Bishop James M Thoburn

James Mills Thoburn (March 7, 1836 - November 28, 1922) was a bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church best known for his missionary work in India. Image File history File links Bishop_James_M_Thoburn. ... Image File history File links Bishop_James_M_Thoburn. ... A bishop is an ordained member of the Christian clergy who, in certain Christian churches, holds a position of authority. ... The Methodist Episcopal Church, sometimes referred to as the M.E. Church, officially began at the Baltimore Christmas Conference in 1784. ... Since the Lausanne Congress of 1974, a widely-accepted definition of a Christian mission has been to form a viable indigenous church-planting movement. ...

Thoburn was born in St. Clairsville, OH and graduated from Allegheny College in Meadville, PA in 1857, beginning his Methodist preaching ministry that same year in the Pittsburgh Conference. He was ordained an Elder in 1858. He went to India as a missionary in 1859 and was stationed successively at Nynee Tal, Moradabad, Lucknow, and Calcutta, where he founded the Calcutta Boys' School in 1877. Preaching in both the native and European languages, he built the largest church in India at that time. As presiding Elder of the Indian Conference, he preached for some time at Simla, the summer capital of India, and was for five years editor of the Indian Witness. St. ... Allegheny College is a small private liberal arts college located in Meadville, Pennsylvania located 90 miles north of Pittsburgh and 90 miles east of Cleveland. ... Meadville is a city located in Crawford County, Pennsylvania, USA. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 13,685. ... Holy Orders in the modern Roman Catholic Church and in the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Anglican, Assyrian, Old Catholic, and Independent Catholic Churches, includes three degrees: bishop, priest, and deacon. ... A religious elder (in Greek, πρεσβυτερος [presbyteros]) is valued for his or her wisdom, in part for their age, by the logic that the older one is then the more one is likely to know. ... Established by men of vision and high ideals, the Calcutta Boys School was intended to serve a definite purpose in the interests of the Christian cause in India. ...

After an accident, he returned to the United States in 1886. At the 1888 Methodist Episcopal General Conference, held in New York City, he was elected missionary bishop of India and Malaysia. He published the book My Missionary Apprenticeship in 1884, a history of twenty-five years in India, and a collection entitled Missionary Sermons in 1888. Other works included The Deaconess and her Vocation (1893), Christless Nations (1894), The Church of Pentecost (1899), Life of Isabella Thoburn (1903), The Christian Conquest of India (1906), India and Southern Asia (1907), and God's Heroes Our Examples (1914).

Thoburn retired in 1908 to Meadville. He died in 1922.

Reference

Methodism: Ohio Area (1812-1962), edited by John M. Versteeg, Litt.D., D.D. (Ohio Area Sesquicentennial Committee, 1962)

See also

List of United Methodist Bishops United Methodist Bishops in order of Election. ...