PHNOM PENH (AFP) - Cambodia has banned Christian groups from door-to-door proselytising and is seeking to limit other religious activities by non-Buddhist organisations, which it says disrupt society.
A directive from the Ministry of Cults and Religions obtained by AFP on Tuesday said: "Christians are prohibited from visiting people's houses by knocking on the door and waiting to say 'the Lord has arrived'."
Distribution of religious literature will also be confined to churches, which now must be approved by the ministry before they can be built, the directive said.
While the ruling applies to all non-Buddhist groups, it is aimed at curbing Christian evangelical influence in largely Buddhist Cambodia amid reports of children being tricked into converting, officials said.
Christian missionaries are reportedly offering cakes and other sweets to children in exchange for abandoning Buddhism, local media said.
Food, clothing and free English lessons are also offered by many church groups, which then introduce religion into their activities.
"It is prohibited to use money, materials and other means in order to convince followers of a religion to convert to another one," the ministry directive said.
The groups' tactics "disturb the daily lives of the people and can cause other insecurities in society," it added.
The directive follows similar orders issued in 1999 and 2003. Groups violating the directive face possible prosecution, the ministry said.
Cambodia's non-Buddhist minority, which is mostly Catholic but includes Mormons and other evangelical groups, lives largely at peace in the country, but tensions have flared in the past.
Last year, hundreds of villagers shouting "Long live Buddhism, destroy Christians" tore down a house belonging to a Christian teacher outside the capital.
Church houses were also attacked in 2004 and 2003. No one was hurt in the incidents.
Sarith's quote:
Khmer people should wake up and ask ourselves these questions. Where did buddhism come from? Did buddhism bring prosperous to Cambodia for last hundreds years? Why Indian people do not worship buddhism?
I am not a religeous person, but I know, Christian religeous is one of the advance religeous right now. It is a religeous that bring alot of benefit to you, your family, and a country as whole.
For example, when we go to buddhist temple and donate money to the monk, where does the money go? Will the buddhist monk give you back the money when you need help?
In Christian religeous, it is like sharing and helping each other. For example, people go to church. They give the money to the priest. The priest will use those money to help the poor and your community. Some of the church organization use the donation money to pay for orphanage expense, child expense, education, building home, provide food to homeless, etc. Do we ever see a buddhist monk and go out feed the homeless or the blind? The answer is no. If we want the buddhism to be advance like Christian, we have to change the way buddhism is running right now. Otherwise, we will lost the whole country to Vietnam.
In Christian religeous has no class. People are treated equal. In buddhism religeous, people are divided among their classes. This is a bad for our society.
Date: 07/31/2007
Url:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20 ....
Author: Yahoo news
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