BY OLIVIA CAVALLARO / Christianity Daily
Two Christian families in India were condemned for refusing to denounce their faith.
On March 6, a village meeting in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh took place, during which the Hindu community decided to socially boycott two families for refusing to denounce their Christian faith.
The Hindu community decided during the meeting to prohibit the two Christian families from providing for themselves in the village and even banned them from fetching drinking water from the only public water source in the village. The two Christian families were also not allowed to purchase groceries from a local store in the village or seek employment.
According to International Christian Concern, Pastor Deepak Kumar reported that during a village meeting on February 10, the village leaders told the two Christian families to cease Christian prayers and gatherings in the village. They were also ordered to recant their faith in Jesus.
Following the meeting, Christians in the village stopped attending prayer services and the number of members in the Christian community dwindled from 40 to 12.The remaining 12 were members of the two Christian families who refused to denounce their faith. As a result, the village held another meeting on March 6, during which they were socially boycotted over their beliefs.
Among the 12 individuals from the two Christian families who were socially boycotted over their beliefs in India is Mohan Nishad. He recounted how they had to “travel eight kilometers” whenever they had to “purchase basic things.” Nishad lamented, “We are enduring difficult times now, after imposing the social boycott on us.”
Nishad added, “My wife could not go on with so much pain. She left us and the village on March 10th and went to an unknown place. We don’t know where she is, we have searched for her and failed to trace her so far.”
Nishad converted to Christianity six years ago and was excommunicated from his caste when he accepted Jesus Chrsit as his savior. He now lives as a pariah in his village. He vowed, “I am not going to leave Jesus and convert back to Hindu religion. Even if I had to give up my life, I will, but I will not deny Jesus.”
Earlier this month, six clergy and one lay-leader from seven different churches and ministries from five separate traditions came together to help raise awareness on the continued persecution of Christians in India, the Religion News Service reported. During an event on February 24, church leaders from Anglican, Baptist, Evangelical, Lutheran, and Pentecostal denominations came together in a gathering hosted by Bethel Lutheran in Roseville, California.
“The great moral evil that will be remembered in the year 2022 is the persecution of the millions of Christians in India,” Father Steve Macias of the Reformed Episcopal Church remarked. “The religious persecution that many Christians refuse to look at, refuse to pay attention to, refuse to stand up for, refuse to be advocates for.”
Macias urged other Christians, “We have the use of our freedom to advocate for those who have no voice. We have the use of our freedom to speak for those who are silenced by violence, by economic oppression, by political movements that would like to see them either not worship or not live in their nation.”
This article first appeared on christianitydaily.com