The Lausanne Global Conversation is on the World Wide Open Network
Author: Os Guinness and David Wells
Date: 13.07.2010
Category: Media and Communications
Editor’s Note: This Cape Town 2010 Advance Paper has been written by Os Guinness and David Wells as an overview of the topic to be discussed at the Multiplex session on “Globalization.” Responses to this paper through the Lausanne Global Conversation will be fed back to the authors and others to help shape their final presentations at the Congress.
“Globalization” is a monumental challenge that represents quite simply the most pressing face of “the world” in our time, as well as the greatest opportunity for mission and the greatest challenge for discipleship the church of Jesus Christ has faced since the Apostles in the first century. Never has the vision of “the whole Gospel for the whole world through the whole church” been closer yet more contested.
The double-edged strength of the church
As Christians, and as the church of Jesus Christ, we are called by our Lord to be “in” the world, but “not of” the world. “No longer” who we were before we came to Christ, we are “not yet” what we will be when Christ returns. This bracing call to tension in both time and space lies at the heart of our faith. Individually and collectively, we are to live in the world in a stance of both Yes and No, affirmation and antithesis, or of being “against the world/for the world.”
This tension is crucial to the faithfulness of the church, and to her integrity and effectiveness in the world. When the church of Christ remains faithful to this calling, she lives in a creative tension that is the prerequisite of her transforming power in culture and history. For the Christian faith is unashamedly world-affirming, and has a peerless record in contributing to education, to philanthropy, to social reforms, to medicine, to the rise of science, to the emergence of democracy and human rights, as well as to building schools, hospitals, universities, orphanages, and other beneficial institutions. Yet at the same time, the Christian faith is also world-denying, insisting on the place of prophets as well as priests, on sacrifice as well fulfillment, on the importance of fasts as well as feasts, and on the place for exposing and opposing the world when its attitudes and actions are against the commands of God and the interests of humanity.
Not surprisingly, the church’s constant temptation has been to relax this tension from one side or the other, so that the Christians in different ages have sometimes been so much in the world that they are of it, or so much not of the world that they were “no earthly use.” Either way, such unfaithfulness means that the church grows weak, but unfaithfulness in the direction of worldliness is worse than weak, for it puts the church, like Israel in the Old Testament, under the shadow of the judgment of God.
This challenge carries an inescapable implication: Christian faithfulness in any generation requires a clear-eyed understanding of the world of its day. The biblical view of “the world” has several dimensions, ranging from the world that God created and loves to the world that is “over against” the kingdom of Christ, and we in turn should have several appropriate responses. Seen positively, understanding the world is assumed and required by our desire to witness, for communication always presupposes understanding of context. Seen negatively, understanding the world is assumed and required by vigilance against the danger of worldliness, for we can only avoid what we accurately understand.
We meet in Cape Town in October 2010 one hundred years after the great world missionary conference in Edinburgh in June, 1910. It would be true to say that Edinburgh’s missionary vision and enterprise has been gloriously vindicated and fulfilled in the emergence of the burgeoning global church over the last hundred years. But it must also be said that the tragic blind spot of the Edinburgh Conference was its lack of self-criticism of its own position in the world, and in particular its failure to recognize its captivity to the powerful delusions of European “Christendom” just before its titanic collapse in the Great World Wars, the repudiation of imperialism, and its own self-induced secularization. While we today are no more omniscient than our sisters and brothers who met in Edinburgh, we must endeavor to be more self-critical through understanding our world and our own place in it.
Coming to terms with “globalization”
What, then, is “the world” of our day? Beyond any question, the single, strongest expression of the face of the world in our time—the advanced modern world of the early twenty-first century—is globalization, the process by which human interconnectedness has expanded to a truly global level. There are many people, such as the writers of The Economist magazine, who attribute globalization to the spread of market capitalism throughout the world, and use the word only as a synonym for this expansion. But this is self-interested as well as wrong. Globalization is a multi-dimensional process, and the decisive driver in its present expansion is not capitalism but information technology, powerful and important though capitalism is. At the centre of the current wave of globalization are “the triple S-forces” of speed (with the capacity for instant communication), scope (the capacity to communicate to the entire world), and simultaneity (the capacity to communicate to everywhere at the same time). Together, these forces have shaped our “wired world” and led to an unprecedented triple impact on human living: the acceleration, compression, and intensification of human life on earth in the global world.
To call the present levels of globalization “unprecedented” is accurate, but it must be qualified at once. Today’s globalization is unique in history so far, but there are many earlier precedents of movement toward globalization, including the missionary expansion of the great world religions, the impact of the advances in transport and the widening networks created by trading, and the expansive effects of military conquest and imperialism. Equally, there are grand advances in earlier times that can claim a similar revolutionary impact on human life, such as the invention of writing, the alphabet and the wheel.
Thus, if viewed from the longer historical perspective, advanced modern globalization is only the latest of a series of waves of expanding human interconnectedness. But if viewed from the shorter perspective of the modern world, globalization represents a decisive shift from the Industrial Revolution, centered on production and epitomized by the factory, to the Information Revolution, centered on communication and epitomized by the computer. Either way, we must take into account both continuities and discontinuities with the past, and we must make our claims about the present with accuracy and humility.
Needless to say, globalization poses a sharp challenge to both accuracy and humility, and we need to start by avoiding the two equal and opposite pitfalls into which so many fall: the excessive “Wow!” attitudes of the cheerleaders and the excessive “gloom and doom” of the curmudgeons (who in their Christian form view globalization as the precursor to “the end times”). In any age, there are three tasks facing Christians who would wrestle with the world of their day and live faithfully as followers of the Way of Jesus.
The first task is to discern, and so to make an accurate description of the realities of the world in which we find ourselves.
The second task is to assess, and so to evaluate the pros and cons, the benefits and costs, of the world as a whole as well as of individual items and aspects of that world – all assessed within the framework of the biblical worldview.
The third task is to engage, and so to enter the world as disciples of Jesus called to be salt and light, gratefully using the best of the world as gifts of God and vigilantly avoiding the worst of the world. Or as the early church expressed it, we are to “plunder the Egyptian gold,” as the Lord told Israel to do, but we are never to set up “a golden calf,” as Israel was later judged for doing.
Easy to say, these basic Christian tasks are harder than ever to do because of globalization. History is always more complex than we can understand, and it proceeds not by the simple influence of certain factors but by their complicated interplay and through the ironies of their unintended consequences. Globalization only compounds our difficulty in understanding, for by its very nature, globalization means that we who are finite now have to deal with the whole world—in other words, a world that is always far beyond our full comprehension. And we are dealing with the world when the world is communicating and changing at an unprecedented speed—in other words, when the world may have changed even before we have finished describing it.
One safeguard is that to remember that many of our best descriptions always require immediate reminders. First, globalization almost always involves two countervailing forces, and not simply one—if the world is “universalizing” in new ways, it is also “localizing” in new ways (which has helped coin the odd term “glocal,” used to describe the impact of the global on the local and the local on the global). Second, in every new trend there are always both winners and losers—and Christians who honor their Master must never lose sight of the poor, the oppressed, and those left behind economically, especially those caught by the savage inequities of the globalized world. Third, there are “multiple modernities,” or different ways of being modern—so that the old adage that “Globalization equals Westernization equals Americanization” is not only wrong but a dangerous conceit. Different cultures, with their own history and their own values, are able to adapt to the modern world in their own way, and may always attempt to say No to what is considered “progress,” and not simply Yes.
The Global faith par excellence
The crucial and supreme point of the whole discussion is that globalization has a special relevance for Christians because the Christian faith is an essentially global faith. To any observer of the global scene, certain facts are evident and beyond question: The Christian faith is the world’s first truly global religion. Christians are the most numerous of religious believers in the world. The Christian church is the most diverse community on earth. The Bible is the most translated book in history. And in many parts of the world, the Christian faith is the world’s fastest growing faith, especially when growth is through conversion rather than birth rate. And so on.
Such facts are not accidental, for globalization is integral to the Christian faith. For one thing, the Christian faith was global before the term, beginning not simply with the Great Commission to the whole world but with the promise to Abraham that he would be the father of the faithful and a blessing to the whole world. For another thing, the Christian church has been one of the great “carriers” of globalization throughout history, such as in the missionary expansion of the first century church, the Protestant missions in the nineteenth, and the reaching out to the whole world today by the churches from all around the world—the remarkable enterprise of the Korean churches is a shining example. For yet another thing, Christian NGOs (non-governmental organizations) such as World Vision, Opportunity International, Compassion, Food for the Hungry and the International Justice Mission are often the pioneering carriers of globalization in the world today.
Put these factors together and it is clear that, if the Christian church lives up to its calling and proclaims the Gospel in its fullness, it is the natural carrier of a global Gospel for the global era—“the best news ever” for all humankind. No less than that is our privilege and our responsibility in the global era.
Grand transformations
Our core focus at the Lausanne Congress in Cape Town will be on the implications of globalization for discipleship and evangelism. But it is crucial to underscore that globalization is transforming almost every aspect of human life on the planet, and all these transformations have a bearing on discipleship and evangelism in one way or another. Some of the major transformations that require further exploration can be summarized briefly as follows:
f worldwide emotions, such as fear and the shameless pandering to fear-mongering and alarmism
A proper description of these profound transformations is far beyond the scope of this brief introductory essay. But such consequences must never be forgotten, for they define the world in which we live and in which we bear witness to our Lord. Our focus, here, however, is on two central areas: globalization and discipleship, and globalization and mission.
Christian discipleship in the global era
If globalization has both local and global dimensions, and if its enormous benefits are also trailed by extraordinary shadows, as they are, then it poses for Christian discipleship challenges that are complex. How do we think about both the benefits and the costs as Christ’s followers? And how do we think of this world that lives in our consciousness at both a macro and a micro level?
Christian mission in the global era
The increased opportunities for mission and evangelism in the global era are obvious and huge. Christians are by definition great communicators, and the global era is by definition the great age of communication, so the potential for outreach in the global world can hardly be overstated. With the destruction of traditions, the collapse of traditional certainties, and the melting down of traditional roles and allegiances, there is greater political liberty, greater social fluidity, greater religious diversity and greater psychological vulnerability than ever before in history. As a result, human beings in the global era have been described as “conversion prone,” and more open than ever to consider new faiths. We therefore face the prospect of spreading the Gospel in a manner that is “freer, faster, and farther” than ever before in the church’s history, a prospect that must be seized with faith and courage.
At the same time, it would be naïve not to see that the increased challenges to mission and evangelism are equally powerful, and must be faced frankly. The following nine issues are examples of the sort of challenges we must consider in the global era:
Either way, history shows that such attempts are almost always ineffective for the culture and disastrous for the church. And in the process, the Christian faith gets pressed into the service of some political ideology or other, losing the distinctiveness of the way of Jesus, and ending up as the court chaplain to the powers of the age. Both extremes must beware the idolatry of politics in the modern world, and consider the maxim: “The first thing to say about politics is that politics is not the first thing.”
Is not this partly why the single strongest difference between the early church and the modern church is the lack of supernatural power in the modern church, and there is such an attendant lack of prayer, spiritual discernment, and capacity for healing, deliverance, and supernatural warfare?
Secularization means that in the advanced modern world we live in “a world without windows,” so that for many modern Christians, the unseen tends to be also the unreal. Thus it is possible for us to live as “functional atheists,” and in more and more of life to have “no need of God,” so that mission is driven by statistics, demographics, and the “roll out” of the Gospel to the “unreached,” rather than by the traditional passion for Christ and for “the lost.”
At the same time, the pluralized world amplifies the fears surrounding the challenges of living with deep religious differences, so that religion is viewed as divisive and evangelism as unwarranted and politically incorrect “proselytization.”
Two particular dangers must be highlighted here. One is the subtle distortions of the Gospel in the various forms of modern “possibility thinking,” and the other is the crass and vile distortions of the Gospel in the various forms of the “prosperity” or “health and wealth Gospels” that are now exported from the USA to parts of the Global South, where their effects are pernicious to both the Gospel and the poor.
Among many issues on which Evangelicals have both the biblical resources and the historical experience to speak out constructively is the issue of forging civility in the emerging “global public square.” Whereas some Western Christians are now widely attacked as part of the problem of religion and public life, the proper championing of freedom o
f conscience and religious liberty for people of all faiths would make us part of the answer—not only for our own good, but for the wider good and the shalom of humanity. Lausanne III at Cape Town could take a strong lead at this point.
In sum, while the global world offers unprecedented opportunities for reaching peoples and parts of the world that have never been reached before, it sharpens the contrast between the wisdom of the world and the foolishness of the Gospel to a daunting and uncomfortable degree. Evangelism in the global era appears easier, and in many ways it truly is, but discipleship is unquestionably harder, and so too is costly incarnational evangelism that is patterned on the life and death of Jesus rather on the brilliance of modern insights and techniques.
Serving God in our own generation
Every generation is as close to God as every other, and we are responsible only for our own generation. Yet it is claimed today that the generation of young people who are now entering adulthood are the “crunch generation,” in the sense that many of the global trends of our day are converging to create unprecedented challenges for humanity. Regardless of whether this proves true, it is not too much to say that globalization represents the greatest opportunity for the Gospel since the Apostles, as well as the greatest challenge to the Gospel since the Apostles, and that we must respond to both with faith and with courage.
Above all, we must face both the opportunities and the challenges of globalization as the united people of God. In particular, and remembering the tragic blind spot of the Edinburgh Conference in 1910, we must avoid the peril of two equal and opposite forms of the worldliness of power. On the one hand, we must not confuse the spread of the Gospel with the spread of Western power, and on the other, we must not confuse a prophetic stand against Western power with the premises and prejudices of anti-Western “post-colonialism.”
With Western power in visible decline, there is less excuse for the first confusion than at Edinburgh, though the economic and cultural power of the West may well outlast its political and military dominance. In many parts of the world, the current temptation is to fall for the opposite confusion introduced by post-colonialism, but this would divide Christian against Christian in the name of suspicion, envy and resentment. And it would also divide the church along such lines as “the West” versus “the Rest,” the “global North” against the “global South,” or the churches of the “more developed” world against the churches of the “less developed” world. Such “accidental” and extra-biblical definitions and boundaries were the very mistake that Edinburgh made in light of the artificial and territorial notion of “Christendom.” More recent missionary themes such as “The whole church to the whole world,” or “Everyone to everyone, and everywhere to everywhere” are not only more in tune with the global era but more faithful to the Great Commission.
We all thank God together for the abundant evidence of the spectacular growth of the churches in the global South, with all their courage, passion and spiritual power. They put to shame the all-too obvious contrast with the marked spiritual poverty of the churches in the West. But at the same time, we must all be humbly aware that much of the global South is not yet fully modernized, and therefore not yet fully tested by the coming challenges and seductions of modernity (to which the Western church has fallen captive). That test is still to come.
Equally, we all openly acknowledge and sorrow over the dire weakness and worldliness of much of the church in the West, and its profound need for revival and reformation. Yet its sorry condition can stand as a helpful warning to all the churches elsewhere in the world: Do not do as Western churches have done over the past two hundred years—falling captive to the spirit and systems of the modern world. Thus, all the global churches can join hands in prayer with Western churches in this hour of their greatest challenge.
Then, the global churches around the whole world can be true partners and join forces to face the task of recovering a faith with such integrity and effectiveness that it can prevail over the challenges of the advanced modern world, and so do honor to our Lord and bring his Good News to the world.
No less than that is the supreme challenge posed by globalization to followers of Jesus Christ, and no less than that is the urgency of the topic we will explore together in this Multiplex session in Cape Town in October, 2010. Plainly, the topic of globalization is too large and the session too short to do justice to its immensity. But whether then or later, as this extraordinary century unfolds, we may trust that God is greater than all—globalization included—so God may be trusted in all situations, and we may have faith in God, and have no fear.
© The Lausanne Movement 2010
Keywords: Globalisation, discipleship, community, calling, tension, integrity, assessment, engagement, societal transformation, witness, mission, worldliness, Edinburgh Conference, secularisation, interconnectedness, discernment
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Conversation Post Comment
United States
We give thanks to our Lord Jesus that He is using you to inspire courage and discernment in His people. Our brother Dietrich Bonhoeffer warned us of the evils of "cheap grace" and consequently cheap discipleship that made us blind. May your warnings regarding cheap evangelism lead us into costly discipleship. "May the grace of Our Lord Jesus be with God’s people." Revelation 22:21 Thank you.
30.10.2010
China
Functional Atheism
Just a few thoughts on David Wells and Os Guinness’ advance paper for Cape Town 2010 – “Global Gospel, Global Era: Christian discipleship and mission in the age of Globalization. “
They do a great job at highlighting both the challenges and opportunities that globalization brings to Christian discipleship.
The one challenge that stood out to me the most is the lethal effect of secularization. The authors state, “Man does not live by bread alone,” Jesus said, but thanks to the brilliance and power of modern insights and techniques, no generation has come closer to the illusion of being able to do so including the ability to grow churches and conduct effective outreach on the strength of human ingenuity alone and without any genuine need for God at all.” When I read that I had to think about something that I read a while back that talked about functional atheism. Within the next couple paragraphs Wells and Guinness use the same term. Today I was teaching on Paul’s Conversion in Acts 9:1-19. The one thing that really struck me is that Paul moves from self reliance and making plans on his own, to utter less helplessness and then ultimately to trust and dependence in Jesus. In my own work as a youth minister I got to the point at one time where I was convicted that I only talked about faith but did not really trust Jesus with the things that I was doing. I was relying on my own strength and trying to do work that was not mine to do in first place. I think many Christians have stages of faith where we forget to trust Jesus and live in self-reliance. Even though we are Christians we have become (hopefully only for a short time) functional atheists. Wells and Guinness point out that there are churches that have come beset with this functional atheism. This can be seen in some of our church practices. They write, “Secularization means that in the advanced modern world we live in “a world without windows,” so that for many modern Christians, the unseen tends to be also the unreal. Thus it is possible for us to live as “functional atheists,” and in more and more of life to have “no need of God,” so that mission is driven by statistics, demographics, and the “roll out” of the Gospel to the “unreached,” rather than by the traditional passion for Christ and for “the lost.” Thus we need to reflect on our daily practices. Have we set aside our faith in Jesus and put faith in ourselves and into Evangelism techniques or something other then Jesus?
I leave it at that.
#dmingml
#capetown2010
24.10.2010
United States
Secularization means that in the advanced modern world we live in “a world without windows,” so that for many modern Christians, the unseen tends to be also the unreal. Thus it is possible for us to live as “functional atheists,” and in more and more of life to have “no need of God,” so that mission is driven by statistics, demographics, and the “roll out” of the Gospel to the “unreached,” rather than by the traditional passion for Christ and for “the lost.”
We live in a world where the church has the potential to become "lost" even as it seeks to be the church. Branding, technology, research, strategies, study committees, and "living fast" all have conspire to create the possibility for the church to function as an organization without a dependence on God. In their paper for the Lausanne conference , Guinness and Wells addresses this issue in an examination of a number of the issues of living/spreading the gospel as a global faith.
They remind us that "...the Christian faith is unashamedly world-affirming, and has a peerless record in contributing to education, to philanthropy, to social reforms, to medicine, to the rise of science, to the emergence of democracy and human rights, as well as to building schools, hospitals, universities, orphanages, and other beneficial institutions." While also calling us to the task of remembering that what we do in the world should have a uniqueness because of who we are as followers of Christ and that how we connect with our world is something of the resident aliens described in the book by Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon by the same name.
21.10.2010
United States
I really enjoyed this paper about Globalization and evangelism. I appreciate the perspective and concerns of the shrinking world and the expansion of the Kingdom of God. When we as the church are true to our calling, we “live in a creative tension that is the prerequisite of her transforming power in culture and history”. I love that statement. It is something I believe that we all need to always remember, because God is bigger than Globalization, politics and social media. We have the transforming power, we just need to be able to communicate and share that message effectively without “selling” religion.
I thought the issues of the “pendulum swing” of how to be in the world and not of the world was very insightful. The western Church definitely has issues with being a branded religion and consumeristic religion. That is one of those areas where we have to know how much and when to use the tools of the day to communicate Christ’s love. There is “an attendant lack of prayer, spiritual discernment, and capacity for healing, deliverance, and supernatural warfare”. We are” able to do things on our own” and the thought of living as “functional Atheists” makes me reflect on my own personal walk with God. That is something that I do not want to become. That is something I do not want my church to become. Living in the United States that is something I always have to battle. It’s HIS will not my own.
It is true that the shear spreading the Good News of Jesus is in many ways easier in the times we live, but the hard work of Discipleship and the incarnational living is something that is becoming increasingly difficult. A faithful presence within our communities means that we not only live a Christ shaped life but our conversations are Christ Shaped. If were not speaking about What God is doing in our lives it probably means God is not active in our lives.
Great insights, loved the paper!
#dmingml
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18.10.2010
Norway
EExcellent paper, but why this gloomy picture of ’politics’? Yes, politics can be dirty and ’dangerous’, but so can the world we live in. And the big things in the world cannot be changed without ’social action’, i.e. politics. Should we therefore not try to say something positive and encouraging about Christians entering the political arena? A friend of mine has been primeminister in Norway - a committed Christian and even a pastor. Should we not encourage some of us to be disciples in the world of politics?
14.10.2010
United States
@ Knud_Jorgensen:
First, I must be clear in saying that God will use whatever means necessary to fulfill his purpose- which may indeed include placing Christians as politicians.
But I point to several reasons for why I agree with this article that Christians should have a low view of engaging in the political arena.
First is that it creates the incredibly dangerous mix of faith/grace and power. If one can get past the Old Testament without seeing the pitfalls of this mix, then you need to look no further than the Crusades and the wars during the Reformation. Politics and Faith have not mixed well. God may tap Christians, such as William Wilberforce, to renew a part of it, but that seems to be the exception, not the rule.
Second, using politics as the means to renew culture assumes one thing, that the simple renewing of culture will trigger conversion to Christ. What we see in the book of Acts is that it occurs in the reverse order. Conversion leads to changed behavior, which transforms culture. The politician being in a position of power is inherently flawed as an evangelist. But I guess it goes back to my point that power and faith do not mix.
I am getting long winded, so I’ll leave it at those. But I believe the biggest failure of the American church is its insistence on being engaged in politics. It has tarnished the witness of many humble Christians who seek to serve the lost. But that is merely my own experience, and is open to being corrected.
Dan
17.10.2010
United States
Yes, very good paper. I must read several times to understand it. Thank God.
16.10.2010
United States
This paper is a sobering reminder of the challenges we are facing in the morning years of this century. Yet I keep reflecting on the words "...in the fullness of time..." God sent His only Sonf for the redemtion of man. That phrase seems odd, since Jesus came not during the reign of David, or even his son Solomon. He came at a time when Israel was not a world power and Rome was. Yet it was God’s good pleasure to to a send His Son to be born to a subjugated people.
It was also His will that Jesus came at a time when Roman infrastructure, (though certainly not built with Christians in mind), was used by Paul and all the apostles to speed the Gospel message o nits way. We are surely at a similar crossroads and should be on tip toes anticipating how God will use the fact of globalization to help us advance the Gospel. The cautions are well take, too, as that which can help speed the Gosele also has the potential to destroy us.
15.10.2010
United States
This is a fantastic paper both in how it is written and the content. I will re-read and apply this paper to my context and share it with others. Thank you! As a fan of what is good about the globalizaton process, I thank you for a balanced perspective and pointing out the demonization tendancy within the Church is both wrong and dangerous. I also appreciate your use of the concept “multiple modernities,” as it more elegantly makes space for us to understand what is really happening. One can’t help but think about the impact on information technology like Google and the wrangling back and forth within China as an expression of this. China’s globalization process and path definately resonate with its past. Introducing the concept of multiple modernities helps us see the complexity of globalization and affords us the opportunity to better see the flat sides and opportunities that exist in multiple people groups. Thank you.
12.10.2010
Malaysia
Thanks for the paper. Globalization truly poses threats and at the same time offers opportunities. Lausanne III takes place as such a time as this offers the global church opportunities to express the meaning of unity in diversity; working hand in hand as one body in Christ to face the new challenges of evangelism and discipleship; without segregating the global south and the global north; the west and the non-west; the developed and the less-developed. This is an area that demands for the church’s attention.
12.10.2010
Italy
I found this article most informative and inspiring.
As a Christian living in the West, and having lived both in the USA and in the EU, it has often struck me that we tend to be active through methods and techniques more than in prayer and listening to the voice of the Lord.
In the globalized world, we can somehow impact the world with the right marketing strategies and the up-to-date technologies, but if we are not in sync with what the Lord wants us to do... then how are we impactin the world! Your remarks in this regard are striking.
It’s true, we can do so much, but exactly because of that, because of the influence and power we have, we must bend our knees and pray that our efforts would be truly inspired, lead, sustained and consistant with God’s Spirit.
It’s a tough tension, but we need God’s wisdom and we need His power to make the most of this amazing challenge.
On a different level of reasoning, I would like to know if there are more articles or other written resources that discuss the issue of handling information. With the world becoming so closely knit, the amount of information (of any kind) is so great that one feels he or she is drowining in this immensity. Usually, one of the responses is that of "superficiality", surfing through information rather than plunging in. How can we teach our youth the sacrifice of hard work done on books, while it is much easier to surf the net for other people’s work? I believe we need to address the issue of information in our churches and training institutions, because it is changing...fast.
Thanks again Os and David for your contribution, and if any other "global conversation partner" would like to interact with me, that would be great.
11.10.2010
Kenya
The trend in the age of globalisation tends to be for missionaries to run everywhere, rather than concentrate on anywhere. A classic sign of this - is the global map with more and more countries being filled in ... ’we have a ministry there’ ... which inevitably results in shallow ministry wherever one goes.
The old missionary system, of dividing up countries between different churches / mission efforts (certainly as practiced in anglophone Africa) had something going for it I think. It enabled depth.
I say this recalling a new missionary to East Africa to a certain people. After a few months, he found those people to be too corrupt, so he decided that he was called to a nationwide ministry, and joined the thousands (?) of other Westerners who minister to the whole country. If he hadn’t had to leave, I guess he would soon have joined the club with a ’continent-wide’ ministry.
Those we are reaching realise that people’s ego are tied into such approaches, and may not be slow to take advantage. Of course they preclude the use of local languages ... etc.
11.10.2010
Indonesia
Even Heraclitus (500bc) had mention that tension were present in our daily life. But how to maintain this tension, ‘the global’ and ‘the local’ ?. Its unavoidable that the pendulum has gone to one pole and far away from other pole. The domination of globalization had declined something ‘private’, ‘up-close’ and ‘personal’. While human interconnectedness has expanded, interpersonal disconnectedness increased. Is a real connectivity or virtual one ?
We could do evangelization by increasing it’s speed, scope and simultaneity, but is it possible not losing her closeness, intimacy, private and personal concern to a single person. Do we keep building dedicated connectivity , which upon that we upload a good news regarding salvation ?
11.10.2010
Mexico
This paper is really great! Thank you Os and David.
You face very well the challenges of discipleship but on the other hand it gives us hope, because the gospel is global.
I’m thinking of Latin America, in Mexico where I live. Thanks for the prayer that we don’t behave the same as the western church. One challenge, is that in many mega churches they’re preaching the gospel as a "magic" product, and do not speak about the cost of discipleship. It will damage a lot the christian faith in the world. But my prayer is that we are faithful to the gospel, the gospel that is powerful and global.
07.10.2010
United States
A terrific paper. Thank you for opening our eyes up to some of these issues. Your caveats and balancing comments greatly strengthened the main scope and direction of your argument.
Three of the points which I think deserve continuing emphasis are:
•"But just as it was once a denial of the Gospel to stress the so-called “simple Gospel” at the expense of the “social Gospel”—a denial so well corrected at Lausanne I—so now it is equally a denial of the Gospel to stress the latter at the expense of the former, and to be vocal about justice while hesitant about the scandal of the Cross and the saving power of Christ."
•"The proper championing of freedom of conscience and religious liberty for people of all faiths would make us part of the answer—not only for our own good, but for the wider good and the shalom of humanity."
I am eager to affirm at Lausanne III that Christians are eager to serve the whole world: people of every nation, religion, class, gender, occupation, etc. To be clear in our words and lifestyles that we gather for world evangelization as servants, seeking the shalom of all people. The collected power that is inevitably represented by Lausanne is to be used in humility and in order to seek the very best for our neighbors.
•"And it would also divide the church along such lines as “the West” versus “the Rest,” the “global North” against the “global South,” or the churches of the “more developed” world against the churches of the “less developed” world. Such “accidental” and extra-biblical definitions and boundaries were the very mistake that Edinburgh made in light of the artificial and territorial notion of “Christendom.” More recent missionary themes such as “The whole church to the whole world,” or “Everyone to everyone, and everywhere to everywhere” are not only more in tune with the global era but more faithful to the Great Commission."
May we learn how to describe ourselves well, and use accurate language, while always primarily identifying as Christians, as "the saints...who are faithful in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 1:1). I am excited by the opportunity to demonstrate this visible unity in Cape Town with brothers and sisters in Christ from around the globe.
An excellent paper - thank you.
07.10.2010
United States
I particularly liked what you had to say about branding and commercialism. I worry that Christianity itself has become a product "in need of" proper branding, when in actuality, it is nothing of the sort. It’s the Kingdom of God on earth, superseding material things, promising more than happiness, but true fulfillment. Thank you for your voice on this.
07.10.2010
United States
Thank you so much for your insightful paper, especially the description of challenges confronting the Church in the global era. You have done much to open our eyes. I pray that this will trigger a global prayer movement of prayer for the Church.
I believe the identity of the global church is at stake. Our identity as humans often comes from what those around us think of us. Just so, the Church has the tendency to take her eyes off Jesus and look at the world not with the eyes of Jesus, but with her own eyes, looking to the world for confirmation of who she is. Fear, a longing for approval, anger, pain, a sense of abandonment can all result. Only Jesus can give the global Church her true identity. Her worth is written in His eyes. Her beauty comes as she returns His gaze and understands who she is in Him.
It is time for the Bride of Christ to become the Bride of Christ. May she adore her husband.
06.10.2010
United States
Well, I feel like someone just attached a fire hose to my brain and turned it on full force. Your paper is a thoroughly (perhaps brutally) honest assessment of the greatest challenges to the church.
Catherine_D, I agree with your views on the Facebook etc...it seems to me that we have gone through a cycle of interdependence (revolution, 1700’s) to discovery (1800’s) to rugged individualism (1900’s) and now, hungry for honest, even soulful connections, we are using any method available. Paul wrote “we loved you so much that we shared with you…our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us.” And then his letters were circulated (arguably an early release of facebook!) to the church, and relationships were formed. Our challenge, I think, is in developing depth and meaning in our connections in the face of an overwhelming number of them.
The US church has much to learn from our southern brethren. We have so programmed and scripted what we refer to as ’spirituality’ that there is little spiritual about it. What room is there for the supernatural and the free movement of the spirit. It is no wonder that people read the Bible and, holding it up next to the modern Western church, say "what, then, does the church have to do with the Spirit?" I am encouraged that this realization is bringing a renewed hunger for God’s palpable presence.
06.10.2010
Zambia
The paper calls us and challenges us. I believe that with a realization that we are called to do missions where we are and to everyone is the conclusion I take. And knowing the power of being disciples in our global villages and being christians that makes an impact on issues that affects us on day to day basis. That is church. That is the whole gospel.
05.10.2010
United Kingdom
Thank you for a very though-provoking paper. I found it helpful to read through a logical summary of the implications of globalization for discipleship and evangelism. It has stimulated me to ask the ’How?’ question, in terms of how should the Western church escape from being ’captive to the spirit and systems of the modern world?’ How do we meet these challenges in our church services and programmes, in our daily lives at home and work?
I agree that we have lost our traditional passion for Christ and the for "the lost", but how do we regain this? The obvious answer is through prayer and knowing God’s word, not just in our hearts but in our heads. But how do we motivate ourselves and others to do this?
I also think there is tension between not allowing the effects of secularization to dilute and distort the gospel and yet recognising that this is the culture in which we live and therefore we need to communicate with people in a way which they can understand. Our evangelism should be firmly rooted in sharing nothing more and nothing less than Jesus. However, I do think there is a place for taking innovative methods of communication and creative strategies that could be seen as ’secular methods’ and using them to spread the gospel.
I look forward to further stimulating discussion in Cape Town.
05.10.2010
United Kingdom
Undoubtedly globalization in all its complexity brings with it both extraordinary opportunities and also great dangers. Heresy spreads rapidly - but so does the Word of God. However, I wonder if it is true to say, as you do, that the power of the ’world’ (in its anti-God form) is "unprecedented in its pressure and pervasiveness". Is there not some danger also in a temptation to exaggerate the dangers and difficulties we face today as compared with those of former generations? What you describe as the "world-accommodating liberal revisionism" which is all too lethally apparent in my own denomination - the Church of England - is not necessarily a product of globalisation.
I wonder too, for instance, whether it is the case that social networking leads to a diminishment of social relationships. Is not the jury still out on that? It is quite possible for communications such as social networking actually to facilitate face to face relationships. That may be true, not least, in relation to mission partnerships across cultures and nations. The transformation in the speed and ease of travel, along with electronic communication, makes cross-global relating between brothers and sisters in Christ a wonderful possibility. It is undoubtedly true that the way a local church can fulfil its global responsibility for mission has dramatically changed. Perhaps we should start calling ourselves a ’glocal church’.
05.10.2010
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