The Open Secret by Lesslie Newbigin

Lesslie Newbigin was born in Newcastle-on-Tyne, England, in 1909 and died in 1998. He went to Cambridge for his undergraduate studies and subsequently worked as the Staff Secretary of the Student Christian Association in Glasgow, Scotland. In 1936, he was ordained by the Presbytery of Edinburgh, Church of Scotland, after studying theology at Westminster College in Cambridge. In the same year, Newbigin married Helen Henderson and the two of them set out for India, where he would serve as a Church of Scotland missionary. In 1947, Reverend Newbigin was consecrated Bishop in the Church of South India, which was founded by the combination of Anglican, Methodist, and Reformed congregations. He also served on the World Council of Churches' Central Committee and as Chairman of the Advisory Committee on the Second Assembly's major issue.

Famous theologians such as Barth, Brunner, and Niebuhr were also on the committee. In 1959, Newbigin was appointed General Secretary of the International Missionary Council, which has headquarters in London and New York. He was in charge of seeing the merger with the World Council of Churches through to completion. In 1962, he was named the first director of the World Mission and Evangelism Division and Associate General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, based in Geneva. In 1965, he was recalled by the Church of South India as Bishop in Madras, where he stayed until his retirement in 1974. Until his death in 1998, he resided in London, England.