Hindu Mission, Christian Mission

For some four hundred years, Hindus and Christians have been engaged in a public controversy about conversion and missionary proselytization, especially in India and the Hindu diaspora. Hindu Mission, Christian Mission reframes this controversy by shifting attention from "conversion" to a wider, interreligious study of "mission" as a category of thought and practice. Comparative theologian Reid B. Locklin traces the emergence of the nondualist Hindu teaching of Advaita Vedanta as a missionary tradition, from the eighth century to the present day, and draws this tradition into dialogue with contemporary proposals in Christian missiology. As a descriptive study of the Chinmaya Mission, the Ramakrishna Mission, and other leading Advaita mission movements, Hindu Mission, Christian Mission contributes to a growing body of scholarship on transnational Hinduism. As a speculative work of Christian comparative theology, it develops key themes from this engagement for a new, interreligious theology of mission and conversion for the twenty-first century and beyond.

Reid B. Locklin is Associate Professor of Christianity and Culture at the University of Toronto. He has written, edited, and coedited several books, including Vernacular Catholicism, Vernacular Saints: Selva J. Raj on "Being Catholic the Tamil Way", also published by SUNY Press.

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Beyond the Conversion Controversy
Part I: Constructing Missionary Advaita
1. Toward a Comparative Theology of Mission
2. A History of Missionary Advaita in Late Modernity
3. Paradigms and Styles of Advaita Mission
Part II: Fruits of Encounter
4. A Gospel of Inner Experience? Transcending Limits of Language and Culture
5. Conquest of the Quarters? Crossing Borders and Charting New Geographies
6. All Selves, and Whole Selves? Striving for Social and Political Liberation
7. From Lower to Higher Truth? Rethinking Conversion
Conclusion: The Still More Common Task
Notes
Works Cited
Index