Barua - Debating Conversion in Hinduism and Christianity

Debating Conversion in Hinduism and Christianity

Hindu and Christian debates over the meanings, motivations, and modalities of conversion provide the central connecting theme running through this book. It focuses on the reasons offered by both sides to defend or oppose the possibility of these cross-border movements, and shows how these reasons form part of a wider constellation of ideas, concepts, and practices of the Christian and the Hindu worlds.

The book draws upon several historical case studies of Christian missionaries and of Hindus who encountered these missionaries. By analysing some of the complex negotiations, intersections, and conflicts between Hindus and Christians over the question of conversion, it demonstrates that these encounters revolve around three main contested themes. Firstly, who can properly speak for the convert? Secondly, how is tolerating the religious other connected to an appraisal of the others viewpoints which may be held to be incorrect, inadequate, or incomplete? Finally, what is, in fact, the true Religion? The book demonstrates that it is necessary to wrestle with these questions for an adequate understanding of the Hindu and Christian debates over conversion.

Questioning what conversion precisely is, and why it has been such a volatile issue on Indias politicallegal landscape, the book will be a useful contribution to studies of Hinduism, Christianity, and Asian Religion and Philosophy.

Ankur Barua is Lecturer in Hindu Studies at the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, UK. His articles have been published in journals such as the Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies, Oxford Journal of Hindu Studies, Sophia, International Journal of Hindu Studies, and Journal of Ecumenical Studies.

Routledge Hindu Studies Series

Edited by Gavin Flood, Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

The Routledge Hindu Studies Series, in association with the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, intends the publication of constructive Hindu theological, philosophical and ethical projects aimed at bringing Hindu traditions into dialogue with contemporary trends in scholarship and contemporary society. The series invites original, high-quality, research-level work on religion, culture and society of Hindus living in India and abroad. Proposals for annotated translations of important primary sources and studies in the history of the Hindu religious traditions will also be considered.

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Debating Conversion in Hinduism and Christianity
Ankur Barua

Debating Conversion in Hinduism and Christianity

Ankur Barua

First published 2015
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2015 Ankur Barua

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ISBN: 978-1-138-84701-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-72699-1 (ebk)

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For Julius Lipner

Contents

This book is my extended commentary on the intellectual friendship, against the shadow of empire, between my two parama-gurus, Rabindranath Tagore and Charles Freer Andrews. In working my way through the debates that I outline here, I have often asked myself what Andrews might have said to a Hindu critique of Christian understandings of conversion and how Tagore might have countered a Christian response to this critique. Though Tagore and Andrews do not appear anywhere on the pages of this book, they are in fact absently present in the dialectical weaves of all its arguments.