Even though conversion by force and allurement has gotten the attention of most of the Hindu population, hardly any attempt has been made to study the whys and hows of the soul-harvesting industry. Very rarely have attempts been made to study how Christian organisations use superstition to lure people to Christianity.

This article tries to document the deceits employed by evangelists to convert the gullible. The focus will be on missionary activities in Maharashtra and the tricks used by missionaries to make people believe in Jesus. Irrationality is imposed on non-Christians to convince them that embracing Christianity can solve their problems which affect their lives in an adverse manner most of the time. We will list a number of tricks that are purely based on superstition and are used to manipulate and lure the gullible and illiterate into conversion.

Healing Diseases Impossible to Cure by Medicine

Many pastors have been claiming to cure diseases like cancer, AIDS, diabetes, etc, which are impossible to cure completely and are classified as such by medical science. Alternative and traditional medicines might provide better treatment and cures for such diseases, but none of them are available to the masses at the moment. But evangelists have taken advantage of the desperation and medical illiteracy of people affected by such diseases to harvest souls.

They employ celebrities to give an air of credibility to their outlandish claims. Bollywood actor Johnny Lever (John Prakasa Rao Janumala) claimed that he performed a prayer for an ailing patient with HIV/AIDS in JJ Hospital in Mumbai. After prayers, the patient was cured and his HIV test came negative, he says in a video posted by a YouTube channel named “Sounds to Christ” in September 2020.

Pradeep P Kolhe, a pastor from Ahmed Nagar, went a step further and claimed to have healed blind, deaf, dumb and lame people through prayers. He claims that a woman affected by spinal cord injury was healed through his “Lay Hand” prayer. On Saturdays, he conducts such blessing meetings in his church, Aashirvad Prarthana Bhavan.

Amala Ashram operating out of Nashik is run by one Fr Benny Joseph, who ‘blessed‘ 3 childless couples with twins through his prayers. The couples testified that they begot children because they ‘reposed trust in God’. Fr Benny has posted many such videos spreading superstition and they get around 7-10k views per video.

Shekhar Kallianpur, a Hindu born into a Saraswat Brahmin priest family, converted to Christianity because he was “wary of being born as a fruit or an animal, after all the weary religious activities” and was looking for someone to set him free from his sins. He is a senior pastor at New Life Fellowship Mumbai and the national convenor of Pastor Benny Hinn Crusades. Lara Dutta, Miss Universe 2000 and wife of famous tennis player Mahesh Bhupathi, testified in Shekar’s prayer meeting.

She claimed that pastor Shekar’s prayers miraculously healed her father’s serious lung problem. The pastor has posted her testimony on his Youtube channel with the caption, “Jesus Christ did
it for Lara & He can do it for you too, Receive your Supernatural Breakthrough NOW”. Missionaries use such celebrities to not only attract but dupe people into believing that such “supernatural” stuff is possible.

Healing Illness Through Prayers

This is to target the vulnerable groups that cannot afford to visit hospitals or pay for treatment. Vanvasis and the urban poor, who are socially and economically backward, are tricked by pastors into believing that praying to Jesus can cure their ailments. There are possibilities that they are provided medical help but the pastors claim that help arrived only because of accepting Jesus.

Bollywood actor Johnny Lever claimed that he cured Hrithik Roshan’s liver swelling through prayers in a prayer meeting organised by the ‘Youth Associates’. Kushi Anand, a model, and actress, claimed in a prayer meeting that her mother’s diabetes and thyroid were cured after she took her to church. In her own words, Khushi is from an orthodox Brahmin family.

It should be noted that not only the ‘lower castes’ but the ‘upper castes’ are also becoming victims of such superstitious beliefs owing to their desperate circumstances. Even though social media and other forums show Brahmins in a poor light and accuse them of discrimination, society still sees Brahmins as respectable peers and looks up to them. So when a Brahmin converts and testifies, it is one step toward Christianity for the others.

By duping people into believing that prayers can cure their illnesses, pastors also discourage them from getting medical aid resulting in the loss of limbs or lives which could have been averted otherwise. There have been many cases of pastors insisting on praying instead of taking a patient to the hospital resulting in the latter’s death.

De-addiction

Alcohol addiction has become a menace in many societies, but Bharat still being a rising power, faces both societal and economic issues due to this problem. It affects women significantly, especially in the economic sense. Christian organisations take advantage of this situation and use it as a weapon to convert the gullible. Like the fake healing testimonials, they get people to claim that they stopped drinking alcohol after ‘accepting Jesus’. 

Women who are supported neither by the state nor by their families try to find every last resort to find a solution and are easily attracted/cheated by such testimonials. Once a woman is ‘brought into the fold’ it is very easy to ‘bring the other flock’. This has led to either whole families converting to Christianity or a breakaway, leading to more societal issues. It must be noted that most of the De-addiction centres are run by Christian NGOs.

Deliverance

Even though it is an individual’s liberty to believe or not in spirits, Christian deliverance meetings make even the non-believers think of them as evil elements. Dramatic deliverance meetings and testimonials are staged to fool innocent people into believing that spirits are evil and that only accepting Jesus will get rid of them. In many cases, unexplainable or incurable ailments, sometimes due to improper medical assessments and treatments, are attributed to possession; people are made to believe that only by accepting Christianity will they be ‘delivered’ leading to loss of health and even lives in many instances.

Pentecostal and Protestant denominations are more into superstitious stuff for conversion. But Catholics are no less. They build institutions and use their services to convert people. In remote places where medical facilities are almost non-existent, medical professionals working for Catholic institutions are made to ‘introduce Jesus’ through medical camps and claim that only Jesus brought them there to serve the poor. People are given medicines but are told that Jesus cured their illnesses. Vanvasis are most affected by this fakery.

If we recall, Johnrose Austin Jayalal, the ex-President of Indian Medical Council(IMA) had abused his position to propagate Christianity. He said, “You can be a Christian police officer or work in the revenue department. The place does not decide how you are going to be a Christian. The opportunity in front of every Christian is splendid. It is not solely the responsibility of the pastor; it is that every Christian who is born again and who has experienced the love and affection of God Almighty will respond to the calling to go and preach the gospel.“

He also revealed that he influenced his students and colleagues and convinced them to work for Christianity and Jesus. In the interview he said,

“I firmly believe that wherever you are or whatever position you are, you can be a Christian doctor. Normally in the medical profession we talk about the physical curing. But as a Christian I believe we are not just here to physically cure, but God Almighty has called us to give holistic healing, which includes the spiritual healing, the mental healing, and the social healing.

My primary concern when I work as a Christian doctor is to ensure that I have time to talk about the mental well-being and spiritual healing of the person. We need more Christian doctors to work more in secular institutions, mission institutions, and medical colleges. I am working as a professor of surgery in a medical college, so it is also a good opportunity for me to carry on the principles of Christian healing there. I also have the privilege of mentoring graduates and the interns.”

This should show how prevalent superstition is even among educated elite Christians and how they use it to trick people into ’embracing’ Christianity.

(This article is curated from a research report by Demos Foundation and the data is used with due permission)