Gospel truth and reconciliation in Christ were the key themes of the first two days of The Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in Cape Town (October 16-25).
On the second morning in a moving testimony, Shadia Qubti and Daniel Sered, a Palestinian believer and a Messianic Jew, stood side by side to share their conviction that ‘in Christ there is room for all of us’ despite the historic conflict that separates their people.
The morning had begun with a celebration of Scripture in which 4,200 Christian leaders explored Ephesians 2 in small groups and in listening to a closely and carefully argued exposition by Ruth Padilla de Borst of the Latin American Theological Fellowship. The ‘In Christ’ unity of the church is an indispensable product of the truth of the Cross.
In a powerful plea, African leader David Oginde called for a Gospel reconciliation that transcends human barriers of race, ethnicity and gender to act as a visible affirmation of the truth of the Gospel.
These themes of unity and truth reappeared later the same day in another context. Explaining to Lausanne delegates the recent sad events in the Anglican Communion, Archbishop Robert Duncan spoke with gratitude of the help extended by Global South Anglican Provinces to the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA).
The Global South had come to the rescue of evangelical Anglicans in the United States facing aggressive liberalism, enabling the inauguration of ACNA in 2009. With the support of Global South Archbishops, fresh church planting is flourishing through ACNA in the United States.
Global South Anglican Primates attending Cape Town 2010 made clear that the gospel demands that they should stand together in radical alliance with evangelicals in the Northern Hemisphere, for the truth and against theological liberalism, in order to plant and grow churches in both South and North.