Bakht Singh and the "indigenous Churches of India": The Formation of an Independent "Indian" Church, the Bakht Singh Assemblies

"The Indigenous Churches of India", popularly known as the "Bakht Singh Movement" or "Bakht Singh Assemblies", were established in India in 1941. The founder of the movement was Bakht Singh Chhabra (1903-2000), who converted to Christianity from Sikhism. The Assemblies came into being within the context of the Indian struggle for freedom, both in the political and in the ecclesiastical arenas. While spirituality occupied the central emphasis in the teaching of the Assemblies, they evolved out of the confluence of the Biblical, cultural, and religious influences that intersected the life of Bakht Singh and the Assemblies. The dissertation situates the Assemblies within the local and global contexts of Christianity and seeks to demonstrate that the Assemblies emerged as an Independent "Indian" Church representing the heterogeneous nature that defines being "lndian". The study analyzes how the pre-Christian elements persisted in the movement, and how various aspects of Indian religiosity, Biblical, and Western Christianity were adopted, rejected, reinterpreted, or revolutionized by the movement. It establishes that the Assemblies were an alternate model to the historic denominational Churches in India in terms of their government and spirituality. They were rooted in the Indian spirituality of experience through personal relationship and devotion to God over against the dogmatic religion that has been imported to India by the Western denominational Churches. The worship pattern and other practices adopted by the Assemblies, which are common in the Indian religious ethos, further demonstrate their Indian character and the incarnation of the Gospel into the Indian soil. Thus, the theology, ecclesiology, and religious culture of the Assemblies represent the Indian nature of Christianity and the Church