From the Lausanne covenant to the Cape Town commitment: a theological assessment.
The Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization convened in Cape Town, South Africa, in October 2010.It brought together over four thousand evangelical leaders, plus guests from other Christian traditions, to ponder where faithful Christians are called today in God's mission. The Lausanne movement, inaugurated in Lausanne in 1974, has been one of the most important voices in Christian mission over the past three and a half decades, with its congresses, working groups, and forums. Given its importance, it would be worthwhile to trace how its theology has developed through the course of its three international congresses: at Lausanne (1974), Manila (1989), and now Cape Town (2010). Can changes be signaled or trends detected? As one observer asked, Is there movement in the Movement?
This article is an attempt to assess the directions of the theology of the Lausanne movement from the perspective of a nonevangelical: in this case, a Roman Catholic who has great sympathy and respect for so much of what evangelical mission has achieved but who is nonetheless willing, as needed, to cast a critical eye upon its developments. I did not participate in the Cape Town congress or in any of its predecessors, so my reading of the theological statements reflects more the final form of those statements rather than how they were produced. I am familiar, however, with a good number of the Lausanne Occasional Papers, a number of which have been influential in my own work.
This assessment is in four parts. The first looks at the theological significance of the stated genre of the three statements: as "covenant" (Lausanne), as "manifesto" (Manila), and as "commitment" (Cape Town). What might these choices of genre be saying about the theological self-understanding of those who produced these statements? The second and third parts consider, first, the theological understandings of mission, and then the world in which mission is undertaken. What do these theological "frames" tell us of the theological assumptions that have shaped and are shaping the movement? The final part examines a number of specific theological themes that appear in the three documents and that have developed (or disappeared) over the course of these congresses.
This is obviously an assessment in very broad strokes, given the space allotted. It is intended to track some of the larger or more salient developments in evangelical mission over these past three and a half decades. But in so doing, it is hoped that this study will contribute to a greater understanding of what directions evangelical mission is taking--at least from the perspective of an interested outsider.
Covenant--Manifesto--Commitment
What might the genre chosen for each of these documents tell us about the theological self-understanding of those who wrote them and, albeit obliquely, the dynamics of the congresses themselves?
The fact that evangelical Christianity is a very diverse phenomenon--even as it holds firmly to certain biblical and theological tenets--makes any generalization at once hazardous and intriguing. Generalizations are hazardous because one could view evangelical Christianity as a monolith because of its shared convictions, overlooking its considerable diversity. But evangelical Christianity is also intriguing because of how it manages this very pluralism in light of its biblical faith. To use the phrase of the preamble to the Cape Town document, it seeks "breadth within boundaries."
Second, these documents are consensus documents; that is, they were intended to give a shared expression to the outcome of meetings in which thousands of people were involved. Their consensus nature is most evident in the careful wording found at certain points to articulate central but sometimes contested issues, such as the Bible as the infallible word of God, the place of spiritual warfare, or the role of women in evangelism.
These two caveats about the diversity of those who gathered and the nature of their consensus documents are important to keep in mind as one reads what follows here. Not knowing the intricacies of the dynamics of the meetings themselves, as well as not having access to the contents of the drafts that preceded the final forms of these statements, can qualify or even nullify some of the conclusions made here. At the same time, how the documents get read by an interested outsider reminds us that texts take on a life of their own once they leave the hands of their authors.
But what of the genres themselves? For Lausanne, the choice was "covenant," a word with deep biblical resonance, as well as being an important concept in Reformed theology. It should be remembered that this was the final document at the first of these congresses. Besides its biblical basis, the concept of covenant served another purpose as well: it marked the point where people from more than 150 nations, together for the first time, could make a common confession of their faith. Inasmuch as it was the final statement of a first gathering, "covenant" also held the biblical implication of a chosen people setting out on a journey together with their God (see Exodus 24). Such an idea of a covenanted people may well reveal the participants' understanding of the theological significance of the event.
With covenant as the frame for Lausanne, we see that the document therefore speaks more to the participants (and, of course, to God) than to external publics. It is a document aimed at their self-understanding and self-motivation for mission. And like the covenants in the Hebrew Scriptures, it tends toward dichotomous language about what should and should not be believed or done. This preference for dichotomous language has a long history in evangelicalism, with its emphasis on personal conversion and total commitment to Jesus Christ. It also can function as a kind of shorthand or indicator to an in-group about its most deeply held tenets.
Manila produced a "manifesto." It is not a biblical term, although at the time of the Manila meeting, Luke 4:16-20 was often referred to as the "Nazareth Manifesto" in theological circles. The Oxford English Dictionary defines "manifesto" as a public proclamation of a group to explain its past actions and give its intentions for future action. The Manila Manifesto certainly does that. As such, it moves beyond the more in-group approach of Lausanne to an outward-oriented message. It begins with twenty-one "affirmations," the last of which states that "God is calling the whole church to take the whole gospel to the whole world." In its outward orientation, it bespeaks a group that has now consolidated itself and can speak more confidently to an external audience. While "manifesto" may not be a biblical term, the proclamatory nature of this genre has the resonance of preaching the Good News. Here the theological self-understanding is the discipleship embodied in the Great Commission of Matthew 28:19-20.
Cape Town produced a "commitment." It is in two parts: a confession of faith and a commitment to action. A much more extensive document than its two predecessors, it moves away from the preference for dichotomous expression and public proclamation to a more essay-like mode. In so doing, it leaves a more propositional approach behind to embrace a more nuanced presentation of its confession and commitments. It sees this very approach as building a link from belief to praxis reminiscent of Paul in his letters to the Christian communities (Foreword). One hears echoed here theologically the model of discipleship and, with Paul, a concern for the extensiveness and the diversity of the peoples and communities to be served.
"Commitment" may not be a prominent biblical term, but it is certainly biblical in that it is a response to the call of Jesus Christ. It connotes a long-term investment in the peoples to whom the missionary is sent and an ongoing accompaniment of them. As such, it carries a sense that those who make this commitment are not coming together for the first time (as at Lausanne); nor are they making an initial proclamation to outsiders (as Manila could be read). There is a certain matured quality here that reflects a movement that has become much more self-assured.
Theological Understandings of Mission
What theologies of mission do these three documents reveal? Lausanne sees mission as participating in the "purpose of God," who "has been calling out from the world a people for himself, and sending his people back into the world to be his servants and witnesses, for the extension of his kingdom, the building up of Christ's body, and the glory of his name" (art. 1). A strong sense of being servants and witnesses to God's plan and of being sent "into the world" comes through quite clearly here. The mode of carrying out this plan is by proclamation, but also by witness of life and "that kind of dialogue whose purpose is to listen sensitively in order to understand" (art. 4). This leads to "obedience to Christ, incorporation into his Church and responsible service in the world" (ibid.). The theology of mission here is quite straightforward: God has a plan for the world, to which we are called in order that it might be brought to completion. This conforms with the centrality of the Great Commission, that by going out, preaching, teaching, and baptizing, the world might be brought to Christ. Indeed, the Great Commission forms the theological basis for mission here.
The Manila Manifesto begins by reaffirming the Lausanne Covenant. In its twenty-one affirmations it sets out the task of mission in single-sentence form, building a narrative of creation, the fall, and the atonement, followed by distinct modes of action for mission (the role of other religions, the importance of pursuing justice and peace, spiritual warfare, etc.), ending with an affirmation of the whole church being called to bring the whole Gospel to the whole world. This final affirmation is anticipated in affirmations 7-20. Perhaps because the Manila Manifesto presumes what was said at Lausanne, it focuses more on the manifold issues of what is entailed in mission. Here one hears echoes of the Nazareth Manifesto of Luke 4, with a concern for justice and for the poor. This had come into widespread use in the 1980s in missiological circles as a theological motivation for mission alongside the Great Commission, so it is not surprising to see it included in the Manila document. The Nazareth Manifesto might be seen as the distinctive theological understanding of mission here. The emphasis on holism (the importance of the study of culture, the coupling of social action with traditional evangelism, inclusiveness) in preaching the whole Gospel to the whole world is evidence of an expanding view of mission that occurred in mainline Protestantism and Roman Catholicism at this time, albeit here with a distinctive evangelical accent.
Cape Town does not use propositions or affirmations in either its confession of faith or its commitment to action. The confession of faith includes a narrative of God's action in the world, but it is all consciously framed by two theological concepts: love and reconciliation. The theme of love echoes the Johannine writings in the New Testament, and reconciliation, the Pauline writings. Whereas Matthew and Luke provide distinctive frameworks for the two previous documents, here John and Paul prevail. The theme of God's love for the world and our response in love frames the entire confession of faith. For Paul it is especially the image of cosmic reconciliation of all things in Christ (see Col. 1:15-20) that stands out. Indeed, the Cape Town document speaks of the "cosmic scope and truth" of Paul's preaching and teaching of the Gospel (II.I.1).
The salience of reconciliation reflects a larger interest in reconciliation that developed across the Christian church in the 1990s and into the first decade of the new century. A 2004 Lausanne Occasional Paper (no. 51) was devoted to the topic, and it was the principal theme of the Conference on World Mission and Evangelism of the World Council of Churches held in Athens in 2005.
The second part of the Cape Town document addresses the various modalities of mission, with such themes as truth, peace, love, and the will of Christ. These are each put in the context of mission, such as living in a pluralist and globalized world, the problems of war and of poverty, other religions, challenges to evangelization today, and so on.
With its affirmation of the two preceding congresses, Cape Town brings together a more complete biblical basis for Christian mission. What is striking is how much more there is of a conscious theological basis for the entire document. The extensive use of John and Paul lends itself to a more comprehensive theology than do the selected quotations from Matthew and Luke. Moreover, this more comprehensive theology allows for a more nuanced engagement with the world.
Mission and the World
What are the implications of such a more nuanced engagement with the world? In the Lausanne document, the church is seen as set over against the world. The quotations given above about Christians being called "out of the world" and then sent back "into the world" are evidence of this God-world and church-world dichotomy. This "over against" stance flows from its interpretation of the fall of humankind in Genesis 3. Manila maintains something of this stance in its fourth affirmation but strikes a more positive view of the importance of engaging the world. Cape Town takes a different approach by framing the biblical narrative of God's action in the world with the theme of love. It does not deny sinfulness by any means (see Preamble, "Unchanged Realities"), but its placing the emphasis on loving the world as God does is striking. We humans do not love sin, but we love the whole of creation and the world that exists within it.
The stance toward the world, especially as it is manifested in the Lausanne and Manila documents, is shaped by a Reformed theology of the fall of Adam and Eve that emphasizes the utter separation between God and the world because of human sin, and our helplessness before God. This theology was developed at the time of the Reformation in order to emphasize the overwhelming power of God's justification of us in Jesus Christ and to stress that we are saved by faith and not by our own works. What is striking about the view of radical separation and human helplessness is that it says more about God's power and mercy than it does about humanity and the world; that is, we see our world only as refracted through this affirmation of God's action in Christ. Roman Catholics take a more measured position, believing that human nature is damaged but not totally destroyed by sin; God can be discerned in the world, and there is a natural law ordained by God that can be known with unaided human reason. This stands over against the "utter depravity of humankind" of the Synod of Dordt and the belief that humankind is, in its unredeemed condition, not capable of doing any good. It is this possibility of a "natural theology" against which Reformed theologian Karl Barth protested so strongly in his exchanges with Roman Catholic theologians.
The question I wish to raise here is this: Does Cape Town represent a fundamental shift in an evangelical theology of mission? Does its warm embrace of the world create a dissonance with its Reformed reading of the radical character of the fall of Adam and Eve that has been at the basis of its theology of mission? Its wanting to overcome any "sacred-secular divide" (II.1.3) could be read as a move away from traditional Reformed thinking about sin. To be sure, in the place where Cape Town mentions this phrase, it is concerned about separating the workplace from Christian life. But the divide between the sacred and the secular is also sustained by a sense of the utter fallenness of the world in light of God's grace.
The Johannine writings, so central to Cape Town's theological concept of love, also have an ambivalence about the "world." The world is seen at once as utterly alienated from God but also the object of God's great love (John 3:16). Perhaps that ambivalence, using Johannine texts, might have clarified this matter somewhat, at least from the point of the Scriptures. At any rate, the apparent dissonance between the Reformed theological anthropology, heretofore so prominent in evangelical missiology, and Cape Town's reading of the world bears further thought and discussion.
Specific Theological Themes
The second and third parts of this article looked at some overarching theological frameworks that have shaped the three documents. In this final part we consider some individual theological themes that have appeared in the documents and also themes that have become increasingly muted. Some of these involve basic tenets of evangelical faith, whereas others involve the relative salience of issues within the contexts in which mission is being carried out. The Bible as the Word of God. This is of course a fundamental article of faith for all Christians, but it has held a more specific meaning among evangelicals. Because of the disputes about its exact nature in the first half of the twentieth century, how this article comes to be worded can reflect continuing tensions.
Article 2 of the Lausanne Covenant affirms "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." Affirmation 2 of the Manila Manifesto states that "in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments God has given us an authoritative disclosure of his character and will, his redemptive acts and their meaning, and his mandate for mission." Cape Town affirms "the whole Bible as the Word of God, inspired by God's Spirit, spoken and written through human authors. We submit to it as supremely and uniquely authoritative" (I.6). It goes on to say that the Scriptures can "speak God's truth in fresh ways to people in every culture." There are no contradictions between these statements. But it is obvious that Cape Town wants to situate its evangelical belief within a pluralist, multireligious society.
Christ and other religions. As Christians come into closer social contact with people of other faiths, the relation of the unique and definitive salvation brought by Christ amid other religions has become an increasingly difficult point for all the churches. Both Lausanne and Manila reaffirm traditional doctrine here--although Manila goes further, affirming that "the religions which have arisen do sometimes contain elements of truth and beauty" (A.3). Cape Town does not deny this doctrine but circumvents the issue somewhat by placing its discussion under the challenge of pluralism and notes that, by and large, religions "seek to respect competing truth claims of other faiths and live alongside them" (II.I.2). It does not address the question of the truth of Christ and other religions directly. The document at this point seems more concerned with the ideology of postmodernism and its relativizing of all truth claims. Later, a whole section (II.III) is devoted to loving people of other faiths, mentioning especially the tolerance and respect owed them. Indeed, love is seen as the entry point for dealing with people of other faiths. In a related matter, the question of the relation of God's covenant with the Jews and God's salvific activity in Christ, treated explicitly at Manila (A.3), does not reappear at Cape Town.
Spiritual warfare. Spiritual warfare or combat has been a contentious topic in evangelicalism. Both Lausanne (art. 12) and Manila (affirmation 11 and B.5) address its necessity in evangelism. Cape Town mentions it twice (I.7.C and II.VI.4) but in more oblique fashion. Does this represent the fading of a once-prominent point of contention?
Human rights and religious freedom. Lausanne took up the question of human rights and religious freedom in the context of persecution and imprisonment (art. 13), looking perhaps especially to the persecution of Christians for their beliefs. Manila explicitly mentions the abuse of human rights (A.4). Cape Town makes a careful statement about defending human rights, including the religious freedom of others (II.III.6). The statement affirms that defending the right to religious freedom of people of other faiths does not mean endorsing their faith by Christians, and it makes distinctions between proselytizing and evangelizing. Here no doubt the experience of Asian Christians played a role in these careful formulations.
The arts and mission. The arts are not mentioned explicitly in the Lausanne Covenant, although it notes that cultures can be "rich in beauty and in goodness'--but "because [men and women] are fallen, all of [culture] is tainted with sin and some of it is demonic" (art. 10). Cape Town, in contrast, devotes a whole section to the arts (II.I.5), which begins, "We possess the gift of creativity because we bear the image of God. Art in its many forms is an integral part of what we do as humans and can reflect something of the beauty and truth of God." Here one can see the contrast of attitudes toward the world discussed above.
Many other themes could be explored, such as cooperation with other traditions within Christianity, abuses of evangelization (e.g., the gospel of prosperity), and the attention to specific issues and topics (such as persons with disabilities, human trafficking, care for creation, and many others). But these five stand out especially. From my perspective, what is particularly notable as theological "movement" in the Lausanne movement from Lausanne to Cape Town is its more comprehensive theology of mission, a potential inconsistency between its embrace of the world and a Reformed view of the fallenness of creation, and, above all, its willingness today to listen to and consider the many voices within evangelical Christianity (and even beyond).
Robert J. Schreiter, C.PP.S., Vatican II Professor of Theology, Catholic Theological Union, Chicago, has focused in recent years on reconciliation and peacebuilding as a mode of mission. He has coedited Peacebuilding: Catholic Theology, Ethics, and Praxis (Orbis Books, 2010).--rschreit@ctu.edu
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| Author: | Schreiter, Robert J. |
|---|---|
| Publication: | International Bulletin of Missionary Research |
| Article Type: | Report |
| Geographic Code: | 6SOUT |
| Date: | Apr 1, 2011 |
| Words: | 3687 |
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