Publisher's Synopsis
Mission At and From the Margins: Patterns, Protagonists and Perspective revisits the 'hi-stories' of Mission from the 'bottom up' paying critical attention to people, perspectives and patterns that have often been elided in the construction of mission history. Focusing on the mission story of Christian churches in the South Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, where Christianity is predominantly Dalit in its composition, this collection of essays, ushers its readers to re-shape their understanding of the landscape of mission history by drawing their attention to the silences and absences within pre-dominant historical accounts. Contributors drawn from various Christian denominations explore not only the complex, contested and complicated interplay between caste, colonialism and Christianity in Andhra Pradesh but also the contemporary challenges for Christian mission at a wider level. Not confining itself to the past history of Christian mission, the book engages critical issues as it analyses the missiological challenges of the present and offers theological imagination for the future of mission, which, while embracing the voices and visions of the margins, resists any and all forms of marginalization. Joseph Prabhakar Dayam and Peniel Jesudason Rufus Rajkumar have complied a comprehensive, compelling, creative, and contextual mission manual on how oppressed communities (Dalits) invent novel patterns, spawn unexpected protagonists, and extract new perspective through the celebration and spread of the Christian Gospel in South India. While familiar with the various bird's eye views of Christian mission in India, these feet-on-the-ground theologians, historians, biblical scholars, and missiologists included in this volume offer a plethora of snail's crawl standpoints on the working of mission by focusing on the vibrant and productive features of the margins. In this edited book, Dayam and Rajkumar have woven an ethnographically rich and missiologically sophisticated south Indian tapestry from the colorful local spinning wheels of rural, outcast, and neglected Christian communities. Sathianathan Clarke, Bishop Sundo Kim Chair for World Christianity, Professor of Theology, Culture and Mission, Wesley Theological Seminary Peniel Jesudason Rufus Rajkumar, is Programme Executive for Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation with the World Council of Churches, Geneva. He was earlier Associate Professor of Christian Social Ethics at the United Theological College, Bangalore. Joseph Prabhakar Dayam is convener of Collective of Dalit Ecumenical Christian Scholars (CODECS) and Associate Professor of Systematic and Philosophical Theology at the Gurukul Lutheran Theological College and Research Institute, Chennail India.
