The gathering, held in the capital Kathmandu last week, was arranged by local churches to promote Christianity in this Himalayan nation, where minority Christians have long been oppressed, organizers said.
People were seen holding banners heralding "the resurrection of Jesus Christ" during the down town celebration, which also included singing and dancing. Two key pastors preached during the gathering.
The rally apparently aroused the curiosity of local Communist Party leaders, who asked to meet with the Christian leaders. "It is the right time to interact with different political groups, because constituent assembly elections are near," said one of the Christian leaders. Their names were withheld amid concerns they could become targets of anti-Christian activity.
"HISTORIC EVENT"
Churches described the event as "historic" and a result of previous mission work: Nepal, one of the world’s few nations that never came under foreign rule, has long been called "the only Hindu kingdom."
A pro-democracy movement in the 1990s brought violent repression by King Birendra’s government, leaving an estimated 50 protestors dead in front of the royal palace, but the events later forced the monarch to lift a ban on political parties.
Now a constitutional monarchy, instability has remained. A Maoist insurgency held the nation in hostage from 1996 to 2006, leaving more than 12,000 people dead, according to estimates.
Amid the turmoil, churches in Nepal have grown exponentially with Christians in Nepal swelling to over 700,000, despite a lack of education, scarcity of roads, and limited means of communication, according to missionaries.
CHRISTIANITY SPREADS
While most of Nepal’s nearly 29 million people are Hindus, Christianity has been spreading, especially since the early 1950s, when records show ethnic Nepalis and other missionaries from India began to preach the Gospel in Nepal.
In addittion, a group of mostly Western missionaries formed the United Mission to Nepal (UMN) in 1954, focusing on medical and educational work. UMN missionaries signed a required agreement with the king not to proselytize. However some ethnic Nepali remained independent, including the late missionary Prem Pradhan, who reportedly said: "Christ died for me openly before all; how can I proclaim Him privately?"
He received a six-year prison term for baptizing nine believers in 1960, but was released under amnesty rules on the king’s birthday, after serving four-and-a-half years in prison.
Despite hardship, Prem Pradhan established a missionary school in Kathmandu with support from US-based Christian Aid Mission (CAM). However in 1972 royal troops closed the school, killing one teacher, CAM said. He was reportedly sentenced to 20,000 days (53 years) imprisonment, but was eventually freed after paying a ransom of one rupee per day ($2,000), raised by CAM.
While in jail, at least a dozen political prisoners became Christians, and after their release helped spreading Christianity and to establish churches, BosNewsLife learned. Another missionary, a former Hindu priest, began circulating a Bible correspondence course in the 1980s that locals say has been subscribed to by more than 390,000 Nepalis.
EARLY MISSIONARIES
William Carey’s Serampore Mission group prepared the way for these evangelization activities, when it translated the Bible into Nepali in 1821, records show.
Among other early missionaries were:
–Sadhu Sundar Singh, who trekked through Nepal on several trips to preach in the early 1900s.
—Scottish missionary William MacFarlane’s Eastern Himalayan Mission, focusing on education and evangelism since the late 19th century, as did the Australian Nepalese Mission, founded in Melbourne in 1911.
Ganga Prasad Pradhan, born into a wealthy family in Kathmandu in 1851 became the first ordained Nepali pastor and a translator of the Bible into Nepali. In 1914, he was reportedly expelled by then King Rana who allegedly said, "There is no room for Christians in Nepal."
Some 40 years later, his grandson, Rajendra Rongong, was among the first group of Darjeeling Nepali Christians to return to Kathmandu, where last week’s massive Easter Rally was held.
(BosNewsLife Senior Mission Correspoindent (Dr.) John M. Lindner is a writer on mission developments with over 25 years experience. He also heads World Christian Ministries (www.worldchristianministries.org), an organization dedicated to, and reporting on, the tribulation and triumphs of missionaries of the two-thirds world. He received a Doctor of Mission degree by Emmanuel Theological Seminary in Kota, India, in 2005. Dr. Lindner has authored two books: ‘God’s Special Agents’, depicting biographies of 12 mission leaders from the two-thirds world, and ‘The Mountains Shall Sing’, the story of P.M. Thomas and the Himalaya Evangelical Mission.)
