World Christian Historiography, Theological ‘Enthusiasms’, and the Writing of R. E. Frykenberg’s Christianity in India
Since the nineteenth century, India’s Christian history has been the subject of several ambitious master narratives, with coverage from deep antiquity into each author’s respective ‘present’. The most recent attempt, published in 2008 by Oxford University Press, is Christianity in India, by historia...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2011
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| In: |
Religion compass
Year: 2011, Volume: 5, Issue: 2, Pages: 71-79 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Since the nineteenth century, India’s Christian history has been the subject of several ambitious master narratives, with coverage from deep antiquity into each author’s respective ‘present’. The most recent attempt, published in 2008 by Oxford University Press, is Christianity in India, by historian R. E. Frykenberg. Against all naysayers, Frykenberg puts forward a case that Christianity is Indian and must be studied as an Indian religion. Like his predecessors, Frykenberg identifies himself as a Christian, affirms that Christianity is good for India, and invokes concepts and language of a distinctively theological kind, sometimes enthusiastically. As a work that brings theology into conversation with historiography, Christianity in India has already been characterized as a work of sectarian scholarship. Disagreeing, I tease out several of the thornier issues. One is the way that Frykenberg conceptualizes ‘indigenous’ as opposed to ‘exogenous’ agency. Despite influence on him from theologically grounded historiographies popularized by the newish field of World Christianity, Frykenberg’s findings are unimpeachably empirical. Another is the way that ‘primal’ religions are conceptualized; in the book, these loom large, as whole tribal (adivasi) populations in India’s Northeast Highlands have become Christian. Here, too, Frykenberg draws inspiration from World Christianity and its leading theorists Lamin Sanneh and Andrew Walls, whose claims about a special ‘affinity’ between primal religions and Christianity have been criticized as ‘crypto-theology’. Thanks to Frykenberg, a constructive debate might ensue, were the issues properly recognized. These I attempt to clarify. |
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| ISSN: | 1749-8171 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Religion compass
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2010.00262.x |