a contextual missiology of the spirit - eTheses Repository ...

the ‘South Indian Pentecostal Church of God’ under K.E. Abraham, and formed
‘Malankara Pentecostal Church,’ with Cook as its President and Abraham as vice-
President. 177 However, Cook and SIFGC later joined the CoG (Cleveland, TN) in
1936, two years after Abraham’s separation. The first Pentecostal Bible institutes
were established by western missionaries. Bethel Bible School (later College) was
established by John Burgess and Mt. Zion Bible Institute by Cook. Spencer May
and Mary Chapman together published the first Malayalam Pentecostal magazine,
the Pentecostal Trumpet. 178
Another major contribution of western missionaries was the spreading of the
Pentecostal message among the Dalits. There was a great response by the Dalits to
Pentecostalism when many early ministers began to work among them,
particularly in south India. The best example of this is Kerala, where the
indigenous Pentecostal ministers began to work among the Syrian Christians, but
the American missionaries concentrated on the Dalits. Cook makes this clear
when he says, ‘our main work here is mostly among the low castes, those called
the untouchables or the neglected, such respond readily to the Gospel and become
sincere worshippers of the supernatural. The Lord blesses them abundantly in
spite of their gross ignorance.’ 179 In his research on Pentecostal Dalits in Kerala,
Yesunatha Das argues that Cook’s work among the Dalits and their subsequent
conversion was an essential factor behind the growth of Pentecostalism in
Kerala. 180
177 Abraham, IPC Praaramba Varshangal, 87.
178 McGee and Burgess, ‘India,’ 122.
179 Cook, Half a Century, 27-28.
180 Das, ‘History of Pentecostal Dalits,’ 67, 73-89.
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