ABSTRACT
This book highlights the transformative potential of democratic Church and Christian community in India. In the light of both ongoing and, also to some extent, foregone sociopolitical and theological challenges confronting Indian Christianity, this book invokes the need to democratize Indian Christianity in terms of its theology, liturgy, teachings, practices, resources, leadership roles, and institutional power relations/sharing by keeping contemporary “social realities” of Indian Christians at the core of its approach and discourse. It explores internal challenges – of caste, class, gender, and regional contestations – and external forces of communalism and majoritarianism confronting Indian Christianity today. Further, it underlines the importance of dignity, equality, fraternity, freedom, and responsibility emerging at an organizational level through strong mechanisms of deliberation, decision-making, and execution. A major contribution to religious studies in India, this book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of religion, especially Christian theology, South Asian studies, politics, and sociology.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter |28 pages
Introduction
part Section I|46 pages
Indian Christianity, Democratization, and Modernity – Past to Future
part Section II|51 pages
Gender and Democratization – Forms of Resistance against Hegemony
chapter 4|14 pages
The Feminization of Telugu Christianity
part Section III|59 pages
Democratization and the Marginalized – Politics of Accessibility and Hegemony
chapter 7|24 pages
The Christian Churches, Democratic Developments, and People at the Margins
chapter 8|15 pages
Divided Church as a Democratizing Space
chapter 9|18 pages
Divided Churchyards as Contested Democratic Space in Tamil Christianity
part Section IV|54 pages
Everyday Life, Democratization, and Indian Christianity – Unfolding Prospects and Challenges