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News of Jan
4, 2007
India's Christian Clerics
Reviving Dying Churches Abroad
By Syed Zarir Hussain
Aizawl, Jan 4
Scores of Christian clerics from India's northeast are traveling to
parts of the world to revive the faith and to fill in increasing
shortage of ordained priests.
"We have about 150 pastors from the northeast preaching the gospel
and assisting dying churches in countries like the US, China,
Thailand, Cambodia and other countries," Reverend Ngul Khan Pau,
general secretary of the Council of Baptist Churches in Northeast
India, told IANS.
Mizoram, Nagaland and Meghalaya in the northeast are predominantly
Christian, the origin of the faith dating back to 1836 with the
arrival into the region of American Baptist missionaries Miles
Bronson and Nathan Brown.
"It is an irony that our Christian ministers now spreading the
message of Jesus Christ in a country (US) whose missionaries sowed
the seeds of Christianity in the northeast," Pau said.
"It is some sort of a thanksgiving gesture, a way paying back to the
Americans for what they gave to us in the form of Christianity."
Added T. Lotha, a Baptist church leader in Nagaland: "The demand for
church leaders abroad is due to a sharp decline in the number of
ordained priests to perform day-to-day ceremonies, including
marriages and death rituals."
Several Presbyterian Synod ministers from the mountainous state of
Mizoram, bordering Myanmar, are working abroad.
"We have at least a half-a-dozen of our ministers in various parts
of the world, including two in Wales, trying to revive the faith in
those countries," said Reverend Chanchinmawia, a Presbyterian Synod
leader in Mizoram's capital Aizawl.
The Mizo tribal people were animists until two Welsh Baptist
missionaries from Britain - William Frederick Savidge and J.H.
Lorrain - landed in the hills of Mizoram sometime in 1894.
"All our ministers are doing exceptionally well abroad and have
managed to bring to track the faith which had shown signs of
erosion," said Reverend Zairema, another Presbyterian Synod leader
in Mizoram.
Reverend Hmar Sangkhuma, a Presbyterian minister from Mizoram and
currently a 'mission enabler' at Maesteg in south Wales, said his
task was to help people battle materialism that was corrupting
people.
"The task is a challenging one. What is required is a systematic
approach to make the society feel the relevance of Christianity in
their lives," Sangkhuma was quoted as saying by the Mizoram
Presbyterian Synod leaders.
"We are happy to find our Synod leaders helping the same church in
Wales who brought Christianity to our people in Mizoram."
IANS
News of Jan
4, 2007
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