With reference to the Indian scene.

At A Time When Conversion Is The Focus Of National Debate In India, This Timely And Important Volume Examines The Major Arguments On Conversion Between Hindus And Christians, And Also Among Christian Theologians Since Independence. Scholars And Lay Readers Alike Will Find This Book Immensely Relevant And Engaging.

Religious Freedom and Conversion in India is a collection of essays that addresses the political and practical concerns about "religious freedom" and "religious conversion" in the Indian context. These essays were first presented in the SAIACS Academic Consultation in September 2015 at SAIACS, Bengaluru. The 14 papers represented here have all been revised and edited in the view of the discussions during the Consultation. they approach the topic from various angles such as historical, legal, biblical, theological, missiological and cultural. The purpose of the SAIACS Academic Consultation, and the aim of this book, is to stimulate, encourage and provide direction for the academic, evangelical and missional thinking in South Asia.

This book re-examines the issue of religious conversion, which has been a site of conflict in India for several centuries. It discusses wide-ranging themes such as conversion, education, and reform in colonial India; the process and practices of conversion in Christian Europe; Gandhi, conversion, and the equality of religions; perspectives from Hindu nationalism, secularism, and religious minorities; religious freedom and the limits of propagating religion; and conversion in constitutional law, commissions, and courts, to chart new directions for research on religion, tradition, and conversion. Tracing developments from the 19th-century colonial era to contemporary times, the book analyses cultural background frameworks and the origins of religious conversion and its conceptualisation in Western Christianity. It further delves into how Indian culture and its traditions have shaped responses to conversion. Part of the Critical Humanities Across Cultures series, this book will be useful to scholars and researchers of critical humanities, religion, cultural studies, sociology of religion, comparative religion, philosophy, anthropology, theology, Indology, history, politics, postcolonial studies, critical theory, and South Asian studies.

The concept of religious freedom is the favoured modern human rights concept, with which the modern world hopes to tackle the phenomenon of religious pluralism, as our modern existence in an electronically shrinking globe comes to be increasingly characterised by this phenomenon. To begin with, the concept of religious freedom, as embodied in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, seems self-evident in nature. It is the claim of this book, however, that although emblematic on the one hand, the concept is also problematic on the other, and the implications of the concept of religious freedom are far from self-evident, despite the ready acceptance the term receives as embodying a worthwhile goal. This book therefore problematizes the concept along legal, constitutional, ethical and theological lines, and especially from the perspective of religious studies, so that religious freedom in the world could be enlarged in a way which promotes human flourishing.

This dissertation is an historical analysis of the ideological and religious debates over conversion to Christianity in India since its Independence in 1947. In particular, the study focuses on how these debates have played out within various forms of proposed and enacted anti-conversion legislation at the state and federal levels of government. The study identifies the key poles of the conversion debate, first set forth in Indiaâ s Constituent Assembly Debates, and which have remained remarkably uniform through 70 years of legislation, rhetoric, and scholarship. Chapter One situates the study within the context of existing scholarship on both conversion and Christianity in India, with a focus on emerging scholarly views of the manifold ways in which conversion can be defined. Chapter Two examines India as a secular nation and attempts to identify the status of religious minorities within a conceptual space which, while secular, reflects a predominantly Hindu worldview. Chapters Three, Four, and Five provide an extensive primary source analysis of the conversion debates preceding the patriation of the Indian Constitution, government reports, High Court rulings, and legislation proposed and enacted between 1947 and 1981. Chapter Six examines a second tranche of anti-conversion legislation enacted at the state level between 2002 and 2008, following the rise to power of the Hindu nationalist political parties at various levels of government in India. Chapter Seven examines contemporary expressions of the debate over religious conversion in India, with a focus on court challenges to existing anti-conversion legislation. Chapter Eight concludes the study, arguing that what is at stake for India as a secular state with constitutional protections for freedom of religion, is how both conversionâ s critics and proponents understand the diversity of motivations for converting, and how this knowledge is applied to ensure religious freedom for all of Indiaâ s citizens. Without understanding the motivation which underlie the debate, conversion will remain a contested and at times violently contested issue.

"Discusses religious issues and the freedom of speech in the United States today, including the separation of church and state and the debate over prayer and religious displays in public schools"--Provided by publisher.