Evangelicals’ Conference Stresses New Strategies

About 4,000 evangelical Christians opened a conference this week to forge new strategies for spreading the faith in a rapidly changing world.

The goal is to preach to everyone in the world by the end of this century and try to take advantage of political changes such as liberalization in the Soviet Union and the growth of Christianity in developing countries.

Delegates to the 10-day convention, dubbed Lausanne II after a similar gathering in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1974, represented 191 countries, making it one of the largest gatherings of its kind, organizers said.

New Opportunities Cited

In a keynote address, the Rev. Leighton Ford, chairman of the Lausanne committee that is sponsoring the conference, said the evangelical movement is facing new opportunities.

“Now, we wait expectantly to see what the new openness and longing for freedom in our world--as shown in the spirit of glasnost and the events in China--will mean for the future of the Gospel,” said Ford, a Canadian.

Ford said he welcomed delegates from the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany, Romania, Cuba, Mozambique and other Communist countries to the convention.

But another official said that the Soviet delegation had not arrived and that the list of those who are in Manila had not been completed.

Ford also noted an increase in interest in evangelism among major Christian denominations.

“Now, we do not hear the word moratorium, and many of these same historic churches are rethinking the need for aggressive missionary outreach and some have called for the ‘90s to be a decade of evangelism,” said Ford, a brother-in-law of the American evangelist, the Rev. Billy Graham.

Graham was set to speak at the Manila conference, but commitments in London prevented him from coming, organizers said.

Ford said that by the year 2000, world evangelicals should be able to reach 2.5 billion people who have not heard the Gospel.

He also cited an increase in the number of missionaries from developing countries and the need to face economic and social issues in spreading the faith.

“(Before) our world was not quite so clearly aware of the ‘troubles’ in Northern Ireland or of apartheid in South Africa, where the Gospel has been wrapped in the sectarian robes of race and power,” Ford said. “Now, we are aware, and we stand with our brothers and sisters in those areas where they seek to faithfully live and speak for Christ.”

He told the delegates they must find ways to make the faith attractive to people in widely differing parts of the world.

“Indians see Christ’s peace in a way that Englishmen don’t. Brazilians see it in a way that Nigerians don’t. Pacific Islanders see it in a way that Germans don’t,” Ford said. “But as we focus in these next 10 days on Christ, we may learn to proclaim his peace as he did.”

Earlier, Thomas Wang, Lausanne II international director, said continued suffering has helped in the steady growth of Christian churches in China since the world’s most populous country fell under Communist rule in 1949.

Chinese Church Growth

“Suffering is one of the important reasons for churches to grow,” said Wang, an American. “I believe that has been the main reason for the Chinese churches to grow from 800,000 members in 1949 to 50 million today.”

China forced a halt to religious activity during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution but has since allowed churches to reopen.

Wang said about 300 Chinese church representatives had been expected to attend the Manila conference, but China’s crackdown on the democracy movement has made it virtually impossible for Chinese to obtain exit visas.

Wang said he expected that seven Chinese church leaders who were outside China when the crackdown began would attend.