An article in Indolink today caught my eye because it examines something very familiar to most SM readers, Christian Evangelicals attempting to convert Hindus, except in a very different context than usual. The setting of these conversions isn’t rural India but American college campuses:

…there is increasing evidence that Christian evangelical groups are aggressively targeting Hindu students in American college campuses for conversion.

In fact, a sampling of Asian American-identified evangelical fellowship websites reveals mission statements targeting Asian and Asian American students for outreach and membership, while simultaneously affirming a non-race-specific evangelical identity.

There is evidence that large numbers of Asian American college students are turning to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ through the encouragement and support of national and local prayer and Bible study organizations. Alongside the large national organizations, there are numerous local bible studies and fellowships that are often sponsored by local churches and are ethnic specific…

One reason for the present renewed aggressive effort is that, unlike other Asian Americans, Hindu-Americans have staunchly resisted efforts at conversion. Also, unlike other Asian Americans who are becoming increasingly associated with evangelical Christianity on college campuses, Hindu-Americans have their own campus groups such as Hindu Students Federation.

Nevertheless, evangelical “parachurch” organizations like Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC), The Navigators, and IVCF are soliciting large numbers of students to their weekly bible studies, prayer meetings, and social events. There is no doubt that Asian Americans – especially Korean and Chinese – are becoming increasingly associated with evangelical Christianity on the college campus. The hope is that Indian-Americans will follow suit. [Link]

I don’t particularly care if someone that follows Hinduism decides to convert to Christianity. The idea that someone is born into a religion has always seemed rather silly to me, as does a notion I have previously read on our comment boards which declares that “white people can be real Hindus.” Religion should be a personal choice. In the context of America you definitely can’t accuse Evangelicals of taking advantage of poor or illiterate people. College students aren’t typically poor (although most are now illiterate). The real reason I found this article interesting is that it contained strategy advice on how-to, and how-not-to convert a Hindu.

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Earlier, I blogged about some maps of the number of religious houses of worship by state – 702 Mandirs, 89 Jain temples, 236 Sikh gurdwaras, 2039 Buddhist temples, and 1855 Islamic masjids / mosques. In response readers asked for maps of the numbers of religious adherents as a percentage of the population. I thought this would be tough, so I told the monkeys in the basement of our bunker that they wouldn’t eat until they brought me such information. I was worried that I would have a bunch of starving monkeys on our hands, but lo and behold – they came through. Below the fold is a map of Muslims as a percentage of residents by county across the entire USAA map of Muslims as a percentage of residents by county across the entire USA. Click on it if you want a larger version.

There are only a handful of counties with between 2 and 10% muslims – Queens (obviously), but also one in Michigan, one in Ohio, one in Delaware, one in Virginia and a few in Georgia. Not at all where I expected them to be. None of them are in California at all, but both CA and upstate NY have a number of counties with between .8 – 2.1% muslim populations, as do Michigan, Jersey, Texas, and several other states. Heck, even Wyoming and Colorado meet that threshold in a few places!

Unfortunately, no such maps are readily available for Hindus, Jains, Sikhs or Buddhists, probably because they’re too small a section of the population, and too dispersed, to readily show up.

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