Evangelism in the Changing
Context of India
Context of India
DR. SIGA ARLES·
Some Personal Reflections:
Some Personal Reflections:
Signs of the recent revival were still 1;here at the Asbury
Theological Seminary in the Blue Grass land of Kentucky,
where I spent the years 1972 to 1975 for the first phase of my
theological studies. Key '73 brought a sense of renewal to my
own commitments to Christ, the Gospel and Ministry. Soaked
in the evangelical and holiness interpretation that was super
prevalent at ATS, when I returned to start as a theological
teacher at the South India Biblical Seminary in Bangarapet,
I was deeply concerned to "evangelise"'.
But the claims of the commitment to evangelise that were
assumed as the value and ethos of the seminary soon appeared
remote and useless. We were found to be experts in "hit and
run" evangelism with our weekend preaching and outreach
package, Sunday schools and Summer Schools of Evangelism.
We concentrated on the rural sector. Twenty or more villages
and nearby towns were targetted for Saturday evening outreach
and Sunday Schools through students teams which were
systematically assigned as from the Field Education
Department. Villagers blamed us for our comfortable campus
life from which we went "preaching at them", They said: "You
only think of us as targets when you need us ... You really do
not care for us ... You do not try to understand our struggles
or empathise with our pains ... ". As I took student teams to
various villages, I heard these remarks and felt they sounded
right! These poor and illiterate villagers were supersensitive
to perceive our shortfalls in motives.
Later we started. a comm,unity development scheme with
foreign aid. But this did not take us deep into the context or
*Dr. Siga Arles is Professor of Missiology at Serampore College.
EVANGELISM IN THE CHANGING CONTEXT OF INDIA 59
its transformation - it was all peripheral, superficial and
skin deep. The work force got their salaries out of these
programmes, the budgetted monies were spent, the children
and adults were mere targets, just numbers for our reports
and - as the experienced and saintliest amongst us whispered
to the novices, "to be kept at a distance".
Disheartening! Time paSsed in slow motion in this rural
sector unlike even in the cities of India. Later, I remember,
we shifted gears from the rural emphasis to two new areas.
One, to develop a "Christian Muslim Friendship Society" as
an interaction between the Muslims in Bangarapet town and
us, the Seminary community. This was the inter-religious
dialogue movement at an evangelical setting. Sam Bhajjan,
Dwight Baker, Acharya Daya Prakash Titus and such others
were invited to share with us alluding to the common elements
and riches of our faiths. Our students prayed hard that some
Muslim will convert to Christ out of. this but the ardent
articulations steered clear of any such "conversion" motto.
Honestly, I think, the seminary was pushed into this new
mode of relating to the Muslim community by the initiative of
few students (one in particular, who was no academician but
drawn from a factory labour union leadership into a
commitment to Christian ministry). The seminary was neither
set for such inter-religious relationships despite evangelical
fervour, nor prone to absorb the new trends of dialogue
developing concurrently within the ecumenical institutions.
The second was to get involved with the Lions and Rotarians
who represented the merchants and middle class men and
women. Inviting them to a cultural programme ending in a
modernised dramatic presentation of the story of the Prodigal
Son brought a response breaking the years of separation as
one merchant said "I had supplied rice and grains for over 20
years to you all but this is the first time I had come into your
campus!" I said to myself, "well then, thus far, with the greatest
fervour for evangelism, my colleagues seem to have done a
fantastic, but fruitless, remote control, evangelism from a
distnace" and wondered about the ways to get closer to the
actual people, who could make a difference to the town and
thus to its surrounding villages.
60 INDIAN JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY
AB a result of these two ventures, we were definitely getting
closer to the local community of Hindus and Muslims. It was
then that the community persuaded us to start a quality
convent-style educational institution for their children. "You
Christians are good in providing good education" they said
and called us to serve them! A Macedonain calll! This should
open a wide opportunity to influence the society and infiltrate
the non-Christian community with Christian input. The
decision to start the school was made.
At this time my sabbatical leave took me to Scotland where
I enrolled for a Ph.D. in Missiology. I chose to research into
the history of theological education in India.l and to evaluate
the impact of the twin foci of the theologies of mission that
were developed in the post-independence India by the
evangelical and ecumenical streams. The polarisation among
the two intensifies with hardened hearts in both camps while
lip service is done in consultations wherein words are mouthed
about working together and holding together. My research
study built within me a deep desire to disown the polarised
identities and to strive towards a balance, a holism, a holistic
understanding of the gospel, ministry, mission and the Church.
The British set up awakened new concerns within me. The
question of the poor and the need for promoting the
establishment of an organised socio-political set up of proper
structures to build prospects for the poor in India - this was
one such new concern. I was certainly determined to enable
theological education from a holistic perspective without
yielding to the subtle temptation of getting sucked into the
polarised understanding of either extremes of interpretations.
Upon return I was saddled with the administrative load as
Principal of the seminary and yet carried the responsibility
for shaping the school for the children as requested by the
parents. There were children of the town's leading doctors,
business families, municipality chairman, bankers, factory
workers and anybody who was somebody in that area! Also
the children of the well-to-do villagers came from all the nearby
villages to our school and within a short time, the school
obtained the kind of reputation that started to put pressure
on us to expand the school to accommodate more children.
EVANGELISM IN THE CHANGING CONTEXT OF INDIA 61
The monthly parents meetings drew the parents in big numbers
to interact with us on "values" and we were shaping the
thought patterns and challenging the parents to a value based
understanding of the educational process and their role along
with us in the growing of their children, the future citizens of
the town and villages of our area. I was excited with the
thought that a decade or two will see a vast change for the
impact of· the Gospel on my people. Chidren will absorb
Christian values. They will know the scriptures and the truth
of the Word - the truth will set them free. Their parents also
will open up. Mission and evangelism will happen with less
resistance. I do not know what the educatioinal missionaries
of yester years expected. But I dreamt of brighter days ahead.
But the dream was shattered. An alien chairman who came
from a different part of the country and understood evagelism
in its narrow definitions influenced the seminary board to
close the school with his pious (but foolish) jargon "our calling
is to train evangelists and Church planters, not to run primary
schools". The shattering of the dream had large impact on my
thinking. It aroused in me questions on the way evangelism
needs to be understood in the Indian setting.
Should it be "Evangelical Evangelism"?
Defining "what is evangelism" at Berlin in 1966 and
strategising "how to evagelise" at Lausanne in 1974 (later at
Pataya in 1980 and at Manila in 1989), the Lausanne
evangelicals2 have gained momentum to promote evangelism
with a wide variety of emphases and methods. They insist
that all evagelism should result in the conversion of the people
to Christ as the only way and in the building up of the Chruch
in every land. Evangelical Evangelism has remained true to
the authority of the scripture and to the uniqueness of Jesus
as the only Christ from God. It learnt to ride the colonial
horse but also the disembark and strive alongside of the natives
as exemplified by the Newbigin variety. It moved from soul
concerns to the body concerns setting up its many structures
for relief and development which pumped millions into the
mission fields. The rise of the radical evangelical thought and
~ractice under people such as Carl Henry, JohnStott and Ron
62 INDIAN JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY
Sider was simultaneous with the rise of world networks for
evagelism through Crusade ministry of Billy Graham's
Evagelistic Association, Uterature Ministry of George Verwer's
Operation Mobilization, Jesus film ministry of Bill Bright's
Campus Crusade, Youth ministries of Loren Cunningham's
Youth With A Mission, Strategic ministries of Luis Bush's AD
2000 and Beyond Movement and many more. Peter Beyerhaus'
defence against the ecumenical evagelism; Donald McGavran's
authorising of caste based and ever splitting Church for the
sake of growth; Ralph Winter's pragmatisation of the growth
impulse; John Robb's war against territorial spirits; Paul
Eschlemann's saturation evangelism and a score of other
images and emphases caricature evangelical evangelism around
the world. Incidentally, much of this appears North American
in origin. With dollar power, these quickly internationalise
themselves and work positive wonders for evangelism, while
yet defeating the many attempts at unity since often new
American denominations go international to build their own
denominations in the name of building the kingdom of Christ.
Much confusion results in this denominational upsurge not
only within the body of Christ but to the other sheep who are
yet to be brought in.
Should it be "Ecumenical Evangelism"?
Exactly a century after the unfulfilled dream of William
Carey, the World Missionary Conference at Edinburgh in 1910
desired to evangelise the world within a generation. But for
the delay and pessimism that followed druing the two World
Wars and the economic depression, the men of the twentieth
century could perhaps have accomplished this desire.
Skepticism of this period led to rationalism as reflected in the
processes of rethinking missions with William Hocking,
reinterpreting orthodoxy, christianity and biblical tradition
with Barth, Brunner and Bultmann, repenting political
ideologies with Bonhoeffer and CF Andrews. There was the
major readjusting of the self understanding of Christian faith
in the midst of other faiths with Hendrik Kraemer at
Tambaram 1938 when evangelism was understood from a nontraditional
pattern. The disembarking from the colonial horse
EVANGELISM IN THE CHANGING CONTEXT OF INDIA 63
from the late forties let the world missionary enterprise to
take on board the study of the implications of the rapid social
change that the world was going through; and tQ plan for the
participation of the Christian Church in the task of nation
building. The fifties and sixties saw the worldward journey of
the ecumenical theology of mission with a methodological
revision of the mode of theologising. "Doing theology in context"
. became the driving force guiding a worldwide change of mission
strategy. Mission, in the biblical model of the logos becoming
flesh, became interpreted as incarnationa!. Theological
Education Fund engineered this metamorphosis in the third
world seminaries. Contextualisation, motivated by the culture
orientation in hermeneutics and political orientation in the
pursuit after the socio-economic justice for all, began to emerge
as the large theme in theology ~d the dominant theme in
missiology.
Ecumenical evangelism took the shape of political action for
some and dialogue for others. The first meant entering into
the arena of the struggles of people and spelling out liberty
and justice in political terms whereby the structural
modifications were called for either peacefully or, if need be,
violently. The second meant to dialogue at philosophic, religious
and practical levels with an intent to learn and mutually
influence, not necessarily to demand crossing of boundaries.
To ecumenical evangelism, to ensure the growth of the gospel
influence was superior to the growth of the number of the
converts. Baptism as a communal rite was redundant and the
boundary lines of the Church was mythical. Hence, whether
somebody had the opportunity to hear the gospel or no, whether
he/she believed in Jesus or no, ecumenical evangelism felt
fulfilled in as much as it could see that it existed and co-lived
in peace and harmony with some amount of social interaction.
It may appear crude but acceptable to say that ecumenical
evangelism attempts to be "a gospel-less evangelism
prepagating a cross-less Christ to develop a Church-less
christianity for anybody anywhere without prescribing the
option of membership."
There are numerious social values in the mission activity of
ecumenical evangelism. But bereft of the soul, it can only
64 INDIAN JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY
promote prosperous and polished corpses. The soul of being
"made a new" and "made alive" in Christ when lacking, as
Paul narrated to the Ephesians, people will but remain dead
in sin. If there be any other way for sin to be atoned, then the
historic claims of the cross of Christ becomes all vain. Thus
ecumenical evagelism stands in need to clarify the place of the
cross, the importance of Christ, the meaning of the Church,
the method and significance of belonging to it and the purpose
and missioin of the Church in relation to the purpose and
mission of Jesus.
Evagelism in the Indian setting:
Evagelism can be considered "evangel"ism, a "good news"ism,
wherein evangel is a universally applicable message, which in
spite of undergoing necessary local applicational modifications,
will reamin true to its basic definition emerging from the
canon of Christian faith. Not oIily the principle of good news
is seriously to be considered but also the person of the good
news. It is in the presentation of the person of Jesus Christ
that true evangelism shall happen in India as elsewhere. In
the fullness of time, Christ came. The gospel enters a prepared
soil at kairos time. Times keep changing. But gospel does not
keep changing. It enters into every turbulent situation to bring
the calm and peace, the hope and joy.
India keeps changing. Yet evangelism in India happens
coping with the national changes. I shall attempt here a quick
summary of evangelism in India - in outline form without
details and notes.
The Traditional phase: AD 54 - St. Thomas at Kerala and
Madras.
The Roman phase: The Sixteenth Century: Francis Xavier
at Goa.
The Protestant pioneer phase: The Eighteenth Century
1706 - the German Lutherans Ziegenbalg and
Pultschau at Tranquebar;
1793 - the Baptist Englishman Willaim Carey and
his team at Serampore;
1790s onwards - the British chaplains such as
Henry Martyn;
EVANGELISM IN THE CHANGING CONTEXT OF INDIA 65
The Colonial phase: The Nineteenth Century.
The arrival of various mission societies: The Anglicans
(CMS, SPG, CEZMS).
The Congregationalists (LMS),
The Reformed Churches: The American
Board, The Scottish Presbyterians
The Methodists (MMS).
The Basel Mission and others.
The Beginnings of the Christian Mass Movements
(Madras and Andhra).
The Decennial Missionary Conferences
The Ecumenical phase: The Early Twentieth Century.
The formation of united theological training
programmes (UTC 1910).
The formation of the National Missionary Council
(1914).3
Evangelistic Forward Movement (Sherwood
Eddy, KT Paul, HA Popley).
The Mass Movement Study by Waskom Pickett
(1930-32)4
The Lindsay Study of Christian Higher
Education (1929-30)5
The participation in national independence
The Indian Church phase: The Mid-Twentieth Century
The birth of the Church of South India (27
September 1947)6
The history of the churches and their involvement
in evangelism.
RW Scott, Evangelism in India, Geneva: wee
Ecumenical Studies, 1952.
NCC sets up stuides on Rapid Social Change
leading to CISRS formation 1957.
Church's concern for Nation Building, CISRS, 1962.7
Hunger for Justice, CASA, 1970.
Church and Social Justice, CSI, CISRS 1972.
The Evangelical phase: The formation of the Evangelical
Fellowship of India, 19518
Parachurch structures: 1952 VBS, 1953 Union
Biblical Seminary;
66 INDIAN JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY
1954 YFC &UESI; 1960s OM, EHC, FEBA,
FMPB, IEM, etc.,
"Mushrooming of indigenous missions" 50s,
60s, 70s.
1973 Federation of Evangelical Churches of
India.
1977 India Missions Association.
Evangelical separatist trends on the rise: FECI, AETEI,
ATN
The Holistic phase: The 1980s - 1990s
An interpretative summary
The mass movement conversions were a large enough
phenomenon that the National Christian Council initiated a
study of it in the 30s. The mass move1!lents were sporadic and
regional. In the second half of the century, evangelism has
become predominantly the task carried out by the parachurch
evangelical structures and the indigenous missions. When
compared with them, the Church of the mainstream is
extremely limited in its direct evangelism. New (mostly
American) Church denominations have arrived in India and
are active in evangelism (part of which is more of sheep stealing
from the mainstream churches). On the whole there is a lot of
evangelism happening in the country of which we could say:
India is still wide open for the gospel of Jesus Christ
Opposition is there but not as large as to hinder the growth
of the Church.
The Church is not as active as she needs to be in
evangelism.
The Parachurch structures have a lot of activities and
training for evangelism.
Evangelism apperas still foreign funded and
denominational.
A lot of cooperative networking is taking shape in the
1990s.
A Case Study: Holistic Evangelism
In 199::; when I inherited the role of directing the work of
the Karnataka Evangelistic Association, as a missiologist, I
EVANGELISM IN THE CHANGING CONTEXT OF INDIA 67
wished to undertake an experiment and develop an example of
what mission work in the Indian setting should be. Slow and
steady we have attempted to develop a holistic mission activity
wherein the fight against the forces of darkness (in terms of
the invisible forces causing fear and illness - which are cast
out through fastings and prayers) and the forces of social evils
(in terms of the visible forces causing economic exploitations,
social stratifications and religious opiums) are carried on.
Simultaneously, the fight against illiteracy, unemployment and
wasteful social customs are carried on through adult literacy
classes, job oriented training programmes and teaching sessions.
Whereas all this is good for the people and when they receive
our ministry well and change for the better (economically as
well as socially), it is indeed good news! But on top of this, we
present the claims of Jesus Christ that he stands at the door
and knocks, "If any ... hears and opens ... " he will develop a
relationship leading to atonement, adoption and assurance.
The way to the Father, the abundance of life in Christ (after
the cleansing and justjiication), and the power of the Holy
Spirit (to live in the light) are offered for free acceptance. Almost
every alternate month there are groups of people from the
Lambadi trlbals, the local Kannadigas and the migrant Tamils
and Telugus who enter the fold of the Church through baptism
in one or the other of our mission fields. There is no compulsion.
In the last baptisaml service it was my joy to see 6
Kannadigas among whom was a graduate farmer and his wife
and mother in law, a lorry driver, a professional thief who has
come to new life in Christ and a mother whose grief at the loss
of a married daughter led to search and find peace in Christ.
We in the KEA partner with all other agencies: literature
work with the Bible Society, Scripture Gift Mission, Operation
Mobilization; cassette ministry with the World Cassette
Outreach of India; radio ministry with the FEBA and TWR;
film ministry with the GIFTS of Karnataka and the Campus
Crusade for Christ; crusade ministry with the Billy Graham
Evangelistic Association; adult literacy work with EFl COR;
development work with SKIP and Church work with existing
Church denominations. In establishing such partnerships, we
experience the body to which we belong in Christ. Such is the
68 INDIAN JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY
holism that we instill within our structure and we find this
fulfilling. .
To build coordination with all other organisations, we
developed a series of annual mission conferences for the whole
state of Karnataka from which is now born a new structure
for coordination: The Karnataka Missions Network. Through
this attempts are being made to do relevant research into the
needs and people groups of Karnataka, to set up district level
activities to revive the Church and to set up mission stations,
to enable service to the uplift of the poor and to enlarge the
Church in the state of Karnataka.
What we attempt is holistic evangelism. In 1996, I attended
the National Consultation on Evangelism, held at Hyderabad.
About a hundred organisations working all over India were
represented through their Directors or Secretaries, who shared
reports of their work and indicated what they were planning
as their target for the next few years. It was full of positive
information and courageous faith and vision. I came away
from this consultation with a sense of awareness that
evangelism is alive in India.
There were references to oppositions and problems in parts
of India.
But they were not large enough to stop the work anywhere.
The opposition was largely from groups such as RSS
(Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh), BJP (Bharatiya Janata
Party), VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad).
It also came through clear that
Evangelism is being well planned by many agencies in
India.
It is enabled by international input, mainly from
evangelical structures.
There are statewide networks for evangelism formed by
AD 2000 movement.
Many local congregations are involved in active evangelism.
Challenges from the Changing situations of India:
1. "Hit and run" or irresponsible evagelism will not be
acceptable as political trends are popping up a communally
based Hindu government under BJP.
EVANGELISM IN THE CHANGING CONTEXT OF INDIA 69
2. "Holistic evangelism" where the care of the people and the
provision of skill development are foremost in the agenda
will suit Indian needs.
3. "Local Resourcing of the Local Congregations in Mission"
should be explored.
4. Foreign funds should be strictly used for developmental
work. alone.
5. Participation in the natioin in terms of nation building
should be taught at local congregational level to involve in
local education, panchayat administration,· slum and rurual
development, political participation in building stable
government, etc.,
6. The Church should continue her educational, medical and
relief involvements.
7. The Church should not compromise her faith while yet
striving to build harmonious relationships with people of
other faiths.
8. The Church should inculcate into the context and set
an example of service, sanctity and good living to
authenticate her gospel, eradicating corruption and power
politics.
9. The Church should speak and take lead for the welfare of
other communities also and not only be concerned for its
own welfare needs.
10. The Church should develop a sense of urgency as there is
much openness and reception to the gospel from among
the poor dalits and tribals as well as OBCs.
Fears are many among Indian Christians as to the
bleankness of the future in India for the process of Christian
living and witness. The coming to power by parties that have
a fundamentalist and fanatical religious mandate frighten the
minorities and cause anxiety. But as much as history teaches
us, the gospel always penetrated into hard contexts and faced
unwelcome situations. Higher the persecution, greater was
the growth of the faith community. Hence, perhaps one should
rejoice in the hope that the Church's witness in India may
have a brighter future and evangelism may happen in better
ways in the twenty first century.
70
Reference
INDIAN JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY
1. Siga ArIes, Theological Education for the Mission of the Church in India:
1947·1987, Studies in the InterculturaI History of Christianity, No.76
PeterLang, 199i.
2. Refer to the reporlsof the conferences published by the Worldwide
Publications: One Gospel, One Race, One Task, 1966; JD Douglas (ed.),
Let the Earth Hear His voice, 1975, Consultation on World Evangelization:
Lausanne Occasional Publications: 1980, Manila Manifesto, 1989.
3. Kaj Baago, A History of the National Christian Council of India, 1914·
1964, Nagpur; NCCI, 1965.
4. Waskom Pickett, Christian Mass Movements in India, New York:
Abingdon Press, 1933.
5. AD Lindsay, Report of the Commission on Christian Higher Education in
India, London: OUP, 1931.
6. Bengt Sundkler, Church of South India: The Movement towards Union,
1900·1947, London: Lutterworth Press, 1954.
7. PD Devanandan & MM Thomas (Eds.) Christian Participation in Nation
Building, Madras: CLS, 1960.
8. Robert McMahon, To God Be the Glory, Delhi: Efl, 1971.
9. Siga ArIes & Ben Wafi (eds.), Pilgrimage 2100: Self Reflection on Indian
Evangelisation, Bangalore, 1998.
Theological Seminary in the Blue Grass land of Kentucky,
where I spent the years 1972 to 1975 for the first phase of my
theological studies. Key '73 brought a sense of renewal to my
own commitments to Christ, the Gospel and Ministry. Soaked
in the evangelical and holiness interpretation that was super
prevalent at ATS, when I returned to start as a theological
teacher at the South India Biblical Seminary in Bangarapet,
I was deeply concerned to "evangelise"'.
But the claims of the commitment to evangelise that were
assumed as the value and ethos of the seminary soon appeared
remote and useless. We were found to be experts in "hit and
run" evangelism with our weekend preaching and outreach
package, Sunday schools and Summer Schools of Evangelism.
We concentrated on the rural sector. Twenty or more villages
and nearby towns were targetted for Saturday evening outreach
and Sunday Schools through students teams which were
systematically assigned as from the Field Education
Department. Villagers blamed us for our comfortable campus
life from which we went "preaching at them", They said: "You
only think of us as targets when you need us ... You really do
not care for us ... You do not try to understand our struggles
or empathise with our pains ... ". As I took student teams to
various villages, I heard these remarks and felt they sounded
right! These poor and illiterate villagers were supersensitive
to perceive our shortfalls in motives.
Later we started. a comm,unity development scheme with
foreign aid. But this did not take us deep into the context or
*Dr. Siga Arles is Professor of Missiology at Serampore College.
EVANGELISM IN THE CHANGING CONTEXT OF INDIA 59
its transformation - it was all peripheral, superficial and
skin deep. The work force got their salaries out of these
programmes, the budgetted monies were spent, the children
and adults were mere targets, just numbers for our reports
and - as the experienced and saintliest amongst us whispered
to the novices, "to be kept at a distance".
Disheartening! Time paSsed in slow motion in this rural
sector unlike even in the cities of India. Later, I remember,
we shifted gears from the rural emphasis to two new areas.
One, to develop a "Christian Muslim Friendship Society" as
an interaction between the Muslims in Bangarapet town and
us, the Seminary community. This was the inter-religious
dialogue movement at an evangelical setting. Sam Bhajjan,
Dwight Baker, Acharya Daya Prakash Titus and such others
were invited to share with us alluding to the common elements
and riches of our faiths. Our students prayed hard that some
Muslim will convert to Christ out of. this but the ardent
articulations steered clear of any such "conversion" motto.
Honestly, I think, the seminary was pushed into this new
mode of relating to the Muslim community by the initiative of
few students (one in particular, who was no academician but
drawn from a factory labour union leadership into a
commitment to Christian ministry). The seminary was neither
set for such inter-religious relationships despite evangelical
fervour, nor prone to absorb the new trends of dialogue
developing concurrently within the ecumenical institutions.
The second was to get involved with the Lions and Rotarians
who represented the merchants and middle class men and
women. Inviting them to a cultural programme ending in a
modernised dramatic presentation of the story of the Prodigal
Son brought a response breaking the years of separation as
one merchant said "I had supplied rice and grains for over 20
years to you all but this is the first time I had come into your
campus!" I said to myself, "well then, thus far, with the greatest
fervour for evangelism, my colleagues seem to have done a
fantastic, but fruitless, remote control, evangelism from a
distnace" and wondered about the ways to get closer to the
actual people, who could make a difference to the town and
thus to its surrounding villages.
60 INDIAN JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY
AB a result of these two ventures, we were definitely getting
closer to the local community of Hindus and Muslims. It was
then that the community persuaded us to start a quality
convent-style educational institution for their children. "You
Christians are good in providing good education" they said
and called us to serve them! A Macedonain calll! This should
open a wide opportunity to influence the society and infiltrate
the non-Christian community with Christian input. The
decision to start the school was made.
At this time my sabbatical leave took me to Scotland where
I enrolled for a Ph.D. in Missiology. I chose to research into
the history of theological education in India.l and to evaluate
the impact of the twin foci of the theologies of mission that
were developed in the post-independence India by the
evangelical and ecumenical streams. The polarisation among
the two intensifies with hardened hearts in both camps while
lip service is done in consultations wherein words are mouthed
about working together and holding together. My research
study built within me a deep desire to disown the polarised
identities and to strive towards a balance, a holism, a holistic
understanding of the gospel, ministry, mission and the Church.
The British set up awakened new concerns within me. The
question of the poor and the need for promoting the
establishment of an organised socio-political set up of proper
structures to build prospects for the poor in India - this was
one such new concern. I was certainly determined to enable
theological education from a holistic perspective without
yielding to the subtle temptation of getting sucked into the
polarised understanding of either extremes of interpretations.
Upon return I was saddled with the administrative load as
Principal of the seminary and yet carried the responsibility
for shaping the school for the children as requested by the
parents. There were children of the town's leading doctors,
business families, municipality chairman, bankers, factory
workers and anybody who was somebody in that area! Also
the children of the well-to-do villagers came from all the nearby
villages to our school and within a short time, the school
obtained the kind of reputation that started to put pressure
on us to expand the school to accommodate more children.
EVANGELISM IN THE CHANGING CONTEXT OF INDIA 61
The monthly parents meetings drew the parents in big numbers
to interact with us on "values" and we were shaping the
thought patterns and challenging the parents to a value based
understanding of the educational process and their role along
with us in the growing of their children, the future citizens of
the town and villages of our area. I was excited with the
thought that a decade or two will see a vast change for the
impact of· the Gospel on my people. Chidren will absorb
Christian values. They will know the scriptures and the truth
of the Word - the truth will set them free. Their parents also
will open up. Mission and evangelism will happen with less
resistance. I do not know what the educatioinal missionaries
of yester years expected. But I dreamt of brighter days ahead.
But the dream was shattered. An alien chairman who came
from a different part of the country and understood evagelism
in its narrow definitions influenced the seminary board to
close the school with his pious (but foolish) jargon "our calling
is to train evangelists and Church planters, not to run primary
schools". The shattering of the dream had large impact on my
thinking. It aroused in me questions on the way evangelism
needs to be understood in the Indian setting.
Should it be "Evangelical Evangelism"?
Defining "what is evangelism" at Berlin in 1966 and
strategising "how to evagelise" at Lausanne in 1974 (later at
Pataya in 1980 and at Manila in 1989), the Lausanne
evangelicals2 have gained momentum to promote evangelism
with a wide variety of emphases and methods. They insist
that all evagelism should result in the conversion of the people
to Christ as the only way and in the building up of the Chruch
in every land. Evangelical Evangelism has remained true to
the authority of the scripture and to the uniqueness of Jesus
as the only Christ from God. It learnt to ride the colonial
horse but also the disembark and strive alongside of the natives
as exemplified by the Newbigin variety. It moved from soul
concerns to the body concerns setting up its many structures
for relief and development which pumped millions into the
mission fields. The rise of the radical evangelical thought and
~ractice under people such as Carl Henry, JohnStott and Ron
62 INDIAN JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY
Sider was simultaneous with the rise of world networks for
evagelism through Crusade ministry of Billy Graham's
Evagelistic Association, Uterature Ministry of George Verwer's
Operation Mobilization, Jesus film ministry of Bill Bright's
Campus Crusade, Youth ministries of Loren Cunningham's
Youth With A Mission, Strategic ministries of Luis Bush's AD
2000 and Beyond Movement and many more. Peter Beyerhaus'
defence against the ecumenical evagelism; Donald McGavran's
authorising of caste based and ever splitting Church for the
sake of growth; Ralph Winter's pragmatisation of the growth
impulse; John Robb's war against territorial spirits; Paul
Eschlemann's saturation evangelism and a score of other
images and emphases caricature evangelical evangelism around
the world. Incidentally, much of this appears North American
in origin. With dollar power, these quickly internationalise
themselves and work positive wonders for evangelism, while
yet defeating the many attempts at unity since often new
American denominations go international to build their own
denominations in the name of building the kingdom of Christ.
Much confusion results in this denominational upsurge not
only within the body of Christ but to the other sheep who are
yet to be brought in.
Should it be "Ecumenical Evangelism"?
Exactly a century after the unfulfilled dream of William
Carey, the World Missionary Conference at Edinburgh in 1910
desired to evangelise the world within a generation. But for
the delay and pessimism that followed druing the two World
Wars and the economic depression, the men of the twentieth
century could perhaps have accomplished this desire.
Skepticism of this period led to rationalism as reflected in the
processes of rethinking missions with William Hocking,
reinterpreting orthodoxy, christianity and biblical tradition
with Barth, Brunner and Bultmann, repenting political
ideologies with Bonhoeffer and CF Andrews. There was the
major readjusting of the self understanding of Christian faith
in the midst of other faiths with Hendrik Kraemer at
Tambaram 1938 when evangelism was understood from a nontraditional
pattern. The disembarking from the colonial horse
EVANGELISM IN THE CHANGING CONTEXT OF INDIA 63
from the late forties let the world missionary enterprise to
take on board the study of the implications of the rapid social
change that the world was going through; and tQ plan for the
participation of the Christian Church in the task of nation
building. The fifties and sixties saw the worldward journey of
the ecumenical theology of mission with a methodological
revision of the mode of theologising. "Doing theology in context"
. became the driving force guiding a worldwide change of mission
strategy. Mission, in the biblical model of the logos becoming
flesh, became interpreted as incarnationa!. Theological
Education Fund engineered this metamorphosis in the third
world seminaries. Contextualisation, motivated by the culture
orientation in hermeneutics and political orientation in the
pursuit after the socio-economic justice for all, began to emerge
as the large theme in theology ~d the dominant theme in
missiology.
Ecumenical evangelism took the shape of political action for
some and dialogue for others. The first meant entering into
the arena of the struggles of people and spelling out liberty
and justice in political terms whereby the structural
modifications were called for either peacefully or, if need be,
violently. The second meant to dialogue at philosophic, religious
and practical levels with an intent to learn and mutually
influence, not necessarily to demand crossing of boundaries.
To ecumenical evangelism, to ensure the growth of the gospel
influence was superior to the growth of the number of the
converts. Baptism as a communal rite was redundant and the
boundary lines of the Church was mythical. Hence, whether
somebody had the opportunity to hear the gospel or no, whether
he/she believed in Jesus or no, ecumenical evangelism felt
fulfilled in as much as it could see that it existed and co-lived
in peace and harmony with some amount of social interaction.
It may appear crude but acceptable to say that ecumenical
evangelism attempts to be "a gospel-less evangelism
prepagating a cross-less Christ to develop a Church-less
christianity for anybody anywhere without prescribing the
option of membership."
There are numerious social values in the mission activity of
ecumenical evangelism. But bereft of the soul, it can only
64 INDIAN JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY
promote prosperous and polished corpses. The soul of being
"made a new" and "made alive" in Christ when lacking, as
Paul narrated to the Ephesians, people will but remain dead
in sin. If there be any other way for sin to be atoned, then the
historic claims of the cross of Christ becomes all vain. Thus
ecumenical evagelism stands in need to clarify the place of the
cross, the importance of Christ, the meaning of the Church,
the method and significance of belonging to it and the purpose
and missioin of the Church in relation to the purpose and
mission of Jesus.
Evagelism in the Indian setting:
Evagelism can be considered "evangel"ism, a "good news"ism,
wherein evangel is a universally applicable message, which in
spite of undergoing necessary local applicational modifications,
will reamin true to its basic definition emerging from the
canon of Christian faith. Not oIily the principle of good news
is seriously to be considered but also the person of the good
news. It is in the presentation of the person of Jesus Christ
that true evangelism shall happen in India as elsewhere. In
the fullness of time, Christ came. The gospel enters a prepared
soil at kairos time. Times keep changing. But gospel does not
keep changing. It enters into every turbulent situation to bring
the calm and peace, the hope and joy.
India keeps changing. Yet evangelism in India happens
coping with the national changes. I shall attempt here a quick
summary of evangelism in India - in outline form without
details and notes.
The Traditional phase: AD 54 - St. Thomas at Kerala and
Madras.
The Roman phase: The Sixteenth Century: Francis Xavier
at Goa.
The Protestant pioneer phase: The Eighteenth Century
1706 - the German Lutherans Ziegenbalg and
Pultschau at Tranquebar;
1793 - the Baptist Englishman Willaim Carey and
his team at Serampore;
1790s onwards - the British chaplains such as
Henry Martyn;
EVANGELISM IN THE CHANGING CONTEXT OF INDIA 65
The Colonial phase: The Nineteenth Century.
The arrival of various mission societies: The Anglicans
(CMS, SPG, CEZMS).
The Congregationalists (LMS),
The Reformed Churches: The American
Board, The Scottish Presbyterians
The Methodists (MMS).
The Basel Mission and others.
The Beginnings of the Christian Mass Movements
(Madras and Andhra).
The Decennial Missionary Conferences
The Ecumenical phase: The Early Twentieth Century.
The formation of united theological training
programmes (UTC 1910).
The formation of the National Missionary Council
(1914).3
Evangelistic Forward Movement (Sherwood
Eddy, KT Paul, HA Popley).
The Mass Movement Study by Waskom Pickett
(1930-32)4
The Lindsay Study of Christian Higher
Education (1929-30)5
The participation in national independence
The Indian Church phase: The Mid-Twentieth Century
The birth of the Church of South India (27
September 1947)6
The history of the churches and their involvement
in evangelism.
RW Scott, Evangelism in India, Geneva: wee
Ecumenical Studies, 1952.
NCC sets up stuides on Rapid Social Change
leading to CISRS formation 1957.
Church's concern for Nation Building, CISRS, 1962.7
Hunger for Justice, CASA, 1970.
Church and Social Justice, CSI, CISRS 1972.
The Evangelical phase: The formation of the Evangelical
Fellowship of India, 19518
Parachurch structures: 1952 VBS, 1953 Union
Biblical Seminary;
66 INDIAN JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY
1954 YFC &UESI; 1960s OM, EHC, FEBA,
FMPB, IEM, etc.,
"Mushrooming of indigenous missions" 50s,
60s, 70s.
1973 Federation of Evangelical Churches of
India.
1977 India Missions Association.
Evangelical separatist trends on the rise: FECI, AETEI,
ATN
The Holistic phase: The 1980s - 1990s
An interpretative summary
The mass movement conversions were a large enough
phenomenon that the National Christian Council initiated a
study of it in the 30s. The mass move1!lents were sporadic and
regional. In the second half of the century, evangelism has
become predominantly the task carried out by the parachurch
evangelical structures and the indigenous missions. When
compared with them, the Church of the mainstream is
extremely limited in its direct evangelism. New (mostly
American) Church denominations have arrived in India and
are active in evangelism (part of which is more of sheep stealing
from the mainstream churches). On the whole there is a lot of
evangelism happening in the country of which we could say:
India is still wide open for the gospel of Jesus Christ
Opposition is there but not as large as to hinder the growth
of the Church.
The Church is not as active as she needs to be in
evangelism.
The Parachurch structures have a lot of activities and
training for evangelism.
Evangelism apperas still foreign funded and
denominational.
A lot of cooperative networking is taking shape in the
1990s.
A Case Study: Holistic Evangelism
In 199::; when I inherited the role of directing the work of
the Karnataka Evangelistic Association, as a missiologist, I
EVANGELISM IN THE CHANGING CONTEXT OF INDIA 67
wished to undertake an experiment and develop an example of
what mission work in the Indian setting should be. Slow and
steady we have attempted to develop a holistic mission activity
wherein the fight against the forces of darkness (in terms of
the invisible forces causing fear and illness - which are cast
out through fastings and prayers) and the forces of social evils
(in terms of the visible forces causing economic exploitations,
social stratifications and religious opiums) are carried on.
Simultaneously, the fight against illiteracy, unemployment and
wasteful social customs are carried on through adult literacy
classes, job oriented training programmes and teaching sessions.
Whereas all this is good for the people and when they receive
our ministry well and change for the better (economically as
well as socially), it is indeed good news! But on top of this, we
present the claims of Jesus Christ that he stands at the door
and knocks, "If any ... hears and opens ... " he will develop a
relationship leading to atonement, adoption and assurance.
The way to the Father, the abundance of life in Christ (after
the cleansing and justjiication), and the power of the Holy
Spirit (to live in the light) are offered for free acceptance. Almost
every alternate month there are groups of people from the
Lambadi trlbals, the local Kannadigas and the migrant Tamils
and Telugus who enter the fold of the Church through baptism
in one or the other of our mission fields. There is no compulsion.
In the last baptisaml service it was my joy to see 6
Kannadigas among whom was a graduate farmer and his wife
and mother in law, a lorry driver, a professional thief who has
come to new life in Christ and a mother whose grief at the loss
of a married daughter led to search and find peace in Christ.
We in the KEA partner with all other agencies: literature
work with the Bible Society, Scripture Gift Mission, Operation
Mobilization; cassette ministry with the World Cassette
Outreach of India; radio ministry with the FEBA and TWR;
film ministry with the GIFTS of Karnataka and the Campus
Crusade for Christ; crusade ministry with the Billy Graham
Evangelistic Association; adult literacy work with EFl COR;
development work with SKIP and Church work with existing
Church denominations. In establishing such partnerships, we
experience the body to which we belong in Christ. Such is the
68 INDIAN JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY
holism that we instill within our structure and we find this
fulfilling. .
To build coordination with all other organisations, we
developed a series of annual mission conferences for the whole
state of Karnataka from which is now born a new structure
for coordination: The Karnataka Missions Network. Through
this attempts are being made to do relevant research into the
needs and people groups of Karnataka, to set up district level
activities to revive the Church and to set up mission stations,
to enable service to the uplift of the poor and to enlarge the
Church in the state of Karnataka.
What we attempt is holistic evangelism. In 1996, I attended
the National Consultation on Evangelism, held at Hyderabad.
About a hundred organisations working all over India were
represented through their Directors or Secretaries, who shared
reports of their work and indicated what they were planning
as their target for the next few years. It was full of positive
information and courageous faith and vision. I came away
from this consultation with a sense of awareness that
evangelism is alive in India.
There were references to oppositions and problems in parts
of India.
But they were not large enough to stop the work anywhere.
The opposition was largely from groups such as RSS
(Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh), BJP (Bharatiya Janata
Party), VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad).
It also came through clear that
Evangelism is being well planned by many agencies in
India.
It is enabled by international input, mainly from
evangelical structures.
There are statewide networks for evangelism formed by
AD 2000 movement.
Many local congregations are involved in active evangelism.
Challenges from the Changing situations of India:
1. "Hit and run" or irresponsible evagelism will not be
acceptable as political trends are popping up a communally
based Hindu government under BJP.
EVANGELISM IN THE CHANGING CONTEXT OF INDIA 69
2. "Holistic evangelism" where the care of the people and the
provision of skill development are foremost in the agenda
will suit Indian needs.
3. "Local Resourcing of the Local Congregations in Mission"
should be explored.
4. Foreign funds should be strictly used for developmental
work. alone.
5. Participation in the natioin in terms of nation building
should be taught at local congregational level to involve in
local education, panchayat administration,· slum and rurual
development, political participation in building stable
government, etc.,
6. The Church should continue her educational, medical and
relief involvements.
7. The Church should not compromise her faith while yet
striving to build harmonious relationships with people of
other faiths.
8. The Church should inculcate into the context and set
an example of service, sanctity and good living to
authenticate her gospel, eradicating corruption and power
politics.
9. The Church should speak and take lead for the welfare of
other communities also and not only be concerned for its
own welfare needs.
10. The Church should develop a sense of urgency as there is
much openness and reception to the gospel from among
the poor dalits and tribals as well as OBCs.
Fears are many among Indian Christians as to the
bleankness of the future in India for the process of Christian
living and witness. The coming to power by parties that have
a fundamentalist and fanatical religious mandate frighten the
minorities and cause anxiety. But as much as history teaches
us, the gospel always penetrated into hard contexts and faced
unwelcome situations. Higher the persecution, greater was
the growth of the faith community. Hence, perhaps one should
rejoice in the hope that the Church's witness in India may
have a brighter future and evangelism may happen in better
ways in the twenty first century.
70
Reference
INDIAN JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY
1. Siga ArIes, Theological Education for the Mission of the Church in India:
1947·1987, Studies in the InterculturaI History of Christianity, No.76
PeterLang, 199i.
2. Refer to the reporlsof the conferences published by the Worldwide
Publications: One Gospel, One Race, One Task, 1966; JD Douglas (ed.),
Let the Earth Hear His voice, 1975, Consultation on World Evangelization:
Lausanne Occasional Publications: 1980, Manila Manifesto, 1989.
3. Kaj Baago, A History of the National Christian Council of India, 1914·
1964, Nagpur; NCCI, 1965.
4. Waskom Pickett, Christian Mass Movements in India, New York:
Abingdon Press, 1933.
5. AD Lindsay, Report of the Commission on Christian Higher Education in
India, London: OUP, 1931.
6. Bengt Sundkler, Church of South India: The Movement towards Union,
1900·1947, London: Lutterworth Press, 1954.
7. PD Devanandan & MM Thomas (Eds.) Christian Participation in Nation
Building, Madras: CLS, 1960.
8. Robert McMahon, To God Be the Glory, Delhi: Efl, 1971.
9. Siga ArIes & Ben Wafi (eds.), Pilgrimage 2100: Self Reflection on Indian
Evangelisation, Bangalore, 1998.
