[9] Archana Venkatesan,[10] Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley in an English version of Nammalwar's A Hundred Measures of Time: Tiruviruttam has referred to a publication of J. S. M. Hooper in 1929 titled Hymns of the Alvars and has devoted a lengthy footnote[11] on the life and times of Hooper, especially the period when he came to India, his contribution to the ecumenical efforts resulting in the formation of the Church of South India and to the Bible Society of India.
Archana also writes that Hooper worked closely with Lesslie Newbigin and V. S. Azariah, both of whom were pioneers in the ecumenical efforts[11] towards the formation of the Church of South India.
A. and M. A. degrees at Corpus Christi College, Oxford,[3] Hooper came to India in 1905 and stayed in Chennai serving as a Pastor of the Wesleyan Methodist Church.
[1] As a Wesleyan, Hooper was involved[12] in the negotiations with the Anglicans and other Protestant congregations towards working forward towards ecumenism[13] which ultimately resulted in the formation of the Church of South India in 1947 at the St. George's Cathedral, Chennai.
Nearly two decades later, the nation's first[24] University, the Senate of Serampore College, West Bengal, conferred a Doctor of Divinity (honoris causa) upon Hooper in 1957.