No one will be coerced to convert: WCC

Bangalore, Oct 17: Emphasising the urgent need to arrive at a code of conduct regarding conversion, the Geneva-based World Council of Churches (WCC) official Rev. Hans Ucko said the WCC does not approve coercion to convert anyone from one religion to another.

Delivering the Stanley Samartha Memorial Lecture on 'An Ethical Code of Conduct for Religious Conversions' here, he yesterday said under the UN resolution on religion, everyone in the world had freedom of thought and freedom of belief. However, anyone was free to convert from one religion to another and people should stop seeing proselytising as a bad thing. Everyone had the right to invite others to their faith, but this should not be violative in nature, he added.

''The resolution does not curtail one's freedom of religion, but applies only to those who wanted to change their faith, whatever it may be, out of their own will,'' he stressed.

Dr Ucko, who is the Programme Executive, Inter-religious Relations and Dialogue, WCC, said the issue of conversion was an inter-religious issue. However, the subject of conversion always raked up controversies from the medieval times when Jews opposed conversions and it was considered a sin in Judaism.

''There is ambiguity in the church itself on the term conversion and many believe that it is not the job of the church to take up conversions,'' he said.

Stating one should not see people as objects of conversion, he said Mahatma Gandhiji once asked the missionaries why they tried to convert the poor and the downtrodden and invited them to come and convert him. ''This should never be the objective,'' he stressed.

Dr Ucko said the WCC opposed any legislation by governments on conversions. It should be left to the individuals. An inter-religious dialogue should be mooted as finding a definition for conversion had become a hazardous proposition. Ethics to be followed in conversion should be defined, he added.

Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Ashok Choute, who was invited for discussions after the lecture, claimed the ground reality and discussions in fora such as this were totally different. There was a need to take these discussions further. Dalit organisations and All India Christian Council had joined hands to convert Dalits. Politics was also involved in the recent conversion of Dalits in Nagpur and it was orchestrated by BSP supremo Mayawati, he alleged.

UNI