Constructing Indian Christianities

Chad M. Bauman is Associate Professor of Religion, Department of Philosophy and Religion, Butler University, Indianapolis. Richard Fox Young is Timby Associate Professor, History of Religions, Princeton Theological Seminary, New Jersey.

• Preface and Acknowledgements. Introduction Chad M. Bauman and Richard Fox Young. Part 1. Who and What is an Indian Christian? 1. Godparents and the Mother’s Brother: ‘Spiritual’ Parenthood among the Latin Catholics of Kerala, South India Miriam Benteler 2. Between Christian and Hindu: Khrist Bhaktas, Catholics and the Negotiation of Devotion in the Banaras Region Kerry P. C. San Chirico 3. Interlocking Caste with Congregation: A Political Necessity for Dalit Christians in Andhra, South India? Ashok Kumar M. Part 2. Whose Religion is Indian Christianity? 4. Late 16th- and Early 17th-Century Contestations of Catholic Christianity at the Mughal Court Gulfishan Khan 5. Authority, Patronage and Customary Practices: Protestant Devotion and the Development of the Tamil Hymn in Colonial South India Hephzibah Israel 6. From Christian Ashrams to Dalit Theology — or Beyond? An Examination of the Indigenisation/Inculturation Trend within the Indian Catholic Church Xavier Gravend-Tirole 7. Taking the Cross and Walking from Subalternity to Modernity James Ponniah Part 3. Can Christianity be Indian? 8. Times of Trouble for Christians in Hindu and Muslim Societies of South Asia Georg Pfeffer 9. The Interreligious Riot as a Cultural System: Globalisation, Geertz and Hindu–Christian Conflict Chad M. Bauman 10. Studied Silences? Diasporic Nationalism, ‘Kshatriya Intellectuals’ and the Hindu American Critique of Dalit Christianity’s Indianness Richard Fox Young and Sundar John Boopalan. Afterword I Anne E. Monius. Afterword II Rowena Robinson.

‘[R]eveals tantalizing possibilities for the study of South Asian Christianities to contribute to, even rethink or reshape, any number of contemporary conversations in the study of religion and the humanities more broadly.’ — Anne E. Monius, Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University‘[E]vidences that the question regarding how any religion — particularly Christianity — can, in Peter Beyer’s words, ‘be thought of or lived as a singular identity’ across the globe is being taken very seriously.’ — Rowena Robinson, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay