A priest has been arrested in the Indian state of Kashmir and charged with promoting religious enmity and outraging religious feelings after he baptised 15 Muslim young men who had converted to Christianity.
The Rev. Chander Mani Khanna, rector of All Saints Church in Srinigar in the Church of North India’s Diocese of Amritsar was jailed on 19 Nov 2011 by police following complaints laid against him by a local Muslim leader.
While India does not have a law forbidding religious conversions, a police official told the Hindustan Times Mr. Khanna had been booked for having violated laws against offering “allurements” to converts and for breaching the peace by having baptised the young Muslims.
Hmmm. It’s interesting that this disturbing George Conger report has been posted here for four days without attracting a single comment. Likewise, it’s also notable that this poignant, dramatic story has gone completely without any attention in the “mainstream media” in the USA, which doubtless finds it embarrassing and politically incorrect to highlight such blatant religious persecution by Muslims. But just imagine how differently the news media would’ve treated the story if it had been a bunch of young Christians who converted to Islam and the local imam in America had been thrown into jail! Talk about a double standard…
The fact that a faithful Anglican/CNI priest could be arrested and sent to jail for the “crime” of baptizing 15 young Muslim men in northern India epitomizes what are the real struggles going on in today’s world, which are much more important than the infighting within Anglicanism. Fr. Khanna, rector of All Saints, Srinigar, in the Diocese of Amritsar, is a hero and should be treated as such by the whole Christian community. Kudos to George Conger+ for bringing this important story to light internationally.
The accusation that the Indian priest offered bribes to the youth to intice them into converting is stoutly denied by the local bishop, who is backed up by +Michael Nazir-Ali, who knows the priest personally and vouches for his character.
So the real charge is “disturbing the peace” and fomenting religious strife within the area. Muslims in Kashmir (as elsewhere) obviously aren’t used to 15 young men converting to Christianity all at once and they don’t like it one bit. Not least perhaps because they are young MEN, not women. Oh for the day when such group conversions become so common that they are accepted as a fact of life even by militant Muslims!
Note that there wasn’t the same outrage over the youth attending church services for months and receiving instruction in the Christian faith and life. No, it was when they took the decisive step of being baptized that all hell broke loose (and all heaven rejoiced). You know, sometimes I think outsiders appreciate the deep significance of baptism more than many (western/ global north) Christians do.
Just as with the notorious case of (evangelical) Pastor Nadarkhani in Iran, this sort of thing reminds us of the very real cost of discipleship in many parts of the world today.
Thanks be to God for these encouraging conversions, and for faithful missionary-minded pastors like Fr. Khanna.
David Handy+