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NEWS &
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FEATURES |
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AN
EVANGELISTIC EXTRAVAGANZA IN SOUTH AFRICA |
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New
York (USA): The first one was in Lausanne,
Switzerland, in 1974. The second was in Manila in 1989.
The third will be in Cape Town in 2010.
I’m talking about the massive worldwide confer ences on
evangelism that began as the brainchild of evangelist
Billy Graham, along with British Anglican theologian
John Stott and Australian Anglican Bishop Jack Dain.
They have since taken on a life of their own. One year
from now, the Third Lausanne Conference on World
Evangelization will take place from Oct. 16-25 in South
Africa.
The event will draw 4,000 people from more than 200
countries, an intriguing goal as there are only 195
official independent countries in the world. The event
will be translated into Arabic, Chinese, English,
French, German, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and
Swahili.
The United States is providing 400 delegates and Canada
is contributing 50. I first heard of the conference when
I got word this spring that U.S. organizers were looking
for candidates. Some 1,322 applied to go. What made
things a bit tricky is that organizers wanted 50 percent
of the delegates to be under 50 years old. No doubt this
is frustrating for top-tier American church leaders -
most of whom are well past 50 - who weren’t invited to
the Manila conference 20 years ago because they were
considered too young.
Lausanne will be drawing the biggest names in the world
of Christianity to its stage. Its advisory council
members range from Ugandan Anglican Bishop Henry Orombi
to Saddleback Church pastor Rick Warren, deliverer of
the opening prayer at President Obama’s inauguration.
However, Mr. Graham himself, now 90, is not expected to
attend. Two of his more evangelistically minded children
- Franklin Graham and Anne Graham Lotz - have schedule
conflicts. So the event clearly has moved beyond the
Graham trademark. Although the African church is hosting
this extravaganza, plenty of Americans are at the helm.
Lausanne’s executive chairman, Douglas Birdsall, is a
former missionary to Japan. He is based at Gordon-Conwell
Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Mass. The
congress director, Blair Carlson, is a Minneapolis-based
clergyman with the Anglican Mission in America who
worked 26 years with Mr. Graham.
Although the entire organizing committee is in Cape Town
this week, I did glean some details of what’s on the
table. Hot topics include preaching truth to a
post-modern and pluralistic world, responding to Islam,
putting together a theology of suffering and
reconciliation, responding to the “new atheism” and
operating as a global religion.
Seven sites were considered for the congress, including
China, where Christianity has arguably spread the
fastest in the past 50 years. But security concerns for
Chinese Christian leaders, who are still being jailed,
prevented cities such as Hong Kong and Beijing from
being serious contenders, an organizer told me.
Cape Town was chosen because of its high-tech convention
center, the enormous growth of Christianity on the
African continent and because of the ease of obtaining
entry visas for the many Africans and Asians who will
take part. Let’s hope they’ll welcome lots of
journalists as well
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This page is
updated on Nov 02, 2009 |
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PRAISE THE ALMIGHTY
10 YEARS CELEBRATION
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