Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-9q27g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-19T23:30:35.590Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Reshaping of Christian Tradition: Western Denominational Identity in a Non-Western Context

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Brian Stanley
Brian Stanley*
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Bristol
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In August 1841 George Spencer, great-grandson of the third Duke of Marlborough and second Bishop of Madras, entertained two house guests in his residence at Kotagherry. Both were seeking admission into the Anglican ministry. One was an Indian, a former Roman Catholic priest who had begun to question the catholicity of the Roman communion, had joined himself for a while to the American Congregational mission in Madura, but had eventually reached the conclusion, in Spencer’s words, that ‘evangelical doctrine joined to Apostolic Government were only to be met with in indissoluble conjunction with the Church of England’. Bishop Spencer, while keen to employ the Indian as a catechist, felt it premature, ‘in a matter of such importance’, to receive him as a presbyter, even though the validity of his orders was unquestionable. The Indian is not named in the records, and it would appear that he never became an Anglican priest.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 32: Unity and Diversity in the Church , 1996 , pp. 399 - 426
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Oxford, Rhodes House, United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel archives [hereafter USPGA], CLR 2, pp. 254-9, Bishop of Madras to A. M. Campbell, 14 Aug. 1841. I am grateful to the USPG for permission to cite material from their archives. Frank Penny, The Church in Madras, 3 vols (London, 1904-22), 3, pp. 405-11, lists all native clergy ordained in Madras diocese during Spencer’s episcopate, but none of those listed were former Roman Catholic priests.

2 Wyatt, J. L., ed., Reminiscences of Bishop Caldwell (Madras, 1894), pp. 3–8, 23, 64 Google Scholar.

3 See Cnattingius, Hans, Bishops and Societies: A Study of Anglican Colonial and Missionary Expansion, 1698-1850 (London, 1952), pp. 167–73 Google Scholar; Neill, Stephen, A History of Christianity in India, 1707-1858 (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 218–22 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Wyatt, , Reminiscences of Bishop Caldwell, p. 54 Google Scholar; on Groves see [Groves, M. B.], Memoir of the Late Anthony Norris Groves, … compiled by his widow (London, 1856), and Lang, G. H., Anthony Norris Groves: Saint and Pioneer (London, 1939)Google Scholar.

5 Wyatt, Reminiscences of Bishop Caldwell, pp. 54–5; on Tucker see Eugene Stock, The History of the Church Missionary Society, 4 vols (London, 1899-1916), 1, pp. 328-9.

6 Wyatt, Reminiscences of Bishop Caldwell, pp. 62–3.

7 London, School of Oriental and African Studies, Council for World Mission archives [hereafter CWMA], LMS South India Tamil Incoming Letters, Box 8, J. Bilderbeck to A. Tidman and J. J. Freeman, 23 Sept. 1841. Bilderbeck himself became an Anglican and joined the CMS in 1843. I am grateful to the Council for World Mission for permission to cite material from their archives.

8 CWMA, LMS South India Tamil Incoming Letters, Box 8, R. Caldwell to A. Tidman, 30 June 1841.

9 USPGA, X1085, MS Memoirs of Bishop Caldwell.

10 CWMA, LMS Board Minutes, 9 May 1796, cited in I. M. Fletcher, ‘The Fundamental Principle of the London Missionary Society’, Transactions of the Congregational Historical Society, 19, 3 (Oct. 1962), p. 138.

11 USPGA, X1085, MS Memoirs of Bishop Caldwell; Wyatt, Reminiscences of Bishop Caldwell, p. 65. There is evidence that in its early years the LMS had been prepared to accept Baptist missionary candidates, and at least one such served with the Society; see Martin, R. H., Evangelicals United: Ecumenical Stirrings in Pre-Viclorian Britain, 1795-1830 (Metuchen, NJ, and London, 1983), pp. 47–8 Google Scholar. In Caldwell’s own day, William Young, a member of a Baptist church in Calcutta, served with the LMS in Batavia and China; see Sibree, James, London Missionary Society: A Register of Missionaries, Deputations, etc., from 1796 to 1923 (London, 1923), pp. 29–30 Google Scholar.

12 Wyatt, Reminiscences of Bishop Caldwell, p. 63.

13 USPGA, CLR 2, p. 254, Bishop of Madras to A. M. Campbell, 14 Aug. 1841.

14 CWMA, LMS South India Tamil Incoming Letters, Box 8, Caldwell to Tidman, 13 Feb. 1842.

15 Wyatt, Reminiscences of Bishop Caldwell, p. 65.

16 The four LMS missionaries were John Bilderbeck, Henry Bower, William Howell and J. A. Regel. I have identified five of the six WMMS missionaries or assistant missionaries with reasonable certainty as James Kershaw Best, Robert Carver, John Guest, Peter Percival and George Uglow Pope. Wyatt, Reminiscences of Bishop Caldwell, p. 64; G. G. Findlay and Holdsworth, W. W., The History of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, 5 vols (London, 1921-4), 5, pp. 33, 194 Google Scholar; Penny, The Church in Madras, 3, pp. 366-70; Sibree, London Missionary Society: A Register, pp. 23, 31, 39, 44; Pascoe, C. F., Two Hundred Years of the S. P. G.: An Historical Account of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (London, 1901), pp. 916–19 Google Scholar.

17 USPGA, CLR 2, p. 259, Bishop of Madras to A. M. Campbell, 14 Aug. 1841.

18 Gibbs, M. E., The Anglican Church in India, 1600-1970 (New Delhi, 1972), p. 149 Google Scholar; Penny, The Church in Madras, 3, p. 279; Sibree, London Missionary Society: A Register, p. 20.

19 Johnston, James, ed., Report of the Centenary Conference on the Protestant Missions of the World, Held in … London, 1888, 2 vols (London, 1888), 2, pp. 350–1, 356 Google Scholar.

20 See Martin, Evangelicals United, pp. 194-203.

21 Carey, William, An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens (Leicester, 1792; new edn, ed. Payne, E. A., London, 1961), p. 84 Google Scholar.

22 Thompson, David M., Denominationalism and Dissent, 1795–1835: A Question of Identity, Friends of Dr Williams’s Library 39th Lecture (London, 1985), pp. 11–12 Google Scholar.

23 Goodall, Norman, A History of the London Missionary Society, 1895-1945 (London, 1954), p. 4 Google Scholar; see Drummond, Andrew L. and Bulloch, James, The Church in Victorian Scotland, 1843–1874 (Edinburgh, 1975), pp. 43–4, 48–9 Google Scholar.

24 Hay, James and Belfrage, Henry, A Memoir of the Reverend Alexander Waugh, D.D. (London, 1830), p. 216 Google Scholar.

25 Walls, Andrew F., ‘Missionary societies and the fortunate subversion of the church’, Evangelical Quarterly, 88 (1988), p. 149 Google Scholar.

26 Williams, C. Peter, The Ideal of the Self-Goveming Church: A Study in Victorian Missionary Strategy (Leiden, 1990), pp. 25–6, 50–1 Google Scholar. The other generally recognized architect of the Three-Self Theory is Rufus Anderson, senior secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions from 1832 to 1866.

27 Walls, ‘Missionary societies’, p. 147.

28 Stanley, Brian, ‘Home support for overseas missions in early Victorian England, c. 1838-1873’ (Cambridge Ph.D. thesis, 1979), pp. 76–91 Google Scholar.

29 Ibid., pp. 81-2; Handy, Robert T., A History of the Churches in the United States and Canada (Oxford, 1976), p. 236 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 Cnattingius, Bishops and Societies, pp. 211-20.

31 Conference on Missions Held in 1860 at Liverpool … Edited by the Secretaries to the Conference (London, 1860), p. 279.

32 Ibid., pp. 283-303, 312.

33 Sundkler, Bengt, Church of South India: The Movement Towards Union, 1900-1941, rev. edn (London, 1965), p. 11 Google Scholar.

34 See Williams, The Ideal of the Self-Governing Church, pp. 55, 59-60, 73-80.

35 Johnston, Report of the Centenary Conference, 2, pp. 474–7; Fenn cites Lightfoot, J. B., The Apostolic Fathers. Part II, 2 vols (London, 1885), 1, p. 382 Google Scholar.

36 Sundkler, Church of South India, pp. 62-3. A similar distinction between the fact and the theory of episcopacy was introduced into Anglican-Free Church discussions in England from 1922; see Bell, G. K. A., ed.. Documents on Christian Unity: A Selection from the First and Second Series 1920-30 (London, 1955), p. 46 Google Scholar.

37 H. Whitehead, ‘The next step towards unity’, The Harvest Field [hereafter HF], 33 (1913), pp. 45, 48. Whitehead refers in particular to A. C. Headlam’s article on apostolic succession in G. Harford and M. Stevenson, eds., The Prayer Book Dictionary (London, 1912), pp. 38-43, and W. H. Frere’s review of Headlam’s article in CQR, 75 (1912-13), pp. 150-3. Whitehead’s distinction between fact and theory is not made explicitly by the relevant sections of the Lambeth documents from 1888 or 1908; see Davidson, R. T., ed., The Six Lambeth Conferences, 1867-1920 (London, 1920), pp. 156–61, 431–4 Google Scholar.

38 Smyth, Newman, Passing Protestantism and Coming Catholicism (London, 1908), pp. 154–5, 161 Google Scholar; Sundkler, Church of South India, pp. 56, 63-4, 365. Smyth had been in touch with William Reed Huntington, the author of the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, as early as 1882, and their contact was renewed after 1908 in the context of Episcopal-Congregational discussions in Connecticut. These discussions suggested that a functional approach to episcopacy might be a fruitful way forward in church union. See Smyth, Newman, A Story of Church Unity Including the Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops and the Congregational-Episcopal Approaches (New Haven, Conn., and London, 1923)Google Scholar.

39 Briggs, Charles Augustus, Church Unity: Studies of its Most Important Problems (London, 1910), pp. 79–84 Google Scholar; Sundkler, , Church of South India, p. 365 Google Scholar. Briggs, professor at Union Theological Seminary, had left the Presbyterian Church for the Protestant Episcopal Church following his suspension from the ministry in 1893 for heterodoxy.

40 J. H. Wyckoff, The Indian church’, HF, 30 (1910), pp. 128-30.

41 G. S. Eddy, ‘A national church for India’, HF, 31 (1911), pp. 213-19; cited in Sundkler, Church of South India, pp. 66-7.

42 A. Andrew, ‘An Indian national church’, HF, 31 (1911), pp. 260-1.

43 Sundkler, Church of South India, p. 109.

44 B. Lucas, ‘The next step towards unity’, HF, 33 (1913), pp. 85–9. Whitehead’s address is printed in ibid., pp. 45-51.

45 Sundkler, Church of South India, pp. 99-100.

46 Devasahayam, D. M., The South India Church Union Movement (np, nd [Madras, 1938]), pp. 25–6 Google Scholar. On Devasahayam see Sundkler, Church of South India, pp. 194-6, 205, 225-6, 399, and CWMA, LMS India Odds Box 11, Goodall Deputation 1937 File, A. H. Legg to A. M. Chirgwin, 27 Nov. 1939.

47 USPGA, CLR 56, pp. 370-2, Bishop Whitehead to Bishop Montgomery, 21 Dec. 1904; Sundkler, Church of South India, p. 52.

48 USPGA, CLR 55, p. 507, Bishop Whitehead to H. W. Tucker, 5 June 1900.

49 USPGA, CLR 57, inserts between pp. 289 and 290, T. H. Dodson to Bishop Montgomery, 22 and 27 Dec. 1907, and A. D. Limbrick to T. H. Dodson, 2 Dec. 1907; see also O’Connor, D., Gospel, Raj and Swaraj: The Missionary Years of C. F. Andrews, 1904-14 (Frankfurt, 1990), pp. 160–3 Google Scholar.

50 CWMA, LMS India Odds 20, Church Union, S. India, Whitehead to Phillips, 7 May 1935; see Sundkler, Church of South India, pp. 283-95.

51 J. T. Moriyama, ‘The evolution of an African ministry in the work of the Universities’ Mission to Central Africa in Tanzania, 1864-1909’ (London Ph.D. thesis, 1984), pp. 54-5.

52 Heanley, R. M., A Memoir of Edward Steere, D.D., LL.D., Third Missionary Bishop in Central Africa (London, 1888), pp. 179–81, 393–3, 432 Google Scholar.

53 O’Connor, Gospel, Raj and Swaraj, p. 166.

54 Campbell, J. McLeod, Christian History in the Making (London, 1946), p. 310 Google Scholar. For the background to the Indian Church Measure and Act of 1927 see Grimes, Cecil John, Towards an Indian Church: The Growth of the Church of India in Constitution and Life (London, 1946)Google Scholar.

55 Campbell, Christian History in the Making, pp. 309-12; Evans, G. R., Authority in the Church: A Challenge for Anglicans (Norwich, 1990), pp. 481–56 Google Scholar; Sachs, William L., The Transformation of Anglicanism: From State Church to Global Communion (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 190–201 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stephenson, Alan M. G., The First Lambeth Conference, 1867 (London, 1967), pp. 66–77, 256–66, 330–1 Google Scholar.

56 Constance Trollope, A. M., Mark Napier Trollope: Bishop in Corea, 1911-1930 (London, 1936), pp. 52–9 Google Scholar. Trollope objected to using the term ‘Anglican’ outside of the Church of England.

57 Campbell, Christian History in the Making, p. 311.

58 Periodical Accounts Relative to the Baptist Missionary Society, 3 (1804–9), p. 206, cited in Stanley, Brian, ‘Planting self-governing churches: British Baptist ecclesiology in the missionary context’, Baptist Quarterly, 34(1991-2), p. 381 Google Scholar.

59 Ward’s authorship is clear from Marshman, Joshua, ed., Letters from the Rev. Dr Carey …, 3rd edn (London, 1828), p. 56 Google Scholar; Marshman, J. C., The Life and Times of Carey, Marshman, and Ward, 2 vols (London, 1859), 1, p. 229 Google Scholar. See also Oxford, Regent’s Park College, Angus Library, Baptist Missionary Society archives [hereafter BMSA], transcript of Ward’s journal for 19 Oct. 1805, pp. 443-5. I am grateful to the Baptist Missionary Society for permission to cite material from their archives.

60 Serampore missionaries to BMS sub-committee, 4 Sept. 1817, in Joseph Ivimcy, ed., Letters on the Serampore Controversy, Addressed to the Rev. Christopher Anderson (London, 1831), p. 123.

61 See Stanley, Brian, The History of the Baptist Missionary Society, 1792-1992 (Edinburgh, 1992), pp. 57–67 Google Scholar.

62 See Hcanley, Memoir of Edward Steere, pp. 208, 240, 294-5, 302; Andrew Porter, ‘Evangelical enthusiasm, missionary motivation and West Africa in the late nineteenth century: the career of G. W. Brooke’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 6 (1977), pp. 26–9.

63 BMSA, Sub-Committee Reports, Miscellaneous, 1863-7, circular letter dated 10 July 1867, p. 2; cited in Stanley, ‘Self-governing churches’, p. 382.

64 Johnston, Report of the Centenary Conference, 2, pp. 365-6.

65 Ibid., 2, pp. 361-2.

66 World Missionary Conference 1910, 2, Report of Commission II: The Church in the Mission Field (Edinburgh and London, nd), pp. 15, 284–5.

67 Ibid., pp. 32-3.

68 Ibid., pp. 52-3, 75.

69 Ibid., p. 38.

70 Ibid., pp. 95-6, 203-4.

71 Ibid., pp. ix-xix.

72 Ibid., p. 12.

73 World Missionary Conference 1910, 9, The History and Records of the Conference (Edinburgh and London, nd), pp. 306-15; W. H. T. Gairdncr, ‘Edinburgh 1910’: An Account and Interpretation of the World Missionary Conference (Edinburgh and London, 1910), pp. 109-11; Williams, The Ideal of the Self-Governing Church, p. 228.

74 For North India see the comments of the chief Baptist negotiator from 1955 to 1964, Leslie Wenger, in Church Union News and Views, Feb. 1956, p. 6.

75 See n. 46 above, and Kent, John, The Unacceptable Face: The Modem Church in the Eyes of the Historian (London, 1987), pp. 208–9 Google Scholar.

76 See Thompson, Denominationalism and Dissent, passim.

77 Briggs, Church Unity, pp. 78-9.

78 Sundkler, Church of South India, pp. 63-4; see Rouse, Ruth and Neill, Stephen Charles, eds, A History of the Ecumenical Movement, 1517-1948 (London. 1954). p. 408 Google Scholar.

79 For the Anglican case, see Williams, The Ideal of the Self-Governing Church, chs IV to VI; for two Nonconformist examples see Stanley, ‘Planting self-governing churches’, pp. 381-5, and Goodall, History of the IMS, pp. 95-100.

80 Sec Stanley, History of the BMS, pp. 447-50, 458-9.

81 D.J. Mackay, ‘Simon Kimbangu and the B. M. S. tradition’, Journal of Religion in Africa, 17, 2 (June 1987), pp. 113-71.

82 Cited in ibid., p. 116.

83 Ibid., pp. 131-6, 153-6; Stanley, History of the BMS, pp. 343-4.

84 Ad Gentes Divinitus, 16-17, in Austin Flannery, ed., Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents (Leominster, 1975), pp. 832-4; see Shorter, Aylward and Kataza, Eugene, eds, African Catechists Today (London, 1972), pp. 78–82, 103–18 Google Scholar.

85 H. Pakenham-Walsh, ‘Some problems of unity’, HF, 31 (1911), p. 29.

86 Gore, Charles, Orders and Unity (London, 1909), pp. 135–40 Google Scholar.

87 See Sundkler, Church of South India, pp. 118, 162.

88 See Lewis, Thomas, These Seventy Years: An Autobiography (London, 1930), pp. 127–8 Google Scholar. The Angolan nationalist leader, Holden Roberto, was named after Graham.

89 For Graham’s initial assessment see Missionary Herald, Oct. 1921, pp. 192-3; BMSA, Säo Salvador church meeting minutes, 7 June 1921.

90 BMSA, Säo Salvador deacons’ meeting minutes, 29 June 1921; church meeting minutes, 5 July 1921.

91 Gray, Richard, Black Christians and White Missionaries (New Haven, Conn., and London, 1990), p. 84 Google Scholar.

92 Ranson, C. W., The Christian Minister in India: His Vocation and Training (London and Redhill, 1945), pp. 67, 71 Google Scholar.

93 Gray, Black Christians and White Missionaries, pp. 80–1. For a detailed study of a notable case see Pirouet, M. Louise, Black Evangelists: The Spread of Christianity in Uganda, 1891-1914 (London, 1978)Google Scholar.

94 See Sanneh, Lamin, Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture (Maryknoll, NY, 1990)Google Scholar.