Christianities in Asia E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 526

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Christianity in Asia explores the history, development, and current state of Christianity across the world’s largest and most populous continent.

• 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

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

List of Maps

Notes on Contributors

Preface

Chapter 1: Introduction: Asian Christianity/Christianities

Which Asia?

Which Christianity?

Introducing Asian Christianities

Chapter 2: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma/Myanmar

Local Basics

The Early Christian Presence in Mainland South Asia

The First Attack on Contextualized South Asian Christianity

A Second Attack on Contextualized South Asian Christianity

Contextualization in Early Roman Catholicism Elsewhere in South Asia

Protestant Contextualization – the Pietists

The Baptists

Laity and the Expansion of Christianity

Contemporary Contextualisation in South Asia: Church, State, and People

Violent Attacks Against Christian Churches

Theological, Ecclesial, and Liturgical Contextualization

The Performance of Christianity in South Asia

Toward a Conclusion

Further Reading

Chapter 3: Sri Lanka

The Land, its Make UP and the People

The Portuguese Period

The Dutch Period

The British Period

Independent Sri Lanka

At the Turn of the Century

The Present Scenario

Process of Inculturation and Contextualized Theology

Whither Sri Lanka?

Chapter 4: Indonesia

Language

Cultural Diversity

Christian Diversity

Outward Form, Inner Spirit

Christians and Muslims

Papua: Dignity and Identity

Ambon: Conflict and Reconciliation

Sulawesi: Vibrant and Vocal

East Nusa Tenggara: Christian Heartlands

Bali: A Minority within a Minority

Java: Indigenous Roots

Java: Education

Java: Art and Music

Java: Movers and Shakers

Jakarta: Pietism and Social Engagement

Sumatra: Local Roots, National Leadership

Future Prospects

Further Reading

Chapter 5: Malaysia and Singapore

The Countries and Their People

Political, Cultural, and Religious History

British Imperialism and Racial and Ethnic Politics

Christianity: Its Beginnings and Development

Christianity: A Foreign Religion

The Challenge of an Indigenous Church

The Challenge of Islamization

The Challenge of Ecumenism

The Challenge of Church-State Relations

The New and Growing Churches

Further Reading

Chapter 6: The Philippines

Transplanting Spanish Catholicism

Appropriating Christianity, Resisting Colonial Rule

(Re)Building Mission

Meeting National Challenges, Engaging the World

“In But Not Of This World”

Further Reading

Chapter 7: Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand

The Socialist Republic of Vietnam

Cambodia, Laos, Thailand

A Look Into the Future

Further Reading

Chapter 8: Mainland China

A New China

World Christianity and Chinese Christianity

Christianity with Chinese Characteristics

Christianity and Chinese Society

Christianity's Prospects in China

Further Reading

Chapter 9: Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau

Taiwan

Hong Kong

Macau

Further Reading

Chapter 10: Japan

Introduction

The Cultural Diversity of Christianity in Japan

Roman Catholic Mission in Pre-Modern Japan

Persecution and Martyrdom

Hidden Christians

The Second Phase of Christian Mission: Increasing Diversity

State Shinto and the Christian Churches

The Place of Nagasaki in Japanese Catholicism

Postwar Developments

The Wider Impact of Christianity: Education and Social Welfare

Christianity as a Japanese Religion: Diverse Appropriations

From “Paternal” to “Maternal” Religion

Uchimura Kanz and the Non-church Movement

Inculturation and the Ancestors in Japanese Christianity

“Christian” Weddings and the Rites of Passage

Inter-Faith Dialogue

Future Prospects

Further Reading

Chapter 11: South Korea

Introduction

The Beginning of Christianity in Korea

Indigenous Christian Leaders, Past and Present

Christianity as an Agency of Modernization

The Rise of Christianity Amidst Rapid Industrialization and Urbanization

This-Worldly Orientation of Korean Protestantism

Individual Religiosity of Christians

The Future of Christianity in Korea

Further Reading

Chapter 12: The Middle East

The Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch

The Church of the East

Missionary Activity of the Syriac Church

Churches in Arabia

The Maronite Church

The Armenians in the Middle East

The Last Century

Further Reading

Conclusion: Whither Asian Christianities?

A Prospective Glance

Future Directions: A Triple Dialogue

Asian and Pentecostal

Index

The Blackwell Guides to Global Christianity chart the history, development and current state of Christianity in key geographical areas around the world. In many cases, these are areas where Christianity has had a controversial past and where the future of Christianity may yet be decided. Each book in the series will look at both the history of Christianity in an important region and consider the issues and themes which are prevalent in the lives of contemporary Christians and the Church. Accessibly written by area experts, the books will appeal to students and scholars ofWorld Christianity and others who are interested in the history, culture and religion of around the world.

Published

Christianities in Asia Peter Phan

Forthcoming

Christianity in China Daniel Bays

Christianity in Africa Robert Kaggwa

This edition first published 2011

© 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd except for editorial material and organization

© 2011 Peter C. Phan

Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell's publishing program has been merged with Wiley's global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business to form Wiley-Blackwell.

Registered Office

John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, United Kingdom

Editorial Offices

350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA

9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK

The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK

For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services, and for information abouthowto apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com/wiley-blackwell.

The right of Peter C. Phan to be identified as the author of the editorial material in this work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. Nopart of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.

Designationsusedbycompaniesto distinguish their products are often claimedas trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Phan, Peter C., 1943–

Christianities in Asia / Peter C. Phan.

p. cm. – (Blackwell guides to global Christianity)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN978-1-4051-6089-6 (hardcover : alk. paper) – ISBN978-1-4051-6090-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Christianity–Asia. I. Title.

BR1065.P43 2011

275–dc22

2010026659

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

List of Maps

Map 1India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma/Myanmar8Map 2Sri Lanka44Map 3Indonesia60Map 4Malaysia and Singapore76Map 5The Philippines96Map 6Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand128Map 7Mainland China148Map 8Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau172Map 9Japan196Map 10South Korea216Map 11The Middle East232

The editor and contributors are grateful to Pietro Lorenzo Maggioni for the initial creation of the maps.

Notes on Contributors

Edmund Kee-Fook Chia is a Malaysian and is Associate Professor at the Catholic Theological Union, Chicago, IL, USA. He has written extensively on the work of the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences and the Christian mission in Asia.

Lois Farag is Associate Professor of Early Church History at Luther Seminary, Saint Paul, MN, USA. She has served as Chair of the Society of Biblical Literature Consultation “Christianity in Egypt: Scripture, Tradition and Reception” and is on the editorial board for the Coptic Encyclopedia. Her scholarship focuses on the Early Church in Egypt.

Jose Mario C. Francisco, S.J. is President, Loyola School of Theology, Ateneo de Manila University, Loyola Heights, Quezon City, Philippines. His work focuses on the interface between religion, culture, and science, especially in the East Asian contexts. He has published critical editions of seventeenth-century manuscripts, a Tagalog-Spanish dictionary, and an anthology of Tagalog sermons.

Andrew Eungi Kim is Professor in the Division of International Studies at Korea University. His primary research interests are religion, culture, multiculturalism, and social change. His articles have appeared in various journals. He is the author of two books in preparation about Korea.

Elizabeth Koepping is Senior Lecturer in World Christianity at the University of Edinburgh. She has researched local traditions in eastern Sabah as well as Anglicanism and Lutheranism of German origin in South Australia. A priest in the Scottish Episcopal Church, she also teaches in Korea and Myanmar, and has recently completed a four-volume set of readers on World Christianity.

Lo Lung-kwong is Director of The Divinity School of Chung Chi College, The Chinese University of Hong Kong and President of The Methodist Church, Hong Kong and Macau. Recent publications include chapters on ecclesiology from the perspective of scripture in Wesleyan and Asian contexts and the historical Jesus in Hong Kong, China.

Mark R. Mullins is Professor of Religion in the Faculty of Comparative Culture, Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan. He is author and co-editor of a number of works. His research focuses on the sociology of religious minorities, particularly new religious movements and Christianity in East Asia.

John Mansford Prior teaches and researches on issues of faith and culture. He is Lecturer in Theology at Ledalero Institute of Philosophy, Maumere, Indonesia and Associate Lecturer at Yarra Theological Union, Australia. He was Consultant to the Pontifical Council for Culture 1993–2008.

Peter C. Phan is the inaugural holder of the Ignacio Ellacuría Chair of Catholic Social Thought at Georgetown University, Washington, DC (USA). He holds three earned doctorates and two honorary doctorates. He authored a dozen books, edited over 30 books, and published over 300 essays in various fields of theology and religion. Among his books are: Christianity with an Asian Face; In Our Own Tongues; Being Religious Interreligiously; and Mission and Catechesis: Alexandre de Rhodes and Inculturation in Seventeenth-Century Vietnam.

Jeyaraj Rasiah is a Jesuit from Sri Lanka. He has been Director of the East Asian Pastoral Institute in Manila in the Philippines and has lectured Pastoral Theology at the Institute and Philosophy at the Ateneo de Manila University. Presently he is the Provincial Superior of the Jesuits in Sri Lanka.

Ying Fuk-tsang is on the faculty of The Divinity School of Chung Chi College, His research focuses on church-state relations in China, the history of Protestant Christianity in China and Hong Kong, and contemporary Chinese Protestantism.

Preface

In 2006 Andrew Humphries, then Commissioning Editor at Blackwell Publishing, asked me if I would be interested in writing a book on Asian Christianity for a popular readership. We discussed its nature and scope and agreed that it should not simply be a historical account of Christian, mostly Western, missions in Asia, though of course such history is a necessary context to understand Asian Christianity. Rather what we envisioned is a book that presents Asian Christianity as “World Christianity,” that is, Christianity that has been received and transformed into local or contextualized Christianities, with their own ecclesiastical structures, liturgy and prayers, spirituality, theology, art and architecture, music and songs and dances, etc. The intent is to present Christianity as a vibrant contemporary religious movement.

Unfortunately that is easier said than done. Whereas it is feasible for a single author to produce a scholarly volume on European or Latin American or even African Christianity, it is impossible, I pointed out to Andrew, for a single scholar to write a reasonably satisfactory introduction to Asian Christianity. The Asian histories, cultures, religious traditions, and languages in which Christianity has taken root, probably since the first century of the Christian era, are so diverse and complex, and the geographical area to be covered so immense, that no single scholar, however gifted and well trained, would be able to produce anything more than an amateurish history of Asian Christianity. The only viable solution would be a collaborative work.

Another question is to determine what is meant by “Asia.” We decided to adopt the conventional geographical divisions of the continent. The umbrella term “Asia” includes the countries of South Asia (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka); South-East Asia (Burma/Myanmar, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Laos, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam); North-East Asia (China [including Hong Kong and Macau], Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Siberia, Taiwan, and Tibet); and South-West Asia (the Near and Middle East). Central Asia will not be considered, given the relatively small number of Christians there. This geographical division also determines the structure of the book. The regional division allows the possibility of highlighting common and overlapping histories and cultures among the countries within each region wherever these exist, whereas the country-by-country approach has the advantage of singling out the unique features of Christianity in a particular country.

My first task as editor was to request contributions from the most qualified scholars, as much as possible in Asia itself, taking into account ethnic and gender diversity. Not all my efforts were successful, especially with regard to gender, but those contacted unfailingly responded with admirable grace and generosity. Communication was not always quick and easy, even in this age of email, since in some countries access to computers was not readily available.

In planning for the volume I did not set any rigid format and theological approach for the essays. The only thing I asked of the contributors is that they present the Christianity of a particular country in the most appealing yet accurate manner possible. I suggested that they imagine a tourist coming to their countries and wishing to know what kind of Christianity is active there: What would they like the tourist to know about their Christianity's history, its most interesting figures, its liturgical and theological riches, its arts and architecture, its contributions to World Christianity, its problems (yes, these too!), and its challenges?

To help readers have an idea of what the book is about, I list below the issues I asked the contributors to keep in mind in writing their “tour guide”:

1. a brief history of Christian missions in the country;

2. major missionary figures;

3. salient characteristics of this imported Christianity;

4. major churches and denominations (e.g., Roman Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Pentecostal, etc.);

5. how Christianity was received;

6. key native clerical and lay figures;

7. male and female religious orders;

8. the role of women and their contributions;

9. key opposition or reform movements;

10. martyrs;

11. relations with other religions, e.g., Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Islam, etc.;

12. popular devotions, especially to Mary and the saints;

13. Bible translations;

14. liturgical adaptations;

15. local religious arts, e.g., painting, sculpture, architecture, music, dance; literature;

16. spiritual and monastic traditions;

17. theological trends and key theologians;

18. relation between church and State; Communism; colonialism, globalization;

19. contemporary challenges in terms of politics and economics;

20. future prospects.

Of course, not all of these issues are of equal concern and importance for Christianity in every country, but they give a rough idea of what each chapter is about.

It remains for me the pleasant task to thank the people who have been in various ways responsible for the birth of this book. I have already mentioned Andrew Humphries, whose idea of a book on Asian Christianity lay at the conception of this volume. After Blackwell was merged with Wiley, and after Andy moved on to another company, the task of shepherding the book to completion was taken over by Rebecca Harkin and Lucy Boon. I am deeply grateful to them for their admirable professional competence and long-suffering patience, as unexpected editorial work on the manuscript forced me to miss the deadline. Two other persons deserve my deepest thanks, Nik Prowse, who oversaw the final stages of production, and Gillian Andrews, the marvelously brilliant copy editor who through countless emails took care of all the details. I also would like to thank Peter Manseau, a doctoral student in the Graduate Program in Theology and Religious Studies at Georgetown University, for his editorial work on some of the essays.

The greatest debt of gratitude, however, is owed to the contributors themselves. They have generously and unreservedly put their scholarship at the service of the church and the academy. They were patient and forgiving for the notable delay in the preparation of the manuscript. If the proverbial “Asian” gentleness has any truth to it at all, they have embodied it – to an uncommon degree.

Chapter 1

Introduction: Asian Christianity/Christianities

Peter C. Phan

“Asian Christianity” or “Asian Christianities”? Both the singular and the plural forms are correct, depending on the perspective. From the essentialist viewpoint, it is proper to speak of “Christianity” since the basic Christian beliefs and practices – as distinct from those of, for instance, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam, to mention just the three largest religions in Asia – are the same among all Christian communities in Asia. Historically, however, these same Christian beliefs and practices have been understood, expressed, and embodied in a dizzying variety of ways. This Christian multiformity is a function of the enormous geographical, socio-political, historical, cultural, and religious diversity of the continent called Asia.

Which Asia?

With two thirds of the world's six-billion population, Asia is the largest and most populous continent.1 With Europe as a peninsula of the Eurasian landmass on its west, Asia lies, on its western limits, along the Urals, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus, the Black Sea, the Bosporus and the Dardanelles straits, and the Aegean Sea. On its south-western side, it is separated from Africa by the Suez Canal between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. In its far northeastern part, i.e., Siberia, it is separated from North America by the Bering Strait. In the south, Asia is bathed by the Gulf of Aden, the Arabian Sea, and the Bay of Bengal; on the east, by the South China Sea, East China Sea, Yellow Sea, Sea of Japan, Sea of Okhotsk, and Bering Sea; and on the north, by the Arctic Ocean.

As a continent, Asia is conventionally divided into five regions: Central Asia (mainly the Republics of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmekistan, and Uzbekistan); East Asia (mainly China Japan, Korea, and Taiwan); South Asia (mainly Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka); South-East Asia (mainly Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam); and South-West Asia (the countries of the Middle East, Near East, or West Asia).2

Asia is the land of extreme contrasts. It has both the world's highest peak, Mt. Everest, and its lowest point, the Dead Sea. Climatically, the continent ranges through all extremes, from the torrid heat of the Arabian Desert to the arctic cold of Siberia and from the torrential rains of monsoons to the bone-dry aridity of the Tarim Basin.

Asia's geographical and climactic extremes are matched by linguistic, ethnic, economic, political, cultural, and religious ones. More than 100 languages and more than 700 languages are spoken in the Philippines and Indonesia respectively, whereas only one is spoken in Korea. Ethnically, India and China are teeming with diversity, whereas Vietnam is predominantly homogeneous. Economically, Asia has one of the richest countries (Japan) and the poorest ones on Earth (e.g., North Korea, Cambodia, and Laos). Politically, it contains the largest democratic and the largest communist governments in the world, India and China respectively. Along with linguistic, ethnic, economic, and political diversity come extremely diverse cultures, which are also among the oldest and the richest. Religiously, Asia is the cradle of all world religions. Besides Christianity, other Asian religions include Bahá’í, Bön, Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Shinto, Sikhism, and Zoroastrianism, and innumerable tribal religions.3

Which Christianity?

It is within the context of these mind-boggling diversities – geographic, linguistic, ethnic, economic, political, cultural, and religious – that “Christianity in Asia” should be broached. One of the bitter ironies of Asian Christianity is that though born in (South-West) Asia, it returned to its birthplace as a foreign religion, or worse, the religion of its colonizers, and is still being widely regarded as such by many Asians. But such perception of Christianity as a Western religion imported to Asia by Portuguese and Spanish colonialists in the sixteenth century, and later by other European countries such as Britain, France, Germany, and the Netherlands, and lastly by the United States, belies the ancient roots of Christianity in Asia.

First of all, Christianity may be said to be an Asian religion since it was born in Palestine, part of West Asia or the Middle East. Furthermore, though West Asia is dominated by Islam, it was, until the Arab conquest in the seventh century, the main home of Christianity. But even Asian Christians outside West Asia can rightly boast of an ancient and glorious heritage, one that is as old as the apostolic age. The conventional image of Christianity as a Western religion, that is, one that originated in Palestine but soon moved westward, with Rome as its final destination, and from Rome as its epicenter, Western Christianity sent missionaries worldwide, ignores the fact that in the first four centuries of Christianity's existence, the most successful fields of mission were not Europe but Asia and Africa, with Syria as the center of gravity.

More specifically, Indian Christianity can claim apostolic origins, with St. Thomas and/or St. Bartholomew as its founder(s). Chinese Christianity was born in the seventh century, with the arrival of the East Syrian/Nestorian monk Aloben during the T'ang dynasty. Christianity arrived in other countries such as Japan, the Philippines, and Vietnam in the sixteenth century in the wave of Spanish and Portuguese colonialism. For Korea, on the contrary, Christianity was first brought into the country toward the end of the eighteenth century, not by foreigners but by a Korean, Peter Lee Seung-hun (or Sunghoon Ri), upon his return from Beijing. As for the Pacific Islands, Christianity reached them in the middle of the sixteenth century during the Spanish expeditions from Latin America to the Phillippines and in the late seventeenth century to the Marianas.

Today, in Asia, Christians predominate in only two countries, namely, the Philippines and the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste (East Timor) – over 85% of their populations are Catholic. In other countries, especially China, India, and Japan, to name the most populous ones, and in countries with a Muslim majority such as Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Pakistan, and in those where Buddhism predominates such as Cambodia, Hong Kong, Laos, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam, Christians form but a minuscule portion of the population. However, despite their minority status, Christians' presence is highly influential, especially in the fields of education, health care, and social services.

In addition to its minority status, Asian Christianity is also characterized by ecclesial diversity, so that it is more accurate to use “Christianities” in the plural to describe it. Because of its past extensive missions in Asia, Roman Catholicism is the largest denomination. Within the Roman Catholic Church, of great importance is the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences (FABC), which has served since 1970s, through its general assemblies and several permanent offices, as a clearing house for theological reflection and pastoral initiatives. Older than the Roman Catholic Church is the Malabar Church of India (“Saint Thomas Christians”). The Orthodox Church also has a notable presence in China, Korea, and Japan. The Anglican Church (including the Anglican Church of Canada) is well represented, especially in Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, and Pakistan. Various Protestant Churches also flourish in almost all Asian countries, e.g., the Baptists (especially in North India), the Lutherans, the Mennonites, the Methodists, the Presbyterians (especially in Korea), and the Seventh-Day Adventists. In addition, the number of Pentecostals and charismatics has recently grown by leaps and bounds, particularly among ethnic minorities and disenfranchized social classes. The Yoido Full Gospel Church, located in Seoul, Korea, is the largest Pentecostal church in the world, with over half a million members. Finally, there are numerous indigenous offshoots, inspired by nationalism, charismatic leadership, or by the “Three Self Movement” (self-support, self-propagation, and self-government). Among the most famous are the Iglesia Filipina Independiente (founded by Gregorio Aglipay in 1902), and the Iglesia ni Cristo (founded by Felix Ysagun Manalo in 1914), both in the Philippines, and the China Christian Council (and within it, the Three-Self Patriotic Movement of Protestant Churches in China and the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, founded in 1954 and 1956 respectively).

Introducing Asian Christianities

Curiously, despite the growing importance of Asia and Asian Christianities, there has been a dearth of books that deal with Asian Christianity as a whole and as a contemporary religious movement. There are of course notable histories of Christian missions in Asia and learned monographs on the history of Christianity on individual countries. This volume intends to fill the lacuna of popular introductions to Asian Christianity by presenting a panorama of Asian Christianity as a world religion. It is not a history of Western missions in Asia, though such history will serve as a necessary historical context. Rather, it is on how Christians in Asia have received and transformed Christianity into a local or indigenous religion, with their own ecclesiastical structures, liturgy and prayers, spirituality, theology, art and architecture, music and song and dance, often in dialogue with Asian cultures and religions. The purpose is to help readers gain a sense of Asian Christianity/Christianities as a vibrant contemporary religion.

The chapters are grouped together in terms of geographical proximity and cultural and religious affinity. The first three deal with countries in South Asia (India and Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar, and Sri Lanka). The next three describe Christianity in countries lying next to each other as collections of thousands of islands in South-East Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, and the Philippines). The next five consider the countries whose Christian beginnings were historically linked together: Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, China, Mongolia, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan; Japan, and Korea. The last chapter studies the countries in which Christianity has its roots, its earliest developments, and sadly, its most turbulent and uncertain history.

Despite their extreme diversities, there is a golden thread that ties these Asian countries together, and that is, their religious traditions. As mentioned above, Asia is the cradle of all major religions. Understanding how these religions – including Christianity – originated and continue to exist as living institutions in Asia is not only an intellectual obligation but also an indispensable means for peacebuilding and reconciliation in the continent which is currently wracked by violence. The roots of violent conflicts among groups and nations are always many and multiple, and while these conflicts are invariably fueled by political, economic, and military interests, religious claims are almost never absent, especially where a particular religion is adopted as the state religion and its beliefs and practices of a particular religion are imposed as the social, legal, and cultural framework of the civil society. Even when a particular war is first engaged on purely secular grounds, it will not be long before leaders on opposing sides will invoke God's name and power to justify and even bless it. The war will be painted as an apocalyptic struggle between good and evil, and religious demagogues and unscrupulous politicians will stoke religious zeal to mobilize believers for a holy war against their enemies. Participating in war is blessed as a holy service to faith and to be killed, especially in suicide bombing, is celebrated as martyrdom. This is a tragic fact in the history of Asian religions – Asian Christianity included.

But religions – including Christianity – in Asia have also contributed immensely to the spiritual and material well-being of the Asian peoples, and where there is violence and hatred, religions have functioned as an indispensable and effective partner in peacemaking and reconciliation. The so-called “conflict of civilizations” cannot be resolved without the harmony of religions. This too is a salutary and hopeful lesson of the history of Asian religions – including Asian Christianity.

Notes

1. I am aware that in terms of physical geography (landmass) and geology (tectonic plate), Europe and Asia form one “continent.” In terms of human geography, however, Europe and Asia have been conventionally treated as different continents, the latter divided into East Asia (the Orient), South Asia (British India), and the Middle East (Arabia and Persia). In this book the term “continent” of Asia is used in this generic sense. As mentioned in the text below, today Asia is divided into five regions (geographers rarely speak of ‘“North Asia”). The adjective “Asian” is also confusing. In American English, it refers to East Asian (Orientals), whereas in British English, it refers to South Asia (India). Sometimes, the term is restricted to countries of the Pacific Rim. Here “Asia” refers to East Asia, South Asia, South-East Asia, and the Middle (Near) East or South-West or West Asia.

2. This book will not deal with Christianity in Central Asia.

3. For a succinct presentation of the Asian context in which Christian mission is carried out, see John Paul II's apostolic exhortation Ecclesia in Asia (1999), nos. 5–9. The text is available in Phan, P.C. (ed.) The Asian Synod: Texts and Commentaries, Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2002, pp. 286–340.

Chapter 2

India, Pakisttwdb, Bangladesh, Burma/Myanmar

Elizabeth Koepping

Caste, class, and ethnicity, local and foreign missions, contested contextualization, inter- and intra-religious pluralism, colonialism, politics, poverty, nationalism: this sample list gives some indication of the complexity of Christianity in South Asia, home to the most populous country in Asia (India), one of the poorest (Burma/Myanmar), and to two regularly threatened by floods or internal strife (Bangladesh and Pakistan). The above catalogue reflects tensions between groups of believers, and between believers and the scriptural teachings they confess.

It is important to make clear at the outset that sociological tensions and chasms between faith and practice are present in every Christian community, as in any other religious community, across the globe. However, certain elements are admittedly peculiar to South Asian Christianity: a close identification with minorities in North-East India, Bangladesh, and Burma/Myanmar; the widespread acceptance of the Vedanta caste system, especially in India and Pakistan, where four fifths of Christians are despised dalits; and an uncertain or clearly subordinated position for women. They are the local equivalents of the “blasphemies” associated with class, gender, race and ethnicity which form the basis of powers and principalities, ecclesial and otherwise, across the world.1

This chapter will focus on the socio-cultural and liturgical interaction between Christianity and its contexts in mainland South Asia. There are three reasons why this crossroads of languages, peoples, and traditions is currently one of the most important regions for sociological and theological reflection on Christianity or, more properly, a collage of contextualized Christianities.

The first, and simplest, reason is longevity. Christians have been present in South Asia longer than almost anywhere else outside the Eastern Mediterranean.2 Orthodoxy first came to Taxila (Pakistan) and to Kerala (India) in 52 CE (or perhaps a little later), where they had to deal with the local Jewish communities, just as their stay-at-home cousins in Palestine were negotiating with and, if necessary, moving away from Judaism. This ancient history and the processes of religious negotiation are not only a rich source of historical knowledge but also contain lessons of immense value for Christianity's encounter with modernity.

Secondly, all Christian denominations in their various versions are present throughout South Asia. With its firm ties both to Damascus and to the upper Kerala castes, Orthodoxy is still an economic and religious controlling force. Pentecostalism had flamed in Assam in1905, before the Azuza Street Revival in Los Angeles, USA in 1906 claimed precedence, and is now quickly spreading through indirect influence on other mainline churches and through direct local mission and church planting. Portuguese Roman Catholicism of the early sixteenth century essayed to eliminate what they called “paganized” Orthodoxy, an adjective Jesuit missionaries readily used to describe Indian society in general, alleging its incapacity for independent thought, moral order or chastity.3 Faltering by the early nineteenth century,4 the Catholic Church has now resumed the contextualizing task initiated to an extent by Italian missionaries of that earlier period such as Roberto de Nobili and Constanzo Giuseppe Beschi. In the intervening years this task was forbidden across all Asia until Vatican II lifted bans on local practices and removed offensive acts such as anointing the newly baptised with the priest's saliva. Lutherans from Germany working in a Danish enclave ordained the first sudra pastor in 1729 and indeed the first dalit, and arguably offered the first Western-originating education based not on political or ecclesial aims (the Portuguese basis) but rather on the need for individuals of any social background to read the Bible in their own language. Anglicans, initially there to serve their countrymen in the East India Company and early colonial territories, became enmeshed in Empire after 1857. This could be to their advantage at times, enabling informal as well as formal ties between the missionaries and the British government, although long-term the benefits were dubious. Whether Anglican missionaries accepted or as often as not rejected the ties, they had to negotiate them, and that affected approaches to church and conversion.5 Baptists, initially led by the brilliant linguist and missionary Carey in Bengal and Serampore, took up the baton in Lower Burma under Judson after the earlier Jesuit mission there collapsed. Together with Presbyterians, Baptists, both American and British, also missionized much of North East India and parts of the north-west of what is now Pakistan. Many denominations had and some still have a particular mission brief or region: Naga Baptists or Mizo Presbyterians within or beyond India, Kerala Pentecostals in North India, the united Churches of North and of South India, the 160 Roman Catholic dioceses across the four countries (i.e., India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Burma/Myanmar), the small but still important number of locally initiated or Christian-oriented independent churches.6 (Beyond this scope of this chapter but likely to increase in importance is the South Asian Christian diaspora, especially people originating from Pakistan and in terms of numbers those from India.)

Thirdly, while religious pluralism has suddenly become an important theological issue since Christianity in North America and Europe has had to live with difference, it is and has long been second nature in South Asia. As Wesley Ariarajah and Thomas Thangaraj have neatly stated this issue, my other-practicing neighbor and her faith is to be respected in herself and for herself, as she is, and not as conversion fodder or as an “anonymous Christian” (to use Karl Rahner's expression) who is “really” Christian without knowing it.7 While naming traditions inevitably gives a false impression of essentialized uniformity, and can be taken advantage of by various political or religious constituencies, it may be useful to indicate something of the multi-layered nature of South Asian religious pluralism with its considerable number of options available. Pakistan and Bangladesh are the home to Muslims of various strands, accepted or abhorred by the state (e.g., the Ahmadies in Pakistan) as well as Christians and Buddhists and Hindus, and parallel or interwoven strands of those traditions. Burma/Myanmar is largely Buddhist, yet localized relations to spiritual forces predominate among the largely Christian minorities and, indeed, the Bamah Buddhist majority and small Muslim Rakhine minority. With its Hindu majority agglomerated from all the local and varied relations to the visible and less visible world, India has the third largest Muslim population in the world. Together with Buddhist, Parsi, Sikh, Jain, locally limited traditions, and 3.5% Christians, India has the broadest religious palette of the mainland South Asian region.

Local Basics

Living with religious differences has been and is normal in South Asia. Of course these differences are not always respected, and when politicized by unscrupulous leaders, they may give rise to violence. This region, therefore, with its full complement of socio-political realities, may well be crucial for understanding world religions in general and Christianity in particular, the most widespread and most numerous tradition. For Christians, in South Asia as well as elsewhere, the history of South Asian Christianity can offer epic cautionary tales.

Thoroughly Western-educated elites in South Asian countries, in common with their Euro-America mates and elsewhere, have often abandoned the often derided local or folk traditions within what we call religion and adopted the formally codified and acceptable universal codes. Actually, of course, each region in the world tends to perceive these “global codes” through somewhat local lenses, and so the break may be more imagined than real. But before swift and dramatic mobility became the norm in the last few decades for a very small number of the world's inhabitants, deluding us into assuming that it is now the norm for all,8 people in each locality related and usually continue to relate to the spiritual forces of their own river-basin, desert, plateau or forest settlements and special sites therein. The style and detail of this relationship vary regionally and, as elsewhere in the world, exhibit an extraordinary resilience and longevity. In South Asia, the north-west is oriented more to the Persian-Indus world-view, whereas the north-east including Myanmar inclines more to South-East Asian ways of being. The South Asian heartland shares historical and cultural links with both the north eastern and western regions, yet it too has its own particular relationship to those perennial human issues of goodness, disaster, and death. Both overall and diffusely in those three Southern Asian “ways of being”, we find particular physical representations of the less visible in special niches or items in homes and indeed in the very making of homes for the human and “the other”; in acts of piety and in collective rituals, frequently efficacious only when all act in concert; and in the setting aside of special places – waters, caves, tree clusters, rocks, hills and other holy sites – where the visible and less visible may be especially close.

It may be helpful to assume that South Asians (including as a third option those who have intentionally abstracted themselves from the daily round as saints and sadhus) envisage a particular relationship to place and space, and a particular relationship to people. While in no way an either-or distinction, the people could perhaps be envisioned as a vertical bounded “cylinder” enclosing family, community and ethnic group or a horizontally layered “cake” of ranked castes. The cylinders of Nagas and Mizos, Kui and Veddas, Hunza, Chin and Kachin, define the immediate locally-based or originating groups which have less resonance beyond themselves. Each layer of the cake represents a caste – Brahmin, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Sudras – together with those dalits beneath the plate, and has significance beyond the residential region, to the ends of the earth. This aspect of the underlying local text, cylinder or layer, may well still be the unspoken accompaniment in the negotiating between an incoming tradition such as Christianity and a “census-defined religion” such as Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Jainism, especially, though not exclusively, in rural areas.

The passage of time and the early arrival of Islam, (trade-led, as was Judaism) was eventually formalised in the colonizing Mogul Muslim Empire which came down from the north-west. The third wave of Christian entry into South Asia amid the burgeoning nineteenth century expansionist enterprises, negotiated with and affected all local traditions as each codified its fundamental scriptural, historical, philosophical and performed texts into definable and legally defensible streams called Islam,9 Buddhism, Zoroastrianism,10 and Hinduism. Such internally evolving demarcations were pushed along by expectations of census making colonists, filling in their slots. Indeed, the nineteenth-century comparative religion scholar Max Müller argued that “religious reform movements in Hinduism were the most enduring result of the [Christian] missionary effort in India.”11

Time also brought formal European colonialism to this entire region, gradually completed with the creation of “British India” from an assemblage of principalities and localities, with Burma and the north-east (Nagaland, Mizoram, etc.) remaining as separate appendages until 1885 and 1947 respectively. The eventual dissolution of this legal, linguistic, religious and ethnic collage at Independence in 1947 into three and later four separate countries, each with its own Christian population derived from various ethnicity, history, politics, and religion, has had different effects, which will be discussed as this chapter progresses. Here I will merely point out that one outcome of the ubiquity and skill with which local and personal identity and religion (not necessarily beliefs) are merged and utilized may account for the fact that a higher percentage of South Asians are Christian now than was the case at Independence.

Given the near two millennia of Christian presence in mainland South Asia, any consideration of the relation of that faith to the region amounts to a social history of the complex religious and sociological processes of contextualization. This did not always move smoothly onward to some spiritually satisfying amalgam acceptable to all concerned, which was hardly surprising. First, the incomers tended to assume a lack of agency, interest, or capacity among South Asians. Secondly, the sheer geographical size, linguistic complexity, economic strength and political tensions in the region make for complex contexts. Thirdly, local assumptions about the non-exclusive nature of religious belonging were firmly held in the region by all but the Muslim and Jewish elites. General issues of politics, of power over people, ignorance, and racism, also played their parts.

In the second section of the chapter I discuss some processes of the early contextualizing of the Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Churches in South India. This is followed by a brief discussion of certain indigenizing patterns which developed in the north from the Indus to the Irrawaddy, and the highlighting of some Protestant approaches. The final section assesses the contemporary situation of Christianity in South Asia, with reference to church-made stumbling blocks, especially in terms of ethnicity and caste, and state-made problems leading to severe restriction and persecution.

In order to come to any conclusion about the relation of church to context at both the surface levels of architecture, dress, music, linguistic register and the deeper socio-philosophical levels with their theological challenge, a few preliminary remarks about contextualization and what is rather hopefully seen as its doppelganger, inculturation, will be helpful. In this I rely on the anthropologist Anthony Gittins.12 Contextualization represents the minimal accommodation necessary to enable communication, such as an appropriate and comprehensible language; to reduce gratuitous and unintended offence in ritual and social interaction; and to use local forms of building, music, dress and aesthetics. A sufficiently common language is essential for conveying one's idea to another person. Avoiding offence might seem an obvious need, though the history of the church shows that “the only right way” at times overrode “the only courteous way”. Local aesthetics were also not as smoothly accepted as they might have been, not only because matters of taste are often learnt slowly by missionaries, but also because certain items were regarded by the Church as belonging to the heathen practices to be rejected; they did not see their own tradition as contextualized. Moreover, as Gittins points out, a new lexicon, as a new element of material culture, sits ill, indeed can be meaningless, atop a thoroughly different underlying grammar. Inculturation is the near-revolutionary challenge posed by the Christian faith to the underlying structure in which each person and group is unreflectingly enculturated. It is a challenge which must be taken up from within a context and not one that can be done to or for that context, those people, from the outside or, indeed, by elite insiders for their subordinates.

The Early Christian Presence in Mainland South Asia

Clericalism was not yet a church feature when Syrian Christians first settled in India. Wherever it existed, the Early Church was a collection of more or less autocephalic church clusters, with no set scripture until the fourth century, with overall leadership and core doctrines either undefined or disputed.13 Before considering Christian contextualization in South Asia, therefore, we need to appreciate that it was a pre-Ephesus (431) and pre-Chalcedonian (451) Christianity which unfolded there at some point between 52 and 356 CE. One branch of the Orthodox Church in South Asia was and is clearly Monophysite (Jacobite) – not because it is “Oriental”, but simply because it is non-Chalcedonian.14

Given the vital importance of the Thomas Christians, as they came to be called, in my discussion of the contextualization of Christianity in South Asia, I begin with the Thomas Christians' experience in relation to the local inter-religious situation of South India. Next, I consider the vastly more difficult sixteenth-century intra-religious clashes between the local Orthodox and the incoming Roman Catholic Portuguese “brothers in Christ”. The history bears out the common tendency for “family fights” to be especially unpleasant.

South Indian St Thomas Christian communities, which again saw large-scale immigrations in the ninth century, moved with the monsoon winds from Syria and Persia southward, and established a pattern of church life and relations to local political and religious ideologies which lasted until the Portuguese came in the early sixteenth century. Indeed, given that only they, among all Christians in South Asia, are regarded in contemporary India as “local”, those relations arguably still endure. They followed a tradition of “religion with trade”, and during the decline of the Roman Empire, they linked west and east, “furthering economic cohesion and providing suitable conditions for the first phase of globalization”.15 Agents working on behalf of church leaders had fleets of trading ships, some Roman Catholic and Orthodox churchmen being directly involved in trade.

The Syrian Orthodox in India ran their own church affairs through the Indian-based Metropolitan (“Archdeacon of all the Indies and beyond”) answerable ecclesially only to Syria. They were integrated firmly into the local social system, “Syrians” fitting in at the Brahmin level, and they too could remove impurity from the polluted by a touch. While they may have shown unity externally, internally the Syrian Orthodox (similar to the Cochin Jews16) divided people into those tracing lineal descent through male or female directly back to the incoming Syrians (the “really pure”) from people who had intermarried with Indians (the “less pure”): intermarriage between the two was excluded. Church life was run through a system of lay and clergy assemblies, yogam, similar to the governing pattern in Hindu temples. The general assembly dealt with overall church policies for the entire region and was chaired by the archdeacon, with local assemblies of clergy and laity in every church or parish. Any candidate for priesthood must get the formal agreement of his local yogam, maintaining the earlier role of the laity, which was diminished in the other “world church” at time, the Roman Catholic.

Ritual was also influenced by Hindu and Muslim custom: a worshipper bathed and put on fresh clothes before leaving for church, feet being washed anew at the door for external as well as internal purity. Before collective or private prayer, each person prostrated and kissed the floor twice. Services on feast and fast days lasted up to ten hours. Communion, in line with early church practice, was given in both kinds, rice-cakes and palm wine sometimes substituting for bread and grape wine; a leavened loaf was broken and given to all.17

The Thomas Christians enjoyed a certain level of independence under the Rajah of Cochin, civil delicts being dealt with by the church, not the Hindu state. In a sense the Thomas Christians were an established church in and serving a Hindu state. Part of the import-export trade from the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea, the Syrian Orthodox in India moved from importing Roman amphoras to exporting pepper, pearls, and emeralds18 and, like the Nayars, their caste equals, they were landowners. They also acted as protectors for seventeen or eighteen categories of artisans, such as toddy tappers, who appealed to the Christians to redress any problem, and who supported them almost as their feudal lords, even at the risk of their life. Clearly stipulated in their relationship, though, was that no non-Christian worker could be asked or expected to convert, though conversion was not forbidden.

The Thomas Christians' vital pre-Portuguese niche, however, was the military, with 50 000 of them fighting for the Raja of Cochin, from whom they received privileges such as riding elephants, having gatehouses and carpets, and using umbrellas.19 The Rajah also rewarded them by building churches, the Christians in turn sponsored Hindu temples. In fact, church and temple usually shared an adjacent block making one whole “sacred space.”20 When, for various reasons, the election of an archdeacon could not be formally confirmed by Syria, it would be confirmed the Rajah, for the church was an integral if internally separate part of the state. Apart from the fact that the Rajah was a Hindu, it was not dissimilar to the situation in Europe of the time when elected church officials had to be acceptable to the state.21

The First Attack on Contextualized South Asian Christianity

Acceptable though Syrian Orthodoxy was to the local polity and presumably also to the local Christians, it was challenged by the later incoming Christians who saw correct faith in Christ as given to, even owned by, them. The pattern of European and later EuroAmerican “ownership” of the correct theological, liturgical, and sociological ways of being Christian recurred throughout the second half of the last millennium in South Asia, within and beyond direct colonial control, and is worth a close look.

This tightly-knit community of inculturated Indian Christians survived easily until European Christians arrived from Portugal with their guns and Latin missals. They quickly established the padroado system, a papal agreement with Iberian kings allowing them to deploy clerics and run the churches in all their colonies. The small town of Goa, taken in 1507, saw Franciscans, Dominicans, Jesuits and others actively missionizing and, unlike the caste-conscious, politically dependent and cautious Thomas Christians, they tried converting Hindus where they could. Initially, Catholics accepted that the two churches shared one faith, and that local custom was not intrinsically wrong.22 But as Portuguese power and local opposition grew, so did attacks by Catholics on both Hindus and Thomas Christians, for “anything that was not in Latin was heretical or schismatic”.23 Relations became increasingly difficult. The new comers, from the mid to the end of the sixteenth century, used all their power to eliminate “heresy,” just as they eliminated Portuguese conversos and even some Hindus through the Inquisition, which was introduced to Goa in 1560. The line between heavy persuasion and force for Hindus to convert became increasingly thin: only Christians could use Portuguese law-courts, get government jobs, be free from forced labor, and rent state land. Some peasants converted for greater freedom, as did a large group of fishermen who thereby got Portuguese naval support against Muslim sailors.24 Missionaries at the time and shortly thereafter saw the “favours” shown to Christians as justification for promoting conversion. Brahmins also converted, possibly to retain their power base, as a Jesuit writing a century later noted,25 and present circumstances seem to support this view.26 The tie made then between the two religious elite groups continues to this day in Goa.

The degree of accommodation between Roman and Orthodoxy was initially influenced by Portuguese uncertainty as well as, perhaps, by generosity. However, church reforms after the Council of Trent (1545–1563) progressively pressured the Syrians. They were forced to accept the decisions of the dubiously legal and pastorally disastrous 1599 Synod of Diamper, held to “purify all the Thomas churches of heresy, take away all their heretical books, and extinguish the Syrian language”.27 The thoroughly contextualized Thomas Christians had to adopt new doctrines and practices: veneration of icons and of the cross indicative of “respectful worship”; confirmation separate from baptism; clerical celibacy (though Syrian bishops, like all Orthodox, had been single); the doctrine of purgatory (from which the prayers of the living could deliver the dead); restriction of wine to the clergy at the Eucharist.

These prescriptions were derived from a Euro-centred view of the “correct way” of being a Christian. They affected not only long-established Churches but also mission workers trying to fit into local conditions, arguably in accordance with the apostolic precept.28 Blaming racism (which did play a part) or sheer ignorance is inadequate. Rather the crucial factor was the ecclesial desire to control the text and its performance in all contexts, as is the assumption (still with us in recent missions within or beyond South Asia) that the power-holder's possession of “The [only way of seeing] Truth” cannot be compromised.29

A Second Attack on Contextualized South Asian Christianity

In Tamil Nadu, the accommodating efforts of the Jesuit De Nobili (1577–1656) led him to become a scholar of Sanskrit, write vernacular texts, live the ascetic, vegetarian life of the people whom he wished to convert, and keep all the rules of purity and separation. He succeeded in converting a segment of Brahmins and only interacted with that caste, allotting the task of converting lower castes to a separate mission group. The Italian De Nobili made clear that he was not a Parangi [Portuguese] but a sannyasi from Rome, born to a Rajah's family. He insisted that converts could follow the purity and pollution rules to the full, adding an extra “sacred thread” of the Trinity to the thread worn by all the twice born. Brahmins thus joined the Christian ranks as Brahmins, not equals of all.

Unlike his confrere Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) in China who compared the Old Testament to the Chinese classics in a prefiguring of the fulfilment theology of religion, De Nobili followed the Brahmin ways to the letter in an effective contextualizing strategy.30 His efforts, however, were squashed in the 1744 proscription of the so-called Malabar Rites. While the Chinese Rites, also banned then, viewed the person primarily as a social-civic unit, the Malabar Rites affected the person as a unit of social purity. Practices for which de Nobili had got permission from Rome were henceforth decided upon by people who had no knowledge of India. Baptism must include breathing on the candidate and touching the lips and ears with the thumb moistened in saliva, actions locally regarded as polluting. In addition, the use of Hindu names, child marriage, public celebration of menarche, performance by Christian musicians at Hindu festivals, caste marks, and the reading of Hindu books were banned. The change was not completed overnight, but clearly “toleration” of other ways was an act of power by the tolerant, and it could be withdrawn at will and, indeed, on a whim.

De Nobili was not the only Jesuit to accommodate to the Malabar culture in liturgy and lifestyle. His compatriot Beschi (1680–1747), even more skilled in Tamil than de Nobili in Sanskrit, wrote religious rebuttals of Protestantism, specifically Lutheran Pietism, tracts against the German-Danish mission, a catechism, and a guide for catechists, the latter still used by Catholics and Protestants alike. He wrote a grammar of Tamil, and two dictionaries, Latin-Tamil and Portuguese-Tamil. His best-known Tamil texts are devotional poems, covering the Old Testament and the birth, ministry and life of Christ. Like Ricci, he too translated Tamil classics into Latin, clearly recognizing the high literary status of classical Tamil.31 Beschi also fitted into the local lifestyle, though in his case, he emulated the rulers as he rode on decorated elephants, an umbrella held high above his beturbaned head and bejewelled body, draped in the silks and satins of a Tamil prince.

Contextualization in Early Roman Catholicism Elsewhere in South Asia

The Christian mission in the caste-influenced societies of South Asia followed the same pattern beyond South Asia during this period. One clear exception was that to Buddhist Yangon, and of course, to the Moghul (Mughal) Empire of northern South Asia centred on Agra and then Delhi. While that Empire was Muslim, it was not uninfluenced by caste.

Theology and liturgy represent but one aspect of contextualization; the material arts also have their place. Buildings that were quickly erected in South Asia for living and worshipping may well have received local influences from the masons and carpenters but they have not survived. In the more northerly part of South Asia, as in South India, there are churches, or remains of churches, in the Indus-Irrawady which echo the Gothic churches of sixteenth century Europe. Architectural plans from Europe were executed by amateur local craftsmen.

The Jesuits and the other religious orders built churches in Dhakka (1677), Lahore (1579), Delhi (decayed and then destroyed), and Madurai which combined Hindu-Muslim Bengali and Hindu Dravidian styles or included elements from those traditions. A chapel at Agra (1611) follows the plan of a Muslim tomb. That city, while still the Moghul capital, found Jesuits teaching Christianity through pictures which arguably influenced the Moghul miniatures.32 Other churches however were straight imports from Europe, a tradition which has endured, perhaps indicating missionaries were unwilling to risk “syncretism”. The proscriptions of 1744 made any attempt to build churches in the local style, had there been any, practically impossible. Adding a locally inspired trope to a European church building in South Asia was and is as irrelevant to any deeper negotiation as a frangipani-garlanded Mary addressed in alien language and gesture. It took the virtual demise of Catholicism in South Asia and its nineteenth- and twentieth-century resurgence, along with growth in other churches, for more effective contextualization to resume and begin to be visible in some church architecture of all denominations.

Protestant Contextualization – the Pietists

The theological difference between Lutheran Pietist and Tridentine Roman Catholicism was reflected in their attitude toward church formation in South India. Pietism, whether from Halle – the mission base of the first two missionaries to Malabar in 1706, Bartholomlsquäus Ziegenbalg and Heinrich Plütschau – or the form espoused by Nicolaus von Zinzendorf (1700–1760), stressed the call by the Spirit rather than book-learning as the essential criterion for being a pastor, prayer groups and meetings rather than elaborate liturgy, and in that early period little difference between clergy and laity. The intention was to found an indigenous church. While Beschi translated catechisms, the Pietists immediately if inaccurately began to translate the Bible, print their initial version on an SPCK press from London with Tamil characters made in Halle, set up schools with translated textbooks to educate students for a trade or profession, and train catechists in a seminary. This all-round practical and biblical training arose from the demand for personal, not group conversion, the capacity for each member to read and know the Bible, and the devolution of responsibility to all members. (Later groups such as the outcaste (dalit) Chamars were converted en masse, but then baptized one by one.)

Ziegenbalg was competent in classical Tamil, which he could also write in a manner more accessible to the average Tamil of the area. He studied and wrote on Brahmanic Hinduism, completing his major work Genealogie der malabarischen Götter completed in 1713.33 However, Ziegenbalg, as de Nobili, had problems with his European mission-sending agency, for his missionising method was not appreciated back home. His Halle director, August Francke (1663–1727) wrote scathingly that he had been sent “to extirpate heathenism not spread heathenish nonsense in Europe”; the book was not published in Germany for another 154 years. Ziegenbalg noted in passing: “I remember many learned people in Europe have written on the manner in which the heathen ought to be converted, but there was no difficulty in this [for them] as there was no one but themselves to contradict.”34

Ziegenbalg's attitude toward other faiths was respectful, recognizing their leaders as his equals. Talking to an imam who had visited him in difficult times, he said: “If we begin by improving ourselves God will show us a way out of the corruption of the present.” He made no attempt to convert or critique the imam, for “we are both priests”.35