1.

Factors promoting the Ecumenical Spirit

There are various events that fostered the growth of the ecumenical spirit in India. Social
movements such as nationalism, 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

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 Lal Behari Dey 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 Christo Samaj, 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.

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. 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. 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.

pg. 1
 1.3.1. The Northern Conferences

The Northern India General Conference were held in Calcutta 1855, Benares 1857 and in
Lahore 1863. These conferences dwelt on issues related to evangelization, tackled issues
related to mission, such as, production of Christian literature, indigenous leadership, and
guidelines for new missionaries from the west and also spoke of 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. In these conferences, significant missiological issues were raised and the
conferences also directed its attention into bringing an outward recognition of church union
of the Christian unity already experienced inwardly. And it also marked a birth process in the
history of ecumenical movement.4

1.4. National Missionary Conferences

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.5 The
following decennial conferences were repeated in 1882 at Calcutta and in 1892 at Bombay. In
these conferences, missionaries from all over the country came together to read papers
describing the work done in their various fields, to consider points of policy and inter-mission
relations and to even out difficulties.6

2. Church Union Movements in India

Church Union Movement in India starts with union among the same denomination, followed
by inter-denominational union and later on a union of Episcopal and non-Episcopal churches.
It was in India for the first time in history of church succession of the episcopate as it has
succeeded in entering with full corporate union with non-episcopate church.

pg. 2
2.1. Union among Churches of the same Denominations

The first definite achievement of Church Union was local union of Presbyterians in South
India in 1901, which brought together the communities of the American Arcot Mission and
Free Church of Scottish Presbyterian Mission in and around Madras. In 1904 this body joined
with eight Presbyterian missions in North India to form Presbyterian Church of India (PCI).
In 1905 another local union of people of one denominational family formed a federation of
the Congregationalist of the London Mission and the American Madurai Mission formed in
Tamil Nadu. In North-East India in 1959, the Council of Baptist Churches in North East India
(CBCNEI) brings together some thirty- five different language groups, about 1,009,548
members in 5585 Churches.

2.2. Inter-denominational Union

The first inter-denominational union South India United Church (SIUC) was formed in 1908
with the union of all the Congregationalists and Presbyterian in South India. In 1924, the
United Church of North India (UCNI) was formed again through a union of Presbyterians and
Congregationalists. Eleven missions were represented in it and its area stretched from Bengal,
Assam, Gujarat, and Punjab. In 1914, the National Churches formed themselves into Assam
Baptist Christian Convention (ABCC). This organization grew in its stature, and finally in
January 1950, the Council of Baptist Churches in Assam (CBCA) was formed through the
merging of Assam Baptist Missionary Conference. Later on, the name was changed to
Council of Baptist Churches in Assam and Manipur (CBCAM), and then finally to the
Council of Baptist Churches in North-East India (CBCNEI) in 1959. The Associate
Convention of CBCNEI are: Assam Baptist Convention, Arunachal Baptist Church Council,
Garo Baptist Convention, Karbi Anglong Baptist Convention, Manipur Baptist Convention
and Nagaland Baptist Church Council.

2.3. Union of Episcopal and Non-Episcopa

Union of Episcopal and Non-Episcopal churches was another significant model of church
union of the 20th century. The process of union occurred in the creation of the Church of
South India (1947) and the Church of North India (1970).

2.3.1. Church of South India (CSI)

The Church Union Movement in South India, which eventually resulted in the formation of
CSI, is one of the greatest contributions of the Indian Church in the ecumenical movement.

pg. 3
Long before the birth of Church of South India, the need for mutual consultation and
cooperation was keenly felt among the various Protestant or Evangelical Churches in South
India. Under these dismal circumstances the need for united action and closer co-operation
was felt in several quarters.

In 1910, Bishop Whitehead, the Anglican Bishop in Madras raised the issue of unity, but
nothing came out of the discussion. He continued to speak and write about this till in the year
1919, when 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.”11

Despite the differences among various parties in the union process, all were serious about the
subject and willing to dialogue not on just points of agreement and similarity but also on
major issues of their differences. Individual members who were involved in several
negotiating committees did not just represent their personal interests but represented that of
the official position of their respective churches. The publication of the manifesto generated
discussion and debate in all the constituent bodies. In February 1920, the Episcopal Synod of
the Anglican Province in India appointed a committee for negotiation. The Joint Committee,
appointed for the union, took up the proposed basic terms of the union. Ten years later, i.e. in
1929, the scheme of union was published. It was not a final scheme. The debate went on:
points of disagreement and objections were attended to, elaborated, amended and modified.
There was mutual understanding on both the Joint Committee and the respective councils or
synods of the negotiating party. In order to drive the scheme of union right, members of the
Joint Committee sought advice from church leaders and theologians in the West as well.

pg. 4
In 1925 the Methodist Church of South India came into the negotiation and it declared its
willingness to unite with the other churches in January 1943. In January 1945, Anglicans
passed a resolution to carry out the practical unanimous desire of union with the Methodist
and South India United Church (SIUC). In September 1946, SIUC accepted the proposal of
the unity. A year was spent in the final preparation for union. On 27th September 1947, the
CSI was inaugurated in the St George Cathedral at Madras.

2.3.2. Church of North India (CNI)

The United Church of Northern India (UCNI) was formed in 1924 in which eleven missions
of Congregational and Presbyterian family joined. The UCNI, like the SIUC, began to go in
for wider unity. As a result, the British Wesleyan Mission suggested to have a Round Table
Conference (RTC) to which other like-minded denominational Churches could be invited to
discuss the possibilities of Church union. So as a result, the first RTC took place at Lucknow
in 1929. This session of RTC heard and recorded statements, from the different Church
representations on Church Polity, the Sacraments, International and Doctrinal Standards.14

1.1 Formation of South India United Church (SIUC)

The first decade of 20th century marked the beginning of the Church Union Movement in
India. In 1901, churches from the American Arcot Mission and two Scottish Presbyterian
Missions (one from the Church of Scotland and one from the Free Church of Scotland) began
talking about joining together. These churches were mostly in and around a city called
Madras (now called Chennai). By 1904, these Presbyterian churches decided to join together
and formed a group called the all-India Presbyterian Union. In the following year, the
Congregationalists of the LMS and the American Madura Mission in Tamil Nadu also formed
into a union. In 1908, these Presbyterian and Congregationalist churches took a big step.
They combined their efforts and formed a new united church called the South India United
Church (SIUC). This was the first successful attempt at bringing different types of churches
together into one church in India.

pg. 5
The SIUC, while being a union of different denominations, had a majority of its members
coming from a Congregationalist background. The Jaffna Mission of the American Board of
Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) joined the SIUC. The SIUC started
discussions with other Christian denominations to form a larger body known as ‘The
Federation of Christian Churches in India.’

During World War I (1914-1918), the Malabar area churches, which were under the Basel
Mission, were left without guidance and became known as ‘orphan’ churches. These churches
eventually joined the SIUC in March 1919, forming the Malabar Church Council. This
incorporation demonstrated the SIUC’s role in providing support and unity to otherwise
isolated Christian communities.

1.2 The United Church of North India (UCNI)

Soon after the formation of the SIUC, a parallel movement was going on in Northern India.
Eleven missions as The Church of Scotland, the American Presbyterian, the Canadian
Presbyterian, the New Zealand Presbyterian, the English Presbyterian, the Irish Presbyterian,
the Welsh Presbyterian, the American Evangelical and Reformed Church, the American
Marathi Mission of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mission, the London
Missionary Society, and the United Church of Canada were represented in it and it ultimately
resulted in the formation of the UCNI in 1924. Its area was stretching from Bengal and
Assam to Gujarat and the Punjab.
Both SIUC and UCNI can be called Federal Unions in view of their administrative structure.
1.3 Church Union Movement in North-East India
A significant step towards Church Union movement in North-East 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 and cultural difference 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. Six mission societies
and two Churches responded and attended the meeting. This was the beginning of an inter-
denominational fellowship.

The initial efforts to develop and co-operate in a wider objective on united Church in North
East India was made by the Assam Christian Council (ACC) which was officially
constituted on Nov. 23, 1937 at the meeting of joint conference at Shillong. At that time the
ACC haodies and six Missions members. In 1942 meeting,
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pg. 6
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Without God, life has no purpose, and without purpose, life has no meaning. Without
meaning, life has no significance…” The greatest tragedy is not death.
The greatest tragedy is to live without a purpose. Stephen Seizer

Paul wrote the letter to the Philippians while he was in prison (likely in Rome around A.D.
60-62). The church in Philippi was the first church Paul founded in Europe, and it had a
special place in his heart. This letter is filled with personal affection, encouragement, and
exhortation to live a life worthy of the gospel.

Literary Context

Chapter 3 of Philippians is a part of Paul’s overall exhortation to the Philippians to live

joyfully and confidently in their faith despite opposition. Verses 1-9 of chapter 3 contrast
false teachers (referred to as "dogs" and "evil workers") with the true righteousness that
comes from faith in Christ.

pg. 7