It would have been a simple matter to polarize the assembly on this issue. Billy Graham, as usual, paced back and forth across the middle line, insisting that “our witness must be by both word and deed” but wary lest undue attention to works sap the faith that produced them. The resolution, or something approaching it, came in the formulation of another of the congress’s major achievements: the Lausanne Covenant. The covenant evolved from months of effort overseen by John Stott, president of the British Evangelical Alliance and, almost by common consent, the leading intellectual in the Evangelical world. After months of input from congress participants and feedback from those who read preliminary drafts, Stott and a committee that included Ford, Escobar, Art Johnston, Harold Lindsell, Wheaton president Hudson Armerding, and J. D. Douglas (an erstwhile CT staffer and editor of BGEA’s British newspaper, The Christian and Christianity Today) set to work. With Billy Graham as an unofficial but vitally interested hovering figure who read and commented on every draft, the committee crafted a document that Ford, no lightweight himself, characterized as “one of this century’s exemplary statements on Christian beliefs, concerns, and commitment.”
In fifteen paragraphs and three thousand words the covenant covered the major bases of Evangelical belief and strongly affirmed the need for both a renewed commitment to world evangelization and unselfish cooperation between churches and parachurch agencies engaged in the task. Most of its statements demanded much but occasioned little disagreement among people whose very presence signified their dedication to evangelism. Several paragraphs, however, represented long hours of intense agonizing over precise words and meanings and continued to draw attention fifteen years later. One of the most controversial addressed the proper balance between evangelism and social responsibility. With both the drafting committee and the assembly divided on this issue, utmost care was essential if the sought-for unity was to last. The result was a set of statements that gave unmistakable primacy to evangelism, explicitly defined as “the proclamation of the historical, biblical Christ as Saviour and Lord, with a view to persuading people to come to him personally and so be reconciled to God,” while making it clear that “the results of evangelism include . . . responsible service in the world.” More specifically, the covenant stated that Christians are obliged to share God’s “concern for justice and reconciliation throughout human society and for the liberation of men from every kind of oppression,” expressed penitence “for having sometimes regarded evangelism and social concern as mutually exclusive,” and declared that “although reconciliation with man is not reconciliation with God, nor is social action evangelism, nor is political liberation salvation, nevertheless we affirm that evangelism and socio-political involvement are both part of our Christian duty. . . . Faith without works is dead.” The following paragraph, however, worked out after long debate between the two factions on the committee, contained the crucial affirmation that “in the church’s mission of sacrificial service, evangelism is primary.” It was a cautious, even hedging sort of statement, and evangelism still held its position as the master motive, but the Lausanne Covenant furnished Evangelical Christianity with a rationale for social action that it had lacked since the days of Charles Finney.
The covenant was formally presented to the congress at a climactic communion service. At the conclusion of the service, Jack Dain and Billy Graham signed the document itself and approximately 2,000 of the 2,400 participants turned in Covenant Cards indicating their desire to be regarded as signers. One of those who chose not to sign was Ruth Graham, primarily because Stott insisted on inserting the following statement: “Those of us who live in affluent circumstances accept our duty to develop a simple lifestyle in order to contribute more generously to both relief and evangelism.” Stott, a bachelor, lives quite simply in a cozy book-lined flat in London. Most of his substantial book royalties have been used to support Third World students engaged in advanced theological studies. Ruth admires Stott but found his espousal of a simple lifestyle too confining. “If it said ‘simpler,’” she told him,” I would sign it. But what is ‘simple’? You live in two rooms; I have a bigger home. You have no children; I have five. You say your life is simple and mine isn’t.” Stott refused to delete the offending sentence, and Ruth decided, just as she had decided long ago that she did not need to be baptized by immersion, that she could be a quite acceptable Christian without signing something she regarded as a bit self-righteous and precious. Others chose not to sign on various grounds, but signing or not signing was never regarded as a major issue. “It was a covenant, not a creed,” Leighton Ford explained. “It was never intended as a testimony of orthodoxy. It was a banner to rally people, not a knife to cut them down.” Interestingly, the names of the signatories were sealed away and never made public. Ford claimed not even to know where they are located.
Graham brought the congress to a rousing close with a demonstration of his own masterful form of evangelism by packing Lausanne’s largest stadium for an afternoon rally. Severe pain from an infected jaw that deviled him throughout the conference forced him to cut his sermon short, but he graciously stayed around for over an hour after the service, shaking hands, signing autographs, posing for pictures alongside admiring participants, and generally playing the role of World Christian Statesman, a man who had done what only he was in a position to do, bringing together Evangelical leaders from all over the world, mixing them together in bubbling ferment, impressing them with what they had already done, and sending them forth filled with visions of what yet might be.
Not everything had gone exactly as Graham had planned. Given his preference, the Lausanne Congress would have ended forever that summer afternoon on the steps of the Stade-Lausanne. He had insisted since the first discussion that no ongoing institutional structure be created because he did not want BGEA to be financially responsible for another organization, and also, according to friends, because he feared that what might start as a staunch Evangelical body could easily turn left after he died, leaving a monument that would cast a distorted shadow over his legacy. That preference went unheeded. Congress participants, particularly those from the Third World, became so intoxicated with the feeling of belonging to a worldwide fellowship of like-minded believers that they simply refused to let it sink back into Lake Leman. Responding to a groundswell of interest, congress leaders circulated a questionnaire asking whether some sort of continuing structure was desired; 86 percent of those who responded gave a definite yes. “You have to realize,” Don Hoke explained, “that this was the greatest thing that had ever happened to many of these people. The World Council of Churches is an old-boys club. Basically, most of them are liberal or have liberal tendencies. The Evangelical churches started by American missionaries around the world are not represented in the council. The great independent churches of Africa, some with a million members apiece, have no voice in the council. Those Third World people knew they had a voice here, and they did not want to lose it.”
Graham was adamant that any continuing structure not be construed as an anti-WCC body but finally agreed to go along with a continuation committee that would facilitate communication and information sharing among Evangelicals throughout the world. Before the congress ended, participants met in regional groups to select representatives to a forty-eight-person committee, stratified, like the congress itself, by geography, denomination, age, sex, and culture. In January 1975 that committee met at the Hotel del Prado in Mexico City, which was convenient for Graham, who was on his way to a vacation in Acapulco. In this meeting, the tension between evangelism and social action resurfaced and threatened to abort the newly conceived organization, as Graham and John Stott disagreed over what the Lausanne mandate to the continuation committee had actually been. Stott felt the committee should address the entire range of concerns found in the Lausanne Covenant. Graham contended, with equal fervor, that the focus should be on the narrower task of evangelization. Evangelicals should be involved in social action, he acknowledged, b
ut the Lausanne Continuation Committee “should stick with reconciliation with God!” and not try to “get involved in all the things that God wants done in our generation.” In the years to come, both men downplayed their differences and continued to hold each other in the highest regard, but their differences, though not enormous, remained real and significant. The friction between their two positions was such that when a majority of the committee pressed Billy to serve as honorary chairman of the continuation committee, believing that his imprimatur and leadership were essential to its success, he resisted, agreeing only to pray about it overnight. When he left the room to permit free discussion of his continuing role, Stott and—to the surprise of most—Jack Dain argued that it would be best if Graham were not the honarary chairman. The discussion was intense and not always friendly, with some feeling that Graham and the cause of evangelism were being betrayed. Had Graham wished, it would have been rather simple either to insist on control of the committee, since BGEA would probably have to fund it during the early stages of its existence, or to register public disapproval, which would effectively render it impotent. Instead, at the first meeting the following morning, he asked permission to speak first. He accepted the honorary chairmanship, but instead of requiring that his own point of view be accepted as a condition of his acceptance, he conceded the validity of Stott’s interpretation.
The effect was extraordinary. One observer recalled that “as he began to open his heart, sharing with us his deep personal feelings, I never witnessed a more magnanimous expression of tenderness and understanding. His insight to the situation, his sensitivity to personalities, amplified by his own transparent humility, literally melted us together. What differences we had were largely resolved in an enveloping sense of trust and purpose.” Another man, the youngest member of the committee, agreed with this assessment of Graham’s spirit. On seeing “his humility, the graciousness of his spirit, and his genuine desire to be open to the Lord and to the counsel of the Lord’s people,” he said, “I became convinced that Dr. Graham actually felt that he had much yet to learn and that he needed the counsel and help of other Christians. For a man in his position actually to reflect that kind of attitude is to me remarkable and a great challenge.” In response, the Lausanne Continuation Committee accepted as a guideline that its purpose would be “to further the total Biblical mission of the church, recognizing that in this mission of sacrificial service, evangelism is primary, and that our particular concern must be the evangelization of the 2,700 million unreached people of our world.”
At the Mexico City meeting, the Lausanne Continuation Committee for World Evangelization (Continuation was later dropped from the name, and the committee came to be known as LCWE) became a permanent entity, with Jack Dain as its first chairman, to be succeeded a year later by Leighton Ford. Gottfried Osei-Mensah, a Ghanaian-born, British-educated Baptist pastor with an electrifying pulpit presence, was chosen as executive secretary, a full-time post he held until 1986. Loose plans were made for future meetings of a two-hundred-member consultative committee, which Graham also agreed to serve as honorary chairman, but primary oversight was put in the hands of an eleven-member executive committee on which Graham did not serve. That committee agreed to operate on a modest budget and to serve as a “catalyst and stimulator” rather than attempt to give directions to the Evangelical world. Graham pledged $100,000 in BGEA funds to underwrite expenses for the first year.
The impact of Lausanne began to be felt almost immediately. American and European Christians had long been accustomed to regional, national, and international meetings at which they shared viewpoints and stimulated each other’s enthusiasm and confidence. For most Third World churchmen, however, the fellowship and inspiration they had found at Lausanne was new, and they quickly set about to sustain and recreate it in their own circles. Congress participants began to report on follow-up meetings they led in their local areas. Soon, Lausanne veterans, with the help of the continuation committee, began to organize the first of dozens of what were inevitably labeled mini-Lausannes throughout the world, some covering a wide range of topics, some focusing on a specific issue, such as improvement of theological education, more effective use of media, and coordination of efforts between churches and parachurch agencies. A series of meetings in Singapore in 1977 and 1978, supported strongly by Billy Graham, gave rise to coalitions of Asian Evangelicals who had scarcely been aware of each other’s existence before Lausanne but who joined together enthusiastically to create research centers, cooperative programs of conservative theological education in newly formed seminaries and extension programs, and at least two hundred agencies that began to train and send missionaries to neighboring nations. Chinese Christians in particular took fire from Lausanne and sent it leaping across continents. By the mid-1980s, the Chinese Coordinating Committee for World Evangelization, headquartered in Hong Kong with a permanent staff of seventy, was involved in the evangelistic efforts of 5,000 Chinese churches throughout the world, including the United States. In 1986 its leader, Thomas Wang, became executive director of the Lausanne Committee.
Other meetings produced thoughtful interchange on key theoretical and strategic issues and resulted in booklets, known as Occasional Papers, that have been widely distributed and seminal in their effect on world Evangelicalism. In these and myriad extensions of what has come to be called the Spirit of Lausanne, the Lausanne Covenant has played a major unifying role—-again, particularly in the Third World, where it provided a formal basis on which Baptists, Mennonites, Methodists, Pentecostals, and others, including Evangelical members of WCC-affiliated denominations, could agree to work together. “It’s a coalescence of the spirit of evangelism as exemplified by Billy Graham,” Don Hoke explained. “It is not so well known in America or in some parts of Europe, but it’s a household word in Third World churches. If we want to organize a meeting in Africa, we can say, ‘This is what we believe,’ and that is all we need. It is a very, very significant document.” Hoke is by no means alone in this assessment; the International Bulletin of Mission Research has asserted that the covenant “may now be the broadest umbrella in the world under which professing Christians can be gathered to pray and strategize for the salvation of their cities.”
Some of Lausanne’s impact occurred closer to Billy Graham’s home. After finishing high school, Franklin Graham, who was twenty-two at the time of the conference, had formed a loose tie with his father’s ministry, accompanying Roy Gustafson on several of the Holy Land tours he led as part of his work for BGEA. Acting as a kind of surrogate father who knew when to press the case for reform and when to hold back, the wise and witty Gustafson assured Billy and Ruth that Franklin would come around eventually, but he seemed to be going more on hope than tangible evidence, and Ruth shuddered when she heard stories of her son’s driving a Land Rover across Middle Eastern desert terrain with the steering wheel in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other, explaining that he drove better when he was relaxed. With his experience as a tour aide serving more as an excuse than a reason, Franklin attended the Lausanne Congress as a worker in the travel department. At long last the Grahams’ patience paid off, and a lifetime of exposure to much of the best of Evangelical Christianity finally took effect. Mingling with Third World Christians and recognizing the physical hardships many of them suffered moved Franklin tremendously. A few weeks later, in a Jerusalem hotel room where he and Gustafson were staying, he threw a wadded-up pack of cigarettes in the trash, knelt by his bed, and told God, “I want you to be lord of my life. I am willing to give up any area that is not pleasing to you. And I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.” Shortly afterward, with his life on a straighter and narrower path, Franklin married and went back to school at Appalachian State University, announcing that he planned to dedicate himself to a life of Christian service.
Ironically, what Third World Evangelical leaders regard as a prophetic force in contemporary Christianity is viewed with less honor in the founding prophe
t’s own circle. American Evangelicals, for whom Youth for Christ, the NAE, and other interdenominational fellowships have long provided similar association and inspiration, tend to be less caught up in the spirit of Lausanne. This is particularly true within BGEA itself, where some key figures regard the Lausanne Committee as both a rival for Evangelical funds and, should it follow its more liberal instincts, a possible blotch on Billy Graham’s record. George Wilson, never one to look kindly on unnecessary expenditure, hinted strongly that the original Lausanne Continuation Committee arose more from a desire to get “a free trip from the ends of the world at least once a year” than from a selfless dedication to soul winning. Other BGEA stalwarts registered their misgivings about Lausanne either by discounting its effectiveness or by falling uncomfortably silent when the topic arose. To a considerable extent, their reservations reflect dissatisfaction with the role Leighton Ford has played in the “Lausanne Movement.” Almost from the establishment of the continuation committee, Ford spent at least half his time on its activities—raising money, traveling all over the world to speak at follow-up conferences, and bearing the lion’s share of the administrative burden after Gottfried Osei-Mensah proved to be more adept at inspiration than administration. “Gottfried is a wonderful front man,” Don Hoke observed. “He is black, articulate, biblical, evangelistic, from the Third World—but he is no administrator. He would give these wonderful addresses and pray with people and everybody would be happy and excited, but that would be the end of it. He didn’t know how to bring groups together or help people organize or let them know what the committee could do to help them. So the burden quickly fell to Leighton.”
A Prophet with Honor Page 68