I’m Pissed.

You see, the other day I found a video showing Christian’s in India being beaten and stoned to death. According to this video the reason they are being beaten and stoned is solely because they are Christians. The video featuring the pastor of Cornerstone Church, Francis Chan, is located here.

*Warning: This video contains very disturbing and graphic images, if you are offended by violence, blood, or evangelism you should not watch this (nor should you read the Bible).

(Video’s will be put back up once they are back online See bottom of post for explanation.)

Now, please understand that I have major problems with anyone being beaten, stoned, or otherwise oppressed for any reason whatsoever and I in no way am condoning the actions of the attacking mob that carried out these heinous acts. What they did in the video was wrong and there is absolutely no defense for it, these individuals should be found out and put in prison for the rest of their miserable lives. There are, however, two groups of individuals that should be held directly responsible for these lives. If the claims of Mr. Chan are correct, and these people are indeed being beaten simply because they are Christians (no evidence is given to show that they are Christians, but for the sake of argument we can assume it is true) I have a real big problem with both groups.

The second group of people responsible for these atrocities are none other than the evangelists and missionaries and the churches and individuals that sponsor them that convert these people into Christianity, even going so far as to do so with the knowledge that their converts may very well be killed because of their new found faith. These wretched people use fear and blinding emotion to bring people “to Christ” and claim to do so out of love.

The victims of evangelism in India, fearing eternal torment as taught to them by these evangelists, lose all sense of self-preservation in the midst of being beaten to death. They fear that if they deny Christ that he will deny them (Matthew 10:33) and they will be plunged into everlasting fire and torment. These victims are given a no win situation, wherein they could live here and now or spend eternity in hell…most of them choose death now for heaven later and this is where our problems begin.

If there were some sort of guarantee of heaven and hell, some way for the evangelist to prove that this life is not the only one we have and that Christ provides the only entrance into heaven (and thereby the only escape from hell), then I could understand the role they play. The truth is that these Jesus salesmen are unable to prove any of their claims, but the fear they hand out is so pervasive that the logical individual is often unable to resist crumbling at the feet of a god they are unable to see. They are selling a product that is more like heroin than anything else in that it provides temporary comfort from reality but ruins their lives externally – and the addict would rather die than give up their addiction. These converts are put through hell on earth and in return are rewarded with absolutely nothing. We shout about burden of proof often, but here is where it matters the most. The burden to prove this drivel before you go out and destroy lives with it should never be ignored. If someone threatens me with hell and I convert I won’t be stoned for it, but when you spread this cancer to those that will bear a punishment here and now you have crossed the line from harassment to murder.

Terrorism is the use of extreme fear or anxiety to coerce participation or alignment with an idea, this definition is absolutely synonymous with hell-centric evangelism. The blood of these poor people is not only on the hands of their attackers, but on those that strip them of the good sense they need to avoid this, those that terrorize them into accepting these beatings as a part of following Christ. The people that sold the victims this bill of goods might as well be swinging the clubs and throwing the rocks themselves.

Evangelism is Murder.

Evangelism is Terrorism.

Update:

Moments before I completed writing this post the video’s in question were taken down, when they come back up I will post them again. It seems, as I was already concerned about, that the publisher isn’t positive that these are actually Christians being tormented…no real context is given to lead you to believe that they are other than the words of the pastor speaking in the narrative. Regardless of this, knowingly proselytizing any person that you know may be at risk for their life if they convert is tantamount to murder.