Description
Book SynopsisEvery year, there are several hundred attacks on India''s Christians. These attacks are carried out by violent anti-minority activists, many of them provoked by what they perceive to be Christians'' propensity for aggressive proselytization, and/or by rumored or real conversions to the faith. In this violence, Pentecostal Christians are disproportionately targeted.Bauman finds that the violence against Pentecostals and Pentecostalized Evangelicals in India is not just a matter of current social, cultural, political, and interreligious dynamics internal to India, but is rather related to identifiable historical trends, as well as to historical and contemporary transnational flows of people, power, and ideas.Based on extensive interviews and ethnographic work, and drawing upon the vast scholarly literature on interreligious violence, Hindu nationalism, and Christianity in India, this volume accounts for this disproportionate targeting through a detailed analysis of Indian Christian histo
Trade ReviewWithin India's multi-faith and multi-cultural society, any conversion or change of faith is fraught with danger. This is especially so where any agency claims to represent a permanent and immutable 'majority' of all institutions, as is done by the forces of Hindutva. Chad Bauman is to be commended for having interrogated the intricacies of this extremely difficult subject. He adroitly challenges understandings of anti-Christian violence. * Robert Eric Frykenberg, Professor of History and South Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison *
It presents deep insights into the complicated and controversial subjects of the anti-Christian violence in the contemporary India's political history ... I strongly recommend this scholarly book for the church personnel, social and human rights activists, politicians and public servants to know where the vibrant democratic India is heading in terms of anti-Christian violence. * P. R. John, S.J., Vidyajyoti Journal of Theological Reflection *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements ; Abbreviations ; Map ; Introduction ; 1. Who are India's Pentecostals?: History, Definitions, Deliberations ; 2. Pentecostalism in the Context of Indian History and Politics ; 3. Where the Spirit (of Violence) Leads: The Disproportionate Targeting of Indian Pentecostals ; 4. Force, Fraud, and Inducement?: Recuperative Conversions and the Growth of Indian Christianity ; 5. Missions and the Pentecostalization of Indian Christianity ; Conclusion ; Works Cited
