The Church Union Movement in India and its Contributions
By. Wankitboklang
Wanniang
Introduction
Ecumenical movement in India grew out
of the experiencesoflocal missionary situations.Western denominational
differences which came along with the missionaries and mission agencies proved
to be a problem in the Indian context. This proved to be detrimental for the
agencies had common objectives but their differences aspired conflicting
interests. The mission agencies saw the need of sharing resources andlater on
the need for comity. This led to meeting together to share knowledge and
concerns. Such moves led to enhancement of the ecumenical spirit and eventually
to church union and its attempt. The paper will study the church union movement
in India and its contributions.
1.
Factors Promoting the Ecumenical Spirit
There are various events that
fostered the growth of the ecumenical spirit in India. Social movements such
asnationalism and renaissance, and ecumenical ventures such as the missionary
conferences at city, regional and national levels, all have their contributions
in the development of the ecumenical spirit.
1.1.
Nationalism and Renaissance
The rise of nationalism was a factor
for the creation of a sense of oneness among Christians in India. Despite
differences in denominational churches, Indian Christians considered themselves
members of the Indian Christian community who have a distinctive Indian
identity. Some national leaders in Bengal like LalBehariDey and Krishna Mohan
Banerjee sought to have a national church independent of foreign missionary
supervision or colonial control. K. C. Banerjee set up an indigenous Indian
church, the ChristoSamaj, in 1887. This is to reject the divisive type of
Christianity and a call for an inclusive single church. Christianity with its
western denominationalism had entered a fluid and fragmented Indian cultural
situation. It was from this background that a search for a native church became
highly significant.
There was an aroused sense of
self-consciousness and a thirst for self-expression. There was an application
of indigenous forms of expression to Christian materials and even institutions
like the ashram. Poetic, lyrical and oratory forms of indigenous styles were
employed in worship and narrating the gospel message. Poets like
NarayanVamanTilak, Krishna Pillai, PulipakaJagannadham and the Christian
sadhuSundar Singh showed consciousness and expressions using indigenous ideals
and forms. There were also articulations of theology on Indian terms and
ideologies.
Renaissance was a development of
national significance. The 19th century India witnessed an emergence
of religious renaissance movements, like the AryoSamaj, BrahmoSamaj and the
Ramkrishna Mission. The nationalism that
had created a thirst for identity of Indian Christians was closely related to
the emergence of religious renaissance movements. These movements were
reforming movements. They sought to interpret and revive the old ancient
traditions and give new meanings to them. They posed challenges to Christian
missions from an intellectual aspect especially in Bengal and in India at
large.
It is fact that such movements were
more concerned with Christians in the cities and the more educated ones. And
missionaries in cities due to contact with intellectuals from other faiths were
more sensitive to their own mistakes. Yet this does not negate the
contributions of such movements to the life of the church in India as a whole.
These have inspiredmissionaries and Indian Christian leaders to re-think and aspire
united identity. These translated into important events like conferences and
commencement of ecumenical institutions.
1.2.
City Missionary Conferences
The Bombay Missionary Union
introduced in 1825 brought together representatives from the Church Missionary
Society, the American Board and extended its invitation to all Protestant
mission societies. Similar city fellowship meetings were started at Calcutta in
about 1830 and in Madras as well.
At this point the mission societies
were not yet ready to compromise on their doctrinal distinctiveness.
Yetpositively, they were prepared to come together and dialogue on areas of
common objectives. The aim of these city fellowships was to encourage ecclesiastical
openness, promote interdenominational fellowship and provide an avenue for
sharing of problems, ideas and seeking advice and help. Their seriousness was
well reflected upon regular gatherings and monthly prayers. These developments
marked the beginnings of the desire of cooperation through mutual sharing.
1.3.
Regional Missionary Conferences
The local fellowship gatherings
provided ecumenical awareness which soon led to the emergence of northern and
southern regional ecumenical conferences in the second half of the 19th
century.
1.3.1.
The Northern Conferences: The Northern India General Conference
were held in Calcutta 1855, Benares 1857 and in Lahore 1863.
The Calcutta Conference dwelt more on
issues related to evangelization. The responsibility of self-support,
communication in local language and education of women were the discussions. At
this point an indigenous church was not yet envisioned. Sufficient attention
was not yet given to unity.
The Benares Conference also tackled
issues related to mission, such as, production of Christian literature,
indigenous leadership, and guidelines for new missionaries from the west. This
Conference has also not yet shown serious discussions on unity.
The Lahore Conference laid emphasis
on united action for God’s kingdom and found expression in sharing the Lord’s
Supper. It took seriously social questions of polygamy and divorce in addition
to comity. It spoke of catholicity and relationship between Indian and Western
workers.
1.3.2.
The Southern Conferences:The South India Conferences were held
in Ootacamund in 1858, Bangalore in 1879 and Madras in 1900.
TheOotacamund, 1858 conference raised
significant missiological issues but stressed on communication of the Gospel in
vernacular, education, Bible translation and distribution. It took up other
issues like caste, comity and Christian unity. The conference realized that
ecclesiastical differences might have succeeded in the West but faced a setback
in India.
The Bangalore Conference, 1879 gave
due attention to education and the native church. The conference directed its
attention into bringingan outward recognition of church union of the Christian
unity already experienced inwardly. It also underscored the credibility of
developing a vibrant indigenous church.
Madras Conference of 1900 marked a
birth process in the history of ecumenical movement. The missionaries working
in South India used to spent monthly prayers in the hill stations
likeKodaikonal and Ootacamund. These
informal meetings led to sharing and exchange of views of experiences. These
led to united efforts and eventually to the formation of the South India
Missionary Association in 1897. The Association organized the 1900 Madras
Conference. Unlike the previous meetings in which individuals attended in their
own capacities, the Madras Conference 1900 insisted on official representation.
Its decisions and recommendations would carry weight with the missions and the
home societies. It insisted that mission societies should send experienced
representatives for meaningful discussion and effective deliberations. It also
brought the organization of the conference on a committee system with power to
act and to represent at various levels.
1.4.
National Missionary Conferences
Local Consultative Unions and
Regional Conferences had been successful inter-mission endeavours. Many
experienced a new sense of unity and realized its value in the context of a
vast majority of non-Christian population. Now the ecumenical vision looked upon
widening to the national level. This proposal was discussed at the North India
Regional Conference held at Lahore in 1862.
The first All India Missionary
Conference was held in Allahabad in 1872. The conference shared common concerns
for unity and cooperation in evangelization and gave due recognition to the
growing rise of native Indian church. It also considered the importance of
holding a decennial national missionary conference in order to promote the
spirit of inter-mission cooperation.
The second National Conference took
place in Calcutta in 1882. It did not take up new agenda but shared on issues
previously discussed at Allahabad.
The third decennial conference met in
Bombay 1892. In spite of its evangelistic concerns, one thing that the
conference took serious note of was on the status of the conference as a
constituted body. The Conference was thus far a fellowship without any organized
administrative procedure or constitution.
The fourth decennial conference was
convened at Madras 1902. This conference was important in so far as it
initiated a broad-based ecumenical vision before the World Missionary
Conference to be held in Edinburgh 1910. Most of the major subjects of the conference
were on unity and mission.But another significant step was that the Madras
meeting converted the national conference from a platform of fellowship into a
working body with a constitution.
2. Church Union Movement
The
first practical steps towards union were the confessional unions of the same
traditions.The first definite achievement was a local union of Presbyterians in
South India in1901. This brought together the communities of the American Arcot
Mission,the Church of Scotland and Free Church of Scotland spread in and around
Madras. In 1904 this body joined with eight Presbyterian missions in North
India to form the Presbyterian Church of India. Secondly, 1905 the
Congregationalists of the London Mission and the American Madurai Mission
formed another local confessional union in Tamilnadu.
The
first inter-denominational union was the South India United Church (SIUC),
formed in 1908. This was the union of the Congregationalists and Presbyterians
in South India and the Jaffna district of Ceylon in 1919, later the Basel
Mission of Malabar district also joined. The church order was a mixture of
Congregationalism and Presbyterianism.
Similar
movement was seen in North India. The United Church of North India (UCNI) was
formed in 1924. The UNCI was formed being a union of Presbyterians and
Congregationalists. Eleven missions were represented in it and its vast area
stretched from Bengal, Assam, Gujarat and the Punjab.
At
the same time the Lutherans had been organizing autonomous Lutheran churches;
the Leipzig Mission and the Church of Sweden Mission came together and formed
the Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church after the First World War. In 1926 there
were nine member churches whocame together and formed the Federation of
Evangelical Lutheran Churches in India.
2.1. Formation of Church of South India (CSI)
Prior
to the formation of the CSI the churches that were actively involved in the
process of negotiations for union belonged to three traditions – Calvinism,
Episcopalism and Revivalism. They all had stories of disagreement in their own
countries and had successfully made inroads into India. The Presbyterians and
the Congregationalists shared common origins in Calvinism who rejected both
episcopalism and liturgy. The Anglican Communion of South India was of
Anglo-Catholic tradition which retains most elements of the Medieval Church but
they withdrew allegiance to the Pope. And the Me thodists though were from
Anglican tradition yet in adherence to Evangelical Revival chose to be
independent.
In
1920 an informal meeting of Indian pastors of the Lutheran, Methodist, Anglican
and South Indian United Churches convened by Bishop V.S. Azariah and Rev.
Santiago, took place in Tranquebar. This meeting envisaging a unity in
diversity issued a declaration outlining a plan of union. The proposal was to
preserve the rich biblical heritages of each constituent tradition. This
proposal drawn was popularly known as the Tranquebar Manifesto. It came out
with a proposal for union on four basic points:
“1. The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments,
as containing all things necessary for salvation.
2. The Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed.
3. The two Sacraments ordained by Christ Himself – Baptism and the
Lord’s Supper.
4. The historic
Episcopate, locally adapted.”
The
constituent parties took serious interest in the process of the union. The
publication of the manifesto generated discussion in all constituent bodies.
The Joint Committee appointed for the union took up the proposed basic terms of
the union. In 1929, the Union Scheme was published and distributed among the
local congregations in the negotiation. This was not final as debates continued
and amendments were made on the Union Scheme. The Scheme was approved by some
while rejected by others. The Joint Committee also sought advice from the
church leaders in the West in order to drive the Scheme of Union right. On the
27thSeptember 1947, the CSI was inaugurated.
This
was a unique Church union firstly because it was a union of traditions with a
history of conflicts that would have been impossible to arrive at a union in
their respective countries. Secondly, even though there was a disagreement on
the issue of ministryin the Tranquebar Manifesto,the constituent members sought
ways to arrive at an agreement. They were committed “to unite in order to
unite.” The agreement was that all ministers of the constituent churches who
were already ordained at the time of the union, will be recognized and accepted
with equal status and rights. This arrangement will continue for a period of
three decades. But from the time of the union, ordinations should be performed
by Bishops alone with the assistance of ordained presbyters.
The
Union was nothing less than a miracle in overcoming many obstacles. Though
initiatives for the union did come from foreign missionaries, what finally led
to the union was the contribution of V.S. Azariah and V. Santiago. They were
wholeheartedly supported by H.A. Popley and G. Sherwood Eddy both western
missionaries of the Congregational mission.
2.2. Formation of Church of North India (CNI)
The
UCNI invited other churches for discussions on possibility of wider union. The
response gave rise to Round Table Conferences (RTC) in 1929 and 1930. The
spirit for union was enhanced when the Wesleyan Methodist Church, the Anglican
Church of India, Pakistan, Burma and Ceylon (CIPBC), the Methodist Church in
Southern Asia (MCSA), the British and Australian Methodist Church and the
Council of the Baptist Churches in North India met together. The second RTC
appointed the Continuation Committee (CC) which met in 1935 and 1936 to
continue the work. The UCNI, the MCSA and the Baptists formed a Joint Committee
and on its fifth meeting a Plan for Union was drawn in 1940 which was revised
in 1942.
The procedure went through a lot of challenges to arrive at an agreement. Much
later the Negotiating Committee was formed and metin Calcutta in 1951.The
Baptist delegates who left in 1940 had by now rejoined. The Negotiating
Committee met again in 1952 and 1953 and in 1954, a revised Plan of Union was
published. From 1957 onwards two other bodies, the Church of the Brethren and
Disciples of Christ joined in the negotiation. The CC came up with the fourth
Plan of Union which was accepted in 1965. Finally the Church of North India was
inaugurated on 29thNovember, 1970 at Nagpur.
The
negotiation for union encountered major difficulties yet the way in which the
constituent bodies try to reach an understanding and agreement was commendable.
The first question was of episcopacy. Even among the Anglican Communion and the
Methodist Church of Southern Asia who adopted episcopal form of administration
there was a difference. The earlier believed Petrine Apostolic succession,
while the latter adopted constitutional episcopacy. The CNI needed to adopt an
episcopal system that satisfies both apostolic and constitutional factors.
Secondly was the difficulty related to ministry. Instead of the CSI model of
gradual unification, the CNI adopted the rite of mutual laying of hands with
prayer. This in no way did imply ordination. But a symbolical act in bestowing
on the ministers God’s spiritual gift “of the fullness of Grace, commission and
authority each may need for the performance of his proper office in the Church
of North India.”
Thirdly,
the issue was baptism. The CNI adapted a method to reconcile divergent views on
baptism. It accepted infant and adult baptisms as alternative practices in the
United Church. A Bishop or a Presbyter would confirm the act of confirmation or
admission to church membership after baptism for adult members. But to those
who were baptized as infants they would profess their faith at the time of
confirmation. The CNI was aware of the difficulties from the existence of
diverging views and practices on baptism. But it made a fervent plea to
maintain the unity of the church through mutual tolerance and kindness and find
creative ways with the united Church itself.
2.3. The Joint Council of the CSI, the CNI and the Mar
Thoma Church
Another
important ecumenical effort of the twentieth century was the setting up of a
joint theological commission by the CSI, the CNI and the MalankaraMar Thoma
Syrian Church in 1973. This was for the purpose of bringing all the three
bodies to a common fellowship, cooperation and unity. It then led to the Joint
Council of the CSI, the CNI and the Mar Thoma Church in 1978. Its objective is
to have a visible unity for common action of the three bodies recognizing
themselves as one body of Christ, yet retaining their own traditions and
organizational structure.
The
road to unity is easier said than done. However the Joint Council has enabled
entry into mutual fellowship with incredible success. The printing of the
common order of worship that included the liturgies of all the three traditions
was an achievement in the right direction. The decision to remember the
ecclesiastical heads of each church during the worship service and the
celebration of an annual festival of unity added ecumenical friendship. Other
activities of joint mission operation in rural areas, issues of messages or
concerns on national events or political issues, joint conferences for bishops
and pastors, and encouragement for active participation of women and youths,
and other programs. And the proposal to have a common nomenclature, the Bharat
Christian Church, was another indication of the spirit of ecumenical unity.
Leaders of the Joint Council were serious about the plan. They met again in
2004 in Kerela and pursued discussions towards unity and pledged their
commitment to the Communion of Churches in India. This is another positive step
in the right direction on the path for unity even in the midst of evident
differences.
2.4. Attempts for Church Union in North East India
Ecumenical
movement in India even till the early 20th century has not yet
touched North East India. The different missions in these hills being more
restricted geographically did not have much friction and conflict among
churches. A significant step took place when the Bengal Christian Council
(BCC), formed in 1926, invited the Protestant missions from North East India
for membership. Even though this was accepted,communication adversity due to
geographical condition presented a difficulty. This made the members to
withdraw from the BCC.
The
ecumenical effort was rekindled when the Welsh Presbyterian missionaries in
Meghalaya convened a meeting of all Protestant churches in Shillong in 1936.
This was the beginning of an inter-denominational fellowship. Other issues of
joint effort were discussed but church union was not yet discussed at the time.
It seemed that what prompted such ecumenical interest was the necessity to send
representatives to the IMC Tambaram, 1938.This eventually led to the formation
of the Assam Christian Council, in 1937, changed to the North East India
Christian Council (NEICC), in 1962.
There
was an attempt and a discussion for church union. But on the other hand there
was still un-readiness from the constituent churches. This could be that the
issue of church union was not yet discussed in their respective churches, or
that the council members going far ahead in their thinking had jumped into the
subject of church union.The
Church Union Committee was formed but it served only as an observing committee
of the union movements in North and South India.
The
Church Union Committee convenedFaith and Order Conferences. The second
Conference held inKhwan, Meghalaya in 1964formulated the first draft of the
Basis for Union to be presented in the NEICC meet on May 1965.The first Church
Union Conference was convened by the Church Union Committee in November, 1965.
Here the second draft of the Basis of Union was articulated. There were bodies
who rejected this draft but among those who accepted were the two largest
bodies in the region, i.e., the Council of Baptist Churches in North East India
(CBCNEI) and the Khasi-Jaintia Presbyterian Synod. The second Union Conference
in 1969 seemed more promising with the plan to constitute the Church of North
East India. The much awaited union was however put on a stay when the CBCNEI
withdrew itself in 1971 on the basis of baptism, episcopacy and centralized
organization. This was a major setback that even though union negotiations were
re-opened, there were no tangible results till the present.
3. Contributions of Church Union in India
Church
Union movement in India is unparalleled in the west. It developed from the
local missionary context and the churches did not have the history of
denominationalism conflicts as experienced in the West. Thus, the Church Union
in North and South India could serve as a vivid example of visible ecumenism.
And such a result would be an impossibility in the West even among those
denominations who were mother churches to the Indian churches that united.
The
thirst for cooperation had brought positive and visible endeavors in the
establishments of union institutions. Undertakings such as the Madras Christian
College, (1837), Christian Medical College & Hospital (1900), the Union
Mission Tuberculosis Sanatorium (1915) were possible ventures of united
interdenominational efforts. Another area of contribution of cooperation was
theological education; the first was the United Theological College (1910). As
C.B. Firth commented, “Thirteen of the twenty-one colleges and seminaries
connected with Serampore College in 1960 were union institutions.”
Even in North East India where church union is not yet present
interdenominational cooperation has led to the founding of the Union Christian
College (1952).
The
initiative of the western missionaries in India is appreciable for the union.
They transcended a barrier that would not be possible in the West. It is
however clearly noted that what made the union possible was the initiative of
Indian church leaders. India had brought out many significant ecumenical
leaders of international caliber such as V.S. Azariah, S.J. Samartha, M.M.
Thomas to name a few.
Conclusion
The
Union experiences in the South and the North India is a movement of the
constituent bodies within the larger body. Thus the Union was possible because
of the thirst and initiative of the local bodies and their experiences. Such a
Church union was however an impossibility till date in North East India. There
are many contributing factors to this. Yet one among these is that the
initiative did not begin from the experience of the local bodies within the
Council. And the same spirit was not translated to the local bodies.
The
grandiose ventures of union institutions mentioned above would have been
difficult or even impossible without interdenominational cooperation. Such
ventures demand huge human, monetary and infrastructural resources for smooth
functioning and maintenance. Also, in the Indian context, a united front
presents a stronger voice rather than splinter groups especially in political
vocalization and in dealing with issues of social injustice. Thus the church union movement in India has
proven the fact that even in the midst of challenges within the cooperation,
yet cooperation can take us farther than any single venture.
Selected Sources:
Books:
D. A. Jeyakumar, History
of Christianity in India: Selected Themes, Revised & Enlarged Edition.
Chennai: Author, 2014.
Firth, C.B.An
Introduction to Indian Church History. Delhi: ISPCK, 2013
Harris, J.J. Evangelicals
Are True Ecumenicals! Chennai: Mission Educational Books, 2006.
Snaitang, O.L, A
History of the Ecumenical Movement: An Introduction. Bangalore: BTESSC,
2014.
Articles:
Snaitang, O.L. “Development of the Ecumenical Movement
in North East India.” ICHR, Vol.37, No. 1.
(June 2003). 41-52.
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