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was through an evangelical spiritual experience as a first-year college student in Trivandrum in
It
that Jesus Christ became real to me as the bearer of divine forgiveness and gave my life,
1931-32
to adolescent urges, a principle of integration and a sense of direction. It led me to take
awakened
three Christian youth fellowships then active among students:
seriously
an informal fellowship group helping students to find new life in Christ,
(1)
the Youth Union, which was part of the Mar Thoma Church congregation, and
(2)
the parish Youth Union I became devoted to the church; and besides availing myself of its
Through
and sacramental resources, I joined a youth team in regular visits to a locality of low-caste
liturgical
residences to preach Christ to them, and during the vacationsI joined a student group visiting
Hindu
Mar Thoma parishes to share Christ with young people.
the
Student Christian Movement under the leadership of K. A. Mathew, through its Bible studies and
The
on inter-church relations and current national issues, and through student surveys of slum
discussions
and organizing games and literacy work among the street boys, was seeking to bring
conditions
an awareness of the ecumenical and social implications of the gospel. The emphasis in my
students
at that period was personal devotional life and personal evangelism. I remember that for a long
life
Thomas a Kempis' Imitation of Christ was the basis of my daily self-examination; and books like
time
Weatherhead's Transforming Friendship, Brother Lawrence's Practice of the Presence of God,
Leslie
Alan H. McNeile's Self-Training in Meditation were resources for building my spirituality. The book
and
Hyde by Basil Miller impressed me so much that after my graduation in 1935 I organized the
Praying
informal fellowship of friends into an Interceding Fellowship and made my own
Trivandrum
1935 I joined the Mar Thoma Church Ashram at Perumpavoor. There I was part-time teacher in the
In
and part-time engaged in organizing evangelistic activities of the ashram in the neighboring
school
I remember organizing an evangelistic team to a rubber estate to conduct evangelistic
parishes.
for the workers, and coming away with the feeling that the gospel of salvation we preached
meetings
not have much relevance to the oppressive conditions of work and housing in which the estate
did
lived. It raised many questions for me. This was also the time when my friend M. A. Thomas
workers
begun work as secretary of the Inter-Religious Student Fellowship. It opened for me contacts with
had
and non-student leaders of Hinduism and Islam and with their religious experiences. Debates
students
All-Kerala Conference to which Mahatma Gandhi sent a message asking that "all religions
The
be treated with equal respect" and warning that if there are "mental reservations there will
represented
no heart-fellowship" remains in memory. The "Aim and Basis" of the Inter-Religious Student
be
created a lot of discussion. Gandhian nonviolence also raised the social implications of
Fellowship
and the meaning of the cross for politics. M. A. Thomas and I spent hours together in
religion
about the truth and meaning of Christ in the inter-religious setting.
discussion
I
(3) the interdenominational Student Christian Movement.
intercessions elaborate and systematic.
on interfaith relations were lively in the meetings of the fellowship.