The Seventh-day Adventist Church's social and humanitarian work in India and the challenges faced by religious minorities were just two of the issues discussed during a November 27 meeting between India's President K. R. Narayanan and Pastor Jan Paulsen,
The Seventh-day Adventist Church’s social and humanitarian work in India and the challenges faced by religious minorities were just two of the issues discussed during a November 27 meeting between India’s president K. R. Narayanan and Pastor Jan Paulsen, president of the Adventist Church worldwide.
The Adventist Church has a wholistic agenda, explained Paulsen during the meeting at Rashtrapati Bhavan, the official New Delhi residence of India’s president. While primarily a spiritual community, the church has an agenda that includes “everyday issues,” such as building strong families and improving individual and community health. Paulsen said that the Adventist Church also acts on its “commitment to tomorrow by providing education for the children of today.”
Narayanan said he had long been familiar with the church’s health care work, and he thanked the Adventist Church for establishing hospitals and schools throughout India, and for the continuing humanitarian support provided through the Adventist Development and Relief Agency.
During the meeting Paulsen noted that modern India, which embraces a broad spectrum of different ethnic, cultural, and language groups, has developed a strong sense of unity in diversity. This is a value, he said, which is reflected within the Adventist Church, an organization that operates in more than 200 countries around the world.
Pastor Ron Watts, president of the Adventist Church in Southern Asia, and other local church leaders also attended the meeting. They raised specific issues of concern to the Adventist Church in India, such as the frequent practice, in some regions, of scheduling compulsory state exams on Saturdays, the day Adventists keep as a holy day, or Sabbath.
Narayanan affirmed India’s commitment to religious pluralism and to a secular form of government, which singles out no religious group for official favoritism. “My home state [of Kerala] is the picture of tolerance,” he added, noting that Christianity had come to this region of India centuries before it appeared in many parts of Europe.
India, the world’s second most populous country after China, has a more than 2000-year history of integrating different religious and cultural groups. At different times, Jews, Parsis, Orthodox Christians, and Islamic sects have all found shelter in India from religious persecution. Hinduism is by far the largest religion in India, practiced by almost 83 percent of the population. Only around 2.5 percent of Indians belong to a Christian denomination.
But while tolerance of other religions is a deeply entrenched cultural value, the issue of “conversion,” or changing one’s religious faith, continues to be controversial. In November 2000, the Orissa state government began enforcing a law forbidding conversion unless the local police and district magistrate are notified in advance. The national government also reserves the power to ban a religious organization which, among other things, “provokes intercommunity friction.”
In his meetings with government leaders in India, Paulsen said that free religious choice is a fundamental human right, as is the ability to share one’s faith with other people. But he also explained that the Adventist Church has formally rejected any type of evangelism that exploits vulnerable people by offering financial and material incentives to entice them to change religion.
During his seven-day itinerary in India, Paulsen paid courtesy visits to other national and state leaders, including Sheila Dixit, chief minister of Delhi; Vijai K. Kapoor, governor of Delhi; and, in Bangalore, V. S. Rama Devi, governor of Karnataka. In the southern state of Kerala, Paulsen met with Chief Minister A.K. Anthony, as well as former chief minister and current national parliamentarian K. Karunakaran.
