Theology of World Missions - Lesson 19
Lausanne Conference
You explore the tension between evangelism and social responsibility within the evangelical community, highlighting key figures and their differing stances. Historical efforts, such as the Lausanne Congress, aimed to balance these elements. Notable contributions from leaders like Billy Graham emphasize the need for a clear evangelical voice and unity in world evangelization, reflecting on the importance of both proclamation and socio-political involvement in the mission of the church.
Lausanne Conference
1. Consultation on Relationship between Evangelism and Social Responsibility (CRESR)
2. Lausanne conference documents
3. Congress of World Missions, Edinburgh Scotland, 1910
4. Lausanne Conference for World Evangelization 1974
5. Goals of the Lausanne Conference
6. Results of the Lausanne Conference
7. Objectives written by the Lausanne committee for world evangelization
Theology of World Missions
Dr. Peter Kuzmič
wm602-19
Lausanne Conference
Lesson Transcript
I went to look for the book. It's Arthur Johnston, The Battle for World Evangelization. Since you wanted out, find out who the guy was that they are to question John's thoughts. Theological integrity. I'll pass it around if you want to. If some of you want to have a look at it. Okay. So we are talking about Crestor as an attempt to bring the left and the right of the evangelical world together. I had a very interesting experience. We were seated in a circle like this. The president of the Reformed Bible College in Grand Rapids had the special roundtable made for us. But we were seated alphabetically. And so there was Jay Johnston. And there was Kay, and that happened to me. I was the only kid there. And there was L Lin Zell. And Arthur Johnston was here and Hal Lindsay was here and I was in between. And on the wording, if you study the document, we would vote. And I happened to vote consistently with John Start and Ron side there and Samuel Escobar and these guys and Johnston and Lynn Zell who were the evangelical right here. You know, proclamation alone proclamation first socio political should not is not part of it and so on. There are more on this side of against culture, or at least the paradox and was embarrassing. And we were meeting for almost two weeks. I mean we we really all the papers by the way, the papers have been published in the book in word and deed in word and deed edited by Bruce Nichols. I have a paper I did on eschatology and ethics. It's a very good collection published by Baker in this Country and Paternoster in England. And all the papers have been sent in advance for months in advance.
Everybody studied that paper. David Bosch had a paper on the side that had the paper, so on. John Start was a most gracious and wise chairman of this whole thing. And so we did not read papers, but we responded to each other and then we would discuss issues and we were looking for an evangelical consensus and where you couldn't find a consensus, we had an agreement that we would vote on the wording. Here I am, considerably younger. It doesn't appear to you because this is but I am considerably younger of Johnston and Lindsay. As a matter of fact, Lindsay died three years ago and Johnston is in his seventies. And yet I found myself voting every time different than they did. At that time I was just a foreigner, you know, this younger East European and was a little embarrassing at times. And then Harold and Zal, great men, one day pulls out a book from his bag. And says, This is for you, Doctor Cosmic, please study it carefully. And it was Bible and capitalism. No, no, no, no. Biblical defense of capitalism. Yeah no no and a very interesting and because he thought I because I came from the socialist world that maybe I was too sympathetic with these leftist leaning. You know, evangelicals who took sociopolitical involvement, social responsibility seriously. And that reminded me of another Lausanne gathering where somebody warned me of Ron Sider and said, don't associate with him. Don't you know he's a socialist? And I said, What do you mean? Ron Sider, a socialist? I come from the socialist world. I know who socialists are down me. Give me some evidence. Have you read his book on the poor? And I will not name the gentleman, but we got a very interesting debate and it came that if you have a concern for the poor in America, you are a socialist.
That's a distortion. Doesn't Jesus have a concern for the poor? Don't the prophets say a lot about it? And if you have a concern for the poor, that does not mean that you don't have a concern for evangelism. So the thing was how to relate the to evangelism. Article four in Lausanne. Covenant and Social Responsibility. Article five. So please read the Christian document. And you will find out there are metaphors there. I remember John stopped going coining one or two of them. One was that evangelism and social responsibility were like the two wings of the same bird. And if the mission of Jesus Christ is to fly successfully in our world of injustice and poverty and so on, it should not be just proclamation evangelism by proclamation, because people have not only ears to hear what we say, not only souls which they register, which we register for, have in their bodies that need to be provided for, etc.. Or another metaphor is that they are two blades of the same scissor. Can you see that picture? And then a couple of other attempts to relate Article four and Article five of the Lausanne Covenant. Now back to Lausanne. And we are doing this for the last hour or so in a summary form. I will distribute. We will not have time to discuss. I will distribute to you two other documents. They come from Hans Kung himself. And help you understand the David Bosch grid better. I'm doing this because a couple of you have asked me if I could provide some material that would help simplify somehow. David Bosch. You see, David Bosch builds on Hans King with this paradigm. Hans Kung takes it from home, whereas Hans King borrowed the idea of paradigms.
For Thomas KUHN, exactly how to run the scientific world. Paradigm shifts. And so you move here chronologically. From the first century down to the 20th. And you move here in diagonally through the paradigms from the early Christian apocalyptic paradigm through early Christian early church Hellenic paradigm. Those of you who were with us, with me in and Holy Cross two weekends ago will remember a little bit of a discussion. Medieval Roman Catholic paradigm, born to the Protestant Reformation of Paradigm and then the Enlightenment paradigm. And you move on toward some kind of a contemporary ecumenical paradigm. The question asked here, the question that continues to be asked needs to be asked is whether this will be some kind of a postmodern paradigm. And this is where I part ways with Hans King, definitely because I think in more recent studies of other religions and looking for a new global ethics. And although it's noble, what he does and what he states that there will be no peace in the world unless there is peace between world religions. There is a lot to it. September 11 has reminded us of that. But I think he's a little naive. One should not say little to romantic thinking that you can build a kind of a new synthesis and create a peace. So everybody keeps that identity and loves the other one. That is just it doesn't go with a human nature. It doesn't go with the role of religion, especially abuse of religion for political purposes, especially when territorial claims come in and economic concerns like who controls the oil fields, etc., etc.. But it's a very helpful way of interpreting history. Now back to our more important evangelical matters here. What happened in 1910 in Edinburgh, Scotland? What happened in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1910.
Come on, you guys. Not John, not you. You're Scottish. You. That's in your blood. I'm asking the Americans here. Because if you're not answering this question, I will come to the hopefully wrong impression that you haven't carefully read the materials. Mission Great Congress on World Evangelization. The slogan World Evangelization in our generation came out of that. Can you remember at least one of the leading figures? Who was the leader of the student volunteer movement. That genius. Yes. John Mott. M. O. T. John Mutt, truly a genius, mobilizer organizer of Edinburgh, 1910 and so many other events. Out of 1910 came an agency called International Council. It has gone through some phases and refinements of the name. The National Council for World Missions. Which was later incorporated into the World Council of Churches when Faith and Order developed. And here you had the Missions International Council that came out of Edinburgh 1910, and they together came into this new organization, actually International Council of a joint later World Council of Churches. The ecumenical concern was a very legitimate one at the beginning because you had that in 1910 and other international gatherings, missionaries coming back and say, we are a stumbling block, we Christians. As we try to evangelize the nations of the world. Because we are divided. Because we are planting our own denominations, we are confusing the nationals. If Christ is one, why does he have so many different bodies that claim to represent him? Why don't they get along with each other? So the quest for the unity was a legitimate Congress that came out of missions. What developed later with the World Council of Churches, especially from the sixties on, when you had the 1968 Uppsala General Assembly, where secularization was on the top of the agenda and whether liberation, political liberation almost replaced salvation, the biblical teaching of salvation.
So the problem for the last of the evangelistic zeal that marked the Edinburgh 1910 conference is in three areas. One was the loss of the authority, of the message of the gospel. Which basically means no view of scripture. If you don't have a strong view of Scripture as God's Word are reliable, trustworthy, giving you the message and the mandate. You lose the evangelistic and the missionary impact and motivation. So the first reason for the crisis is the loss of the trust in scriptures. The second one is preoccupation with social and political problems. And that's why Article four and Article five of the UN covenant have to be kept together. That's why we produced Craster document on the relationship between evangelism and social responsibility. Because you had too many in the Protestant world. That have emphasized the social and political at the expense of evangelism, at the expense of proclamation. And so you have evangelistic activities diminishing. And socio political involvement increasing. And that is your liberal temptation. And that leads you in our earlier scheme of things to the left. But you lose your identity because your message is not clear. So you don't confront the world. You don't challenge them to repent and come to salvation. You kind of accommodate. Now, this is the fear that Arthur Johnston expresses because he knows the history. In the book that is being passed around about a battle for world evangelization. And he is right in warning of the danger. He's just not right in accusing John start for the drowning evangelism. Because Johnston was not dethroning, he was just saying, Hey, there is evangelism and there is responsibility we have for our world in which we live. And our God is not concerned with just saving souls for heaven or God is concerned with all reality, including feeding the hungry, clouding the naked and helping the oppressed.
And isn't that what Jesus says in Look For in his Nasrec manifesto? Why He came? And that takes us back also to my first lecture where I said that we have the Great Commission and the Great Compassion chapters, or John Start, if you will remember reading his book, speaks about the Great Commission and the great commandment call evangelize, but also love your neighbor. Now the third reason for the crisis of evangelism in the ecumenical world, in the Christian world, was the enormous preoccupation with organizational unity as out of the missionary concern for the unity of the Christian church came a search for organizational unity. That led them to faith and order and then to WCC and so on, or to National Council of Churches in this country and so on. A lot of energy and then a lot of money was spent on these new institutions, on the new bureaucracies that were expressive of Christian unity. There were some very interesting, and in my opinion, more successful unity attempts. Say in India, you have the Church of South India. Were Anglicans, Presbyterians, Methodists came together and they created one judge. And they simply call it the Church of South India. And you had other items. We don't have time to dwell with that. Now, if that is the crisis, why was and Lausanne was called. 1974 Lausanne, which by the way, was preceded by 1966 Berlin Congress. I remember reading on World Evangelization, but Lausanne really was a turning point because of its tremendously comprehensive platform and because of its because of the covenant almost balanced document. And Lausanne then basically came. And by the way, this is where we have to give credit where credit is due. And that's Billy Graham, the honorary chairman of our board, who was active chairman until a few years ago.
Billy Graham was this great visionary because of his experience in evangelization, where he would always ask for representatives of all churches to sit on the platform where he would never doubt people leave your church, those who came to make decisions but send them back to their churches, which aggravated many of the fundamentalists he would have. Even the Roman Catholic bishops sit on the platform and Episcopalian leaders and so on, regardless of where that theological persuasion was, because he had a great concern for the unity, because he had a great concern for evangelism. But Billy Graham. Calling together evangelicals. He asked in his plenary first address at Lausanne Congress that the following five biblical concepts essential to evangelism be reaffirmed. Okay. And here we have the five biblical concepts as spelled out in that programmatic address. That's in response to the crisis. This is the ABC of World Evangelization. First the authority of Scripture. Article number two. This is a well-balanced document. It starts with the purpose of God is Article one. Article number two is the authority and power of the Bible. Let me read this deal. Affirm the divine inspiration, truthfulness and authority of both Old and New Testament Scriptures in their entirety as the only written Word of God without error. In all that it affirms and the only infallible rule of faith and practice. In some ways, here, without error and then infallible, it brings together the British and the North American evangelical emphasis. If you have studied the doctrine of Scriptures and know the controversies on we Go, we also affirm the power of God's Word to accomplish his purpose of salvation. The message of the Bible is addressed to all men and women. For God's revelation in Christ and in Scripture is unchangeable.
Through it, the Holy Spirit still speaks today. He illuminates the minds of God's people in every culture to perceive as truth, freshly through their own eyes, and thus discloses to the whole church ever more of the many colored wisdom of God. Okay, the authority of Scripture. Number two. The last is of human beings apart from Jesus Christ. And that conviction was lost in the evangelical camp. So the lost were lost. And evangelism was unnecessary. Number three, that salvation is in Jesus Christ alone. Here we have the uniqueness of Christ's implied high Christology. As well as the exclusive Salvatori provision through Christ in Christ because of the cross and the Resurrection Gate, which is the crucial Christ event that makes salvation possible. For the fourth conviction or concept. Essential to evangelism is that the witness must be bought by word and deed. And that's what we've discussed earlier. Word Article four of Lausanne Covenant Deed. Article five Word meaning Evangelism. Proclamation five. Meaning loving the neighbor in tangible ways. Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, being concerned for the oppressed, sociopolitical involvement, social responsibility, and faith to reaffirm the necessity of evangelism. That was then setting the agenda for the Lausanne Congress. And I think that the Lausanne covenant summarizes that very well. Let me give you something else here more directly. And I'll give you the very wording of Billy Graham in his programmatic visionary call for what the Lausanne should do. And this has been fully affirmed the goal of Lausanne. And I will take you a step further. I am rushing here through the material. I hope you're able to make notes. I will try to be patient enough. So kind of at the end of our course, I'll repeat some of the ABCs and help us bring the loose ends together in a focus, because that's what's actually missing at the end of David Walsh's book.
As I'm providing at the end of the course, an evangelical conclusion by taking us back to Lausanne, reminding us of the Lausanne Covenant and of the basic objectives, goals and theological formulation that came out of Lausanne. According to Graham. And by the way, here is how you recognize a great man, a great leader who is a servant, who is aware of his deficiencies. Billy Graham is not a trained theologian. He has stated that very often he had only a bachelor's degree from Wheaton College, and that was in anthropology early in his life and ministry. And he started as an evangelist work video for Christ. In others. He was propelled to planetary fame following the great Los Angeles Crusades. When Hearst, the publisher of newspapers, sent his journalists to cover it and made the famous statement, Puff Graham You know that story, don't you? So you don't. You may want to read the biography over Christmas of Billy Graham, just as I and there are many biographies written by about him. But there is this memoir, actually, just as I am. And you recognize that one. If you've listened to any participating or listen on TV, any of his crusades, the choir would sing as they come, and he calls them to make a decision. Just as I am without a plea. So here already in the forties, late forties, he is now recognized as the chief evangelist massive Angelus and increasingly as a spokesman for evangelical faith. He has a lot to do with the founding of Fuller Seminary. He has a lot to do with bringing in converts School of Theology from Philadelphia here and bringing Gordon Divinity School from Gordon College campus here and creating this seminary. He has a lot to do with the founding of Christianity Today and so many other things.
A great vision of an evangelist who is more than an evangelist, who is truly an apostolic strategist for the cause of Christ, which happens to be marked by that one collective designation called Evangelicalism or Evangelical movement. I'm saying this to say Gram, whose vision was much bigger than his education, and he always intuition was right and he knew what needed to be done would always call for help. I was an assistant to Professor Middle Seat Denny. At Wheaton College Graduate School, 1971. And matter. Professor Tenney, who was the first evangelical to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard University, author of some 27, 28 books, the editor of huge encyclopedias and so on Madeleine Seat, Denny showed me manuscripts where MG was sent to him and Kenneth Cancer and some other evangelical theologians, even books like Peace with God or Our World Aflame. And He would write to them and said, Now, you know, I'm another theologian. I'm not a biblical scholar. I have not studied biblical languages. This is why I'm asking you to read this manuscript and please correct me, help me. And that's why he was saved from major embarrassments. Had he been like sometimes he that somebody said actually it was his his brother in law, Clayton Ford, who said that evangelists usually have a big ego. And he really had a big ego and not willing to learn from others. Who knows whether he would be what he is today. Because if you insist on knowing everything and you pontificate from positions of ignorance on every possible topic, you will soon self-destruct. So even ran a gram for the Lausanne Congress spells this out. This is not just a stinking. He's had the help of some of the best evangelical theologians and Mrs.
Ologist. And so he spells out the goals for the Lausanne Congress. And they are. Let me read them because this is being recorded. To frame a biblical declaration on evangelism that would speak with a clear evangelical voice while at the same time challenging the WCC. Now, remember, this is a Lausanne Congress. We are in the neighborhood of Geneva. Geneva is the headquarters of WCC, where Council of Churches, World Council of Churches had its observers at the Lausanne Congress. And Billy Graham is making it clear we need a declaration that will, on the one hand speak with a clear, united evangelical voice and on the other challenge not condemn but challenge the World Council of Churches, which was gone in a much more liberal direction with the loss of emphasis on biblical authority and need for world evangelization. And that challenge was presented in such a way that the World Council of Churches following 74 came in 1983 with a special affirmation of missions and evangelism. A very good document. And it was an ecumenical positive response to the evangelical lesson covenant. That's number one. Number eight, to frame that declaration that then resulted in the Lausanne covenant be. To challenge the church to complete the task of world evangelization. We are about to enter the last quarter of the last century of the second millennium. Later, you've heard of the 82,000 movement. There was a lot of discussion of completing the task, but Graham did not tie in with the date. It was, however, a very helpful, symbolic kind of a date to think of. Let's give to the Lord Jesus a gift for his, as some people put it, a gift for his 2000 birthday by evangelizing the whole world. The third goal was to state the relationship between evangelism and social responsibility.
We've discussed this number for a number five in the loss on covert unstated, but because they failed to spell out the relationship, we had the consultation on the relationship between evangelism and social responsibility nine years later in Grand Rapids. And fourthly, to develop a new worldwide koinonia, our fellowship among evangelicals of all persuasions. What was especially important here is to bring into fellowship evangelicals from the pluralist mainline denominations. Because in the Anglican Church, in the Lutheran churches, in United Methodist and so on, in all of these churches, you have evangelicals. BC USA Presbyterian Church. You have evangelicals. These evangelicals very often live under a lot of pressure because they are bureaucratic leadership somewhere on the top. May not share the evangelical convictions. Local congregations have difficulties to give money that goes for purely political and social concerns and not evangelism. And so Graham had this great vision. It helps when a Baptist marries a Presbyterian The Root Graeme. Is Presbyterian, daughter of a famous missionary surgeon. Nelson Bell, missionary surgeon from China. She remained Presbyterian. He remained a Southern Baptist, the kind of ethnic you many call marriage that helped the evangelical cause. And I've heard them talk about this and and they've written about this. So if you are in a cross denominational relationship here, don't be discouraged. There is a way for ecumenical marriages if there is a shared evangelical core, a center. Okay. So for Graham to sum it up, the drama at Lausanne and the program at Lausanne revolved around the vision of Edinburgh 1910 lost by the ecumenical movement, but now recovered by world evangelicals. Graham would later say that the Lausanne Congress had, I quote him, burst upon the evangelical world like a bombshell, becoming an awakening experience and summoning the evangelical community to renewed zeal and new covenant.
Next year in Thailand, there will be another Lausanne gathering. Hopefully a kind of us, what do you call it? Stocktaking. You know, kind of an inventory of what has happened in exactly 30 years, since 1974. And a lot of things have happened more in the two thirds world than in North America, but also good things in the West. I can tell you of Anglican bishops in England and Australia, especially Australia and Lutheran bishops in Scandinavian countries and Presbyterian leaders from Ghana to Pennsylvania and Pentecostal leaders from Korea to Brazil and Baptist leaders from all over the world. A new sense of unity around the gospel and the need to evangelize the world. And many new organizations, educational institutions, many new programs came out of Lausanne, and many of them took Lausanne Covenant as their basis of faith. I founded Evangelical Seminary and we adopted the Lausanne Covenant as a statement of Faith. As well as for our humanitarian work. So one cannot emphasize enough the importance of this document. And if you have not done it already, I'm sure you did, because you are writing your credo. And Lausanne is an amazingly successful synthesis of the biblical faith, focusing on world missions and world evangelization. So let me come to a final attempt to summarize Lausanne objectives. Then we can have a little discussion of this. This does reiterated, but I am putting it on so that you will see how that initial vision of Billy Graham then was translated into objectives. And there are various ways of measuring it today around the world and it is being done. So Lausanne achieved a breakthrough in securing the adoption of the Lausanne Covenant. And it was an amazing sight as thousands of evangelical leaders from Iran all carefully chosen I.
I don't know how I got to be invited. I was a 20. I'm giving away my age now. I was 28 years old. Principal of a two year young evangelical school. We had a clumsy statement of faith. But when I returned from for the first two years, when I returned from Lausanne, we adopted Lausanne Covenant from a Communist country. And yet the one where we had a little bit more freedom than the Soviet bloc countries because we could get passports and we travel. So there were five of us from my country. Listen, I think I said that in the opening session of this class. Let me repeat it in the closing session. Lawson broadened my horizons, and Lawson helped me understand that theology. If it is not mission focused, can become a selfish, self-serving theological exercise. And I was in danger of that. But it also helped me understand not only that all theology should be mythologically focused. But also that all Ms. theology should and must be theologically grounded. When I say theologically grounded, I mean, first of all, biblically grounded. Let me give you a little illustration here. On the practical side, there was that clock showing the increase of world population while we met in Lausanne for two weeks. I don't have the exact information here. I wish I did because I've written on it. There is an article in Evangelical Review of Theology where I tell this story. I think the world population while we were there, increased by several million people. And it was a dramatically, you know, Yeah, dramatically showing us that our challenge is growing. The Congress closed and I was at this clock and I tried to read down write down all the figures because I was preparing to write an article about the Lausanne Congress.
And I needed these figures while the world population. How much was it when it came? How much is it now? How many of them are Hindus, Muslims, etc.? There were other information along with it and beneath this clock. And as I was almost kneeling, writing down the figures, I sensed there was a hand put on my shoulder. And I hear this voice. That said. And Jesus died for all of them young men. And I turn around and I immediately recognize him because he was one of the most exciting plenary speakers at the Lausanne Congress. It was Bishop Festac giving Jerry k, i. V. E and g. E. R. E. First stop. Kevin. Jerry, a bishop. Anglican bishop from Uganda. Came out of the East Africa revival. There are several Anglican bishops like that around. Some from Australia, like Bishop Jack Dane, who was a co-chair of the Congress. And this was the first time I met bishops who were on fire for God, bishops who are who believed in world evangelization. But I came back and I shared with our students in this young two years young school. A couple of months later when the new semester began, the third year in our history. And I said, we should pray for the lost. So we started praying for the nations of the world. And then we said, Wait a minute, why don't we pray for our. It was formerly Yugoslavia. There are so many lost Albanians who have not heard the gospel. Not one church among them. Montenegro's Bosnia was not evangelized where they would spend some time in missions recently. Communist nation. And so I gave out to a group of students at that. I said, let's do a study on the what we called underage cities of Yugoslavia.
I said, Look at every town and city that has a population bigger than 50,000, and where there is no Protestant, no evangelical church or witness of any kind. And we came up through this study with a list of 36 cities. And some of them are huge. Half a million on bigger. No evangelical witness. So we started prayer for the hundred cities. And amazing things started happening. The Lord started calling students to these areas and to these cities. And in a few years we had churches in all of them. Starting with house churches and then bigger and then it just amazing. And Serbs went to evangelized the Croats and Kurds went to evangelize the Albanians and Macedonians went to evangelize the Bosnians because we had students from all over the area. And now when I look back and when we are credited with with what has happened in a very difficult field. It actually goes back to 19 $74 on. Lausanne covenant became a theological consensus document. Signed by the vast majority of the Congress participants already at the Congress. And so that was a theological statement on the basis and nature of evangelization that even today around the world is claimed as the most important evangelical statement. History may show that this covenant of one of the historians, modern day historians of mission, says this covenant to be the most significant ecumenical confession on evangelism that the church has ever produced. Out of the Lausanne gathering came the UN mandate to hasten the evangelization of all peoples of the world in obedience to the command of Jesus Christ and in anticipation of His return by multiplying and strengthening the ways in which evangelical believers work together to accomplish this task through churches, missions and other Christian organizations.
This is another very important aspect of the Lausanne. It brought the parish church agencies. Like Campus Crusade, like World Vision and so many others, InterVarsity, etc.. And part of church mission agencies, together with denominational leaders and denominational mission leaders. So it brought not only the mainline and the free Church. Together. It brought church and parish church together. So among the specific objectives set by the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, because out of the Congress came Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, l c w e, okay. And here are some of the these are not all but some of the kernel objectives. One to advance biblical evangelization as reflected in the Lausanne covenant. That has happened and continues to happen to. To promote spiritual renewal as a foundation to world evangelization. That is happening. It has happened in many of the mainline denominations. How many do we have? Anybody here from United Methodist Church? Now I know we have some from the Presbyterian Church USA. Jane, you're one. How many others are here from U.S.? I would assume that the two of you can witness to a renewal within your own denomination and strong evangelical churches. I happen to know your church because I was there recently, and I've observed that recently in Richmond in so many other places. And if you talk to the pastors, almost inevitably the renewal in one way or another goes back to people like John Start and documents like Rosanne Covenant and gatherings like Lausanne, Congress and other Congresses that followed. Well, out of that, Rosanne Congress came something that is called L.C. w e l c w e stands for Liaison Committee on World Evangelization. MG became honorary chairman late and for the chairman, the first chairman of the Theology and Strategy Working Group was John Stott.
I had a great privilege of serving in that later, although what events to prevent me to do and continue some work were events back in in the Balkans. But I'm spending half of my time. The Liaison Committee for World Evangelization actually spelled out these objectives to advance biblical evangelization, number one, to promote spiritual renewal. Number two. Three, to be a motivator and facilitator for world evangelization through networks of relationships. It's amazing what happened in this around area, because many agencies, many people, heads of agencies who did not know each other, who sometimes even if they knew each other, they did not talk with each other. Now created effective networks, collaborative networks, which has saved hundreds of millions of dollars. Because one of the problems of maybe we have done evangelism and missions in some areas is still a problem, is sinful duplication. Because they don't you don't consult. And so there's too much duplication, too much overlap, waste of resources or one agency trying to do things for which it was didn't have competent personnel. Rather than linking and say there is world ready for World Vision, they will do they will do feeding the hungry better than we do. We do better recycling, but we need each other motivating and facilitating the cooperation. The new network, the cooperative networks was a very important mandate and in many ways successfully fulfilled. And then number four was measure progress. In world evangelization so as to focus prayer and other resources in anticipation of further spiritual breakthroughs. Measuring here is important as analysis because. The problem continues to some extent still. You have areas of the world where you you're you don't need many missionaries and you have large numbers of missionaries and you have areas of the world where missionaries are needed and you have small numbers.
But as agencies began to cooperate and as this thing of examining the progress, not just doing it sporadically and leaving results unnoticed or ignoring what were results or lack of results, as this serious approach of evaluating our progress was taken, again, we had the better stewardship, we had a better distribution of mission personnel, of mission resources, of finances, use of technologies, etc.. Well, let me stop here and open up for questions. Responsibility. We obviously need to do that. Well, that's but I would respond to that, that it's a question of credibility of evangelism itself. In many places of the world, in our world of competing philosophies and religions, words alone will not do it. But when words are accompanied by deeds of love. And a loving concern about the situation of the listener. Then proclamation evangelism as announcement of the good news becomes much more effective. That would be part of the response. Question of credibility. Question of authenticity. Question of persuasive power, which is not only in the wood. But also in the way we love, in a transformative way, the people to whom we proclaim. Otherwise, we're just competing. With other religions will also proclaim and have their own holy scriptures, whether it's Koran or something else. If, however, the choice had to be made and I am one of those, and here is where I am a little bit more conservative than some of my friends I would give priority and do. I do continue to give priority to evangelism because there are those who would give priority to social responsibility. Social involvement? I don't, although I'm socially and politically engaged. But I see that because, as you put it well, because what is at stake is eternity. I would give priority to evangelism.
Very often. However, it's not an either or. It is also a question of chronological order. In many places, your social engagement prepares and paves the way for a proclamation. We've seen that in humanitarian work, in warzones and with refugees. If you come with the tracks first and before spiritual laws, you will be perceived as somebody who is exploiting human suffering for senseless proselytizing. But when you give them daily bread because they are hungry, they will be more prone to listen to the eternal bread which you bring to satisfy their spiritual hunger. Does that answer your question, John? Okay. Any other questions? I'll say it again. What troubles you that what going on with the churches or the parish church agencies doing it alone? Yeah, I agree with you on this, because parish church agencies need to be called to accountability by the churches because they are there to serve the church. However, you need to understand that they came into existence sometimes in response to the church's failure to do what needed to be done. It's just that sometimes they are exporting that into other cultures where the church has not failed and they come in as a competitive agency rather than a complimentary agency. And by the way, there is a Lausanne document on that also of one of the among the piece on partnership. On the relationship between churches and of church agencies. But I remember talking at a gathering, but I was asked to address this issue to church leaders. And there are church leaders there by the parish, church leaders for the majority. And I tried to kind of shake them a little bit. And I. If I told you that I do a paraphrase of scriptures. Now. There is something that will be published one day, hopefully not under a cosmic paraphrase.
Oh, I told you that one. I quoted it today in a faculty committee for Soul of the World. He didn't send the committee. But I'll give you a one, two, three in response to your concern. Jesus said, I will not build up a church agency. I'm going to make a statement that Jesus said, I will build my church and the parish church agencies are there to build the church, to help the church, not to perpetuate themselves. The problem comes out of the capitalist, competitive, religious. Culture. When you come up with pilotage agencies. And sometimes the power to judges is another only in competition with the judge. Then competition with each other. And I am saying, Please, brothers, competition is not the biblical word. Complementarity is cooperation is because there's only one Christ, there's only one church. It's like the denominational ism. Whoever puts his denomination above Christ is a heretic. Jesus has only one church and maybe different expressions of it as there are different members of the body. But remember the members of the body all coordinated by the head. They are not self standing, self ruling, self running. Members if they are not coordinated by the head. You have a you have a monster. You have something that is not healthy. Let's take that as a little bit of it. But I would just say DRC, you know, this is where I think is a great advantage of studying in an interdenominational seminar like this one. Where you're not indoctrinated just in your own denominational history, denominational doctrines, denominational, you know, policies. By the way, you search for the common ground in the same scriptures. And submitting to the same Lord and being open to the same spirit. You will still, though, if you go for ordination, you do there.
And if you still have on the side your denomination or polity or doctrine or whatever. But I think it's this is one of the big scandals of Christianity worldwide. And I remember reading and talking to African and other leaders. Well, let me give you a more modern example. And I may have told us this class this several years ago I was in Moscow and the president of the Baptist Union there said, Oh, Brother Peter. And it was almost nostalgia there, as if things were simpler. And of course, they were not under communism. Because there they were all in the same union. Evangelical, all council union, Evangelical Christians and Baptists. Baptists separately mentioned because they are by far the largest group of Protestants in in Russia. But then he told me, he said things are confusing. It's so difficult to evangelize either the nominal orthodox or the atheists and agnostics because there are too many Jesuses around. Did I tell this the class now? I said, What do you mean? Oh, he said, And he's a Baptist leader. He said that at least three Baptist Jesus is around. That is the Southern Baptist Jesus, and there is the Northern Baptist Jesus. There is a Swedish Baptist Jesus. There is a John MacArthur Baptist Jesus. Now, because that came a more conservative. Thing from somebody from California saying all the other Baptists and excluding because they don't have business. And he says everybody brings their own version of Jesus. And Jesus is a competing. And then said and then there are there are various Pentecostal Jesus's Assemblies of God and Foursquare and various Presbyterian Jesuses because there's a PC, USA, Presbyterian Jesus, and there is a Reform Jesus of this kind and reform of that kind, and a Presbyterian Jesus that doesn't believe in women in ministry and Presbyterian.
Jesus is charismatic and one is under charismatic. And he says, it's awful. He says, We are all confused. I mean, this is a leader talking. And when I heard 1992, when Eastern Europe was opening up, there was a major consultation. I was one of the speakers at at Wheaton College and on how to evangelize the post-communist world. The Berlin Wall just came down and I heard several evangelical leaders barter church and intermediation in this country, saying, Our biggest challenge is now to take Jesus to Russia. And this became the model, the lingo. We are taking Jesus to Russia. And the more I listened, the more appalled I was. So I was there as a speaker and as a resource person, and I stood up in one session. I said, Friends, I have a great problem. I thought this was an evangelical gathering. I said, You all taking Jesus to Russia? And I said, If you are taking Jesus to Russia, both of you are in trouble. Jesus. And you. Because Jesus is not an idol you put in your pocket and you carry him to another part of the world. I said, please change the language. Say we taking the gospel to Russia. I can understand that. But taking Jesus to Russia, I thought Jesus was Jesus was sovereign. I said, If Jesus is taking you to Russia, okay, that's different, you know? But you taking Jesus, Do you hear me? Do you hear what? This is heresy. This kind of language. Language betrays us. This means we are the masters of world evangelization. Jesus is the key commodity because he's the only savior. But really, he's in our hands, you know, in our literature, in our pocket. Dangerous, submitting to him as the Lord of history.
Lord of the Nations. Lord of the Church. He is the Lord of the harvest. He is the one we proclaim because He has commanded us. We are under His Lordship. We under his command. It's like when I hear some Charismatics ordering the Holy Spirit around. You know, we've been given authority over the evil Spirit, but not of the Holy Spirit. You know, we are under His authority anyhow. I should not end on the polemical note, but that's the kind of question asked, you know.
- 0% CompleteUnderstand that missions are central to God's plan, not an appendage, and that the Church is a transformative, missionary community that integrates theology, culture, and society, emphasizing both personal evangelism and social engagement.0% Complete
- 0% CompleteExplore the relationship between theology and missions, understanding missions as central to God's purposes, the church as God's transformative agent, and the need for a theologically grounded missiology and a missiologically focused theology.0% Complete
- Gain insight into the Old Testament God as a missionary deity, the role of prayer in missions, the universality of God's purpose from creation to the Abrahamic covenant, and the importance of integrating prayer into theological studies.0% Complete
- Understand how the Psalms emphasize God's universal redemptive plan and serve as significant missionary texts, highlighting God's concern for all nations and illustrating this through examples like Rahab and Jonah.0% Complete
- 0% CompleteLearn about the unprecedented growth of Christianity in Asia, the three streams of the church in China, and the importance of partnerships, sending churches, and funding for missions, while emphasizing that maintaining a strong personal relationship with God is paramount.0% Complete
- 0% CompleteYou learn about the critical aspects of faith, dedication, need assessment, local leader involvement, trust building, strategic planning, and leadership transition in cross-cultural missions.0% Complete
- 0% CompleteLearn to see people as Jesus does, exploring biblical foundations for missions and global citizenship, understanding India's diverse cultures and spiritual thirst, and emphasizing prayer, missionary support, and the transformative power of introducing Jesus' love and salvation.0% Complete
- 0% CompleteGain a comprehensive understanding of the Great Commission's theological and historical significance, focusing on Jesus' authority, the mandate to make disciples, and the perpetual presence of Jesus, while comparing accounts in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.0% Complete
- 0% CompleteUnderstand the AIDS crisis in Africa, the role of missionaries in addressing it, the cultural challenges of foreign aid, and the theological and personal motivations for missionary work, informed by firsthand experiences and biblical insights.0% Complete
- 0% CompleteLearn about universalism, its historical and contemporary perspectives, types of universalism, key biblical texts supporting it, and evangelical counterarguments, emphasizing its implications for human sinfulness, morality, and evangelical mission.0% Complete
- 0% CompleteLearn about the historical and cultural dynamics of Yugoslavia, the challenges of ministry in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the strategies for combining aid with the gospel to foster reconciliation and growth in a divided society.0% Complete
- Learn about the theology of missions in relation to world religions, exploring three approaches to studying religions—historical, phenomenological, and theological/philosophical—and analyzing Christian attitudes toward other religions.0% Complete
- Explore interfaith dialogues, learning about Hinduism's Saguna and Nirguna concepts, the blind men analogy, and Buddhism's Four Noble Truths and Eightfold Path, emphasizing respectful engagement to bridge gaps.0% Complete
- 0% CompleteLearn to pray for authorities, understand the political situation in Russia, its impact on democracy and investments, and reflect on theological questions about faith, culture, and politics, with references to historical theologians.0% Complete
- 0% CompleteDiscover Martin Luther's analogy of God's two hands, the left hand symbolizes governance over creation through common grace, including politics and economics, and the right represents salvation through the Gospel.0% Complete
- 0% CompleteExplore the complexities of missionary work in Africa, from cultural diversity and unreached tribes to challenges like political unrest and HIV, emphasizing the call to obedience in spreading the gospel amidst adversity and danger.0% Complete
- 0% CompleteGain insight into the church's intricate relationship with the world, examining models of isolation, control, service, and tension, highlighting biblical mandates to engage while maintaining distinctiveness and impacting society with kingdom values.0% Complete
- 0% CompleteUnderstand the biblical foundation and theological significance of missions, affirming its centrality to God's redemptive plan and the Church's identity as a global missionary community.0% Complete
- 0% CompleteUnderstand of the balance between evangelism and social responsibility within the evangelical community, highlighting historical debates and key figures like Billy Graham and significant gatherings like the Lausanne Congress.0% Complete
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