Embracing the Scriptures

Abstract

This chapter examines the rich contributions of Vengal Chakkarai, Pandipeddi Chenchiah, and A. J. Appasamy to Indian Christian theology and focuses on how the Bible played a role in their writings. The first two also contributed to the volume Rethinking Christianity in India, published in 1938, at the time of the World Conference of the International Missionary Council held at Tambaram in India. This work not only responded to Hendrik Kraemer’s The Christian Message in a Non-Christian World, which was recommended reading for the delegates attending this meeting, but also raised and addressed a variety and range of pertinent and probing questions regarding the shape of a national church emerging from the shadows of missionary control and political colonial overlordship. Appasamy, in addition to responding to these questions, also wrote extensively on Indian religious traditions, particularly bhakti, and how they interplayed with Biblical exegesis, particular of the gospel of John.