices of the World
Vision Christian aid group, accusing them of
using money and social programs to cajole and
coerce conversions.
.
Most U.S.-based aid groups, including those
affiliated with religious organizations, strictly
avoid mixing aid with missionary work.
.
But scattered reports of proselytizing in Sri
Lanka; Indonesia, which is predominantly Muslim;
and India, with large Hindu and Muslim
populations, are arousing concerns that the good
will spread by the American relief efforts could
be undermined by resentment over missionary work.
.
The Reverend Sarangika Fernando, a local
Methodist minister, witnessed one of the prayer
sessions in Sri Lanka and accused the Americans
of exploiting traumatized people. "They said, 'In
the name of Jesus, she must be cured!' As a
priest, I was really upset."
.
The Americans in Sri Lanka belong to the Antioch
Community Church, an evangelical congregation
based in Waco, Texas.
.
Two members of the church were arrested and
accused of proselytizing by the Taliban in
Afghanistan in August 2001. When the United
States invaded the country several months later,
Northern Alliance forces freed the women.
.
The Antioch Community Church is one of a growing
number of evangelical groups that believe in
mixing humanitarian aid with discussions of
religion, an approach that older, more
established Christian aid groups like Catholic
Relief Services call unethical.
.
In Sri Lanka, alarmed local Christian leaders say
proselytizing could reverse the grass-roots
interfaith cooperation that has emerged since the
tsunami and endanger Christians, who make up 7
percent of the population.
.
The country also has sizable Hindu and Muslim minorities.
.
The Reverend Duleep Fernando, a Methodist
minister based in Colombo, the capital, brought
the Americans to the camp here. Fernando said
they described themselves as humanitarian aid
workers. He and other Sri Lankan Christian
leaders say raising religion with traumatized
refugees is unethical.
.
"We have told them this is not right, but now we
don't have any control over them," said Fernando,
who called the group's Web site postings
"unnecessarily explosive."
.
"This is a dangerous situation," he said.
.
In Indonesia last week, reports that a missionary
group named WorldHelp planned to raise 300 Muslim
tsunami orphans in a Christian children's home in
Jakarta, the country's capital, sparked an outcry
from Muslims. The group later said it never had
custody of the children.
.
Sri Lankan refugees, camp administrators and
church officials said the Americans have
identified themselves only as a humanitarian aid
group. In an interview here, Pat Murphy, a team
leader, said the group is a nongovernmental
organization, not a church group.
.
"It's an NGO," Murphy said. "Just your plain vanilla NGO that does aid work." . But the church's Web site says the Americans are
one of four teams dispatched to Sri Lanka and
Indonesia who have convinced dozens of people to
"come to Christ."
.
When the group's postings were read to Murphy, he
confirmed that the Americans were from the
Antioch Community Church but said the group would
never use relief goods and gifts to entice people
into becoming Christians. He denied that the
group, which sent about half of its members to
work in the eastern town of Kalmunai, was trying
to convert people."We simply provide people with
information and they do with that what they
like," he said.
.
A Jan. 18 posting from the team in Indonesia says
Aceh Province is "ripe for Jesus!!"
.
"What an opportunity," the posting adds. "It has
been closed for five years and the missionaries
in Indonesia consider it the most militant and
difficult place for ministry. The door is wide
open and the people are hungry."
.
The Reverend Jimmy Siebert, the senior pastor of
the Waco church, said in a telephone interview
that the church would evaluate whether the group
should identify themselves as simply aid workers.
But he said the church believes missionary work
and aid work "is one thing, not two separate
things."
.
"My hope is that as a follower of Jesus they
would bring who they are into the workplace," he
said, "whether they are in a workplace in America
or a workplace in Sri Lanka."
.
Older Christian aid groups like Catholic Relief
Services, Lutheran World Relief and others with
religious affiliations say that they do not
proselytize and that they abide by Red Cross
guidelines that humanitarian aid not be used to
further political or religious purposes. Ken
Hackett, president of Catholic Relief Services,
said that over the last 20 years there has been
an increase in smaller Christian evangelical
groups providing humanitarian aid in the wake of
disaster.
.
W.L.P. Wilson, 38, a disabled fisherman, said he
allowed the Americans to pray three times for the
healing of his paralyzed lower leg because he is
desperate to provide for his wife and three
children again. Wilson, a Buddhist, said he
believed that the Americans were trying to
convert him to Christianity but he is in "a
helpless situation now" and needs aid.
Neela Banerjee contributed reporting from Washington.
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