50 churches burned in India for Christmas
From Compass Direct News but easily found on Google news also
NEW DELHI, December 28 (Compass Direct News) – At least four Christians are feared dead, many injured and more than 50 churches and 200 homes are either destroyed or damaged in Orissa state in anti-Christian violence that began Christmas Eve. Violence by Hindu extremists continues in some pockets despite the state imposing a curfew and deploying hundreds of police officers. Extremists have pursued Christian leaders into forests where they fled. The Delhi Catholic Archdiocese fears a repeat of 1998 attacks on Christians in Gujarat, followed the next year by the burning alive of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his sons in Orissa.
Comments
One religion that seems unscathed by such exceses is Buddhism: it is hard to find accounts of this type of thing in the name of Buddha.
Contrary to your assumption, history, is unfortunately full of militant Buddhists too. In recent history, see Japan and Thailand. Here is an interesting quote from Philip Short, author of a Pol Pot biography which I wrote a book report on here, http://umbl0g.blogspot.com/2007/01/book-report-pol-pot-anatomy-of.html . Theravada Buddhism is intensely introspective. The goal is not to improve society or redeem one's fellow men; it is self-cultivation, in the nihilistic sense of the demolition of the individual...Both within the Party leadership and among the rank and file, the grammar of Theravada Buddhism permeated Khmer communist thought, just as Confucian notions helped to fashion Maoism. In neither country was this a conscious undertaking...But just as Mao ad sinified Marxism, Sar gave it a Buddhist tincture." (p.150) If you search for the term “militant Buddhism” you will find plenty of depressing news. Attacks incited by Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka against Christian churches occur too frequently. Here is an example from Crisis magazine, “Within the last two years, extremist Buddhists have attacked at least 160 churches in Sri Lanka. An estimated 140 churches have closed as a result of violence and intimidation, and in some places Christians are forced to worship in secret—in the middle of the night—for fear of being discovered and attacked. In January last year, at least four Catholic churches were attacked. In one, the tabernacle was smashed open and the hosts scattered on the floor. In another, the pews were burned. Many of the incidents of anti-Christian violence have been incited by monks, and in some places the monks have themselves beaten up pastors. Nagarajah Solomon leads a church outside Kandy, in the center of the country. Last year a Buddhist monk led a mob of 15 people to capture two church workers and take them to the temple. The Christians were locked up for several hours in the temple, where six monks beat them with fists and sticks. Then the monks summoned more than 200 villagers to announce that these Christians were destroying the community and their culture.” http://www.crisismagazine.com/february2005/rogers.htm
The issue may be power and influence. A theory I will have to elaborate on more someday.
God is good
jpu