Some of my Christian friends in India are in grave danger. This is not an internet hoax. It is not likely to get much attention in the national press until someone from the U.S. is killed. Yet too often religious violence in certain Indian states is flaring into damage of property and even loss of life. Unfortunately the pro-Hindu government is turning a blind eye to these atrocities.
Consider what it would be like for a mob to approach you as you leave church today, douse you with gasoline, and burn you to death merely for the fact you had been to worship. Or imagine returning to your home after church, but being jumped by a crowd and being hacked to death. This is too common place in the Indian state of Orissa. That is the area, perhaps most famous to westerners, where the Australian missionary Graham Staines and his ages 9 & 7 were burned to death in their car. Though time has moved on the approach to religious diversity is still extremely violent and dangerous in many locations throughout India.
For more ongoing information find an excellent resource at FIACONA. This group is "deeply concerned about the increasing threats to the secular and pluralistic nature of Indian society and about the state of religious freedom of Christians in India." Would you be shocked to learn that 500 Christians were killed in Orissa in Kandhamal District with two hundred Christian villages and 127 Church and prayer halls either destroyed or burnt August-September 2008? This took place with police knowledge and no response. Official government reports grossly misstated the level of violence and murder. http://www.fiacona.org/
For more information from a missions perspective see http://themissionsociety.org/magazines/unfinished/2008-42/128
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