Local Dalit Christian History

Local Dalit Christian History
Author: George Oommen
Publisher: Indian Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge
Total Pages: 178
Release: 2002
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

Contributed articles with reference to India.

Dalit Christians in South India

Dalit Christians in South India
Author: Ashok Kumar Mocherla
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2020-11-16
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1000226700

This ethnographic study of Dalit Lutherans in South India examines how the lived religion of Dalit Christians contests the structures of caste domination in rural Andhra. It shows how the emergence of Dalit Christianity generated new religious ideas, patterns, terrains, rituals, and practices that challenge the traditional notions of caste privilege and impact the politics of the region. It highlights the transforming role of Dalit agency in the development of Christianity, which is largely unexplored in the studies of Christian missions and anthropology of Christianity in India. The book looks at the social history of Christianity, critical events of protest, platforms of community politics, caste ideology, and local politics and interlocking of caste with congregation to provide a constructive critique of the dominant paradigm of the Dalit movement, which often treats Dalits as a homogenous social group. It discusses the pragmatic changes within the politics of Dalit Christianity as viewed from the margins of Indian society and incorporated through engagement with political ideologies (from communism to the Ambedkarite movement) and religious belief systems (from Hinduism to Christianity). This volume at the intersection of religion and caste will be an essential read for students and researchers of Dalit studies, political studies, sociology, sociology of religion, religious studies, social justice and exclusion studies, and South Asian studies.

Dalit Theology and Dalit Liberation

Dalit Theology and Dalit Liberation
Author: Peniel Rajkumar
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 219
Release: 2016-05-13
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1317154932

In fulfilling the long-awaited need for a constructive and critical rethinking of Dalit theology this book offers and explores the synoptic healing stories as a relevant biblical paradigm for Dalit theology in order to help redress the lacuna between Dalit theology and the social practice of the Indian Church. Peniel Rajkumar's starting point is that the growing influence of Dalit theology in academic circles is incompatible with the praxis of the Indian Church which continues to be passive in its attitude towards the oppression of the Dalits both within and outside the Church. The theological reasons for this lacuna between Dalit theology and the Church's praxis, Rajkumar suggests, lie in the content of Dalit theology, especially the biblical paradigms explored, which do not offer adequate scope for engagement in praxis.

Dalit Theology and Christian Anarchism

Dalit Theology and Christian Anarchism
Author: Revd Dr Keith Hebden
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Total Pages: 196
Release: 2013-06-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1409481476

A second generation of emerging Dalit theology texts is re-shaping the way we think of Indian theology and liberation theology. This book is a vital part of that conversation. Taking post-colonial criticism to its logical end of criticism of statism, Keith Hebden looks at the way the emergence of India as a nation state shapes political and religious ideas. He takes a critical look at these Gods of the modern age and asks how Christians from marginalised communities might resist the temptation to be co-opted into the statist ideologies and competition for power. He does this by drawing on historical trends, Christian anarchist voices, and the religious experiences of indigenous Indians. Hebden's ability to bring together such different and challenging perspectives opens up radical new thinking in Dalit theology, inviting the Indian Church to resist the Hindu fundamentalists labelling of the Church as foreign by embracing and celebrating the anarchic foreignness of a Dalit Christian future.

Tamil Folk Music as Dalit Liberation Theology

Tamil Folk Music as Dalit Liberation Theology
Author: Zoe C. Sherinian
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 380
Release: 2014-01-06
Genre: Music
ISBN: 025300585X

Zoe C. Sherinian shows how Christian Dalits (once known as untouchables or outcastes) in southern India have employed music to protest social oppression and as a vehicle of liberation. Her focus is on the life and theology of a charismatic composer and leader, Reverend J. Theophilus Appavoo, who drew on Tamil folk music to create a distinctive form of indigenized Christian music. Appavoo composed songs and liturgy infused with messages linking Christian theology with critiques of social inequality. Sherinian traces the history of Christian music in India and introduces us to a community of Tamil Dalit Christian villagers, seminary students, activists, and theologians who have been inspired by Appavoo's music to work for social justice. Multimedia components available online include video and audio recordings of musical performances, religious services, and community rituals.

The Saint in the Banyan Tree

The Saint in the Banyan Tree
Author: David Mosse
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 407
Release: 2012-10
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0520273494

“This is a powerful and exciting work. Mosse has produced a work of scholarship that is lively and readable without any loss of subtlety and sophistication. It is a ground-breaking study, of critical importance to the ways we understand religious nationalism and the anthropology of postcolonial experience.”—Susan Bayly, author of Asian Voices in a Postcolonial Age

Christianity in India

Christianity in India
Author: Leonard Fernando (s.j.)
Publisher: Penguin Books India
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2004
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780670057696

"Written by two of the country's foremost theologians, Christianity in India traces the fascinating history of each of these communities, and describes the role of Christians in education, social services, multilingual publishing and the freedom struggle. The authors explain to non-Christians the tenets and rituals that bind the faithful, whether Catholic, Protestant or Orthodox - prayer, the Sunday service, baptism and marriage, the role of Jesus in daily life, Christians' understanding of other faiths - and examine the controversial issues of caste within Christianity and conversions from other faiths."--BOOK JACKET.

Telugu Christians

Telugu Christians
Author: James Elisha Taneti
Publisher: Fortress Press
Total Pages: 219
Release: 2022-04-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 1506469442

This volume narrates the history of Telugu Christians, a faith community located in the states of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Pondicherry in southern India. A social history of a faith community, this volume analyzes how social aspirations of the community, local worldviews, and historical contingencies shaped the beliefs and practices of Telugu Christians. It relates and interprets the history of Telugu Christians chronologically from the sixteenth century until the current times. The first two chapters of the book examine the earliest encounters between the Christian message that European missionaries introduced and the local Christians. Covering three centuries, this section highlights the appropriation of the Christian message among the caste converts. Later chapters analyze the impact of Dalit conversions and women's leadership on the social fabric and theological texture of Telugu Christianity in the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. The book ends with a consideration of three dominant movements in the second half of the twentieth century and the early twenty-first, namely the process of Sanskritization, the influences of Pentecostalism, and those of Holiness movements on the Telugu church. In conclusion, Taneti recaps how caste and empire shaped the faith and practices of Telugu Christians.

Christian Inculturation in India

Christian Inculturation in India
Author: Paul M. Collins
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2016-09-17
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1317166744

Drawing together international and Indian sources, and new research on the ground in South India, this book presents a unique examination of the inculturation of Christian Worship in India. Paul M. Collins examines the imperatives underlying the processes of inculturation - the dynamic relationship between the Christian message and cultures - and then explores the outcomes of those processes in terms of architecture, liturgy and ritual, and the critique offered of these outcomes, especially by Dalit theologians. This book highlights how the Indian context has informed global discussions, and how the decisions of the World Council of Churches, Vatican II and Lambeth Conferences have impacted upon the Indian context.

A History of the Dalit Christians in India

A History of the Dalit Christians in India
Author: John C. B. Webster
Publisher: Mellen University Press
Total Pages: 268
Release: 1992
Genre: Religion
ISBN:

Between ten and 15 percent of all Dalits in India are Christians. Between two-thirds and three-quarters of all Christians in India are Dalits. Dalit is an Indian term which means broken or oppressed, and refers to those also called untouchables.