Popular Christianity in India: Riting between the LinesSelva J. Raj, Corinne G. Dempsey Popular Christianity in India explores Indian Christianity as crafted and expressed through lived experience, providing an important balance to currently available, typically theological, studies. Drawing from many disciplines, this volume unearths the multifaceted terrain of festivals, rituals, saints, miracle workers, missionaries, and visionaries in Christian India, providing a wonderful glimpse of its richness and complexities. The contributors reveal the ways in which local Christian traditions deftly challenge assumed divisions and power imbalances between East and West, Hindu and Christian, foreign and indigenous, and elite and local expressions. Whether forging complicated religious, caste, and national identities, employing religious hybridity to promote well-being, or asserting autonomy within oppressive social and religious structures, local Christianity provides a crucial means for its participants to manage their earthly needs and desires. |
Contents
Introduction Between Behind and Beyond the Lines | 1 |
Chariots of the Gods Riding the Line Between Hindu and Christian | 11 |
The Ganges The Jordan and the Mountain The Three Strands of Santal Popular Catholicism | 39 |
Past Selves and Present Others The Ritual Construction of Identity at a Catholic Festival in India | 61 |
Transgressing Boundaries Transcending Turner The Pilgrimage Tradition at the Shrine of St John de Britto | 85 |
Lessons in Miracles from Kerala South India Stories of Three Christian Saints | 115 |
Finding a Path in Others Worlds The Challenge of Exorcism | 141 |
Charismatic Transgressions The Life and Work of an Indian Catholic Healer | 163 |
Redemptive Hegemony and the Ritualization of Reading | 191 |
Missionary Strategy and the Development of the Christian Community Delhi 18591884 | 211 |
Dalit Theology in Tamil Christian Folk Music A Transformative Liturgy By James Theophilus Appavoo | 233 |
Afterword Diverse Hindu Responses to Diverse Christianities in India | 255 |
Contributors | 269 |
273 | |
Other editions - View all
Popular Christianity in India: Riting between the Lines Selva J. Raj,Corinne G. Dempsey Limited preview - 2012 |
Popular Christianity in India: Riting between the Lines Selva J. Raj,Corinne G. Dempsey No preview available - 2002 |
Common terms and phrases
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