More than 200 churches, schools, colleges, hospitals and residences valued at $2,000,000 will be transferred by the United Church of Canada to the United Church of Northern India this year.
Dr. D. H. Gallagher, secretary of the board of overseas missions, said the transfers will mark the culmination of a long-range policy to integrate mission work and assets into the indigenous church.
The United Church of Northern India is one of seven denominational bodies planning an organic merger in 1961. Other groups comprise Anglicans, Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists and Disciples of Christ. The new body will be called the Church of North India.
“It has been our constant policy to train local church leaders with the hope that some day they would take over the mission work,” Dr. Gallagher said. “Gradually they have been taking over the work. Now the time has come when they should assume full charge of our program of church life and work, medical services, educational institutions and technical services.”
The United Church of Canada has 42 missionaries serving in India under the board of overseas missions and another 33 serving under the Women’s Missionary Society.
Dr. Gallagher said the help of Canadian missionaries will still be needed to further the training of local leaders and to assist them as “partners and colleagues.”
Work In India
After a period of ministry among refugees in Berlin and West Germany, Dr. and Mrs. Harold B. Kuhn have begun duties as guest professors at Union Biblical Seminary in Yeotmal, India.
The seminary, founded by the Free Methodist Church, is now the approved training institution of the Evangelical Fellowship of India and is a cooperative enterprise in which 16 evangelical bodies participate.
Dr. Kuhn has been granted a term’s leave-of-absence from Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Ky., where he is professor of Philosophy of Religion.
Thailand Integration
The American Presbyterian Mission in Thailand ended its 130-year history when it was integrated into the Church of Christ in Thailand at ceremonies in Bangkok.
Leaders of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. turned over the mission’s assets to two officials of the national church—the Rev. Puang Akkapin, moderator, and the Rev. Leck Taiyong, general secretary.
The Church of Christ is a union of Presbyterian, Baptist and Disciples bodies in Thailand, with Presbyterians representing about 90 per cent of its estimated 10,000 members.
American Presbyterian missionaries will become “fraternal workers” under the administration of the Church of Christ, with the Presbyterian body providing their full material support.
While we pray for peace, we need moral clarity about this war.
As my doubts about his teachings grew, so did a secret fascination with Jesus.
We must always be people of the Word, but we’ll have to reimagine deep engagement with Scripture.
