| Awaken Bharata |
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| Books By David Frawley |
| HINDUISM UNDER SIEGE AND RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE | |
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this continued missionary zeal a manifestation of real tolerance?
Clearly if religions were really tolerant - that is, if they really
respected other religions - the first thing that they would do would
be to suspend these missionary efforts. They would recall their
missionaries and apologize for their history of missionary
aggression against other beliefs.
Of course, we all know that these two religions are not ready to do that. On the contrary, both religions have used the smoke screen of tolerance to promote their missionary activity. Hence it is clear that Western religious tolerance exists mainly at a legal and political level, which Western religious groups have accepted only superficially, hardly at a deeper or heart level. On the religious level tolerance is more talk than fact, though hopefully it can progress further. Yet the political tolerance of religions called for by the West is often suspect as well if we look at it more deeply. Since European Christian powers lost their colonies after World War II, up to the return of Hong Kong to China recently, they have emphasized the maintenance of religious tolerance and freedom in these liberated regions. Such a plea is first of all somewhat hypocritical because these same colonial powers, during the period of their rule, did not emphasize religious tolerance but rather promoted religious conversion for which they provided their economic and military might. |
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