Indian and Christian: Changing Identities in Modern India is a collection of essays from the 1st SAIACS Consultation that took place during November 2010 at SAIACS, Bangalore. ‘Who am I?’ is a question that every human needs to ask themselves. In this book, this question is looked at from a dual perspective—Indian and Christian. Can one be both ‘Indian’ and ‘Christian’ in the modern world? Should one have a single identity or can one have multiple identities? The book attempts to address these issues with clarity and conviction through sixteen articles covering areas of Biblical Studies, Theology & Philosophy, Religion & Culture, and Pastoral Theology & Psychology.

Colonial missionaries, both Catholic and Protestant, arrived in India with the grandiose vision of converting the pagans because, like St. Peter (Acts 4:12) and most of the church fathers, they honestly believed that there is no salvation outside the church (extra ecclesiam nulla salus). At the end of the "great Protestant century," however, Christians made up less than 3 percent of the population in India, and the hope of the missionary was nearly shattered. But if one looks at mission in India qualitatively rather than quantitatively, one sees a number of positive outcomes. Missionaries in India, particularly Protestant missionaries espousing the social gospel, in collaboration with a few British evangelical administrators, dared to challenge numerous social evils and even began to eradicate them. The scientific and liberal English education began to enlighten and transform the Indian mindset. Converts belonging to the upper caste, although small in number, laid the foundation stone of Indian theology and an inculturated church using Indian genius. The end of colonialism in India coincided with the painful death of colonial mission theology. Now, the power of the Word of God, extricated from political power, is slowly and peacefully gaining ground, like the mustard seed of the parable. A paradigm shift from the ecclesio-centric mission to missio Dei offers reason for further optimism. In short, the future of mission in India is as bright as the kingdom of God. In today's new context, theologians, despite objections from some quarters, are struggling to discover the Asian face of Jesus, disfigured by the Greco-Roman Church. And the missionary is challenged to become a living Bible that, undoubtedly, everyone will read.

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.

This volume of essays and papers by well-known encyclopaedist, historian, museologist, and anthropologist Prof. George Menachery, investigates various aspects of the heritage of Indian Christians in the light of the latest discoveries and findings in archaeology, epigraphy, demography, and geology. Controversies concerning the sojourn of Apostle Thomas in the north, south-east, and south-west India are discussed giving due weight to the documents that have surfaced representing almost every century, every language, and every church - both occidental and oriental. The spread of the Catholic Church in India, as represented by the major missionary thrust of Francis Xavier and the Jesuits, is subjected to scrutiny. The Protestant pioneers and the evangelical achievements from Tranquebar to the Sepoy Mutiny are dealt with in detail. A distinctive feature of the book is the original facts brought out on Christian art, architecture, customs, and manners both of the Thomas Christians and the Christians of other denominations and areas. The author’s intimate association with Christianity in Kerala, the Konkan, the Deccan, Bengal, and the Tribal belts is reflected in these writings. A trailblazing scholar and reformer, the author’s latest is a stirring nostalgic voyage of discovery. With its engaging style, it assures a riveting read.

„Christian Missions and Indian Assimilation“ was originally written as a Master thesis paper in Geography and was completed in 2001 at the Karl-Franzens-University in Graz, Austria. It is one of the most accurate and comprehensive books there are on Lakota history & culture as well as intercultural contact and its implications. Driven by the idea of culture clash and its consequences Andrea Schmidt was curious to find out how two seemingly so very different or even contradictory cultural and religious systems, the Oglala Lakota cultural system and the (European) system of Christian belief and mission, can exist, side by side, within the Lakota individuals, tribes and within the reservation. The contents of this book are based upon comprehensive field study and data collection at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation for several months starting in 1999, accompanied by literary and historical research at the archives of Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and several other academic institutions including the Oglala Lakota College in Kyle, South Dakota. Things changed dramatically after 2001, when the paper first came out as a thesis paper; a lot of clergy left the reservation, missionaries seemed to be less active and less interested in Lakota culture than their predecessors. No such paper could have been written at any other point of time.