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Part IV

Appendixes

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Appendix I

The Growth of a Christian

WSCF Conference at Tambaram

By John Gault

The Australian Student Christian Movement is a part of the World's Student Christian Federation, which links together in fellowship and study students of many countries and races. Last December the Federation conference was held at Tambaram, India following on the Third World conference of Christian Youth in Kottayam, Travancore. John Gaiilt (Melbourne) was one of the of the ASCM delegates to these conferences.

Kottayam was hustle and bustle, Tambaram was slow and easy; and I think the change in tempo bore fruit. With the conference centered on worship and Bible study, the spare time for thought, personal discussion, and group encounter after the addresses allowed us to see the conference as a whole, rather than as a series of disconnected studies and discussions.

The Bible study. The Growth of a Christian, was prepared by the ASCM General Secretary, Frank Engel, who was also the conference chaplain. It brought home to us again, as is very necessary, our obligation to live as Christians. "The Christian is sanctified; but he has still to live this status out". We faced, as we must always face, the problem of the "good pagan", but being in an Asian setting made us face further the man who relies on God in order to gain spiritual strength and power, but not a Christian God who himself redeems and sanctifies.

Our Bible study in living the Christian life was continued in the addresses and the group discussions afterwards. There could be no Pietistic compartmentalization of the Bible study and the addresses. They were both seen as parts of a whole. They took us through some our corporate concerns as members of the Federation: Politics, University, Evangelism, Church and Mission. In the time for questions and discussion, afterwards we were able to have a real encounter – between such points of view expressed by Bill Stringfellow,

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From The Australian Intercollegian, March 1, 1953

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who wishes to become a politician, and Walter Fyfe, who believes that professional politicians are a menace to society; or between the Indians who do not wish Church organizations to be one which they could never support and the Americans who truly sought to understand how they could give off their vast resources of money, men and materials without becoming or being regarded as dollar imperialists. We were able to hold our tensions within the fellowship of the Federation. However, as we did so, we had to remember the absence of delegates from China and the countries of Eastern Europe, who would certainly have disagreed with us in a lot of our conclusions and probably in many of our presuppositions. We had to try and keep with us the pain of our separation, and bear in the Federation the tensions and conflicts as if they were present.

Two excursions were most valuable breaks in the program. On the first, we went to the College's Rural Service League project. They have adopted one of the nearby villages, built a school there, which now has 200 children, and pay the full-time teacher. There is a small dispensary, and people requiring a doctor have their treatment paid for. With the help of WHO and Church World Service, they are able to give the children a glass of milk and a huge bun for lunch each day. It is most probably their only regular solid meal, and we were particularly amused to see one little boy, dressed in his birthday suit, attacking with great vigor a bun about half his own size.

For the second, we went to the Government T.B. Sanatorium where we were able to see the World University Service ward. We talked for some time with the students there and found them extremely grateful for the opportunity of getting treatment and later returning to their studies.

The most moving experience of the whole conference was the service of Holy Communion on New Year's Eve, celebrated according to the Liturgy of the Church of South India by the Moderator, Bishop Michael Hollis. As the "Kiss of Peace" was passed from one to another through the congregation and as we knelt to receive the Body and Blood of our Lord in the first moments of the New Year, we knew in an even deeper sense what it was to be one in Christ in that service, and yet to have to bear with those who were not able to join with us the shame and scandal of our separation. We remember again His prayer, "That they all may be one... that the world may believe".