Baptist CWME Delegates Urge WCC for a new Focus on Evangelism

Two weeks after the Conference on World Mission and Evangelism (CWME) in Athens, Greece, overseen by the World Council of Churches (WCC), the Baptist delegates to the Conference have continued to refresh their attitude towards evangelism. They have submitted a statement to the CWME Commission urging a greater focus on evangelism as sharing the Good News of Jesus, according to the Baptist Times.

The statement was meaningfully signed by Baptists from four different countries, including Revds Jan Edström (Finland), Darrell Jackson (United Kingdom), Ole Jørgenson (Denmark), and Dr Roy Medley (USA).

In response to the letter from the Conference to all Christians in the world adopted on 18th May, which calls on churches everywhere to become healing and reconciling communities of hope, the Baptists confess that it "shares with a number of other participants, including the evangelical and Pentecostal constituency, a concern for a more adequately holistic treatment of mission that includes the importance of vocalising the Good News".

In addition, the Baptists affirm the value of the holistic understanding of the Gospel includes its social and political dimensions, according to the letter from the Baptist delegates to the WCC.

The Baptists have expressed their concern that "whether the discourse used with reference to evangelism has tended to over-emphasise the destructive consequences of evangelistic mission."

"While Baptists recognise these destructive elements in our own mission and that of others, we are convinced that such stories compel us to a renewal of our evangelistic mission practice rather than its abandonment," the letter continues.

The renewed call for the focus on evangelism from the Baptist delegates in fact echoed the plea made by the official national ecumenical body - the Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (CTBI) - in a statement to the WCC issued last week.

CTBI demanded "an ecumenical recovery of the central Christian vocation to announce the Good News of Jesus Christ" through a clearer focus on holistic evangelism.

It defined "Holistic evangelism" as "the means through which the nature, identity and call of Jesus Christ - the one who breaks down the world’s dividing walls - is made known." It combines word and deed, "renews the church, and grows its capacity for further witness and service."

Baptist minister the Revd Ruth Bottoms, the Conference moderator, has spoken to the Baptist Times. She pointed out two factors that have made evangelism a difficult topic of discussion to be raised on the WCC Central Committee meeting. The first one is that its emphasis tends to be on social and prophetic aspects of mission. Secondly, it is the Orthodox concerns over proselytism.

She said that there were "too many stories, past and present, of bad experiences of mission and evangelism, with a lack of consultation with indigenous churches, insensitivity to cultures and a triumphalistic, imperial approach." However, she concluded this "should not prevent us from sharing our positive experiences and understanding of the evangelistic tradition."