Student As Missionaries

Student As Missionaries
Bibliography – Thomas John, “Editorial, A Relevant Minority” in AIKYATHA, June-November,

pg-2, 1991.
As a Christian movement the SCM is guided by a vision of ‘‘a new heaven and a new earth’’
where righteousness will be at home, a new Jerusalem where justice and peace prevail. Jesus
Christ is the basis of our action and hope in realizing this vision. This vision should find its
embodiment in history, in social, political and economic structures of justice. In this endeavor we
should find ourselves in partnership with other social and political movements that have similar
visions and goals. The SCM is also a_ student movement. Students have a determinative role in
carrying the Movement forward. They should set the agenda, the priorities and politics of the
Movement. It is their active involvement in concretizing the Christian vision in their life and in
the larger community that makes it a Student Christian Movement.
These activities are carried out not in isolation, but in fellowship with the senior friends of the
SCM —.who have graduated out of the SCM and who believe that the SCM has a special
vocation and reason for its existence. The senior friends of the SCM are the movement’s special
assets. Over the years they played a crucial role in maintaining the continuum of the Movement.
But of late, their involvement in the life of the Movement is negligible. We, often, come across
an older generation of Senior friends who would testify to the formative influence of the SCM in
their life and pay glowing tributes to its past. But it is to be admitted that the SCM has failed ‘to
nurture a younger generation of senior friends who would see it through thick and thin,
A search for the causative factors, indeed a task which involves much risk, would reveal the
staggering reality of the Movements’ petrification, While some of the causes may be of an
internal nature for which the Movement
Is responsible, some of them are external to it and even of a global character, and beyond the
control of the movement. This analysis is not meant to be exhaustive and cannot be, but intended
to arouse serious discussion.
Till the early part of the 60’s our Christian colleges and churches were marked by the presence of
european missionaries who were the main stay of the SCM in various part of country. They gave
importance to the Christian nature and intellectual articulation of faith both within the churches
and colleges of this land, and helped to preserve the ‘Christian’ character of our institutions
without them being fundamentalist. They were people with deep Theological insights and
concern for the students under their care. Their department from the subcontinent left a void
which was not adequately filled in by the Indian counterparts. This voice was cleverly filled in
by an American evangelical movements with their imperialistic design, soul savings piety and
fundamentalism.
Almost at the same time, increased governmental control, University regulations and rapid
changes within the Indian polity and many other social forces caught the Christian colleges
unawares resulting in a crisis of identity and complete disorganization. Many of them which
were mainly residential college turned to become non-residential. Many of them ceased to be
Christian and some of them tried to maintain their “Christian -ness” through occasional prayer
meeting. And evangelicalism came in handy.
The latter part of the 6p’s also witnessed at the global level, an increase in student agitations,
liberation struggles and counter culture movements following the Victanam War. They had their
repercussions on Indian society. Student organizations affiliated to political parties began to
make their presence felt in the college campuses and to demand allegiance from student. Also the
entry of multiplicity Christian student organizations of American origin with aggressive
promotional strategies put the SCM in a competitive situation for which it was unprepared.
Bibliography – Thomas John, “Editorial, A Relevant Minority” in AIKYATHA, June-November,

pg- 3, 1991.
American evangelical movements were also able to make inroads into Church’s life and
theology. Even the leaderships of the mainline churches began to too the evangelical line, though
its theological positions were against church’s ‘orthodoxy’, The SCM began to be perceived
more and more as an irritant without whom one would be more comfortable.
As ecumenism has also gradually been captivated’ by ecclesiastic, the ecumenical mission of the
SCM also lost much of its edge. The ideological and theological stance adopted by the WSCF
following the radicalism of 60’s took its toll of goodwill from the SCM. Many senior friends
dropped out of the SCM fraternity. Thus, the traditional allies of The Movement turned hostile, it
found itself alone and in a hostile environment faced with the task of defending its faith stance
vis-à-vis that of the evangelical groups in order to preserve its specific role and identity…
SCMs world over had to face this kind of @ situation. The SCM in USA was wound up in the
late 60s; the British SCM went through a major period of crisis and confrontation with the
established order, the SCMs in Asia, particularly in the Philippines, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia
and Burma were able to find new identities in the context of their social and political milieu. Of
course, .all these had led to a very unhealthy polarization between evangelicals on the one end
and the radicals on the other.
Coming back to the SCM of India, radicalism remains at the level of rhetoric. It is skin-deep
radicalism of the middle class intellectuals . We are “‘luke warm, neither hot nor cold”. We need
to become radicals in Christ’s way — the way of the Cross.
The relative financial independence that we have developed and the ‘‘programme”’ emphasis
keep us away from going to people, especially senior friends and from reaching out ~ to. Local
units with incisive Bible studies, theological and ideological discussions. We fail to nurture
Christian fellowship — the relational aspect of our being called to follow Christ, by bearing one
another’s burden as a community that live out of God’s gratuitous gift in Jesus Christ.
The SCM gave to church and society a breed of intellectuals and leaders, who had been
prophetic voices, catalysts of social transformation and visionaries of a better tomorrow in their
respective callings as pastors, professors, professionals and social workers. But their
disappearance from various walks of life is deeply felt in the context of the moral degeneration
of our social life, increasing fundamentalism, communalism and violence. Today, in our
Christian colleges — some of them with a great heritage — we find very few lecturers or
professors of SCM background or even of Christian values and often none to promote the
Movement. If SCM had suffered, -churches, educational institutions, Christian community and
the nation at large suffered more.
We do not have any easy way out of this Situation where we are in now. All those who take
Christian faith seriously and believe that it has something to do with the way we live our lives in
the social, economic and political relationships, should join hands to sustain and promote the
Movement. The SCM_ should become a concern and burden of a fellowship of senior friends. In
this highly competitive world of individualism and consumerism, the SCM cannot be a popular
movement. But it can remain a movement which embodies in its being the vision of a new
human community, and an alternative style of life:— a “relevant minority”.
This analytical piece was written with the express purpose of generating a discussion and
therefore, let me invite all readers to send in reactions and comments which can be the ° starling
point for our efforts to revitalize the Movement.

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Bibliography – Thomas John, “Editorial, A Relevant Minority” in AIKYATHA, June-November,

Bibliography – Thomas John, “Editorial, A Relevant Minority” in AIKYATHA, June-November,

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