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Reports And News

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

Reports and news for the Society for Hindu-Christian Studies 2014 Annual General Meeting.

Viewpoint: Convenience, Consumption And Creatureliness: Thoughts On Sacred Groves, Hindu And Christian, Eliza F. Kent

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

WHEN I was doing field research in India regularly from 2001-2007, I kept hearing an expression for “rich person” I’d never heard before - “vasati-karar,” where “vasati” can be loosely rendered as “convenience.” As the liberalization of India’s economy gained traction in the 2000s, lots of people were acquiring vasatis. Increasingly affordable and accessible consumer items like electric fans and mixie-grinders, cars and laptop computers were making life easier and more comfortable for people across the social spectrum. Temples and churches did not miss out on the boom. Ceiling fans and electric light eased the strain of sitting through long …

Angels And Gods: A (Radically) Orthodox Experiment, Daniel P. Sheridan

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

This is the third in a series of orthodox Catholic theological experiments that I am conducting within the theology of relationship of Catholic faith to other religions. Each experiment attempts to ask a positive, existential question of one of the world religions about the reality of one of their reality assertions. Catholic orthodox theologies have almost always answered these questions in the negative, but in my tentative and provisional judgment the negative answers may be unnecessary. To re-ask the questions using the “eyes of faith,”1 the full weight and depth of orthodoxy must be brought to bear, not as a …

Hindu Responses To Religious Diversity And The Nature Of Post-Mortem Progress, Ankur Barua

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

THE last two hundred years of Hindu–Christian encounters have produced distinctive forms of Hindu thought which, while often rooted in the broad philosophical-cultural continuities of Vedic outlooks, grappled with, on the one hand, the colonial pressures of European modernity, and, on the other hand, the numerous critiques by Christian theologians and missionaries on the Hindu life-worlds. Thus, the spectrum of Hindu responses from Raja Rammohun Roy through Swami Vivekananda to S. Radhakrishnan demonstrates attempts to creatively engage with Christian representations of Hindu belief and practice, by accepting their prima facie validity at one level while negating their adequacy at another.

Violence Against Christians In India: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Two Indian English Newspapers, Clemens Cavallin, Julia Kuhlin

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

During recent decades violence against Christians in India has increased significantly. In spite of this development the issue has received relatively little scholarly attention. Likewise, despite the massive transformation of the newspaper business, which has made contemporary India one of the largest newspaper markets in the world, only few studies have been done on the news coverage of religious minorities in India. In this article, we aim to contribute to both these areas of research. Using a critical discourse analysis, we examine the everyday representation of violence and harassment against Christians in the two largest English daily newspapers in India, …

Thou, That, And An/Other: Hearing Śaṅkara’S Indexicals And Finding Cusa’S Seeking God, Brad Bannon

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

FINGER-pointing is a gesture generally discouraged in polite society. Having someone point a finger at you can be jarring or unsettling. However, if the finger belongs to one’s parent or to a dear and respected teacher, accompanied by an attentive gaze and direct vocative address, the experience can be powerfully awakening. According to the Chāndogya Upaniṣad, such was the experience of a young man whose father-turned-guru spoke to him directly and particularly with the words tattvamasi, Śvetaketo, “Thou art that, O Śvetaketu.”2

The intimacy of this encounter between father and son is easily overlooked, despite its familiarity to those who …

Between And Beyond Canons: Mirabai And Hadewijch In Relation To Scripture And The Self, Holly Hillgardner

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

Mirabai, a sixteenth century bhakta, wrote passionate songs of her desire for God. Burning for him, she employed the genre of viraha-bhakti, a mystical eroticism of longing from the Vaiṣṇava tradition, as she begged for him to “[c]ome and extinguish the fire of separation.” Hadewijch, a thirteenth-century Beguine from low-country Europe, wrote poems, letters, and prose that tell of her longing to become Love itself—to be “God with God.” Despite their myriad differences across traditions, miles, and years, Hadewijch and Mirabai can each be said to practice love-longing as her primary contemplative mode.

Interiority And Connectivity: A Brief Comparative Study On The Relation Of Scripture And Contemplation In Bridal Mysticism And Krishna Bhakti, Graham M. Schweig

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

In this study I bring two disparate traditions together which have painted portraits of divinity as a divine lover and supreme beloved. One tradition is from sixteenth century Europe and the other from sixteenth century India. My focus here is on the function of contemplative experience and vision in relation to the scriptural depictions and descriptions of divine love within both Carmelite Catholicism and Caitanya Vaishnavism through the developed visions in the sixteenth century works of Saint John of the Cross and Krishnadāsa Kaviraja Goswami, respectively.

On The Scholar’S Contribution To The Contemplative Work Of Hindu-Christian Studies, Francis X. Clooney

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

The following contribution to the Journal is admittedly out of the ordinary. While inscribing my actual contribution to the panel, “Canons and Contemplations: The Intersections of Scripture, Contemplation, and Community,” within this slightly larger document, it also reports on my contribution to email conversations among the panelists beforehand, and reproduces extracts from the prologue and epilogue of my new book. It is a multilevel document, aiming at a multilevel reflection on how we write from either side and across the Hindu-Christian religious and scholarly borders. There are two introductions: “the preliminary comment” written for the readers of the Journal, and …

Editor’S Introduction, Bradley Malkovsky

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

The main theme of this year’s issue, “Canons and Contemplations,” examines the ways in which contemporary comparativists, writing on spiritual texts, can contribute to a contemplative re-reading of ancient Hindu and Christian literary traditions. Today’s scholar might opt not only to report about the spiritual writings of the past in a purely academic fashion, but may also choose – through an engaged reading of the texts – to make her own contribution to these ongoing traditions of contemplation and wisdom. Academic writing can itself become contemplative practice.

Table Of Contents

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

A list of the article contents in this issue.

Reading The Story Of Miriai On Two Levels: Evidence From Mandaean Anti-Jewish Polemic About The Origins And Setting Of Early Mandaeism, James F. Mcgrath

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

New Testament scholars, drawing on Mandaean sources to shed light on the Gospel of John, may have done more harm than good to both Johannine and Mandaean studies. Nonetheless, approaches to the Gospel of John developed over the past 50 years have shed light on the Gospel’s Jewish context and the clues its polemical emphases can provide about the time and setting in which it was written. J. L. Martyn’s suggestion that the Gospel of John can be read on “two levels”, telling us about the context in which it was written while telling a story set in the time …

Out Of India: Immigrant Hindus And South Asian Hinduism In The United States, Chad M. Bauman, Jennifer Saunders

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

The article provides a survey of research on immigrant Hindus and South Asian Hinduism in the United States, focusing in particular on certain trends in the development of American Hinduism (e.g., Americanization, protestantization, ecumenization, congregationalization, homogenization, ritual adaptation) and prominent themes in more recent scholarship on the topic (e.g., race, transnational connections, and Hindu nationalism).

Redeeming Indian ‘Christian’ Womanhood?: Missionaries, Dalits, And Agency In Colonial India, Chad M. Bauman

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

This study of dalit Christians in colonial North India suggests that women who converted to Christianity in the region often experienced a contraction of the range of their activities. Bauman analyzes this counterintuitive result of missionary work and then draws on the work of Saba Mahmood and others to interrogate the predilection of feminist historians for agents, rabble-rousers, and gender troublemakers. The article concludes not only that this predilection represents a mild form of egocentrism but also that it prevents historians from adequately analyzing the complexity of factors that motivate and influence human behavior.

Postcolonial Anxiety And Anti-Conversion Sentiment In The Report Of The Christian Missionary Activities Enquiry Committee, Chad M. Bauman

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Conversion to Christianity is one of the most politically charged issues in contemporary India and has recently been very much in the news.1 For example, in 2006, on the fiftieth anniversary of B. R. Ambedkar’s conversion to Buddhism2 hundreds of dalits gathered to convert, some to Buddhism and others to Christianity, rejecting Hinduism, a religion they claim oppresses and demeans them. In attacks on Christians in Orissa at the end of 2007 (and associated reprisals), dozens of churches, homes, and businesses were destroyed, hundreds of people were injured, and thousands were displaced.

Vladimir Soloviev (1853-1900): Commentary, Paul Valliere

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Orthodox reflection on modern legalism began in Russia, not because the Russians were better prepared to think about law than the other Orthodox peoples, but because Russia was the first Orthodox country to attempt to remake itself into a state and society of the modern type.

Was Jesus Illegitimate? The Evidence Of His Social Interactions, James F. Mcgrath

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

This article examines the social status of the historical Jesus in relation to recent studies that place Jesus into the social category of an illegitimate child. After surveying the evidence with respect to the situation of such individuals in first century Mediterranean and Jewish society, we shall proceed to examine whether Jesus' implied social status (as evidenced by accounts of his adult social interactions) coheres with what one would expect in the case of someone who bore the stigma of that status. Our study suggests that the scandal caused by Jesus' association with the marginalized clearly implies that he did …

Vladimir Soloviev (1853-1900): Selected And Edited By Paul Valliere, Paul Valliere

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Vladimir Soloviev was the first modern Orthodox thinker to give systematic attention to the problem ofreligion and Iaw. Philosophy of law in Russia predated Soloviev, but its pioneers did not deal directly with religion.

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.