Mona Hensman: An Indian Woman at the World Missionary Conference in Tambaram (1938)

Abstract

ABSTRACT The World Missionary Conference in Tambaram 1938 is one of the most important ecumenical conferences. It was the first such meeting that took place in India (at the Madras Christian College). Representatives of the so-called younger churches made up the majority of the 471 delegates. Although a number of publications analyzed “Tambaram,” most of them did not focus on the experiences of these participants from the global South. This article will introduce Mona Hensman, one of the seventy female delegates and a member of the Indian delegation. Originally from Bengal, she was an Anglican, but her family background was transconfessional. Hensman became involved in feminist as well as in Christian organizations and brought her ideas and visions to the Tambaram conference. The concrete outcome of this meeting did not live up to her expectations, but many fundamental questions discussed there for the first time later became critically important for the ecumenical movement.