Preaching is the commission given by the great preacher Jesus Christ. It is urgent because it communicates the essential gospel meant for the salvation of the perishing humanity. God is universal and people are local. The universal God became local in Jesus Christ through his incarnation. The saving gospel of Jesus Christ is necessary to communicate contextually. The majority of Indian Christians come from Dalit background. The ongoing development of Dalit Theology is helping to make the gospel relevant and effective. But the homiletic methodology being adapted in the Indian context is mostly from the West. In this scenario, Preaching Contextually searches for relevant methodology for Indian Dalits. For this purpose, contents of some sample sermons were analyzed homiletically to assess its relevance and to present a feasible method as a Dalit Homiletic. Prof Dr Júlio Cézar Adam (Brazil) This is a book which contributes enormously to homiletic research and science, not only in the Indian context, but also for other contexts, mainly those permeated by social ills and injustices. It is a necessary book for those who study and do homiletics mainly in the context of vulnerability.

Jobymon Skaria, an Indian St Thomas Christian Scholar, offers a critique of Indian Christian theology and suggests that constructive dialogues between Biblical and dissenting Dalit voices – such as Chokhamela, Karmamela, Ravidas, Kabir, Nandanar and Narayana Guru – could set right the imbalance within Dalit theology, and could establish dialogical partnerships between Dalit Theologians, non-Dalit Christians and Syrian Christians. Drawing on Biblical and socio-historical resources, this book examines a radical, yet overlooked aspect of Dalit cultural and religious history which would empower the Dalits in their everyday existences.

Contributed articles.

Paradoxes have become characteristic of the world we live in - poverty and privilege, empire and oppression, migration and enclaveseeking, war and peace, justice and injustice, reconciliation and revenge. During the 2016 Societas Homiletica annual conference held in South Africa, these paradoxes served as a rediscovery of the calling of preachers to deliver the promise that lies within life's contradictions. A divine promise brought forth by the grace of God and the gospel of Christ - embodied in and through us by the Spirit of Christ. This promise may take many forms and calls for discernment and often interrupts the status quos in surprising, shocking ways. It is a promise that interrupts, in order to comfort.

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.

The volume situates itself within the growing field of research on the global social history of the World Wars. By investigating social and cultural aspects of these wars in African, South Asian and Middle Eastern societies it aims at recovering both the diversity of perspectives and their intersections. Drawing substantially on new sources such as oral accounts, propaganda material and artistic representations, the publication investigates the experiences of combatants and civilians on the frontline and in the rear of the front. It studies spontaneous and organized responses manifested in public debates, propaganda activities, and in individual and collective memories. Questioning conventional periodizations and discussing both wars together, the book analyses broader implications of the wars for African and Asian societies which resulted in significant social and political transformations.

This is an attempt to highlight the missionaries' activities in India and show how they have helped common Indians when they needed them most. All the articles are the result of painstaking researches of the contributors who depended both on primary and scriptural references and this has made the volume a unique one.