What happens when giving food to the hungry, educating a poor child, praying for the sick, or telling someone why you believe in Jesus Christ can be interpreted as evidence of a crime? That question is becoming increasingly urgent for Christians in India. Maharashtra, a state in western India that includes the city of Mumbai, is home to more than 1 million Christians. Its new Freedom of Religion Act came into force on August 28. The law prohibits conversion through coercion, fraud, force, misrepresentation, inducement, threats or undue influence. Few Christians should object to the principle behind such prohibitions. Forced conversion is a contradiction in terms. Faith compelled by threats, fraud or material pressure is not Christian faith. The difficulty lies elsewhere: Who determines when Christian compassion becomes “inducement,” and when Christian witness becomes “undue influence”?
Under Maharashtra’s law, the person accused of facilitating a conversion bears the burden of establishing that it was voluntary. That provision should concern Christians, but it should also concern every Indian committed to religious liberty. The consequences are already visible. Reports from Maharashtra describe smaller Christian congregations asking people attending prayer meetings to sign declarations stating that they have come voluntarily. Some churches have reportedly installed CCTV cameras and adopted other precautions following disruptions of Christian gatherings and accusations of unlawful conversion. Think about what this means. A person comes to a Christian prayer meeting because his family is suffering. A woman asks Christians to pray for her healing. Someone struggling with poverty receives assistance from a church. A student receives an education from a Christian institution. Under a climate of suspicion, activities Christian’s regard as ordinary expressions of discipleship can acquire another interpretation: Was the prayer intended to convert? Was the food an inducement? Was education a means of influencing religious belief?
Former St. Xavier’s College principal Frazer Mascarenhas recently warned in The Indian Express that anti-conversion legislation could endanger humanitarian activities directed toward disadvantaged communities. His concern deserves serious attention. Christian service in India did not begin as a public-relations strategy. Christians established schools, colleges, hospitals, orphanages and ministries among marginalized communities because Jesus commanded his followers to love their neighbours. We serve because Christ first loved us. Conversion is more than changing a label. There is also a deeper misunderstanding hidden within the debate. In contemporary political discourse, “conversion” often means moving from one officially recognized religious community to another. Christianity certainly calls people to faith in Jesus Christ. Christians cannot pretend otherwise. Jesus commanded his disciples to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19).
But biblical conversion is far more profound than exchanging one religious label for another. The New Testament word metanoia speaks of repentance — a radical turning of the mind, heart and life toward God. The Indian concept of jeevan, life itself, helps us recover something important here. Christian conversion is ultimately about parivartit jeevan — a transformed life. A corrupt Christian who remains corrupt has hardly demonstrated the transformation Christ demands. A person who changes the religion written on a certificate but continues in hatred, exploitation and injustice has missed the heart of Christian conversion. Jesus did not merely gather people into a new sociological category. He called them to become new people. The Christian message therefore cannot be reduced to, “Change your religion.” Its deeper invitation is: Be reconciled to God and let Christ transform your jeevan. Christians must reject coercion — and defend witness. This distinction also places responsibility upon the Church.
Indian Christians should be the first to condemn conversion obtained through fraud, coercion or manipulation. The Gospel needs no deception. We must never exploit poverty, sickness, education or humanitarian assistance to pressure vulnerable people into professing Christianity. If someone must become a Christian to receive food from us, our charity has ceased to be Christian. If someone must attend church to receive medical treatment, we have misunderstood grace. Christian love must remain love even when the person receiving it never becomes a Christian. But rejecting coercion cannot mean surrendering the right to witness. Religious freedom must include more than the freedom privately to possess beliefs. It must include the freedom to speak about them, question them, change them, reject them and invite others to consider them. Otherwise, freedom of religion becomes little more than permission to retain the religion one inherited.
That principle protects Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Christians, atheists and everyone else. The state has a legitimate responsibility to prosecute genuine fraud and coercion. Existing criminal law can address many such abuses. But the state should be extremely cautious about entering the interior territory of conscience and attempting to determine when persuasion becomes improper religious influence. The Christian response to these developments should be neither panic nor provocation. We should obey the law, insist upon constitutional protections, document abuses, pursue legitimate legal remedies and demand impartial policing when Christian gatherings are attacked. But above all, the Church must refuse to allow fear to redefine its mission. We must keep educating children. We must keep caring for the sick. We must keep feeding people who are hungry. We must keep praying for anyone who asks for prayer. And yes, we must continue speaking about Jesus Christ.
Not because Christians seek demographic conquest, but because bearing witness to Christ belongs to Christian discipleship. A democratic society should punish coercion. It should punish fraud. It should punish threats. But it should never create a climate in which compassion itself becomes evidence of criminal intent. India does not need fewer Christians serving their neighbours. It needs Christians whose service is so transparently selfless that no reasonable observer could confuse compassion with coercion. The Church’s answer to suspicion, therefore, must be a transformed jeevan: courageous in witness, uncompromising in integrity and extravagant in love. No law can prohibit that kind of conversion.
Source: Christian Post