Lausanne Congress

Fanny Cradock

The Luasanne Congress started yesterday and perhaps it is worth having a thread in for any interesting thoughts discussions or stories that emerge from it. I know PDN was supposed to be heading along so perhaps he will give us some insider reporting.

For anyone not familiar with what it is all about (I would include myself in that number) this quote from the below link briefly sums up the Congress.

"Some 4,500 participants from close on 200 countries are converging on Cape Town for what will undoubtedly be the most racially and geographically diverse gathering of Christians in history. It’s an evangelical event, of course, but I’m pretty sure that the Congress will provide plenty of evidence to show what a diverse global phenomenon evangelicalism itself has become."

Unfortunately it seems as if the Congress hasn't got off to the best of starts because the Chinese authorities have denied travel "rights" to the Chinese delegation - some 250 individuals. God willing something positive will come from that.

http://new.shipoffools.com/lausanne/

PDN

Apparently the Chinese givernment threw a hissy fit because Christians from both the underground churches and the State-sponsored churches were invited. Tonight, instead of live participation from the Chinese delegates, we listened to a hymn that they recorded and sent to South Africa.

There was also a stirring testimony from a young 18-year old North Korean girl (now living in South Korea) whose dad was an aide to Kim Il Jong. As a direct result of his conversion to Christianity he was arrested and in her own words "has almost certainly been publicly executed". She is now studying law and human rights in order to prepare herself for helping North Koreans in the future.

Another inspiring story tonight came from an Indian delegate who organises groups of Christians who come from higher castes. They travel across India and publicly wash the feet of Dalits, or Outcastes, thus directly confronting the injustices of the caste system.

There are 9 of us here from Ireland, and we are expecting great things from the Congress.

Fanny Cradock

Keep us informed!

homer911

Say HI to to the crazy guy with the ipad for me!

dvpower

homer911 wrote: »

Say HI to to the crazy guy with the ipad for me!

Is Steve Jobs going to be there?

homer911

dvpower wrote: »

Is Steve Jobs going to be there?

That'll be the day!

No, just a friend of mine who likes his gadgets!

PDN

I got a bit more information about what went on with the Chinese delegates.

It is the policy of the Lausanne Movement to issue invitations in various ways, ie through organisations like the Evangelical alliance, denominations, and direct to individuals.

All participants in the Lausanne Congress sign up to a basic Statement of Faith and Vision. Those who cannot in all honesty sign this, can still attend the Congress as observers rather than participants. In practice there doesn't seem to be a lot of difference. The 'observers' from the Vatican and from the Orthodox Church seem to be doing everything that the rest of us are.

The invited delegates from the State-Sponsored Church in China (the TSPM) were instructed by their masters not to sign up to the Lausanne Statement - therefore they were issued invitations to come as observers. The guys from the house churches signed up, so were invited as participants.

So it seems as if the TSPM leaders have all refused to come as observers, and those (from the underground church) who were willing to come as participants have all had their passports confiscated until the Congress is over.

PDN

In other news, lest it seems like the Congress is all about the Chinese. Yesterday was all about confronting social injustice and promoting reconciliation.

Our Bible teacher for the morning was Ruth Padilla deBorst from Costa Rica, daughter of the eminent theologian René Padilla, and a very capable theologian and educator in her own right. She explained how the citizens of Ephesus, enjoying the mixed blessings of the Pax Romana, were now confronted with the reality of the Pax Christi. “Our reign with Christ in heavenly places is to be given concrete expression in the here and now by our ethical behaviour.”

The first speaker in the Plenary Session was Joseph D’Souza from India. He described the plight of the Dalits, or outcastes, of India who constitute the largest group of slaves in the modern world. He shared how the Church has often been part of the problem – and showed a photograph of a church graveyard partitioned between high and low caste graves. He also shared triumphs, such as how 250,000 women have been released from sexual slavery due to the Church’s intervention. The outcastes, he said, are crying out to the Church: “Bring to us the alternate society that Christ promised. The Church, where there is no slave or free, no Jew or Gentile, no rich or poor.”

Next came another Indian, a tiny woman called Pranitha Timothy. Her opening words,hardly promising, were “My struggle with a brain tumour has left me with a strange voice.” But her strange voice had me transfixed as she showed a hidden-video she had taken of slaves working in a brickyard in India, and even included footage of the slave-master laughing and bragging how he used crippling debts to keep workers slaving in conditions where they were regularly beaten and abused. “Who is going to come and help them?” he laughed. Well, God used Pranitha Timothy to help them. The video was turned over to the police, scores of slaves were released, and the slave-master was sentenced to five years in prison.

Next we had a dual presentation from a Palestinian Christian, Shadia Qubti (she has just completed a postgraduate degree in Conflict Resolution at, of all places, Trinity College in Dublin) and Dan Sered, Director of Jews for Jesus in Israel. They stood in front of a photo of the Concrete Wall that divides Israel from the West Bank and gave a powerful testimony to the power of God to enable forgiveness and reconciliation. Dan said, “My mother is not proud of me being a believer in Jesus, and my father would be outraged at me standing here beside a Palestinian.”

Then Antoine Rutayisire, a commissioner on Rwanda’s National Unity and Reconciliation Commission, shared movingly about the lessons the Church must learn from the glaring failure of the Rwandan genocide.

As we discussed what we had heard, the lady sitting beside me (a pastor from Sri Lanka) shared how, when she was pregnant, 17 militant Buddhists had invaded their home seeking to kill her husband. They were chased to the police station by a mob that swelled to over 500, and for a full month needed a 24-hour police guard on their home.

The afternoon multiplex option I attended was on ‘Poverty and Wealth: Responding Through the Global and Local Church’.

Ravi Jayakaran, from India, shared the concept of the Total Health Village, a programme where a community can be transformed for an average cost of $2 per person per year. This utilses the 50:40:10 principle. This means 50% is spent improving overall opportunities and quality of life, 40% on preventing inhabitants from sliding into destitution, and 10% on helping those who are destitute.

I was delighted that the next contributer was Rich Stearns, President of World Vision. I have just finished reading Rich’s excellent book, “The Hole in Our Gospel” – and his presentation reinforced the book’s message. The richest community of Christians in history have, for the most part, opted for a shallow one-dimensional Gospel that has legitimised inequality and greed. The Gospel should be more radical than simply believing in Christ to take us to heaven, but continuing to buy into a worldview based on consumerism where it’s OK to continually seek greater wealth and comfort, while doing little to address the horrendous poverty and injustice in the world.

A very useful time of discussion, fielding questions from the audience, was moderated by Joel Edwards (International Director of the Micah Challenge Campaign Against Poverty and Director of the Evangelical Allioance in the UK).

Unfortunately, due to illness, I missed the evening Plenary Session which was devoted to global issues such as HIV/Aids and People Trafficking.

Today's Programme is focussed on the theme of World Faiths - how evangelical Christians see them, and how we share our faith with them.

JimiTime

^^ Thank you most sincerely for sharing all of your experience of the congress PDN. Sounds like a great event.

Oh yeah, and hope you're feeling better:)

PDN

Part of the Lausanne event was supposed to be 'global links' where churches around the world showed the proceedings to an estimated total of 200,000 viewers/

Unfortunately this didn't work as planned for the first 3 days as the Lausanne System was a victim of a cyber-attack (which also explains why I couldn't get on line during the sessions in the Convention Centre and had to wait until I got back to my hotel room to blog etc).

http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctliveblog/archives/2010/10/malicious_attac.html

Apparently someone isn't too happy about the Church getting together in a global way.

strobe

PDN wrote: »

Part of the Lausanne event was supposed to be 'global links' where churches around the world showed the proceedings to an estimated total of 200,000 viewers/

Unfortunately this didn't work as planned for the first 3 days as the Lausanne System was a victim of a cyber-attack (which also explains why I couldn't get on line during the sessions in the Convention Centre and had to wait until I got back to my hotel room to blog etc).

http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctliveblog/archives/2010/10/malicious_attac.html

Apparently someone isn't too happy about the Church getting together in a global way.

Hmm that's actually pretty interesting. Who would be the suspects for something like that? Just script kiddies or would the Chinese be letting off some steam?

Fanny Cradock

I'm going to take a guess and say the Chinese authorities have more important fish to fry. It's a full time job oppressing your own people, you know. Perhaps it was the same hackers who gave Boards the once over.