Go into ALL the World! (BWA Article)

bb_baptist · Apr 25, 2003

As we enter the year 2003 the world is a very different place than one hundred years ago. In 1903 there was an optimism that the 20th Century would be “The Christian Century”, but alas two world wars among Christian nations shattered that dream. The gulags, the holocausts, the killings fields of the 20th century not only killed millions, but it killed the soul of the church in the Northern hemisphere. In 1903, 85% of Christians in the world were in Europe and North America. The new fact of our era, however, is that in 2003 more than 55% of Christians live in the Southern hemisphere or Two-thirds world…i.e., Africa, Asia, and Latin America!
For many the tragedy of the fading European and North American form of Christendom is its irrelevance and inability to bring peace and meaning to modern humankind. Western humanity, including the Church, was overcome with the Enlightenment-type thinking that man was the master of his fate and capable of bringing peace and meaning through material success. The wars of the 20th Century exploded this myth and for many the Church was no longer needed.
On the other hand, the “missionary fields” of the Two-thirds world saw that in their poverty, powerlessness and oppression that Western thinking and power was not the solution. Rather, it was the community and redemption they experienced in Christ which gave them hope and meaning! No wonder that everyday in Africa there are 16,000 new Christians and every year six million are added to the Church! With 400 million Christians, South of the Sahara, Africa has really become what Philip Jenkins calls “the next Christendom!”
What does this mean for Baptists engaged in mission in secular North America and Europe? Certainly it means that we must open ourselves up to be re-evangelized by African, Asian and Latin American Christians! It should also force us to a radical examination of our present evangelism in the West. Too often it is “sectarian”, and leaves the world for which Christ died without a Christian presence and witness. Christ not only calls us out of the world, but also sends us back into all the world to proclaim the Good News! While in prison Dietrich Bonhoeffer realized this. He said very pointedly to his generation and to ours: “So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes.” Bonhoeffer was paraphrasing the German reformer, Luther, who more explicitly stated:
“The Kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wants to be among friends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ! If Christ had done what you are doing who would ever have been spared?”
From May 5-9, 2003 in Swanick, England, I have called for a Summit on Baptist Mission in the 21st Century of outstanding Baptist missiologists and practioners of mission. We need to learn again that Christ has not called us “to sit among the lilies and roses,” but Christ is calling us again into the world of evil in order to make His name known! Let’s make 2003 a year when we re-discover an evangelism that suffers in the midst of a sinful world spreading the Good News of Christ!
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http://www.bwanet.org/templates/aso08bl/details.asp?id=21610&PID=54827

baptistteacher · Apr 26, 2003

Thanks for this!

In my Jan. 5, 2003 sermon, my theme was related to this - how much the world has changed in the past century. Whether we like it or not, change happens, and it is happening at an accelerated pace.

Go into ALL the World! (BWA Article)

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