ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the development of South Asian Christian groups in Britain, Canada and the United States. Christian immigrants from South Asia are more numerous and prominent in the United States than in Britain or Canada. Asian-Indian Christians created congregations, dioceses and national organizations for several denominations as part of the new multicultural pluralism of American Christianity. South Asian Christians bring several societies into a single social field that relates India to the Gulf States, Great Britain, Canada, the United States and other countries as well. Medical education is the most common passport for Indian Christians, especially nurses' training as the primary passport for female immigrants to North America. A number of representational strategies with different rhetorics are evident among immigrant groups, both religious and secular, determining boundaries that form the basis of negotiation both between immigrant groups and with the settled society. Periods of immigration empower religion as providing a transcendent basis for personal and group identity.
