UNITED KINGDOM, Aug. 31, 2001: Britain has been targeted by determined foreigners with shocking intentions. They want to convert the British, who embraced Christianity 1,500 years ago, to Christianity. These 21st-century evangelists aren’t called reverse-missionaries, but that is what they are. Solomon Joseph, a Christian priest from south India, has been working in Bradford for the past two years, attempting to provide the city’s churches with a bridge to the Sikh, Muslim and Hindu communities. “I knew no one. I had no friends in other faiths. I spoke a different language even from the other Indians here. And everyone, white and Asian, mistrusted me.” There are reckoned to be more than 1,000 missionaries from 60 countries working in Britain now because Christian faith is believed to be flagging. “The pendulum has swung completely,” observes Solomon Joseph in Bradford. “In the 19th century, Britain shipped not only missionaries to India but even the bricks and stained glass to build churches. Now, when the Hindu community in Leicester builds its new temple, a huge statue is carved in India and shipped in 5,000 pieces to Britain.”
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