In India, with evangelical Christianity becoming a political problem and a threat to Indic culture and spirituality, we need to battle aggressively against the history-obsessed nature of Christianity. In places like Tamil Nadu, Christmas celebrations have also become events for political bargaining with corrupt leaders by the Church (both Roman Catholic and CSI). They also promote, through history-centricism, pseudo-histories claiming that the original Hinduism was a Brahminical corruption of the historically only true religion Christianity.

Just as how hatred against Jews was systematically promoted by the church through the claims of Deicide, in India, hatred against Hinduism is created by false stories of Hindus killing Christian martyrs like St Thomas 2,000 years ago and one Devasahayam Pillai in Kanyakumari district 200 years ago. History-centrism of Christianity through fabricated history creates false martyrs and promote communal hatred.

Interestingly, the persecution stories of the Christian saints which the church deems as having a great potential in India are interestingly derived from the stories of Buddhist saints and Bodhisattvas. Barlaam and Josaphat – the saints of Christianity were appropriated from the Buddhist mythology. With Jains and Buddhists writing competitive versions of their persecution in the hands of each other, this literature seemed to have influenced Christian creation of martyrs.



Obsession with historicism of Christianity and its urge for expansionism was so great that in the twelfth century, Christendom strongly believed that India was ruled by a Christian emperor called Prester John. What is even more interesting is the fact that in 1165, the Byzantine Emperor was given a letter, purportedly from Prester John, who ruled a nation where a river from paradise called Indus was flowing throughout the country. Vatican was excited enough to dispatch a mission to enlist the support of Prester John against Saracens. In fact, today, this letter is mostly known as the handwork of archbishop of Mainz. This shows how the historical knowledge received from Greeks and Romans actually atrophied in the West with the ascent of Christianity before becoming completely delusional until later during the colonial times. This is just one example of the fallacies religious obsession with history-centrism can create.

Hence, what should be the Indic response to Christianity? Those who condemn Sri Ramakrishna Mission for celebrating Christmas should not forget what Swami Vivekananda himself said about the historicity of Jesus. He opined that it was the Jewish seer Hillel whose teachings were rehashed as those of Jesus. He said: