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| Will Thai education follow the American example? |
From the Huffington Post
Brian C. Stiller, Global Ambassador for The World Evangelical Alliance, laments the failure of hordes of mega-funded missionaries to convert Buddhists in Thailand to his brand of Christianity...
The Difficulty of Evangelizing in Thailand
"...Speaking with pastors, educators, mission leaders and on-the-ground spiritual inventors, I heard it time after time. I tried to understand the question in context in a land of lush landscape, neighborhoods so remarkably clean and people incredibly respectful and kind. The question is this: After all the people, money and years, why is the Christian mission here so small?"
"...Why is that after over 183 years of evangelical missionary work, an investment of thousands of lives and millions upon millions of dollars, out of a total population of 65 million there are only 370,000 evangelical Christians, one half of one percent?"
"...I heard many reasons. Among them missionaries viewing Thais as unequal to the task of leadership held on to controls within their foreign mission boards.
In this brief dispatch, rather than analyze the past, my interest is in their current vision and plan. I wanted to hear from them their optimism and hope for discipleship and church growth.
The national plan was in part triggered by polling which showed the Thai people didn't find the words "Jesus" and "God" objectionable, an assumption many made on why the slowness of Gospel advance [sic]. In 2004 the DeMoss Foundation organized the Power for Living campaign which asked the Thais if they found those words offensive. They then invited people to call in to receive a book. Organizers estimated a couple hundred thousand would call. Surprised, some 2.9 million responded."
Why should Buddhists find 'Jesus' objectionable? Jesus was a Bodhisattva who developed his teachings in Buddhist India. And why should the word 'God' be objectionable? According to some views, 'God' is just another word for the Dharmakaya.
So the slowness of Gospel advance may be due to other factors, for example the need to believe the literal truth of this...
It's likely that in order to make progress, the evangelists will need to launch an attack on the Thai educational system to suppress science, as they have done very successfully in formerly Buddhist South Korea.
Full article here.
TIP FOR CHRISTIANS - If some aspects of Buddhist beliefs seem unfamiliar, obscure, or confusing, then bear in mind that Buddhism is a process philosophy. Difficult aspects of Buddhism often become much clearer when viewed from a process perspective.
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Even though those Korean Evangelical missionaries (with the lesser extend to those other evangelical missionaries) starting to convert Thai urban citizens, it is Sangha that starts to raise this issue of alarming trends ... but the real issue is that even the local Thai pastors and missionaries have raised the issue that those Evangelical missionaries, esp those Korean Evangelical missionaries have gone too far to the point that they even go against the norms of Thai protestant communities.
ReplyDeleteNow, Thai protestant communities start to withdraw the supports to those Korean Evangelical missionaries who have gone too far ... case to point is the case of God the Mother
http://sinchaichao.blogspot.com/2012/10/blog-post_24.html
Another case is Church of God
http://www.tcs.or.th/youth-tips-and-tricks/1082
Even the controversial Dhammakaya raising the issue of Thai workers in Korean being converted
http://www.dhammakaya.org/forum/index.php?topic=918.0
Riya So, what you have written down here is quite similar to those politicians or even thugs in saffron clothes though ... the ones who actually driven Buddhist laypersons to embrace other faiths such as Islam or lesser extend to those Catholics and Protestants ...
ReplyDeleteWe DO know what the real monks should behave to keep Buddhist laypersons having a faith on them.