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Baeta, Christian G(oncalves) K(wami) (1908-1994)

Presbyterian church leaders from the Gold Coast (Ghana)

Born at Keta, Ghana, Baeta studied at the Scottish Mission Teacher Training College, Akropong, Ghana, Evangelisches Missionsseminar, Basel, Switzerland, and King’s College, London, where he wrote a doctoral dissertation entitled “Prophetism in Ghana.” He was ordained in 1936. In 1938 he participated in the meeting of the International Missionary Council (IMC) at Tambaram, India. He was Synod Clerk (chief executive) of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (1945-1949) and chair of both the Ghana Christian Council and the Ghana church union negotiations committee. In 1958 he became vice-chair of the IMC and superintended the merger of the IMC with the World Council of Churches (WCC). He was the Henry W. Luce Visiting Professor at Selly Oak Colleges, Birmingham, England (1965-1970). He also served on the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, the Central and Executive Committees of the WCC, and the Anglican-Reformed Commission on Church Unity. He was involved in Bible translation, particularly into Ewe.

Between 1949 and 1971 Baeta served on the staff of the divinity department in the University of Ghana. He helped shift this department from emphasizing Christian theology to emphasizing religions and theology in a pluralistic world. Baeta voiced the concerns of younger churches engaged in mission, and pioneered on the African continent in shifting from mission understood as an expression of worldwide Christendom to mission viewed as encounter and peaceful coexistence of persons of different faiths. In his thinking ecumenism and mission were inextricable. His conviction that God was sovereign over all of life led him to accept political responsibility: as a member of the Legislative Council of the Gold Coast (1946-1950); member of the Coussey Committee on Constitutional Reform for the Gold Coast; and member of the Constitutional Assembly, which, after the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah, prepared the way for return to civilian rule. Thus, for Baeta evangelism and engagement with issues of peace and justice were already in the 1940s and 1950s inextricably linked.

This article is reprinted from Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, Macmillan Reference USA, copyright © 1998 Gerald H. Anderson, by permission of Macmillan Reference USA, New York, NY. All rights reserved. By John S. Pobee.

Bibliography

Prophetism in Ghana (1963)
The Relationship of Christians with Men of Other Living Faiths (1971)
Christianity in Tropical Africa (1968), ed.
“My Pilgrimage in Mission,” IBMR 12, no.4 (1984): 165-168.

John S. Pobee, ed., Religion in a Pluralistic Society: Essays in Honour of Prof. C.G. Baeta (1976)
Walter Ringwald, “Christian Baeta Fuhrender Christ seiner Afrikanischen Kirche,” in Ökumenische Profile Brückenbauer der Einen Kirche II, Gunter Gloede, ed (1963)
Theo Sudermeier, “Auf dem Weg zu einer Afrikanischen Kirche, Christian G. Baeta, Ghana,” in Theologen der Dritten Welt (1982).

Bliss, Kathleen Mary Amelia (Moore) (1908-1989)

Ecumenical pioneer

Born in Fulham, London, a graduate from Girton College, Cambridge, with a first-class degree in theology as well as a good history degree, Kathleen Moore was a Student Volunteer and much involved in the Cambridge Student Christian Movement. Her red hair attracted an admirer, and her challenging theological arguments a devoted life partner in Rupert Bliss, a former naval engineer who had become an Anglican ordinand through the influence of William Temple. Together they went to Tamil Nadu, South India, in 1932 under the London Missionary Society. On furlough in 1939, Rupert introduced his wife to Eleanora Kredale, J.H. Oldham’s assistant. Kathleen succeeded Iredale as assistant editor and then editor of the influential Christian Newsletter (1942-1949). From 1945 to 1959 she worked for the British Council of Churches and then for the BBC (1950-1955). She was a moving spirit at the Amsterdam Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in 1948 and is credited with the famous phrase, “We intend to stay together.” She was elected to the Central Committee and Executive Committee of the WCC in 1954, and she played an important part in the evolving ecumenical movement. She had a formidable intellect, concerned particularly with laypeople and women, hence her outstanding work as secretary of the WCC commission on the status and role of women in the churches. From 1958 to 1966 as secretary of the Board of Education of the Church of England, she was responsible for policy in the rapidly expanding colleges and universities of the 1960s. Finally, she was senior lecturer in the Department of Religious Studies at the new University of Sussex (1968-1972). Even retirement did not lessen her concern for ecumenism. Increasingly crippled by arthritis, she was unfortunately unable to finish her biography of J.H. Oldham, her mentor and friend. Her crowded memorial service was testimony to how wide her influence was and how precious her friendship. She was a “foremother” of today’s women theologians and church leaders. In 1949 she was honored with a D.D. by the University of Aberdeen.

Bibliography

Kathleen Bliss, The Service and Status of Women in the Churches (1952)
We, the People (1963)
The Future of Religion (1969)
“J.H. Oldham,” in Gerald H. Anderson et al., eds., Mission Legacies (1994), pp.570-580.

Martin Conway, ER 42, no.1 (January 1990): 68-77 (obit.)
Susannah Herzel, A Voice for Women (1981).

Appasamy, Aiyadurai Jesudasen (1891-1976)

Indian Christian theologian

Appasamy was born in a Christian family in Palayamkottai, in the district of Tirunelveli (formerly Tinnevelly), one of the first and greatest centers of Protestant Christianity in the extreme south of India. His intellectual gifts were early recognized and in 1915 he went abroad for his theological studies, first to Hartford, Connecticut, then to Oxford, and finally for a time to Marburg. On his return in 1923 he was employed by the Christian Literature Society in Madras to conduct research and writing. There he produced his most influential works, Christianity in Bhakti Marga (1927) and What is Moksha? (1931). In 1932 he moved to Calcutta to teach at Bishop’s College, but in 1936 he returned to his birthplace to serve the church there as an archdeacon, working for the theological education of schoolteachers and organizing evangelistic campaigns, prayer meetings, and revivals. For 18 years he was a member of the Joint Committee for Church Union in South India. His advocacy of union was shown in his book Church Union: An Indian View (1930). In 1950, three years after the formation of the Church of South India, he was consecrated as bishop of Cominbatore, where he stayed until his retirement in 1959.

Continuing his writing throughout his life, Appasamy’s great concern was always to express Christian faith in a way that would be congenial to India. He believed that to do this he needed to link Christianity to the bhakti, or devotional tradition, of which the chief exponent was Ramanuja. He presented the Christian life as one of loving devotion to God in Christ. The goal is faith-union with Christ, which is not absorption into the divine, as Hindu advaita philosophy would teach, but a loving personal union. He rejected ideas of mephitical unity between God and Christ, as Chalcedon had taught, in favor of an eternal conformity of wills and union of love.

Bibliography

A.J. Appasamy, A Bishop’s Story (1969)
Robin H.S. Boyd, An Introduction to Indian Christian Theology (1969), ch.7.

Ao, Longri (Longritangchetba) (1906-1981)

Indigenous Nagaland missionary, prophet, and peacemaker

Longri Ao was born and buried in Changki village, Mokokchurch district, Nagaland, India. He was educated through the level of the Serampore Licentiate in theology. He married Subokyimia in 1932, taught at the Bible school in Jorat, Assam, from 1934 to 1950, and in 1950 was appointed by the Council of Baptist Churches in Northeast India as missionary to the Konyak Naga people. During his 17 years in that position (1950-1967) the Konyak church grew from 1,100 members to more than 12,000. From 1967 to 1980 he served as executive secretary of the Nagaland Baptist Church Council. During those years he sought to make the private and public life of the largely Christian Nagaland state a testimony to the power of Christ. He is best remembered for his contributions to the peace movement in Nagaland. He sought to convince those rebelling against the government of India to be reconciled to a position whiten that nation, and to persuade the government to act justly in its relationships with the Naga people. He was responsible for establishing the controversial Peace Mission, and later, of the Nagaland Peace Council (NPC), of which he was president from 1974 until his death. Under his leadership, the NPC was largely responsible for brining an end to the major hostilities through the Shillong Accord of 1975.

Bibliography

O.M. Rao, Longri Ao: A Biography (1986).
Richard G. Beers, Walk the Distant Hills: The Story of Longri Ao (1969).

Andrianaivoravelona, Josefa (1835-1897)

One of the first Malagasy ministers of the Reformed Church of Madagascar

Adrianaivoravelona was born into a non-Christian noble family of the central part of Madagascar. After his baptism in 1857, he dropped his original name Andriantseheno and adopted Andrianaivoravelona as more in keeping with his Christian faith. Thereafter he applied all his energy to the conversion of his people, hiding in various places because of religious persecution by the queen, Ranavalona I, who was hostile to Christianity and foreign influence. While in southern Madagascar he founded the first church of Fianarantsoa. On his return to Antananarivo, the capital, he was able to work as a self-educated preacher until the persecution ended in 1861, thanks to the secret protection of the queen’s son and the prime minister. He was elected as pastor in 1866 by the congregation of Ampamrianana, thus becoming the first native minister of the church and its dependent communities. When the new queen, Ranavalona II, converted to Christianity, he also became one of the pastors of the palace church in 1869, remaining pastor of the two churches until 1897. In spite of his age and heavy pastoral and family responsibilities, Andrianaivoravelona pursued his studies brilliantly in London Missionary Society College at Antananarivo from 1869 to 1873. He was a prolific hymn writer, an indefatigable and immensely popular preacher, and a member of the committee for the revision of the Bible from 1873 to 1887. He drew praise from fellow countrymen and foreign missionaries alike, although some of the latter were distrustful of his independent spirit. Such a formidable character attracted the suspicion of the French government, so that he was sent into exile to the island of Reunion with the last queen, Ranavalona III. There he died.

Bibliography

Joseph Andrianaivoravelona, “Andrianaivoravelona,” in Mpanolotsaina 34, nos. 139-142 (1937).
Ratovonarivo, Tantaran’ny Fiangoana Ambonin’ Ampamarinana (History of the Ampamarinana church) (1974).
Francois Raison-Jourde, Bible et pouvoir a Madagascar au XIXe siècle (1991).
Ravelojaona, ed., Firaketana (Malagasy encyclopedic dictionary) (1937).

Anawati, Georges Chehata (1905-1994)

Dominican scholar of Islam

Anawati (the Arabic form was Qanawati) personified the Dominican commitment to religious scholarship as a form of Christian witness. Born in Alexandria, Egypt, of Syrian and Orthodox parentage, the found the intellectual foundations of his faith in Thomism. He entered the Dominican order, taking the name Marie-Marcel, and was ordained a Catholic priest in 1939. His initial missionary service in Algeria (1940-1953) forged a lifelong relationship with the French Dominican Islamist Louis Gardet (1937-1977). Returning to Egypt, he devoted himself to developing the Dominican Institute for Oriental Studies in Cairo. Under his 50-year leadership, it became the leading center in the Middle East for Christian study of Islam and for dialogue between Muslim and Christian scholars. His goal was to recreate the intellectual discourse between Arabic-speaking Muslims and Christians that had been a feature of medieval learning. In addition to his talents as teacher, international lecturer, and renowned host, the is remembered for his vast literary output. He played a leading editorial role in the Institute’s journal, Melanges: Institut Dominicain d’Etudes Orientales du Caire (founded in 1953), which publishes theological research of international Christian and Muslim scholars. He influenced the Second Vatican Council’s rethinking of Christian relations with other religions (Nostra Aetate) and subsequent Catholic initiatives in Christian-Muslim dialogue.

Bibliography

“Georges Chehata Anawati, OP (1905-1994),” Melanges: Institut Dominicain D’Etudes Orientales du Caire (MIDEO) 22 (1995)
G. Scattolin, “Fr. George Anawati (1905-1994): Pioneer and Witness of Muslim-Christian Dialogue,” Encounter: Documents for Muslim-Christian understanding 203 (March 1994), repr. in Pro Dialogo Bulletin 88, no.1 (1995): 69-78.

Amlorpavadass, Duraiswami Simon (1932-1990)

Roman Catholic priest and leader of church renewal in India

Born in Kallery, near Pondicherry, Tamilnadu, Amlorpavadass studies at St. Peter’s Major Seminary in Bangalore and was ordained in 1959. The agenda for his life and work was set by his doctoral dissertation at the Institute Catholique of Paris, Destinee de legalise dans l’Inde d’aujourdhui (Destiny of the church in India today), published in 1967. He was founder-director of the National Biblical, Catechetical, and Liturgical Centre (NBCLC), at Bangalore, India (1966-1985), and editor of its journal Word and Worship. He was also secretary to the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of India for their Biblical, Catechetical, and Liturgical Commissions. He promoted renewal and research through courses and seminars at the NBCLC and also in the dioceses. In 1981 he founded the department of Christianity in the (state) University of Mysore.

Amalorpavadass was active in many international organizations, including the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians, the International Commission for English in the Liturgy, the World Catholic Federation for the Biblical Apostolate, and the International Association for Mission Studies. He was one of the two special secretaries for the Roman Episcopal Synod on Evangelization in 1974. In the last years of his life he founded the Anjali Ashram in Mysore and promoted Indian Christian spirituality. He died in an automobile accident on his way to a meeting in Bangalore.

Bibliography

D.S. Amalorpavadass, Approach, Meaning, and Horizon of Evangelization (1973), Gospel and Culture (1978)
NBCLC Campus, Milieu of God-Experience (1982)
Poverty of the Religious and the Religious as Poor (1984)
Integration and Interiorization (1990).

Gerwin van Leeuwen, Fully Indian, Authentically Christian (1990)
J. Russell Chandran, ed., Third World Theologies in Dialogue (1991)
Paul PUthanangady, ed., Church in India: Institution or Movement? (1991)

Aldersey, Mary Ann (1797-1868)

Independent pioneer woman missionary in China

A Londoner from a well-to-do nonconformist family, Aldersey attended classes in Chinese taught by Robert Morrison when he was on home leave from 1824 to 1826. Not then free from family ties, she made gifts to the London Missionary Society (LMS) that enabled Maria Newell to go to Malacca (1827). In 1837 she herself was able to go to Batavia (present-day Jakarta), where she started a school for Chinese girls. When the treaty ports in China were opened (1843) she moved the school to Ningpo, where she continued to work until 1861. Never an agent of any society, she maintained close links with the LMS. Several of her teaching staff were Chinese-speaking daughters of missionaries; at least four became missionary wives, including Maria Dyer (see Maria Dyer Taylor), who married James Hudson Taylor (against Aldersey’s wishes). Another protégée, Mary Ann Leisk, became the wife of William Ruseell, later bishop in north China. In 1861 Aldersey handed her school over to the Church Missionary Society and retired to Adelaide, Australia, where she lived until her death. She appears to have been the first single woman missionary to have worked in China.

Bibliography

E. Aldersey White, A Woman Pioneer in China: The Life of Mary Ann Aldersey (1932).
John Pollock, Hudson Taylor and Maria: Pioneers in China (1962)
Donald MacGallivray, ed., A Century of Protestant Missions in China (1807-1907) (1907).

Akrofi, Clement Anderson (1901-1967)

Ghanaian linguist and Bible translator

Akrofi was born in Apirede, in the Akuapem kingdom of southeastern Ghana, of parents who were among the first to join the Basel Mission church established there in 1873. He cam early under the influence of the piety of the Basel Mission. Later, in the middle school and the teacher-training program at the mission headquarters in Akropong, he was influenced by the educational ideals of Scottish missionaries who succeeded the Basel missionaries between the two world wars. Convinced that language was essential to the effective communication of the gospel, Akrofi intensively studied his own Twi language and produced an impressive range of reference tools. His Twi Kasa Mmara: A Twi Grammar in Twi (1937) was the first instance of “an African language being interpreted by an African scholar writing in his own language” (Dietrich Westermann, in the foreward). Akrofi was once introduced to Queen Elizabeth II of England by President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana as “the Chaucer of our language.” His crowning work was the revision of the Twi Bible of his missionary predecessor, Johannes Christaller. Upon its completion in 1960, Akrofi was awarded a TH.D. from the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany. In his acceptance address, he stated: “I do not forget that I am receiving this honor primarily as a servant of the gospel…In view of the general tendency to regard Christianity as a foreign religion, I will remind my fellow Africans that although Christianity is Europe’s greatest gift to Africa, it is not exclusively the white man’s religion; it is not the religion of the imperialist. Christianity is a world religion because Jesus Christ is the Lord and King of the universe.”

Bibliography

In addition to his Twi grammar, Akrofi’s other significant works are a Twi Spelling Book (produced jointly with E.L. Rapp; 1938)
Twi Mmebusen (n.d.), an annotated collection of 1018 Twi proverbs
English-Twi-Ga Dictionary (produced jointly with G.L. Botchey; 1968).
For Akrofi’s place in Ghanaian Christian scholarship, see Kwame Bediako, Christianity in Africa: The Recovery of a Non-Western Religion (1995), chap. 3.

Agnew, Eliza (1807-1883)

First unmarried American woman missionary to Ceylon (Sri Lanka)

Known in later life as the Mother of a Thousand Daughters, Agnew at age ten decided to become a missionary after hearing missionary-physician John Scudder speak. A Presbyterian, she sailed to Ceylon under the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) in 1839 and never returned to the United States. She went to Ceylon to relieve the overworked missionary wives by taking charge of the Uduvil Girls’ Boarding School, the oldest girls’ boarding school of the ABCFM. Under her principalship, over 600 of the 1,300 girls she educated became Christians. The Uduvil graduates returned to their villages as the wives of Christian men and as teachers. Uduvil converts provided the anchor for the small Christian community in an unresponsive mission field. During her vacations, Agnew itinerated among former students, giving advice and strengthening their Christian commitment. She also supervised forty Bible women.

In 1885 an ABCFM deputation led by Rufus Anderson reduced the size of Uduvil and eliminated English instruction in efforts to promote “three-self” principles. Agnew, however, outlived the reverses caused by the deputation. Upon her retirement from Uduvil in 1879, female education was more advanced in Ceylon than in other mission fields of the ABCFM. She died and was buried in Ceylon.

Bibliography

Short treatments of Agnew’s life include the pamphlet “Eliza Agnew” by Ethel Hubbard (1917) and an entry in Annie Ryder Gracey, Eminent Missionary Women (1898). The Congregational journal Life and Light for Women contains articles by and on Agnew, including an obituary. Minnie Hastings Harrison’s history of Uduvil Seminary (182401924)) was printed in Ceylon in 1925. A file on Eliza Agnew is located in the ABCFM archives at Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MAss.