Early history The first Lutherans to arrive in what is now Malaysia were
Hakka Taiping Rebellion refugees from
China closely linked to
Theodore Hamberg and
Rudolph Lechler of the
Basel Mission Society. While it is not certain when they first arrived in
British North Borneo, there was already a significant Chinese presence at the founding of the town of
Sandakan in 1874. These refugees eventually organised themselves into what is today known as the
Basel Christian Church of Malaysia. The LCM traces its history to the eviction of foreign Christian missionaries from mainland China in 1953 after the establishment of the
People's Republic of China. Some missionaries from the
United Lutheran Church in America were stationed to northern
Malaya and worked among the ethnic Chinese community that were relocated to the
New Villages as part of an attempt to stem the influence of the
Communist Party of Malaya during the
Malayan Emergency.
The Lutheran mission in Malaya In 1952, the
Lutheran World Federation's
Commission on Younger Churches and Orphaned Missions (CYCOM) requested bishop
Johannes Sandegren of the
Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church to convene a joint Lutheran consultative conference to investigate the feasibility of establishing organised Lutheran work among the ethnic Chinese community in the New Villages in Malaya. The meeting was convened as the
First Southeast Asia Lutheran Consultative Conference from the 26th to 29 March 1952 at the Wesley Methodist Church in
Penang. The
Board of Foreign Missions of the United Lutheran Church in America (BFM-ULCA) responded to the decision of the conference by sending Dr. Paul Anspace, a former missionary to China, to conduct a field assessment of Malaya. Missionary work formally began in 1953 with Anspach appointed as the Staff Secretary of the Malayan mission. Apart from missionaries from the BFM-ULCA, the mission was also reinforced by evangelists from
Hong Kong and
China at the suggestion of Dr. Peng Fu, the exiled president of the
Lutheran Church of China. Despite agreeing on organisation and stewardship in general, disagreements arose upon the form of church government for the proposed national church. While the Swedish mission and the Tamil Lutherans was partial to an
episcopal polity, it was not accepted by the representatives of the Administrative Council who felt that the local Chinese Lutherans would not be familiar with that form of government. There were also disagreements on the nature of
apostolic succession as well as the significant differences in the culture, language and origins between the Tamils and Chinese who were ministered by the respective missions, the former consisting mainly of established Tamil Lutheran families while the latter consisted mainly of congregations of young individual Chinese who were first generation Christians. In August 1996 the Singapore District separated from the LCMS and was gazetted as the independent
Lutheran Church in Singapore to reflect the fact that Malaysia and Singapore had been separate countries politically since 1965. LCMS continued to retain the word "Singapore" in its name for legal purposes until 2011 when the Church in Convention agreed to formally change the name back to the
Lutheran Church in Malaysia.
Missions The LCM has seen steady growth over the years with a 10.8% growth in membership recorded in 2006 and also actively supports mission work among the
Senoi and
Jahai people of West Malaysia and overseas mission work in
Kyrgyzstan and
Myanmar (in partnership with the
Myanmar Lutheran Church).
Bombing in Myanmar On 7 May 2005, a series of coordinated bombings occurred in the city of
Yangon,
Myanmar. Eleven people were killed in the attack, and among the 162 people that were injured was a member of the LCMS mission team to Myanmar. ==Beliefs and practices==