Christianity and Capitalism in India and Sri Lanka

Introduction

Christianity came to India and Sri Lanka from other countries at various periods ranging from ancient times to the present. Therefore a general view of the link between Christianity and capitalism (or anti-capitalism) is necessary in order to understand how the specific relationship between Christianity and capitalism (or anti-capitalism) developed in these two countries. The first section of this paper will present a general view of Christian attitudes to poverty, wealth and capitalism in early Christianity, during the Reformation, and in the modern period; the second and third sections will look at the shapes and forms these attitudes took in India and Sri Lanka respectively; and the conclusion will sum up the findings of the paper.  

Christianity and Abortion Rights

Feminists see abortion rights as part of the struggle to establish a woman’s right to control her own body; for a wider constituency, it is also a demand for safeguarding the lives and physical and mental health of women and girls.^[1] Far from winding down, the struggle around abortion rights has, if anything, heated up in the twenty-first century. Women in several countries of the world have engaged in unprecendented organisational and outreach activities to win over other women and put the issue on the agenda of progressives. But the backlash has also been severe, and fundamentalists of various religions have been at the forefront of it (Eternity News 2019). Christians are prominent among them.

There are countless Christian denominations with different positions on key issues including abortion, and there are contradictory positions even within each denomination. The most uniform is Roman Catholicism, where the Pope lays down the official anti-abortion stance, yet almost half of lay Catholics think that abortion should be legal. The Orthodox churches (Greek, Russian, Eastern, etc.) also have Patriarchs who oppose abortion, but a survey in the US showed that the majority of lay followers believe abortion should be legal (Pew Research Center 2014). Mainline Protestant denominations – Anglicans (including US and Scottish Episcopalians, and Anglican churches in former British colonies), Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, the United Church of Christ and others – support abortion rights, although a small minority of followers do not (Markoe 2018). Three-quarters of Evangelical Protestant denominations (sometimes known as ‘born-again’ Christians) oppose abortion, but a quarter do not.