Christopher Coen
Melissa Sogard
nancylee1
The Contra Costa Times details the issue of attempts to convert non-Christian refugees.
OAKLAND — As thousands of refugees from the Himalayan nation of Bhutan migrate to the United States, an array of faith-based groups have volunteered to help them get adjusted to a new land. Some are also inviting the refugees to church services and converting them to Christianity.
Church groups say the refugees have explored Christianity, and, in some cases, Mormonism, of their own free will. Some refugee advocates counter that missionaries are taking advantage of an impressionable population and eroding cherished cultural traditions in the process.
“They need to learn about life in America, learn to speak English, learn to drive, learn to shop, learn to file taxes, and all of a sudden they are faced with people seeking to change them through a slow but concerted coercive strategy,” argued Mihir Meghani, a Fremont physician who cofounded the Hindu American Foundation, a national advocacy group.
In the East Bay, several Bhutanese refugee families who were previously Hindu or Buddhist have joined local Protestant and Mormon churches that offered them help and invited them to religious services.
Meghani sees the church activities as troublesome, a form of “predatory proselytism” that divides refugee families and causes them to feel they should abandon ancient traditions and beliefs they are led to believe are inferior.
“If I had a neighbor moving in, I would like to welcome them for who they are,” Meghani said. “Most of us would like to be accepted for who we are, not who we could be or what we could believe.”… Read more here
In my own recent experiences I have found that the Jehovah’s Witnesses Church has been transporting underage refugee teenagers to another city to attend church meetings. When the teenagers return they have Ipods which they say that the church gave to them.
