Call from India to the Church of England: A Report

Church of England Missionary Council, The World Call to the Church. The Call From India

This report was issued in 1926 as a wake up call to the Church of England to focus attention on the needs of the church in India. It includes a brief history of Anglican missions in India up to that date.

My thanks to The Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide for providing a copy for digitisation.

Church of England Missionary Council, The World Call to the Church. The Call From India. London: Press and Publications Board of the Church Assembly, 1926. Hbk. pp.130. [Click to visit the download page]

Contents

  • General Preface
  • Bibliography
  • Foreword by Members of the Commision
  1. India and Its Peoples
  2. The Influence of British Rule
  3. Early History of the Christian Church in India
  4. Anglican Missions
  5. The Response of the Intelligentia to the Gospel
  6. The Response of the Caste People in the Villages
  7. The Response of the Aborigines
  8. The Response of the Outcastes
  9. The Lines of Advance
  10. Ceylon
  11. The Appeal to the Home Chuch
  • Appendix I. A Survey of Anglical Missionary Work in India According to Dioceses
  • Appendix II. The Indian Church Measure
  • Index

General Preface

A few words are necessary about the origin an.d purpose of these Reports.

Great movements, volcanic in their force and extent, are shaking the foundations and altering the whole aspect of human society. Old races are awakening, new races are tingling with adolescence; and the younger generation, everywhere ignorant, and untried though it be, is minded to take command. There is need everywhere of the guidance, and the constructive force which only the Christian Church can give. So we have thought and said for twenty years.

But the moment has come to face actual facts. If, as we believe, the times are making a new and unprecedented call upon the Church, it is high time that we knew accurately in terms of men and money what that call really is. It may be that the facts when known will themselves act with awakening power upon the Church. It may be that the young men and women when they see the God-given opportunity for adventure and sacrifice will not be ‘disobedient unto the heavenly vision,’ and a great movement of self-offering will be seen in our time such as the Church has never known hitherto. On the other hand, it may be that the Church will turn a deaf ear, that the seductive influences of comfort and the zest of domestic controversy may have paralysed her spirit. Whichever way it be, the Church of our generation is on its trial, and the opportunity before us is the tribunal before which we shall be judged. At all costs it is necessary that the whole Church should know the facts. It is the watchman’s duty to give the warning and sound the call to arms. When he has done that, the responsibility lies on the Church, and he has delivered his soul.

It was with these thoughts in our mind that we of the Missionary Council in January of this year laid before the accredited Missionary Societies our plan for a series of comprehensive Reports. We selected four great areas where we deemed the needs were most urgent; namely, Africa, India, the Far East, and Moslem lands, and we invited them to form with us four Commissions dealing with these areas. The response was unanimous and cordial, and since then, representatives of the Societies and other groups with specialized knowledge have given their time and experience unstintingly to the work.

Pages v-vi.

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