Jacob Parappally’s Christ Without Borders is a significant book connecting Indian theology and Global Christianity. Parappally’s main goal is to provide “theological insights into the mystery of Christ from Indic experiences of Jesus Christ that go beyond [more traditional] Christological dogmas” (xiii). This work centers Indian perspectives in Christian theology and critiques normative views, making it relevant to scholars studying Christianity from global perspectives.
In the first half of the book, chapter by chapter, Parappally slowly decenters Western theologies. At the outset, Parappally reminds scholars of the importance of studying contextual Christologies, which are informed by more than “the formula and idiom of Chalcedon” from 451 CE (2). Moving beyond familiar Greco-Roman “frameworks” to explore Christology in Asia, Parappally suggests that there is a need to understand the “radical newness of God’s self revelation in Jesus Christ,” (42, author’s italics) simultaneously preserving, promoting and integrating “everything that is true, beautiful, and good in Asia’s cultures and religions as they are the fruits of his Spirit active in them.” (43)
In chapter 5, after reviewing H. Richard Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture (Harper & Row, 1951), highlighting the insufficiency of several terms, Parappally points out Christ is within cultures, noting that Christ and culture share a “nondualistic relationship” (100-101). Capturing a Christ without borders, Parappally writes that Christ’s choice to become human was also a choice to embrace and enter all cultures. Parappally underscores the point: “As human, the Word assumed everything that makes a human a human. Therefore, the assumption of culture also cannot be separated from the reality of being human.” By entering into one culture through his incarnation, Christ “is present in every culture.” (103)
It isn’t until chapter 6 that we are introduced more thoroughly to several Asian Christologies. Parappally lists and explores several figures: Ram Mohun Roy, Keshub Chunder Sen, Pratap Chander Mozoomdar, and Brhamabandhav Upadhyaya. In chapter 8, Parappally begins to discuss an “evolution of views on Christ from the Hindu point of view,” noting how Christ was both received and rejected (135). While it may appear that Hindus accepted Christ as one of the avatars of the absolute, Parappally quotes Nilakantha Goreh, a scholar from Varanasi, India writing during the 19th century, to disabuse anyone of this notion: “Christ could not have been a real manifestation of God and Christianity was of a demonic origin.” (135) Despite his initial rejection, Goreh converted in 1848, changed his name to Nehemiah, and contributed to Indian Christian theology (136). Parappally also writes of how Hindu rivalist societies, like the Society of the Four Vedas, arose in Madras during the mid-19th century to “resist the influence of Christianity” (136). Nonetheless, Christ still had many admirers in Indic society. Parappally lists several: Rom Mohun Roy, Mahatma Gandhi, and several Hindus who follow the advaitic or non-dualistic tradition. He also explains some of the Indian theological insights of Keshub Chunder Sen and Pratrap Chander Mozoomdar.
In chapter 10, Parappally notably explores the life and theological method of Brahmabandhab Upadhyaya (1861-1907), who is described as making a “courageous attempt” to “interpret the meaning of Jesus in the Indian context” through a unique trilogue between the Hindu religion, its cultural traditions and the Christian faith (151). Upadhyaya deeply valued Indian traditions and desired to use “Indic thought patterns” (152) to categorize and communicate Christianity to the Indian people. Further, in his view, a more meaningful Christianity needed to take seriously the “theistic truths contained in Hindu scriptures and Vedantic categories of thought” (152-153). The method of Upadhyaya was to separate the Christian content from the European cultural context, and with discernment to reinterpret it in Indian philosophical categories.
Drawing from the Vedantic idea of Brahman as Saccidanana, Upadhyaya attempts to explain the Trinity using specific Hindu concepts (155). For example, Upadhyaya would use the highest conception of God in Vedic thought—Nirguna Braham—to show how the communion of the Trinity can be likened to Saccidananda. In Saccidananda, Braham, who is Being itself (Sat), Consciousness (Cit), and Bliss (Ananda) all relate to one another (157). Connecting the three, Christ is described by Upadhyaya as the incarnation of the Cit of God, and the “Holy Spirit . . . the one who proceeds from Sat (being) and Cit (consciousness)” (158). Upadhyaya would also use the term Hari-Nari (Hari a proper name for Vishnu) to capture the two natures of the one person of Jesus Christ in the hypostatic union. As a more complex connection, to further explore the two natures of Christ, Upadhyaya draws on the Indian understanding of the five sheaths of division in human beings to explain the details of this hypostatic union (163). All in all, Parappally highlights that Upadhyaya’s Christological approach is relevant because it recognizes the value of Indic traditions and philosophies as a means to convey the person and work of Christ in a way that might be understandable to Indian society (168).
In the latter chapters, Parappally engages complex topics such as the suffering Christ discovered by the poor in their search for “full humanity” (chapter 11), the dialogue between Christianity and Islam (chapter 12), and the relationships between postmodernism and the person and message of Christ (chapter 13). In the final chapter, Parappally presents Raimon Panikkar’s (1918-2010) “liberating vision of Christ” and his insights on a Christophany that sought to create dialogue with other religions, seeing Christ as present in all other traditions (226-227).
Christ Without Borders is an excellent book that centers Indian voices in Christian theology, emphasizing a reassessment of theology in terms of Indian philosophy and religion. It serves as a resource to understand theologies beyond the West and a fruitful example of interreligious dialogue.
Christopher Valencia is a PhD candidate in the Study of Religion at the University of California, Riverside.
Christopher Valencia
Date Of Review:
July 30, 2025
