As the
Sinhala Bauddhaya highlights in one of its
latest posts Thewatta Church in Ragama has embarked on a monumental distortion campaign of history of Sinhalese Buddhists and re-writing a new history for Christians in Sri Lanka. Newly designed Wall-reliefs type of depictions in the Church show a history of Christianity in Sri Lanka going back to Anuradhapura era and King
Mugalan was a Christian king! This is fittingly reinforced with Buddhist architecture in the Church!
Eelamists have long been blamed for distorting Sinhalese Buddhist history in Sri Lanka for furthering their separatist agenda and this has been the case with Muslim extremists too in recent times. In both the cases false histories of both the communities are portrayed employing multitudes of ways.
However, vested interested Christian and Catholic hierarchies have long been doing it in a sustained and vigorous manner in an extremely subtle fashion giving room for a little or no attention. Imitating and integrating Sri Lankan Buddhists cultural characteristics in whatever way possible into Christian/Catholic practices is one of the best ways to attract the Buddhists to the respective faiths. This is also one of most successful ways for conversions which have been happening vigorously in many part of the country especially in the poverty stricken rural areas as I highlighted in one of my
earlier posts. Claiming a history of Christians in Sri Lanka going back to as far as Anuradhapura era and not starting with the arrival of Portuguese colonists seem mere ridiculous to anyone who has an iota of knowledge of Sri Lanka: let alone her history. What we witness in Thewatta Church proves beyond doubt that this re-writing of history project for Christians isn't mere an isolated incident. It is just a little sign of a determined, crafty and subtle effort which is in progress in a mammoth proportion!
In a backdrop of Christian Churches in Europe get closed down and abandoned in large numbers due to dwindling followers and the region where Christianity was born is increasingly becoming a no-go and inhabitable zone to Christians, a new regions should be found for its survival. The most suitable regions are obviously poverty stricken regions of Africa and the South Asia. However, significant parts of the two regions are inhabited by the followers of Islam which gives a zero opportunity for conversions. The obvious choice is the regions where Buddhists and Hindus are in majority which offer a little or no resistance for conversions. So going to the extent of even completely distorting the histories of the indigenous communities and writing fabricated histories of Christianity in the regions should obviously be the order of the day.
PS: What has happened to South-Korea which had an over 90 percent population of Buddhists at the start of Korean wars in 1950s is a case in point!
