A Christian teenager in India has stood firm in the face of terrorist violence.
According to NBC, 16-year-old Abhishek Donald suffered severe injuries, including broken knuckles on his right hand, when an anti-Christian mob attacked the Prarthana Bhawan Church in the Indian capital territory of Delhi on Aug. 20.
“They came straight inside and started beating up people,” church pastor Satpal Bhati said of the attackers. “They broke a chair, tore our Bible, busted the drums, and beat the kid’s hand with a rod.”
Bhati estimated that the mob numbered about 30 people.
“They said, ‘This can’t go on, you can’t do this, this is a Hindu nation,’” Bhati added.
The NBC story described the attackers as a “right-wing mob.” While this immediately raises suspicions based on the establishment media’s left-wing U.S. domestic agenda, the description appears technically accurate in at least one sense.
If “right wing” means merely “nationalistic” — as opposed to the broad and indiscriminate manner in which the establishment media uses it as an epithet — then the Hindu mob qualifies as “right wing.”
In fact, a few weeks before the attack on Prarthana Bhawan Church, Hindu extremists also brought violence to Muslim neighborhoods. Those attacks, in which seven people were killed, occurred in the adjacent Indian state of Haryana.
Thus, Hindu nationalism appears to be driving India’s latest round of sectarian violence.
Meanwhile, fewer believers attended Prarthana Bhawan Church on Sunday.
One who did attend was 73-year-old Rock Robinson.
“I’m never, ever scared,” Robinson said.
In fact, the septuagenarian recognized parallels with the New Testament.
“Even Jesus’s disciples were put behind bars, but then they had an opportunity to preach, preach, preach,” Robinson said.
Much like the disciples, the boy with the broken knuckles would not be deterred.
“They’re scared,” Abhishek said of those who stayed away from church.
No doubt millions of Christians feel besieged in the modern world. Outside of India, this feeling has nothing to do with Hindu nationalism.
Above all, Christians believe in a spiritual struggle between good and evil. At no time in history has evil ever truly slept, but it seems more awake in recent years than at any time in living memory.
In the midst of this spiritual struggle, God calls us to be His.
We answer Him in part by remaining steadfast in faith and committing ourselves to His care. In other words, we follow the examples of Abhishek, Robinson, Bhati and their fellow believers.
In a 1966 lecture at Illinois Wesleyan University, Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke from experience of the trials Christians endure.
“We will match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering,” he said. “We will meet your physical force with soul force. And do to us what you will, and we will still love you.”
King’s spirit lives on at Prarthana Bhawan Church.
