I would suggest from my limited vantage point at the fringes of the congress that the themes that the Cape Town Confessions need to address are:

1. GOSPEL CONTEXTUALISATION

Antoine Ruytashire from Rwanda, a theological college principal, provided the conference with a powerful contextual analysis of western missionary practice. He challenged the conference to think about the message we have been communicating. By drawing attention to the 91% chrisianisation of Ruanda before 1994 that had insufficient depth to prevent “christian” people from participating in a genocide that killed a million people in a 100 days. There was a lack of contextualisation of the gospel hat failed to deal with the ethnic diversity of the country. Ziya Meyal also drew sharp attention to this in his presentation on evangelism and Islam arguing for the need to reexamine the individualistic gospel being presented.  There does not seem to be clarity amongst platform speakers or delegates on the need for, or the nature of contextualisation. From the platform the gospel is being consistently reduced to 1 Corinthians 15:1-4; as John Piper preached and Michael Ramsden reiterated – again showing the lack of awareness of  the social implications of the gospel and repentance. I wonder if a bigger gospel would help to reinforce Lausanne’s commitment to evangelism and social justice as if a fuller, more contextually aware, less pietistic / individualistic gospel is preached social justice and evangelism are even more tightly integrated. There has been little talk of the gospel of the kingdom. In fact an overemphasis on the epistles rather than the whole of scripture; even outside of the bible reading sessions. A bigger gospel that speaks of our relationship with God restored, our relationship with others, our relationship with creation and our relationship with ourselves. (I have written on this subject elsewhere). I have been frustrated that we have been asked to choose between prioritising evangelism or social justice. As my friend David Westlake puts it - that is a redundant question - why do we have to prioritize. We don’t prioritize between bible reading and prayer? We have heard that we must becareful not to be distracted from preaching by too great a focus on social justice. But I have never been warned about reading the Bible too much to lead me away from prayer. because everyone knows the more you read the Bible the more you want to pray. A bigger gospel would help us with this absurd dichotomy.

2. AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE

I felt the Bible expositions have often demonstrated more about the expositors own particular agendas than the text in front of them. The scripture has been used on one very particular occasion as a platform to push a particular doctrinal position which was not actually contained in the text. If truth is a major theme and “biblical truth” at that and the expositors have been chosen “as models for younger preachers” then we may have done more damage to the cause of biblical authority than good and instead demonstrated some of Michel Foucault’s observations on the relationship between power and truth. In the cause of world evangelization - the bible is often abused in our evangelistic and apologetic presentations and preaching. How do we model submission to the Bible this relates directly to both to the nature of contextualisation and of discipleship? 3. DISCIPLESHIP

Antoine Ruytashire, Renee Padilla, Ziya Meyal and Samuel Escobar have all called for a re-examination of the nature of discipleship. We have often produced shallow expressions of the gospel and then not sufficiently catechised converts to have a worldview transformation through the work of the Holy Spirit and submission to God’s word. Sometimes discipleship “programmes” have abused scripture treating the word of God as set of proof texts to be memorised rather than appreciating the richness of the genres, the flow of the narrative or the scope of the gospel. Biblical contextualised discipleship that is based not around individuals or mission agencies but around the work of the local church.

4. ECCLESIOLOGY

I have felt the church has taken a back seat at this event to the call for individuals to speak truth, face matyrdom and work for justice. Partly due to the overly individualised western gospel. There has been little talk about what mission should look like for the local church. I would like Lausanne to be clear about the role of the church.  The church as the basic unit of mission, the church as a contextualised sensitive expression of the kingdom of God which both preaches the gospel and offers help to the needy. The church as a disciplemaking community that seeks; under the spirit’s guidance, to call people to be reconciled with God, eachother, the creation and themselves. There has been little talk so far about the church as a united body – what does it mean apart from “Ulav Rykse Tveit “ who argued right at the outset of the conference that the needs of the world are too big to be met by a divided church.