Religion Commons^™

The Faith And Rationality Of Dalit Christian Experience, Mathew N. Schmalz

Religious Studies Faculty Scholarship

A reflection on the John Paul II’s encyclical Fides et Ratio in connection to Dalit (Untouchable) Catholic and Christian experience in India. The article focuses on the spirituality of a Dalit Christian woman and relates it to the debate between historicity and ahistoricity in the appreciation of faith, rationality, and spirituality. The article was published in Asian Horizons, a peer reviewed journal published by Dharmaram Vidya Kshetram in Bangalore, India

Reading, Writing, And Religion: Institutions And Human Capital Formation, Latika Chaudhary, Jared Rubin

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

In this paper, we empirically test the role that religious and political institutions play in the accumulation of human capital. Using a new data set on literacy in colonial India, we find that Muslim literacy is negatively correlated with the proportion of Muslims in the district, although we find no similar result for Hindu literacy. We employ a theoretical model which suggests that districts which experienced a more recent collapse of Muslim political authority had more powerful and better funded religious authorities, who established religious schools which were less effective at promoting literacy on the margin than state schools. We …

Review Of Neeti Nair's Changing Homelands: Hindu Politics And The Partition Of India, Geoffrey Kain

Publications

“As Neeti Nair concludes chapter 5 of her extremely impressive study of the Partition of India, Changing Homelands, she argues against the pat inclusion of Partition on a ‘trans-national’ list of ‘genocidal conflicts’ …”

Nepal, Megan Adamson Sijapati

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Nepal is a democratic republic located along the southern region of the Himalayan range, bordering India to the south, west, and east and the Tibetan autonomous region of China to the north. Though a small country in geographic terms (approximately 54,362 square miles [1 mile = 1.6093 kilometers]), its population of approximately 29.5 million people is a complex and heterogeneous mix of both Indo-European and Tibeto-Burman ethnic groups and castes, each with distinct languages and religious and cultural traditions. [excerpt]

Bhutan, Megan Adamson Sijapati

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Bhutan (formally the Kingdom of Bhutan) is a small, landlocked Buddhist constitutional monarchy in the eastern Himalayas, located between China's Tibetan autonomous region and India. Its terrain is largely mountainous, and its economy is based on agriculture and forestry. Bhutan's official national language is Dzongkha, and its multiethnic population, reported in the 2005 govrnment census to be approximately 681,000, is 75% Buddhist and 25% Hindu.

Bangladesh, Megan Adamson Sijapati

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Bangladesh (formally the People's Republic of Bangladesh) is a Muslim-majority parliamentary democracy located in South Asia. Originally called East Pakistan, it was created during the partition of India in 1947 as the eastern wing of the country of Pakistan. Its name was later changed to East Bengal and then to Bangladesh after its union with West Pakistan was broken following a bloody war of secession in 1971. [excerpt]

Be United, Be Virtuous: Composite Culture And The Growth Of Shirdi Sai Baba Devotion, Karline Mclain

Faculty Journal Articles

In one popular devotional poster the Indian god-man Shirdi Sai Baba (d. 1918) gazes out at the viewer, his right hand raised in blessing. Behind him are a Hindu temple, a Muslim mosque, a Sikh gurdwara, and a Christian church; above him is the slogan, “Be United, Be Virtuous.” In his lifetime, Shirdi Sai Baba acquired a handful of Hindu and Muslim devotees in western India. Over the past several decades, he has been transformed from a regional figure into a revered persona of pan-Indian significance. While much scholarship on religion in modern India has focused on Hindu nationalist groups, …

Review: Bourgeois Hinduism, Or The Faith Of The Modern Vedantists: Rare Discourses From Early Colonial Bengal, Chad Bauman

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

The article reviews the book "Bourgeois Hinduism, or The Faith of the Modern Vedantists: Rare Discourses from Early Colonial Bengal," by Brian Hatcher.

Review Of The Crisis Of Secularism, Chad M. Bauman

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

The essays in this volume address the "crisis of secularism" in India, a crisis which, the editors suggest, emerged during the Emergency and culminated in the 2002 Gujarat violence.

Book Review Of "Indian Religions: Renaissance And Renewal", Chad M. Bauman

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

The eighteen articles in this volume grew from papers delivered at the 2006 Spalding Symposium on Indian Religions. The Symposium featured both newer and more advanced scholars who presented papers on a variety of topics and traditions of India (but especially Hinduism and Buddhism).

History And Fiction In The Acts Of Thomas: The State Of The Question, James F. Mcgrath

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

The Acts of Thomas has not yet received as much attention as the Gospel associated with the same individual, and this is understandable. Current students of this early Christian work, however, are in danger of missing out on the discussions and differing perspectives long offered by scholars of the Indian church and Indian history on this work. The current study suggests that, while the Acts of Thomas is almost certainly a work of novelistic fiction, this should not lead us to ignore the instances of confirmable historical information embedded therein, as in many other works of historical fiction. The Acts …

Review: Converting Women: Gender And Protestant Christianity In Colonial South India, Chad Bauman

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

The article reviews the book "Converting Women: Gender and Protestant Christianity in Colonial South India," by Eliza Kent.

Pope Gregory Xv: Alessandro Ludovisi: The First Jesuit-Educated Pope, Tony Amodeo

LMU Librarian Publications & Presentations

No abstract provided.

Singing Of Satnam: Blind Simon Patros, Dalit Religious Identity, And Satnami-Christian Music In Chhattisgarh, India, Chad M. Bauman

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

This paper explores the Indianization of Christianity in late colonial Chhattisgarh, India, with special reference to a Salnami-Christian catechist and composer, Blind Simon Patros.

Images Of The Body In The Life And Death Of A North Indian Catholic Catechist, Mathew N. Schmalz

Religious Studies Faculty Scholarship

A discussion of a Dalit (Untouchable) Catholic catechist and communist activist in India. The article focuses on the use of bhajans by Kabir to articulate a Dalit Christian vision of redemption and salvation. The article also focuses upon Dalit resistances and social activism.

Two Traditional Indian Models For Interreligious Dialogue: Monistic Accommodationism And Flexible Fundamentalism, Christopher Key Chapple

Theological Studies Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Tao How? Asian Religions And The Problem Of Environmental Degradation, Philip Novak

Collected Faculty and Staff Scholarship

"Twenty-five years ago, Huston Smith wrote an article called Tao Now ¹ to enlist the help of traditional Chinese attitudes toward nature in expanding the West's environmental awareness. If my interrogative betrays a greater diffidence than his imperative, it is only because China, the land of the Tao, lacks an enviable environmental record. Sadly, it seems that the existence of noble cultural ideals regarding the environment, in India as well as China, have not been a sufficient gurantee of good stewardship." ~ from the article

What I Learned From Primitive Man, William G. Johnsson

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Tradition And Chance In The Indo-Anglican Novels Of The Post-Independence Era, Margaret Lindley Koch

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The theme of the conflict of old and new, tradition and modernity, east and west in contemporary India has been a major concern of many Indo-Anglican novelists of the post-independence era. This study focuses on the reactions of various authors to this theme, as expressed by their treatment of it in the novels.

Four particular aspects of the theme which are explored in the novels, the fate of the family, economic upheaval, a questioning of religion, and the impact of the conflict on the individual person are discussed.

Three reactions to the tension facing contemporary India are expressed by the …