World Council of Churches and the Lausanne Movement

Editor’s note: The following post arises from small group reflections from The Rise of Global Christianity, 1910–2010, taught by Dr. Todd Johnson at Boston University in the Fall of 2010. Lead by doctoral students, the small groups discussed lectures given by Christian scholars in various disciplines, including significant changes that have occurred in global Christianity over the past 100 years.

During our class session of September 29, 2010, Dr. Rodney Petersen, Boston Theological Institute Director, lectured on the History of Protestantism. He presented on the roots of the movement in the Latin West, the different varieties that grew out of 16th century Europe, and brought us up to the twentieth century. There was a lot of information packed into a short presentation. Dr. Petersen mentioned the World Council of Churches (WCC) but did not have time to elaborate on their work or history. Our group talked about what the WCC does and one of us asked how it is related to the Lausanne Movement. Between us we knew that Lausanne is an Evangelical initiative that grew out of meetings in 1974 and resulted in follow-up meetings in 1989, 1994 and the upcoming 2010 meeting in Cape Town, South Africa. The movement carries on in the spirit of the 1910 conference but split with the WCC because it saw it as too liberal. We wondered to what extent the WCC and the Lausanne movement might collaborate today, but none of us knew. The two Korean members of our group commented that Korean churches interact with the WCC and the Lausanne Movement. There are many Presbyterian denominations in the country; some relate to the WCC while others that are more Evangelical in nature are connected to Lausanne. We had a new group member who is from India. He shared that, similar to the situation in Korea, churches in his country relate to one or the other.

Our discussion of the WCC and Lausanne Movement morphed into a conversation about how there is ample diversity in the global church, even within denominations. As we were getting to know our new member, he noted that in his denomination, Baptist, he sees significant differences in worship styles between Indian Baptist churches and those he finds in North America. In India church services tend toward more charismatic expressions that what he experiences here. Our Korean members noted that in their denominations, Presbyterian and Methodist, there are differences between Korea and North America with respect to authority in the church. In both denominations Korean pastors are invested with more decision-making authority than is the case here. They find that American congregations tend to have more laypeople invested with authority in a congregation’s committees and its various ministries than in Korea. This is true in both denominations despite differences in polity between the two denominational traditions. Perhaps cultural characteristics trump denominational traditions in this case. One exception is that in Korean Methodist churches it is normally laypeople, not the pastor, who lead prayers. This tradition seems to have developed because early missionaries to the country did not know Korean well enough to lead prayer, so it became a role that laypeople fill even up to today.

Bruce Yoder, discussion moderator