Nepal court drops charges against eight Christians accused of proselytizing

A court in Nepal has recently dropped the charges against eight Christians who were accused of proselytizing after they distributed a booklet about Jesus Christ in a Christian school.

The case was the first dispute about the freedom of religion since the country adopted a new constitution in 2015. The constitution apparently forbids anything that can be perceived as evangelism, World Watch Monitor reported.

The seven men and one woman, all of whom are counselors, were helping children through the trauma of the 2015 earthquake. Five of them were staff members of the Christian teacher-training program called Teach Nepal, and the other two were school principals. They were arrested in June 2016.

Shakti Pakhrin, a pastor of Charikot Christian Church, was detained a few days after the arrest of the seven Christians.

Barnabas Shrestha, chairman of Teach Nepal, said that they were invited to do counseling in the Christian school. However, not all of the pupils in the school are Christians.

The police who made the arrests accused the counselors of preaching the Gospel. However, Shrestha denied that they were trying to convert the children.

The freedom of Christians in Nepal is increasingly at risk. One missionary said that the government threatened to impose huge fines and close down Christian orphanages and boarding schools in Kathmandu if just one Christian booklet is found within the premises. There is also a prohibition on praying with children or letting them attend a Bible club.

Hindu nationalist groups were reportedly disappointed when Nepal decided to remain a secular state. Two churches were bombed in September 2015 just hours after Nepal's Constituent Assembly rejected calls to revert to a Hindu state.

Christianity in Nepal continues to grow despite the challenges. The country is now home to more than 8,000 churches and over a million converts, according to Christian Daily.

M.J. Shah, a descendant of the long-ruling monarchs of Nepal, once believed that Christianity is only for those who belonged to a lower caste, but he is now married to a Christian woman. His family disowned him when he became a Christian in 2005, but they saw positive changes in his behavior after his conversion.

"When I was growing up I was told Christianity was not for us. It was only for lower caste people. Before, I was a gambler, a fighter, a drinker and a drug user. I used to beat people up. I was terrible," he said.

The massive earthquake in 2015 was one of the factors that contributed to the growth of Christianity. It provided an opportunity for Christians to minister to those who were affected by the tragedy through charitable acts.