De-Baptism Gains a Following in Britain By William Lee Adams / London

By William Lee Adams / London Tuesday, Apr. 14, 2009

There is growing interest in the concept of debaptism.

More than 100,000 former Christians have downloaded "certificates of de-baptism" in a bid to publicly renounce the faith, according to the London-based National Secular Society (NSS)

Terry Sanderson, the society's president, says the group started the online de-baptism initiative five years ago to mock the practice of baptizing infants too young to consent to religious rites. Their web site invites visitors to "Liberate yourself from the Original Mumbo-Jumbo that liberated you from the Original Sin you never had" and allows them to print out a paper certificate that uses quasi-formal language to "reject baptism's creeds and other such superstitions." But in recent months, as tens of thousands began to download the certificate, organizers realized that they had struck a chord with atheists and once-devout church members who are leaving churches they see as increasingly out-of-tune with modern life. "Churches have become so reactionary, so politically active that people actually want to make a protest against them now," Sanderson says. "They're not just indifferent anymore. They're actively hostile." (See pictures at a drive-in church.)

The campaign has become so popular — with nearly 1,000 certificates downloaded each week — that the NSS has started taking orders for certificates printed on parchment, at $4.50 each; they've sold nearly 2,000 in just three weeks. "Every time the Pope says something outrageous we get another rush on the certificate," Sanderson says, noting that traffic to the site skyrocketed last month following Pope Benedict XVI's comment that condoms could worsen the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa.

Public gaffes like that one may explain the anti-Catholic backlash driving similar movements elsewhere in the world. In October last year, Italy's Union of Rationalist Atheist and Agnostics sponsored the country's first-ever "De-baptism Day," when the no-longer faithful attended protests and passed out de-baptism forms to areligious people who didn't have internet connections to download them. More recently, on March 2, atheists and feminists in Argentina teamed up to launch the "Not in my Name" Internet campaign which encourages Roman Catholics to notify their local bishops of their desire to officially leave the church. So far more than 1,800 have joined their Facebook group or signed the petition on their website http://www.apostasiacolectiva.org.

According to Argentine campaigner Ariel Bellino, a former Catholic: "The church counts all those who've been baptized as Catholic and lobbies for legislation based on that number, so we're trying to convey the importance of people expressing they no longer belong to the church." Campaigners say that's particularly important in Argentina, where liberal social values frequently clash with Roman Catholic doctrine related to issues such as birth control, abstinence before marriage and homosexuality; in 2003, Buenos Aries became the first city in South America to legalize gay civil unions.

Back in Britain, Michael Evans, an atheist and former journalist who downloaded the de-baptism certificate in March, believes the Church of England claims more members than it actually has in order to shore up its influence in the secular world. "It claims to speak for the majority of people in Britain," he says. Official estimates are that fewer than one million Britons regularly attend Sunday services, but there are currently 26 Church of England bishops sitting in the House of Lords. "With churches, everybody checks in, but nobody checks out," says Evans, who was baptized as an infant. "There's no exit strategy except the funeral."

That may be changing. On April 9, John Hunt, a 56-year-old nurse in Croydon, south London, managed to have his official baptism record amended. Religious leaders from the Southwark Diocese had previously refused to delete Hunt's record of baptism, claiming it was an important historical detail. But after Hunt published a renouncement of his Christianity in the London Gazette, a journal of record dating back to the 17th century, those same religious leaders agreed to include it alongside his official baptism entry. "It's about time some of us stood up to be counted," Hunt said after receiving the news.

Nick Baines, the Bishop of Croydon, says such notation makes little difference. "Sticking John Hunt's note in the register is not 'de-anything,'" he wrote on his blog. "It is simply a note in a register that has no effect whatsoever other than to make him feel better that he has been heard." And, officials at the Church of England say, allowing such notation is not the Church's official policy because true renunciation can only take place between an individual and God.

Given that God takes on different forms for different people, the NSS has been approached by non-believers are far away as Australia, Romania and Saudi Arabia requesting certificates tailored to their former faith. "We've had Jewish people write in asking, 'Can I have a certificate to undo my bar mitzvah?'" says Sanderson. And while the group is considering those requests, there's at least one recurring query they're certain they can't undo, symbolically or otherwise: "How can I get myself uncircumcised?"

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Peace walk assumes modern tone

Written by May Titthara and Zoe Holman

Thursday, 02 April 2009

Preah Sdach district Prey Veng province Started in 1992 to unify a factionalised country under the bond of Buddhism, the historic Dhammayietra march has evolved to teach modern social, environmental issues. Photo by: ZOE HOLMAN Monks on the 19th Dhammayietra Peace Walk in Prey Veng province's Preah Sdach district on Sunday. MORE than 100 monks, nuns and villagers from around the country walked across Prey Veng province in a 14-day campaign that finished Monday to promote peace and awareness of the environment, domestic violence and health care. Participants in the 19th Dhammayietra Peace Walk marched 176 kilometres through 10 districts, receiving hospitality from monasteries and village offerings along the way in return for water blessings and education. "We are here to promote a mindset of peace and non-violence", said Dhammayietra organiser and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Oddom Van Syvorn. "Our aim is to educate people directly about social and environmental problems through teachings to villagers and primary school students." The Dhammayietra volunteers' organisation was founded in 1992 when the renowned Cambodian Maha Ghosananda, or "Buddha of the Battlefields", walked defiantly through Khmer Rouge-controlled territory during the historic repatriation of refugees from Thai border camps. When Ghoshanda retired from the Dhammayietra in 2000, Oddom Van Syvorn, a laywoman, was selected by the founder to assume leadership of the pilgrimage. Through the walk, Oddom says she will continue advancing the Buddhist precepts preached by Ghosananda. "We celebrate the knowledge of monks once a year with their daily teachings in schools along the Dhammayietra [route]," she said. Organisers see the culturally specific format of Dhammayiatra as key to its effectiveness. Before the rule of the Khmer Rouge, Volkmar Ensslin, managing director of education NGO KiKam (Kids In Kampuchea), said "the Buddhist community supported monks with food and in return, the monks gave religious teachings." Dhammayietra propelled monks back into this role, she said, but they also discuss secular issues such as HIV/AIDS, the environment and domestic violence. "Monks as culturally respected figures are perfect for this education," she added. Nan Sarith, from Siem Reap province, was among the monks pouring themselves into the strenuous walk. "I've attended to help the Cambodian people develop", he said. "The teachings of the Goshananda can encourage the population to move on from a mentality of victimhood of the past." This year's Dhammayietra included participants both young and old. "I never walked more than 1 kilometre from home," said 73-year-old Nhem Pheang, who attended a fortnight ago and continued on the route until the final day. "But every day here I've walked about 10 to 15 kilometres, and I am still happy and strong." Original Source

God and genocide in Cambodia

By Stephen Kurczy

PHNOM PENH and BATTAMBANG - The Khmer Rouge's former chief executioner asked for Christian forgiveness this week on the witness stand. Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, is charged with overseeing the radical regime's S-21 torture prison, where more than 12,000 Cambodians lost their lives. Like many of his former cadres, he found religion late in life.

His testimony conceding guilt, which could affect the fate of the regime's other four top cadres, has been influenced by his conversion to Christianity in the mid-1990s, analysts say. The other detainees at the tribunal have denied responsibility for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians from disease, starvation and executions during the Khmer Rouge's four-year reign of terror.

"At the beginning I only prayed to ask forgiveness from my parents. But later on, I attempted to pray for forgiveness from the whole nation, for all the people who died," Duch said Tuesday on the second day of his trial at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia in Phnom Penh. "I would like to express my regret and my heartfelt sorrow and loss for all of the crimes committed by the CPK [Communist Party of Kampuchea] from 1975 to 1979."

"I would like to emphasize that I am responsible for the crimes committed at S-21, especially the torture and execution of the people there," the 66-year-old Duch told a packed courtroom on Tuesday in an address broadcast live on national radio and television. "I would like you to please leave an open window for me to be forgiven."

Those words have set the stage for painful revelations in the weeks ahead. While the Christian Duch apparently aims for salvation through contrition, his former Khmer Rouge colleagues - some who have turned to Buddhism - maintain their innocence. Some view this as a bid to avoid karmic retribution for their sins in the next life.

Once outlawed by the atheist Khmer Rouge, religion has made a comeback among the radical revolutionaries who brutally transformed Cambodia into a nation of killing fields. Buddhist shrines were destroyed and Christian adherents persecuted as a matter of policy during the Khmer Rouge's paranoid reign.

According to local religious figures, meditative ex-Khmer Rouge cadres now fill Buddhist temples or alternately praise Jesus in Christian churches. Khmer Rouge Brother Number 2 Nuon Chea, the regime's chief ideologue who was arrested in 2007 on crimes against humanity and war crimes, has publicly acknowledged his conversion later in life to Buddhism.

"I personally respect all religions, but mainly Buddhism, as it belongs to the nation," Nuon Chea told The Cambodia Daily newspaper in 2003. During that interview he presented himself as a devout Buddhist, with a large poster of a revered Thai

monk tacked to his wall and claims that Buddhist monks visited him regularly to consult on Buddhist teachings.

According to sources familiar with the detainees, Duch has continued to take communion while in detention and Nuon Chea has decorated his cell with a poster of a venerable Buddhist monk. Religious experts say that while religion alone can not explain the opposing pleas lodged by former Khmer Rouge cadres, the two different faiths inspire their adherents to face the past in starkly different ways.

"Christianity in particular has put more emphasis on the sin/redemption theme than most religions," said Stanford University religion professor Carl Bielefeldt. "Conversion to Buddhism may mean little more than relaxing into the default culture, rather than committing oneself to a spiritual choice … In contrast, conversion to a culturally alien religion [to Cambodia] like Christianity may involve a much more self-conscious spiritual choice."

Faithful minority
Currently round 95% of Cambodia's citizens adhere to Buddhism. When the Khmer Rouge were overthrown in 1979, less than 200 Christians remained from a pre-1975 congregation of 20,000, according to Heng Cheng, the head of the Evangelical Fellowship of Cambodia. Today, more than 100,000 Cambodians belong to more than 3,000 evangelical churches across the country, among them many former members of the Khmer Rouge.

"The former Khmer Rouge more often open their hearts [to God]," said Heng Cheng. "[Duch] is a role model."

Duch's conversion to Christianity has caused some friction with his former cadres. For instance, Nuon Chea scoffed at Duch's conversion, saying in his revealing 2003 interview: "[Duch] wanted God to take responsibility for his sins! ... You commit the sin, so you pay for the sin. Nobody can help take responsibility for the sin."

For his part, Nuon Chea does not accept responsibility for the Khmer Rouge's atrocities, despite his high-ranking position at the time. Former Khmer Rouge southwestern region army chief Meas Muth, who has not been charged by the tribunal and is also a practicing Buddhist, similarly expresses no remorse for his role in the revolution.

"I don't think the court will call me. But if they do, it's useless," he said, adding that he is not guilty of crimes against humanity. Meas, the son-in-law of deceased Khmer Rouge army commander Ta Mok, admits he conversed with the regime's central committee members, including Nuon Chea and head of state Khieu Samphan, but denies having had any influence over policy formulation.

Meas Muth, too, has found religion later in life. During a recent interview at his spacious home on stilts on the outskirts of Battambang province's Samlot town, he mentions the tens of thousands of dollars worth of donations he has made to the local pagoda, Ta Sanh Chas. There, he gives Pali language lessons and oversees building projects.

Thoeun Samnang, the chief Buddhist monk of Ta Sanh Chas temple, said Meas Muth "comes to the pagoda every day. He comes to find peace with the Buddha." The resident ascetic says he still remembers the day Meas Muth first arrived: the auspicious date of 9-9-99.

"He is a blessing," said the saffron-robed monk, seated cross-legged in his pagoda. "Former Khmer Rouge soldiers seem more interested in Buddhism. They come here more than other people. They are more active in the pagoda."

It is religiously significant, some believe, that former top Khmer Rouge leaders Meas Muth and Nuon Chea have not sought forgiveness for their roles in the alleged genocide. One possible reason, suggests Columbia University's Buddhist scholar Bob Thurman, is that Christianity uniquely claims that the road to salvation runs through repentance, remorse and making up for past sins.

"Perhaps the Christian ones are more intent on [forgiveness] because they have the belief that repentance and true belief in Christ will help them once and for all reach heaven, no matter what they've done," Thurman wrote by e-mail. "Whereas Buddhists do repent, do try to do better, but remain aware of a long road ahead to reach enlightenment or nirvana - no one else can grant them the ultimate salvation, in their view."

The monk Thoeun says that no matter how often Meas Muth visits his pagoda, the former Khmer Rouge leader will invariably suffer in the next life for his alleged actions in his current incarnation. "Meas Muth cannot escape from what he did in the past. No matter what he does, he must pay for what he has done," the monk said.

When questioned about the notion that a Christian may escape karmic punishment for wrongdoings, the ascetic balked: "Everyone must pay for what they've done. Duch cannot be forgiven. Bad deeds are like shadows that follow you."

Remorse and repentance
Duch's 32-year-old daughter, Ky Sievkim, said that her father longs for forgiveness and views Christianity as a path out of the dark shadow of the S-21 torture prison he previously ran. "My father told me that he had done many wrong things, and that's why he asked Jesus for forgiveness," she said in a recent interview at her small home, also on the outskirts of Samlot town.

Duch may have also converted to Christianity for protection, according to the court's closing order indicting him for crimes against humanity. "Christianity, the West and the realm of international justice symbolized a new form of protection (also undeniably the most effective), because he suffered from insecurity," the order states.

The temptation of salvation has drawn many other former Khmer Rouge cadres to Christianity, according to Victory Heng, executive director of Cambodian Christian Church Organization (CCCO) in Battambang town. "You can be the worst sinner in the world and still enter the gates of heaven," Heng said.

The orginization supports about 100 churches in the provinces of Takeo and Siem Reap, as well as in the former Khmer Rouge strongholds of Battambang, Oddar Meanchey and Banteay Meanchey provinces. Many former Khmer Rouge cadres have entered CCCO's churches, says Heng, although he doesn't maintain an exact tally. "None of them come in and say, 'We are former Khmer Rouge.' And we don't ask. It's not important to us. Our purpose is not to dig up the past. Our purpose is to share Christ."

In that spiritual direction, every year CCCO holds a three-week training course in Battambang town to convert laymen into practicing evangelists. "One of those years, Duch walked through the doors of this building," Heng said, standing outside the clapboard building of the Battambang Christian Church. The year was 1996 and at the end of the training course Duch was baptized nearby in the Sangke River.

Suon Sito says he remembers that day well. He first met Duch four years earlier in Banteay Meanchey province's Phkoam village, where Duch moved his family after living in Thai refugee camps and in China throughout the 1980s. Within months of Duch's arrival, Suon Sito invited him to a CCCO-sponsored house church and soon Duch was inviting others to attend services.

As Duch drew closer to Christianity, he was also attempting to flee from his past, Suon Sito said. He moved his family repeatedly throughout the 1990s - first to another school in Banteay Meanchey, then to a school in Samlot town, then back to a Thai refugee camp - but he never stopped telling his neighbors about the power of Jesus Christ in his life.

"He asked me to be a Christian. He said he wanted to start a Christian community," said Sok Lian, a resident of Samlot town who rented a home on Duch's property for several months in 1999 until Duch's identity and whereabouts were uncovered and published in international media.

When news broke in 1999 of Duch's conversion to Christianity, renowned Cambodia historian David Chandler, who had poured through reams of evidence at Duch's torture prison, says he took Duch's professed conversion seriously.

"He must have given his conversion to Christianity serious thought, as he had done with his conversion to communism in the 1960s, and saw both conversions as ways of clarifying his mind, helping his spirit, and organizing his life," Chandler wrote by e-mail from Australia's Monash University.

"Maybe Duch was looking for refuge found only in Christianity," said Chea Vannath, a political scientist in Cambodia who lives not far from S-21, which is now maintained as a grisly tourist attraction. "Whatever mistakes you make, you recognize and confess and Jesus Christ will help you ... It's possible that if [Nuon Chea] was a Christian, he might confess too."

Stephen Kurczy is an Asia Times Online contributor based in Cambodia. He may be reached at kurczy@gmail.com.

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