International Missionary Council

The International Missionary Council (IMC) was established in 1921, the result of currents in Christianity apparent as far back as the World Missionary Conference held in Edinburgh in 1910. The IMC divided its work between its London office and a New York office, opened in 1924. There was later a Far Eastern office. The IMC linked 14 interdenominational associations of missionary societies, such as the Division of Foreign Missions of the National Council of Churches of Christ, USA, with 16 interdenominational field bodies, such as the National Christian Council of India. The Council served its member bodies through study, consultation and programmes of mutual assistance, addressing issues such as missionary freedom, general and theological education, opium addiction, labour, slavery, racial discrimination, the church in rural and industrial society, home and family life, and literature, and advised local and regional church bodies. Several major international conferences were held, the subjects of which included the message, especially in relation to modern secularism (Jerusalem, 1928); the study of the Christian message in a non-Christian world (Madras, 1938); the relevance of the gospel in a world recovering from war (Whitby, Ontario, 1947); church unity as a condition of effective witness and advance (Willingen, Germany, 1952); and the establishment of a theological education fund (Ghana, 1958). J H Oldham, John R Mott, William Paton and A L Warnhuis were among those instrumental in the Council's work. The IMC became a focus of the emerging ecumenical movement soon after its formation and had a close relationship with the World Council of Churches from 1939, becoming in 1961 the Division of (later Commission on) World Mission and Evangelism of the WCC. The periodical International Review of Missions was produced from 1912. See the biography of the Secretary of the World Missionary Conference of 1910: Keith Clements, Faith on the Frontier: a Life of J H Oldham (1999).