Global Prayer & Missions Movement: Missions Mobilization: Current Streams: Fuller Seminary: USCWM

 

Current Streams of the Global Missions Movement Addendum

 

 

Steven Hawthorne, Co-editor of Perspectives

 

[Editor's Note: emphasis added]

 

From: RickWood@XC.Org

Reply-To: rickwood@XC.Org

Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 17:47:56 EST

To: "Text of Mission Frontiers, and other USCWM updates"

<brigada-pubs-missionfrontiers@XC.Org>

Subject: MF2001.03-Perspectives

 

Mission Frontiers

[a publication of the U.S. Center for World Mission]

2001.03-Perspectives

 

Perspectives on the World Christian Movement

 

Reaching New Heights and Hearts

Born as a follow-up to Urbana, the Perspectives course continues its world view transformation.

 

With graduates from the Perspectives course fast approaching the 50,000 mark, the course is experiencing a new phase of growth and enthusiasm. A number of the spring classes have been surprised (but blessed) by attendance that was unexpectedly large. One class in Redlands, California was prepared for 30 students but gladly went in search of a new facility when 75 showed up. Bethlehem Baptist Church in the Minneapolis area is pushing the limits on class size with 225 students attending. Jonathan Dawn described "awe and God's presence" after his first class. He's coordinating a class held at Trinity Western University in Langley, B.C., Canada. With over 100 in attendance, the students responded with amazement, expressing how they weren't expecting such a "phenomenal impact."

 

"It looks like our enrollment will exceed 4,200 this semester which would be a 30 percent increase over last spring's numbers," says Steve Halley, Director of Perspectives.

 

Origins at Urbana

The precursor to Perspectives originated in 1974 as Ralph Winter recognized the need to give Urbana-attending students more exhaustive information that would aid them in their decision making process. Co-editor of Perspectives, Steve Hawthorne recalls one of Winter's oft-repeated refrains: "God cannot lead you on the basis of facts you do not know."

 

So, in an effort get the facts out, the Summer Institute of International Studies created what is now known as Perspectives on the World Christian Movement.

 

Hawthorne's personal involvement came as a result of his attendance of Urbana '76. A fervent admirer of John Stott, Hawthorne actually snuck into the conference to hear some solid Bible exposition from Evangelicalism's British statesman. "I had nothing against missions, but I sure knew that it wasn't anything I would ever do," Hawthorne recalls.

 

He has fixed in his memory the details that followed. It was 10:15 on the morning of December 28, 1976 when Stott took the stage. With his large, deep, British accent, Stott announced that "the living God is a missionary God."

 

"I expected good exposition," Hawthorne recalls, "but I did not expect an integrated focal point. I found there was purpose, some singular focus of God's purpose throughout all of Scripture."

 

Though 25 years have passed, Chapter one of Perspectives bears witness to that day and theme: "The Living God is a Missionary God," by John Stott.

 

Lee Purgason, Executive Director of the U.S. Center for World Mission saw the centrality of the mission theme come clear as a result of the tandem influences of Urbana and Perspectives. After attending Urbana '79 Purgason recalls how he "sensed that mission was not just for a subset of those eager to follow God, but a core Biblical theme of God's purpose for all His people."

 

With 107 classes currently operating throughout the country, Hawthorne sees some similarities with the growth of the Perspectives movement and the worship he experienced at Urbana. At Urbana, he got a taste of praise with a diverse crowd of believers. "I said these are my people, I belong here, now I know what church I'm a part of." In Perspectives, he notes that the classes that are growing are those classes that are similarly diverse. A class that he had just spoken at had people from over 15 different churches. The diversity brings energy and a recognition that "this is really a perspective on the world Christian movement. It's not a personal, Christian, life significance seminar."

 

One seasoned traveler and current student of a southern California class expressed great pleasure at how the course distilled the core message of truth. "Never in my days of existence have I heard such profundity concerning the true essence of the Gospel message," he says.

 

Having felt imprisoned to programs and problems, this student (who happens to be African American) says he's "free at last, free at last, thank God almighty...."

 

Check out latest class listings at: www.perspectives.org

 

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Currents in World Christianity Project

 

CWC Project based at Cambridge University [UK] Centre for Advanced Religious and Theological Studies [CARTS]

“Although historically the Faculty of Divinity at Cambridge originated in a Christian (and after the Reformation an Anglican) context, membership of the Faculty has not been restricted to any one faith or denomination since the removal of religious tests in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The current Faculty includes members of the Church of England, Roman Catholic and Free Churches, a Jewish Rabbi and a Muslim. As well as Teaching Officers of the Faculty of Divinity, the teaching staff of the Cambridge Theological Federation are members of the Faculty and able to participate in CARTS projects. There are no religious affiliation requirements for appointment in the Faculty, and the same principle applies in relation to appointments within CARTS. What is required is a commitment to the principles of academic integrity and the pursuit of truth in all research projects.”

 

What is the CWC Project?

CWC Project facilitating transition from Protestant missionary movement [accused of westernizing Third World nations] to globalization [and redefinition] of Christianity via “Evangelicalism” and “Pentecostalism”:

“CWC aims to uncover the historical processes which lie behind the extraordinary transformation of Christianity during the twentieth century into a truly global religion whose centre of gravity now lies in the southern hemisphere. By means of a series of seminars, conferences, and publications the project will seek to integrate study of the various missionary traditions (especially those whose roots were in evangelical Protestantism) with exploration of how these traditions have been appropriated by indigenous Christians. CWC is a new initiative which brings together in a common enterprise Cambridge’s previous North Atlantic Missiology Project (NAMP) which has promoted scholarly analysis of modern Protestant missions, and the ‘The International Project on Evangelicalism and Globalisation’ (IPEG), a scholarly network set up to investigate the relationship of the growth of evangelical forms of Christianity in the non-western world to theories and trends of globalization. The new project will help both academics and the general Christian public to develop a more informed understanding of the nature of Christianity as a world religion.”

 

[See: Chronology of Major Movements: Ecumenism, Zionism & Pentecostalism]**

 

Associate Members of CWC Project:

“Professor Mark A. Noll is McManis Professor of Christian Thought and Professor of History at Wheaton College [Billy Graham]. During the spring semester 1998 he inaugurated the McDonald Visiting Professorship in evangelical Theological Studies at Harvard Divinity School. As director of the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals at Wheaton, he has supervised several Pew grants over the years…”

 

 

Ecumenical News International

Daily News Service

12 July 2001

 

The South set to export Gospel to northern hemisphere

ENI-01-0259

 

By Alex Duval Smith

Pretoria, 12 July (ENI)--While the northern hemisphere's aid agencies propagate western values in poor nations, African churches are ready to take the Gospel back to the industrialized world from where it came, a conference in South Africa heard last week.

 

Speaking at the third and final conference of the Currents in World Christianity project, Sierra Leonean theologian Jehu Hanciles said that, of all religions, the Christian faith was the most adaptable to local conditions. Far from dying out, he said, it was set to be reinvented and exported to the countries which sent their missionaries to Africa during the colonial era.

 

The five-day meeting (3-7 July) brought together 120 theologians, historians and sociologists from all over the world to look at the effect of globalisation on Christians and the extent to which their religion is now rooted in the southern hemisphere.

 

In a paper delivered at the conference, Dr Hanciles, a 36-year-old theologian based at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, in the United States, said: “The processes of globalisation have contributed to an explosion in the number of non-governmental organisations. NGOs - most of which originate in the industrialised countries - grew from 6000 to 26 000 in the 1990s and provide more aid than the whole United Nations system. In Africa they ... often wield more power and influence than emasculated and impoverished governments.”

 

He said critics were right to compare the impact of NGOs to that of western missionaries in the 19th century, “not least because reliance on external resources allows them to promote western-defined solutions which cause social disruption on the ground”.

 

Dr Hanciles, an Anglican who is assistant professor of mission history and globalisation at Fuller Seminary, added that Christianity had more than 100 years ago become a “non-western religion” and that there were now seven times as many Anglicans in Nigeria as there were Episcopalians [members of the Episcopalian (Anglican) Church] in the entire United States.

 

While the definitions of globalisation varied, he said, it was already clear that the developing world's contribution to the process would be to re-export Christianity to the northern hemisphere. “The less well noticed fact,” he added, “is that the much celebrated shifts in global Christianity have had little impact on the privileged position of the Western tradition within the theological curriculum.”

 

He disagreed with claims that African Christianity – especially its neo-Pentecostal version - was “made in America” and exported as part of a new fundamentalism. “Christianity has thrived in Africa because it lends itself to translation and takes on the garb of different cultures much more easily than, for instance, Islam, which comes with its own language, Arabic,” he said.

 

He added that Christianity was spreading with far greater success in the third world today than it had in the days of European missionaries. “Pentecostalism thrives because it taps into an innate African spirituality. Its phenomenal success on the African continent raises the question of whether Africa needs American ministries as much as American ministries need Africa,” he said.

 

Dr Hanciles said one of the ways in which the third world would re-export Christianity to Europe would be through immigrant communities. “Christianity is a migratory religion and, throughout the centuries, migration movements have been a functional element in Christian expansion,” he said.

 

The Currents in World Christianity director, Dr Brian Stanley of St Edmund's College, Cambridge, said a book would be produced to mark the end of the project, begun in 1999 with funding from the Pew Charitable Trust in the US. [599 words]

 

All articles (c) Ecumenical News International

Reproduction permitted only by media subscribers and

provided ENI is acknowledged as the source.

 

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Email: eni@eni.ch

 


 

Evangelicals & Catholics Together:

The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium  1994

 

See web site for complete text of ECT I document.

For background on ATS member see: Association of Theological Schools

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Copyright (c) 1994 First Things 43 (May 1994): 15-22.

The following statement is the product of consultation, beginning in September 1992, between Evangelical Protestant and Roman Catholic Christians. Appended to the text is a list of participants in the consultation and of others who have given their support to this declaration.

 

Introduction

We are Evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics who have been led through prayer, study, and discussion to common convictions about Christian faith and mission. This statement cannot speak officially for our communities. It does intend to speak responsibly from our communities and to our communities. In this statement we address what we have discovered both about our unity and about our differences. We are aware that our experience reflects the distinctive circumstances and opportunities of Evangelicals and Catholics living together in North America. At the same time, we believe that what we have discovered and resolved is pertinent to the relationship between Evangelicals and Catholics in other parts of the world. We therefore commend this statement to their prayerful consideration.

As the Second Millennium draws to a close, the Christian mission in world history faces a moment of daunting opportunity and responsibility. If in the merciful and mysterious ways of God the Second Coming is delayed, we enter upon a Third Millennium that could be, in the words of John Paul II, "a springtime of world missions." (Redemptoris Missio) As Christ is one, so the Christian mission is one. … emphasis added

 

We Affirm Together…

 

Signatories

------------------------------------------------------------------------

PARTICIPANTS:

Mr. Charles Colson ––Prison Fellowship [CNP; Templeton Prize recipient]

Fr. Juan Diaz-Vilar, S.J. ––Catholic Hispanic Ministries

Fr. Avery Dulles, S.J. ––Fordham University

Bishop Francis George, OMI ––Diocese of Yakima (Washington)

Dr. Kent Hill ––Eastern Nazarene College

Dr. Richard Land ––Christian Life Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention

Dr. Larry Lewis ––Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention

Dr. Jesse Miranda ––Assemblies of God

Msgr. William Murphy ––Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Boston

Fr. Richard John Neuhaus ––Institute on Religion and Public Life

Mr. Brian O'Connell ––World Evangelical Fellowship

Mr. Herbert Schlossberg ––Fieldstead Foundation [Howard Ahmanson/CNP, Claremont Institute board of directors]

Archbishop Francis Stafford ––Archdiocese of Denver

Mr. George Weigel [CFR] ––Ethics and Public Policy Center

Dr. John White–– Geneva College and the National Association of Evangelicals/NAE [regional body of the World Evangelical Fellowship/WEF]

 

ENDORSED BY:

Dr. William Abraham ––Perkins School of Theology [ATS member]

Dr. Elizabeth Achtemeier ––Union Theological Seminary (Virginia) [ATS member]

Mr. William Bentley Ball ––Harrisburg, Pennsylvania [Christian Legal Society; Roman Catholic]

Dr. Bill Bright –– Campus Crusade for Christ [CNP; Mission America/Lighthouse Movement]

Professor Robert Destro ––Catholic University of America [ATS member]

Fr. Augustine DiNoia, O.P. ––Dominican House of Studies [ATS member]

Fr. Joseph P. Fitzpatrick, S.J. ––Fordham University

Mr. Keith Fournier ––American Center for Law and Justice [ACLJ--Jay Sekulow, CNP/Pat Robertson, CNP]

Bishop William Frey ––Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry [ATS member]

Professor Mary Ann Glendon ––Harvard Law School

Dr. Os Guinness ––Trinity Forum [A framer and signatory of the Williamsburg Charter, 1984; developer of the related public school curriculum Living With Our Deepest Differences with Ernest Boyer/Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, CFR]

Dr. Nathan Hatch ––University of Notre Dame [ATS member]

Dr. James Hitchcock ––St. Louis University

Professor Peter Kreeft ––Boston College

Fr. Matthew Lamb ––Boston College

Mr. Ralph Martin ––Renewal Ministries

Dr. Richard Mouw ––Fuller Theological Seminary [ATS member]

Dr. Mark Noll ––Wheaton College [Billy Graham Center]

Mr. Michael Novak [CFR] ––American Enterprise Institute

John Cardinal O'Connor ––Archdiocese of New York

Dr. Thomas Oden ––Drew University [ATS member]

Dr. James J. I. Packer ––Regent College (British Columbia) [ATS member]

The Rev. Pat Robertson ––Regent University [ATS member]

Dr. John Rodgers ––Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry [ATS member]

Bishop Carlos A. Sevilla, S.J. ––Archiocese of San Francisco




 

Evangelicals & Catholics Together II:

The Gift of Salvation  1997

 

See web site for complete text of ECT II document

For background on ATS member see: Association of Theological Schools

------------------------------------------------------

Copyright (c) 1998 First Things 79 (January 1998): 20-23.

 

In the spring of 1994, a distinguished group of Roman Catholics and evangelical Protestants issued a much-discussed statement, "Evangelicals and Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium" (FT, May 1994). That statement, commonly referred to as "ECT," noted a growing "convergence and cooperation" between Evangelicals and Catholics in many public tasks, and affirmed agreement in basic articles of Christian faith while also underscoring the continuing existence of important differences. The signers promised to engage those differences in continuing conversations, and this has been done in meetings of noted theologians convened by Mr. Charles Colson and Father Richard John Neuhaus. At a meeting in the fall of 1996, it was determined that further progress depended upon firm agreement on the meaning of salvation, and especially the doctrine of justification. After much discussion, study, and prayer over the course of a year, the following statement was agreed to at a meeting in New York City, October 6-7, 1997. The convenors and participants express their gratitude to Edward Idris Cardinal Cassidy, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, for his very active support throughout this process. In future conversations they intend to address the outstanding questions noted at the end of this statement. [emphasis added]

— The Editors

 

Signatories

------------------------------------------------------------------------

EVANGELICAL PROTESTANTS

Dr. Gerald L. Bray ––Beeson Divinity School [ATS member]

Dr. Bill Bright ––Campus Crusade for Christ [CNP; Mission America/Lighthouse]

Dr. Harold O. J. Brown ––Trinity Evangelical Divinity School [ATS member]

Mr. Charles Colson ––Prison Fellowship  [CNP; Templeton Prize recipient]

Bishop William C. Frey ––Episcopal Church

Dr. Timothy George ––Beeson Divinity School [ATS member]

Dr. Os Guinness ––Trinity Forum [A framer and signatory of the Williamsburg Charter, 1984 and developer of the related public school curriculum Living With Our Deepest Differences with Ernest Boyer/Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching/CFR]

Dr. Kent R. Hill ––Eastern Nazarene College

Rev. Max Lucado ––Oak Hills Church of Christ, San Antonio, TX [CNP]

Dr. T. M. Moore ––Chesapeake Theological Seminary

Dr. Richard Mouw ––Fuller Theological Seminary [ATS member]

Dr. Mark A. Noll ––Wheaton College [Billy Graham Center]

Mr. Brian F. O’Connell ––Interdev [World Evangelical Fellowship]

Dr. Thomas Oden ––Drew University [ATS member]

Dr. James J. I. Packer ––Regent College, British Columbia [ATS member]

Dr. Timothy R. Phillips  ––Wheaton College [Billy Graham Center]

Dr. John Rodgers ––Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry

Dr. Robert A. Seiple  ––World Vision U.S. [US Commission on International Religious Freedom; Institute for Global Engagement]

Dr. John Woodbridge  ––Trinity Evangelical Divinity School [ATS member]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

ROMAN CATHOLICS

Father James J. Buckley  ––Loyola College in Maryland

Father J. A. Di Noia, O.P. ––Dominican House of Studies [ATS member]

Father Avery Dulles, S.J. –– Fordham University

Mr. Keith Fournier  ––Catholic Alliance [Fournier works with ACLJ/Jay Sekulow & Pat Robertson, CNP]

Father Thomas Guarino ––Seton Hall University [ATS member]

Dr. Peter Kreeft ––Boston College

Father Matthew L. Lamb ––Boston College

Father Eugene LaVerdiere, S.S.S.Emmanuel

Father Francis Martin  ––John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family

Mr. Ralph Martin ––Renewal Ministries

Father Richard John Neuhaus ––Religion and Public Life  

Mr. Michael Novak [CFR]––American Enterprise Institute

Father Edward Oakes, S.J. ––Regis University  

Father Thomas P. Rausch, S.J. ––Loyola Marymount University

Mr. George Weigel [CFR] ––Ethics and Public Policy Center Dr. Robert Louis Wilken ––University of Virginia

 

 

Global Prayer & Missions Movement: Missions Mobilization: Current Streams: Fuller Seminary: USCWM