The Rev. Dr. R. Sahayadas is an ordained minister in the Indian Evangelical Lutheran
Church (IELC), Vellore.
He was born and brought up in Nagercoil, Kanyakumari District in Tamil Nadu. He
has received his secular degree in English Literature and Language, and after
which he joined for his theological education in the United Theological College
(UTC), Bangalore.
After he completed his graduation in Theological education (BD), he joined his
church and served the church as a pastor for 18 years; and then he joined for M.Th.
and then D.Th. in UTC. Then, he joined as lecturer in the department of
Theology and Ethics in UTC in June 2007. Now he is the Chairperson and
associate professor of the department of Theology and Ethics in the same institution.
His Activities for the Last One Year
For the past one year, since June 2012, he is very much actively
involving in ecclesial activities, especially preaching and conducting worship
services. Very recently he attended a Pedagogical seminar which was conducted
in Kottayam in the month of December 2012, regarding the theme “Institute of Pedagogue”. He made insightful contributions to the same.
One of the areas in which he is trying
to focus is to review the UTC curriculum and explore the review of pedagogical method. He
proposes participatory pedagogical method rather than funnelling method. In the
participatory method, exams should be conducted in such a way that students
must be able to critically engage and express their ideas. Another proposal which he
would like to make is that before beginning of the course, previous term, some
assignments should be given to the students on particular themes, so that they
can have some knowledge about the course which they are going to encounter.
Last year, in the UTC faculty research seminar he presented a paper on
the theme “Forgiveness and Reconciliation: Conditions for a Mutually Responsive
and Responsible Future”.
Publications
Towards the end of the year 2011, he published an article on the title, “Bits:
A Theological Response to Religious Fundamentalism”.
In the year 2012, he made a publication on the title, “Luther’s
Understanding of Priesthood of All Believers in the Context of Indian Church”.
Now he is working on the publication of his D.Th. dissertation, “Hindu
Nationalism and Indian
Church: Towards and Ecclesiology
in Critical Conversation with Martin Luther’s Thoughts on the Church”.
He is also working on a lecture based on the title “Differences in unity”.
Other papers he is working on are 1) “Demystifying Masculinity: A Critique of the
Instrumentation of Religiosity Constructed Masculinity on Nationalist
Discourse”, and 2) “Religions’ Tryst with Violence”
He is also working on his post-doctoral research on the title, “Religion
Faces Interfaith in India:
Contemporary Dilemmas and Challenges”.
Other activities
He is not much involved in the other activities apart from ecclesia and
academia. But, he says, he wants to reform the church from its present decay. He
also wants to build a bridge between academia and ecclesia where both enrich
each other. As an academician and a pastor, he attempts to stimulate
spirituality both in academia and ecclesia. Ecclesia and academia should have
some relationship in terms of spiritualty and theology. As a theologian, his
concern is to find intersectional space where we can have interaction with
various strands of theology and enrich and nourish each other.
Hobbies
He spends lot of time for reading. Apart from this, he also has interest
in gardening, listen to music, caring of pets, and watching debates on current
issues on TV along with entertainment programmes.
He can be contacted by phone on 23540780/ 9449600780 and by e mail at
sahayadhasutc@rediffmail.com
He can be contacted by phone on 23540780/ 9449600780 and by e mail at
sahayadhasutc@rediffmail.com
Prepared by: Shinemon P K, BD III
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