India may expel Adventist missionary - Protestant church has converted hundreds of thousands

Tom Blackwell
National Post

July 20, 2005

The Canadian head of the fastest-growing Christian church in India faces possible expulsion from the country in a legal dispute linked to his
group's
highly successful conversion campaign.

A court decision ordering police to seize the travel papers of Ronald
Watts,
the south Asia president of the Seventh Day Adventists, is just the
latest
headache for Mr. Watts in a country marked by tension between Hindu nationalists and Western missionaries.

The U.S.-based Adventists say they have baptized 600,000 Indians in
the past
five years while Mr. Watts was in charge.

Some Indian media portrayed the court decision as just deserts for the native of Paris, Ont., and his "provocative actions."

"Faith in judiciary has helped move a man and his wife who were thinking their faith to be a mountain," wrote News Today, which bills itself
as South
India's leading English-language evening paper.

"The story of Ron Watts and his wife, who had converted several
thousands of
gullible villagers in South India, will hopefully come to an end."

But Mr. Watts said the dispute, although it involved allegations of
forced
conversions, was not motivated by political or religious concerns.
The case
was actually instigated by a former Adventist member disgruntled at the church and facing criminal prosecution, Mr. Watts said.

Another litigant even tried to blackmail Mr. Watts, his lawyer said.
They
are sure the ruling will be overturned.

"I'm not that concerned about it," said Mr. Watts, who is currently
in the
United States on his annual leave.

"It's a bogus issue brought up by somebody who is in trouble and
wants to
make trouble."

Justice P.D. Dinakaran of Madras High Court in the southern state of
Tamil
Nadu ordered police to seize the travel documents of Mr. Watts and
his wife,
Dorothy, an official of the church, and deal with them "in accordance
with
the law."

The decision earlier this month was based on allegations that the
couple had
been ordered out of the country by the central government in 2003 for unlawfully carrying out forced conversions, but stayed with visas
obtained
deceitfully.

In fact, said Mr. Watts, that government directive was overturned within months and he and his wife have business visas that are entirely
legal. Mr.
Watts was also accused of carrying out missionary work on a business
visa in
a country that discourages foreigners from proselytizing.

But he said said he is not directly involved in missionary work,
focusing
instead on administrative tasks such as organizing a pension fund for retired church employees.

Chakkrevarty Daniel, Mr. Watts's lawyer, added that the case was argued ex-parte -- without a representative of the church being present in
court.
He said local press coverage of the case has been wildly inaccurate.

"He has been unnecessarily tortured by our thankless community," the
lawyer
complained in an interview from his office in Chennai, India.

"It's very painful. I've spent many sleepless nights."

Mr. Watts, who has lived in India off and on for about 20 years over the last three decades, knows the country well, speaks many of its
languages and
has even adopted Indian children, said the lawyer. The church has
done many
good works, such as setting up a school for destitute blind people,
added
Mr. Daniel.

Seventh Day Adventists, a protestant sect that believes the sabbath
should
be celebrated on Saturday and has built a world network of schools and medical facilities, says it takes to heart Jesus's call to his
disciples to
"teach all nations" and baptize them. They set up a special "Global
Mission"
in 1990 to reach parts of the world untouched by Christianity.

India is its fastest expanding region, with the group recently
building its
1,000th church there and boosting its membership in the country to about 800,000.

Mr. Watts said more than 70% of converts are lapsed Christians whose
former
churches had neglected them.

But in an interview with an Adventist publication last December, he
noted
that most Indians are never allowed to pray in Hindu temples, so
having a
place of worship such as the Adventists provide is "more valuable than anything else they can ask for or think of."

He attributed the church's growth in part to teams of Adventists from
North
America who do evangelistic meetings where they simultaneously
establish 10
to 50 new churches.

India is an officially secular state that guarantees religious
freedom. But
sectarian divisions can be bitter and often violent, and Christians sometimes face discrimination. A handful of states have enacted laws
barring
conversion of Hindus. They had included Tamil Nadu, where the
Adventists are
based, though its law was repealed last year.

Speaking against other faiths is against the law in India and
foreigners are
not supposed to preach religion if they are in the country on tourist
visas,
unless approved by the government. C National Post 2005

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