Difference between revisions of "General History of Brethren Assemblies in India"

Latest revision as of 14:00, 9 January 2026

Though the Brethren Assemblies -- at least by the reckoning of some -- in the places of origin are facing a decline of sorts, the situation is totally different in the Far East, including India. In fact the NT  Pattern church in India is a vibrant one, having a large number of outreaches, with scores of new churches established every year, and this church history of Far East is incomplete without an account of the origin and growth of the Brethren Assemblies in India.

The Christian faith came to India in AD 50 when Saint Thomas the doubting disciple came here with the gospel. He received a warm welcome from Hindu kings and nobles and soon many professed faith in Christ, and an active community of Christians came into existence in India in the middle of the first century AD.

This community kept growing and soon there were churches all over the southern and western parts of India. This was an educated community of people, as opposed to the general illiteracy, and had business links with many countries. Many non Indian Christians also moved to India and merged into this mainstream, making it a culturally rich community.

In the first millennia the church in India kept faithful to biblical truths, but towards the close of it the Roman Catholic church treacherously (inducement, murder, politics, deception) took control of large segments of Non Catholic churches and established themselves firmly in the Indian soil. This admixture of error with truth led to more than one revival and several denominations oriented to the gospel came up, especially towards the second half of the second millennium. However, gradually ecclesiastical priesthood and religious rituals began sapping their strength and vigor. This coincided with the modern missionary movement in the west, and an increasing number of missionaries began coming to India. Gradually their work began replanting the seeds of gospel among Indians.

During this period the Lord raised many men from the decaying church in India who began studying and teaching the pure word of God, denying the spiritual efficacy of church rituals. This eventually led to a greater interest in studying the pure word of God, and many began to gather in homes to search the scriptures -- particularly in the tiny south Indian state of Kerala. With the establishment of a printing press, the Bible was easily available (though costly) in this language. These investigations eventually led them to the discovery of the doctrines of justification by faith, the priesthood of all believers, and the baptism of believers as opposed to infant baptism practices in their own churches.

The discovery led to action, and soon four men who accepted Christ as savior were baptized. Two who were not baptized were present as observers. Convinced of the need for believers to commemorate the death of the Lord in a non ritualistic manner, they celebrated the first Lord's Supper under a tree in 1887. This is reckoned by many to be technically the birth of the Brethren Assemblies in India. Just as the Lord raised a group of people for Himself in the West, He also raised a group unto Himself independently in the East.

Opposition And Spread

Many churches were being established all over India by the efforts of (non Brethren) foreign missionaries, and this helped create an atmosphere of great spiritual zeal and expectation in the older Indian churches. This atmosphere in turn helped this new movement to spread the gospel and gain a large number of believers. India being a extremely communal society, these conversions soon led to serious family and church problems.

In a communal society the community is the dictating agency as to how people live and conduct themselves, and the individual has no freedom of choice in most things related to spiritual life, marriage rituals, and even burial. The community in turn creates these strong stipulations through the family unit, where everyone is subject to the authority of the oldest male member of the family. If this member stipulates that everyone should go to a certain church, none dare disobey it lest he or she be punished or even be removed from the family. And once a person is removed from the family, he has no existence other than that of a vagabond in a communal society. Freedom of conscience, or freedom to choose according to personal desires is not existent in such societies, and such indeed was the society in Kerala (South India) when the Brethren movement began here.

Soon the young believers were warned by their churches and families to either renounce their newfound faith or face expulsion from the church, the family, and even the town -- and in those days once thrown out of one's house there was practically no dwelling place available in one's town. Houses were not available on rent, and it was impossible to fine anyone in that communal society having the courage to employ or even help these social outcasts. However, all of them preferred to live on the streets with their newfound faith rather than living in their cozy homes but without God.

Many were thrown out, others were beaten and abused mercilessly, and still others were mocked in inhuman ways. They used to throw the excreta of pigs upon believers in places like Angamally. It is the same place where an evangelist (Lonappan Upadeshi) was stripped almost naked while he was publicly preaching the gospel, and where those opposed to this new faith exhumed the dead-body of a young girl and threw it in the courtyard of her father (also Lonappan Upadeshi) for his "crime" of embracing Christ, compounding the pain of parents who had not yet recovered from the pain of the untimely death of their beloved daughter. Finally believers had to sleep over the grave for many days after burying the child again. Down south Koshy Mathunny was unable to find a place to bury his young wife who was only in her thirties, and had to take the bold and unheard of step of burying her in his own compound, just a few feet behind his residence. Incidentally, he had purchased this pieces of land from some generous Hindus who gave him shelter when he was thrown out of his house because of his newfound faith.

The Lord honored the faith of the new believers, and the people added to the  church kept increasing by the day. Soon there were churches all over the state of Kerala, Tamil Nadu (Madras), and Andhra Pradesh. Meanwhile some foreign missionaries who had  come to India care of non Brethren missions were also won over the New Testament truths, and they also started laboring with the people of God in India. V. Nagal, E. H. Noel and Handly Bird being some of them.

Many dedicated themselves to serve the Lord, and soon there was a large group of evangelists spreading the gospel throughout the southern parts of India. The late M. E. Cherian became one of the first Indians to resign from a full-time secular job to enter full-time Christian ministry. Though his resignation and entry into faith-ministry met with some resistance from some foreign Brethren missionaries (and particularly their wives) who felt it a threat that qualified local people were entering full-time ministry, Mr. Cherian was not deterred. He became sort of a pioneer when he left his native place and moved to another state for cross-cultural evangelism. He was followed by other pioneering young men like T. A. Kurian (Saugor), K. M. Mathai (Bhopal), V. T. John (Chandigarh), T. E. Easow (Patna) and Philip Abraham (Gwalior). Only Philip Abraham, 88, is alive as of this writing.  These men became models of the Missionary Wave among the brethren, that depended only upon Indian resources and logistical support for expanding the work indigenously throughout the country, and even beyond.

Growth

The Lord honored the faith of the new believers, and the people added to the church kept increasing by the day. Soon there were churches all over the state of Kerala, Tamil Nadu (Madras), and Andhra Pradesh. Meanwhile some foreign missionaries who had come to India care of non Brethren missions were also won over the New Testament truths, and they also started laboring with the people of God in India. V. Nagal, E. H. Noel and Handly Bird being some of them. Many dedicated themselves to serve the Lord, and soon there was a large group of evangelists spreading the gospel throughout the southern parts of India. The late M. E. Cheryan became one of the first Indians to resign from a full-time secular job to enter full-time Christian ministry. Though it met with some resistance from some foreign missionaries (and particularly their wives) who felt it a threat that qualified local people are entering full-time ministry, Mr. Cherian was not deterred. He became sort of a pioneer when he left his native place and moved to another state for cross-cultural evangelism. He was followed by other pioneering young men like T. A. Kurian (Saugor), K. M. Mathai (Bhopal), V. T. John (Chandigarh), T. E. Easow (Patna) and Philip Abraham (Gwalior). These men became models of the Missionary Wave among the brethren, that depended only upon Indian resources and logistical support for expanding the work indigenously throughout the country, and even beyond.

The second generation of the Brethren had their paths cut out by the first, so they were able to advance much beyond their predecessors. This then became the time for establishing assemblies, para church ministries, schools, orphanages, and hospitals. The third generation spread the flame throughout the country because they now had a strong army of people to support them. The fourth generation brought a lot of career-seekers from other denominations, mostly castaways from there and uncommitted to the assemblies, and created quite some problem due mainly to their deliberate attempts to hoard the massive but untapped social and financial resources that suddenly became available to them in this group. These men also became the leading voices that challenged the values, biblical practices, fundamental doctrines, and even the esteemed leaders that the Brethren Assemblies had held dear in the first seven to eight decades before this migration took place. Under the influence of the fourth-generation migrants to the Assemblies, groups of people even moved into cultistic directions, but the trend was arrested soon due to a remnant who sensed the danger and sounded the alarm.

The fifth generation of leaders and evangelists brought a new era in leadership, teaching, disciple-making, and planning. A large number of them were trained under non Brethren teachers, and therefore they were able to fill in the blind spots to which the leadership in the earlier generation was oblivious. What's more, a large number of them were men of high caliber and high professional background. This resulted in many changes, two of which are notable. First, they successfully put a cap to the rivalry for resources that was seen in the preceding generation. Second, they began emphasizing quality along with quantity, resulting in a quantum leap in the overall quality of teaching from assembly-based pulpits. This also became the generation that began producing high quality theological and doctrinal books.

The sixth generation is now emerging, and only time will tell what it will be like. However, most observers at present are quite optimistic about the immediate future.

Open Versus Closed Assemblies

Since the Open/Closed divide is more of European origin, it does not have much relevance for the Indian Brethren Assemblies, who generally tend to be open in nature. However, in the last two decades of the twentieth century some brethren from England and other countries began visiting India to contact preexisting assemblies, and this has led to a situation similar to the Open/Close situation.

At present there are close to 2200 assemblies in India, almost all of which are Open Brethren in nature. Within them there is considerable variation in practices, some allowing non Brethren to participate in the Lord's Supper if they are born again and baptized, with others totally forbid such participation. This variation has more of historical reasons than Biblical, and has not created much problem with either the insiders or the outsiders.

Towards the 1980's, however, several closed brethren from outside India came in contact with Indian evangelists, and persuaded them to align themselves with the Closed Brethren. At the same time certain financially well endowed brethren from the United Kingdom also were able to carve out some of the preexisting assemblies to themselves, and make them "closed" to the rest of the assemblies in India. Over the space of two decades these two groups have been able to take away about 20 assemblies of the formerly Open Brethren to the Closed fold.

While the Open Assemblies do not find it difficult to accommodate the brethren from the Closed fold, the brethren in the Closed assemblies exhibit marked animosity towards those in the Open group. What is more, it is common for brethren in the Closed group to speak contemptuously against the well respected leaders in the Open group. The basic reason is the imposition of separation by brethren who tend to control the strings from outside, mainly through financial incentives, with the aim to carve territories that they can presumably claim as their own in front of their people (the donors) in the West. It would be readily noticed that due to these historical reasons the Closed assemblies are a minority in India, and also that they differ much from the Closed assemblies in West. Any kind of reconciliation between these groups seems to be difficult as long as the domination of the brethren from the outside continues.

Doctrinal Stand

The brethren in India have been theologically conservative right from the beginning. Thus they found it easy to assimilate the works produced by conservative and fundamentalist scholars in the West. However, having no widely agreed-upon statement of doctrine, and also the standard evangelical creeds not being available in Indian language, the average person finds it difficult to state the exact boundaries of his theological belief. This did create some difficulty from time to time when individuals (mostly from the previously mentioned career-seeking fourth generation) tried to pass erroneous doctrines as part of the "received" doctrines.

The first major confusion arose when Zac Poonen, a preacher at that time having some Brethren affiliation, tried to spread the Smithist heresies related to the person of Christ. His attempts were soon repulsed by concerned brethren, and eventually he left the Brethren fold to form his own False Cult. Even today he continues to enjoy some links and some sympathizers among the Brethren, but his overall influence upon the movement is negligible.

The second major doctrinal confusion is the Charismatic Confusion, and the chief reason is the large number of intermarriages between Brethren and Pentecostal people, the majority of which took place under the influence of the fourth-generation leaders. The Lord has raised some men who are at present systematically suppressing this error, but it will take much more time to undo the harm that has already been done.

Other confusions arose from time to time about the time of rapture (whether it is Pre or Post Tribulation), the doctrine of the Trinity, and whether there is revelation outside the Bible. Almost all of them were dealt with effectively by brethren burdened for the church, and none of them had an impact wide enough to worry people who love the church of God. At the same time it must be emphasized that the lull that came in teaching during the dominance of the fourth generation has created wide ranging spiritual illiteracy, and it will take quite some time for the present generation teachers to fill in this gap.

Outreaches

Evangelism and church planting has always been a hallmark of the Brethren assemblies in India. This is the reason why the number grew from 0 to 2200 in just one century -- a growth probably unparalleled anywhere. Of this, the larger proportion of churches came into existence in the last 30 years when the foreign missionaries made an exit and the local leadership took the control and directing of the entire system into their hands.

Though there is a general resistance to the idea of para church organizations, the Brethren assemblies in India have given formed a large number of church-related movements that aid outreach and evangelism in one way or other. YMEF, or the Young Men's Evangelistic Fellowship is a pioneer in this. Today YMEF units are found throughout India and also in those countries where Indian brethren gather. Then there are regional bodies like Gospel Penetration Campaign, Bastar Evangelistic Fellowship, or Orissa Brethren Movement where the focus is evangelism of a specific region. The number of such regional bodies is now in the  hundreds, and it is impossible even to catalog them.

Literature ministries, radio ministries, open air preaching, and house to house visitation are quite common. Overall the Brethren in India are a group actively committed to evangelism, and the spirit of sharing the gospel continues to thrive. This is one reason that makes this writer optimistic about future of the Brethren Assemblies in India.