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Foreword

Christianity on the sub-continent of India and Nepal is, by all accounts, a complicated and nuanced history. On the one hand, India is one of the few countries that can claim the presence of all seven major strands of Christian penetration. India has one of the strongest historical claims for an Apostolic introduction to Christianity with the arrival of St. Thomas to the Malabar coast in 52 A.D. India has also received multiple strands of Catholic witness, including Dominican, Jesuit and Franciscan. India also has a rich tradition of the Syrian Orthodox church, its depth demonstrated by the famous encounter of the "Croonan Cross." Later, India received the early Protestant witness of a long line of missionaries including Ziegenbalg and Plutschau, the famous Serampore Trio, Amy Carmichael, and many others, too numerous to count. After Independence, India experienced the full flowering of ecumenical Christianity, leading to the formation of the CNI and CSI church bodies, full members of the World Council of Churches. Finally, India has provided the soil for remarkable new Pentecostal and indigenous movements which have both re-shaped our understanding of Christianity in India.

Adding to this complexity, one must add that the majority of these seven strands were focused on South India, leaving North India and Nepal as, by comparison, untouched fields of Christian penetration. Thus, India is the home, simultaneously, of one of the oldest Christian movements on the planet (Mar Thoma) alongside numerous fresh, indigenous movements, like the CEA, which was one of the focal points of the Revitalization study. One also cannot ignore the dramatic differences linguistic, cultural, caste, religious, and ethnic complexities in India, which have shaped the church and created significant barriers to the gospel's spread throughout India and Nepal.

One of the key findings of the Revitalization studies over the last seven years has been to dispel the notion of any such monolithic entity as "world Christianity" the way it is sometimes glibly used in missiological literature. What we, in fact, are finding through our global studies, is a rich tapestry of over 40,000 separate movements, all expressing both universality and particularity, in what is, today, known as world Christianity. Certainly, the traditional taxonomy of Catholic, Protestant and Eastern Orthodox as a simple rubric of understanding church history is no longer tenable as the growing Pentecostal and indigenous movements have so amply shown.

This volume brings the reader into intimate conversations with several indigenous movements in North India and Nepal. They provide a vital window into the complexity and beauty of Christianity in the sub-continent. Having dedicated much of my life to the expansion of the gospel in North India, I cannot fully express my joy in introducing some of these unknown movements to the larger church. I have had the privilege of working closely with these movements since their inception and the conversations that took place in North India, which these case studies illuminate, have shaped my own understanding of Christianity in profound ways. The story is fascinating and invites many new questions about how the church around the world is being re-shaped and re-presented in a vastly complex world.

Timothy C. Tennent, PhD

President, Asbury Theological Seminary

Professor of World Christianity