This volume narrates the history of Telugu Christians, a faith community located in the states of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Pondicherry in southern India. A social history of a faith community, this volume analyzes how social aspirations of the community, local worldviews, and historical contingencies shaped the beliefs and practices of Telugu Christians. It relates and interprets the history of Telugu Christians chronologically from the sixteenth century until the current times. The first two chapters of the book examine the earliest encounters between the Christian message that European missionaries introduced and the local Christians. Covering three centuries, this section highlights the appropriation of the Christian message among the caste converts. Later chapters analyze the impact of Dalit conversions and women's leadership on the social fabric and theological texture of Telugu Christianity in the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. The book ends with a consideration of three dominant movements in the second half of the twentieth century and the early twenty-first, namely the process of Sanskritization, the influences of Pentecostalism, and those of Holiness movements on the Telugu church. In conclusion, Taneti recaps how caste and empire shaped the faith and practices of Telugu Christians.

Christian communities in the state Andhra Pradesh of south India and the Telugu Christians in diaspora have passed their stories from one generation to the next by oral traditions as well as in scattered texts. James Elisha Taneti's History of the Telugu Christians: A Bibliography lists more than 700 published and unpublished textual sources related to the history of Telugu Christians from south India, including monographs, journal articles, letters, reports, minutes and the proceedings of missionary conferences, unpublished theses, dissertations, souvenirs, and manuscripts. Taneti's insightful historiographical analysis and comprehensive list of bibliographic sources offer seminarians, historians, and scholars the opportunity to study the religious history of India through the founding and evolution of this community.

Beginning in the nineteenth century, native women preachers served and led nascent Protestant churches in much of Southern India, evolving their own mission theology and practices. This volume examines the impact of Telugu socio-political dynamics, such as caste, gender, and empire, on the theology and practices of the Telugu Biblewomen.

This historical book recounts the missionary work of the London Missionary Society in the Telugu-speaking regions of India during the early 19th century. It details the challenges and successes of the missionaries as they worked to spread the gospel and establish Christian communities in a foreign land. The book also provides insights into the Telugu culture and language, making it a valuable resource for scholars of Indian history and linguistics. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.