This is nothing but disgusting, as the same folks would concede were the tables turned. I assume that those parents in Indonesia, now dead, had the strong desire to raise their children in their own faith, as do these right-wing Christians. Rather than coming into the situation and respecting the wishes of these orphans parents' wishes, however, these nutballs were all about converting some pagan babies.
A Virginia-based missionary group said this week that it had airlifted 300 "tsunami orphans" from the Muslim province of Aceh to Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, where it plans to raise them in a Christian children's home.
The missionary group, WorldHelp, is one of dozens of Christian, Muslim and Jewish charities providing humanitarian relief to victims of the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami that devastated countries around the Indian Ocean, taking more than 150,000 lives.
Most of the religious charities do not attach any conditions to their aid, and many of the larger ones - such as WorldVision, Catholic Relief Services, and Church World Service - have policies against proselytizing. But a few of the smaller groups have been raising money among evangelical Christians by presenting the tsunami emergency effort as a rare opportunity to make converts in hard-to-reach areas.
"Normally, Banda Aceh is closed to foreigners and closed to the gospel," WorldHelp said in an appeal for funds on its Web site this week. "But, because of this catastrophe, our partners there are earning the right to be heard and providing entrance for the gospel."
The appeal said WorldHelp was working with Indonesian Christians in that nation who want to "plant Christian principles as early as possible" in the 300 Muslim children, all younger than 12, who lost their parents in the tsunami.
This is the worst face of "the ugly American," and the worst possible way to raise World opinion of our mostly generous country. Luckily, the Indonesian government has cottoned onto the slimey tactics of these Radical Right-Wing Christian Clerics and ended the practice. To prove that the founding of the orphanage was not a pure act of Christian charity, the "group's president, the Rev. Vernon Brewer, said it suspended fund-raising after Indonesia said Muslim children could not be raised in a non-Muslim home."
I am disgusted. Real religious leaders should be condemning this action further.
