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by on 4.29.10

salt and light questions

A few years ago, I heard a clip of a prominent evangelical leader justifying the new evangelical decision to pull back from separatism. The gist of the statement was something like this:

The fundamentalists lost any chance at influence of the world by their over-emphasis on separatism.

Well…

Just how well is that influence thing working?

Is North American culture today MORE or LESS influenced by Christianity today than 60 years ago?

Is it the mission of disciples to be salt and light in such a way that they have influence in the culture of the world?

If yes, how would we go about that?

It appears that whatever the new-evangelical strategy was, it didn’t work. I’ll concede that if fundamentalists thought they would influence the world somehow, they failed also. So, let’s just posit for a moment the notion that those who follow Christ are called to be salt and light in the world, and therefore to somehow have a position of influence in the world. One would presume that influence should be towards an increase in Christianity, for starters, but failing that, one would at least hope for some influence on the culture.

So, again, exactly how should we do that?

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Filed Under: Evangelism, Ministry, Worldliness
by on 4.29.10

edinburgh 2010

A friend sent me an article critical of Edinburgh 2010. Edinburgh 2010 is a celebration of the 100th anniversary of a conference in Edinburgh 1910 which set the stage for ecumenical advance, especially in missionary work.

The celebration includes events around the world including a whole host of individuals. One of the events is Lausanne III to be held in Cape Town, South Africa.

Here is the speakers list for Lausanne III:

The expositors have been named as Ajith Fernando, Director of Sri Lanka Youth for Christ; Calisto Odede, Associate Pastor of Nairobi Pentecostal Church, Kenya; John Piper , senior pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis , US; Vaughan Roberts, Rector of St Ebbe’s Church, Oxford , UK; Ruth Padilla DeBorst, General Secretary of the Latin American Theological Fellowship (Costa Rica); and Ramez Atallah, Director of the Egyptian Bible Society, and his wife, Rebecca, who has a grassroots ministry among children and Sudanese refugees in the ‘garbage village’ in Cairo.

The article I first ran across had this to say about this conference:

The Cape Town Conference will be in conjunction with The Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization and is considered the most conservative of the main conferences.  It features six keynote speakers (each apparently preaching a message from the book of Ephesians) from six world regions, with John Piper representing North America. Boston University doctoral student and General Secretary of the Latin American Theological Fellowship Ruth Padilla DeBorst is one of two women expositors,  4000 leaders from 200 countries have been invited and special criteria have been established to “include men and women from a broad spectrum of nationalities, ethnicities, ages, occupations and denominational affiliations.”

Well, the ecumenism is not surprising.

But so much for Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, eh?

Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood

John Piper & Wayne Grudem, editors

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Filed Under: Ecumenism, Issues, Personalities, Piper