In 1856 the Methodist Episcopal Church From America started the mission in India. The Methodist Episcopal Church began its work in India in 1856, when William Butler came from America. He selected Oudh and Rohilkhand to work in and, being unable to secure a residence at Lucknow, began work at Bareilly. The first War of Independence broke up the work at Bareilly, but in 1858 Lucknow was occupied and Bareilly re-occupied and the work of the Mission started anew.
By 1864 the work had grown to such an extent that it was organized under the name of the India Mission Conference. Additional stations were occupied in Oudh, Rohilkhand, Garhwal, and Kumaon, and by 1876 The Methodist Episcopal Church had established work both along evangelistic and educational lines.
Methodist Churches were established in cities including Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Kanpur and Bangalore. Special revival meetings were held which led the church out of its boundaries and gave it a national status.
In 1870 marked, on the invitation of James M. Thoburn, an acknowledged leader in the Mission, evangelist William Taylor was invited to India to hold special revival meetings. On his arrival, he started his work at Lucknow and subsequently went to Kanpur. The work had thus far been confined to the territory East and North of the Ganges, but by that river; this move was the first step of expansion into all Southern Asia. There came into existence Methodist congregations in Kanpur, Bombay, Poona, Calcutta, Secunderabad, Madras, Bangalore, Nagpur and other cities.[8]
In 1873 the churches established by William Taylor were organized into the "Bombay-Bengal Mission." In 1876 the South India Annual Conference was organized, taking in all the territory outside the bounds of the original Upper India field. This was followed in 1888 by the organization of the Bengal Annual Conference, and in 1893 the Bombay and North-West India Annual Conferences were separated. Between 1871 and 1900 the Methodist Episcopal Church expanded to become a national Church throughout Southern and South-Eastern Asia, with work carried on in twelve languages, extending from Manila to Quetta and from Lahore to Madras; and the Christian community increased from 1,835 to 111,654.
In 1904 the field was again sub-divided by the organization of the Central Provinces Mission Conference, which was followed by setting the work of Burma apart and organizing it as a Mission Conference. In 1921 two Annual Conferences, Lucknow and Gujarat were brought into existence and another division of the field was made in 1922 when the Indus River Annual Conference was organized. In 1925 the Hyderabad Annual Conference was separated from the South India Annual Conference. In 1956 Agra Annual Conference was separated from Delhi Annual Conference and Moradabad Annual Conference from the North India Annual Conference. In 1960 the Karachi Provisional Annual Conference was organized. Thus in 95 years from 1865 to 1960, the one Conference in India had grown into 13, covering the whole of Southern Asia.
In this period the work of the Methodist Episcopal Church spread beyond India. Under the leadership of James M. Thoburn, Burma was entered in 1879, where John E. Robinson became the pioneer missionary, and in 1885 the work in Malaysia was begun by the establishment of a mission at Singapore, the pioneer here being William F. Oldham. In 1899, when the Philippines came into the possession of the United States of America, James M. Thoburn entered Manila and established the Church; Homer C. Stuntz was one of the pioneer workers. All these missionary leaders later became Bishops of the Church.
In 1870 the first missionaries of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church came. Two young ladies arrived that year: Isabella Thoburn, to work in the education of India's girls and women, and physician Clara Swain, to work in medicine, the first female doctor to undertake such work in Asia[citation needed].
Evangelistic work in the villages of northern India resulted in the baptism of large numbers of people from the deprived classes.
In 1920 the Methodist Missionary Society was organized to supervise missionary work in India. In 1930 the Central Conference of southern Asia elected the first national bishop. Since the Independence of India in 1947 all bishops have been Indian nationals. Missionaries were sent to Borneo in 1956 and to the Fiji islands in 1963.
Since 1928 the MCI was engaged in union negotiations in North India. In 1970 the Central Conference voted against the plan of union, but dialogue with the Church of North India continued.
In 1981 the Methodist Church in India was established as an "autonomous affiliated" church in relation with the United Methodist Church.[6][7] The church is now independent in organization and has adopted its own constitution and book of discipline and articles of faith.
Beliefs
The Methodist Church in India says that it understands itself as the body of Christ in and for the world as part of the Church universal. Its stated purpose is to understand the love of God as revealed in Jesus Christ, to bear witness of this love to all people and to make them his disciples.
The MCI runs 102 boarding schools and 155 village schools in which over 60,000 children are enrolled. 89 residential hostels cater for 6,540 boys and girls. The Church also operates 19 College and vocational training institutions, 25 hospitals and health care centres, and many community welfare and development programmes in the country.
Bareilly served as the headquarters for the Methodist Church in India, hence, the Christ Methodist Church in Civil Lines, Bareilly is the second oldest Methodist Church building in India. The oldest being in Nainital, Uttarakhand.
The Church of South India (CSI) is a united Protestant Church in India. It is the result of union of a number of Protestant denominations in South India that occurred after the independence of India.
The Church of North India (CNI) is the dominant united Protestant church in northern India. It was established on 29 November 1970 by bringing together most of the Protestant churches working in northern India. It is a province of the worldwide Anglican Communion and a member of the World Methodist Council and the World Communion of Reformed Churches. The merger, which had been in discussions since 1929, came eventually between the Church of India, Pakistan, Burma and Ceylon (Anglican), the Methodist Church, Disciples of Christ, and some congregations from the United Church of Northern India.
Christianity is India's third-largest religion with about 26 million adherents, making up 2.3 percent of the population as of the 2011 census. The written records of Saint Thomas Christians mention that Christianity was introduced to the Indian subcontinent by Thomas the Apostle, who sailed to the Malabar region in 52 AD.
James Mills Thoburn was an American bishop and missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church as well as an author. He did missionary work in India and greatly increased the number of Christian practitioners in that country.
The Methodist Church in Singapore (MCS) is the church that Methodists in Singapore belong to. The Church has 46 churches island-wide with around 42,000 members, and is the largest mainline Protestant denomination in Singapore. Its current bishop and head of the Church is Bishop Dr Gordon Wong, who was elected at the 12th Session of the General Conference on 7 September 2020.
Jashwant Rao Chitambar was the first Indian bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church of North and South India, elected in 1930.
William Taylor (1821–1902) was an American Methodist missionary reverend, who in 1884 was elected by the Methodist General Conference as bishop over the Methodist missions in Africa for the Methodist Episcopal Church. Taylor spent most of his adult life performing missionary work around the world. He began his missionary service when he was assigned by the Conference to establish missions in California and provide services in San Francisco during the California gold rush of 1849. His other missionary work involved the establishment of self-supporting missions in various countries about the world, bringing him to England, Ireland, India, South America, Australia, New Zealand and Africa, all of which he wrote about in a number of publications. After many years serving as a Methodist missionary Taylor was elected Bishop of Africa. He has received acclaim and is noted for introducing Methodism through his missionary efforts to several countries around the world. Taylor is also credited for introducing the eucalyptus tree to California with seeds he gathered while serving as a missionary in Australia.
James Mudge (1844–1918) was an American Methodist Episcopal clergyman and writer, nephew of Zachariah Mudge, Methodist missionary in India during the latter half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. He authored many works centered around religion and spirituality during his missionary career.
Protestants in India are a minority and a sub-section of Christians in India and also to a certain extent the Christians in Pakistan before the Partition of India, that adhere to some or all of the doctrines of Protestantism. Protestants in India are a small minority in a predominantly Hindu majority country, but form majorities in the north-eastern states of Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland and significant minorities in Konkan division, Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, with various communities in east coast and northern states. Protestants today trace their heritage back to the Protestant reformation of the 16th century. There are an estimated 20 million Protestants and 16 million Pentecostals in India.
William Fitzjames Oldham was a British-American bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church and missionary bishop for South Asia. He distinguished himself as a missionary, an author and a church official. He was the founder of Anglo Chinese School in Singapore in 1886.
Isabella Thoburn was an American Christian missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church best known for her establishment of educational institutions and missionary work in North India, subsequent to the East India Company's relinquishment of power to the British government in India.
St. Thomas' Church is located in Hisar city of Haryana, India. It is located in central part of Hisar near railway station. It has been declared as a historical monument by Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage. The Church is dedicated to St. Thomas, one of the 12 main disciples of Jesus Christ.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has enjoyed its presence in India since the 19th century. As of 2019, there were local members, missionaries and multiple meetinghouses of the LDS Church in the country. The Church of Latter-day Saints stated in 2023, that there are 15,224 members from India.
Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church was one of three Methodist organizations in the United States focused on women's foreign missionary services; the two others were the WFMS of the Free Methodist Church of North America and the WFMS of the Methodist Protestant Church.
Lucilla Green Cheney, M.D. was an American physician and Christian missionary. Beginning in 1876, she served a medical mission in Bareilly, British India under the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. She died of cholera two years into her mission.
Rev. William Butler, D.D. was an Irish-born U.S. Methodist Episcopal pioneer missionary. He was the founder of the Methodist Episcopal Mission in India, and afterward founder of the Mission in Mexico.
Pakistan Methodist Church is a Protestant Christian denomination of Pakistan. It is part of Church of Pakistan.
Ram Chandra Bose was an educator, a lay evangelist, and a prominent writer in the region of North India known as the North-Western Provinces and Oudh in the late 19th century. He converted to Christianity while a student in Calcutta. Upon completing his education, he was employed by several Christian mission agencies as well as the government to teach in their schools. In the 1870s and 1880s, he was associated with the American Methodist Episcopal Mission and travelled across India as a lay evangelist. Many of his lectures were published as journal articles or compiled into books creating a prolific literary legacy. Bose wrote over 100 journal articles on religious, philosophical, and social issues for journals such as The Bengal Magazine edited by Lal Behari Day as well as the Calcutta Review, the Indian Evangelical Review, and others. Shortly before he died in 1892, he left the American Methodist Mission to join the Anglican Church Missionary Society.
References
↑ "Church of North India". World Methodist Council. 9 November 2019. Retrieved 25 June 2020. The Church of North India is a united church which came into being as the result of a union of six churches on 29th November 1970. The six churches were: The Council of the Baptist Churches in Northern India, The Church of the Brethren in India; The Disciples of Christ; The Church of India (formerly known as the Church of India, Pakistan, Burma and Ceylon); The Methodist Church (British and Australian Conferences); The United Church of Northern India. ... The Church of North India is a full member of the World Council of Churches, the Christian Conference of Asia, the Council for World Mission, the Anglican Consultative Council, the World Methodist Council and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches.
Badley, Brenton T. The Making of a Bishop: The Life of Bishop Jashwant Chitambar (Lucknow, India: Lucknow Publishing House, 1942).
Hollister, John Norman. The Centenary of the Methodist Church in Southern Asia (Lucknow Publishing House, 1956).
Latourette, Kenneth S. Christianity In A Revolutionary Age A History Of Christianity In The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries Volume III The Nineteenth Century Outside Europe The Americas The Pacific Asia And Africa (1961) pp 400–415. online
Latourette, Kenneth S. Christianity in a Revolutionary Age Vol. 5, The 20th Century outside Europe (1962) pp 299–331.
Locke, Russ M. "A Methodist Family In India: A History Of I. Amar Chitambar and Family." (Doctor of Ministry thesis, Claremont School Of Theology, Proquest Dissertations Publishing, 1978. 781534 online, pp. 40-54 on Jashwant Rao Chitambar.
Moffett, Samuel Hugh. A History of Christianity in Asia, Vol. II, 1500–1900 (2005) . By
Pickett, J. Waskom. The Methodist Church in India. (1939).
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