Ranald Macaulay asks if the 1974 Congress missed something vital
When the Lausanne Congress opened in 1974 the global community was being treated to searing images of the Ethiopian famine.
Also the world-wide level of social-disruption, poverty and oppression couldn’t be ignored. The question of how evangelism relates to this level of suffering was unavoidable. Delegates from the developing world were also insistent that it be addressed. The result was the Lausanne Covenant’s call for ‘a more holistic view of mission’: it clarified the fact that evangelism and social action have always to be carefully distinguished, but never split apart.
