Christian organisations continue to protest about the claimed ‘persecution’ in India, and the United States in its multiple reports on human rights has often criticised and lectured India about the rights of minorities. India, however, has consistently denied their allegations and responded back in kind.
Now, a preacher’s ten-month-old YouTube video has surfaced, in which he declared that India is the prime destination for conversions and that in spite of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s efforts, they have been successful in reaching their goal.
Pastor Chris Hodges also bragged that the missionaries that his organisation is associated with have already converted more than 1 lakh Hindus in a single week. The pastor made the claims in an almost 39-minute sermon.
Chris Hodges is the lead pastor of the Church of the Highlands which described itself as a life-giving church meeting in multiple locations throughout Alabama and West Georgia on its official website.
According to the same website, “Chris Hodges is the founding and senior pastor of the Church of the Highlands. He co-founded ARC (Association of Related Churches) in 2001, which has launched hundreds of churches across the United States. He also founded Grow, specializing in training and resourcing pastors and churches to help them break barriers and reach their growth potential. Chris is also the founder and Chancellor of Highlands College, a ministry training school that trains and launches students into full-time ministry careers.”
It added, “Chris and his wife Tammy have five children and live in Birmingham, Alabama, where Church of the Highlands began. He speaks at conferences worldwide and is the author of Fresh Air, Four Cups, The Daniel Dilemma, What’s Next, Out of the Cave, and Pray First.”
The nefarious conversion agenda
Referring to the Hindu population of India as “lost people” in a video titled ‘Signs of the Times’ uploaded on 22 August of last year by the Church of the Highlands on its official account, Chris Hodges stated that one of his missionaries told him, “One of the places on the planet where it’s the largest concentration of lost people that are both unengaged and unreached.”
He further continued, “And it’s the northern India area. Even though the southern area was largely Christianised. India has taken a pretty bad turn over the last ten years.” Notably, the National Democratic Alliance led by the Bharatiya Janata Party has been in power since 2014 and has revoked the licences of numerous organisations, including Christian groups, for breaching the 2010 Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA).
Missionary organisations, which are frequently supported by foreign entities, dissimulate their true goal and attempt to convert individuals by masquerading as non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that promote the welfare of the underprivileged and marginalised segments of society.
Pastor Chris Hodges voiced his frustration over the developments of the past few years and bemoaned, “Their Prime Minister has literally kicked out a lot of Christian agencies, and there’s whole organisation is set on making India 100% Hindu. And it’s so really gotten very dark there.” Most importantly, he failed to provide any evidence for his concocted accusation.
He added, “And honestly you need to pray for the Christians in India and around the world. They are going through great persecution, losing their lives every single day. It’s happening.” He didn’t even hesitate to bring up RSS and make unfounded charges against the outfit. “There’s a group called the RSS that basically operates just to destroy you and persecute Christians, and it’s just terrible.”
The preacher remarked that the missionary informed him that they support a group in north India but refrained from going into the details of it. “But they are in that northern India area, and they are in 21 days of prayer. They are in prayers and fasting right now. And they had a word from God happen in their prayer service, where they felt like God would anoint them if they would go and do outreach projects, right now. They are doing it right now.”
He revealed their objective and professed how unassuming individuals are manipulated into embracing Christianity. “And they organised themselves into 3,931 outreach teams, and they dispersed into 15 of the northern states of India to go do evangelism, and God showed up. So, like, they would go lay their hand on the sick, ordinary Christians, and sick people were getting healed instantly.”
He described how the superstition of demon possession is utilised as a tool by the missionaries for the unwary. “And they had people there that were demon-possessed, I mean, like notoriously demon-possessed, tormenting the whole village, get radically delivered. And it was so radical, and they were so thrilled that this demonic person was freed.”
The pastor made it clear that the missionaries deploy ‘demon possessed’ people to trouble villages, and then the pastors appear in the villages like messiahs and release the demon from the persons, thereby bringing ‘peace’ to the area. After that, the party of conversion becomes very easy for them.
“Now, one case, this woman who got delivered, that they were so thrilled that she was now a woman of peace, that 150 families gave their lives to Jesus on the spot. Whenever that happened, it was just amazing, just amazing,” Chris Hodges boasted. Deliverance in the Bible is the acts of God whereby he rescues his people (Christians) from peril.
“But in their outreach projects, just this past week-you ready for it,” he asked and presented the ‘joyous’ conversion statistics to his audience. “This is what you need to celebrate: 112,124 Hindus converted to Christ just last week. Come on, give God praise together, everybody.”
Watch the video from the 34:05 mark:
Funny Christian tactics that work as powerful equipment for conversion
“Arararara” and “Mera Yeshu Yeshu” make excellent memes and make the audience laugh. However, these are effective means which prey on the vulnerable minds of Hindus and lure them away from their own religion and towards Christianity.
One such extremely popular video was that of a woman named Pushpa Diwadkar who claimed to be bedridden for years because of her failed kidneys. The pastor chanted, “Ohhhhhh Shakararararar Rararara,” along with his followers on the stage and as the voices grew louder, Pushpa lost consciousness and collapsed. One of his followers then put her hand on the woman’s stomach, and after a while, she is seen strolling peacefully amid raucous applause.
This is only one example among hundred others. The supposed miracles displayed in these massive gatherings, where the mute can be heard speaking and the lame is seen running are nothing more than a conversion mafia at work who are using every trick in the book to convert as many credulous Hindus as they can.
Christian organisations have taken advantage of every chance in recent decades to convert naive Hindus to Christianity through multiple methods including building churches, large-scale evangelistic camps, public prayers and healing events for the sick.
Social media platforms often feature footage of Christian events that are ridiculed for their foolishness. However, over the past few decades, these evangelical conventions have grown into important platforms for bringing non-Christians into the fold of their faith. Therefore, the evangelists have successfully captivated oblivious Hindus from heartlands, deep jungles, rural areas, and metropolitan centres. Moreover, they accomplished this without any fear of punishment.
The sad reality is that despite the Modi government’s various efforts to control and keep a check on them, these organisations are still quite active and continuing their mission of conversion with tremendous impunity.
