Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:02:20 +0530 From: Jorge Dias <[email protected]>
Those Christians in India who are operating with Hindu names are doing this to protect their skin from Hindu facist forces. May God give these christians the courage that they do not hide their christian faith. Mario observes: In my never-humble opinion, there is nothing inherently "Christian" or "Non-Christian" in a name. I know many Christians with so-called Hindu names who do not hide their religion, but have assumed "Hindu" names for other cultural reasons. I also know many with "Christian" names who are about as un-Christ-like as one can get. As a Bhayya-Goan I grew up with Hindu supremacists as friends and classmates and sports team-mates in Madhya Pradesh and they are not so easily fooled simply by a person's name. This peculiar concept of "Christian" names in Goa seems to come from Portuguese culture, which is why those who were either voluntarily or involuntarily converted hundreds of years ago from Hindus or Muslims to Christians in Goa, were forced to take names the Portuguese considered "Christian". This was not the practice in Kerala for example, where the Christians were converted by one of Christ's original twelve Apostles, and kept their ancestral family names and chose Christian first names if they wanted to. Unless I'm missing something in Christian teachings, I don't think God cares much what one's name happens to be. Much more important is how you live your life and how you treat your fellow man, and I don't think demeaning their names is a good place to start.
