This is a long-standing question in my mind which I have never, out of a hesitation of appearing foolish, or not confident that I would be asking it to the right person, ever asked before. But if I don’t get the answer here, I know I may not get it anywhere else.
The question is this; Have I been brainwashed into thinking, simply put, that missionaries and saints of old went to foreign lands, talked to the heathens and converted them happily to Christianity merely “by the grace of God”. In the Indian context, stories about St Francis, St Thomas, St José Vaz and various others come to mind. They land, they befriend parts of the local population, they learn enough of the local language and before you know it, they have converted large swaths of the population to Christianity. Did they have sufficient funds sufficient to induce, given by their host kings, or were they dealing with disgruntled parts of the local people which made them easily vulnerable. I understand how conversion worked on a kingdom or empire level. The king or emperor embraces the new religion, converts all his subjects and his conquered peoples by example, favour, bias or just plain old force and violence. A one on one, or one on many system of conversion that worked very well with the saints, completely flummoxes me. Is there also a good book that can explain this? Roland. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Goa-Research-Net" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/goa-research-net/434D4E79-E89F-4332-B26A-BB3007051F46%40gmail.com.
