| Summary: | Hymns/songs used by a community has been seen as the most frequent and characteristic expression of a community's beliefs and this is true more so in traditions that do not have a codified statement of the faith and doctrine of the church comparable to the confessions, catechisms, and Book of Concord. Besides the creeds, liturgy and the Tradition of the church, the most visible and observable expression of the beliefs and faith of the communities are their hymnodies and these are the true expression of the theology of the laity of the church. The hymns of two lay writers from Kerala State1 in India, Moshe Walsalam Sastriyar and Sadhu Kochukunju Upadeshi, cut across denominational boundaries and are a means of the expression of the faith and spirituality of the faithful. In the context of Indian Christian literature, hymnodies and theology being dominated by the missionaries from the West, these songs and writings from the fringes went on to be owned by the communities and were in that sense an expression of the larger community. The theology that is latent in these songs and other writings is one that would be closer to the lay consciousness than that of an official theologian of the church. In Walsalam and Kochukunju, along with other Christian writers, we see a coming together of the local traditions and the Christian message, transforming social structures and relationships and also the spiritual, both personal and community, dimensions of experience.
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