Building Christianity on Indian Foundations

Although Brahmabandhav Upadhyay (1861- 1907) has been called the father of Indian Christian Theology no comprehensive study of his theology has been published. This book addresses this neglect and in the process demonstrates how this 19th century Indian continues to speak with relevance and power to the church today.  In Building Christianity on Indian foundations, Dr Tennent explores the three major theological attempts made by Upadhyay to find an adequate foundation upon which an indigenous expression of Christianity in India might be built and flourish. This book, will take the reader on a powerful theological journey from the universal knowledge of God revealed through natural theology to the intricate philosophical arguments of great thinkers like Sankara and St Thomas Aquinas to the theological significance of some of the popular expressions of Indian culture in contemporary India. The publication of this volume marks the 100th anniversary of both Upadhyay’s landmark identification of Sankara’s maya with St Thomas Aquinas contingent being as well as the formal ecclesiastical ban on all of Upadhyay’s writings. However, his writings are now accessible to us and his remarkable thinking is inspiring and provoking a whole new generation of Christian leaders wrestling with the perennial issue of the relationship between the gospel and culture.