Religious conversion in India: A theological understanding of Manilal Chhotalal Parekh's conversion with contextual considerations

This dissertation is a theological investigation into the life of Manilal Parekh. The motive is to understand Christian conversion in the Indian context and what makes it conducive for a convert to exercise faith and commitment to Christ while embracing his or her "Indianness." The conversion narrative in the spiritual autobiography of Manilal Parekh is placed in the context of influences upon him. Parekh's case study provides a lens through which to view the personal, social, political, economic, religious-cultural, and philosophical factors impinging upon and interwoven into the conversion experience in the Indian context, and thereby to appreciate the complexity of understanding conversion in the Indian context. Practical theological method informs this dissertation. It helps bring together historical thinking, interpretation, and theological reflection on the church's praxis in the world. The conversation about conversion reflects a post-modernist stance. Rambo's model of conversion illuminates the multiple layers of influences and causes that bring about fundamental changes in Manilal Parekh's behavior and beliefs. His spiritual journey led him from the eclectic religious ethos of his early upbringing, where the atheism of the Jain religion and the personalist theism of Vaishnavism co-existed, to the reformist and spiritual religious movement Brahmo Samaj, to Christ and the Christianity of his time, and on to the unity of personalist religions that he called Bhagavata Dharma. In other words, Parekh underwent a series of conversions and de-conversions.;This dissertation has shown that conversion of an individual is affected by a variety of factors, including religious-cultural movements, charismatic personalities, networks of philosophical and religious ideas, socio-political contexts, and institutional religions. One's conversion impacts persons and processes, even as the contextual realities impact one's conversion experience. Conversion is a part of a continuum of events and is itself a process in which turning, commitment, and transformation unfold. Manilal Parekh's spiritual journey is an example of how one comes to faith, and moves on from one religious affiliation to multiple affiliations both at one given time and serially. This work arrives at a theological understanding of conversion in the Indian context, and within its discussion includes: the meaning of baptism and the nature of identity provided by baptism in the Indian context; the identity of an Indian-Christian and the question of Hindu Christianity; the methods of evangelizing appropriate to the Indian context; the ways in which Christian converts from other faiths might relate to their communities; and multiple religious belongings in the context of faithful commitment and service to Christ.