Were the peoples of the Americas, Africa and wherever in Asia that Christians ended up in charge given a free choice between conversion and being left alone to practice their old faith?
In my experience of growing up in a jungle in Sabah, yes, people did get a free choice between conversion and practicing their old faith. When my dad was ordained in 1982, many, many decades after the British had come to Sabah and left, much of Sabah's interior population were still animist or ancestor worshippers. there were negatives to becoming a christian; because of the Malaysian government 's policy of islamisation, you'd have people going about the the various villages and promising them all sorts of benefits if they became Muslim (among the least, getting jumped ahead of the line for affirmative action and government support. Theoretically the malaysian government promises affirmative action of the bumiputera races, the natives of sabah, sarawak, the west malaysian aborigines and malays; in practice the malays are more equal than everyone else, and back in the 80s the government was handing out Sabah identity cards to anybody who claimed they were muslim, in an effort to skew the demographics, regardless of whether they were refugees or illegal immigrants from the phillipines and indonesia).
Like my dad's an Anglican priest, he spent pretty much 2 decades in the jungle preaching to the indigenous people there. There was no pressure on people to become christian. Many people became christians facing opposition from their animist families. And then there was the time Special Branch held my dad overnight for interrogation to see if he was evangelising to muslims, and then their regular visits to our house to check up on us. :/
Otoh Malaysia might not count for the purpose of your question, I suppose, since after 1963 it basically stopped pretending to be a secular nation and the government has spent the time since then working on turning malaysia into a muslim nation. Thanks, Najib. Thanks, Najib's dad our 2nd PM. Thanks, PAS, our biggest opposition party, whose whole schtick vs UMNO is "more defender of Islam than thou." :|
As to the whole "there is only one way, why cant you get along interfaithly", imma quote my dad:
"Way I see it, I know the truth. I know the way to eternal life. How can i be so selfish as to keep that to myself? If a man is about to walk into a pit of snakes don't you shout and warn him?"
Edit:*shakes fist at thread* Look what you all are making me do, i'm giving perspective on christianity. Me, the partially lapsed christian who's pretty shit at this whole chrstlike living gig, who hasn't really felt a strong connection to god in a long time, who has possibly the largest porn stash of all SV (4.4 TB plus).
God defintely has a sense of humor here.
