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Appendix II
Nasrapur 1953
By Frank Engel
As the Grand Trunk Express rushes southwards from
The power and
beauty of Christian Fellowship is, however, not something fixed and
predictable. It has to be created and constantly re-created, for it is a
dynamic complex of personal relationships. I had heard often of the wonder of
such fellowship within the world community of the Federation. I was also aware
it was not something, which happened automatically or according to a set
pattern. It was therefore exciting and thrilling, to find oneself one of a
company of people, who were part of the family of the Federation, and were yet,
at the same time, becoming a living, responsible fellowship of persons out of
many nations and races learning to understand each other and work together.
“Understanding” and
"work" summarize two major processes that went on throughout General
Committee. General Committee is primarily a working body (hard working, too),
made up of official delegates from each national SCM. It is the supreme
governing body and as such elects the officers and executive for the next
three-year period, admits new movements to the Federation, determines policy
formulates the main lines of thought and action to be developed over three
years. But to do such things effectively there has to be understanding of the
life of national movements and of the people with whom one is working. So we
began not only with the job of electing the executive, but also with panel
presentations of student life in representative areas.
From The Australian Collegian, March 1, 1953
58
In the first panel
on "Student Dilemmas" Mathai Zachariah, a traveling secretary of the
Indian SCM gave a glimpse of the conflict in which Asian students are involved
between their traditional setting in rural
Leo Radja Haba, of
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Other glimpses of
the student situation and dilemmas as various parts of the world were given by
Bola Ige of Nigeria; Roberto Rios of Puerto Rico, who spoke of the student
problems in Latin American countries dominated as they are by a politically
powerful and religiously – effete Roman Catholicism and pervaded by anti –
religious secularism; Horst Bannach, of Germany, who opened our minds to
understand the situation of Christian students in the East Germany; George
Crespy, of France, who showed the influence of nihilism in western European
Universities; and Bill Stringfellow of USA, who spoke out of personal
experience in the American Army in Europe. The last two walks brought us to
face with the disillusionment and disintegration whish are now features of
western universities.
In an army that was
trained to fight but was only sitting in
As well as these
panel talks, we had four major addresses. Philippe Maury spoke on Evangelism as
the task of the WSCF; Visser't Hooft on "Bound up with the World";
Tsunegro Nara (
60
These ideas and the
task of grappling with student problems worked out in five commissions. The 130
or so members of General Committee were divided up into the following
commissions: Our Pastoral Needs as Students, Our Witness in the Secular Student
World, The Christian Mission and our citizenship in the World, The Place and
Responsibility of the SCM in the University and Our participation in the Church
and the Ecumenical Movement During five sessions each commission discussed its
subject and prepared a document on it. It was here that the major thinking of
General Committee took place as the commissions came to grips with their
subjects and with the diversity of thought, experience and outlook of their
individual members. The discussions were absorbingly interesting and often
exciting. Then came the hard work of trying to formulate a statement, which
adequately summarized the discussion. The completed documents were presented to
the General Committee in a series of plenary sessions. They were criticized
and discussed there (and sometimes sent back for re-drafting) and finally
adopted. These five documents will form the basis for discussion and action in
the Federation during the next three years.
In addition, the
General Committee was also divided into subcommittees: Survey of Movements,
Finance, Publications, and Our task of Theological Education, which worked in a
similar manner to the commissions.
The Chairman was Dr.
Robert Mackie, retiring chairman of the WSCF, whose wit, fairness, insight and
judgment was a major contribution to the success of the meetings. D.T. Niles,
of
There is much more
to be written about Nasrapur, but it will have to wait till a later issue.