1

ALLAHABAD BIBLE SEMINARY

STANLEY ROAD, PRAYAGRAJ

AN ASSINGMENT ON
COURSE CODE: BID06
CFWPS
TOPIC: THE WORLD MISSIONARY CONFERENCE

SUBMITTED TO: Rev. SANJAY KUMAR GULERIA

SUBMITTED BY: MRINMOY MONDAL
D.O.S: 05.10.2020

INTRODUCTION
One of the most significant factors for the Christian church in the contemporary world is the rapidly
growing awareness of religious pluralism which has heightened the need for improved relations and
dialogue among people of different faiths.1 The struggle to comprehend the relationship between
Christianity and other religious traditions has been an important issue from the beginnings of the
church. The early church seriously grappled with issues raised by its encounters with the religions,
philosophies and cultures of the Greco-Roman world. The writings of the early church also show that
there were divergent schools of thought on how to understand and relate to religious life that was not
based on Christian convictions. The history of Christianity is also the history of Christian relationships
with other faith traditions.2 Therefore, it could be said that the inter-faith conversation between
Christianity and people of other faith is as mature as Christianity. Though, this review is historically
restricted to the dialogical developments which have taken place in the contemporary ecumenical
movement (WCC) as well as Roman Catholic Church.

THE WMC AND DIALOGUE:

DIALOGUE IN ECUMENICAL HISTORY
Christians, especially western Christians both Roman Catholic and Protestant, have played a major role
in promoting inter-religious dialogue. In the Roman Catholic Church the Second Vatican Council’s
(1962) setting up a special Secretariat for non-Christian Religions and in the World Council of
Churches, the starting of a sub-unit in 1971 Dialogue with People of Other Faiths may well be regarded
as important milestones on a long pilgrimage of inter-religious dialogue which began well before
Christianity itself came into being.3

DIALOGUE IN THE MISSIONARY CONFERENCE

The World Missionary Conference at Edinburgh 1910 is usually considered as the starting point for the
modern ecumenical movement. Among the many topics discussed, that of the proper Christian attitude
to people of other faiths was not overlooked. When John R. Mott spoke on the Decisive Hour for the
Christian Mission” he was in fact referring to the emerging nationalism and religious renaissance in

2
1 Alan Race, Christians and Religious Pluralism: Patterns in the Christian Theology of Religions (London: SCM
Press LTD, 1983), ix.
2 S. Wesley Ariarajah, “Dialogue, Interfaith,” Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement (Geneva: WCC Publication,
2002), 312.
3 Paulos M. Gregorios, Religion and Dialogue (Delhi: ISPCK, 2000), 151.
Asia as providing new opportunities and responsibilities for the Christian world mission. 4 Similarly,
John Nicol Farquhar’s The Crown of Hinduism, explored that Christ fulfilled the longings and
aspirations of Hinduism. While the evangelistic thrust predominated in the overall Edinburgh message,
the discussions there stimulated scholarly interest both in comparative religion and in exploring the
Christian relation to other faith traditions.5 However, the First World War watered a search for dialogue.
In Asia and Africa, the primary impact of the war sharpened the already critical attitudes to Western
institutions and influences (non-cooperation movement in India). In the West optimistic assumptions
about the liberal democratic way of life as the peak of social development were seriously challenged
for the first time. The theologically fashionable liberalism began during the 1920s to be questioned at
its very roots by the newer dialectical theology. For instance, Stephen C. Neill has spoken ironically of
the prevailing missionary optimism but was not taken into account.6
By the time of the second International Missionary Conference (Jerusalem 1928), considerable
controversy had arisen within the missionary movement over the approach to other religious traditions.
Some European theologians detected in liberal Protestantism in support of a universal religion. There
was also deep concern that what was considered “syncretistic thinking” with regard to Asian religions
was undermining the importance and urgency of Christian mission. But the issue that dominated the
Jerusalem meeting was raising secularism in both East and West. While asserting that the Christian
gospel provided the answers to a troubled world, the conference affirmed the “values” in other religions
and called on Christians to join hands with all believers to confront the growing impact of secular
culture. But some participants could not agree with Jerusalem’s positive affirmation of other faiths and
maintained that the Christian gospel is unique among religious traditions. Thus, even though the
message was unanimously accepted, the Christian attitude to other faiths became a highly controversial
issue shortly after the Jerusalem meeting. 7 In 1932 the issue of the other religious was addressed in a
very controversial way in a report, the Commission of Appraisal of the Laymen’s Foreign Mission
Enquiry, edited by W. E. Hocking, which criticized the exclusive attitude of Christians towards other
faiths and claimed that the challenge to the Christian faith came not from other faiths but from anti-
religious and secular movements.8

THE TAMBARAM CONTROVERSY

In response, the leadership of the missionary movement commissioned Hendrick Kraemer, the well-
known Dutch missiologist then working as a missionary in Java, to write a book on the biblical and
theological basis of the Christian attitude to other faiths. Kraemer’s “The Christian Message in a Non-
Christian World” became the preparatory study book for the next international missionary conference
in Tambaram, India, in 1938.9 Kraemer, following Karl Barth10, insisted that the Gospel was essentially

4 Car F. Hallencrutz, “A Long-standing Concern: Dialogue in Ecumenical History 1910-1971,” in Living Faiths and
the Ecumenical Movement (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1971), 57.
5 Ken Gnanakan, The Pluralistic Predicament (Bangalore: Theological Book Trust, 1992), 37.
6 Hallencrutz, Living Faiths and the Ecumenical Movement, 58.
7 Ariarajah, Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement, 312.
8 Jerald D. Gort, “Syncretism and Dialogue: Christian Historical and Earlier Ecumenical Perceptions”, in Dialogue
and Syncretism: An Interdisciplinary Approach (Amsterdam: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989), 42.
9 Ariarajah, Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement, 312.
10 According to Karl Birth, revelation is the abolition of religion. God’s truth is revealed in Christ, the Word of God
for all people and all religions. He attempts to construct a significant difference between revelation and religion. For him,
Christian faith belongs to the former and other faiths to the latter. Therefore, Christian religion is the true religion,
fundamentally superior to all other religions. His aim was thus to secure both the central place of Christianity in mediating
the salvation of humankind and the absolute uniqueness of Jesus for all humanity.
in discontinuity with the religions and cultural traditions of humankind. He rejected both natural
theology and general revelation to emphasize the concept of ‘radical discontinuity.’ He states that “The
revelation in Christ is special revelation, which contradicts and upsets all human religious aspiration
and imagination as an indirection of its special quality and significant.”Kreamer maintained that
salvation is found only through the grace of God revealed in Christ. He insisted that the biblical faith
based on God’s encounter with humankind is thus radically distinct from all other forms of religious
faith. Thus, Kreamer’s negative theological approach put a stop to all attempts at discovering “point of
contact” between the Christian message and the other religious traditions.11
Despite Kraemer’s impact on Tambaram and subsequent missionary thinking, there were many
dissenting voices. P. Chenchiah, A. G. Hogg, H. H. Farmer, T. C. Chao and others challenged
Kreaemer’s view that the gospel was in discontinuity with other religious traditions. They witnessed to
what they were convinced was a “two-way traffic” between God and the human soul in the religious
life and experience of others. It was inconceivable to them that God had no witnesses among the
nations of the earth. All participants agreed on the special revelatory character of the Christ event, but
many had difficulty with Kraemer’s view of religions as “totalitarian systems” of human thought and
practice. Thus, although the Tambaram report leaned heavily towards Kraemer’s views, it
acknowledged that Christians are not agreed on the revelatory character of other religious traditions and
identified this as a matter urgently demanding thought and united study within the ecumenical
movement.12

NEW DIRECTIONS IN NEW DELHI

A great deal of attention was focused on Asia, where outstanding work on the issue was carried out by
Paul Devanandan, D.T. Niles, Sabapathy Kulendran and others. Devanandan’s address to the new Delhi
assembly of the WCC (1961) –at which the IMC was integrated into the WCC- challenged the churches
to take seriously the experience of the younger churches in the newly independent countries, where
they had to work and struggle together with peoples of different religious traditions in nation-building.
In this context the character of all religions as living faiths and the concept of dialogue appeared. New
Delhi identified dialogue as prerequisite for true Christian witness.13

DEVELOPMENT IN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH

There were in fact significant differences between Protestants and Roman Catholics in their general
theological orientation towards other religions. While the Protestant missions tended to place enormous
emphasis on Christology the Roman Catholic theology placed greater emphasis on ecclesiology.
Salvation is a free gift of God offered in Christ to one who has faith in Christ. This faith is expressed by
being baptized and becoming part of the church, which was instituted by Christ to carry on his saving
work.14
A century later (1547) the Council of Trent had solemnly affirmed the possibility of salvation
for those who were outside the church. With reference to those who had lived before the ministry of
Jesus and those who had had no opportunity to hear the message, Roman Catholic theology developed
the idea of “implicit faith” or “faith by intension”, so that no one was “lost” simply because he or she
was born at a particular time or place which made it impossible to become part of the historical
expression of the church. These thoughts were developed in the 1960s by French cardinal Jean
4

11 P. L. John Panicker, Gandhi on Pluralism and Communalism (Delhi: ISPCK, 2006), 83.
12 Ariarajah, Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement, 312.
13 Ariarajah, Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement, 313.
14 Ariarajah, Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement, 313.
Danielou and German theologian Karl Rahner. 15 In so doing these two prominent Catholic thinkers
spelled out the theological implications of some of the positive developments at the Second Vatican
Council regarding the question of other faith and the Council promoted a new attitude of Roman
Catholics toward the followers of other religions. Pope Paul VI thus instituted the Secretariat for Non-
Christians (later in 1998 named as the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue) as a distinct body
from the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples in 1964; and the papal encyclical Ecclesiam
Suam, sometimes “Magna Carta of dialogue” emphasized the importance of positive encounter
between Christians and people of other faith traditions.16
The Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions (Nostra Aetate),
promulgated on 29 October 1965, spelled out the pastoral dimensions of this relationship. Other key
Vatican II documents, such as the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium) and the
Decree on the Church’s Missionary Activity (Ad Gentes), include towards people of other religious
traditions. Although Vatican II did not develop clear theological positions on other religions, it did
therefore mark a new phrase in the relationships of the Roman Catholic Church with people of other
faiths.17

THE DIALOGUE CONTROVERSY

The Consultation of Christians and Jews in late 1972 discussed “the Quest for World Community
Jewish and Christian Perspectives”, while the Muslim-Christian dialogue earlier in the year had for its
theme “In Search of Human Understanding and Cooperation-Christian and Muslim Contributions. A
third one held in Hindu, Buddhists, Jews, Christians and Muslims, to consider the theme “Towards
World Community: Resources and Responsibilities for Living Together.” 18 But Nairobi (1975) made
clear the urgent need to clarify further the nature, purpose and limits of interfaith dialogue and to give
more detailed attention to issues of syncretism, indigenization, culture, mission, etc. 19 Some people of
other faiths suspect that dialogue is simply a new and subtle Christian tool for mission that is being
forged in the post-colonial era. On the other hand, there are some Christians who dear that dialogue
with persons of other faiths is a betrayal of mission and disobedience to the command to proclaim the
gospel.20

CONCLUSION
Comparing to the historical and theological aspect the WMC played a major role in bringing
Christianity into the light where the other faith also tried their best to come into. This resulted into the
addition of Christianity into to the cluster that gave rise to an ecumenical thinking among the
theologian and religious leaders in that time. Therefore it is essential to know the play of WMC and the
dialogues that were discussed there.

15 Jacques Dupuis, S. J., Christianity and the Religions: from Confrontation to Dialogue (New York: Orbis Books,
2003), 59.
16 Michael L. Fitzgerald, “Interreligious Dialogue in Vatican Perspective”, in Interreligious Dialogue as
Communication (Manila: Logos (Divine Word) Publications, 2005), 21, 22.
17 Ariarajah, Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement, 313.
18 S. J. Samartha, “Living Faiths and Ultimate Goals: introducing a discussion”, in Living Faith and Ultimate Goals:
a Continuing Dialogue (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1974), xvi.
19 Ariarajah, Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement, 314.
20 S. J. Samartha, Courage for Dialogue: Ecumenical issues in Inter-religious Relationship (Geneva: World Council
of Churches, 1981), 9.
 5

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ariarajah, S. Wesley. “Dialogue, Interfaith,” Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement. Geneva: WCC
Publication, 2002.

Dupuis, Jacques S. J. Christianity and the Religions: from Confrontation to Dialogue. New York: Orbis
Books, 2003.

Fitzgerald, Michael L. “Interreligious Dialogue in Vatican Perspective”, in Interreligious Dialogue as

Communication. Manila: Logos (Divine Word) Publications, 2005Gregorios, Paulos M.
Religion and Dialogue. Delhi: ISPCK, 2000.

Gnanakan, Ken. The Pluralistic Predicament. Bangalore: Theological Book Trust, 1992.

Gort, Jerald D. “Syncretism and Dialogue: Christian Historical and Earlier Ecumenical Perceptions”, in
Dialogue and Syncretism: An Interdisciplinary Approach. Amsterdam: William B.
Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989.

Hallencrutz, Car F. “A Long-standing Concern: Dialogue in Ecumenical History 1910-1971,” in Living

Faiths and the Ecumenical Movement. Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1971.

Panicker, P. L. John. Gandhi on Pluralism and Communalism. Delhi: ISPCK, 2006.

Race, Alan. Christians and Religious Pluralism: Patterns in the Christian Theology of Religions.
London: SCM Press LTD, 1983.

Samartha, S. J. “Living Faiths and Ultimate Goals: introducing a discussion”, in Living Faith and
Ultimate Goals: a Continuing Dialogue. Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1974.

Samartha, S. J. Courage for Dialogue: Ecumenical issues in Inter-religious Relationship. Geneva:

World Council of Churches, 1981.