Triumphant Love The contextual, creative and strategic missionary work of Amy Beatrice Carmichael in south India Triumphant Love The contextual, creative and strategic missionary work of Amy Beatrice Carmichael in south India J. (HANS) KOMMERS Head Office AOSIS (Pty) Ltd Postnet Suite #110 Private Bag X19 Durbanville 7551 South Africa Tel: +27 21 975 2602 Fax: +27 21 975 4635 Email: [email protected] Website: http://www.aosis.co.za © J. (Hans) Kommers 2017. Licensee: AOSIS (Pty) Ltd The moral rights of the authors have been asserted. First Edition published in 2017 Impression: 1 Listed in OAPEN (http://www.oapen.org), DOAB (http://www.doabooks.org/) and indexed by Google Scholar. Some rights reserved. This is an open access publication. Except where otherwise noted, this work is distributed under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0), a copy of which is available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/. Enquiries outside the terms of the Creative Commons license should be sent to the Rights Department, AOSIS, at the above address or to [email protected] Published in South Africa by AOSIS (Pty) Ltd, 15 Oxford Street, Durbanville, Cape Town, 7550. Book Title: Triumphant Love: The contextual, creative and strategic missionary work of Amy Beatrice Carmichael in south India ISBN: 978-1-928396-21-5 (pdf) ISBN: 978-1-928396-22-2 (e-book) DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/aosis.2017.tl41 How to cite this work Kommers, J. (Hans), 2017, Triumphant Love: The contextual, creative and strategic missionary work of Amy Beatrice Carmichael in south India, AOSIS, Cape Town. Printed in South Africa This cover photo was provided under the CC0 (https://creativecommons.org/choose/zero), via Pixabay The map on the cover photo was provided by © Bruce Jones Design Inc. 2010 The publisher accepts no responsibility for any statement made or opinion expressed in this publication. Consequently, the publishers and copyright holder will not be liable for any loss or damage sustained by any reader as a result of his or her action upon any statement or opinion in this work. Links by third party websites are provided by AOSIS in good faith and for information only. AOSIS disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work. Every effort has been made to protect the interest of copyright holders. Should any infringement have occurred inadvertently, the publisher apologises and undertakes to amend the omission in the event of a reprint. Out in the garden little groups of missionaries walked together and talked. From a room nearby came the sound of a hymn. It was peaceful and beautiful everywhere, and the gold of sunset filled the air, and made the garden a glory land of radiant wonderful colour. But for one woman at least the world turned black. Only the thought of the children nerved her to go on. Lotus Buds, 291. For Aly On 01 March 1970, God arranged that the main path of my life would cross the path of the one who agreed to be my wife. Walking together, Jesus, our Lord himself, drew near and walked with us, and he gave each to the other. In you I found the crowning gift, a woman with a mind and soul that answered my own and together we started along the way that leads to life. Religious Studies Domain Editorial Board at AOSIS Chief Editor: Scholarly Books , Post Retirement Professor in the Dean’s Office, Faculty of Theology, University of Pretoria, Andries van Aarde South Africa Board Members , Professor of New Testament, Brite Divinity School, Fort Worth, United States Warren Carter , Dekan der Evangelisch-Theologischen Fakultät der Universität Wien und Ordentlicher Christian Danz Universitätsprofessor für Systematische Theologie und Religionswissenschaft, University of Vienna, Austria , Associate Editor, Extraordinary Professor in Biblical Spirituality, Faculty of Theology, Pieter G.R. de Villiers University of the Free State, South Africa , Department of Theology & Religious Studies, Faculty of Humanities, University of Botswana, Botswana Musa W. Dube , Professor of Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations, Duncan Black Macdonald Center David D. Grafton for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, Hartford Seminary, Hartford, Connecticut, United States , Theologische Fakultät der Universität Leipzig, Germany Jens Herzer , Dean of Students and Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology and Pastoral Care, Saint Paul Jeanne Hoeft School of Theology, United States , Associate Editor, Deputy Dean and Professor of Old Testament Studies, Faculty of Theology, Dirk J. Human University of Pretoria, South Africa , Former Chair of the SBL Psychology and Bible Section, and Editor of the Bible Workbench, D. Andrew Kille San Jose, United States , Emeritus Professor Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia William R.G. Loader , Associate General Secretary for Public Witness and Diakonia, World Council of Churches, Geneva, Isabel A. Phiri Switzerland , Emeritus, Professor of Fundamental Theology, Tilburg School of Catholic Theology, Tilburg Marcel Sarot University, the Netherlands , Professor of Historical and Dogmatic Theology, Emanuel University, Oradea, Bihor, Romania Corneliu C. Simut , Professor and Head of Department of Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology, Rothney S. Tshaka University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa , Emeritus Professor School of Theology, University of Auckland, New Zealand; Elaine M. Wainwright Executive Leader, Mission and Ministry, McAuley Centre, Australia , Associate Editor, School of Religion, Philosophy and Classics in the College of Humanities, Gerald West University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa Peer Review Declaration The Publisher (AOSIS) endorses the South African ‘National Scholarly Book Publishers Forum (NSBPF) Best Practice for Peer Review of Scholarly Books’. The manuscript was subjected to rigorous two-step peer review prior to publication, with the identities of the reviewers not revealed to the author(s). The reviewers were independent of the publisher and/or authors in question. The reviewers commented positively on the scholarly merits of the manuscript, and recommended that the manuscript be published. Where the reviewers recommended revision and/ or improvements to the manuscript, the authors responded adequately to such recommendations. Research Justification The book is a treasure trove for scholars in the field of science of religion who focus on comparative religion, spirituality and the reception of Christianity in India and Ireland. The strength of the book is its comprehensive scope, critical and narratological methodology, and the depth of the data analysis. The exposition of the contextual, creative and strategic missionary work of Amy Beatrice Carmichael in south India is innovative and highly informative. The book contains a high level of original research in that it goes beyond the existing research on the Carmichael biographies. The knowledge of the field is comprehensive and the number and quality of sources impressive. The biographic genre and methodology complement the extensive research in the book. This combination constitutes a genuine historical foundation for the scholarship. The main purpose of the book is to open the field of science to and pique the interest of professional theologians with an interest in missiology and in the valuable contribution of Amy Carmichael of Dohnavur. The book includes a comprehensive overview of the existing scholarly work on the topic and then makes a further innovative contribution to and, in the end, provides the most comprehensive picture of the work of Amy Carmichael to date. It will become the definitive reference book on the history of Christian missionary work in south India. It is original research and no part of the book was plagiarised from any other publication or has been published elsewhere before. Dr J. (Hans) Kommers Faculty of Theology North-West University South Africa