Cross-Cultural Critique and the Cult of Celebrity

Missions historian, Andrew Walls, argued that two principles define the relationship of the church to the world: the indigenising principle, by which we make our home in the cultures of the world, and the pilgrim principle, by which we recognise our transitory place in the world. The task of the contextualisation of theology is marked by the tension created by those two principles. So, though we seek to demonstrate that the gospel can find a home in any culture, we are also under obligation to show how the gospel also subverts and transforms that culture. While the gospel does indeed have a wonderfully positive influence in any culture in which it is introduced, the follower of Christ can never feel completely at home because no culture has ever been completely transformed.

So part of the responsibility of every believer is to critique the cultures of the world. For many of us that comes easily enough: we have a ready reason why the people in said culture act the way they do - it is because of Hinduism, or Buddhism, or Communism, or whatever. But that is a superficial critique that does not deal with persons as agents, or take into account the many and varied forces and wider influences that shape the culture.

I have had to repent of my own often trite and superficial judgments when confronted by customs that I don't like. It is simply too easy to give in to prejudice.

The Fourth Lausanne Congress brought together a wide array of the global evangelical movement. Such diversity of denominations, vocations, languages, and cultures. All one in Christ and agreed on the great central facts of the death and resurrection of Christ, and their unique and powerful answer to the spiritual, social, and environmental problems of the world.

That unity, in Seoul, was in the midst of a diversity that one rarely encounters. So it requires the help of the Spirit to overcome one's sinful prejudices towards others. 

But, as I have already indicated in this blog series, there were controversies. On one level, that is not such a bad thing: there should be a place for robust debate and argument. On another, though, it is so easy for such debate to lack grace. Rather than throwing light on actions or words that could be revised, such criticism rather exposes the critic as lacking in love and humility. Anti-social media, of course, just supercharges that.

So it would be understandable if we all retreated into ourselves, afraid to ever exhort another brother. 

But that would be an over-reaction.

So allow me to tentatively share a concern I have with Lausanne, along with so much of 'Big Eva': the cult of celebrity. I do not think there was much grandstanding on the stage in Seoul. But I did witness some behaviour that bothered me. And even the information on speakers verged on the pompous. 

The cult of celebrity is an insidious intruder: like carbon monoxide it can enter the evangelical bloodstream and slowly but unconsciously poison us to death. At the very least we might find our spirituality seriously compromised. 

If I am wrong, as I hope I am, please correct me. If I am right, we have work to do to put our house in order.

Seoul Shortcoming

The State of the Great Commission Report is a big project produced by 150 researchers on behalf of the Lausanne Movement and in readiness for the Fourth Congress that has just taken place. I read it with much interest when it came out, and learned a lot. The Report addresses ten key questions, such as, What is community? What is fair and just? What is sustainable? and What does it mean to be human? The answers to these questions form the shape of the world in which we live and in which we seek to fulfil God's purpose for our lives. It is well worth a careful read.

Then in August, various regional reports were also published, in which those same questions were addressed in Europe, North America, Francophone Africa, etc. I have not read all of these yet, but I have read the reports on South Asia (which oddly includes Iran and Afghanistan), South East Asia, and East Asia.

I am sorry to say, I found the reports on South Asia and South East Asia seriously underwhelming. The report on South Asia looks at the region through the eyes of the minority Christian community. Although opportunities as well as challenges are presented, the huge majority communities in the countries of South Asia are like elephants in the room. How is it that the vast Hindu, Muslim, and Buddhist blocs that form the majority communities of South Asia are hardly mentioned, except in their role as the purveyors of persecution? A once-in-a-generation opportunity has been missed.

Which brings me to the 'Great Commission Gaps' of the State of the Great Commission Report. These 25 gaps are challenges and opportunities which the global church needs to address in order to fulfil the great commission. The gaps identified are, for example, discipleship in a digital age, sexuality and gender, AI and transhumanism, and people on the move. At the Congress we each focussed on one of those gaps during the afternoon collaborative sessions.

There was a collaborative action group on Islam, but not on Hinduism or Buddhism. So I chose to join the one on Least-Reached Peoples. In the room, I joined a table to focus on 'World Religions' - I don't know what the other tables were focussing on. It was a tough time, seeking to discuss the given questions focussing on our topic of concern. There was plenty to discuss, but we finished the week with a sense that we had accomplished little. Perhaps our achievement of the week was, once again, to identify that this is a huge area that needs a lot more work. Who will do that? How will we do that?

One afternoon, unrelated to the collaborative action sessions, we did have a one-off breakout group to discuss Hinduism. There were 21 of us in the room: as far as I can remember, 15 from India and six Westerners. No Nepalis. No Sri Lankans. I found this disconcerting and discouraging, so I asked a few of the Indian and Nepali delegates why they did not attend what was surely, for them, the single most important contextual topic of the week? One answered that he has already done seminars on Hinduism. Another that their biggest problem is secularism rather than Hinduism. With respect, I think there is a big problem here. Of course, secularism is a problem in Asia as well as the West. But the Hindu and Buddhist worlds adapt and accommodate secular forces in their own way. And unless we have a deep understanding of Hindu and Buddhist civilisations we will never get to grips with that. So the one-off session was also a missed opportunity.

There has never been a significant turning to Christ of Hindus. I know that people report all sorts of movements. Some of those may be significant. But, as far as I have been able to ascertain, there is no movement to Christ among self-consciously religious Hindus. And I think that situation will obtain as long as we who are involved in the Hindu world, South Asians as well as outsiders, refuse to pay attention to the longings of the Hindu peoples in their history, literature, music, art, dance, festivals, life-cycle rituals, etc. If we are content with only a superficial knowledge and refuse to go deeper, we are depriving our Hindu friends of respectful, loving, truth-filled gospel dialogue. 

The same is true of the Buddhist world.

So the biggest shortcoming of Seoul, I think, was not having Gaps on Hinduism and Buddhism. Least-Reached Peoples was a more general way to accommodate those concerns. And perhaps there would have been too few with any interest in those mega-blocs to justify giving them a specific Collaborative Action Session. But if Lausanne doesn't do it, who will?

Seoul Controversy

It would not be a Lausanne Congress without some controversy or other. Back in the original gathering it was the young Latin Americans, Rene Padilla and Samuel Escobar, who injected the need to address social action into the discussions. Not everyone agreed, but Stott was won over, so the new (or recovered?) emphasis was included in the Lausanne Covenant: 

"Although reconciliation with other people is not reconciliation with God, nor is social action evangelism, nor is political liberation salvation, nevertheless we affirm that evangelism and socio-political involvement are both part of our Christian duty."

Some participants refused to sign the Covenant because of this - I seem to remember that Ruth Graham, Billy's wife, was one of them. And in the subsequent years and especially in the discussions surrounding the Consultation on the Relationship of Evangelism and Social Responsibility in 1982, that issue was hammered out further.

It has never really gone away: irritations resurfaced at John Piper's exposition in Cape Town, in 2010.

And at Seoul the tension emerged again. Theologian Ruth Padilla DeBorst, Rene's daughter, spoke on the Monday evening on justice, and appeared to draw a moral equivalence between the "hostages held by both Israel and Hamas". It was not the only controversial thing to come from the platform that day but it was the most incendiary. And the next morning we received an email from the conference organisers apologising for the pain and offence that the presentation caused.

It would be a very difficult thing to make that judgment. David Bennett, the Congress Director, was doing a sterling job, so I for one would not want to criticise. Somehow, in such a gathering we need to be able to share our views without causing offence. Later in the week, the congress organisers also sent out an email from RPD, in which she sought to clarify her words. 

Another controversy also emerged during the week over the Seoul Statement. This document is meant, as its preamble clearly states, to build on the three previous core documents of the Lausanne Movement. So it was a little odd to me that it was immediately criticised for not adequately addressing this or that. It is a complex task to render such a statement into a form that is faithful, clear, and readily translatable. I will be looking to reread it over the coming weeks, as it deserves careful reflection.

Seoul Highlights

Here are some of my highlights from the congress:

Scattered throughout the week, we heard stories from the Lord's people around the world, both from the stage and on video. It is always encouraging to hear how the Lord is working in people's lives.

The theme for the Wednesday was on the Persecuted Church and Mission. It was sobering to hear first-hand accounts of persecution. We have many brothers and sisters who face violence and death on a regular basis. It was a delight to hear pastor Farshid Fathi, from Iran, talk about how he had attended the last congress in Cape Town, and how he had been thrown in jail on his return. He ended up staying in jail for five years. He told stories of his time in jail and how the Lord answered prayer for other prisoners, while he had to wait longer for his release. And he said all that with a smile on his face! We look forward to the day when our brothers and sisters in Iran are free to worship and share their faith without fear and continue to esteem them for their faithful stand.

One of the participants at the first Lausanne Congress was Ramez Attalah, from Egypt. He had been a student at the time. He recounted the time he had talked and prayed with a man who introduced himself as 'a pastor' from Africa. It was only as Ramez was returning home that he looked at the introduction card that he had been given: the pastor was Festo Kivengere, Archbishop of Uganda, who had suffered much for his faith under Idi Amin. As he told the story, Ramez was so moved by his recollection of that encounter, he could hardly go on: he just managed, "I wanted to be like Festo". How powerful such an encounter can be that it can have such an impression, 50 years on!

This was the first congress that could be attended by men and women from China. It would be easy for the church in China to hunker down in the midst of the ongoing official oppression they experience. But one of their number spoke of the vision of the church in China to send 30,000 cross-cultural missionaries by 2030. What a challenge!

Some of the morning expositions were very good. Phil Ryken's exposition of Acts 20, focussing on Paul as a servant leader, was very helpful. It was faithful to the text, clear, warm, and challenging. For a world church that has experienced so much abuse from its leaders, this was a very important session. When it is posted online I will try to create a link to it. I missed Ronaldo Lidorio, from Brazil, on the last morning, as I had to leave early for my flight to Nepal. I have enjoyed his writing: here it is.

There were a number of short talks each day, too. Vaughan Roberts spoke on sexuality on the Monday night. It was a master class in the format - he was given just 15 minutes. There are those, especially, I think, from Africa and Latin America, who criticise any talk around this subject, and some would say that Vaughan should not be in ministry because he experiences same-sex attraction. They are burying their heads in the sand, as if this is not an issue where they come from. I was very glad that Vaughan was given this slot and that he handled it in such a brilliant way.

The brightest highlight of the week for me was the presentation by leaders of the church in Korea on the Thursday evening. Using audio-visuals, one after another spoke of the way the Lord had helped the church in Korea, often through terrible suffering, since it began 140 years ago. It could have been triumphalistic, but in fact the most poignant moment was when a senior pastor shared how church growth had plateaued off from the 1990s, and how this had led them to search their hearts, and confess the sins of pride and competition and obsession with numbers. The way back for the Korean church is repentance and the plea for revival. This was so refreshing to hear and I think resonated with many others around the hall.

Fourth Lausanne Congress

I had the privilege to participate in the Fourth Lausanne Congress in Seoul the other week. The Lausanne Movement was borne out of the first such congress that took place in Lausanne itself in 1974, and this was the biggest of them all I believe. 

Back in the original congress, a cross-section of global evangelicalism gathered to promote the cause of world evangelisation. That congress was called by Billy Graham and heavily dominated by Western mission organisations, as they were still the great driving force of gospel work across the world. The Lausanne Covenant was drawn up by the congress chairman, John Stott, during the night before the final day, and remains a very significant document both for the movement and for wider evangelicalism worldwide.

In subsequent decades there have been many small gatherings, as well as major congresses in Manilla and Cape Town, and an ongoing forum for discussion of issues pertaining to the fulfilment of the mission of God.

I have been aware of Lausanne since I first went to Asia in 1985 and read with much profit the papers from the first congress as well as many of the subsequent discussions.

This was my first visit to South Korea, but as I have worked with many fine Korean missionaries over the years, it did not feel the slightest bit alien to me. Seoul/Incheon is really modern; everything is very swish and orderly. It struck me that Koreans working in places like Nepal have as much adjustment to make as anyone from the West - perhaps more.

I was one of 5,400 participants from 202 countries: probably the most diverse gathering of gospel people the world has ever seen. As others have said, worshipping with such a great number of believers from such a range of countries, denominations, ethnicities, languages, and backgrounds, was a taste of heaven on earth.

The theme was "Let the church declare and display Christ together", which succinctly expresses much that Lausanne has stood for over half a century. There were two plenary sessions each morning and then one each evening, in which we were all seated at tables of six. There were expositions in the book of Acts; short talks on a range of themes, such as persecution, justice, servant leadership, workplace witness, reaching the emerging generation, and racial reconciliation; sung worship led by the Getty Band and a Korean band; and much time for discussion around our tables.

The table groups seemed to be just about as diverse as they could be: with me was a startup entrepreneur from the States, a brother who is running an agriculture NGO and radio ministry in Ethiopia, and three single women, from India, Indonesia, and the UK, involved in digital marketing, women's discipleship, and ministry to vulnerable women in Cambodia, respectively. We got to know each other quite well during the week. It was precious to pray together regularly and share our concerns and vision.

Each afternoon we split up into separate venues for our collaborative meeting: we had all opted for one of the issues that had been identified as needing special attention if we are to close the gap of world evangelisation. Mine was Least Reached Peoples, with particular attention, on our table, for World Religions.

Throughout the week we were served superlatively by 1400 Korean (and other) volunteers, who made us feel very welcome and ensured that the congress went off successfully.

You can get a feel for the congress here. Look out for more reflections over the coming days.