Christian Evangelical Conversions and the Politics of Sri Lanka

Abstract

Lanka remains a country in considerable political distress. The most visible and serious dimension of this is a continuing low-intensity civil war between the state and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), largely confined to the north and east but steadily moving south into the heartland of the Buddhist majority.1 This has exacerbated ethnic and religious tensions. The majority Sinhalese (15 million or 75 percent of the population) are largely Buddhist (and the armed forces of the state are almost totally Buddhist) , and the LTTE are at least in part culturally associated with Hinduism. Although the ethnic conflict should not be described in terms of a religious struggle (the LTTE have a secessionist political agenda and are not promoters of Hinduism), nonetheless the horrendous cost (68,000 deaths, one million people displaced, an economy that has not achieved its full potential) of more-or-less continuous civil war for 24 years (despite an ostensible cease-fire since February 2002) has intensified Buddhist nationalism and arguably made it more bellicose. It should be recognized that with over one million adherents each, Christianity and Islam are also major non-Buddhist faiths in Sri Lanka (Christians comprise about 7.5 percent of the population, Muslims 7.6 percent).2 The Islamic peoples (Ceylon Moors) have had their problems with Buddhist antipathy (e.g., antiMuslim riots in 1915, and current struggles to have a role in the political destiny of the contested Eastern Province) . But Islam is not marked with the stigma of the colonial experience, and has never had the political and social influence associated with Christianity. Further, Islam does not outwardly engage in mission proselytization in Sri Lanka and is no threat to the religious status quo or to Buddhist nationalism. Hinduism likewise appears politically quiescent, though this was not always the case.3 Yet today a religious situation