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

Ecumenism and evangelism

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.

For this week, Dr. Rodney Petersen was invited as a guest speaker. He lectured on the recent history of Protestantism. After the lecture, our group members shared their thoughts on the lecture.

We started our discussion over the excessive Denominational splits in Korea, which was mentioned during the lecture. Since there are 3 Koreans in our group, including myself, we could further think about the issues. Two Korean students maintain that although there were indeed cases of divisions over the issues of Christian teachings, he thinks that the dominant reason of splits has been power struggles between individuals.

To their remarks, I basically agreed, but, I pointed out that compared to other denominations such as Methodists, Baptists, and Holiness Churches, the splits within Presbyterian Churches were conspicuous. In other words, we need to acknowledge that Presbyterian is more focused on doctrine relative to other churches in South Korea. In fact, they tend to argue more about doctrine with groups that are different, arguing “we are the true Presbyterians.”

After that, we turned to the issue of ecumenicalism and evangelicalism which are considered the two most important movements in the twentieth Century. Student C raised question, “Is the ecumenical movement as important as Petersen made it in class?” He thinks that in his view, there is less interest in ecumenical movement. I added to his comment by mentioning the fact that there is significant lack of mutual understandings among the bodies of Christ. For example, Catholics do not recognize the validity of baptism in the Protestant churches.

For the rest of the time, we spent a lot of time in talking about the very interesting issue over converting Protestants to Catholics and vice versa. To the question, “what should we think about Catholic missions to Protestants and vice versa?” two students answer that we had better stop sending missionaries and place more importance in converting non-believers. Another student suggested that we shouldn’t be quick to be missionaries be more devoted to the task of enhancing mutual understanding among different bodies of Christ.

Hye Jin Lee, discussion moderator

Denominationalism in Protestantism

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.

On the evening of September 29th, Rodney Peterson, the director of the Boston Theological Institute, reviewed the history of Protestantism, and engaged the classroom in a discussion of denominationalism. After he left, small groups were formed to continue reflecting on the evening’s theme.

The first question forwarded, “What does it mean that there are 41,000 denominations in the world?” hung unanswered for several minutes. Finally, one student suggested that the diversity of denominations could be attributed to the diversity of people groups in the world. In that sense, denominations may be an important and positive factor in the rise of Global Christianity.

Another student countered, however, with the observation that homogenous cultures (e.g. Korea), are also divided into many denominations. There must be more than just cultural diversity that accounts for splits.

At that point, a third student suggested that Korean Christianity reflects the denominational history of the Western missionaries that first introduced the faith in a variety of forms.

The conversation branched into a new sphere when the mention of Western missionaries to Korea gave way to Korean missionaries going to other parts of the world. Someone asked, “Do most Korean missionaries start a Korean denomination in the places to which they are sent (e.g. ‘The Seoul Christian Church,'), or do they foster the development of new indigenous denominations?”

One student observed that most Korean missionaries are sent through parachurch organizations and therefore do not try to establish a particular denomination, but foster indigenous denominations. Another student added that in the earlier period of Korean missions there was a stronger emphasis on spreading a Korean form of Christianity, but that has given way to an emphasis on indigenous Christianity. A third student reflected, “If missionaries start their own denominations, they may impose their own cultural form of Christianity; however, if they initiate a new indigenous denomination they further divide the Christian community into 41,001 denominations.”

Such a statement caused one student to muse, “The huge number of denominations overwhelms and saddens me. The pessimist in me sees the growing number of denominations as representing the fact that schism is accepted, and the willingness to dialogue and work together is disappearing.”

Some agreed with negative assessment, and expressed a longing for unity. There was an acknowledgement by a few that the Roman Catholic church’s ability to contain renewal movements, and not fracture into denominations was an attractive alternative to Protestantism’s ceaseless divisions.

Others, though, offered a different perspective. One person suggested that denominations are losing their power to separate. From her own personal experience, she explained that she did not even know what, as a Methodist, made her different from any other Christian until she was in seminary. Another student added that it is not as important to be united to denominational title, as it is to be united in witness. Finally, one student closed the conversation by placing the discussion in a larger context: “Denominations are not that important to me. They are temporal occurrences that will eventually pass away at the eschaton.”

Daryl Ireland, discussion moderator

Contributions of Protestantism in the 21st century

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.

Dr. Rodney Petersen lectured us about Protestantism around world in terms of its history, denominations and contributions. According to him, Protestantism began by the protest movement against Catholicism in the 16th C, later divided and developed into diverse denominations such as the Lutheran tradition, Reformed tradition, and Anabaptist tradition. He emphasized that it is American denominationalism that contributed to the forming of the global presence of Protestantism. That is because American denominationalism, by his explanation, guaranteed the Christian identity irrespective of having no state church membership. In the 21st C, efforts to unite among the Protestant denominations result in the ecumenical movement which now contributes to the global unity and cooperation between different Christian traditions such as Orthodoxy and Catholicism as well as Protestantism. Based on Dr. Petersen’s lecture and the required reading, our group discussed several issues.

First, we discussed the contributions of Protestantism in the 21st century.

• Protestant churches have been willing to be conciliar, and conciliatory and willing to respect each other and dialog. Roman Catholic church after Vatican II appeared more open and more willing to have interreligious dialogue than "interfamily." Protestants also are getting together more to have interreligious dialogue, which is the contribution of 21st Cent. Protestant’s contribution to cooperate and collaborate. (Sam)
• Protestants are more flexible and more willing to allow freedom of thought and interpretation. They tend to hold the tolerance of different ways of doing things. (Amy)
• Father is Presbyterian pastor and he's a United Methodist. This is not a problem in Korean mainline Protestantism because the religious freedom is respected in Korea. (Earl)
• Question about missions in other places. How much the move to make other churches be independent or was it becoming independent on their own. Is it encouraged by post-colonial independence or were missionaries encouraging indigenization? (Edward)
• There is a criticism of foreign mission. Missionaries propagate their own denomination (and culture). Mission-founded and indigenous churches are two different categories. (Gun)
• One contribution of ecumenical movement was to elevate role of women in church and society. Protestants are more egalitarian than Catholicism. (Gun)

And second, we discussed on the growth of Protestantism and its major challenges.

• What are differences culturally that are leading to such a diversity of theologies? One challenge in particular—the ability of a richly-resourced culture to relate to the challenges facing Christians who are poor, politically oppressed, etc. Resource distribution is an issue. Jesus more a liberator and healer in the Global South, rather than an eschatological hope. (Sam)
• Coming to terms with resources and how to use them is important. (Edward)
• WCC website holds the huge body of work on issues of globalization, eco-justice, and neoliberal economics. These are the challenges. (Amy)
• WCC made decisions on how to deal with capitalism. Global North well developed compared to Global South, which has been excluded. There should be a difference between the views of the Church in the North and South. (Earl)
• I
  t is the time to develop the theology of reconciliation to deal with economic injustice which results in and from the expense of the human enslavement in the poor countries. (Gun)

Gun Cheol Kim, discussion moderator