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Bush-sponsored Evangelisation of India-III

Posted February 23, 2007

V Sundaram
February 23, 2007
NewsToday
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Joshua Project II has been conceived as a war project and is now being implemented like a military model - to be precise a Blitzkrieg Operation, with the intent to invade, occupy, control or subjugate the population of India. This Nazi-type military strategy was based on solid intelligence emanating from the ground on various facets of selected people groups. The idea was to send out espionage missions to locate, collect and collate micro details on religion and culture. The social and economic divisions in the various Indian communities were closely studied and analysed. Taking note of the fact of untouchability among certain sections of Indian society, the American evangelical strategists chalked out programmes for reaching these various 'unmixable and untouchable' caste groups. This kind of organized approach has thrown up a mass of useful ethnographic data covering all parts of the country in terms of ethnicity, caste, creed, language and class.

The fundamentalist American missionaries belonging to the World Evangelical Fellowship (an international alliance of national evangelical alliances) launched a world-wide evangelical movement over the 1990s which brought together a wide variety of individuals and organisations, under the single umbrella of achieving 'a church for every people and the gospel for every person by the year 2000.' Its focus was missionary mobilization and church planting in India and other regions of the world where the Christian population was negligible. This movement was also a massive intelligence gathering exercise funded and supported by American missionary organisations that were responsible for the election of George W Bush. After the election of President Bush in 2000 December, this movement collaborated with the AD2000 and this joint initiative has taken off in a spectacular manner today on account of a unique and close cooperation between the American Government of President Bush and US-based evangelical agencies.

AD2000- a 'Global Evangelism Plan' - first attracted attention at a convention of international evangelical missions called Lausanne II in Manila in 1989. The movement then spread rapidly around the globe to help catalyse evangelism. It should also be noted that an evangelist by name Ralph Winter, founder of the US Center for World Mission, characterized the AD2000 movement as 'the largest, most pervasive global evangelical network that has ever been created.' AD 2000 movement mobilized and funded massive evangelical operations in India.

American tycoons in the world of evangelical imperialism sponsored the Global Consultation on World Evangelization (GCOWE) in Seoul in May 1995, South Korea, where nearly 4,000 Christian leaders from 186 countries, including India, gathered to draw up secret and covert evangelical plans. The Seoul Conference has been hailed by many American evangelists as 'the most strategic Christian gathering in world history.' Year 1995 also saw the transformation of the earlier movement into a higher plane in the name of JOSHUA PROJECT. The first GCOWE consultation was held in Singapore in 1989. The first five years of the decade (1990-2000) were the years of seeding the clouds with the vision of a church for every people and the gospel for every person by the year 2000. This involved the building of a new kind of partnering relationships, a grassroots networking structure based on a 'Network of Networks.'

Joshua Project II now under active implementation in India provides for a 'blue-print' of the unfinished task of world evangelization programme. The mission of Joshua Project II is to highlight the savage plight (!!) peoples of the world who have the least exposure to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The mission of evangelism of the Joshua Project II is threefold.

1. First, to gather, manage and distribute strategic population, progress indicator and ministry activity information to maximise the visibility of the least-reached peoples to the Church in different parts of India. The goal is a comprehensive, accurate, validated, public ally available list of all the ethno-cultural people groups of India.

2. Second, to be a 'least-reached peoples networking resource' to be made available to the Christian mission community for lightening conversion operations in remote areas.

3. Third, to enhance the flow of information between Great Evangelical Commission organisations by using standardised data coding based on known Postal Pin Codes.

In respect of India this 'standardized data coding' has been perfected to the utmost degree. This has been fine-tuned to such an extent that even the diverse language groups of India have been divided into PIN codes. The ability to plant evangelists that are familiar with the language and culture in each Pin Code area greatly facilitates the pace of conversion both in terms of speed and efficiency. This data base also enables any Christian missionary organisation anywhere in the world to source any ethno-cultural or ethno-linguistic data on India at the click of the mouse. Just about any detail it wants is available on demand. To give another concrete example. Let us assume that somebody at the CIA headquarters wants specific information on a particular district or region in any part of India. All that needs to be done in CIA headquarters, is to call up Bush's mentor Rev Billy Graham. Rev Graham will in turn log into databases maintained by a network of American Evangelical Missions in India and supply the needed information to the CIA. All this can happen in seconds and this is how technology has made evangelical activities so potentially dangerous and subversive from the point of view of our national security. Why am I citing the name of Billy Graham as an example? I am doing so only because Billy Graham, a known Christian fundamentalist and a rabid evangelist (who was mainly responsible for George Bush's 'born again' Christian status and whom President Bush considers as his godfather) was the honorary co-chairman of the AD 2000 movement.

Joshua Project II deploys paid evangelical spies all over India to get an accurate picture of opportunities and challenges facing their large-scale conversion programme in our country. They have evolved suitable subversive strategies to implement their plans. Concepts like PLUG, PREM and NICE have been conceived. PLUG refers to the target group-people in every language, urban centre and geographic division. PREM refers to the techniques of using prayer, research, evangelization and mobilization. NICE refers to how the work is to be done - networking, taking initiative, and using an evangelist to spur existing groups and cohorts in their efforts to convert people to Christianity. There is always a close and continuous cooperation between the White House, CIA, and all the Evangelical Organizations like the International Mission Board, Southern Baptist Convention, Christian Aid, World Vision, Seventh Day Adventist Church and multi-billion enterprises run by Evangelists like Pat Robertson, Billy Graham and Roger Houtsma, etc.

Thus it will be clear that under the direct personal supervision of President Bush, the US Government's faith-based initiatives have funded major Christian groups in the US to pursue their programme of massive religious conversions in India. These funds are officially deployed for social work in India only on paper, but are actually used for dual-purposes, most of it being used for massive conversion and only a nominally token amount for social services. These activities are linked to forces that are subversive to India's territorial integrity and national security. Against this background, there is an urgent national need in USA for a US Congressional or media inquiry into the alleged use of US taxpayer funds for religious conversions in India without the knowledge of US taxpayers. There is no doubt that many of these American Evangelists, apart from potentially undermining India's stability, also play into the hands of subversive forces, which in the final round could eventually backfire on American interests as it has happened in Pakistan and many other countries.

I am highly amused by the massive intelligence collecting operation launched by Joshua Project II in India. I am of the view that there is going to be a larger cosmic auditing of the evangelical movement in India. I am not very sure whether the massive volume of Himalayan data collected Pin Code-wise in India will be of any real use to the evangelical missions in USA. World history clearly shows that figures and planning of this scale cease to be meaningful. The massive survey of Joshua II Project may seem to be eminent in statistics but is positively poor in philosophy and spiritual wisdom. In fact, its psychic source is not either spiritual or philosophical. It is nothing but crass materialism.

To quote the brilliant words of Gautham Sen: 'The contemporary assault on Hinduism is reaching acute proportions. The reason is pure opportunism. All the mannered subterfuges cannot hide the fact that a Hindu bigot rules Hindu for the first time since the end of colonialism. No nominal Hindu ruler has dared to underwrite Hindu proselytising so brazenly though they surely laid the ground for the unfolding aggression. At present much of Hindu is ruled directly by adherents of Catholic and Protestant denominations, in cahoots with foreign powers and assisted by Hindu renegades. The different denominations of Hindu proselytisers have postponed conflict over a division of the spoils among themselves in favour of first displacing the Hindu upper castes, perceived as the principal obstacle to their unfettered rule....'

( Concluded)

(The writer is a retired IAS officer)

e-mail the writer at vsundaram@newstodaynet.com

Protests by Vietnamese Stymie Sales of Victoria’s Secret Buddha Bikinis

Calitoday, News Report, Compiled by Peter Micek, Posted: Apr 21, 2004

Sales of a new Victoria’s Secret swimsuit featuring Buddhist images have been halted internationally after Vietnamese Americans voiced disagreement with designs, according to Vietnamese-language media. A similar model by company OndadeMar no longer is available through its website.

One of OndadeMar's summer 2004 styles is called the "Baby Buddha Bikini." A new Victoria's Secret bathing suit uses the Buddha's image on the bikini top.

“This way of doing business offended a lot of Buddhists,” said Nam Nyugen, editor of Calitoday, a Vietnamese-language newspaper in San Jose, Calif.

The debate over the brands' use of Buddha was partly catalyzed by the attention U.S.-based Vietnamese media have given to the matter.

Calitoday has published two articles on the controversy after readers called and wrote the companies in protest. Buddhists around the world have reacted actively to the issue, said Calitoday editor Nam Nyugen.

Customer Thuy Nyugen was quoted as saying in Calitoday, “Buddha and Buddhism signify the ultimate respect in religion and play a vital role in our everyday lives. To have Buddha, or anything associated with religion for that matter, printed on and worn to cover up private parts is the ultimate insult.”

One day after posting its articles online, Calitoday received a call from Victoria's Secret, which is owned by the Columbus, Ohio-based Limited Brands Inc., saying sales of the “Asian Floral Tankini” bathing suits were stopped thanks in part to their protest.

OndadeMar has removed a picture from its website, Nyugen said, of a model wearing the two-piece swimsuit with Buddha’s image on the front of the bikini bottom.

To place an image of Buddha in this spot is improper, he said. “It would offend followers if you put Jesus or Muhammad on that location on a swimsuit,” he said.

It is unclear whether the OndadeMar bathing suit can still be ordered by mail through the print catalog.

Addressed to Victoria’s Secret, an email from Calitoday reader Kieu Trang reprinted by Calitoday reads: “I was really offended seeing this summer’s catalog, ‘The Hot Issue, Swim 2004, Mexico.’ There was a swimming suit with pictures of Buddha and [enlightened beings] Bodhisattvas on the tank [top].”

“I am a loyal customer of Victoria’s Secret,” Trang said, “but just seeing that makes me think differently. Pictures of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are sacred things which we never use to put on clothes.”

In a letter addressed to Victoria’s Secret reprinted on Calitoday.com, Thu Dinh wrote, “I'm a big fan of your brand, but really disappointed to see your new bikini collections with Buddha pictures. Something very sacred should not be used inappropriately like that.”

Emails have been circulating in San Jose’s large Vietnamese community calling for a boycott of the clothing companies, said Minh Do, a Vietnamese lawyer in the area.

“It reminds me of Abercrombie and Fitch,” Do said.

That clothing company came under fire for shirts that read “Two Wongs Can Make It White” and included caricatures of people with slanted eyes doing the wash.

A caption in the Victoria’s Secret summer 2004 catalog next to the “Tankini” swimsuit mentions reaching nirvana, said Minh Do. Nirvana is an enlightened state of being in the Buddhist religion.

“Give me a break!” he says, referring to the suggestion that nirvana can be reached through clothing. “How shallow can you get?”

It is not a matter of being politically correct, Do says. “It’s just a matter of respect.”

Do was glad to see the pictures were removed from the Victoria’s Secret website. “The Vietnamese do have a little bit of muscle,” he said.

His community, Do says, is slightly more sensitive to such cultural issues than other Asian groups, possibly because they are more recent immigrants to the United States. Hopefully, he said, the pictures were taken down from the websites for reasons of social responsibility, rather than the companies’ concern for the bottom line.

“I read some of the responses (from Victoria's Secret),” he said, referring to the company’s answers to emails appearing on Calitoday.com. “They were not apologetic.”

Victoria's Secret did not return a call for comment. Calls to an OndadeMar number in Miami were not answered.

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