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What cautionary advice have evangelists given that address Gandhi's concern about "Rice Christians"?

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Not too long ago we had a question here that raised the issues of bribery, cultural "destruction," and use of harsh language against nonbelievers during evangelization efforts in developing countries. There is actually a Wikipedia article on Rice Christians . It offers a quote from Mahatma Gandhi's autobiography, *The Story of My Experiments with Truth*: >Only Christianity was at that time an exception. I developed a sort of dislike for it. And for a reason. In those days Christian missionaries used to stand in a corner near the high school and hold forth, pouring abuse on Hindus and their gods. I could not endure this. I must have stood there to hear them once only, but that was enough to dissuade me from repeating the experiment. About the same time, I heard of a well known Hindu having been converted to Christianity. It was the talk of the town that, when he was baptized, he had to eat beef and drink liquor, that he also had to change his clothes, and that thenceforth he began to go about in European costume including a hat. These things got on my nerves. Surely, thought I, a religion that compelled one to eat beef, drink liquor, and change one's own clothes did not deserve the name. I also heard that the new convert had already begun abusing the religion of his ancestors, their customs and their country. All these things created in me a dislike for Christianity. From this quote, we see that issues of cultural extinction, harsh language, and use of bribery in evangelization is an ongoing problem, from Gandhi's 100 year old testimony to the prior question of last week. My question is to what extent have evangelism-training leaders (or great evangelists) already noted these problems, and what words or scriptural references (or church-fathers-quotes) have they given as caution?
Asked by pterandon (4861 rep)
Jul 9, 2013, 11:34 AM
Last activity: Feb 2, 2024, 01:42 AM