Proselytising refers to converting or attempting to convert someone to a religion or other belief system. As per Webster's dictionary, proselytising is to induce someone to convert to one's faith or to recruit someone to join one's party, institution, or cause. Today, it has a distinctly religious connotation and means simply ‘to recruit religious converts.’

Suppose one looks at the idea from an outsider’s perspective. In that case, it seems that proselytisers work on this assumption that the faith and beliefs they follow alone hold the truth and that others are ignorant and should be open to changing their faith.

There is another aspect of this approach. What if the proselytiser also has to go through a similar situation where he/she has to show openness to change their own faith or has never been put to testing situations when they were forced to convert to some other religion?

World history has evidence for it. It is interesting to watch how Christians fare when this change of religion or conversion is imposed on them. Several fiction and non-fiction books and movies deal with this issue.

This article touches upon such situations depicted on screen. Although there are several other instances where we get to see how a Christian deals with the imposition of other religions on them,  for this article, I’m only considering a Hollywood drama series, the first season of “The Vikings” and the movie “Silence”.

The Vikings

An Irish-Canadian co-production, “The Vikings” is a historical drama television series created and written by Michael Hirst. This historical drama (available on Netflix) opens in 793 AD; it is set in Scandinavia where Vikings come from. This series is an excellent storytelling of the era of Vikings, a community of explorers, adventurers, and strategists with advanced knowledge of seafaring skills. And their voyages in search of wealth, conquests, and their barbarism.

They conducted extensive raids across Europe from the 8th to 11th centuries. These raids often targeted Christian monasteries and settlements, leading to constant conflict and hostility between the two. Christian missionaries, particularly from England and Ireland, also sought to convert the Vikings to Christianity. They often faced resistance and were sometimes even killed or had to face conversion themselves as the Vikings were in constant tussle with Christianity.

This article is not an opinion or review piece of the show. However, I was intrigued by the way one of the characters was developed in the series. The character named Athelstan is a devout Christian who is forced to become a slave of one of the Viking leaders Ragnar, he attacks a Christian community. Initially, this Christian priest resists but relents when he has to sail back with this group of Vikings to their homeland. Gradually he becomes a part of the Vikings culture and decides to stay with them for the rest of his life. Over the years, living with the Vikings, the Christian priest gets accustomed to the Vikings’ horrendous battles, their sacrificial killings, their war for honour, and their birth and death rituals.

Time passes and a situation arises when he is identified to be killed by the Vikings as a ‘chosen honour of sacrifice’. In order to make him a non-Christian priest, first he is deliberately invited by a woman to get intimate with him to destroy the purity of his priesthood. Then on the final day, he is invited to the ceremony where he has to offer his life as a true Viking! The person from the Vikings community who conducts such ceremonies asks him for one last time if the priest has renounced Christianity completely. This priest is unable to hide and speaks his mind by saying ‘No’ three times, consecutively!

As a result, he gets disqualified as the ‘chosen one’ by the tribe on the criterion of being a true Viking. In other words, he still somewhere shows a reminiscence of Christian belief after living with the Vikings for a long time. More or less, he remains to be a one-dimensional character, who never changes as a true Christian at his core.

This series has always been a mixture of history and fiction and sheds light on questions of identity, faith, and the conflict between two different, opposed traditions. Athelstan's semi-reverse "conversion" was practically interesting. As a third person, one will wonder if a person could be ever truly converted. Is it easy to leave one’s culture and values and adapt to another one in a deeper sense?  Although the monk Athelstan accepts the Vikings' way of life, he stays true to himself as a priest in his heart forever. To avoid daily struggles to keep his faith in the Nordic pagan society priest Athelstan accepts their ways but remains a Christian at heart.

Silence

The original novel "Silence" was written in 1966 by Shusaku Endo. The film adaptation was directed by Martin Scorsese. It's a thematically complex movie with multilayered narratives, set in the mid-17th century when Japan was in chaos after a long civil war and had become extra cautious towards any colonial intrusions.

It was when the concepts of God and Jesus and Virgin Mary were translated into Japanese Buddhist concepts to help common people understand Christianity based on what they already knew. However, when the Japanese leaders realised how they were being forced to follow a different faith, all Christians were abandoned. It was the Samurai's way of protecting their culture from foreign invasion. The church was going through a time of persecution in the country and Christianity was outlawed in Japan.

The story of ‘Silence’ begins with two young Jesuits, Father Garupe and Father Rodrigues, being sent to Japan to confirm the rumour that their great Jesuit mentor and teacher Father Ferrera had been captured and apostatised.  Both the priests reach Japan and clandestinely manage to get in touch with some converted, Japanese Christians. These local people were somehow trying their best to keep their faith alive, (following some local form of Christianity, far from authentic) despite the absence of any guidance on Christianity by priests or Christian leaders.

However, soon the news reaches the Japanese authorities, and the local, converted Christians are arrested and tortured for entertaining the two foreign priests. As a punishment, three of the leaders of the lay Catholic Community in Japan are brutally crucified.

Later on, both the priests are also tortured and psychologically pressured to succumb to Japanese authorities and give up on their faith. They are told that if they do not accept these orders, their community of converted Christians, and the lay people will be killed. Eventually, as Father Garupe refuses to renounce his faith, he is brutally drowned. 

Father Rodrigues takes a different route. He resists for a long time until finally, he does give in under the pressure of torture on others. To save himself from further suffering and also to protect other Christians, he is forced to step on a sacred image (fumi-e) of Christ as a sign of his renunciation of his Christian faith. He takes this horrendous step also because he fears that ‘the Church’ in Japan will die if he is killed.

Eventually, he takes a Japanese name, a Japanese wife, and when he's buried in a Buddhist ceremony. In the last scene in the movie, you see the corpse of Rodriguez holding a little tiny crucifix (placed in his hand by his wife). This scene suggests that in some way this tortured soul remained a Christian even to the end and that maybe he was in some deeply interior way, still a Christian. Rodriguez secretly maintains his faith throughout his life.

This movie has been extensively critiqued in different Christian quarters, especially by Catholics. Some Christians view Father Rodrigues’ giving up on his faith and accepting Japanese ways as the most spiritually painful moment in the entire film. It is argued that Rodriguez made this sacrifice of his pride and his entire calling in life, out of love and kindness for his fellow beings not out of cowardice, selfishness, or evil intention.

He chose to live in shame out of compassion for the Japanese Christians. One can call this a kind of Christianity as hidden away, private, and harmless. This character is appreciated by some who do not mind practicing privatised, harmless Christianity.

Is not faith kept at the heart one of the most distilled forms of faith? After all, Rodrigues tried his best to help others and kept his faith in his heart. He made the right decision and should be celebrated for it.

However, this is only one side of the picture. This character in the movie is heavily pilloried by different Christian quarters even by Bishops and others from the Catholic ministry.

The question is if it is permissible to verbally renounce Christ while keeping your faith alive in your heart. A large number of Christians see Rodriguez's silence and acceptance of the Japanese faith as his ‘multivalence and vacillation’ because he compromised on his Christian values. It is argued that Catholics must stand up for what they believe, and only weak people practice their faith in such private ways and they should be condemned. People find Rodriguez's character filled with ambiguity; they hate him. On the contrary, they appreciate those three Christians who kept their faith alive over many years and who died a horrific death defending their faith in the movie “Silence”.

There has been a constant debate among Christian quarters to analyse which path is truer to God- to give up externally but be a true Christian at heart or to struggle and die but never give up one’s faith. The dilemma this movie brings out at length is what is true faith all about. To succumb to coercion and convert or to die but not compromise on one’s faith.  It is argued that apostasy or private faith is not desired or appropriate. Holding one’s faith in silence is not acceptable and justifiable in any way. One has to live up to one’s beliefs openly and courageously.

Hints for Defining Hindutva

What are the lessons about following one’s religion or conversion we can learn from these two above-mentioned examples as depicted in “The Vikings” and “Silence”? I felt relieved. It somewhere proves that you cannot dictate what anyone truly believes. You can only force people to be silent for different reasons and impose forceful conversion on them, but you cannot touch a person’s true, deepest faith.

However, it also led me to understand the difference between Hindu and Hindutva. Some Hindus think that they want to remain good Hindus and peacefully practice their Dharma but do not aspire for ‘Hindutva’ as it is more political than religious. Most of us want to practice our Dharma in silence, without making any noise.

This is a transitional period on the global stage where the question of identity and faith is becoming blurry on the periphery but at the core it keeps reemerging in more disturbing forms.

We have to understand that it is time to raise our heads and speak for our faith confidently and not shy away from practicing it. We need to be clear on some basics- Hindutva is that aspect of Hindu Dharma that allows you to represent your Dharma in the right way to the world. It encourages Hindus to define Indian cultural identity in terms of Hinduism and to promote Hindu values and traditions in the open space, not as silent spectators or as indifferent followers.