Marbaniang, Domenic

Arles, Siga & Thomas, Joy. Christian Mission in the Midst of Violence, Bangalore: CFCC, 2013. Pages – 232 Price – Rs.300/- US$20 Christian mission is always mission in context, to a context, towards a context. The towardness of mission stirs context to a particular shape which in turn forces mission to take shape - the dynamic interactions continue. One of the contexts in which mission occurs is the context of violence. Certainly, one cannot do mission in such a context without properly analysing the situation and also finding means to accomplish mission in such a context. To understand the same, the 2013 FOIM (Fellowship of Indian Missiologists) Conference was hosted at Punalur, Kerala. 12 papers from this conference were compiled and published in Christian Mission in the Midst of Violence under the editorship of Dr. Joy Thomas SVD, director of Ishvani Kendra of Pune and Secretary of FOIM and Dr. Siga Arles, director of the Centre for Contemporary Christianity of Bangalore. The t...

I recently read an excellent book called The Case For the Real Jesus by Lee Strobel. The book has 309 pages including the index. The author is said to have been the award-winning legal editor of the Chicago Tribune and a spiritual skeptic until 1981. In this book, the author tries to find answers for 6 modern challenges to the case for the real Jesus. He attempts to resolve each by consulting eminent scholars and authorities on the particular field where the challenge is posed, and each time he startles us with information and logic that should burst propaganda balloons and send them fizzing through the air. Two of the challenges are as follows: "Scholars are uncovering a radically different Jesus in ancient documents just as credible as the Four Gospels." [Answer: The challenge is faulty because the so called ancient documents turn out to be quite later writings influenced by Gnosticism], "The Bible's portrait of Jesus can't be trusted because the Church tamper...