GOSPEL DEFENCE LEAGUE
P O Box 587, SEA POINT, 8060 RSA
TEL/FAX (021) 510-6854
Email: dscarborough@telkomsa.net
April/May/June 2013
Dear Friends,
From 30 October to 8 November, 2013, the World Council of Churches will hold its 10111 General Assembly in Busan, Korea. The theme of the Conference is “God of Life, Lead us to Justice and Peace. ” For this auspicious occasion, it has drafted a new statement on mission and evangelism, titled “Together Towards Life: Mission and Evangelism in Changing Landscapes. “
The Great Commission
The chief commandment that Jesus Christ gave to His Church is the Great Commission. After His Resurrection and before His Ascension, Jesus said to His disciples: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I will be with you always, to the very end of the age. ” (Matthew 28:18-19}
This commandment was particularly meaningful to the World Mission Conference of Edinburgh in 1910, a meeting of all the major Protestant denominations and missionary societies of the USA and Northern Europe. lt was a very hopeful event, and its participants were looking forward to “the Evangelisation of the World in this Generation. ” The Spirit was such that it was seen as the culmination of 19111 century Protestant Missions.
The World Council of Churches, though only founded in 1948, regards itself as the heir of this conference. One of its first major actions was to bring the International Missionary Council into its fold in 1962. It did not, however, encourage it to Biblical Missions, but to reinterpret Missions in political terms until, by 1973, at its mission conference in Bangkok, the WCC actually called for a “Moratorium on Missions. ” Missionaries were withdrawn from all parts of the world, and their fatherless congregations introduced to liberation theology, to think and act in terms of a class and race struggle. By the 1980s the major activity of the WCC was “combatting racism. ” All over the world it championed so-called liberation movements (e.g. the ANC, ZANU, MPLA, FRELIMO etc in Southern Africa) and supported marxist terrorists with church funds, while the cries of Christians persecuted under Communism were neither heard nor heeded. When, in the 1980s and ’90s, the “liberation movements “became legitimate governments, their first action was to abolish public Christianity.
Since that time of”liberation” the WCC has had to re-evaluate its aims. With racism supposedly overcome, what is its true mission now? For its forthcoming 10 111 General Assembly, the World Council of Churches has published a Mission Statement (for acceptance by its member Churches) entitled: “Together Towards Life: Mission and Evangelism in Changing Landscapes.” This document, however, does not signifY a return to the Bible. Its content is strongly anti-Western and very disdainful of traditional missions and missionaries. These noble servants of God, who literally laid down their lives for the Gospel, are falsely imputed to having been “motivated by an attitude of paternalism and a superiority complex… ” What a missionary needs, says the WCC, is “a commitment to struggle. ” He must “resist the powers that obstruct the fullness of life. ” (p8} Mission should not be carried out “by the powerful to the powerless, by the rich to the poor, or by the privileged to the marginalized. Such approaches can contribute to oppression. “- Churches are called to “transform power structures. ” (p 7} Favouring a One World socialism and a One World religion, the WCC calls for “dialogue “with atheists and heathens, “in order to discern how Christ is already present” in them. In short, the WCC advocates the same revolutionary “Liberation Theology ” which it promoted in the 1970s and ’80s.
“Sin” is seen only in the social, political and economic “structures. ” That is why these have to be “transformed. ” The Bible, however, says: “All [mankind} have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. ·· (Romans 3:23) Therefore, “God- who is perfectly merciful and also very just- sent his Son to assume the nature in which the disobedience had been committed, in order to bear in it the punishment of sin by his most bitter passion and death. ” (The Belgic Confession, Article 20).
The Lausanne Movement
Towards the latter part of the 20th century, the world’s Evangelicals had become very unhappy about the WCC’s falsification of Missions. In 1974, they met in Lausanne, Switzerland, for a Congress on World Evangelization, led by Rev John RW Stott and the great evangelist Billy Graham. They wanted to create an evangelical counter movement to the revolutionary ecumenical World Council of Churches. They wanted to reaffirm the Great Commission and therefore drafted a “Commitment ” which was renewed at two subsequent Congresses, in Manila 1989 and in Cape Town, 2010.
In 2010, a hundred years after the great World Missions Conference of Edinburgh, the third Lausanne Congress met in Cape Town. It was a huge gathering of 4200 delegates from 197 countries. In a gesture of exceeding graciousness the organisers had invited Rev Olav Fykse Tveit, the Norwegian General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, to come with a delegation from the WCC. In his address Rev Tveit said, the geographic distance between Geneva (WCC headquarters} and Lausanne was not very great, and he hoped that the theological distance of the two movements (WCC and Lausanne} would also soon be overcome. In later talks he said that the Evangelicals had in any case already adopted a concept of Missions which was not much different from that of the WCC, stating: “That which the Evangelicals condemned particularly sharply at the Bangkok Conference, has now become their own understanding of mission. “
The New Watchword of Evangelical Mission – “Transformation.”
In the first (1974) “Lausanne Commitment ” it says (3rd Article): “Jesus Christ has given Himself as the only salvation for sinners. He is the only mediator between God and man.. All men are lost in sin, but God loves them all. He does not want that anyone be lost, but that everyone would come to repentance. Whoever rejects Christ, however, disdains the joy of salvation and condemns himself to eternal separation from God. ” Since this Biblical statement was made, evangelical missions have changed. They have increasingly emphasised not only the transformation of the heart of man, but also the transformation of society. Economic and social projects, such as community development, have become ever more important, even such utopian projects as halving world poverty by a certain date. Missionaries still prioritise the saving of souls, but in wanting to build the Kingdom of God here and now, some Missions are pursuing political aims. They speak of a “missional theology ” which is”holistic and incarnatory” and aims at the transformation of all areas of life, i.e. of society, politics, culture, psychology, marketing, medicine etc.
Recently at a Sunday Service in Cape Town, the minister wanted to encourage us to evangelism. At a seminar he had learned that a Christian should not just ‘ proclaim ‘ Christ, but rather ‘Jive ‘ Christ. A godly woman, he said, instead of telling others of Christ, might invite her friends to bake bread for the needy in the community. Then the beneficiaries would ask: Why are you doing this? And she would answer: because I am a Christian. – “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news! ‘” (Romans 10:14-15} What kind of a seminar had the minister attended? Was it sponsored by the WCC/SACC?
“TransformaUon Theology ” (just like “Liberation Theology”) reads the Bible from the life situation of the ‘‘poor. ” It “contextualises ” its message. Though Christian Missions do have a social responsibility, this is not their primary task. Until men’s hearts are changed by the miracle of Christ’s salvation, the economic, political and social conditions will never change. For the Gospel is “the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. “(Romans 1: 16) – “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, he was buried, he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. ” (I Corinthians 15:3-4) If men repent of their sins and receive the living Christ as personal Lord and Saviour, they will be saved. This message has the power of God Almighty contained in it, to completely change the lives of men and to make them “a new creation. “(2 Corinthians 5:17)
May God bless you richly,
D. Scarborough.
Footnotes:
- World Council of Churches. Together Towards Life: Mission and Evangelism in Changing Landscapes. Proposal for a new WCC Affirmation on Mission and Evangelism, 2012. Internet.
- Beycrhaus, Prof Peter, Ein angenehmcr Traum wird wahr. Die Bedeutung des Dritten lnternationalen Kongrcsscs fur Weltevangclisation in Kapstadt im Oktober 2010.
- The German Professor Peter Beyerhaus, Honorary President of the International Christian Network, authored a ‘”Call to Revive the Biblical Understanding of “Missions. ” it is entitled “ World Evangelisation or World Transformation?” It is to alert Evangelical Missions to contemporary unBiblical theological trends, and can he found on the internet.
