History
In 1947, the Malayan Christian Council was mooted and officially inaugurated on 9 January 1948 under the leadership of John Leonard Wilson, the Anglican Bishop of Singapore, with Hobart Baumann Amstutz of the Methodist Church acting as General Secretary to promote Christian unity among the Churches and Christian organisations in Malaya and Singapore.
Despite the 1963 federation of the British Crown Colonies of Singapore, North Borneo, and Sarawak with the Federation of Malaya into the new nation of Malaysia, the Malayan Christian Council continued to function using the old name. In 1967, the Malayan Christian Council was renamed the Council of Churches of Malaysia and Singapore. In view of Malaysia and Singapore having separated and become independent sovereign nations, it was considered desirable to have separate Councils of Churches for each nation, therefore, the Council was divided into 2 national organisations; the current Council of Churches of Malaysia and the National Council of Churches of Singapore in 1975.
Ecumenism – also called interdenominationalism, transdenominationalism, or ecumenicalism – is the concept and principle that Christians who belong to different Christian denominations should work together to develop closer relationships among their churches and promote Christian unity. The adjective ecumenical is thus applied to any interdenominational initiative that encourages greater cooperation and union among Christian denominations and churches.
The World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) is an interdenominational organization of evangelical Christian churches, serving more than 600 million evangelicals, founded in 1846 in London, England, United Kingdom to unite evangelicals worldwide. WEA is the largest international organization of evangelical churches. The headquarters are in Deerfield, Illinois, with UN offices in New York City, Geneva, and Bonn. It brings together 9 regional and 143 national evangelical alliances of churches, and over one hundred member organizations. Moreover, the WEA includes a certain percentage of individual evangelical Christian churches. As of March 2021, the Secretary General of the WEA is German theologian Thomas Schirrmacher.
The Federation of Malaya was a federation of what previously had been British Malaya, comprising eleven states that existed from 1 February 1948 until 16 September 1963. The Federation became independent on 31 August 1957, and in 1963, Malaysia was formed when Malaya united with Singapore, North Borneo, and Sarawak.
PAP–UMNO relations refers to the occasionally-turbulent relationship between the People's Action Party (PAP), the governing party of Singapore since 1959, and the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), the leading party of the Barisan Nasional coalition which governed Malaysia from 1955 to 2018. The two parties' relationship has impacted Malaysia–Singapore relations given the countries' geographical proximity and close historical ties.
The 1910 World Missionary Conference, or the Edinburgh Missionary Conference, was held on 14 to 23 June 1910. Some have seen it as both the culmination of nineteenth-century Protestant Christian missions and the formal beginning of the modern Protestant Christian ecumenical movement, after a sequence of interdenominational meetings that can be traced back as far as 1854.
The Christian Conference of Asia is a regional ecumenical organisation representing 15 National Councils and over 100 denominations (churches) in New Zealand, Australia, Bangladesh, Burma, Cambodia, East Timor, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Laos, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and Thailand.
The Church of the Province of South East Asia is an autonomous member of the Anglican Communion, created in 1996 with the four dioceses of Kuching, Sabah, Singapore and West Malaysia.
The All-Malaya Council of Joint Action (AMCJA) was a coalition of political and civic organisations in Malaya formed to participate in the development of a constitution for post-war Malaya in preparation for independence and to oppose the Constitutional Proposals for Malaya which eventually formed the basis of the Federation of Malaya Agreement.
The Malaysia Baptist Convention is a Baptist Christian denomination in Malaysia. It is affiliated with the Baptist World Alliance. The headquarters is in Petaling Jaya.
The Lutheran Church in Malaysia or LCM is one of four Lutheran bodies in Malaysia. It currently has 52 congregations nationwide with a total of 6,736 baptised members and is the largest entirely Lutheran body in the country. Until 2012, the body was known as the Lutheran Church in Malaysia and Singapore.
The Mar Thoma Syrian Church in Malaysia is the Malaysian zone of the Diocese of Malaysia, Singapore & Australia in the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church. It currently consists of a total of 16 parishes with 2,500 members nationwide.
All Africa Conference of Churches is an ecumenical fellowship that represents more than 200 million African Christians in 204 national churches and regional Christian councils in 43 African Countries. AACC's head office is in Nairobi, Kenya, and there is a regional office in Lomé, Togo. AACC also has an office in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia which serves as its Liaison Office to the African Union. Its current General Secretary is the Rev. Dr. Fidon Mwombeki, Minister of the Lutheran Church in Tanzania. The Desmond Tutu Conference Centre in Nairobi is an affiliate of the AACC.
The Rev. Dr. Larry D. Pickens is a graduate of North Park University and holds a master of theology degree and master of divinity degree from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, a doctorate in ministry from Chicago Theological Seminary, and a Juris Doctor from DePaul University College of Law. Larry is the executive director of the Pennsylvania Council of Churches. Larry is the former general secretary of the General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns of the United Methodist Church. During his tenure as the ecumenical staff officer these significant events took place. Pickens served as the Ecumenical Director of The Lehigh Conference of Churches in Allentown, Pennsylvania from 2014-20.
The Christian Federation of Malaysia is an ecumenical umbrella body in Malaysia that comprises the Council of Churches of Malaysia, National Evangelical Christian Fellowship (Evangelicals) and the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Malaysia. Formed in 1985, the CFM brought together the major expressions of Christianity in Malaysia in a broad-based ecumenical body and a unified voice in dealing with the government as well as other religious and secular bodies in the country.
The Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, more commonly known as the Lausanne Movement, is a global movement that mobilizes Christian leaders to collaborate for world evangelization. The movement's fourfold vision is to see 'the gospel for every person, disciple-making churches for every people and place, Christ-like leaders for every church and sector, and kingdom impact in every sphere of society'.
The National Council of Churches in India is an ecumenical forum for Protestant and Orthodox churches in India.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Malaysia or ELCM is one of the four Lutheran bodies in Malaysia. It currently has 21 congregations nationwide with a total of 3,650 members.
The Lutheran Church in Singapore (LCS) is a Lutheran denomination in Singapore. Constituted in 1997, it currently has approximately 2,834 members in 7 congregations nationwide.
The Evangelical Free Church of Malaysia or EFCM is an Evangelical Christian denomination that first started work in Malaysia in 1963.
The National Council of Churches of Singapore (NCCS) is an ecumenical fellowship of Churches and Christian organisations in Singapore. It represents over 250 churches in Singapore.
