Anglican Lutheran relations in Chota Nagpur, 1800 - 1919, with special reference to 1914 - 1919: their historical context and theological bearing

Abstract

The Edinburgh World Missionary Conference I910 instructed its Continuation Committee Chairman, Dr. John R. Mott, to make a tour of Asia in 1912 to bring into being National Councils of Missions. Dr Mott visited India, meeting church and missionary leaders in a series of Regional Conferences, and in 19l4 the National Missionary Council of India was constituted with eight Provincial Councils. The Bihar and Orissa Provincial Council included the Anglican missionaries of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and the German Lutherans of the Gossner Evangelical Mission both working in Chota Nagpur, a tribal hill tract in the south of Bihar. Following the outbreak of the Great War the Government of India introduced a policy of internment for all German missionaries and in 1915 deported them from India. The National Missionary Council of India through its Provincial Councils in Madras and Bihar maintained the German missionfields throughout the War. In South India the German missions were entrusted to fellow Lutherans, Americans and Swedes; in Chota Nagpur the Anglican Bishop Foss Westcott with the sanction of the Government volunteered to maintain the Lutheran Mission schools by providing Anglican missionaries who lived in the Lutheran Mission stations. The Government of India banned the German missionaries from returning to their work at the end of the War. Bishop Westcott was hopeful that a United Church could be established in Chota Nagpur composed of Anglicans and Lutherans. His hopes were unfulfilled. Supported by the Lutherans in South India the leaders of the Gossner Mission placed themselves under the direction of the National Missionary Council and the Bihar Provincial Council. The Gossner Evangelical Lutheran Church in Chota Nagpur and Assam with an Advisory Board appointed by the Provincial Council was founded on July I0th I9I9 as the first autonomous Lutheran Church in India.