Dear Manju Sainath,

 

Thank you for posting the DH story and link quoting extracts from the book which is at the centre of the communal violence in Karnataka. It is true that the contents of the material may be offensive to some.  However the critique is a decade old, as Satya Darshini was printed as far back as 1998 and was banned in AP shortly thereafter.

 

To your perfectly logical question  "why shouldn't there be violence", I would like to respond that there is much material in circulation for many long years which Christians may term blasphemous, for instance the debate around the birth of Jesus Christ. While most Christians believe he was born of a virgin, some don't. And some other religious faiths openly speculate about this in what may be termed very offensive terms. There are other  claims Christians make relating to the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ  which are rubbished in strong language by those who do not believe. The controversy around the Da Vinci Code was one recent example. I was one of those who opposed calls to ban it.

 

Because it is an intrinsic Christian tenet that these are matters of FAITH, and Faith is a gift of God, freely available to any who will ask for it. Hence those who do not have these beliefs are not to be condemned, one has full freedom to choose to believe or not. No compulsion is possible. History records the dark deeds resulting from compulsion by institutional religion in the form of the Crusades and other forms of religious persecution in other faiths as well. These are to be condemned as serious aberrations and totally against the letter and spirit of what the faith in God should be: an outward expression of inward spirituality, manifested by a "good testimony" - others must be able to see a qualitative difference in one's day-to-day dealings. This will also answer the charge of "forcible conversion", frequently made but never ever substantiated by the Hindutva brigade.

  

In other words, Christians need not and should not take up cudgels to defend the contents of their faith. That is not to say that they should not defend their rights as citizens or human beings.

Cynthia Stephen
Independent Researcher and writer
Bangalore, India