DNA: India - Kandhamal riots: Nun identifies one person during identification parade

DNA: India - Kandhamal riots: Nun identifies one person during identification parade

Kerala Pentecostalism — European Research Network on Global Pentecostalism

Kerala Pentecostalism — European Research Network on Global Pentecostalism

mission in the indian context - Google Search

mission in the indian context - Google Search

Gospel and Cultures: An Indian Perspective

Gospel and Cultures: An Indian Perspective: "The primary concern of this paper is to focus on a paradigm shift in the theology of Christian mission in India today. During the last decade or so, there has been a decisive shift in the theological thinking on the implications of Christian witness in the country, to one that is basically from the perspective of the marginalised people. One of the key aspects of the shift is the awakening of the people to the recognition that theologizing in the past was not sufficiently sensitive to their perspectives. A certain continuity with the past, especially with the mission and theology of the Indian Church, the missionary movement and the ecumenical discussions on missiology and ecclesiology, is implicit in this shift, and therefore it is not an outright rejection of the earlier patterns. But there is also a radical discontinuity with the past, a critical corrective rooted mainly in a re-reading of history and theology, especially in the light of the liberal democratic and socialist values of justice, equality and participation. My thesis here is that relevant patterns of Christian witness can be sought only in the context of an organic dialogue between traditional theologies and the subaltern perspectives, especially on the questions of mission and koinonia in pluralistic societies like India." Athyal

Athyal:Today, however, the missionary work follows an efficiency mode, where we have strategies and targets. The impression that mission is the programme of a specific department of the church assigned that task, is an understanding that followed this understanding of mission Secularism in India is defined as freedom from discrimination on the basis of religion and also, the promotion of renascent and reform movements in religions, especially those aimed at the liberation of the downtrodden sections of the society. The Neo-Hindu movement of the 19th and 20th centuries was in essence the struggle of Hinduism to build up a religious humanism in active dialogue with the secular and socialist movements in the country.



Several theologians and social scientists feel that one of reasons for the resurgence of communalism and religious fundamentalism is that this dialogue, vibrant during the last century, has become dormant in recent years. Over the years, the renascent elements in religion were overtaken by more aggressive and shrill voices from within. Equally important, the secularist movement, caught up in the web of rigid academic confines and political compulsions, turned dogmatic. The dialogue of the religious and secular, crucial for building up a secular ethos became dormant.In the words of M. M. Thomas, ‘It is my conviction that it is the strengthening of the closed secularism with this total privatisation of religion and the development of what may be called Dogmatic secularism which rejects any relevance of religious values in the public realm, along with the slackening and marginalizing of religious and social reform movements that have created the spiritual vacuum which is now sought to be filled by religious fundamentalism and communalism’ (Religion, State & Communalism: A Post-Ayodhya Reflection, CCA, 1995, p. 14). The hope for a secular India lays not so much in the separation of religion and society but in the positive and healthy interaction of the renascent and liberative elements in both. In Thomas’ own words: ‘If religion is part of the problem in India, religion must also be part of the solution’.