Churches in India Divided over Federal Vision

Remunda, India - For over 10 years pastor Isia Cinjam has led a small flock of Christian believers in the little Indian village of Remunda. He became a believer almost 20 years ago when he encountered Australian missionaries in his home city of New Delhi. After working in the church there for several years he felt a strong calling to take the gospel to some of the unreached peoples in his country. So moved to the small, remote village of Remunda in India's east, not far from the coastline of the Indian Ocean. For about 5 years he lived among the people, every day sharing with them the good news of the gospel.

"One by one God opened hearts," Cinjam told TBNN. "I labored for so long with no results and then suddenly one day people began to show up at my house asking me about the gospel, asking me about Jesus. People wanted to become Christians!"

Almost overnight Cinjam's church began to grow until he had 30 converts regularly coming to services and being discipled. For the last 10 years he has seen members come and go, but a steady flow of new converts has kept him encouraged. But recently, a controversy has arisen within his church that now threatens to divide his small congregation.

"A new pastor named Aakash Chatura moved to Remunda about two years ago to start a work here," said Cinjam. "At first, I had no problem with this. There are many many lost people here who need the gospel, and I cannot do all of the work myself. I tried to work with him, and at first our relationship was good, but then I began to notice some of my people leaving our congregation and going to work with this other man. Soon they began to tell me strange things about baptism and communion."

It was not long before Cinjam became acquainted with a doctrinal system he had never heard of before known as the "Federal Vision." Cinjam is now concerned because the new teachings threaten to divide his church and the Christian believers in the village.

"We don't get anything productive done anymore it seems" said Cinjam. "Every time we get together for Bible study an argument starts about paedo-communion or the efficacy of the sacraments. Just the other day two of our brothers Narendra and Parmeet spent two hours arguing about the inner-trinitarian covenant and the visible and invisible church. When it was all over Narendra was accusing Parmeet of being a sacerdotalist! It really got ugly."

For now Cinjam does not know what he is going to do exactly.

"I'm trying to maintain peace amongst my people and keep my small church together, but it's getting harder and harder. Pastor Chatura keeps giving my people all of these strange books, and the latest is some book by a guy named N.T Wright about Paul. I just pray for wisdom in these matter."