'Building upon four decades of his own scholarly work in the field of history, Frykenberg presents a notable achievement for clarifying the rich overlap between facts and theory, evidence and belief, history and religion, East and West. He deserves to be commended.'--Lamin Sanneh, Yale Divinity School

This interesting volume challenges the long-held assumption that Christianity in India is nothing but a colonial or Western imposition. Leading experts here chronicle the histories and cultures of India's many Christian communities and show that local Indian leaders were the real agents of religious change in the subcontinent. These chapters range widely over various facets of Indian society and its religious developments. Of crucial importance is the fact that in exploring their subjects the contributors take pains to avoid the Eurocentric nature of most studies of India and represent...

Christianity has long been one of India's religious traditions, but the extent to which the faith has influenced Indian society and culture has never been well documented. This important book is the first to do so. Here a group of historians, missiologists, and religion scholars examines the fascinating but little known history of missionary Christianity in India, showing how it has played a significant role in the development of modern India at every level.

Robert Frykenberg's insightful study explores and enhances historical understandings of Christian communities, cultures, and institutions within the Indian world from their beginnings down to the present. As one out of several manifestations of a newly emerging World Christianity, in which Christians of a Post-Christian West are a minority, it has focused upon those trans-cultural interactions within Hindu and Muslim environments which have made Christians in this part of the world distinctive. It seeks to uncover various complexities in the proliferation of Christianity in its many forms and...