Protestantism in India

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.[1]

History

Colonial India
St. Paul's Cathedral was built in 1847 and served as the chair of the Bishop of Calcutta, who served as the metropolitan of the Church of India, Burma and Ceylon.[2]

As the Anglican Church was the established church of England, "it had an impact on India with the arrival of the British".[3] Citing the Great Commission, Joseph White, a Laudian Professor of Arabic at the University of Oxford, "preached before the university in 1784 on the duty of promoting the universal and progressive message of Christianity 'among our Mahometan and Gentoo Subjects in India'."[4] In 1889, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury expressed similar sentiments, stating that "It is not only our duty but is in our interest to promote the diffusion of Christianity as far as possible throughout the length and breadth of India."[5]

The growth of the British Indian Army led to the arrival of many Anglican chaplains in India.[6] Following the arrival of the Church of England's Church Mission Society in 1814, the Diocese of Calcutta of the Church of India, Burma and Ceylon (CIBC) was erected, with its St. Paul's Cathedral being built in 1847.[3] By 1930, the Church of India, Burma and Ceylon had fourteen dioceses across the Indian Empire.[7]

Missionaries from other Christian denominations came to British India as well; Lutheran missionaries, for example, arrived in Calcutta in 1836 and by "the year 1880 there were over 31,200 Lutheran Christians spread out in 1,052 villages".[5] Methodists began arriving in India in 1783 and established missions with a focus on "education, health ministry, and evangelism".[8][9] In the 1790s, Christians from the London Missionary Society and Baptist Missionary Society, began doing missionary work in the Indian Empire.[10] In Neyoor, the London Missionary Society Hospital "pioneered improvements in the public health system for the treatment of diseases even before organized attempts were made by the colonial Madras Presidency, reducing the death rate substantially".[11]

After 1857, the establishment of schools and hospitals by British Christian missionaries became the "a pivotal feature of missionary work and the principal vehicles for conversion".[12][9] Christ Church College (1866) and St. Stephen's College (1881) are two examples of prominent church-affiliated educational institutions founded during the colonial period India.[13] Within educational institutions established during the British Raj in India, Christian texts, especially the Bible, were a part of the curricula.[12] During the colonial era in India, Christian missionaries developed writing systems for Indian languages that previously did not have one.[14][15] Christian missionaries in India also worked to increase literacy and also engaged in social activism, such as fighting against prostitution, championing the right of widowed women to remarry, and trying to stop early marriages for women.[16] Among British women, zenana missions became a popular method to win converts to Christianity.[12]

In colonial India, the All India Conference of Indian Christians (AICIC) played an important role in the Indian independence movement, advocating for swaraj and opposing the partition of India.[17] The AICIC also was opposed to separate electorates for Christians, believing that the faithful "should participate as common citizens in one common, national political system".[17][18] The All India Conference of Indian Christians and the All India Catholic Union formed a working committee with M. Rahnasamy of Andhra University serving as president and B.L. Rallia Ram of Lahore serving as General Secretary; in its meeting on 16 April 1947 and 17 April 1947, the joint committee prepared a 13-point memorandum that was sent to the Constituent Assembly of India, which asked for religious freedom for both organisations and individuals; this came to be reflected in the Constitution of India.[17][18]

Independent India

Many Protestant denominations are represented in India, the result of missionary activities throughout the country especially under British rule in India. The largest Protestant denomination in the country is the Church of South India, since 1947 a union of Presbyterian, Reformed, Congregational, Methodist, and Anglican congregations with approximately 4 million members as of 2014. The broadly similar Church of North India had 1 million members. (Both churches are in full communion with the Anglican Communion.) There were about 1.3 million Lutherans, 473,000 Methodists, and 425,000 Baptists as of 1995.

Pentecostalism, one of the largest Protestant denominations worldwide, is also a rapidly growing denomination in India. It is spreading greatly in northern India and the southwestern areas, such as Kerala. The largest indigenous Pentecostal denominations in India are The Pentecostal Mission (TPM) and the India Pentecostal Church of God (IPC).

As for the smaller denominations, another prominent group is the Brethren. They include Plymouth Brethren, Indian Brethren, Kerala Brethren etc. The Conference of the Mennonite Brethren Churches in India has more than 100,000 members.

One of the oldest denominations meanwhile is the Northern Evangelical Lutheran Church.

Notable missionaries

Protestant missionaries began to work throughout India, leading to the growth of different Christian communities. In 1793, William Carey, an English Baptist Minister, came to India as a missionary. He worked in Serampore, Calcutta and other cities founding churches. On the educational front, in addition to starting the Serampore College, he also translated the Bible into Bengali and Sanskrit, continuing with these labours until his death in 1834. According to the chronicler Otto of Freising, Arnold had studied in Paris under the tutelage of the reformer and philosopher Pierre Abélard. He took to Abélard's philosophy of reform ways. Anthony Norris Groves, Plymouth Brethren missionary came to India in 1833. He worked in the Godavari delta area of then Madras Presidency, until his death in 1852.

Missionaries such as Amy Carmichael, Ida S. Scudder and Joyce M. Woollard continued the work in the 20th century.

21st century

According to the 2015 India Demographic and Health Survey, 2.6% of the population is Christian.[19] Other reports stated that Catholics make up 1.71% of the population, suggesting that less than 0.9% of the country has a Protestant background.[20]

A report in 2021 noted that many Indian Christians share Hindu beliefs, in particular in karma (54%), and reincarnation (29%);[21] it also noted that three-quarters of Indian Christians come from a lower-caste background.

Protestant Churches in India
Part of a series on
Christianity in India
Christianity in India
Communities
People
Denominations

Saint Thomas Christian denominations

Syro-Malabar Catholic, Syro-Malankara Catholic, Latin Catholic

Malankara Jacobite Syrian Orthodox Church, Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church

Independent Oriential Orthodox

Malabar Independent Syrian Church

Chaldean Syrian

Mar Thoma Syrian, St. Thomas Evangelical

Protestant denominations
Andhra Evangelical Lutheran, Assemblies Jehovah Shammah, Christian Revival Church, Church of North India, Church of South India, Garo Baptist, Indian Brethren, Indian Pentecostal Church of God, Church of God (Full Gospel), North Bank Baptist Christian, Northern Evangelical Lutheran, Methodist Church, Presbyterian, The Pentecostal Mission, Seventh-day Adventist, United Evangelical Lutheran
Organisations

Source of the list: World Christian Encyclopedia.

See also

References
  1. Hunt, S.J. (2015). Handbook of Global Contemporary Christianity: Themes and Developments in Culture, Politics, and Society. Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion. Brill. p. 68. ISBN 978-90-04-29102-7. Retrieved 2023-08-05.
  2. Buchanan, Colin (22 October 2015). Historical Dictionary of Anglicanism. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 117. ISBN 9781442250161.
  3. Dalal, Roshen (18 April 2014). The Religions of India. Penguin Books Limited. p. 177. ISBN 9788184753967.
  4. Marriott, John (19 July 2013). The Other Empire: Metropolis, India and Progress in the Colonial Imagination. Manchester University Press. p. 107. ISBN 9781847795397.
  5. Kanjamala, Augustine (21 August 2014). The Future of Christian Mission in India. Wipf and Stock Publishers. pp. 117–119. ISBN 9781620323151.
  6. Tovey, Phillip (30 August 2017). Anglican Baptismal Liturgies. Canterbury Press. p. 197. ISBN 9781786220202. The growth of the army in India also led to many army chaplains. After the change in the Charter in 1813, Anglican missionaries began to work across North India. The missionaries translated the Book of Common Prayer into various Indian languages. The first Anglican diocese was Calcutta in 1813, and bishops from India were at the first Lambeth conference. In 1930 the Church of India, Burma and Ceylon became an independent Province and created its own Book of Common Prayer, which was translated into several languages.
  7. The Indian Year Book. Bennett, Coleman & Company. 1940. p. 455. The three dioceses thus formed have been repeatedly subdivided, until in 1930 there were fourteen dioceses, the dates of their creation being as follows : Calcutta 1814; Madras 1835; Bombay 1837; Colombo 1845; Lahore 1877; Rangoon 1877; Travancore 1879; Chota Nagpur 1890; Lucknow 1893; Tinnevelly 1896; Nagpur 1903; Dornakal 1912; Assam 1915; Nasik 1929.
  8. Abraham, William J.; Kirby, James E. (24 September 2009). The Oxford Handbook of Methodist Studies. Oxford University Press. p. 93. ISBN 9780191607431.
  9. Yrigoyen, Charles Jr. (25 September 2014). T&T Clark Companion to Methodism. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 400. ISBN 9780567662460.
  10. Frykenberg, Robert Eric; Low, Alaine M. (2003). Christians and Missionaries in India: Cross-cultural Communication Since 1500, with Special Reference to Caste, Conversion, and Colonialism. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. p. 127. ISBN 9780802839565.
  11. Lucyk, Kelsey; Loewenau, Aleksandra; Stahnisch, Frank W. (6 January 2017). The Proceedings of the 21st Annual History of Medicine Days Conference 2012. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 237. ISBN 9781443869287.
  12. Crane, Ralph; Mohanram, Radhika (31 August 2013). Imperialism as Diaspora: Race, Sexuality, and History in Anglo-India. Oxford University Press. p. 86. ISBN 9781781385630.
  13. Carpenter, Joel; Glanzer, Perry L.; Lantinga, Nicholas S. (7 March 2014). Christian Higher Education. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 103. ISBN 9781467440394.
  14. Kanjamala, Augustine (21 August 2014). The Future of Christian Mission in India. Wipf and Stock Publishers. p. 120. ISBN 9781630874858.
  15. Bhaṭṭācāryya, Haridāsa (1969). The Cultural Heritage of India. Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture. p. 60. ISBN 9780802849007.
  16. Mullin, Robert Bruce (12 November 2014). A Short World History of Christianity. Westminster John Knox Press. p. 231. ISBN 9781611645514.
  17. Thomas, Abraham Vazhayil (1974). Christians in Secular India. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. pp. 106–110. ISBN 978-0-8386-1021-3.
  18. Oddie, Geoffrey A. (2001). "Indian Christians and National Identity 1870-1947". The Journal of Religious History. 25 (3): 357, 361. doi:10.1111/1467-9809.00138.
  19. US State Dept 2022 report
  20. Catholics And Culture website, retrieved 2023-08-08
  21. Pew Research website, article dated July 12, 2021
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