Tertiary Students Christian Fellowship
Encyclopedia
Tertiary Students Christian Fellowship is a New Zealand
evangelical
Christian
student movement with affiliate groups on most university
campuses, as well as some polytechnics and other tertiary institutions. It is a founding member of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students
. With a firm commitment to evangelism and mission, the four principles which guide the TSCF ethos are undivided life, deep thought, global reach and true witness. TSCF partners with approximately 2000 supporters, 1000 students and 27 staff members.
Chairman John Mott
travelled the world to inspire and establish the formation of university groups with a vision of ‘The evangelisation of the world in this generation’. One of the groups established was the Australasian Student Christian Union (ASCU), which, was formed at a conference held at Ormond College, Melbourne University, on 6 June 1896. The ASCU covered both Australia and New Zealand until a New Zealand Student Christian Movement was established in 1921, and had branches in numerous universities and colleges throughout the country.
roots, in the work and examples of early pioneers such as Dwight L. Moody
, Hudson Taylor
, Sholto Douglas, Handley Moule
, the “Cambridge Seven
”, Robert Wilder, and its close connection with the Keswick Convention
. However, as the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy
began to gain profile in the late 1890s and early 1900s tensions began to arise. English
General Secretary Tissington Tatlow was sympathetic to the ideal of an inclusive student movement, and this put him and the movement increasingly at odds with evangelical members, particularly at the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union
(CICCU). In 1909 CICCU withdrew from the movement, and was subsequently followed by a number of other university groups.
These same tensions were manifest in the New Zealand movement, with a number of members concerned by the advancement of the modernist cause. One such member was William H. Pettit
(1885-1985). Pettit came into contact with the movement while attending Nelson College
, and subsequently the University of Otago
from 1904-1908. The preaching of Mott inspired he and his wife to serve as medical missionaries to Bangladesh
for five years. Upon returning he continued his involvement with SCM, but in 1927 established a separate Bible study group which became known as the Auckland College Student Bible League. New Zealand historian Peter Lineham suggests links between Pettit’s ‘Bible League’ and the ‘League of Students’ formed by American fundamentalist leader John Gresham Machen
.
, who developed the network of the union with of other evangelical student groups, and formalized this as the Inter-Varsity Fellowship (IVF) in 1928. WEC
General Secretary Norman Grubb
challenged Mowll and his team to help other evangelical student groups across the globe, with the aim of establishing an evangelical witness in every university. Howard Guinness was sent out for this task, visiting Australia
in 1929 and 1930. His second visit resulted in the establishment of evangelical unions in Melbourne
, Brisbane
and Hobart
.
At the invitation of Pettit, Guinness arrived in New Zealand on 22 September 1930. He visited schools and all four University centres (Auckland
, Wellington
, Christchurch
and Dunedin
), and his visit resulted in the formation of the Crusader Union of New Zealand. Pettit was the founding chairman of this union, and Auckland Baptist Tabernacle
minister Joseph Kemp
was Vice-President. The crusader movement set in motion a burgeoning evangelical student ministry in New Zealand, and created the momentum that in 1936 resulted in the formation of the Inter-Varsity Fellowship of Evangelical Unions (NZ).
. In 1965 Overseas Christian Fellowship (OCF) began at the University of Otago, and the OCF movement quickly spread to the other New Zealand campuses. IVF changed its name to Tertiary Students Christian Fellowship in 1973.
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
evangelical
Evangelicalism
Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...
Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
student movement with affiliate groups on most university
University
A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
campuses, as well as some polytechnics and other tertiary institutions. It is a founding member of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students
International Fellowship of Evangelical Students
The International Fellowship of Evangelical Students is an association of about 136 evangelical Christian student movements worldwide, encouraging evangelism, discipleship and mission among students. The goal of the organisation is to establish local autonomous student movements in every country...
. With a firm commitment to evangelism and mission, the four principles which guide the TSCF ethos are undivided life, deep thought, global reach and true witness. TSCF partners with approximately 2000 supporters, 1000 students and 27 staff members.
Student Christian Movement
Between 1895 and 1897 SCMWorld Student Christian Federation
The World Student Christian Federation is a federation of autonomous national Student Christian Movements forming the youth and student arm of the global ecumenical movement...
Chairman John Mott
John Mott
John Raleigh Mott was a long-serving leader of the YMCA and the World Student Christian Federation...
travelled the world to inspire and establish the formation of university groups with a vision of ‘The evangelisation of the world in this generation’. One of the groups established was the Australasian Student Christian Union (ASCU), which, was formed at a conference held at Ormond College, Melbourne University, on 6 June 1896. The ASCU covered both Australia and New Zealand until a New Zealand Student Christian Movement was established in 1921, and had branches in numerous universities and colleges throughout the country.
Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy
The Student Christian Movement had evangelicalEvangelicalism
Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...
roots, in the work and examples of early pioneers such as Dwight L. Moody
Dwight L. Moody
Dwight Lyman Moody , also known as D.L. Moody, was an American evangelist and publisher who founded the Moody Church, Northfield School and Mount Hermon School in Massachusetts , the Moody Bible Institute and Moody Publishers.-Early life:Dwight Moody was born in Northfield, Massachusetts to a large...
, Hudson Taylor
Hudson Taylor
James Hudson Taylor , was a British Protestant Christian missionary to China, and founder of the China Inland Mission . Taylor spent 51 years in China...
, Sholto Douglas, Handley Moule
Handley Moule
Handley Carr Glyn Moule was an evangelical Anglican theologian, writer, poet, and Bishop of Durham from 1901-1920....
, the “Cambridge Seven
Cambridge Seven
The Cambridge Seven were seven students from Cambridge University, who in 1885, decided to become missionaries in China; the seven were:*Charles Thomas Studd*Montagu Harry Proctor Beauchamp*Stanley P. Smith*Arthur T. Polhill-Turner*Dixon Edward Hoste...
”, Robert Wilder, and its close connection with the Keswick Convention
Keswick Convention
The Keswick Convention is an annual gathering of evangelical Christians in Keswick, in the English county of Cumbria.- History :The Keswick Convention began in 1875 as a catalyst and focal point for the emerging Higher Life movement in the United Kingdom. It was founded by an Anglican, Canon T. D....
. However, as the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy
Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy
The Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy was a religious controversy in the 1920s and 30s within the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America that later created divisions in most American Christian denominations as well. The major American denomination was torn by conflict over the...
began to gain profile in the late 1890s and early 1900s tensions began to arise. English
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
General Secretary Tissington Tatlow was sympathetic to the ideal of an inclusive student movement, and this put him and the movement increasingly at odds with evangelical members, particularly at the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union
Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union
The Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union, usually known as CICCU, was the first university Christian Union and is the University of Cambridge's most prominent student Christian organisation. It was formed in 1877, but can trace its origins back to the formation of the Jesus Lane Sunday...
(CICCU). In 1909 CICCU withdrew from the movement, and was subsequently followed by a number of other university groups.
These same tensions were manifest in the New Zealand movement, with a number of members concerned by the advancement of the modernist cause. One such member was William H. Pettit
William H. Pettit
William Haddow Pettit was a Christian missionary to Bangladesh with the New Zealand Baptist Missionary Society from 1910-1915, and a leader of the fundamentalist/evangelical movement in New Zealand in the 1920s and 1930s...
(1885-1985). Pettit came into contact with the movement while attending Nelson College
Nelson College
Nelson College is a boys-only state secondary school in Nelson, New Zealand. It teaches from years 9 to 13. In addition, it runs a private Preparatory School for year 7 and 8 boys...
, and subsequently the University of Otago
University of Otago
The University of Otago in Dunedin is New Zealand's oldest university with over 22,000 students enrolled during 2010.The university has New Zealand's highest average research quality and in New Zealand is second only to the University of Auckland in the number of A rated academic researchers it...
from 1904-1908. The preaching of Mott inspired he and his wife to serve as medical missionaries to Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
for five years. Upon returning he continued his involvement with SCM, but in 1927 established a separate Bible study group which became known as the Auckland College Student Bible League. New Zealand historian Peter Lineham suggests links between Pettit’s ‘Bible League’ and the ‘League of Students’ formed by American fundamentalist leader John Gresham Machen
John Gresham Machen
John Gresham Machen was an American Presbyterian theologian in the early 20th century. He was the Professor of New Testament at Princeton Seminary between 1915 and 1929, and led a conservative revolt against modernist theology at Princeton and formed Westminster Theological Seminary as a more...
.
Inter-Varsity Fellowship
During the 1920s CICCU came under the leadership of Howard MowllHoward Mowll
Howard West Kilvinton Mowll was the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney from 1933 until his death in 1958.Howard Mowll was born in Dover and attended Dover College until 1903 and later matriculated at the King's School, Canterbury....
, who developed the network of the union with of other evangelical student groups, and formalized this as the Inter-Varsity Fellowship (IVF) in 1928. WEC
WEC International
WEC International is a mission agency which focuses on church planting, and emphasises the importance of shared life in a local church as a vital expression of Christian life...
General Secretary Norman Grubb
Norman Grubb
Norman Percy Grubb was a missionary statesman, writer and theological teacher.- Early life :Grubb was born in London, the son of an Anglican vicar. He was educated at an English Public School before joining the British Army as a lieutenant in World War I. After the war, in which he was wounded in...
challenged Mowll and his team to help other evangelical student groups across the globe, with the aim of establishing an evangelical witness in every university. Howard Guinness was sent out for this task, visiting Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
in 1929 and 1930. His second visit resulted in the establishment of evangelical unions in Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
and Hobart
Hobart
Hobart is the state capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Founded in 1804 as a penal colony,Hobart is Australia's second oldest capital city after Sydney. In 2009, the city had a greater area population of approximately 212,019. A resident of Hobart is known as...
.
At the invitation of Pettit, Guinness arrived in New Zealand on 22 September 1930. He visited schools and all four University centres (Auckland
Auckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...
, Wellington
Wellington
Wellington is the capital city and third most populous urban area of New Zealand, although it is likely to have surpassed Christchurch due to the exodus following the Canterbury Earthquake. It is at the southwestern tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Rimutaka Range...
, Christchurch
Christchurch
Christchurch is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the country's second-largest urban area after Auckland. It lies one third of the way down the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula which itself, since 2006, lies within the formal limits of...
and Dunedin
Dunedin
Dunedin is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the principal city of the Otago Region. It is considered to be one of the four main urban centres of New Zealand for historic, cultural, and geographic reasons. Dunedin was the largest city by territorial land area until...
), and his visit resulted in the formation of the Crusader Union of New Zealand. Pettit was the founding chairman of this union, and Auckland Baptist Tabernacle
Auckland Baptist Tabernacle
The Auckland Baptist Tabernacle is a heritage-listed church located near the corner of Queen Street and Karangahape Road, at the edge of Auckland central business district in New Zealand.-History:...
minister Joseph Kemp
Joseph Kemp
Joseph William Kemp was a Baptist minister and preacher, a revivalist, and a leader of the Christian fundamentalist movement in New Zealand...
was Vice-President. The crusader movement set in motion a burgeoning evangelical student ministry in New Zealand, and created the momentum that in 1936 resulted in the formation of the Inter-Varsity Fellowship of Evangelical Unions (NZ).
The Fellowship
In 1947 IVF New Zealand joined with ten other national movements to form the International Fellowship of Evangelical StudentsInternational Fellowship of Evangelical Students
The International Fellowship of Evangelical Students is an association of about 136 evangelical Christian student movements worldwide, encouraging evangelism, discipleship and mission among students. The goal of the organisation is to establish local autonomous student movements in every country...
. In 1965 Overseas Christian Fellowship (OCF) began at the University of Otago, and the OCF movement quickly spread to the other New Zealand campuses. IVF changed its name to Tertiary Students Christian Fellowship in 1973.