In the 21st century, what major changes in the church should Christians be hoping and working for? In the final installment of the Global Conversation four key leaders from Malaysia, Argentina, Nigeria, and the United States share their dreams for major changes in the global church.

One of the big surprises of the 20th century was the dramatic growth of the churches in the non-western world. A bigger surprise was that, as Philip Jenkins asserts, those churches growing fastest are all strongly supernaturally oriented. 'In this thought world, prophecy is an everyday reality, while faith-healing, exorcism, and dream-visions are all basic components of religious sensibility.' This is true of African Initiated Churches, Latin American Pentecostalism, house churches in China and India, plus numerous others.

I too grew up in a thought world wherein ancestral spirits, demonic powers, 'gods' and miracles of all kinds abound. Modern education, the most powerful of secularization forces, almost succeeded in getting me to toss out everything as mere superstition. Some clearly are, but not all. Careful reading of the Bible and the sheer weight of empirical evidence eventually forced me back to a supernatural Christianity. But in this I found myself out of sync with much of western theology. Here at least liberals were consistent, but not evangelicals. The liberals denied the supernatural both in the Bible and the present; evangelicals fought tooth and nail to defend the miraculous in the Bible but rarely could cope with it in real life!

Increasingly it is now recognized that much of the western mind has been domesticated by modernity, with its roots in Enlightenment thought. The autonomous rationalism initiated by Descartes and a narrow empiricism pioneered by Hume have so emasculated the modern worldview that what is left is merely a mechanistic universe. The resultant denial of the supernatural crippled much of theology, leading to at least two serious consequences.

First, most present-day western systematic and pastoral theologies fail to address the realm of the demonic, at both the personal and cosmic levels. Many scholars simply deny or ignore the whole subject, explaining away numerous related biblical passages. Paul’s references to 'principalities and powers' are reduced to mere sociological structures; sin and evil are discussed without reference to the demonic. Such theologies may sit well with modernity, but provide little or no help for evangelists and pastors ministering to people who are demonized or under spiritual bondage of various kinds. Without these issues being properly addressed, many in the non-western world will find the gospel impotent and irrelevant.

The other consequence is that western Christianity often fails to fit the 'signs and wonders' of the Holy Spirit into its theological framework. Until recently, classical Pentecostalism has tended to be treated as some form of aberrant religion. The same attitude was taken toward the various versions of non-western indigenous Christianity that also took the New Testament teaching on spiritual gifts and the miraculous seriously. But today, with Pentecostalism and the charismatic movement increasingly accepted in the west, and most of the dynamic non-western churches taking the miraculous seriously, it increasingly looks as if, by New Testament standards, the real aberration is 'mainline' western Christianity!

A 21st century Reformation will demand that the supernatural be reinserted back into the heart of Christianity. The result will be not only a sounder biblical theology but a more powerful missional church. The world will then understand what Jesus meant when he said, 'But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you!' (Mat 12:28).

Hwa Yung is a bishop of the Methodist Church of Malaysia, and a member of the management team for Cape Town 2010. He wrote Mangoes or Bananas—The Quest for an Authentic Asian Christian Theology.

The sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation left a profound mark not only on the church of Jesus Christ but also on the history of the Western world and, as a sequel, on the history of the whole world. Today, the state of the Christian church in the West and beyond is such that a similar reformation is urgently needed.

A key problem of evangelical churches all over the world today is the unilateral emphasis on numerical growth. For the sake of it the Gospel is watered down, church services are turned into entertainment shows, and Jesus’ commandment to make disciples is replaced by a strategy to enroll as many “converts” as possible. In my frequent travels I find an increasing number of megachurches with a very high rate of numerical growth but with very a low concern for faithfulness to the whole Gospel and the ethical dimensions of whole-life discipleship. One wonders what has happened with the vision of whole-life discipleship projected by the First International Congress on World Evangelization (Lausanne I, held in Switzerland in 1974) in its celebrated Lausanne Covenant.

Lausanne I has been regarded by many as the most significant world evangelical gathering held in the 20th century. There is no exaggeration in saying that the significance of this global conference was mainly in the rediscovery of the absolute importance of the socio-political dimensions of the Gospel for the life and mission of the church. According to paragraph five of the Lausanne Covenant, because 'God is both the Creator and Judge of all people,' Christians 'should share his concern for justice and reconciliation throughout human society and for the liberation of men and women from every kind of oppression.' From this perspective, the mission of the Church must not be reduced to the oral proclamation of the Gospel -- 'evangelism and socio-political involvement are both part of our Christian duty.' The traditional dichotomy between evangelism and social responsibility is thus practically discarded.

Several consultations organized during the late 1970s and early 1980s by the theological commission of the Lausanne Movement – a commission chaired by John Stott – explored in depth the implications of these and similar statements made in the Covenant. The various statements that emerged from these consultations provide both a solid basis and a very rich agenda for Christian action in the world.

Unfortunately, Lausanne II, held in Manila in 1980, failed to follow up Lausanne I with regard to a holistic understanding of the Christian mission. To a large extent, it resulted in a reaffirmation of the traditional separation between evangelism and social action that has so deeply affected Western Christendom, especially in its evangelical expression, for the last couple of centuries.

One big question with regards to The Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in Cape Town this year is whether it will simply be a rubber stamp of Lausanne II, or whether it will allow the Spirit to use God’s Word and thus become a stepping stone for the urgently needed reformation of the church in the spirit of Lausanne I.

Rene Padilla is emeritus president of the Kairos Foundation and director of Kairos Books. He is a founding member of the Latin American Theological Fellowship, and author of Mission Between the Times: Essays on the Kingdom of God.

During my last visit to Ethiopia I joined students at Addis Ababa University for a meeting of the Evangelical Students’ and Graduates’ Union of Ethiopia (EvaSUE). They are part of a remarkably courageous Ethiopian church that survived the repressive regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam. Believers had to painfully go underground under persecution between 1974 and 1991 while the regime tortured and murdered tens of thousands. But afterwards the church emerged irrepressible and vibrant in witness.

At the meeting I attended, the worship session alone lasted an hour. Then came a time of prayer followed by biblical preaching, lasting about two and half hours. I could tell from the students’ singing, dancing and praying that most of them brought elements of their Orthodox Church background into their evangelical identity. Most could recite long portions of scripture from heart, a habit learned under Communist rule. There were 700 students present and another 50 were said to have gone into a village for rural evangelism. Later that night we sat and ate injera with bare hands from deep bowls.

These Ethiopian students could not have been more different in culture, experience, tradition and appearance from their counterparts in Oxford and Cambridge who pioneered Inter Varsity Fellowship (which later became the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students) about 64 years ago. Yet they are just as much a part of the future identity of global evangelicalism.

I believe there is a deep bowl of evangelical identity and heritage we all need to learn to eat from. This bowl is filled with diverse gifts contributed from the ends of the earth. Some of the best and most interesting foods on the menu come from newcomers in the evangelical family.

The future of evangelical reformation must take our global diversity seriously. We cannot be truly all that God wants us to be, or impact all the ends of the earth with Biblical truth and practice, if we are not attending to the global mosaic God is constructing in and through our diversity. In other words, beyond clinging to the values of our past reformation, which is rooted in particular contexts, we must take seriously the emerging values from new centres of Christian expansion.

In the parable of the workers in the vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16) the landowner hired workers at different times but paid them the same wage. The first-come workers had accepted the terms of payment, and would have gone home content if other workers had not been introduced. Instead, they resented the later-hour workers. Sometimes evangelicals stand in danger of being like them, expecting higher honour or greater wages because they came first.

We have seen wonderful things. The founding fathers of the evangelical tradition now stand
surrounded by beneficiaries who would do all they can to defend and preserve the fathers’ heritage. That is certainly true of those Ethiopian students with whom I worshipped.

However, as the Lord of the harvest hires more workers to cross cultural barriers to the ends of the earth, they may produce fresher ideas to enrich the heritage. We cannot remain prisoners of the historical and cultural framework of the first-come workers. Our greater concern must be to listen and learn from what the Lord of history is doing globally. Can anything good come from the previously unimaginable, diverse ends of the earth? Only in being open to learn shall we know.

Femi B. Adeleye serves as Associate General Secretary for Partnership and Collaboration with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES), and is a Langham (John Stott Ministries) scholar. He also serves on the Pan-African Host Team for the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization, Cape Town 2010.

Reformation is a large concept, a work of God so broad, deep and historic that it is beyond my scope, and probably that of The Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization. I opt for something more modest: a 'reformation of manners' (to borrow a phrase from Jonathan Edwards and others). By this was meant a widespread social renewal, but we might aim more modestly at reforming our treatment of others, with courtesy as believers in the way we relate to one another, with respect as evangelists toward those we seek to win.

Three of the eminent 'fathers' of the Lausanne Movement – Billy Graham, John Stott and Jack Dain – exemplified for me this spirit of truth and grace, of deep conviction about the gospel and humility toward one’s self and others. The world, suggests historian Martin Marty, might be a different place if Billy Graham had been a 'mean person.' A Chinese Ph.D. student, not herself a believer, told me she is writing about how Graham approached other nations with civility, 'Not with a closed fist but with an open hand.'

When so many regard Christians (and especially evangelists and missionaries) as intolerant and arrogant, it could be a worthwhile advance if from Cape Town 2010 emerges a church proclaiming and practicing a generous evangelism, reflecting the generosity of the Lord Jesus.

Our theme for Cape Town 2010 is from Paul’s words: 'God in Christ reconciling the world to himself.' What an amazing privilege he then cites: that we are 'ambassadors for Christ …
God making his appeal through us.'

Or, as one paraphrase puts it, 'God has changed us from enemies into friends and given us the task of making others his friends also.'

Is that how pre-Christians see evangelists: as friends? Or as belligerents, heavy-handed, even fighting with each other?

How then should we be ambassadors, representing this good news? 'We put no stumbling block in anyone’s path,' Paul continues. 'As servants of God we commend ourselves.' How? Not only through enduring reproaches for the gospel, but by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech and the power of God (2 Corinthians 6:3-7).

So we are to weave together the heart and truth of the gospel message with the beauty and grace of gospel ministry.

The 'spirit of Lausanne' has been one of living out this attitude. God grant that Cape Town 2010 will be a place where evangelical believers come together, listen to one another with respect, learn together in humility, work and pray together in love.

If Cape Town 2010 can help us to become more generous evangelists, reflecting the generosity of Jesus, making the gospel attractive in word, act, and spirit, that can be a very large step toward reformation, or transformation, or, pray God, both.

Leighton Ford is president of Leighton Ford Ministries and honorary lifetime chair of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization.

Copyright © 2010 Christianity Today / The Lausanne Movement. Printed with permission.