VULNERABLE MISSION

MISSIO DEI 4.1 (FEBRUARY 2013): 89–109
estimated today that there are approximately 14 million people in 180 countries who associate
themselves with the larger Restoration Movement. 6 To be clear, the specific wing
of the tradition that I am associated with—and the tradition dealt with in this article—is
the non-instrumental Church of Christ. Without unpacking the nuances and distinctions
between the various streams of the Restoration movement, it will suffice to point
out that the most distinctive feature of the “Church of Christ” is the lack of instruments
in worship. Thus this specific movement is generally referred to as the a cappella wing
of the Stone-Campbell tradition, or the “non-instrumental Churches of Christ.” As
the Restoration tradition splintered in the late-nineteenth and first half of the twentieth
century, the a cappella group made its mark as the most theologically conservative strand
of the movement, and it still carries that reputation. 7
THE CHURCH OF CHRIST IN INDIA AND THE KJV
The United States has the largest national Church of Christ population with around 1.6
million members. India also has a significant Church of Christ presence with estimates
ranging from 600,000 to over a million. 8 The story of how the Church of Christ tradition
developed in India reflects fascinating cross-cultural dynamics and brings up numerous
issues in missions and the indigenization of faith. The persistent use of the KJV in
India is one of those issues, and is timely considering the 400-year anniversary of the
translation. It is also an area rather unexplored.
It is important to point out that the Church of Christ was never beholden to the King
James Version. Indeed Alexander Campbell edited a translation of the New Testament
called The Living Oracles in 1826. 9 While “extremely popular” in Restoration circles, it was
“severely criticized by other church bodies” during its day. 10 Nevertheless, due largely
to Campbell’s influence, his movement had a very strong “back to the Bible” emphasis.
Restoration scholars were at the vanguard of Bible translation throughout the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries, pressing for the most precise translations using the oldest and
6 For these statistics see Lyndsay Jacobs, “The Stone-Campbell Movement—A Global View,” Leaven: A Journal
of Christian Ministry 17, no. 3 (Third Quarter 2009): 141, http://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/cgi/
viewcontent.cgi?article=1080&context=leaven.
7 It is generally held in the Restoration churches that the 1906 census is when the split into two movements
occurred: the conservative Church of Christ and the more liberal Disciples of Christ. In 1968 the Disciples
of Christ formally split into two movements: the conservative Independent Christian Churches and the more
liberal Disciples of Christ. The 1968 split, however, was the result of a long process that began in the 1920s.
8 For Church of Christ statistics, see Bobby Ross, Jr., “Church in America Marked by Decline,” The Christian
Chronicle 66, no. 2 (February 2009): http://www.christianchronicle.org/article2158685~Church_in_
America_marked_by_decline. See also Olbricht, “Who Are the Churches of Christ?,” http://www.
mun.ca/rels/restmov/who.html. See the country profiles at World Convention, located at http://www.
worldconvention.org/newsite/resources/profiles. A good source for Church of Christ statistics in the
United States is Carl H. Royster, Churches of Christ in the United States: Inclusive of Her Commonwealth and Territories
(Nashville, TN: 21st Century Christian, 2009). For global statistics, see Mac Lynn, Churches of Christ around the
World: Exclusive of the United States and Her Territories (Nashville, TN: 21st Century Christian, 2009).
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9 See Jack P. Lewis, “Bible, Versions and Translations of the,” in The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Move-
ment, 87–88.
10 Lewis, “Bible,” 88.