The “whole gospel†includes caring for God’s creation.
That is one important conclusion that comes from reading the landmark Cape Town Commitment (CTC) the latest signature document of the Lausanne Movement. The CTC is historically important for the entire evangelical family, but particularly for those of us involved in the creation care movement.
The document has credibility and authority because of what it is, the latest “confessional statement” of the global church as represented by the Lausanne Movement for World Evangelization, which significantly traces its own roots to John Stott and Billy Graham.
The first global meeting of Christian leaders under the Lausanne banner in 1974 gave us the Lausanne Covenant, a defacto statement of faith that gained immediate and widespread acceptance within the evangelical community.
Fifteen years later the Manila Manifesto was produced by the 1989 Lausanne World Congress meeting in Manila. This meeting was organized around the theme that has come to characterize Lausanne: “The whole church taking the whole gospel to the whole world†and the Manifesto laid the foundation for genuine partnership between the churches of the east and west, north and south, opening an era in which the “whole church†has participated in the missionary enterprise in ways unseen before. [Read more…] about A New Awakening? Creation Care & the Lausanne Movement