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Simon Gurung, a pastor and president of (Katmandu) Valley Christian Council, said, "I had to face social boycott when I became a Christian." After he became a pastor, Gurung went around preaching the Good News in all the ways he could. He was arrested in 1982 and 1990 and kept behind bars for months.

Christian growth in rural areas began in the 1970s. Some years later, Nepal introduced a parliamentary system, replacing Hindu-dominated village councils. This liberalizing move also supported religious freedom and the number of Christians kept shooting upward.

Pastor Yam Bahadur Tamang became a Christian as democracy took deeper root in 1990. "The Hindu people in my village used to stone me when I passed through their areas," recalled the 32-year-old pastor living in 11th KM Village of Gorkha, 90 miles south of Katmandu.

During the last 15 years, Tamang said, the attitude toward Christians in his area has utterly transformed. Today, the majority of the 350 families in his village are Christians. The region has become a Christian stronghold with 20,000 believers.

"Many come to us for healing. Others are impressed by our lifestyle change," said Tamang. Christians, he said, become a public witness, leading "exemplary" lives by giving up drinking, smoking, and gambling. Churches are also becoming visible and attractive examples of equality and freedom at work within a nation struggling toward political democracy.

In late January, for the second year in a row, a handful of Christian leaders nationwide prayed together for "lasting peace and democracy" in their country. Ramesh Khatry, executive secretary of the Association for Theological Education, a new seminary in Katmandu, organized the event.

But the effort will probably involve fewer than 20 percent of all Nepali pastors. "The desire for social and political influence is something that the wider Christian community has been rather slow in developing," said scholar Mark Pickett via e-mail. Pickett teaches at the Evangelical Theological College of Wales and served in missions for 20 years in Nepal.

Many Christian leaders are still charting their way through a thicket of cultural and social issues, leaving little time for national- level engagement. These issues range from scheduling worship on Saturdays, since Sunday is a workday, to confronting fundamentalist Hindus and Buddhists who harass Christians.

However, there have been cases of unethical Christian leaders exploiting religious tensions. K. B. Rokaya, general secretary of the NCCN, told CT that several religious leaders have been "selling Jesus and getting huge sums from evangelical groups for real and imaginary conversions." He said some unethical leaders send photos of village meetings, passing them off as congregations of new converts.

"This is a betrayal of harmony and tolerance," lamented Rokaya. He cautioned that such activity would only strengthen fundamentalists.

Hindu fundamentalist organizations, including the extremist World Hindu Council, have held rallies in small towns, demanding that Nepal reassert its identity as a Hindu nation.

Though the campaign has so far evoked only muted response from the masses, Hindu extremists have already succeeded in spreading religious unrest in remote villages. In Gorkha district, pastor Ghale visited rural churches in late October and told CT that Christian villagers have been given ultimatums to leave Hindu- and Buddhist-majority villages or forsake their faith. In Laprak and Gumda villages, churches and Christian homes have been destroyed.

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February 2007, Vol. 51, No. 2