Cross-cultural transmission of evangelical conversion theology in nineteenth-century Western India

Abstract

This thesis examines the theological understanding of Christian conversion among Scottish evangelical missionaries and Indian Christian leaders connected to the Scottish Presbyterian mission in nineteenth-century Western India. It looks at how evangelical conversion theology, rooted in eighteenth-century revivals in Britain, encountered the non-Christian population of Western India through the evangelistic activities of missionaries and Indian Christian leaders and their associative churches in the cities of Bombay and Poona and the rural vicinity of Jalna. The thesis argues that evangelicals in nineteenth-century Western India focused on the corporate nature of Christian conversion. Evangelical conversion theology has historically been oriented toward what may be considered internal or “vertical” aspects of conversion – the inner experience of turning to Christ through a personal faith commitment. What uniquely characterized Indian Christian conversions are corporate or “horizontal” aspects of conversion – the outward experience of turning to Christ through a public solidarity with God’s people in the church and God’s plans for human nations. The five chapters of the thesis demonstrate the main argument by addressing the historical and theological context in Chapters 1 and 2 before presenting three manifestations of the corporate nature of evangelical conversion theology in the areas of church, caste, and country. Early Scottish missionaries in Western India – shaped as they were by the British evangelicalism of eighteenth-century revivals and the Reformed theology of Scottish Presbyterianism – arrived in Western India in 1823 with the belief that conversion chiefly entailed turning to God through the gracious affections of repentance and faith in Christ.

However, the cross-cultural encounter with Western India fostered a stronger emphasis in evangelical conversion on turning to Christ through corporate solidarities in the visible church (Chapter 3), in inter-caste fellowship (Chapter 4), and in the expanding kingdom of God in India (Chapter 5). These demonstrate how evangelicals maintained a view of conversion that was church-centered, concerned for tangible human relationships, and attentive to God’s historic relationship with human countries. The thesis makes a distinctly theological contribution to academic studies in religious conversion and the history of evangelicalism by providing a representative model of evangelical conversion theology in an early missionary context, suggesting that evangelical conversion could be a thoroughly immanent and external process. Additionally, the thesis contributes to studies in the history of Christianity and Christian mission in India by showing how the corporate emphasis in evangelical conversion served as the background to twentieth-century discourses on conversion in India and recent developments in the practice of Christian mission.