Christianity and Social Change in South India

The original evangelization of Peddur reached in particular one family, which fact has conditioned the entire subsequent history of Christianity in this community. Other conditioning factors were the acceptance of the message by those who would gain socially thereby and the popular identification of missionaries with British administrators. With decreasing moral support from foreign agencies, the Christian community in Peddur is being forced back into traditional social patterns of caste, etc., with which it earlier had come into conflict, and it is losing much of its spiritual vitality; and ideological conflicts with Hinduism have not been resolved creatively.