NUCF Press Statement

National United Christian Forum
( CBCI, NCCI and EFI )
Yusuf Sadan, 1 Ashok Place, New Delhi – 110001
+91 11 23343457/ 23362058 Fax: +91 11 23746575

Catholic Bishops Conference of India	National Council Of Churches in India	Evangelical Fellowship of India
His Eminence Baselios Cardinal Cleemis	Bishop Dr. Taranath S. Sagar	Rev. Hali Likha
President, CBCI, President NUCF,	President NCCI, Co-President NUCF	Chairman EFI, Co-President NUCF
Father Joseph Chinnayyan	Rev. Dr. Roger Gaikwad	Rev. Dr. Richard Howell
Deputy Secretary General CBCI, Co Secretary NUCF	General Secretary NCCI, Co Secretary NUCF	General Secretary EFI, Secretary NUCF

PRESS STATEMENT
National United Christian Forum Raises serious concerns

New Delhi: 20/12/2014We, the members of the National United Christian Forum (NUCF) comprising the three leading Churches of India, i.e. The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI), the National Council of Churches in India (NCCI) and the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI), together express our serious concern about the current situation of the minorities, particularly the Christians in India.

The recent happenings in Bastar forcing the school to put the statue of Sarsawati Maa in a Catholic school and forbidding the children to address the principle with the honorific ‘Father’; the burning of a church in Delhi; the declaration of ‘Good Governance Day’ on 25th December to undermine the importance of Christmas; the provocative call by some fundamentalists to convert 4000 Christians to Hinduism in Agra on Christmas Day and the regular targeting of the Christian community, calling them even anti-national is a cause of great concern for us.
The Christian Community being a small minority of just 2.33 percent of the Indian population doing its day to day work in a peaceful manner and setting a good example of how dutiful citizens must abide by law, is highly distressed with the types of announcements and statements made by certain groups belonging to a right wing ideology.

Christmas is the only holiday that we Christians have in the whole year when we join the rest of the world in celebrating the birth of the ‘Prince of Peace’ of our Lord Jesus Christ. A circular by the Navodaya School Commissioner to keep certain government run schools open on that day is perceived by the Christian Community as an insult to the importance of Christmas Day.

We also strongly oppose the call for a national ban on conversion as raised by a minister in the Rajya Sabha as this would amount to a direct attack on individual’s freedom of conscience to choose one’s faith and on the freedom to profess, practice and propagate the faith of one’s choice, enshrined in article 25 of our Constitution. The secular nature of our Constitution with different freedoms was put in there after lengthy debate on this issue by the founding fathers.

We would like to reiterate that Churches forbid religious conversion by force or by fraudulent means and we fully support the government to take any appropriate action against anyone under the already stringent existing laws of the country.

We appeal to the Prime Minister of India, Mr. Narendra Modi to remind the people that no development can take place in the country if there are attempts to disrupt the peaceful communal harmony prevailing in the country for centuries. The Christian Community has been always in the forefront of providing service to the nation and would continue with its commitment to make its unique contribution for further development of our motherland. But the Community cannot do that if it is being constantly harassed and labeled as being anti-national believing in a foreign religion. Christianity has been on this land for nearly 2000 years.

Issued on behalf of NUCF,

Rev. Dr. Richard Howell
Secretary – NUCF