Dear en,
Ranald Macaulay makes some very valid points in his article ‘Lausanne and the polemical imperative’ (March en). It is sadly true that evangelicals in the past century, with some notable exceptions, have not adequately risen to the challenge of ‘truth decay’, as Douglas Groothuis called it, and it remains a major missiological need. I cannot speak for Lausanne 1974 (except to say that John Stott believed passionately in the crucial importance of the Christian mind), but Ranald is perhaps a little unfair on Cape Town 2010 – even if he is right that the programme did not make it ‘centre stage’. In the sheer scale of what was presented and discussed at Cape Town, arguably nothing was ‘centre stage’.
The first day of that global Congress concentrated on ‘Truth: bearing witness to the truth of Christ in a pluralistic globalised world’. The Cape Town Commitment necessarily had to be very condensed in its report on that whole topic, but Part IIA emphasises the importance of truth in relation to the person of Christ, the challenge of pluralism, the workplace, globalised media, the arts, science and emerging technologies, and public arenas, including the university.
It states, for example: ‘We long to see greater commitment to the hard work of robust apologetics. This must be at two levels. 1. We need to identify, equip and pray for those who can engage at the highest intellectual and public level in arguing for and defending biblical truth in the public arena. 2. We urge church leaders and pastors to equip all believers with the courage and the tools to relate the truth with prophetic relevance to everyday public conversation, and so to engage every aspect of the culture we live in… . We encourage young Christian academics to consider a long-term career in the secular university, to (i) teach and (ii) develop their discipline from a biblical worldview, thereby to influence their subject field. We dare not neglect the Academy.’
The full Congress presentations by Os Guinness, Carver Yu and others can be read in Christ our Reconciler: Gospel, Church, World, ed. J.E.M. Cameron (IVP), and further study of the issues, through The Cape Town Commitment: Study Edition, Rose Dowsett (Peabody: Hendrickson).
Ranald is right: not enough is being done yet, but Lausanne is not unaware of the need. Os Guinness will be raising it as a key challenge at the Younger Leaders Gathering in Indonesia in August.
Yours sincerely,
