UNITED STATES, February 2011: [HPI note: HAF’s Suhag Shukla responds to a fellow Washington Post blogger who asked ‘Is conversion wrong?’ and ‘Is anger over conversion an extenuating circumstance for murder?’ In response to the second question, her answer is a simple: No. But the analysis of the first point, ‘Is conversion wrong?’ is much more nuanced, as you can read below.]
Contrary to what ‘anti-conversion’ laws may imply by their title, they do not outlaw the right of any individual to convert based upon genuine faith, belief, study, or religious experience. They also don’t restrict Christians who provide social services in various parts of India with no ulterior conversion motive. Most anti-conversion laws seek only to address conversions ‘by force, allurement, or fraudulent means.’ They are the effort of sovereign states to regulate those, mostly Christian aid groups, for which the provision of aid to these vulnerable communities is not altruistic, but rather part of a soul-saving numbers game.
At the end of the day, numbers and statistics, though illustrative, fail to address the very real human factor on the losing side of the proselytization and conversion equation. Conversion, when born from genuine faith, belief, study, or religious experience, can be beautiful. But, conversion begot by aggressive or predatory proselytization is a form of violence.