Clarion 1978-11-03 Vol 54 No 07

              See
1959 Nik Dag
011 page 4 Bethel CoIle e St. Paul, MN Vol. 54. No. 6 November 3 1978
Nissis suffer persecution
About 5,000 Nissi Christians
from Arunachal Pradesh, north-east
India, are about to lose their
freedom of religion.
In a recent bill passed by the
government of Arunachal
Pradesh, it will be legal to punish
anyone who changes their reli-gion.
This bill is awaiting the
signature of the President of India
before it becomes law in Aruna-chal.
The bill seeks to prohibit the
use of "fraud" and "induce-ment"
in the process of conver-sion.
But the way the bill is
worded, preaching of the con-sequences
of sin, judgment and
hell can be interpreted as
"force."
And the preaching of the re-wards
of faith (except other non-
Christian religions) can be inter-preted
as offers of gifts, and
therefore, "inducement."
Conversion will be punishable
with two years of imprisonment
and a fine up to $1250. Any
failure to report conversion will
be punishable with imprisonment
for one year and/or a fine up to
$125.
If the bill is passed, all the Nissi
Christians will lose their freedom
of religion which is guaranteed by
the constitution of India. But the
rest of the Christians in India still
have their freedom.
The Nissis are a special case
because they live in a more
primitive area. The government
has isolated them from the rest of
by Betty Logan
If a student was termed "politi-cally
active" ten years ago, the
connotation would be one of rad-icalism
and demonstrations. This
definition won't stand today, as
students who are active politically
usually work within the esta-blished
structure.
A new emphasis has been put
on politics in the Bethel commun-ity
this year. There has developed
an effort to expose candidates to
the student body through pro-motion
of their platforms, and
visits to the campus.
Two Bethel students involved
in promotion of political cam-paigns
are Tami Forsline and
Steve Hoswell. Tami is a sup-porter
of Wendy Anderson, and is
currently working at his campaign
headquarters in the Twin Cities.
As co-chairman of the Students
for Quie effort, Steve presents Al
Quie to the Bethel community.
India for fear that they will be
exploited.
Conversion to Christianity is
discouraged because Christianity
is considered to be a foreign
religion, and therefore a foreign
culture.- Some have accused
Christ of being a political figure.
If Christ was God, they claim, he
would not have died.
So the people in charge of
Arunachal's administration
cleverly rationalize that freedom
of religion will upset people and
cause riots.
But this has not _stopped the
Nissi church from growing. The
Nissis are still one of the most
responsive people to the gospel in
India.
This is not the first time the
Nissis have faced persecution.
In April 1974, a massive anti-
Christian campaign was launched
in Arunachal. Churches and
homes of Christians were looted
and burned. Local hoodlums were
hired to harass Christians. Sev-eral
Christian leaders were kid-napped
and beaten.
Homeless Nissi Christians fled
to the dense jungles of Assam, a
neighboring state. When Chris-tians
in that area heard of the
plight of the Nissis, they quickly
donated food and clothes. Some
churches organized prayer meet-ings
for the Nissis.
Outraged by the violence and
injustice, Christians in India
raised their voices on behalf of
the Nissis. Prominent Christian
Both students deeply believe in
the candidates they support. Al-though
Steve doesn't support
Quie because he is a Christian, he
claims that. Quie is a prime
example of what a Christian
should be in politics.
Hoswell believes that Quie is
dedicated to honest politics. "I
don't disagree with any of the
fundamentals of his campiagn,"
said Hoswell.
"Anderson't the one I'd like to
see in Washington," said Tami.
She spent interim of her freshman
year working in the Anderson
office in Washington D.C., and
feels he is the best man for the
job.
Tami sees Anderson as having
all the qualifications needed for
representing Minnesota in Wash-ington,
including the experience
of working there.
The only major disagreement
leaders met with the Prime Mini-ster
(the political head of the
country) and asked her to stop the
persecution.
In spite of all this, the Nissis
remained unshakeably firm in
their faith. Nor did anyone retal-iate.
All this happened before the
Nissis had any part of the Bible
printed in their language.
They now have the gospel of
Luke in their language and the
gospel of John is on its way.
Seven more books are being pre-pared:
Acts, Romans, 1 & 2
Corinthians, James and 1 & 2
Peter.
When the persecution finally
stopped, the Nissis returned to
their ravaged homes, but tension
prevailed. Several restrictions
were placed on Christians,
especially the leaders.
For instance, one leader was
told that he would be killed if he
preached in another village. His
persecutors would report that a
tiger had killed him.
Even though the new bill is not
in effect yet, persecution has
already begun. Likha Taka, the
Paul of the Nissis, was kidnapped
and tortured for a week. He,
along with some other men were
tied to posts and beaten cruelly.
They were then told to sign a
bond renouncing their faith.
But when they refused, their
persecutors took their hands and
cont. on page 6
she has with Anderson campaign,
is his stand on women's rights.
"He just has not taken a strong
enough stand," said Forsline.
On campus, both Steve and
Tami are trying to expose the
quality of their respective can-didates,
and encourage students to
become politically aware.
Getting the candidates here on
campus was a big part of their
Bethel effort. "I'm glad both
parties have had opportunity to
come," said Tami. "We need to
have the different sides presented
to cultivate responsible " voters
here at Bethel."
Steve works here on campus
through the Quie headquarters,
getting the Quie name and litera-ture
out to students. Tami is
working at the Anderson head-quarters.
She has been mainly
working on mailing lists and
letters, and has just started on the
phone bank, which runs until
election.
by Kriste Ericsson
Two weeks ago Dr. Donald
Larson, professor of linguistics
and anthropology, was in the
Philippines to speaking at the
Urban Evangelism Strategy Con-ference,
held by the Southern
Baptist Convention.
Steve and Tami both feel It is
important for Christians to be
politically aware and involved.
"Since we are Christians," said
Steve, "it's logical for us to set
the standards for others. One
major way is through govern-ment."
Tami sees the Christian's poor
record of political involvement as
something that has to change.
"We should be in control of what
happens to us," she said. "We
should shape our government the
way we want it."
Both students want to stay
involved in politics throughout
their lives. Steve hopes to some-day
have a career in political
management, possibly on the na-tional
level.
"Involvement begins on a per-sonal
level," said Tami. "It's
when you decide this is important
or that something needs to be
done."
Conference leaders and Ameri-can
missionaries from many of
the surrounding Asian countries
attended. Its purpose was to give
them experience in observing
urban communities and deter-mining
whether a community
would be open to some type of
Christian service. Dr. Larson
came away quite impressed.
"If we knew half as much as
the Asians about urban evange-lism,
our ministries would be
much better off," he commented.
Dr. Larson gave five lectures on
cross-cultural communication in
urban settings, served as a panel
member in several discussions,
and acted as a consultant and
analyst of field-work experience.
He also advised missionaries
on their language problems, and
visited the International Langu-age
School in Manila, where he
lectured to the faculty and stu-dents.
On the way home he stopped in
Tokyo, where he met with the
board of directors of the Japan
Missionary Language Institute
and listened to their problems
and made suggestions. He also
advised new Southern Baptist
missionaries who had just started
studying Japanese.
"The key word in my job is
`de-alienation, "'he said. ", try to
help the missionaries understanu
what aspects of their alienation
they have to lose in order to be
accepted by the people."
Dr. Donald Larson, professor of Linguistics and anthropology,
recently spoke to American Missionaries and BGC leaders in a
conference held in the Philippines.
Larson visits Philippines,
lectures on communications
Bethel students participate in election campaign