Saints, Goddesses and Kings

Saints, Goddesses and Kings
Author: Susan Bayly
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 532
Release: 1989
Genre: History
ISBN: 0521372011

Saints, Goddesses and Kings illumines the meaning and history of religious conversion and the nature of community.

Strange Names of God

Strange Names of God
Author: Sangkeun Kim
Publisher: Peter Lang
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2004
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780820471303

One of the most precarious and daunting tasks for sixteenth-century European missionaries in the cross-cultural mission frontiers was translating the name of «God» (Deus) into the local language. When the Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) introduced the Chinese term Shangti as the semantic equivalent of Deus, he made one of the most innovative cross-cultural missionary translations. Ricci's employment of Shangti was neither a simple rewording of a Chinese term nor the use of a loan-word, but was indeed a risk-taking «identification» of the Christian God with the Confucian Most-High, Shangti. Strange Names of God investigates the historical progress of the semantic configuration of Shangti as the divine name of the Christian God in China by focusing on Chinese intellectuals' reaction to the strangely translated Chinese name of God.

Possessed by the Virgin

Possessed by the Virgin
Author: Kristin C. Bloomer
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2018
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0190615095

'Possessed By The Virgin' is an ethnographic account of three Roman Catholic women in Tamil Nadu, South India who claim to be possessed by Mary, the mother of Jesus. The author follows the lives of these women over many years, investigating questions about gender, social power, agency, and authenticity.

A History of Christian Conversion

A History of Christian Conversion
Author: David W. Kling
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2020-05-05
Genre:
ISBN: 0199717591

Conversion has played a central role in the history of Christianity. In this first in-depth and wide-ranging narrative history, David Kling examines the dynamic of turning to the Christian faith by individuals, families, and people groups. Global in reach, the narrative progresses from early Christian beginnings in the Roman world to Christianity's expansion into Europe, the Americas, China, India, and Africa. Conversion is often associated with a particular strand of modern Christianity (evangelical) and a particular type of experience (sudden, overwhelming). However, when examined over two millennia, it emerges as a phenomenon far more complex than any one-dimensional profile would suggest. No single, unitary paradigm defines conversion and no easily explicable process accounts for why people convert to Christianity. Rather, a multiplicity of factors-historical, personal, social, geographical, theological, psychological, and cultural-shape the converting process. A History of Christian Conversion not only narrates the conversions of select individuals and peoples, it also engages current theories and models to explain conversion, and examines recurring themes in the conversion process: divine presence, gender and the body, agency and motivation, testimony and memory, group- and self-identity, "authentic" and "nominal" conversion, and modes of communication. Accessible to scholars, students, and those with a general interest in conversion, Kling's book is the most satisfying and comprehensive account of conversion in Christian history to date; this major work will become a standard must-read in conversion studies.

Women of Faith: Saints & Martyrs of the Christian Faith

Women of Faith: Saints & Martyrs of the Christian Faith
Author: Calee M. Lee
Publisher: Xist Publishing
Total Pages: 30
Release: 2015-12-02
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1681952904

Be Brave and Love God Saints, Martyrs and Mentors from Christian History Women of Faith is an essential resource for parents, grandparents and godparents wanting to give children a taste of the historical, living Church. This book is a collection of stories of the women saints and martyrs of the early Christian Church. Featuring saints venerated in both Orthodox and Catholic traditions, this book will introduce children to amazing role models of the faith. Showcasing women who were light in a dark time, these stories are filled with courage, beauty and ultimately, a faith in God that transformed the world. Each saint is featured with a stunning watercolor portrait, a short story from her life and a prayer suitable for young children. Example: O Saint Dymphna, you healed many bodies and minds. Comfort me when I am worried. Calm my mind when I am afraid. Pray to God for me that I will think clearly and that I will have your love for people whose minds are ill.

FROM SACRED WATERS & PAGAN GOD

FROM SACRED WATERS & PAGAN GOD
Author: Robin Melrose
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2016-10-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781326803667

In the Middle Ages Britain was a land teeming with saints and monasteries, which disappeared virtually overnight in the late 1530s when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries and destroyed all the shrines to the saints and the Virgin Mary. In this book, I want to bring back to life all these forgotten saints, many of them dating to the Anglo-Saxon period in England, or to the long vanished Celtic kingdoms of Wales and Scotland. Before Christianity came to Britain in the 4th century, Britons often made offerings to goddesses in watery places like rivers, lakes or marshes, and many shrines of saints or the Virgin were associated with holy wells. Many people, including kings and queens, made pilgrimages to saints' shrines and drank water from the holy well, sometimes hoping for cures from crippling afflictions. And even when the shrines were destroyed, many holy wells survived, to welcome today's pilgrims.

Shikwa-e-Hind

Shikwa-e-Hind
Author: Mujibur Rehman
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 394
Release: 2024-05-21
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 8194646499

Roughly 200 million today, Indian Muslims are greater than the population of Britain and France or Germany put together. According to the Indian Constitution, Indian Muslims are treated as political equals, which is what India’s secular polity promised after its independence, encouraging more than 35 million Indian Muslims at the time of Partition to choose India as their motherland over Pakistan. However, the supposed relationship of equality between Hindus and Muslims as scripted in the constitution is being increasingly replaced by the domineering tendencies of a Hindu majority in India today. The author describes the current state and position of Indian Muslims (the seeds for which were sown when the BJP came to power in 2014) as the thirdpolitical moment; the second he believes was in 1947 when the community was given equal status in the Indian Constitution; and the first, was in 1857 when Indian Muslims learnt to live under the British colonial state. As he states, there is no denying that political circumstances for Indian Muslims were not completely ideal or full of democratic energy prior to the rise of the Hindu Right since the late 1980s. With numerous layers defined by language, ethnicity, region, etc., Muslims have the most heterogeneous identity, representing India’s quintessential diversity. And yet, Muslims are perceived as the most enduring well-grounded threat to the majoritarian project of the Hindu Rashtra. Indian Muslims are perceived or presented as perpetrators of violence and violators of law, even if they are at the receiving end. They are viewed as an internal enemy, who need to be dealt with for political, social, historical, and ideological reasons. Going forward, the community must formulate the language of democratic rights of Indian Muslims as equal citizens and define the ethics of human dignity in their struggle to reassert their place in India’s political power structures at all levels: from panchayat to Parliament. While the economic future or cultural rights of Indian Muslims have been debated since 1947, it is the political future that demands attention because only as an equal and participatory community in the politics of the nation, can economic and cultural futures be addressed. This book explores the political future of Indian Muslims in this context. From Shaheen Bagh to Hindu-Muslim riots, from the unique position of Muslim women in India to the Sachar Report and the Muslim backwardness debate, Mujibur Rehman analyses, confronts and discusses the urgent concerns of Indian Muslims in a manner that is nuanced and globally relevant.

Christians and Missionaries in India

Christians and Missionaries in India
Author: Robert Eric Frykenberg
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Total Pages: 436
Release: 2003
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780802839565

The subtle complexities of Christian missionary activity in India from the 16th through the 20th centuries are discussed in 16 articles by scholars of religion, history, and anthropology in Denmark, Sweden, the UK, France, Australia, India, and the US. An introduction and an overview to the diverse Christian groups in India are provided by Frykenberg (emeritus, history, U. of Wisconsin-Madison). Other topics include the first European missionaries on Sanskrit grammar, the Tranquebar mission, the German missionary education of two 19th- century Indian intellectuals, two articles on the Santals, and several papers that describe missionary interference in traditions of caste.--From publisher's description.