Pentecostals, Proselytization, and Anti-Christian Violence in Contemporary India

Every year, there are several hundred attacks on India's Christians. These attacks are carried out by violent anti-minority activists, many of them provoked by what they perceive to be a Christian propensity for aggressive proselytization, or by rumored or real conversions to the faith. Pentecostals are disproportionately targeted.

Drawing on extensive interviews, ethnographic work, and a vast scholarly literature on interreligious violence, Hindu nationalism, and Christianity in India, Chad Bauman examines this phenomenon. While some of the factors in the targeting of Pentecostals are obvious and expected-their relatively greater evangelical assertiveness, for instance-other significant factors are less acknowledged and more surprising: marginalization of Pentecostals by "mainstream" Christians, the social location of Pentecostal Christians, and transnational flows of missionary personnel, theories, and funds. A detailed analysis of Indian Christian history, contemporary Indian politics, Indian social and cultural characteristics, and Pentecostal belief and practice, this volume sheds important light on a troubling fact of contemporary Indian life.


Author: Chad M. Bauman
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 02/02/2015
Pages: 224
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.65lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.10w x 0.60d
ISBN: 9780190202101

Review Citation(s):
Choice 09/01/2015

About the Author

Chad Bauman is Associate Professor of Religion at Butler University and is the author of Christian Identity and Dalit Religion in Hindu India, 1868-1947.

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