Abhilash Chandran By

KOTTAYAM: Chief Secretary Jiji Thomson on Thursday called upon the Church to introspect on its mission. He was delivering the keynote address on the mission of the Church at the valedictory function of the bicentenary celebrations of the Kottayam Orthodox Theological Seminary (Old seminary) here.

He also called for taking up the mission of spreading Christianity and added it was Biblically imperative to bring people unto Jesus.

Thomson, who spoke at a function being attended by Governor Justice P Sathasivam, highlighted the importance of the evangelisation mission.

Thomson began his speech by saying that he was speaking not as a Chief Secretary, but as a son of the Church.

“The ultimate mission of the Church is to spread Christianity and I am thinking of ways to fulfil this mission. There are three ways to achieve this goal, which are Church evangelisation, personal evangelisation and mass evangelisation. While mass evangelisation is being held through Bible conventions, everyone can go on the path of personal evangelisation,” he said, elaborating the term gospel as ‘go’ and ‘spell.’

When Express contacted Thomson over phone and asked whether his speech amounted to evangelisation, he said being a Christian he had the right to speak about Christianity. Replying to a question whether it is proper for him to speak about attracting people to Christianity while holding the Chief Secretary’s post, he said everyone has religious freedom and he could speak about it as a person.

“There is nothing wrong in speaking about Christianity while being a Chief Secretary,” he said.