Rev. Dr. R. Sahayadhas

 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

Prepared by: Shinemon P K, BD III