As stated above, the far northeastern states are predominantly Christian have the highest Christian percentages of any states. Southern India is historically more Christian than northern India due to very early missionary activity there, such as in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Goa.
Many of the northern states have only small percentages of Christians, such as Orissa home to much persecution in recent years , Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, and Himachai Pradesh, among others.
For mid, the Atlas of Global Christianity claims It is likely that these higher estimates reflect realities in the growth of informal Christian movements across India that are not easily perceived by the government. The wide range of estimates is clear evidence that much more work is needed to properly represent Christian demography in India.
This article is a part of a pilot version of the Lausanne Global Analysis. A planning team has begun working on the production of the new Lausanne Global Analysis. The Analysiswill provide multi-lingual analysis of issues facing the church and wordwide evangelization from a global network of regional leaders, researchers and writers.
The launch as a monthly publication is tentatively scheduled for April Learn more. Todd M. Johnson and Kenneth R. Asia has the highest rate of conversions to Christianity. Horizon, Ltd. One example of a potential undercount is in Andhra Pradesh. In the Indian census, however, it is not possible to simulteneously identify as Scheduled Caste and Christian. The census reports that 1.
These figures suggest the possibility of undercounting of Scheduled Caste Christians. Johnson and Ross, Atlas of Global Christianity , , , Operation World figures are higher for Protestants and unaffiliated Christians and are found on pages Mandryk, Operation World , Joshi, M. Srinivas, and J. Daniel J. Johnson and Ross, Atlas of Global Christianity , Estimates are derived from in-country informants at work in these networks. More in-depth research is needed to verify these estimates.
Note that these believers are counted as Hindus in the census. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. The Lausanne Movement connects influencers and ideas for global mission, with a vision of the gospel for every person, disciple-making churches for every people and place, Christ-like leaders for every church and sector, and kingdom impact in every sphere of society.
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Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings. They are also know as Nazaranis followers of Jesus of nazarene. Syrian Christians speak Malayalam, the language spoken in Kerala. They generally only marry other Syrian Christians.
Some marriages are arranged. Cross-cousin marriage is generally not practiced. The nuclear family is the basic social unit and men have traditionally worked outside the house while women stayed at home.
Syrian Christian women have a little fan hanging out of the back of their blouse. In Kerala they are regarded as energetic, ambitious, entrepreneurial and devoted to higher education. They practice rituals similar to those of Orthodox Greeks and are led by the "Pope of Kottayam.
Important celebrations include Lent, for 25 days before Christmas, and Easter week, with a particularly large gathering on Good Friday. The dead are buried not cremated. Great effort is made to make sure a person dies at home with a priest reading last rites. After death the corpse is ritually washed and dressed up and placed in a room filed with lit candles. The funeral should take place within 24 hours after death and is usually accompanied by the singing of hymns. After the funeral, family and friends gather for a simple vegetarian meal.
Syrian Christians have been able to do as well as they have done by adapting to local traditions and Hindu customs. Incorporated into the caste system, they occupy a place just below Brahmin. There are an estimated 17 million Catholics in India about 1.
They have more influence than their numbers reflect because the run a large number of elite schools and hospitals. A Catholic education is so prized that "convent educated" is listed in matrimonial ads as virtue highly sought after by well-to-do families. The Catholic community in South India and Sri Lanka have grown considerably, not by winning new converts by avoiding family planning rules. Catholic clergy in the United States, Canada and Europe are so overworked they have outsourced prayer request from parishioners to Catholic clergy in India.
The British introduced the Anglican religion. They and other Europeans introduced various Protestant faiths. In the year India achieved independence, the Church of South India, was created. The first unified Protestant church anywhere, it absorbed the former Anglican, Methodist and other Protestant sects. In , the Protestant Church of North India was created.
There is some hostility towards Indian Christians by Hindu nationalists. I demand that the government of India throw out these people who are out to convert Hindus and ruin or culture, language and attire. Sharma also declared there is a "Christian conspiracy to propagate their religion and wipe out Hinduism from this country" and offered a plan to "reconvert" Christians to Hinduism. Hindu extremists have also attacked Christian schools as being fronts for forced conversions, especially of lower caste members, and attacked literacy campaigns as a Christian campaign to win converts.
In the late s, after the Hindu nationalist came to power, there was a rash of violence and nasty talk directed at Christians. The number of reported attacked against Christians increased from 15 in to in , the year the Hindu nationalist BJP party came to power. Priests and missionaries were beat up and murdered; nuns were raped; churches were vandalized and burned down; graveyards were desecrated; crosses and other images were destroyed; schools were shut down,.
Christians were easy targets. They were a weak minorities with virtually no defenses, often meeting in wood-walled and thatch-roof prayer huts that could be easily burned down. The attacks were reportedly provoked by efforts to convert Hindus. Explaining the reasons for the violence, one professor told Time, "If you're in power, what's the safe way to mobilize the militant cadres.
Pick on a smaller minority. The violence is manageable and will not put the government in peril. There were numerous acts of violence against Christians in and In early in Bihar, a year-old priest, who opened schools for Dalit children, was murdered. His body was found headless, with broken limbs and burn marks.
In September , four nuns were gang raped in the remote village of Sepour, near Navapada, in Madhya Pradesh, and a priest was assaulted and forced to walk through the street naked after students accused him of sodomy. He was taunted and humiliated by a crowd while police looked on and did nothing. Most of the incidents occurred in Gujarat state.
On Christmas Day in the Gujarat town of Ahwa, mobs attacked a Jesuit-run school and a high school run by nuns, and 18 other Christian establishments. They chanted anti-Christian slogans and carried weapons and burned everything in sight.
Around two dozen other Gujarat towns, primarily in the Dangs District, about a miles north of Bombay, experienced similar attacks. In one town the body of a man that had recently died was dug up and thrown on the steps of a church.
In Maharashtra state a priest who set up a school for earthquake victims was attacked by a mob shouting, "You want to make us Christians! A monk who worked for Mother Teresa's organization was shot and killed while transporting a truckload of food and medicine to lepers in Bihar. A sleeping priest was beaten to death in Uttar Pradesh with pump handles.
A Christian graveyards was dug up in Andhra Pradesh. In January in Orissa state, Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two son were killed by alleged Hindu extremists. Staines, who had worked with leprosy victims for 23 years, and his two sons were sleeping in their car when they were attacked by a mob of 30 men with clubs and sticks.
The mob poured paraffin on the car and broke windows and threw ignited straw through the broken windows. The fire turned quickly into an inferno. Their bodies were burned beyond recognition. The leader of the Bajrang Dal group was captured by police after leading a mob that chopped off the arms of Muslim and set him on fire.
In another incident in Orissa, a young Catholic priest was killed in attack that left him with eight arrows in his stomach, lungs and right eye. The attack was also blamed on the Bajrang Dal group. Page Top. This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been authorized by the copyright owner.
Such material is made available in an effort to advance understanding of country or topic discussed in the article. This constitutes 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U. Section , the material on this site is distributed without profit. In April , the country recorded its highest daily figure for deaths as well as a global high for daily Covid cases.
Shortages of oxygen and medicines are rampant, even forcing some people to search for supplies of oxygen on the black market where prices are very high. It means the poor — including many Christians — are at grave risk of not getting access to vital care.
Many have lost their businesses - Vinita's livelihood was severely affected by the pandemic. Persecution in India has increased significantly over the past five years, and has now remained relatively unchanged for the past year.
The Covid pandemic has offered a new weapon for persecutors, though, and Christians are often deliberately overlooked when official Covid food and aid is distributed. This has left many desperate for food, particularly since many Christians are from the Dalit caste and thus very poor, and have lost their sources of income this year.
Please keep praying for your brothers and sisters in India. Your gifts and prayers make an enormous difference to those following Jesus no matter the cost. Christians in India are struck down but not destroyed. Open Doors works through local church partners to strengthen the Indian church through providing emergency aid, persecution survival training, Bibles, livelihood and community development, advocacy support and legal training.
Lord, thank You that faith is growing in India despite so much opposition faced by Christians in public and private life. Please keep bringing new believers to faith, and give strength and resilience to Christians from a Hindu background. Frustrate the plans of Hindu extremists who want to rid the country of other faiths, and change the hearts of those in power.
Your support helps persecuted Christians continue to courageously follow Jesus.
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