{ "book_metadata": { "book_name": "History of Christianity in India: Source Materials", "book_author": "M. K. Kuriakose", "publisher": "Indian Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge", "published_on": "2011" }, "chunks": [ { "chunk_index": 1, "chapter_name": "147. V. S. Azariah’s Address to the World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh", "page_numbers": [ 303 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00327-126c47b1870b5e45571a.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Azariah’s Edinburgh Address", "chunk_data": "147. V. S. AZARIAH'S ADDRESS TO THE WORLD MISSIONARY CONFERENCE, EDINBURGH (1910 A.D.)\nV. S. Azariah was one of the two non-westerners to give major addresses at the World Missionary Conference held at Edinburgh in June, 1910. His comments on the subject, The Problem of Co-operation between Foreign and Native Workers', made a deep impression on the delegates. Portions of the address are reproduced here from World Missionary Conference 1910, vol. IX. The History and Records of the Conference together with Addresses Delivered at the Evening Meetings, pp. 306-315.", "time": { "start_year": 1910, "start_month": 6, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1910, "end_month": 6, "end_date": null, "time_display": "June 1910" }, "meta": { "people": [ "V. S. Azariah" ], "places": [ "Edinburgh" ], "event": "V. S. Azariah delivered a major address at the World Missionary Conference.", "tags": [ "Christianity", "Missions", "Conference" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 2, "chapter_name": "147. V. S. Azariah’s Address to the World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh", "page_numbers": [ 303, 304 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00327-126c47b1870b5e45571a.webp", "raw\\pages\\00328-243a58ace8bc74fc51f2.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Race Relationships in Christianity", "chunk_data": "The problem of race relationships is one of the most serious problems confronting the Church to-day. The bridging of the gulf between the East and the West, and the attainment of a greater unity and common ground in Christ as the great Unifier of mankind, is one of the deepest needs of our time. Co-operation between the foreign and native workers can only result from proper relationship. Co-operation is ensured when the personal, official, and spiritual relationships are right, and is hindered when these relationships are wrong. The burden of my message is that, speaking broadly, at least in India, the relationship too often is not what it ought to be, and things must change, and change speedily, if there is to be a large measure of hearty co-operation between the foreign missionary and the Indian worker...\nThis is not only my own impression, but what I have gathered from a large number of my Indian brethren, and even a few European missionaries.", "time": { "start_year": 1910, "start_month": 6, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1910, "end_month": 6, "end_date": null, "time_display": "June 1910" }, "meta": { "people": [ "V. S. Azariah", "Indian Christians", "European missionaries" ], "places": [ "India", "East", "West" ], "event": "V. S. Azariah identified racial relationships and cooperation between foreign missionaries and Indian workers as urgent Christian concerns.", "tags": [ "Race Relations", "Missions", "Christianity" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 3, "chapter_name": "147. V. S. Azariah’s Address to the World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh", "page_numbers": [ 304 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00328-243a58ace8bc74fc51f2.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Unequal Progress Among Missions", "chunk_data": "This feeling is stronger and more in evidence in some missions than in others. Some Missionary Societies are in great advance in this respect over others. In the Young Men's Christian Association we have a body that stands foremost in having successfully solved the problem...", "time": { "start_year": 1910, "start_month": 6, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1910, "end_month": 6, "end_date": null, "time_display": "June 1910" }, "meta": { "people": [ "V. S. Azariah", "Young Men's Christian Association" ], "places": [], "event": "Azariah observed that the quality of relationships varied among missions and praised the Young Men's Christian Association.", "tags": [ "Missions", "Co-operation", "Church" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 4, "chapter_name": "147. V. S. Azariah’s Address to the World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh", "page_numbers": [ 304 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00328-243a58ace8bc74fc51f2.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Blame on Both Sides", "chunk_data": "I do not deny that there is blame on both sides. That cannot but be so. I do not overlook the fact that hindrances to a proper relationship exist also on the side of the Indian Christians, but since my audience is not composed of these, I feel that it will serve no useful purpose to detail them here...", "time": { "start_year": 1910, "start_month": 6, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1910, "end_month": 6, "end_date": null, "time_display": "June 1910" }, "meta": { "people": [ "V. S. Azariah", "Indian Christians" ], "places": [], "event": "Azariah acknowledged that obstacles to proper relationships existed on both sides but declined to detail the Indian side before his audience.", "tags": [ "Missions", "Race Relations", "Church" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 5, "chapter_name": "147. V. S. Azariah’s Address to the World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh", "page_numbers": [ 304 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00328-243a58ace8bc74fc51f2.webp" ], "chunk_title": "The Personal Relationship", "chunk_data": "I. Let us first consider the Personal relationship that ought to exist for effective co-operation. For the idea of this relationship we look to our Master and Lord. The relationship between Him and His immediate disciples and fellow-workers was not only one of Teacher and pupils, Master and disciples but, above all, that of friend and friends...", "time": { "start_year": 1910, "start_month": 6, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1910, "end_month": 6, "end_date": null, "time_display": "June 1910" }, "meta": { "people": [ "V. S. Azariah", "Jesus Christ", "Jesus Christ’s disciples" ], "places": [], "event": "Azariah introduced personal friendship as the first foundation for effective cooperation.", "tags": [ "Christianity", "Co-operation", "Discipleship" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 6, "chapter_name": "147. V. S. Azariah’s Address to the World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh", "page_numbers": [ 304 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00328-243a58ace8bc74fc51f2.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Missionaries as Friends", "chunk_data": "Can it be truly said that the foreign missionary has become a friend of his fellow-workers? Can it be said that this has been his aim? I am afraid in many cases the answer must be in the negative...", "time": { "start_year": 1910, "start_month": 6, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1910, "end_month": 6, "end_date": null, "time_display": "June 1910" }, "meta": { "people": [ "V. S. Azariah", "Foreign missionaries" ], "places": [], "event": "Azariah questioned whether foreign missionaries had genuinely sought friendship with their Indian fellow-workers.", "tags": [ "Missions", "Friendship", "Race Relations" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 7, "chapter_name": "147. V. S. Azariah’s Address to the World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh", "page_numbers": [ 304, 305 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00328-243a58ace8bc74fc51f2.webp", "raw\\pages\\00329-56048a3d4b91de39467e.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Friendship Beyond Patronage", "chunk_data": "Friendship is more than condescending love. I do not for a moment deny that foreign missionaries love the country and the people of the country for whom they have made such noble sacrifices, but friendship is more than the love of a benefactor. I cannot do better than quote the words of one who is himself a foreign missionary in South India. He writes: 'The popular appellation in use about missionaries in this country is \"father\"; but a time comes when children ought to begin and if they develop normally, do begin to think for themselves and to have aspirations and plans of their own. That is a critical time for the father in his relation to his children. His continued influence for good, at any rate for the greatest good, in his son's life now depends on his becoming the son's friend... If I rightly regard a person as my friend, I respect his individuality and remember that he has peculiarities, rights, and responsibilities of his own, which require, in some measure at any rate, that a feeling of equality and freedom shall pervade our relations and our intercourse with one another. This is the point where we find ourselves in India to-day.'\nBut while East is East and West is West,' is such a friendship possible between two races, that in habits, customs, and modes of thought are so diametrically opposed to each other? I know in my own experience that such friendships are possible...", "time": { "start_year": 1910, "start_month": 6, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1910, "end_month": 6, "end_date": null, "time_display": "June 1910" }, "meta": { "people": [ "V. S. Azariah", "Foreign missionary in South India" ], "places": [ "South India", "India", "East", "West" ], "event": "Azariah argued that missionaries must replace paternalistic patronage with friendship that respects Indian Christians’ individuality and equality.", "tags": [ "Friendship", "Missions", "Equality" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 8, "chapter_name": "147. V. S. Azariah’s Address to the World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh", "page_numbers": [ 305 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00329-56048a3d4b91de39467e.webp" ], "chunk_title": "The Bishop of Lahore’s Critique", "chunk_data": "I quote another authority, this time from North India, the Lord Bishop of Lahore. He says: 'With abundance of kind feeling for, and unsparing labour and self-denial on behalf of Indian Christians, the missionaries, except a few of the very best, seem to me to fail very largely in getting rid of an air of patronage and condescension, and in establishing a genuinely brotherly and happy relation as between equals with their Indian flocks...", "time": { "start_year": 1910, "start_month": 6, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1910, "end_month": 6, "end_date": null, "time_display": "June 1910" }, "meta": { "people": [ "V. S. Azariah", "Bishop of Lahore", "Indian Christians" ], "places": [ "North India", "Lahore" ], "event": "Azariah cited the Bishop of Lahore’s criticism of missionary patronage and condescension toward Indian Christians.", "tags": [ "Missions", "Leadership", "Race Relations" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 9, "chapter_name": "147. V. S. Azariah’s Address to the World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh", "page_numbers": [ 305 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00329-56048a3d4b91de39467e.webp" ], "chunk_title": "From Fathers to Friends", "chunk_data": "The pioneer missionaries were 'fathers' to the converts. The converts in their turn were glad to be their children.' But the difficulty in older missions now is that we have a new generation of younger missionaries who would like to be looked upon as fathers, and we have a new generation of Christians who do not wish to be treated like children. If the Christian community of the second and third generations, through the success of missionary work, has risen to the position when they do not any longer care to be treated like children, should we not be the first to recognise this new spirit and hasten to strengthen the relationship, by becoming their friends? Is it not such a relationship, and such alone, that can, more than anything else, prevent the growth of the spirit of false independence, foolish impudence, and flagrant bitterness against missionaries that we often meet with in Indian Christian young men to-day?", "time": { "start_year": 1910, "start_month": 6, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1910, "end_month": 6, "end_date": null, "time_display": "June 1910" }, "meta": { "people": [ "V. S. Azariah", "Pioneer missionaries", "Indian Christians" ], "places": [], "event": "Azariah urged missionaries to recognize that later generations of Indian Christians had matured beyond paternal treatment.", "tags": [ "Missions", "Generational Change", "Friendship" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 10, "chapter_name": "147. V. S. Azariah’s Address to the World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh", "page_numbers": [ 305 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00329-56048a3d4b91de39467e.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Practical Fellowship", "chunk_data": "The Bishop of Lahore goes on to make some practical suggestions. He says: 'If we could get into the way of treating Indian Christians with perfect naturalness, exactly as we treat English friends, asking them more frequently to stay with us in our houses, and genuinely making friends of them, realising in how very many things we have to learn from them, and how large are the contributions which they can bring into the common stock—this, I believe, would do more than anything else to draw us more closely together again... Much more can be done along these lines.", "time": { "start_year": 1910, "start_month": 6, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1910, "end_month": 6, "end_date": null, "time_display": "June 1910" }, "meta": { "people": [ "Bishop of Lahore", "Indian Christians" ], "places": [], "event": "The Bishop of Lahore recommended natural hospitality, friendship, and recognition of Indian Christians’ contributions.", "tags": [ "Missions", "Fellowship", "Equality" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 11, "chapter_name": "147. V. S. Azariah’s Address to the World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh", "page_numbers": [ 305, 306 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00329-56048a3d4b91de39467e.webp", "raw\\pages\\00330-1cbaf9b98fc473eb3ac0.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Examples of Social Distance", "chunk_data": "Let me give some extreme cases of the contrary attitude. I do it with the deepest pain in my own heart, feeling that if some of my missionary friends have failed, I am also responsible for it. I can now think of one Indian superintending missionary, for over fifteen years in responsible charge of large districts, who said recently that he had never been invited to a single meal at any house of any of his European missionary brethren. I think of a pastor, who is confessedly the right hand of a station missionary, who said to me that during the eighteen years he had been a pastor, his missionary had never once visited his humble home. Two men, holding very high positions in a native state, said to a friend of mine recently that though they had been for several years in the city, and even called on the missionary, the missionary never thought of returning the call. I remember two or three younger missionaries who have told me that while they themselves like to go and call on the leading Indian Christian gentlemen, their senior missionaries are against such innovations. I recall how years ago a young missionary told me of what he called the impudence of an Indian clergyman, who was a graduate of one of the Indian universities, in going forward to shake hands with him. This man,' he said, 'thinks, that because he is a graduate and has put on European costume, I must shake hands with him!'", "time": { "start_year": 1910, "start_month": 6, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1910, "end_month": 6, "end_date": null, "time_display": "June 1910" }, "meta": { "people": [ "V. S. Azariah", "Indian superintending missionary", "Pastor", "European missionaries", "Indian clergyman" ], "places": [ "India" ], "event": "Azariah described exclusionary practices that prevented Indian Christian leaders and clergy from receiving ordinary social recognition.", "tags": [ "Missions", "Race Relations", "Social Equality" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 12, "chapter_name": "147. V. S. Azariah’s Address to the World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh", "page_numbers": [ 306 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00330-1cbaf9b98fc473eb3ac0.webp" ], "chunk_title": "A Model Missionary Table", "chunk_data": "I do not want you to think that these instances represent the general state of affairs, nor do I want you to think that these are but solitary instances...\nOn the other hand, I can never forget a sight I saw near the foot of the Himalayas, on the borders of Kashmir. At dinner at a missionary's table the British Civil Surgeon of the district, the missionary, an American Secretary of the Y.M.C.A., a native pastor, and an ordinary catechist sat round the table, with the wife of the missionary presiding at the table. It was not a got-up show. The perfect ease with which the pastor and the catechist conducted themselves was proof positive that there the relationship was natural and customary. I noticed that that mission on the whole was far ahead in this respect of most others.", "time": { "start_year": 1910, "start_month": 6, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1910, "end_month": 6, "end_date": null, "time_display": "June 1910" }, "meta": { "people": [ "V. S. Azariah", "British Civil Surgeon", "Missionary", "American Y.M.C.A. Secretary", "Native pastor", "Catechist" ], "places": [ "Himalayas", "Kashmir" ], "event": "Azariah presented an integrated missionary household near Kashmir as an example of natural social equality.", "tags": [ "Missions", "Fellowship", "Equality" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 13, "chapter_name": "147. V. S. Azariah’s Address to the World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh", "page_numbers": [ 306 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00330-1cbaf9b98fc473eb3ac0.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Friendship in Practice", "chunk_data": "Let me not be misunderstood. I do not plead for returning calls, handshakes, chairs, dinners, and teas, as such. I do, on the other hand, plead for all of them and more if they can be expressions of a friendly feeling, if these or anything else can be the outward proofs of a real willingness on the part of the foreign missionary to show that he is in the midst of the people, to be to them, not a lord and a master, but a brother and a friend.", "time": { "start_year": 1910, "start_month": 6, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1910, "end_month": 6, "end_date": null, "time_display": "June 1910" }, "meta": { "people": [ "V. S. Azariah", "Foreign missionaries" ], "places": [], "event": "Azariah clarified that social courtesies mattered only as expressions of genuine friendship and brotherhood.", "tags": [ "Missions", "Friendship", "Equality" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 14, "chapter_name": "147. V. S. Azariah’s Address to the World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh", "page_numbers": [ 306, 307 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00330-1cbaf9b98fc473eb3ac0.webp", "raw\\pages\\00331-63abff417f865a448331.webp" ], "chunk_title": "The Official Relationship", "chunk_data": "II. The effective co-operation will only be possible with a proper official relationship.\nThe official relationship generally prevalent at present between the missionary and the Indian worker is that between a master and a servant—in fact, the word often used in South India by the low grade Indian workers in addressing missionaries is ejaman or master. The missionary is the paymaster, the worker his servant. As long as this relationship exists, we must admit that no sense of self-respect and individuality can grow in the Indian Church.\nThe aim of the Missionary Societies, we know, is to develop self-governing churches and to give freedom and scope to indigenous leadership, and to strive to make themselves unnecessary in the field.", "time": { "start_year": 1910, "start_month": 6, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1910, "end_month": 6, "end_date": null, "time_display": "June 1910" }, "meta": { "people": [ "V. S. Azariah", "Missionaries", "Indian workers" ], "places": [ "South India", "India" ], "event": "Azariah criticized the master-servant structure between missionaries and Indian workers and contrasted it with the goal of indigenous church leadership.", "tags": [ "Church Governance", "Missions", "Leadership" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 15, "chapter_name": "147. V. S. Azariah’s Address to the World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh", "page_numbers": [ 307 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00331-63abff417f865a448331.webp" ], "chunk_title": "The Call for Self-Government", "chunk_data": "But the Societies have not convinced the natives that this is their aim. Nay, in some missions Indian Christians truly, though I know erroneously, believe that the missionaries are against any full self-support and real self-government, because that will make them unnecessary in the leadership of the work. It is commonly supposed that the man of independent thought and action is the man least consulted in the administration of the mission. I know some instances where independent action in the smallest affair has been repressed, and indigenous efforts—even indigenous missionary efforts—have been looked upon with suspicion and distrust.\nThere can never be real progress unless the aspirations of the native Christians to self-government and independence are accepted, encouraged, and acted upon...", "time": { "start_year": 1910, "start_month": 6, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1910, "end_month": 6, "end_date": null, "time_display": "June 1910" }, "meta": { "people": [ "V. S. Azariah", "Indian Christians", "Missionary Societies" ], "places": [ "India" ], "event": "Azariah argued that Indian Christians’ aspirations for self-support, self-government, and independent action must be accepted and encouraged.", "tags": [ "Self-Government", "Church Governance", "Missions" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 16, "chapter_name": "147. V. S. Azariah’s Address to the World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh", "page_numbers": [ 307 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00331-63abff417f865a448331.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Indian Church Councils", "chunk_data": "I plead, therefore, that an advance step may be taken by transferring from foreigners to Indians responsibilities and privileges that are now too exclusively in the hands of the foreign missionary. Native Church Councils should be formed, where Indians could be trained in the administration of their own churches. Missionary Conferences should find a place for Indian leaders, so that the Indian and European may consult and work together for the welfare of the common work. The favourite phrases, 'our money,' 'our control,' must go...\nIf such an advance is to be made, what should be the relationship of the foreign missionary to the Indian Christian leaders? Surely, that of a friend...", "time": { "start_year": 1910, "start_month": 6, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1910, "end_month": 6, "end_date": null, "time_display": "June 1910" }, "meta": { "people": [ "V. S. Azariah", "Indian leaders", "Foreign missionaries" ], "places": [ "India" ], "event": "Azariah called for Native Church Councils, Indian participation in missionary conferences, and the transfer of responsibilities from foreigners to Indians.", "tags": [ "Church Governance", "Leadership", "Missions" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 17, "chapter_name": "147. V. S. Azariah’s Address to the World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh", "page_numbers": [ 307 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00331-63abff417f865a448331.webp" ], "chunk_title": "The Spiritual Relationship", "chunk_data": "III. True co-operation is possible only with a proper spiritual relationship.\nNo personal relationship will be true and permanent that is not built on a spiritual basis. India is a land that has a 'religious atmosphere. To the Hindu 'the one and only ultimate is God: his great and only reality the unseen his true and eternal environment the spiritual.'", "time": { "start_year": 1910, "start_month": 6, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1910, "end_month": 6, "end_date": null, "time_display": "June 1910" }, "meta": { "people": [ "V. S. Azariah", "Hindus" ], "places": [ "India" ], "event": "Azariah presented spiritual fellowship as the necessary foundation for lasting personal cooperation in India.", "tags": [ "Spirituality", "Christianity", "Missions" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 18, "chapter_name": "147. V. S. Azariah’s Address to the World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh", "page_numbers": [ 307 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00331-63abff417f865a448331.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Christian Mysticism in India", "chunk_data": "In such a land, therefore, the easiest point of contact with the heart is on the spiritual side. The Indian nature has aptitude to develop devotional meditation and prayer, resignation and obedience to the will of God, the Christian graces of patience, meekness, and humility, the life of denial of self, the cultivation of fellowship and communion and the practice of the presence of God. These elements of Christian mysticism find a natural soil in the Indian heart. Not by decrying this aspect of the Christian life, but only by cultivating it and developing it in himself can a foreigner win the heart of an Indian. It is then, and then only, the westerner can impart to him what naturally he has not: elements of Christian", "time": { "start_year": 1910, "start_month": 6, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1910, "end_month": 6, "end_date": null, "time_display": "June 1910" }, "meta": { "people": [ "V. S. Azariah", "Foreign missionaries", "Indian Christians" ], "places": [ "India" ], "event": "Azariah argued that Christian mysticism and spiritual devotion offered the most natural point of contact with Indian hearts.", "tags": [ "Christian Mysticism", "Spirituality", "Missions" ] } } ] }