Baptists in Nepal

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There is evidence of Baptists in Nepal since 1962. Most Nepalese Baptists are grouped together in the Nepal Baptist Church Council . There are also a small number of so-called Free Baptists , including the Original Free Will Baptists .

history

Development aid, which the United Mission to Nepal (UMN) provided from 1951 at the request of the then king, is part of the Baptist prehistory in Nepal . The aid organization, in which the Baptist World Federation worked with seven other churches, was only allowed to work in the areas of social work, medical care and school education. It was strictly forbidden for the denominations involved to preach or even evangelize in the Hindu country . Despite adverse circumstances, a non-denominational evangelical church, the Christ of Christ in Nepal , was established in 1966 as a result of the UMN effectiveness . Various Baptist missions also took part in its construction.

The actual beginnings of the Baptist mission go back to 1962. A nurse in the service of the Baptist Missionary Society (BMS) became a UMN medical worker and an official BMS missionary six years later. In 1983 the Southern Baptists sent a missionary couple to Nepal. Their place of work was the UMN hospital in Tansen . In 1989 many Nepalese returned to their ancestral home from the Indian state of Nagaland . Among them were many politically persecuted, especially communists , who had found refuge in India. Some of them had met Baptists there and became Christians. Upon their return, they immediately began evangelizing and planting Baptist churches among their compatriots. Just three years later, seven congregations formed the Nepal Baptist Church Council (NBCC). On April 11, 1993, when the NBCC had grown to eight congregations with around 250 members baptized as believers , an application was made to join the Baptist World Federation . Denton Lotz (1939–2019), then General Secretary of the Baptist World Federation, and Edwin Lopez and Bonny Resu as representatives of the Asian Baptist Federation led the negotiations, which were only successful after a short time.

The growth of the Nepalese Baptist Union continues: in 1995 there were already 40 local congregations with around 5000 members who belonged to the NBCC. In 2017 there were 248 local congregations with a total of around 19,000 members. In April 2018, after participating in the celebrations on the occasion of the 25th anniversary, Lotz was able to report on 192 local ordained Baptist pastors and on the establishment of a theological training center with 48 students at the time. Today almost only indigenous Baptist missionaries work in Nepal. Among them are also retired pastors who use their retirement for extensive missionary trips within the country.

Web links

literature

  • William H. Brackney: Historical Dictionary of the Baptists. Volume 25 in the Historical Dictionaries of Religions, Philosophies, and Movements series. The Scarecrow Press, Inc .: Lanham, Maryland, and London 1999, ISBN 0-8108-3652-1 , p. 302 ( Nepal article ).
  • Albert W. Wardin (Ed.): Baptists around the World. A Comprehensive Handbook. Broadman & HoHolman Publishers: Nashville / Tennessee (USA) 1995, ISBN 0-8054-1076-7 . P. 143 f. (Article: Nepal [1989]. )
  • Brian Stanley: The History of the Baptist Missionary Society (1792-1992). T&T Clark: Edinburgh 1992. pp. 434-438.
  • Michael Chute: Nepal. No Christian Shangri-La. In: Commission magazine . June / July 1991. pp. 48-79.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Denton Lotz : The Triumph of Grace in the Life of Baptists of Nepal. ( BWAnet.org April 11, 2018), accessed November 16, 2019.
  2. ^ Albert W. Wardin (Ed.): Baptists around the World. A Comprehensive Handbook. Broadman & HoHolman Publishers: Nashville / Tennessee (USA) 1995. p. 143.
  3. ^ Albert W. Wardin (Ed.): Baptists around the World. A Comprehensive Handbook. Broadman & HoHolman Publishers: Nashville / Tennessee (USA) 1995. pp. 143 f.
  4. ^ William H. Brackney: Historical Dictionary of the Baptists. Volume 25 in the Historical Dictionaries of Religions, Philosophies, and Movements series. The Scarecrow Press, Inc .: Lanham, Maryland, and London 1999. p. 302.
  5. ↑ BWAnet.org: Statistics ; accessed on November 16, 2019