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

Revision as of 18:02, 28 August 2018

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 disciples 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, specially 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, Bible was easily available (though costly) in this language. These investigations eventually lead 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. 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 (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.