Christianity in South and Central Asia

This month we have a more affordable paperback edition of a book first published in 2019 by Edinburgh University Press as part of their series Edinburgh Companions to Global Christianity: Christianity in South and Central Asia, eds. Kenneth R. Ross, Daniel Jeyaraj, and Todd M. Johnson (April 2021), 512pp. 

About this collection the publisher tells us this:

Students, pastors, missionaries, and professors looking for key information about Christianity in South and Central Asia need look no further. This comprehensive reference volume covers every country in South and Central Asia, offering reliable demographic and religious information, as well as original interpretative essays by indigenous scholars and practitioners.

Combining empirical data and original analysis in a uniquely detailed way, it maps patterns of growth and decline, assesses major traditions and movements, analyzes key themes, and examines current trends. Readers will find profiles of Christianity through clearly presented statistical and demographic information. Also included are essays examining each of the major Christian traditions (Independents, Orthodox, United Churches, Protestants/Anglicans, Catholics, Evangelicals, Pentecostals/Charismatics) as they are finding expression in South and Central Asia.

Those who are interested in studying key themes of this region--such as faith and culture, worship and spirituality, theology, social and political engagement, mission and evangelism, religious freedom, gender, interfaith relations, monastic movements and spirituality, displaced populations, and ecclesiology--will find highly detailed essays and information. Compiled by Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary's Center for the Study of Global Christianity, this volume is unmatched in scope and detail.

The countries covered in this volume and their authors are as follows: 

Kazakhstan, Alina Ganje
Uzbekistan, Feruza Krason
Turkmenistan, Barakatullo Ashurov
Tajikistan, Barakatullo Ashurov
Kyrgyzstan, David Radford
Iran, Gulnar Francis-Dehqani
Afghanistan, Anthony Roberts
Pakistan, Mehak Arshad and Youshib Matthew John
North India, Leonard Fernando SJ
Western India, Atul Y. Aghamkar
South India, Daniel Jeyaraj
North-East India, Kaholi Zhimomi
Nepal, Bal Krishna Sharma
Bhutan, Tandin Wangyal
Bangladesh, Pradeep Perez SJ
Maldives, Kenneth R. Ross and Todd M. Johnson
Sri Lanka, Prashan de Visser

Major Christian Traditions:

Catholics, Felix Wilfred
Orthodox, Romina Istratii
United and Uniting Churches, Joshva Raja
Protestants and Anglicans, Arun W. Jones
Independents, Roger E. Hedlund
Evangelicals, Rebecca Samuel Shah and Vinay Samuel
Pentecostals/Charismatics, Ivan Satyavrata

Christianity in South and Central Asia

This past July saw the release of a substantial volume dedicated to Orthodox and other Christian traditions in parts of the world still often overlooked: Christianity in South and Central Asia, eds. Kenneth R. Ross, Daniel Jeyaraj, and Todd M. Johnson (Edinburgh University Press, 2019), 560pp.

About this collection the publisher tells us this, and then provides us with the table of contents:

This comprehensive reference volume covers every country in South and Central Asia, offering reliable demographic information and original interpretative essays by indigenous scholars and practitioners. It maps patterns of growth and decline, assesses major traditions and movements, analyses key themes and examines current trends.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
A Demographic Profile of Christianity in South and Central Asia, Gina A. Zurlo
Christianity in South and Central Asia, Daniel Jeyaraj

Countries:
Kazakhstan, Alina Ganje
Uzbekistan, Feruza Krason
Turkmenistan, Barakatullo Ashurov
Tajikistan, Barakatullo Ashurov
Kyrgyzstan, David Radford
Iran, Gulnar Francis-Dehqani
Afghanistan, Anthony Roberts
Pakistan, Mehak Arshad and Youshib Matthew John
North India, Leonard Fernando SJ
Western India, Atul Y. Aghamkar
South India, Daniel Jeyaraj
North-East India, Kaholi Zhimomi
Nepal, Bal Krishna Sharma
Bhutan, Tandin Wangyal
Bangladesh, Pradeep Perez SJ
Maldives, Kenneth R. Ross and Todd M. Johnson
Sri Lanka, Prashan de Visser

Major Christian Traditions:
Catholics, Felix Wilfred
Orthodox, Romina Istratii
United and Uniting Churches, Joshva Raja
Protestants and Anglicans, Arun W. Jones
Independents, Roger E. Hedlund
Evangelicals, Rebecca Samuel Shah and Vinay Samuel
Pentecostals/Charismatics, Ivan Satyavrata

Jesus in Asia

It has long been known, if only to certain scholars, that Christianity (especially Assyrian and Syriac Christianity) spread far into Asia early in the first millennium, and was not a post-Reformation import of either Protestant or Jesuit missionaries. And just as Western cultures sometimes turned Jesus into a blonde, blue-eyed football player, so too were images of Jesus recreated in a variety of different cultural contexts across Asia, as R.S. Sugirtharajah's new book reminds us: Jesus in Asia (Harvard UP, 2018), 320pp.

About this book the publisher tells us the following:

Reconstructions of Jesus occurred in Asia long before the Western search for the historical Jesus began in earnest. This enterprise sprang up in seventh-century China and seventeenth-century India, encouraged by the patronage and openness of the Chinese and Indian imperial courts. While the Western quest was largely a Protestant preoccupation, in Asia the search was marked by its diversity: participants included Hindus, Jains, Muslims, Catholics, and members of the Church of the East.

During the age of European colonialism, Jesus was first seen by many Asians as a tribal god of the farangis, or white Europeans. But as his story circulated, Asians remade Jesus, at times appreciatively and at other times critically. R. S. Sugirtharajah demonstrates how Buddhist and Taoist thought, combined with Christian insights, led to the creation of the Chinese Jesus Sutras of late antiquity, and explains the importance of a biography of Jesus composed in the sixteenth-century court of the Mughal emperor Akbar. He also brings to the fore the reconstructions of Jesus during the Chinese Taiping revolution, the Korean Minjung uprising, and the Indian and Sri Lankan anti-colonial movements.

In Jesus in Asia, Sugirtharajah situates the historical Jesus beyond the narrow confines of the West and offers an eye-opening new chapter in the story of global Christianity.

Indian Christian Traditions

Fortress Press recently sent me their fall catalogue and in it I spy three works focusing on the resplendently diverse Eastern and other Christian traditions in India and more broadly in southern Asia.

First up, published last month, is a new book by Roger Hedlund, Christianity Made in India: From Apostle Thomas to Mother Teresa (Fortress, 2017), 230pp.

The blurb from the publisher tells us the following:

Christianity Made in India: From Apostle Thomas to Mother Teresa discusses the indigenization of Christianity in the Indian context. It is set in the larger context of the exceptional growth of the church in the non-Western world during the twentieth century, which has been characterized by a diversity of localized cultural expressions. It recognizes that the center of Christian influence numerically and theologically is shifting wouthward to Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Increasingly, it is found in nontraditional (non-Catholic, non-Protestant, non-Syrian) churches of indigenous-independent variety, frequently charismatic, not necessarily Pentecostal, but of substantial evangelical and cultural diversity. Predominantly, it is a church of the poor. It affirms the reality that wherever the gospel goes, it takes root in the local culture.

Also published in October is D. Perman Niles' new book, Is God Christian?: Christian Identity in Public Theology: An Asian Contribution (Fortress, 2017), 216pp.

About this book the publisher tells us the following:

Is God Christian? Christian Identity in Public Theology: An Asian Contribution is a sequel to Niles's previous book, The Lotus and the Sun: Asian Theological Engagement with Plurality and Power, and continues the narrative of the social biography of Asian theology. It enters the theological efforts of the author's generation as a collective enterprise to survey methods that in the arena of public theology confront and reject the assertion that God is Christian or there is a Christian god among other gods. The focus is on the issues and questions that affect the people and societies of Asia. The theology envisaged here is not the kind that will confine itself within the Christian community but one that will have an import for the actors in public life. Asian Public Theology will be one that will be inherently interreligious in nature. Accordingly, the theological methods explored in this book are not concerned narrowly with problems in Christian theology, but rather with challenges posed for Christian theology in the wider arena of social and political life in Asia.

The last book draws our attention to a prominent Indian Orthodox hierarch about whom I was already hearing many glowing things when I was involved in the World Council of Churches in the 1990s and he was still alive. I was in Canberra in early 1991 for the seventh general assembly of the WCC, when Paulos Mar Gregorios was one of the WCC's presidents, and I recall his sailing serenely around the assembly with a lovely smile and avuncular air.

He died in 1996, but since then interest in his work and influence has held steady. The author himself of noted works, including Cosmic Man - The Divine Presence: The Theology of St. Gregory of Nyssa, he also edited a collection of important essays that were republished just this year: Neoplatonism and Indian Philosophy.

Now, this month, under the editorship of K.M. George, Paulos Mar Gregorios: A Reader has just been published by Fortress (368pp.).

About this book the publisher tells us:

Paulos Mar Greogorios: A Reader is a compilation of the selected writings of Paulos Mar Gregorios, a metropolitan of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church of India and a former President of the World Council of Churches. The book deals with his thought in the areas of ecumenism, orthodox theology, philosophy, interfaith dialogue, and philosophy of science. The book will be of special value to the students of ecumenism, Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy, Indian philosophy, interdisciplinary studies, and holistic education.

Christianity in Asia and India

Though few recall the history today, it is well known among scholars of Eastern Christianity that the faith once spread as far East as Korea. At one point in the first millennium the Assyrian Church of the East had communities flung across the farthest reaches of Asia before gradually they were all lost. But today we are seeing renewed growth in Christian communities in places such as China, and renewed scholarly interest in Asian Christians. If you are interested in, broadly, Christianity in Asia, and more particularly Christianity in India, this is a good year for you to be alive as three major books are shortly to appear between late June and October. The first of these is The Oxford Handbook of Christianity in Asia (Oxford UP, 2014), 608pp.

Edited by Felix Wilfred, this large collection is described by the publisher thus:

Despite the ongoing global expansion of Christianity, there remains a lack of comprehensive scholarship on its development in Asia. This volume fills the gap by exploring the world of Asian Christianity and its manifold expressions, including worship, theology, spirituality, inter-religious relations, interventions in society, and mission. The contributors, from over twenty countries, deconstruct many of the widespread misconceptions and interpretations of Christianity in Asia. They analyze how the growth of Christian beliefs throughout the continent is linked with the socio-political and cultural processes of colonization, decolonization, modernization, democratization, identity construction of social groups, and various social movements. With a particular focus on inter-religious encounters and emerging theological and spiritual paradigms, the volume provides alternative frames for understanding the phenomenon of conversion and studies how the scriptures of other religious traditions are used in the practice of Christianity within Asia.

The Oxford Handbook of Christianity in Asia draws insightful conclusions on the historical, contemporary, and future trajectory of its subject by combining the contributions of scholars in a wide variety of disciplines, including theology, sociology, history, political science, and cultural studies. It will be an invaluable resource for understanding Christianity in a global context.

We are also given this detailed table of contents:

General introduction
Part I: Mapping of Asian Christianity
1. Christianity in West Asia - H. Teule 2. South Asian Christianity in Context - Felix Wilfred 3. Christian Minorities on the Central Asian Silk Roads - Sebastien Peyrouse 4. On the Trail of Spices: Christianity in Southeast Asia - Georg Evers 5. Identity and Marginality - Christianity in East Asia - Edmond Tang
Part II: Cross Cultural Flows and Pan-Asian Movements of Asian Christianity
6. Asian Theological Trends - Michael Amaladoss 7. Scriptural Translations and Cross-textual Hermeneutics - Archie C. C. Lee 8. The Contributions of the Asian Ecumenical Movements to World Ecumenism - Aruna Gnanadason 9. Inter-Asia Mission and Global Missionary Movements from Asia - Sebastian Kim 10. Pentecostalism and Charismatic Movements in Asia - Allan Anderson 11. Forms of Asian Indigenous Christianities - Paul Joshua 12. Gender, Sexuality, and Christian Feminist Movements - Sharon A. Bong
Part III: Asian Christianities and the Social-Cultural Processes
13. Modernity and Change of Values: Asian Christian Negotiations and Resistance - Angela Wai Ching Wong 14. Caveats to Christianization: Colonialism, Nationalism and Christian - Julius Bautista 15. Socio-Political developments in the Middle-East and Their Impact on Christian - Ahmad Fauzi Abdul Hamid 16. Asian Christianity and Politics of Conversion - Rudi Heradia 17. Political Democratization and Asian Churches: The Case of Taiwan - Po Ho Huang 18. The Role of Christianity in Peace and Conflict in Asia - Liyanage Anthony Jude Lal Fernando 19. Christianity and the cause of Asian Women - Gemma Cruz 20. Education in Asia - Lun-Li
21. Christian Social Engagement in Asia - Felix Wilfred
Part IV: Asian Christianity in its Interaction with Asian Religious Traditions
22. Changing Paradigms of Asian Christian Attitude to Other Religions - Wesley Ariarajah 23. Jewish - Christian relationships in the West Asia - History, Major Issues, Challenges - David M. Neuhaus 24. Muslim Perceptions of Asian Christianity: A survey - Ataullah Siddiqui 25. The Multiverse of Hindu Engagement with Christianity - Ananta K. Giri 26. Christian Tradition in the Eyes of Asian Buddhists: The Case of Japan - Dennis Hirota 27. Encounter between Confucianism and Christianity - Jonatha Tan 28. Asian Christianity and Religious Conversion: Issues and Debates - Richard Fox Young 29. Asian Christian Art and Architecture - Gudrun Löwner
Part V: Some Future Trajectories of Asian Christianity
30. Christians in Asia Read Sacred Books of the East - George Gispert-Sauch 31. Multiple Religious Belonging or Complex Identity - An Asian Way - Bagus Laksana 32. Asian Christian Spirituality - Peter Phan C. 33. Asian Christian Forms of Worship and Music - Swee Hong 34. Revisiting Historiographies: New Directions - Daniel Pilario 35. Asian Christianity and Public Life -The Interplay - Felix Wilfred 36. Migration and New Cosmopolitanism in Asian Christianity - Mario Francisco 37. Western Christianity in the Light of Christianity in Asia: A Western Christian's Reflection - Francis Clooney
Statistics Tables
Bibliography
Index

Coming out in July is Chad Bauman and Richard Fox Young, eds., Constructing Indian Christianities: Conversion, Culture, and Caste (Routledge, 2014), 288pp.

About this book we are told:

This volume offers insights into the current ‘public-square’ debates on Indian Christianity. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork as well as rigorous analyses, it discusses the myriad histories of Christianity in India, its everyday practice and contestations and the process of its indigenisation. It addresses complex and pertinent themes such as Dalit Indian Christianity, diasporic nationalism and conversion. The work will interest scholars and researchers of religious studies, Dalit and subaltern studies, modern Indian history, and politics.

Finally, in October, a longitudinal ethnographic study, following up on research from the middle part of the last century, will be published by Eerdmans: John Braisted Carmen and Chilkuri Vasantha Rao, Christians in South Indian Villages, 1959-2009: Decline and Revival in Telangana (2014), 256pp.

About this book we are told:

This book revisits South Indian Christian communities that were studied in 1959 and written about in Village Christians and Hindu Culture (1968). In 1959 the future of these village congregations was uncertain. Would they grow through conversions or slowly dissolve into the larger Hindu society around them?

John Carman and Chilkuri Vasantha Rao’s carefully gathered research fifty years later reveals both the decline of many older congregations and the surprising emergence of new Pentecostal and Baptist churches that emphasize the healing power of Christ. Significantly, the new congregations largely cut across caste lines, including both high castes and outcastes (Dalits).

Carman and Vasantha Rao pay particular attention to the social, political, and religious environment of these Indian village Christians, including their adaptation of indigenous Hindu practices into their Christian faith and observances.

Christianity in Asia

I read a slightly cynical academic not long ago who said that one way to ensure you never ran out of things to talk about or publish on was immediately to "pluralize" everything. We have a new book from Wiley Blackwell and their series "Guides to Global Christianity" that has adopted this increasingly common trend of pluralizing phenomena today: Peter C. Phan, ed., Christianities in Asia (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 288pp.

The publisher provides us with this description of the books contents, saying it:

• Offers detailed coverage of the growth of Christianity within South Asia; among the thousands of islands comprising Southeast Asia; and across countries whose Christian origins were historically linked, including Vietnam, Thailand, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, and Korea
• Brings together a truly international team of contributors, many of whom are natives of the countries they are writing about
• Considers the Middle Eastern countries whose Christian roots are deepest, yet have turbulent histories and uncertain futures
• Explores the ways in which Christians in Asian countries have received and transformed Christianity into their local or indigenous religion
• Shows Christianity to be a vibrant contemporary movement in many Asian countries, despite its comparatively minority status in these regions

There are of course Eastern Christians scattered throughout all of the countries reviewed by this volume, but it seems that the twelfth and final chapter, by the Coptic nun and scholar Lois Farag, "The Middle East," is where we find the most explicit and direct examination of Arab Christians as well as the Syriac, Assyrian, Maronite, and Armenian Churches.

I look forward to seeing this reviewed in Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies.

Down the Silk Road

Few today remember how far into Asia Eastern Christianity first penetrated. Several recent books should help us recall that, including:

Dietmar Winkler and Li Tang, eds., Hidden Treasures and Intercultural Encounters: Studies on East Syriac Christianity in China and Central Asia (Lit Verlag, 2009), 400pp.

The above is an edited collection  featuring articles by scholars from around the world, looking at inscriptions, manuscripts, texts, and liturgy of Syriac Christianity as far into Asia as not only China but also Korea, with stops along the way in other places like Iran.

Another recent publication also travels down this Silk Road but takes a more expansive look:

Richard Folz, Religions of the Silk Road: Premodern Patterns of Globalization (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 208pp. 

Folz looks at the variety of religious expressions found down the Silk Road, including such Eastern Christians as those once called "Nestorian."