2nd Assembly: Kuala Lumpur, 1959

“‘Therefore ye are my witnesses,’ said the Lord”: these words from Isaiah formed the text for the concluding sermon preached by Rev. Frank Short at Prapat in 1957, as the delegates of the first Assembly dispersed to their home churches after adopting a plan to propose the establishment of a regional body to be called the East Asia Christian Conference as ‘an organ of continuing fellowship and cooperation among the churches and Christian councils in East Asia’. Pursuing this call to mission and unity, the 2nd Assembly of the EACC met under the theme ‘Witnesses Together’ and reaffirmed their utter dependence on Christ, to whom they witnessed, and their inescapable need for one another as members of their one Lord’s body.

Different sessions dealt with the Church’s call to Mission, to Unity, and to Service. The speakers dealt with the different pathways of action within the ecumenical and missionary movements as ways of obedience to this call. They sought also to understand the implications of this call for the churches of Asia, and to show the relation of the same to the development of self-hood. Background addresses also touched upon the themes of a new understanding of the world, a Christian interpretation of the development of nationalism in Asia, the resurgence of ancient religions, and the Church’s mission in Asia in terms of the new forms of church interdependence.

Delegates discussed in groups programme areas in relation to witness of the laity, inter-church aid in Asia, Christian literature and mass communication, and the nurture of youth through biblical and theological education.

Ending the Assembly, Dr D.T. Niles spoke of the good news in Christ in terms that the ordinary man-in-the-street could appreciate and understand, and related how at times the Church’s theological affirmations required simplification for getting the basic message across to the ordinary person.

The Kuala Lumpur Assembly sent a special message to its member churches and councils, a portion of which reads:

“...Christian people must go into every part of the life of our peoples, into politics, into social and national service, into the world of art and culture, to work in real partnership with non-Christians, and to be witnesses for Christ in all these realism. It means that every Christian must recognise that his primary service to God is the daily work he does in the secular world. It means that we must give our minds to the task of understanding what God is doing in this world, so that Christians engaged in these secular tasks may have guidance and help in the decisions they have to make, and so that the Churches may be ready, when necessary, to speak a prophetic word of warning and encouragement to those in authority and to the peoples.”