The Kneeling Christian

Last updated

The Kneeling Christian is a popular and influential book written by Albert Ernest Richardson who authored the book under the pseudonym "Unknown Christian". [1]

Contents

Authorship

The author mentions visiting Pandita Ramabai's work while being in India which indicates that the book was written sometime between the 1920s and the early 1930s. The Preface to the book in Hendrickson Christian Classics Edition mentions that according to the records of the British Library,

the "Unknown Christian" was an Anglican clergyman named Albert Ernest Richardson, who was born around 1868. He was educated at the University of Oxford, ordained as a priest in 1897, and in 1898 he was accepted as a missionary and left for the Hausaland Mission in Africa... He returned to England in 1900, only to turn around in 1903 and go out again, this time to serve in Bombay, India, until 1905. Following his return from India, Richardson's passion for evangelism was channeled into his career with the Church Army, a society of evangelists with the Anglican Communion. Then he began publishing his writings in 1921. The Kneeling Christian was his second book.

The Unknown Christian in this book mentions his experiences in India:

A few years ago, when in India, I had the great joy of seeing something of Pandita Ramabai’s work. She had a boarding-school of 1,500 Hindu girls. One day some of these girls came with their Bibles and asked a lady missionary what St. Luke xii. 49 meant—“I came to cast fire upon the earth; and what will I, if it is already kindled?” The missionary tried to put them off with an evasive answer, not being very sure herself what those words meant. But they were not satisfied, so they determined to pray for this fire. And as they prayed—and because they prayed—the very fire of heaven came into their souls. A very Pentecost from above was granted them. No wonder they continued to pray!

Reception

The book has been reprinted many times and has been included in many study guides and derivative works including:

In addition, a number of works have been based on or derived from The Kneeling Christian, some of which are as follows:

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children</span> Passage that appears after Daniel 3:23 in the Septuagint, but not in the Masoretic

The Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children, abbreviated Pr Azar, is a passage which appears after Daniel 3:23 in some translations of the Bible, including the ancient Greek Septuagint translation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Albert Benjamin Simpson</span> Canadian theologian

Albert Benjamin Simpson, also known as A. B. Simpson, was a Canadian preacher, theologian, author, and founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA), an evangelical denomination with an emphasis on global evangelism that has been characterized as being Keswickian in theology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cimmerian Sibyl</span> Oracular woman in Cimmerium, Italy

The Cimmerian Sibyl, by name Carmentis, was the prophetic priestess presiding over the Apollonian Oracle at Cimmerium in Italy, near Lake Avernus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bakht Singh</span> Indian Christian Evangelist (1903–2000)

Bakht Singh Chabra also known as Brother Bakht Singh was a Christian evangelist in India and other parts of South Asia. He is often regarded as one of the most well-known Bible teachers and preachers and pioneers of the Indian Church movement and Gospel contextualization. According to Indian traditions, he is also known as 'Elijah of 21st Century' in Christendom. According to his autobiography, Bakht Singh became a Christian when he was an engineering student in Canada in 1929, even though previously he had torn up the Bible and was strongly opposed to Christianity. He was India's foremost evangelist, preacher and indigenous church planter who founded churches and established Hebron Ministries. He began a worldwide indigenous church-planting movement in India that grew to more than 10,000 local churches. Bakht Singh died on 17 September 2000, in Hyderabad, India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Smith Wigglesworth</span> British evangelist who was influential in the early history of Pentecostalism

Smith Wigglesworth was a British evangelist who was influential in the early history of Pentecostalism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pandita Ramabai</span> Indian feminist historian and social reformer

Pandita Ramabai Sarasvati was an Indian social reformer. She was the first woman to be awarded the titles of Pandita as a Sanskrit scholar and Sarasvati after being examined by the faculty of the University of Calcutta. She was one of the ten women delegates of the Congress session of 1889. During her stay in England in early 1880s she converted to Christianity. After that she toured extensively in the United States to collect funds for destitute Indian women. With the funds raised she started Sharada Sadan for child widows. In the late 1890s, she founded Mukti Mission, a Christian charity at Kedgaon village, forty miles east of the city of Pune. The mission was later named Pandita Ramabai Mukti Mission.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eastern Protestant Christianity</span> Protestants of Eastern Christendom

The term Eastern Protestant Christianity encompasses a range of heterogeneous Protestant Christian denominations that developed outside of the Occident, from the latter half of the nineteenth century, and yet keep elements of Eastern Christianity, to varying degrees. Some of these denominations came into being when existing Protestant churches adopted reformational variants of Eastern and Oriental Orthodox liturgy and worship. Some others are the result of reformations of Orthodox beliefs and practices, inspired by the teachings of Western Protestant missionaries. Some Eastern Protestant Churches are in communion with similar Western Protestant Churches. However, there is no universal communion between the various Eastern Protestant churches. This is due to the diverse polities, practices, liturgies, and orientations of the denominations which fall under this category, as can be seen in Western Protestantism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">R. T. France</span> New Testament scholar and Anglican cleric (1938–2012)

Richard Thomas France (1938–2012), known as R. T. France or Dick France, was a New Testament scholar and Anglican cleric. He was Principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, from 1989 to 1995. He also worked for the London School of Theology.

Proto-Gnosticism or pre-Gnosticism refers to movements similar to Gnosticism in the first few centuries of Christianity. Proto-Gnostics did not have the same full fledged theology of the later Gnostics but prefigured some of their views. There is however some debate regarding the existence of proto-Gnosticism in the first century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christianity in Kerala</span> Third-largest practiced religion in Kerala

Christianity is the third-largest practiced religion in Kerala, accounting for 18% of the population according to the Indian census. Although a minority, the Christian population of Kerala is proportionally much larger than that of India as a whole. A significant portion of the Indian Christian population resides in the state.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marathi Christians</span>

Marathi Christians are an Ethno-religious community of the Indian state of Maharashtra who accepted Christianity during the 18th and 19th centuries during the East India Company, and later, the British Raj. Conversions to Protestantism were a result of Christian missions such as the American Marathi Mission, Church Mission Society and the Church of England's United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christianity in Maharashtra</span>

Christianity is a minority religion in Maharashtra, a state of India. Approximately 79.8% of the population of Maharashtra are Hindus, with Christian adherents being 1.0% of the population. The Roman Catholic archdiocese whose seat is in Maharashtra is the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Bombay. There are two different Christian ethnic communities in Maharashtra: the Bombay East Indians, who are predominantly Roman Catholic, and the Marathi Christians, who are predominantly Protestant with a small Roman Catholic population. The Catholics in Maharashtra are mainly concentrated in coastal Maharashtra, especially Vasai, Mumbai, and Raigad, and are known as Bombay East Indians; they were evangelized by Portuguese missionaries during the 15th–16th centuries. Protestants, who reside throughout the Maharashtra, being significant in Ahmednagar, Solapur, Pune, Aurangabad, and Jalna, are called Marathi Christians, who were evangelized by British and American missionaries during British rule in India. The Church of North India has dioceses in the state and is a large Protestant church with full communion with the Anglican Church.

Steve N. Mason is a Canadian historian of Judea in the Graeco-Roman period, best known for his studies of Josephus and early Christian writings. He was professor of classics, history and religious studies at York University in Toronto. He has been Kirby Laing Chair of New Testament Exegesis at Aberdeen University (2011–2015?) and works today at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands.

Joseph Gelson Gregson (1835–1909) was an English Baptist missionary to the Indian sub-continent during the British Raj.

Dnyanodaya is a Marathi periodical published by the American Marathi Mission, a Protestant missionary group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saint Thomas Anglicans</span> St. Thomas Christians within the Church of South India

Saint Thomas Anglicans are the Saint Thomas Christian members of the Church of South India; the self-governing South Indian province of the Anglican Communion. They are among the several different ecclesiastical communities that splintered out of the once undivided Saint Thomas Christians; an ancient Christian community whose origins goes back to the first century missionary activities of Saint Thomas the Apostle, in the present-day South Indian state of Kerala. The Apostle, as legend has it, arrived in Malankara in AD 52.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">E. S. Appasamy</span> Indian social worker and educator

Elizabeth Sornam Cornelius Appasamy, known professionally as Mrs. Paul Appasamy or E. S. Appasamy, was an Indian social worker and educator, working in Madras with the YWCA, and as national secretary of the National Missionary Society in India in the 1920s. She founded the Vidyodaya School for girls in 1924.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Soonderbai Hannah Powar</span> Indian philanthropist

Soonderbai Hannah Powar was an Indian Christian philanthropist and anti-opium activist. She worked closely with Pandita Ramabai.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clementina Butler</span> American evangelist and author

Clementina Butler was an American evangelist and author. She was a founder of the Ramabai Association, an organization that established the first school in India for widowed women. She was also the founder and chair of the "Committee on Christian Literature for Women and Children in Mission Fields, Inc. In addition to other writings, she was the author of three biographies: her father's, her mother's, as well as Pandita Ramabai Sarasvati : pioneer in the movement for the education of the child-widow of India (1922).

References

  1. Unknown Christian (2006). The Kneeling Christian. Hendrickson Publishers. pp. 5–. ISBN   978-1-59856-002-2.
  2. An Unknown Christian. "The Kneeling Christian". Oaktree Software. Retrieved 17 July 2014.